Anyone who knows me at all, knows I love a service or product that serves to disrupt the status quo. So, I knew I was going to be up for learning more about Once’s new approach to matching. I LOVE that they have effectively put an end to patriarchal matching! Wait, what? Yup, Once has launched the first ever algorithm created by an all-female team to help you find your perfect match. Hands in the air. This is a momentous occasion.
In the past, men have been responsible for creating the matching algorithms powering dating sites and apps. Questions have usually focused on areas like education, income, looks, age, height etc. But with dating app, Once, things are changing:
“Dating is a market designed by men for men and is governed in a non-transparent way,” explains CEO, Clémentine Lalande. “I’m tired of working in a market that reproduces & amplifies patriarchal stereotypes. So I am trying to reinvent the rules of online dating. It’s time to change the status quo, and so I enlisted a team of female relationship experts to help me change the dating space once and for all, with our Love Experiment.”
The Love Experiment
Interest piqued? Yes, same. So. the dating app, Once, brought together a dynamic team of four women including a psychoanalyst, a psychologist and a dating expert and founder. Together they created THE LOVE EXPERIMENT – a series of 28 contemporary questions, designed to identify a person’s emotional profile. Questions range from whether you’d rather dine with Obama or the Dalai Lama to what your chosen super power would be.
I may not be single, but I was dying to try it. I mean, who wouldn’t want to know what their emotional profile is! It was easy to do and actually fun, which you can’t say about a lot of dating app questionnaires. Plus, I can see how your answers to these 28 questions would ultimately be pretty revealing.
What I like is that it has been designed specifically to assess:
how independent an individual is in a relationship;
the levels of their introversion and extroversion;
how intuitive they are;
and the importance of physical and cerebral connection to them.
These factors all play such a huge role in the success of a relationship but often aren’t in the forefront of our mind when we’re creating our dating app profile. Personally, I think this is pretty smart and has a good chance of helping people form more meaningful relationships.
Your Emotional Profile
Of these four key areas (independence, extroversion, physicality and intuition), highlighted by The Love Experiment, the team found that successful couples need to have three in common for the best emotional match. Interestingly, if you have all four in common, you might actually be too similar. And none in common? You might have just met your arch enemy.
Once a single has been given their personal archetype, they can then choose from a selection of singles, based on their emotional compatibility. They can select from a range of compatibilities like:
a ‘chemical bond’ – a single with just enough difference to ensure a lasting relationship;
a ‘magnetic attraction’ – a single who has the exact same results;
and an ‘explosive reaction’ – with a single who is their exact opposite.
OK, I did The Love Experiment for myself, of course, I couldn’t resist. My emotional profile is The Superhero. Brilliant, it was pretty spot on. Now I just need to pin down my boyfriend, get him to do it and see what kind of match we are. I’d put my money on a ‘chemical bond’.
If you haven’t heard of Once or tried it out, it’s the dating app that created the concept of slow-dating. The app offers users only 1 match per day, because they believe this creates the best conditions to bring about beautiful connections and stories.
