Long Distance Blind Dates Are About to Exist
Would you trek across the country for a first date? Matchmaking startup The Dating Ring is offering to fly New York City women to San Francisco and Bay Area men to the Big Apple for a big singles weekend, in order to bridge a gender imbalance in both cities. To fund these cross-country trips, the company has launched a Crowdtilt campaign, which, so far has raised $3,180 of its $10,000 goal.
According to CEO Lauren Kay, in New York, single women outnumber single men by 150,000; in the Bay Area, there are 50,000 more single men than women. Her theory is that people don’t invest enough time and effort in relationships these days. “Meanwhile —if you have to film a video, crowdfund a campaign, wait two months and fly across the country for a date, you might take that date a little more seriously,” she says.
It sounds so whimsical and romantic but Kay’s research is dubious. Her source is a web developer named Jonathan Soma who created an interactive map in 2013, revealing the disproportion of men and women on each coast. Soma later admitted to Glamour magazine that his research doesn’t apply to the real world because it doesn’t take into account education, income, marital status, and sexual orientation — you know, things that might affect a couple’s chances at love. Plus, The Dating Ring’s ad campaign is kinda sexist and offensive — one male actor complains that there aren’t enough west coast women of “datable ages” (what’s a datable age?), and a woman giggles, “There’s a much larger ratio of men to women than women to men. It’s true, I’ve Googled it before!” Another laments, “Dating in New York is the worst. All men are gay or awful.”
At the end of the day, Kay's idea is what's grabbing the most attention. By offering a one-date opportunity, her company is encouraging long-distance relationships. While couples in LDRs do report greater emotional satisfaction due to the effort required to keep in touch, psychologists theorize that they may be so blissful because they're in a perpetual "honeymoon" period — not exactly realistic for love-term love.
The bottom line is that dating is hard, no matter where people live and a map isn't necessarily the answer to finding love. What might work? Change your dating strategy, not your city.
