Gals! Are you looking to date men who get inexplicably angry about black women playing flutes?
Fellas! Are you looking to date women who sound like bad actresses awkwardly reading their lines off of a teleprompter?
Well, now there’s a dating app for you!
Anyway, the dating app is live (at least in Washington DC), it’s funded by asshole billionaire Peter Thiel, and it’s going to fail as hard as Truth Social. I can only assume.
It’s not that conservatives don’t need help finding dates. They complain all the time that no one wants to date them.
“Seventy-two percent of young Democrats say that they wouldn’t date a conservative,” Right Stuff co-founder Dan Huff told POLITICO. “The reverse isn’t true. So essentially they started this. We had to build this app to survive.”
Good luck with that!
You see, when news broke about the impending launch of the app, the Daily Beast made some calls to see how it might be received by actual right wing ladies. Not so well, it turns out, at least if you’re looking for a dating app that won’t be a total bratwurst fest.
Instead of drawing singles, the app has thus far largely drawn mockery, according to female Republican operatives who spoke to The Daily Beast.
Two Republican staffers in Washington, D.C., said many young conservative women have ignored [the site’s] outreach and have instead jeeringly passed around screenshots of [their] messages to group chats.
Other Republican staffers in D.C.—the sort who boast about downing drinks at the Navy Yard watering hole Mission and claim their pronouns are “Yee” and “Haw” on their Instagram profiles—told The Daily Beast the app has an array of possible problems, like liberals masquerading as right-wingers and the awkward potential of matching them with conservative staffers they already know.
“It’s all of Mitch McConnell’s staffers,” a female Republican operative said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she still works in pro-Trump politics.
That does not sound promising.
Also, the Beast reports, there’s already another well-established dating app called The Right Stuff that has nothing to do with politics, and they’ve already sicced their lawyer on The Right Stuff Mach Two. So they’ve got that going for them.
This app, I suspect, is going to end up with roughly 200 men per woman. And that woman is going to have to block every single one of them.
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@Alan,
I think a lot more people are meeting online these days. I met my husband online. We know at least 3 other married couples that met online as well. Two of those couples started off international long distance.
Online dating is great for people who don’t like going out or don’t have a ton of friends to introduce you to new people. Or for people who don’t like mixing work or hobbies with relationships.
Adding my own statistics to the pile … like bumblebug, I met my husband online. Mr. Parasol and I joke that we did it “the old-fashioned way – on IRC,” unlike the online dating services that started springing up a few years after we got married. I know several other couples who met online, including two couples where one person was in the UK and one in the US.
The most successful “met online” couples we know met their significant other in venues where the primary interest was books or movies or some other area of nerd culture, but romance just occasionally happened, as it will when people can gather to share a common interest.
@ Steph, FMO, bumbelbug, and Vicky P
Thanks for all the insight there. That’s really fascinating. And I must confess surprising. I would never have guessed that one third figure.
I guess the figure must be even higher if we look at online introductions generally as well as dating apps.
I can see how relationships could develop from the shared interest thing online; just as they could in physical space. The cyberspace/meatspace boundary is getting very blurry. And I have made a number of very good friends after initially encountering them online. So I think I get it.
You’ve all got me thinking though. Presumably dating apps are analogous to singles bars, the whole purpose is to try to meet someone for romantic purposes. Whereas just happening to hit it off with someone on a shared interest website or equivalent is like when the same thing happens at your local book club or wherever. Does that analogy work?
The latter option is certainly the one I can relate to. For myself, I can only envisage a relationship developing organically. I’ve never been one for going out on the pull, as we say here. It’s always been a general social situation, and then things develop from there as you get to know someone.
To engage in another tortuous analogy, I imagine dating apps are a bit like applying for a job. You have a specific aspiration; and you set out your stall accordingly to make yourself as attractive as possible. Whereas just being asked out by someone you have gotten to know regardless is a bit like being headhunted?
I find that a lot less stressful. I prefer opportunities, whether career or romantic, to arise spontaneously; rather than being sought after. If I’m not actually looking for something, there’s no pressure to find it. If that makes sense?
That’s just me though. I am very happy for people, and a bit in awe, where they’ve put all the effort in and been willing to take a risk of rejection.
And from the sound of those statistics, it certainly seems to be working for folks.
Well, except maybe for the subject of David’s post. The exception that proves the rule I guess.
@ Alan, “I mean, presumably if right wing politics is your thing, then there are events you go to or organisations you belong to, so why isn’t that your dating pool?”
Exactly. And why is it considered a “problem” that the app has “the awkward potential of matching them with conservative staffers they already know”?
I get the feeling these people don’t really like each other in real life.
@ Love Is All We Need
Indeed.
“I don’t want to use this product in case I meet someone like me” is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Of either the app, or the person.
@Alan
The impression I’ve gotten is that online dating apps are like those speed-dating events, where everybody in attendance is up front that they’re attending to meet someone for companionship/snugglebunny time/marriage.
