Posted on: 2008/03/16 02:50pm
By: Anonymous (Marty)
We've heard it all before... "you gotta get out". Here in Los Angeles, there is no "out" just for singles, so after I attended a speed dating event last winter and saw for myself that participation in online dating has fallen 60%, a friend and I decided to give local singles that "out". Both of us know from our affiliation with ham radio clubs how easy it is to reserve a room at a restaurant, or a bungalow at a local park, so all we really had to do was apply the same idea to a singles club.
The key, we learned, is to target working class singles, and not putter around trying to lure wealthy singles in. The way we set it up, the per-meeting cost is geared to the number of people who show up versus the cost of reserving the space, so if you get a lot of people, the cost is usually less than the cover charges at nightclubs. To keep out the game players, we require that everyone who wants to attend a club meeting gets a guest number, and when they show up, they sign their name and guest number in a registry to get their free membership privileges. No fake profiles here.
At this point in time, my friend and I only need someone to be club treasurer, and someone else to be webmaster, then we'll start promoting the club. Dating services can't compete agaist something this inexpensive, so it will be interesting to see how they react.
BTW to anyone who thinks it won't work, I hate to burst your bubble... in a surprising case of parallel evolution, I recently found out about a group of singles in Chicago (nerdsatheart.com) who are doing something very like this, because they got tired of dealing with dating services and all the baggage that comes with them.
Think about that the next time you consider wasting your money on some dating service.