Oh, technology. There’s so much of it to go around. Our smartphones are practically on their way to being able to launch missiles. (No one tell us if smartphones can already launch missiles.) So why can’t we use them to launch an impromptu date? Well, you certainly can, silly. You can order up a date much like a pizza. Didn’t know that did you? Well, now you do. Mobile dating. The first step in securing a random hookup based on such aesthetics as appearance and liking the same coffee house — or in short — an “orchestrated serendipitous but not really meeting.” Yay?
Well, yes. On the surface it sounds a little creepy, no? A bit stalkerish, perhaps? Based upon your profile, a picture, and your location, strangers can send you a text that says they’re in the area, “Wanna hang?” Or is it more convenient? After all, the whole point of online dating is finding someone with similar interests that you can meet up with at that great coffee place/Tapas place/lounge place and have some sort of mildly awkward discussion about all the things in your profiles anyway, yes? This just takes some of the work out of it. You know the emailing, the “feeling you out” texts, and so on and just getting to the meat and potatoes of the first date, but without that sort of magnanimous pressure of it being a “first date.” What Match, eHarmony, Skout, Grindr, OkCupid, MeetMoi, Plenty Of Fish and Badoo are trying to do with their Mobile dating apps is make all of that much more casual. More like two people who are just a short conversation away from clicking or hitting it off, and putting them in a relaxed environment so they can have a good time for the moment — no long term expectations attached.
Reports say that this method is growing fast.
“The number of people using dating apps is growing faster than the number using all apps,” it said. “In short, dating is a growth category,” says a report by Flurry Analytics.
The key to this so they say is spontaneity. The question remains however, if you can really find a way to coax and then bottle spontaneity in this way? Can you put two people in the same room, who have similar interests, who just met seconds ago via a phone app and still capture that same sense of serendipity as if it happened organically, or will it lose a little something in the romance department? Marketers for the site don’t believe so.
“Dating happens in the real world,” said Joy Martinez, marketing director of dating app MeetMoi. “It’s not a solitary activity of sitting at home for hours looking at profiles.”
The selling point is the way users with GPS on their smartphones can find connections nearby and meet up in minutes without having to sift through profiles to find someone they like – the app does it for them.
We imagine this is something that people want, yes? It does sound a bit like spinning an invisible wonder wheel and where it stops could result in some sort of contact from the unknown — a boon maybe for the risk takers among us, but what about those of us who need a little more info to go on? Never fear! Nick Soman co-founded LikeBright, an app that connects users with matches through mutual Facebook friends.
“Being really close to people you don’t know can be uncomfortable,” Soman said. “Our focus will always be on how we can provide better comfort and better interactions.”
For some this may be a better way to dip a toe in without having a bunch of randomly picked people blowing up your phone asking if you’d like to go hear a washboard spoon jam down in Williamsburg. (Yes, we know you’d already have to be open to washboard spoon jamming for this to happen. Oh, washboard spoon jamming, where are your fans?)
But we still wonder if this is akin to attempting to have a designer dating experience with fewer imperfections. We think it’s possible when we also read about the newest in Date Escapes. Yes, the plan B of dating. The DateEscape app allows users to set alarms for fake texts and phone calls, providing fast excuses for dates that aren’t chugging along so well. Really! You need an app to pull an “I ate something that doesn’t agree with me” or “my best friend just had her baby!” Whatever, everybody watched Sex and the City. You can’t be that short on excuses. But to have an app created just for this purpose — wow. What does this thing not do? We’re thinking soon you can have your date breathe on your smartphone and get his/her entire genetic profile. Who knew escaping from a date would have a user base?
And if you’re not ready to push the eject button, the What If? app poses hypothetical questions to keep the banter flowing! Good God. We can only imagine the legions of people asking each other if they had just one super power what it would be. Facepalm.
Well, it’s good to have options, we guess. We say, sure, give mobile dating a shot, but don’t stare at your smartphones so intently waiting for an online date on a moment’s notice that you totally miss out on chatting up the cutie already at the bar.
