DIY speed dating is the new way to meet singles

Reported by Allison Hayes

Vancouver has a new dating platform on the market, one that helps hone in on all of our tools to meet people in the city, with a touch of DIY.

DateNova allows users to set up their own speed-dating event. The site allows users to create their own speed dates, by inviting their matches from other dating apps, like Tinder and Plenty of Fish, to meet up, and go on a speed date. It can be done anywhere, and they can coordinate everyone involved through website invitation.

No need to spend long time on a date

Eric Hennessey, a systems engineer and serial entrepreneur who just launched DateNova, said the benefit of doing a DIY speed date is choosing the people who are there, instead of spending time with complete strangers, and not needing to spend long periods of time with someone if there’s no connection.

“You get a good sense very quickly, as soon as five seconds of who you don’t want to have a date with,” Hennessey said. “After you’ve already built this time establishing a connection, now you have to be social with someone you’re probably never going to see again, in certainly not a romantic context.”

Eddy Baller, dating coach at Conquer & Win, said this method of dating could work depending on if there’s a genuine connection between people.

“It depends how you connect with another person, because you could be in a crowded market,” Baller said. “If you really feel something for a person everything else just kind of disappears.”

Jason Brown, a recent UBC PhD graduate, uses dating apps and said that the idea of meeting up with a group of people would be too much, and he prefers the way that dating apps work currently.

“I think online dating is good for those interested in any direction, it shows much more of an egalitarian situation, it’s good for introverts,” Brown said. “You can kind of layout your intentions, it’s ideal for me the way it is.”