A new dating site is attempting to offer discriminating singles the option of choosing exactly what kind of person they want to marry - all the way down to their race, religion, hair color, weight, eye color and sexual past. Which frankly isn't much different than most dating sites, many of which offer very detailed and rich search features. But there's something about this specific dating site's name - Build Your Spouse - that has me irked.
Online dating already has several stigmas attached: for those singles who haven't signed up with a dating site its about privacy and the "what will you tell your friends?" factor, whereas those who have been using dating sites for a while complain more about the smorgasbord issue, i.e. that if someone isn't immediately appealing, all you have to is move on to the next item/person. So why would any dating site want to market themselves using these same issues as benefits?
Now, I realize I'm biased. As a dating coach, one of the most commonly asked questions I get is, "How Can I Meet Someone?" And for most people, I'll recommend online dating as one of their tactics in an arsenal of choices. But at no point do I say singles should be so specific with their needs, wants and desires in a partner that they effectively remove almost all of their possible matches. Do you really need someone who is five inches taller than you? Probably not. Sure, it would be nice, but you can't tell me that if someone ticks every other box in your list of qualities and traits you're looking for, that if the perfect person comes in a package that is the same height as you, you'll bolt. And a recent study undertaken using 10,000 HurryDate (Buy Direct) users proved my point (see: Hurry Date Mate Preferences In Action, opens to PDF file).
But what about you? Would you Build Your Spouse, for a fee? Especially if (as this dating site does) you have a guarantee you'll find someone to have a relationship with in the allotted time?
I tried out BuildmySpouse.com – It is true that you can be very specific about what you want in another and you kind of do “build” your future matches. However, it seems to be quite a bit different than most online dating sites. For example – I am in constant email communication with one of the dating reps via email. We talk about what I want, he checks up on how my dates went etc. He has become more of a friend. Now I challenge you to name a online dating site that does that. Anyway – I’ve been around the block on dating sites and although I’m new at buildmyspouse – so far, so good.