Contributed by: ElyseRomano on Tuesday, August 28 2012 @ 10:14 am
Last modified on
The latest trend in online dating may be one that surprises you: offline dating. Yep, that's right...online dating is going retro.
Match.com announced The Stir, the newest addition to its list of services, on its blog in May 2012. Stir events update the classic "singles night" for 21st century daters, with happy hours, cooking classes, wine tastings, bowling nights, dance lessons, and other opportunities to socialize with eligible singles. The guest list for each event is customized using Match's group matching algorithms in terms of age, gender, and interests to facilitate maximum compatibility between guests.
Match's decision to take dating back to its roots seems to have started a trend. "Several sites are bringing people together the old-fashioned way, with singles parties where people can crowd together at bars while consuming alcohol and flirting," says an article[*1] in The New York Times. The hope is that offline events will help daters identify compatibility more quickly, instead of wasting weeks or months corresponding online with someone who turns out to be completely wrong when you meet in person.
I'll admit it: at first I was a little confused. Why would I bother joining a dating site if I was going to end up meeting someone in a bar or restaurant anyway? Isn't the point of online dating that the fancy matching algorithms do all the hard work for me? Isn't the whole allure of online dating sites that the science behind their matching systems is supposed to be more accurate than your ability to judge compatibility?
The answer apparently lays somewhere in between the two extremes. Emily Clapp, who spoke about her experience attending an event organized by OkCupid to the New York Times, says that the site acts as a filter, increasing the odds that the other attendees are also single, looking for love, and not too creepy. But, she also adds, "it's a little more random than regular online dating."
Ok, I guess I can see the appeal. And it seems a lot of other people can, too. Match claims to have held a few hundred Stir events every month since May in more than 50 cities. OkCupid has organized about 100 events in New York since July and has plans to expand the service to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and a few other cities in October. Mobile services, like MeetMoi and Grindr, are based on apps that broadcast users' locations for on-the-spot dates or hookups. MeetMoi has also been hosting get-togethers to bring groups of users to the same place at the same time.
Is this the beginning of the end for matching algorithms? Are we giving up on the idea that personality tests and data can accurately predict compatibility? It looks like online dating is in for some big changes in the next couple of years...
For more information on the dating services offering offline events please read our Match.com review and our OkCupid review.