EXCLUSIVE: Is love really blind?<\/p>\n
Matchmaker May Ku thinks it can be, if \u201cfatigued\u201d Aussie romantics are willing to give it a chance.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old is the founder and CEO of a new voice-based dating app called \u2018Reev\u2019 where there are no beauty filters, selfies at the gym or blokes wielding freshly-caught fish, just short sound bites and phone call \u2018dates\u2019.<\/p>\n
Before creating her own start-up, Ms Ku experienced first-hand how modern dating has failed young people. After a Tinder experience had gone awry, she swore off the apps.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen Covid happened and I was back on dating apps and using all kinds of different ones \u2013 like Coffee Meets Bagel, Tinder, Hinge, Bumble,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause every dating app has some unique feature, I thought maybe this is going to work out. But in the end \u2026 the core mechanism is still the same \u2013 you\u2019re still choosing based on photos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inspired by Netflix\u2019s hit reality TV show Love Is Blind \u2014 and drawing on her background as a market researcher and anthropologist \u2014 Ms Ku resolved to offer something different in the crowded dating app market, finding support from Macquarie University\u2019s start-up \u2018Incubator\u2019 from which she runs her Sydney-based operation.<\/p>\n
The idea behind Reev is simple; instead of swiping left or right based off your prospective match\u2019s looks, profiles feature only basic biographical information like name, age and gender with a series of vocal responses to prompts like \u2018the best advice I\u2019ve ever received\u2019 or \u2018a relationship deal-breaker for me\u2019.<\/p>\n
Users schedule phone call \u2018dates\u2019, and after a full hour of conversation the couple unlock a FaceTime-style video call feature. Only then are they permitted to view each others\u2019 photo album, and move the relationship into a real-world meet-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think that this generation needs a different way to date, because the current traditional dating apps are not really working,\u201d Ms Ku said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe loneliness epidemic is real, and we\u2019re talking about dating app fatigue everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dating game has been tailored to men for too long, Ms Ku argued, leaning into the \u201cmale process for selecting a mate\u201d, rather than the breadth of information women take in when seeking a romantic partner. <\/p>\n
Her app would still need male users to be successful. <\/p>\n
Would men buy in, when their date\u2019s appearance is a guessing game? Her partner, Cyril Allart, wasn\u2019t convinced.<\/p>\n
\u201cInitially when May started Reev, I was very sceptical about people in general talking to each other and continuing through different dates, but I\u2019ve been proven wrong many times,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of South Wales Martin Graff said dating app \u201cfatigue\u201d in humans echoes behaviour in animals \u2013 \u201cif you stop the \u2026 reward, the animal\u2019s response will eventually extinguish or stop\u201d \u2013 and advocates slow, \u201cmindful\u201d dating.<\/p>\n
\u201cDating should be fun, so just treat it as having a good time, rather than being \u2018on a mission\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sophie Maltby, a 21-year-old university student, said dating apps have often felt \u201clike a game\u201d \u2013 full of addictive features designed to keep users online, hampering her efforts in an already tough market.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a huge culture around situationships and hooking up, and not really wanting to have serious relationships, which I think for the people like us who \u2026 are romantics at heart, it\u2019s been a bit frustrating,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Friend Kayla Wilson, 20, has \u201cdabbled\u201d in the apps but after creating a \u201cjoke profile\u201d stacked with \u201cbad\u201d pictures, only to be inundated with matches asking her to their hotel rooms for a hook-up, she realised just how \u201csuperficial\u201d conventional platforms could be.<\/p>\n
Instead her first \u2018dates\u2019 on Reev were spent sat in a wheelchair, in hospital, with a broken leg.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt did feel \u2026 a little bit less awkward because I was like, \u2018This is what I\u2019m doing. Isn\u2019t that crazy? What are you doing?\u2019\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more personal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Is love really blind? Matchmaker May Ku thinks it can be, if \u201cfatigued\u201d Aussie romantics are willing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[342,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-420631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}