Tinder, mullet, clowns, inmates: A website for every dating niche

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WA Today

Entertainment

Your Perth

Date

November 26, 2013 – 9:19AM

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(21)
Comments 1

A dating service for mullet fans is just one of the ways to meet people with the same interests.

If you want to know what it’s like window shopping for humans, join Tinder.

My housemate joined a few weeks ago and introduced me to the concept. Apparently I’ve been hiding under a rock as this is nothing new.

Regardless, I’m fascinated by this new base-level romantic kindling.

It’s a simple yes/no game. You trawl through pictures of young singles and swipe to the right on someone’s photo if you like the look and left if you never want to see that face again.

If you both swipe yes then the app connects you and contact begins.

It’s an app for the young and restless. My housemate’s choices were of the female kind and by the look of their ‘facies’ complete with glossy pouts they were produced in the late 1980s.

He tells me it’s more a tool for lazy, addictive entertainment than a genuine search for love, for all it takes is a dull tap on each new picture to see what shiny new toy is on the market.

A pastime reminiscent of when IKEA first came to town; people touring the shop floor with no intention to buy … minus the cheap salmon lunch.

My first reaction was utter shock, “how superficial!”

The brutal culling of prospective partners based purely on indiscrete selfies is something I found difficult to stomach.

But then I quickly ask myself is it really any different to standing in a bar full of singles?

When face-to-face in a meat-market pub do we not scan the room in a yes/no culling fashion? But at least we have the opportunity to approach someone, say hello and offer up more than just a face.

According to Curtin University’s Internet Studies researcher Dr Kate Raynes-Goldie, online dating has been around since the 1990s.

Initially it was seen as a scary space, fit for antisocial desperados.

Dr Raynes-Goldie says it was the gay community that pushed internet match making into the mainstream.

Less choice for partners meant less time for stigma. Something the straight community is following with less and less reluctance.

But the stigma attached to the virtual world is far more palatable than the social blemishes of real life.

Move over, baiting glamour of Tinder and the life partner checklist that is eHarmony, the online world also caters for those seeking someone a little more niche.

Clowns looking for love can find a comical sweetheart or you can make your bad boy dreams come true and meet an inmate.

Even the Amish have their own dating site and dating for the ‘aesthetically average’ has never been easier with The Ugly Bug Ball.

My personal favourite? Mullet Passions – it’s purpose built for mullet-donning singles and ‘for those with the taste and style to appreciate these unique trendsetters’.

‘Mudflap’, ‘spiky’ or, for the traditionalist a ‘classic’… the choice is yours. Shared interests are clearly stated to avoid ambiguity and include, but are not limited to, ‘wrestling, country music and monster trucks’.

These are the sites that strike me as offering the most chance of love. If you have a definite style and set of interests, surely a smaller pool of like-minded candidates is the way to go.

Sure, apps like tinder are like a candy store with a divine surplus but are they a waste of time if chance is the only opportunity we have to break past the shiny exterior?

We represent a broad spectrum of licorices all sorts and if we’re all diving in for a piece of pout or pec pie then the filling is less likely to satisfy.

51 per cent of Australians in the last year have tried to find love online and eHarmony boast responsibility for 5 per cent of all US marriages.

But perhaps it’s the niche websites that are connecting more of the long lost lovers than we think.

Straight or gay within these two categories lie more sub categories that we can throw a stick at.

So why not niche it up? Pick something you just can’t live without, there’s probably a dating site for it.

If there’s not, build one. Cast a small net very, very far.

1 comment so far

Internet dating is for people with very high libido’s
There will never be a strong correlation between the dating websites and genuine love, there can’t be.
Falling in love is not something you purchase. Never has been. Never will be.

Commenter
Padrino
Location
Ellivarray
Date and time
November 26, 2013, 11:33AM