Start-up brings speed dating to India
In this age of digitisation and growth of online dating apps across the country, a start-up based in Bangalore is creating a “realtime safe space” for consenting adults to try their luck at “offline speed-dating”. “Speed dating”, a western concept, is a formalised match-making dating system, where the purpose is to encourage singles to meet a large number of new people and find their prospective match within a few minutes at a specific meeting place where all the speed daters assemble. The concept was originally de- veloped to help Jewish singles meet and marry.
LOL (Life Of Line), a startup, is bringing “speed dating” to India, giving an opportunity to single youths in metropolitan cities to meet their prospective matches through “offline dating”.
After starting in August last year, LOL finished its 50th event in Delhi last Saturday. The start-up has been organising events across cities such as Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Goa, Pune and Chandigarh. If the organisers are to be believed, “Breaking all stereotypes, single men and women have been turning up in large numbers at such events.”
For an event organised by LOL, all registered single men and women are segregated according to their age groups. After this, on the day of the event, the singles are allowed to meet eight different males or females of their choice within a time limit of eight minutes each. Following this, both the “partners” are asked to score their opposite genders with a “yes” or “no”. After the event, if two persons match, their details are shared with the matched partners through email for future conversations.
Vijay, founder of LOL, told The Sunday Guardian, “I conceptualised this idea of offline dating in India after visiting the West. In India, we have seen people using different online methods to find their partners, but in the virtual world, it is difficult to ascertain and trust people. So I thought of this.”
“So far, we have been receiving good responses from cities such Mumbai and Bangalore. Delhi is also catching up. Cities such as Kolkata are still behind, as our society does not usually have a positive response to such events. However, breaking stereotypes, we still have as many as 25-30 participants in most of our events,” Vijay added.
The organisers of the events said that on an average, they match three to four couples every month.
The organisers are also particular about the persons attending the events. According to them, they take all possible care to ensure that fraudulent persons do not become a part of such gatherings.
“As organisers, we have to ensure the safety of our guests. We undertake a thorough verification of each candidate registering for an event. We conduct a telephonic interview, following which their passports and other doc-