Close to two years ago, there was a show HN for a dating app posted here. I signed up, found a couple bugs, reported them, then deleted the app. Couple month later, I got an email saying that I got a match. Downloaded it again, had a very nice conversation, but I was not attracted.
I went to the settings, selected 25 miles radius and Black only. The next match I got was not Black, and over a thousand miles. Now we are married with children.
I think dating apps all look for a trick, a gimmick, or a twist. We will find you the perfect match. The real issue is as we get more disconnected from one another, we don't know how to deal with another person.
Here is what the dating app I won't build will do. It will tell you how to start a conversation. Help you get dressed on a first date. Help
you hold a conversation. Teach you étiquettes. Tell you what to do when you don't get an answer. These are all real relationship building tips that dating apps don't bother with.
I propose a paid service with a human operator who suggests matches and sends people on appropriate dates. You get one match, go on the date and report back how it went, and get a new match based on both of your feedback. "That person was a little crazy" -> get someone more boring next time.
The date you get sent on is engaging and topical: a dance class or a tennis class or a guided tour in a museum, something that's engaging in the right way and avoids restaurant first date awkwardness.
We've gone full circle and reinvented the dating agency. If technology fulfils its original promises we would ideally be in a world where people didn't have "too little free time to meet people" and relationships would happen organically again.
Is the problem that we have too little time to meet people?
It strikes me that the problems are more related to increased isolation/individualism, increased distraction, degradation of real-world communities, and increased fear of making unwanted/unexpected advances. People who have free time just aren't choosing to use it in ways that encourage the creation of organic relationships.
This exists and if you thought dealing with recruiters and job interviews was bad wait until you try a matchmaker. We paid for a friend to use one and I think she would have rather gone to a bar - at least there you know why you struck out.
Most dating apps try to answer the "who" and "where", but the OP is trying to answer the "how" as well which is brilliant.
Another twist I thought might be effective was suggesting a first date based on mutual interests.
Or, one person could lead with a blanket first date offer: 2 tickets to XYZ on MM/DD. Kind of like a timed auction where they select their date partner by a specified time.
I think it would be interesting to see the variety and creativity increase when you're showcasing a first date.
Instead of creativity you will get desperate men and sugar daddies offering expensive rock/pop concert dates, and gold diggers taking advantage.
It would be more costly than even high end dinner dates, but at least your date like the same music you do?
It could work well if there is a mechanism to reduce serial abusers and moochers - maybe you can only get invited to a date after you invited someone else to one?
You could brand yourself as the "one and done" dating site of you're really that good.
Or, come up with a payment model that's more like an a recruiter where you get paid when there's a match (assuming you can verify a successful relationship).
It's challenging but I don't think the industry is doomed towards conflicting interests for users and match makers.
My wife and I met via a dating app in 2000. This was back in the day when you might have 40 women in total in a given metro area participating. Anyway, what you wrote about what dating sites don’t do (advice on etiquette etc) also resonated with me. I remember not long after my wife and I started dating I went out and spent about a thousand bucks on new clothes and another $600 on new glasses. I showed up to our next date impressed with myself. She was like hey nice glasses but where on earth did you find these clothes? I told her and she said ok don’t do that again, let me help you. I could have been angry... she could have said nothing and never gone out with me again... one thing I see with my friends who 20 years later who still have no spouse is that they all end their relationships before they get to the point of candor without consequences. It’s sad that some people jump right to intimacy but they aren’t even willing to say to that person hey you might want to pluck your eyebrows. Honestly I don’t think even if a dating site did give this advice people would even follow it but I have to say they probably should!
Love your story. And I think room for mistakes or for people to be people, is crucial to creating relationships. This lacks in modern apps, where the tiniest physical flaw makes us swipe away, and a beautified instagram like profile gets all the attention.
If apps can teach us quantum mechanics, I think an app can at least attempt to teach us relationships.
> It will tell you how to start a conversation. Help you get dressed on a first date. Help you hold a conversation. Teach you étiquettes. Tell you what to do when you don't get an answer. These are all real relationship building tips that dating apps don't bother with.
I don’t think that’s what most people need help with, especially most females. The only people left would be supremely introverted males with a high dose of self-awareness (those few rare people openly admitting they need such help). Based upon my personal relationships who have used dating apps to meet people the audience is mostly people who have trouble finding people for dates or people completely lacking self-awareness. As a result that’s the audience most dating apps target and try to connect, which is why the real world results are sometimes underwhelming for many users.
Honestly, if the apps connected people with as strong compatibility as they claim users would not need multiple disappointing dates. The problem, in many cases, isn’t the app though (at least when the app does pick desired criteria). Some people seriously look into a figurative mirror and see something extremely different than what much of the world sees which likely explains why they might need a dating app in the first place.
I know, for me, when dating either I cannot think of things to say, or the date couldn't think of things to say. When you're on your computer (or phone) you have tons of time to get things moving.
I have a lot of ideas now from the one you stemmed. Maybe I'll be the one who builds this. I am in the middle of another site, but this would be fun to try as well. If it every turns into something, I'll make sure to look you up and thank you .
> Here is what the dating app I won't build will do. It will tell you how to start a conversation. Help you get dressed on a first date. Help you hold a conversation. Teach you étiquettes. Tell you what to do when you don't get an answer. These are all real relationship building tips that dating apps don't bother with.
One thought I had was an "in person" dating app that lets you see pictures of single people checked in to a specific location, along with the option to show their exact location with a venue map.
The fun feature would be "bumping phones". You could bump phones with people using this app, and it'd share additional details, and give you a list of questions and suggestions of things to talk about that you could ask your date to keep things moving.
In less than two years, you delayed several months and then connected with someone a thousand miles away and had two children? They must be twins. Literally, chronologically, must be.
The second two lines of your comment serve no purpose other than to inflame and belittle someone. It's worth considering if that's a useful or necessary part of the conversation.
"married with children" doesn't necessarily imply that at least two children come from that marriage; e.g. the spouse could have had a child from a previous marriage
Possibly. I just mentioned that in reply to a seemingly strong logical conclusion that "it must be" twins. Human communication patterns are not very precise and yet we often tend to jump to conclusions.
That's called operating an additional processing unit. You use AWS to quickly bootstrap a company, why not bootstrap a family? After all, genes can change a bit of the temperament of a person, but in the end, it's all about education and training. The ultimate father is the one who has risen the child, not the one who made the hardware. (Or Luke would have chosen the dark side.)
I went to the settings, selected 25 miles radius and Black only. The next match I got was not Black, and over a thousand miles. Now we are married with children.
I think dating apps all look for a trick, a gimmick, or a twist. We will find you the perfect match. The real issue is as we get more disconnected from one another, we don't know how to deal with another person.
Here is what the dating app I won't build will do. It will tell you how to start a conversation. Help you get dressed on a first date. Help you hold a conversation. Teach you étiquettes. Tell you what to do when you don't get an answer. These are all real relationship building tips that dating apps don't bother with.