These Philly women are giving out free dating advice. Singles are loving it.

Would you ask two strangers for dating advice?

Kate Catinella and Sam Stanton — two “single by choice” copywriters — are betting on it.

The duo started popping up at parks and bars around Philadelphia with a card table, a big sign, and a mission: to make navigating dating apps in Philadelphia feel less arduous and lonely by doling out dating tips, no payment required.

“It’s nice to be able to talk about dating with other people. A lot of our friends are married or in very committed long-term relationships … we both found ourselves just wanting a sounding board,” said Stanton, 36.

And besides, your best friends can be the worst advice-givers. “They can have your best intentions in mind, but they could be blinded by how much they love you,” Catinella, 33, said.

The pair’s venture — called Free Dating Advice Philly — is a lo-fi drop in the bucket when it comes to tackling Philadelphia’s mass singledom. The city has the highest proportion of unmarried people of any of the United States’ 10 most populous cities. That — coupled with apps such as Tinder tanking their user experiences in the name of profits — has Philly’s singles trying new things to find a partner, like taking out billboards, joining a run club, or waiting in line for two strangers to tell them how to ask someone out.

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Stanton and Catinella held their first pop-up at Dickinson Square Park in South Philly in June, followed by multi-hour stints at Clark Park, Passyunk Square’s Singing Fountain, and the banks of the Schuylkill. Each event has attracted between 20 and 30 dating hopefuls, the duo said, who get to choose from an à la carte menu that include a dating profile review, ambiguous text interpretation, and refereeing disputes among couples.

They’ve instructed people to end things, Catinella said, but most of the sessions have been lighthearted and cathartic, with their favorite clients being a gaggle of 11-year-olds who promised to return one day with legitimate dating drama.

“I was fully expecting to get heckled a lot,” said Stanton. “But people have just been coming up to us to have really warm, honest conversations.”

During a recent pop-up at Meyers Brewing Company in Fishtown, Catinella and Stanton cranked out dating profile overhauls for several men, including a repeat customer who was instructed to remove a photo of his 812 FICO credit score from Hinge.

“It gets results,” said Ryan Heupler, 36, with a shrug. He’s considering swapping it with a photoshopped collage photo of his celebrity doppelgängers (Penn Badgely in the Netflix series You and Jake Johnson in New Girl), per Stanton and Catinella’s advice.

» READ MORE: ‘Dave is single’ billboard floods West Philly man with thousands of DMs

Heupler — whose Hinge profile has gone through three rounds of updates with Free Dating Advice Philly — said Stanton and Catinella’s advice has led him to “have higher-quality” dates. He keeps returning mostly for the love of the game.

“I feel comfortable that they’re going to give me direct and honest answers, especially for things that they don’t like,” said Heupler, who has been on the market since October. “It’s hard to find someone who can tell you about those things and how to rectify them.”

Most of Catinella and Stanton’s advice boils down to a simple formula that can be applied to almost any dating app profile. They’ve dubbed it the “you, me, us” equation: something you’re passionate about, something you’d like to learn about me (or the person on the other side of the screen), and a place you’d like to take us on a date.

Heupler’s Hinge says he’s passionate about apple butter and quiet mornings, is interested in knowing if you’re capable of crying to “You Were Meant for Me” by Jewel, and is open to splitting a bottle of wine somewhere.

The method “makes it easier to figure out what you’re trying to say about yourself,” said Heupler, who is trying to convey that he is a thoughtful, financially literate gentleman.

Their advice, of course, is not a silver bullet for slogging through modern dating apps, which have become rife with scammy bots, too-good-to-be-true humble brags, and paywalls. It’s more so a gateway into feeling confident enough to assert yourself IRL.

» READ MORE: Tired of dating apps, Gen Z and millennials pay to gaze into strangers’ eyes

At Meyers Brewing, Catinella and Stanton instructed men to stop prioritizing others’ interests at the expense of their own and to get comfortable expressing themselves.

“Be up front,” Catinella advised, “that way you know you’ve done all you can.”

Some, like Matthew Rosen, 40, made plans to return, buoyed by the duo’s affirmations to “show more of myself.”

“I took their card and plan to use it,” Rosen said.

» READ MORE: At Pitch-A-Friend, people use PowerPoint to hype up friends to a live audience of eager singles

Despite having doled out close to a hundred nuggets of dating advice, Catinella and Stanton don’t have a working hypothesis for why Philly is so distinctly single. They do, however, have blanket advice for the city’s daters.

“If you are looking for marriage and three children, just be up front with that. If you are looking for 16 side pieces and you just want to have a one-night stand every night, cool. Say that, too,” said Stanton.

“And if you’re in a relationship, please, please take pictures of your single friends,” Catinella chimed in. “They need the help.”