3 ms·

Dating sites and apps might benefit from entering the real world - hosting meetups with games, quizes, etc to make them entertaining. One of the problems, howe

Dating sites and apps might benefit from entering the real world - hosting meetups with games, quizes, etc to make them entertaining. One of the problems, however, online or with sponsored offline events, is the low number of results. Unlikely to happen, but I'd like to see data on the number of single individuals in a particular city vs how many of them are on a dating app/site. I'd bet the percentage is really low (barring Tinder in major US cities). Not to mention a comment I made the other week here on HN about there needing to be a "def not looking for a hook up" option on an app like Tinder. Going further, perhaps the solution is an alternative to speed dating - to make dating secondary and having a good time primary. Tinder is "I'll show you the person, you decide what to do next". I'd much rather have a Meetup.com type approach, so to speak. Provide the good time, based on a certain subject, where everyone happens to be single and the male/female ratio isn't skewed. Make the interactions one-on-one, and add to it a comfortable time limit (10-15 min increments) to ensure rotation. With a higher percentage of single people using said apps, and sponsored events like these, I see a win-win. In the end, I don't necessarily expect a soulmate. Just get way more people using Meetup.com and have single people wear a green sticker on their shirt (place + single indicator + subject I'm interested in).

greggman 11y ago
Doesn't match.com do this? At least in major cities they have their "spin" initiative. I went to one that was hosted at the TechStop in SF. Sadly the guys running it were extremely attractive and given they were "in-charge" and leading the classes pretty much made all the women swoon. Another one I went to was party games based. It was early in their event system so there were some rough spots but it was still fun. Another was just a meetup at a bar. I think I prefer organized activities. The hardest part is getting enough people that are likely to be a match. If 100 people come 50/50 men women there's some chance there might be someone you're interested in. If 15 people come the odds are pretty low .
sakopov 11y ago
Meetups where you slap a sticker on your shirt to let others know you're single? Do you not think this is just sad and you're trying too hard? Finding a "soulmate", if you believe in such things, or really just a genuine connection works best when you're not pursuing it out of pure desperation and just enjoy your life. I'd made some of the most amazing connections by pure chance under the most random circumstances when neither I nor they were looking for anyone.
- cellularmitosis 11y ago
  This is probably great advice for people whom match your assumption of what "just enjoying your life" entails. But if "just enjoy your life" involves staying at home and making computers do interesting things, then this is terrible advice. "Slapping on a sticker" is much more likely to meet with success than staying at home.
- alashley 11y ago
  "Just enjoying your life" usually sounds a lot like complacency to me when it comes to dating.
ben_jones 11y ago
Except physical meetings don't scale the way online ones do. I completely agree it would make the experience much smoother.. just that it's probably not profitable enough.

greggman 11y ago

Doesn't match.com do this? At least in major cities they have their "spin" initiative. I went to one that was hosted at the TechStop in SF. Sadly the guys running it were extremely attractive and given they were "in-charge" and leading the classes pretty much made all the women swoon. Another one I went to was party games based. It was early in their event system so there were some rough spots but it was still fun. Another was just a meetup at a bar. I think I prefer organized activities. The hardest part is getting enough people that are likely to be a match. If 100 people come 50/50 men women there's some chance there might be someone you're interested in. If 15 people come the odds are pretty low .

sakopov 11y ago

Meetups where you slap a sticker on your shirt to let others know you're single? Do you not think this is just sad and you're trying too hard? Finding a "soulmate", if you believe in such things, or really just a genuine connection works best when you're not pursuing it out of pure desperation and just enjoy your life. I'd made some of the most amazing connections by pure chance under the most random circumstances when neither I nor they were looking for anyone.

cellularmitosis 11y ago
This is probably great advice for people whom match your assumption of what "just enjoying your life" entails. But if "just enjoy your life" involves staying at home and making computers do interesting things, then this is terrible advice. "Slapping on a sticker" is much more likely to meet with success than staying at home.
alashley 11y ago
"Just enjoying your life" usually sounds a lot like complacency to me when it comes to dating.

ben_jones 11y ago

Except physical meetings don't scale the way online ones do. I completely agree it would make the experience much smoother.. just that it's probably not profitable enough.