If there are two things that New York has in abundance, but are still scarce in San Francisco, they are definitely: women and real bagels. The bagels have been taken care of, but now someone has set out to (ahem) disrupt the lopsided dude-heavy singles scene in San Francisco by flying in sample of New York City's notoriously beautiful and intelligent stock of independent females for a weekend-long singles mixer.
The Dating Ring, which you may not have heard of because it isn't an app, is a deceptively old-school style matchmaking service that skips online profiles and kickstarts romance by sending herds of six or four people out on group dates. Candidates must also fill out a survey, meet with a matchmaker, and deal with emails before the service even sets you up on a date, which is a lot of work given the short attention spans of San Francisco's dating pool. But the company also happens to be backed by noted startup incubator Y-Combinator, so it comes techie-approved.
The scheme is also part of a movement of cross-country dating that Dating Ring CEO Lauren Kay is pushing through a gushing guest post on the Huffington Post's Women section today. "There are around 150,000 more single women than men in New York," Kay writes, citing an article from a fashion magazine. "Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, there are around 50,000 more single men than women," she continues, paraphrasing every one of your San Francisco single friends ever. So, like entrepreneurs moving to Silicon Valley to find funding, single ladies in New York should also head west searching for love.: "If my co-founders and I could move across the country for our company," Kay explains, "surely there had to be other single, mobile people willing to do the same for love?"
To facilitate that move, the Dating Ring is trying their first cross-country matchup: instead of forcing groups of people in the same city to mingle awkwardly for awhile, they're raising more money to bring a group of "datable" New York women to come mingle with a hand-picked set of San Francisco men. It's like a pay-to-play version of The Bachelor. If the campaign gets funded, the company will:
- Fly a plane-full [or, well, part of a plane-full] of amazing, datable women from NYC to SF over Memorial Day weekend, from Thursday 5/22 - Monday 5/26
- Plan some carefully selected, matchmaker-curated dates between NYC women and SF men
- Throw a private cocktail party followed by a huge Memorial Day bash on Sat. 5/24 in honor of the women who flew cross country for love
- And re-define the notion of love itself
Since launching Tuesday morning, the crowdfunding effort has raised $1,500 towards their goal of $50,000. Charitable folks in S.F. can either pitch in by buying tickets to the singles mixer on Memorial day weekend, or New York women can donate $1,250 for the Princess package: a four-day weekend in San Francisco that includes flights, hotel, three dates, a private cocktail party and, of course, that "large SF bash in celebration of you."