The book club analogy works for me, since “book club” was definitely the vibe of the place where Mr. Parasol and I met. In fact, we were moderately infamous (in that circle) for a while as one of the first couples to get married from that venue. It’s been long enough that we’ve had plenty of company since then.
Approximately 20-25 wedding guests were online friends who took the trouble to attend our wedding in person, and roughly a quarter of those traveled from Canada to the US. My dad, who was the officiant, changed the ceremony a bit because he was so impressed – instead of just asking our attendants to support us in our marriage, he asked, “Will all of you do all in your power to support and uphold this marriage?” And the crowd replied, “We will.” That memory is one of the highlights of my life.
@ Vicky P
That is so sweet!
And somewhat different to the best wedding I went to. A mate was getting married, for the second time. His mother sat right at the front and gave a running commentary throughout the entire service. When they got the the bit “until death us do part” she just muttered, very audibly: “Hmph, well we’ve heard this before.”
@Alan, “… if right wing politics is your thing, then there are events you go to or organisations you belong to, so why isn’t that your dating pool?”
I’m going to assume also that it’s an older demographic that attends these events. They’re already married? The few younger singles wouldn’t be interested in the few older singles there. I was in a restaurant having dinner with some friends and a local Turning Point USA meet-up started setting up. All middle age to older white people. One Black guy (wearing a T-shirt that said something about “cancel culture”). No Black women. Although I did get the feeling that some of the older white guys were there to find dates. The place had a very “drinks and mingle” feel to it.
Ewwww.
After my Craigslist sex worker days, nearly all of my dates have been from online sources (not always dating sites). Then again my next job after that only lasted a few years and I’ve been mainly working online from home since then (long before the pandemic) only going to the office for occasional meetings, and the communities which I’m socially involved with strongly skew “already in a relationship”… so my IRL opportunities for dating are greatly diminished.
I’ve been to several weddings of people who met online — like @VP, said it was the old-fashioned way, in Usenet groups or mailing lists, sometimes in different countries. They each shared some interest, then found they had more in common.
One had Sworn a Mighty Oath (due to past trauma) that she would never marry and/or have kids. Reader, she married him and their kid’s in college. But they literally started as just friends on a mailing list spun off from a Usenet group and we all were invited. The mailing list started 30 (!) years ago and is still going strong. Many of us have visited each other, and stayed at each other’s houses, also sometimes in different countries. The English family put us up for a week when we were doing London things; they live very near an outlying Tube station. We hosted some who were coming to another couple’s wedding here, as well as a couple who were on the way from the Midwest to their Hawaii wedding. And a few meet-ups at random areas that aren’t anyone’s home — many of the gang have visited various cities at various times together. (Ours is a showbiz media shared fandom, so a group all met for a related event in LA once; we also tend to meet up at literary sci-fi cons and occasionally SCA events. Nerrrrrds!)
I don’t think I know anyone who’s had a romantic interest they found through dating apps, even among my younger pals.
@Alan: Yes, you’ve got it now! Singles bars vs. someone in your book club or a charity you both volunteer for. You get to know the person first, not as another resident of the meat market. Except you didn’t even exchange pictures at first on Usenet, because back when data was metered, you REALLY had to like someone to pay for squeezing the bits to them, and long-distance telephone fees were also a thing.
And ye gods and all the little fishies, I’m guessing most conservative men want a model-gorgeous monogamous tradwife, no matter how unattractive, sleeping-around, and useless they personally are. They’re always talking about “uggos” and have no concept of “out of your league”, after all. Just having a penis (and usually white skin) is enough to make them think they’re God’s gift to women. The women they want either don’t exist or are on other dating sites. Which might be one explanation why so many of them seem to favor dating teenage girls — they haven’t developed a firm personality yet.
So I suspect the attractive women in these groups/apps would probably have a better chance finding men outside of it and the men… wouldn’t.
———
Tanking against the ruble when Russia is in an expensive and failing war and under many international sanctions takes a real lack of talent. They aren’t doing well vs. the USD or the Euro either.
@Love Is All We Need: I think you’re right. They don’t like each other, and non-conservative people definitely don’t like them, so this is doomed to fail.
@Alan
Ha! I can imagine that. Nothing that exciting happened at our wedding. Though when my dad got to the “speak now or forever hold your peace” bit, a couple of our friends shifted pointedly in their seats, and I shot them my best bridezilla glare.
@ Vicky P
@ gss ex-noob
As an obsessive Londonist, whatever that Tube station is, I bet I know some obscure bit of trivia about it.
If you want to join in, the Londonist shibboleth is “all underground stations are 15 stories deep”
Also…
Alan,
What in the world is “Wombling”
@ contrapangloss
The Wombles were kid’s TV characters here in the 70s. They lived in a burrow on Wimbledon Common. They gathered up litter and recycled it. In the end they had to stop the show as kids were dumping litter on the Common hoping to attract them.
But they had a really catchy theme song. See below. The lyric was ‘underground, overground, wombling free’.
But in London we have the Underground and the Overground. So of course people started modifying the signs.
