Wednesday Night’s Human Matchmakers Take Some Of The Work Out Of Online Dating
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
There's nothing awkward or difficult about "who pays for the drinks". Adults should pay for their own drinks. It's only "awkward" if you're a woman who expects to get free drinks.
Maybe one drink. If you're the one asking her out. Maybe. But in modern sexual relationships, both people are choosing to go out because they both hope to have a good time. Bribery shouldn't be part of that.
The population of women who are neither high upkeep nor feeling entitled by outdated social norms is rapidly increasing, and you might as well go for those, since they're likely better catches in plenty of other ways.
Obviously not all women who are high upkeep or entitled are bad choices, per se. Plenty of good ones are there, in fact! But if you're hunting for fish in the sea, every second spent on a group of fish that's below average in quality is a second not spent on a group of fish that's above average in quality.
Edited to add: actually, you're right, there's some hypocrisy in being willing to pay even for a single drink. I retract that lack of follow-through.
As it's extremely difficult to fix the gender balance of date propositions but a lot easier to fix the paying model of dates, I suggest that everyone should adopt the social convention of "everyone should pay for their own drinks/meals at dates".
In fact, here in Finland the norm pretty much is that the bill is split, even though men still make most of the date propositions. The latter gender inbalance is a lot harder problem to fix.
If I suggest dinner with a friend, when I know they would probably not be going out for a meal, I'll almost always pay for both of us. if it's more of a mutual, "yeah lets try that new Greek place" type deal, we'll usually split.
The same applies if I approach someone and offer to take them out. It was my idea, I'll take care of the financial responsibility, especially since I chose the venue (which could be dramatically more/less expensive than the other party would want to pay).
I think online dating might be a good model for splitting the bill because both parties are entering the situation ostensibly looking to go out for something.
Additionally, when I pay for dinner, most people graciously accept and then suggest that they'll buy the first round of drinks or ice cream or whatever we might end up doing afterwards.
We have no hidden agenda here. All that we care about is that our members enjoy the experience, and we see dealing with paying for the drinks as an unnecessary extra step.
Online dating has a higher frequency of use than social networking. If you thought Facebook was a time sink, give online dating a try. It's worse than you'd think.
You can easily turn lining up dates into a second job - or you can use something like this or Grouper.
It wouldn't be a bad service for guys who have a lot more money than charm. The women it would draw would also be more interested in money than charm. It's not my kind of perfect match, but at least there would be a serviceable market.
What you have is an escort service.
Edit: it also makes this a business transaction in a way that you really don't want to.
you might as well show up with the word 'sucker' tattooed on your forehead.
guys, it's 2013. if you're buying things like fancy nights out and nice dinners before you even kiss the girl, the joke's on you. also, if you're buying drinks for strangers OUTSIDE the context of an actual "drink date", the joke is also on you.
I don't think the girl is going to frame it the way you are thinking about it. She won't be thinking "he paid $50 so he could hang out with me," she's going to be thinking "I am looking for some sign of income/stability (check) and his time must be valuable because he isn't spending it courting girls online."
I'm sure it's inevitable and certain types of girls may think about it the way you've described, but when you have identity tied to everything, you can eliminate those matches from the system. You never give or receive feedback on traditional dates, it's just a black box. It goes back to how well the matchmaker does and what the person is looking for. That's how the matchmaker is reviewed by the user.
and it's VERY DIFFICULT to get that expectation out of one's head, and it manifests in very unattractive behavior (either entitlement or neediness).
> Wednesday Night would like to access your [Name, profile picture, age range, gender, language, country and other public info], friend list, email address, birthday, work history, checkins, education history, hometown, interests, current city, photos, religious and political views, personal description and likes.
Obviously, those information are used to help our matchmaker make better match for you.
Most dating sites have too many guys. One way to do this is to have "on-demand" pricing, where the site is priced in a such way that it keeps a gender balance. Too many dudes? raise the price for guys and lower it for girls.
If you can't afford it, either don't make enough money or are not serious enough in your search for a relationship.
The flat $50 is lame though. It doesn't guarantee equal numbers of guys and girls.