The Story behind The Lounge

About a year ago, our resident Matchmaker, Samantha Daniels, was sitting in her Manhattan office listening to yet another single New Yorker complain about their most recent online dating disaster. Samantha had spent her career listening to single people share their dating trials and tribulations as well as their opinions, both positive and negative, about online dating and dating apps, so this was really just another day in the trenches for her.

This time, the singleton lamented that his date was eight years older than her profiled age and she wasn't as tall nor as thin as her inaccurate photos would have suggested. Further, even though the two had sat together for over an hour, they were not able to figure out even one person that they knew in common.

Being that this was the tenth person in that week alone who shared their frustration and disappointment about online dating with Samantha, a light bulb went off in her head. She realized that the online dating and dating app experience could be so much better if someone like herself, who was in the thick of all things dating, got involved and addressed what was missing and what was inadequate in the existing dating app environment.

At that moment, Samantha conceived of The Dating Lounge, the invitation only dating community where friends date each other's friends. She realized that if she started with a core nucleus of upscale, well educated, attractive single influencers across the country who were connected to her and to each other in some way (by lifestyle choices), a mushrooming effect could occur. And then, she would have the makings of an exclusive dating environment where the Members would want to meet each other's friends in a way that was more in line with real-life, offline dating practices. After all, in today's day and age, if you are single, you are using dating apps and dating online.

The main complaints that Samantha was hearing about online dating and dating apps were:

• There is no barriers to entry since anyone can join, create a fake profile or the like.

• People hide behind their user profile nicknames, so you don't know who they really are.

• People don’t take dating apps seriously, they are just looking to have fun, not to find long-lasting connections.

• Married people and people in a relationship are using the dating apps and wasting single people’s time.

• People online are sub-par to the people you are meeting through friends.

• People online feel like strangers because you have no offline connections to them.

• User profiles have inaccurate information, including:

  • misrepresented ages

  • inaccurate photos

  • fake occupations

  • falsified education histories

  • untrue relationship statuses

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Samantha determined that The Dating Lounge could solve these issues with the following features:

• Everyone uses their real name, so you know immediately with whom you are interacting.

• The Lounge has members, not users, which reflects the overall feel of The Lounge.

• The Lounge is by invitation only, so the quality of it's members is high.

• Married people and People in a relationship are blocked from entering The Lounge.

• Everyone in The Lounge is a friend of a friend so there are many connections.

• Personal information is accurate - it comes straight off of their social media pages.

• Photos are in real time and very authentic.

• There is a real-life Professional Matchmaker on hand to oversee the member experience.

The Dating Lounge is the first ever invitation-only dating community where friend's date each other's friends.

Do you belong?