Dating is never easy. Let’s forget the charade and the fairy-tale romantic version of what it’s like to meet and choose from potential suitors and face the facts: Dating is always difficult, usually exhausting, and sometimes really depressing. All of those qualities can be exacerbated when one is trying to date in the city, particularly a city as big as New York. There are thousands and thousands of people, most of them single and some of them quite insane, so finding a good match can be the ultimate challenge (sometimes a simple challenge of patience!).
One of the most stressful and frustrating aspects of dating in Manhattan is not knowing where to find the right person. It’s mindblowing that in a city so large, it is so hard to find the right place to meet someone. But, somehow, that seems to be one of the biggest problems. How many times has a single person exclaimed out of sheer exasperation, “WHERE are all the good people?! Where can I go?!” Well, thanks to the wonders of technology and the creative minds at Snap Interactive, Inc. there is now an application that can help answer that very question.
The Grade is a mobile dating app that gives an overall grade for the single people in each borough of the city. It uses standard letter grades (A, B, C, D, F) based on the average of the quality of users’ profiles and messages, along with their responsiveness. There is also an interactive map available that offers users a more detailed breakdown of the grades of each New York City borough. For each one, it shows the average grade for men and women, the rate they are liked versus skipped, and the percentage of messages with inappropriate content or slang. This helps give users a better idea of which place would mostly likely work for them the best. Once someone chooses a borough to examine more closely, he or she is then able to see that each individual user is graded (which is what makes up the overall grade, of course). Any user that receives an “F” or a “D” grade gets a warning, and tips on how to raise their grade. If the bad grade continues, that user is expelled. So basically, anyone who doesn’t pass the dating test is removed from the application, saving plenty of people a good amount of time. This also helps eliminate any of the offensive messages that can circulate around dating applications and websites.
The Grade is completely free to download, and since it was created in November, has already had over 750,000 swipes, 6,000 matches, and 25,000 messages. Unlike other dating apps, The Grade actually works with the users to help them find the best people possible for them to meet and with whom to interact, sorting out the unworthy candidates along the way. The NYC dating game just became a little bit easier and also quite a bit more interesting!
Twisted Talk: What dating apps have you been using? Will you check out The Grade? Discuss below!