In the end, Transport for London just went for it. Hence the signs above. At Stratford Station the signs are digital, so they just added the Womble reference. TFL are really quirky like that. They quite often rename stations for a laugh. It must be very confusing for tourists; but we love it.
Incidentally, amongst London’s gay community, cottaging on Wimbledon Common is called ‘Cock-Wombling’.
If anyone fancies checking out the Wombles further…
@Alan: It was Chorleywood. As we went through Harrow-on-the-Hill, I thought that was a VERY Old English name indeed, the sort that The Doctor turns up at and the old manor is haunted. And of course I quite liked going to Baker Street to get there.
But we’re used to traversing BART, which though it has so many fewer lines and stations is the same way with maps, and making sure you transfer only at selected points unless you want to turn back and redo it, all depending on the day of the week and time of day.
It was a very hot week, and the youngest really hated the bubbles in cold fizzy drinks. So I introduced iced tea, not much liking fizz myself. I drank it every night at dinner as a kid (being from a Southern family). The elders were horrified, but the younker’s face said “Where has this BEEN all my life?!” Corrupting an 8 year old with blasphemous foreign drinks.
Really, with the ever-increasing temperatures, Brits need to learn about it during the 90 degree days. No calories, add your own sweetener and lemon (other fruits are available).
I have never Wombled. Due to an inner-ear thing, I do sometimes Weeble.
@ gas ex-noob
Here you go. From top Londonist Jago Hazzard. Next time you speak to your friends you can fascinate them with the following facts.
@ gss ex-noob
Twinings used to do an amazing iced tea. Green tea, ginseng, and elderflower. I loved it.
Then to my annoyance, Twinings discontinued it. I was a tad peeved. My chambers roommate sympathised. She said she had the same issue with make-up.
As it happened though she had a standard letter which she offered for me to use. She did say though ‘You might have to modify it a bit.”
“Dear Sirs, as a black woman…”
Yeah, maybe will need a bit of an edit.
Then one of our other chambers colleagues pointed out that Twinings HQ was literally next door, so it might be easier to go round and whinge in person.
They gave me the last two cartons they had if I promised to go away.
@Alan, I guess that analogy could work. But I think dating apps are a little different from a singles bar in that it’s much more explicit in exactly what you’re looking for. Sure I had to make myself an attractive “candidate” for others. But at the same time I could pretty easily scroll through someone’s profile and make a decision. No need to wait for date 3+ to see if they wanted kids. We could get all the annoying big-life-goals compatibility questions out of the way quickly. For someone who is introverted and has trouble approaching people and getting comfortable in real life, online dating helped me make sure that I was putting the energy into relationship that I thought would pan out. I still went on dates and found common interests, but it allowed me to start with a smaller pool of people that felt more manageable. Plus getting ghosted online is so much less hurtful than being rejected in person!
When I read about online dating apps, I’m so glad that I’m ancient and married. But my son has taken jobs in two separate cities where he didn’t know anyone, and he’s met a lot of people in general, starting out on dating sites. Frequently, he and the women he’s met don’t have any sexual chemistry, but they liked each other enough to be friends, and as friends he eventually gets introduced to his friends’ friends. He’s one of those guys who are nice to have around in a friend group -big and strong enough to help you move, steady in a crisis, – as well as being personable and charming, but he’s kind of shy about introducing himself to strangers. The dating apps help with that initial introduction.
@GSS ex-noob:
And money. I’m guessing the expected male part of the user base for this thing is upper-middle-class-and-above. Suit and tie wearing set.
Brexit crows coming home to roost?
Meanwhile, it certainly looks like I was right a few months ago when I predicted Ukraine would become Russia’s Vietnam …
Additionally, some TV station put on Iron Man 2 tonight and I caught this little bon mot from Tony Stark near the beginning:
“I’m not saying that the world is enjoying its longest period of uninterrupted peace because of me. …”
Needless to say there follows a great deal of Stark tooting his own horn. But for some reason it occurred to me to ask, “peace for whom?” He is, in-universe, apparently acting as a strong stabilizing influence for the status quo, benefiting the imperialist powers (and, especially, the wealthy) at the expense of poor struggling populations throughout the rest of the world.
That led me, in turn, to realize there is something rather odd about Captain America: Civil War, where someone from one of those poorer countries confronts Stark at a convention center after a presentation to castigate him about … collateral damage during his fight with Ultron.
The Big Bad of that film proves to have the same grievance.
Isn’t there a much bigger grievance anyone from outside the wealthy nations ought to have with Stark? To wit, his support for the systems that sustain the so-called “Washington consensus” that keeps the poorer nations poor? Support that merely changed its form when, in the first Iron Man film, he ceased to directly sell weapons to imperialist powers and put on his armor?
But then, I don’t suppose the wealthy owners of Marvel Studios and associated large entertainment businesses would have felt very comfortable actually having such questions and issues raised by the films …
Those Wombles look a bit like mutated junkyard rats. Was Master Splinter a Womble before he took those four mutant turtles under his wing and taught them to be ninjas?
Oh, and the name of Peter Thiel instantly told me this Reich Stuff thing was crap. Frak that guy and everything he touches.