New Site Brings Out The Teamwork In Online Dating

"Friends don't let friends date solo."

That's the premise behind DuoDater.com, a new San Francisco-based dating site that launched in August of this year. DuoDater aims to take the awkward out of online dating by promoting a more social environment in which users partner with friends to form what is aptly known as "a Duo." After pairing up, they create a Duo profile, find potential matches in other Duos, and start going on DuoDates. It's as "easy as me, you, and a lucky two!" the site proclaims.

The DuoDater team hopes that using the buddy system will counteract the stigma that is often attached to online dating, and will also help ensure the safety of DuoDater members. Double dates, the site believes, will help mitigate the awkwardness that many online daters feel when it comes time to move their interaction from online communications to a real-world meetup. Double dates also offer the advantages of reducing the danger of meeting a stranger offline, and of giving daters the opportunity to rely on friends - and not an impersonal algorithm - to help them find a suitable match. And although online dating was created to facilitate socializing, sitting at a computer and hiding behind an anonymous screen name can in fact feel very isolating - DuoDater encourages singles to connect their love lives with their social lives once again.

Michael Parikh and Andrew Flachner, the co-founders of DuoDater, believe that there are fundamental problems with current approaches to online dating, despite how popular the service has become. In response, they designed DuoDater for men and women in their 20s and 30s who are looking to socialize and meet new people - with the support system of a friend and co-pilot. By allowing users to have this support system by their side during a date, Parikh and Flachner hope that they will be encouraged to be more natural and less awkward as they socialize, make new friends, and find potential partners.

Committed to making online dating less intimidating, Parikh and Flachner developed a profile that that is simple and quick to fill out. The "Duo Profile" only requires users to write a few sentences about themselves as individuals, so that the focus is placed firmly on the joint description that the duo creates together. The founders also believe that their model promotes accountability in a world that is famous for its lies. By signing up with a close friend and knowing they could easily be caught, Parikh and Flachner have explained, users will be less likely to use old or altered photos of themselves and less likely to exaggerate or lie in their descriptions.

It's too soon to tell whether DuoDater will revolutionize online dating, but it's certainly an interesting approach to finding love online.