Love factually: Dating start-ups promise to cut the cheats
Source: BBC Technology
Love factually: Dating start‑ups promise to cut the cheats
5 hours ago
Michael Dempsey – Technology Reporter
New dating sites are looking to filter out misleading profiles.
The Geek Meet Club
Dennie Smith was standing in a recreated WWI trench when she had a revelation. The self‑confessed military‑history geek was on a trip with fellow enthusiasts and realised a big flaw in online dating apps – they didn’t cater for people “peering over the rim of the trench with her”.
“A lot of dating sites are just about volume, and they include fake profiles that conceal scams,” she says.
Smith, who owns a hair‑dressing salon in Croydon, south London, decided to branch out into the dating business with a focus on the big market of geeky people. The founder of Geek Meet Club wants to bring like‑minded people together and exclude the “regiments of fakes” that have undermined online dating.
Vetting each applicant personally seems to please Smith:
“I’m very good at spotting a fake. But sometimes it’s easy – one person submitted a photo of Boris Johnson!”
She is happy to decline around 50 applicants a month rather than expose her 3,300 members to bad behaviour.
Geek Meet Club exists to bring dating back into the offline world. “We do events, monthly quizzes, and I want to hire venues so people can come in costume.” This nod to elaborate disguises – favoured by attendees at science‑fiction conventions – hints at Smith’s core audience. “Comic and sci‑fi conventions are a big pull for geeky people.”
The idea is to get people meeting in person as quickly as possible because online dating has become a minefield littered with deception and fraud.
“I tell my members to meet in person as soon as possible – go for a coffee in the park or on the High Street – to find out if the other person is legitimate.”
Dennie Smith – founder, Geek Meet Club
Cherry Dating – fighting cat‑fishing with tech
Filtering out dating cheats was also behind the creation of Cherry Dating, the brainchild of Jo Mason, a City of London banker who grew tired of counterfeit profiles.
“You look at profiles on these sites and ask yourself, ‘Is this person real?’ You have to be like a private investigator researching people’s profiles before you connect.”
Mason lists the ways online dating lets people down: “Some people just want a fictitious romance but have no intention of ever meeting you. Others are married, or just want an online relationship.”
Cat‑fishing – luring victims into a relationship using fake images or status – comes in many forms. “The lower end of cat‑fishing just uses a 10‑year‑old photo. But some people may not look like their photo at all, or be a completely different person.”
How Cherry Dating tackles it
- ID verification – members upload a selfie alongside a driving licence or passport; software matches the images to confirm authenticity.
- Compatibility scoring – users answer questions that generate a compatibility percentage, helping them decide whether to pursue a match.
“If you’re 80 % compatible that’s good; you don’t waste time with someone who’s 5 % compatible.”
Research commissioned by Mason indicates that 47 % of British respondents feel no dating app meets their needs, while 40 % say dating apps have decreased their motivation to meet someone.
Meanwhile, Sumsub, a fraud‑prevention service, polled 2,000 UK dating‑app users and found that 54 % of respondents confessed to using AI to “spice up” their own online profile. (Source: Sumsub poll)
Coaching in the age of AI: Jocelyn Penque
Jocelyn Penque, a UK‑based Texan dating coach and founder of Dating Classroom, is trying to make sense of the confusing landscape of false information and AI‑generated profiles.
“I coach people about their strategies. My target audience are people who’ve been successful but have not prioritised relationships.”
Penque, who has a background in the tech sector, isn’t against online dating. She cites a happy family story: “My father is 79 and he met his girlfriend through Our Time, a dating app for older people.”
She believes that interest‑specific sites (like geek‑focused platforms) and age‑related sites are more likely to succeed.
AI as a writing aid
“A lot of people aren’t good at expressing themselves, so Copilot or ChatGPT are useful if you don’t like writing.”
However, she warns that imprecise prompts can backfire:
“Your prompts must be focused on what really matters – your values. So tell Copilot if you want a serious relationship and would like to have a family.”
Jocelyn Penque – dating coach, Dating Classroom
Jocelyn Penque
Jocelyn Penque recommends interest‑specific and age‑related dating sites
Penque’s answer is to draw a budding relationship away from screens as soon as possible. Hence she took a small group of her clients to the Azores for a few days in May.
Around 1,000 miles into the ocean from Portugal, these islands offer opportunities for whale‑watching and productive introspection on how to find the right partner.
“We were sitting in the middle of the Atlantic; it’s a completely different space, and it’s much easier for them to think about new possibilities there.”
The geographical remoteness was about as far from peering into a screen as could be.
A personal ghosting story
Her own experience of ghosting in real life is shocking.
“I went out for a drink with a guy. We seemed to get along, but when he said he was going up to the bar he didn’t come back.”
I asked the barman if he’d seen my date leave. His answer came as a blow: “I know him; he’s been coming here for three years and doing that.”
Whatever its limitations, AI hasn’t learned to treat people that poorly. Yet.