A few years back, the Original Dating team were sitting in the office having a development day brainstorming potential ideas and one of those ideas was virtual speed dating. We weren’t sure if it was something that would be of interest to people or not but decided it was something worth more time and consideration. The idea of virtual speed dating was low key ticking away in the background until March 2020, when for obvious reasons that seedling idea turned out to be a beanstalk overnight. Now I know how Jack felt. While we’re always trying to develop the latest dating ideas and events, nobody had anticipated lockdown, social distancing or no household mixing indoors. But what does all this mean for the future of dating?
Three lockdowns later and our now perfected virtual speed dating events are a great way to keep you connecting and dating through these unusual times. We thought this is all it would be, a means to an end, a way to keep meeting new people despite the restrictions but it’s proved to be so much more, with lots of people genuinely preferring it to IRL because of its more intimate design. There’s no competing in decibels with the table next to you, you don’t need to make it a big night out, you can just login when you’re ready from the sofa and there’s no queue to get a drink, just an open bottle of red, an arm’s length away. In essence what we thought would be a poor substitute for the real thing has become a staple of our events calendar even without social distancing in place. Virtual speed dating is here to stay but it’s about to get an upgrade so watch this space.
Don’t get me wrong, virtual speed dating won’t replace IRL speed dating but it will have a very exciting future as another way to meet people. As for the in-person dating events we hope to bring them back by late spring to some capacity. In September 2020, we were running socially distanced events with reduced numbers, incompliance with the Covid regulations and we hope with the new vaccines we will back to something similar soon. However, it may be a wee while before our lock and key parties resume. But rest assured, we will always be working hard behind the scenes to make sure we can keep you meeting people in person and add to the already growing number of ways to date we already provide.
Have you seen our latest addition to Original Dating? We’ve brought back Mixeo 2.0. This new and improved dating feature allows to connect with other Original Dating members who have attended previous events. It’s free to sign up and anyone that takes your fancy simply select as a yes, if the like you too you’ll be able to chat with one another. The soft launch was this week and already we’ve seen a huge sign-up rate and it’s looking like a great addition to Original Dating. If you want to sign up simply login to your account and head over to the Mixeo tab.
We can’t ever predict what the future will hold but I can’t see us dating in glass booths or over telephones from either side of the glass. There will no doubt be restrictions and we might have to get creative for a bit. The upside is there will now be more ways to meet new people than ever before and Original Dating will be the place to offer you exactly that and there’s yet more to come from us but in the meantime try our virtual events and sign up to Mixeo to meet people from other speed dating events, not just ones you’ve attended.