Dinner Club#4: Friction
Hello Dinner Club fam,
For those of you who are new this week, welcome. For those you who’ve been waiting patiently for your turn, thank you.
The rest of you who’ve experienced Dinner Club at least once, and want to continue to do so, I’d be so grateful if you could share your experience on social media and tag me (Twitter and Instagram). It helps grow the community, and in turn makes dates more relevant.
This week, I’ve been thinking about friction and how it impacts growth. There are several points of friction on Dinner Club, right from sign up until dating someone. Some bits are intended, and some aren’t. The lack of a tech platform to ease logistics around scheduling a date isn’t by design.
However, the extra effort involved in making a video with the application, lack of choice, having to provide thoughtful feedback after a date, making the effort to set up a second date or waiting to date new people is friction added by design.
I’d love for us to be more conscious of how we date, how we treat others, what impact we have on others or what we learn about ourselves through these dates. You don’t necessarily get into a relationship after the first date, and in that sense, Dinner Club is casual, but this experience is meant to make us more mindful of the stuff that matters.
About this week
I wonder if last week’s cancellations took a toll on me, but I decided to be less greedy this week and organise only as many dates as was practically possible with the new availability tracker.
I must tell you that it’s been mostly great so far with 50% of the dates already resulting in seconds. It’s such an amazing feeling, I can’t tell you. This is what some of them had to say:
“I think he was awkward and shy about the date maybe, I found that all too adorable.”
“I like that she got my pop culture references and seemed to get my sense of humor.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation as she took a lot of initiative to keep it engaging.”
“I found him to be a good listener and he was being himself.”
“Our date had great energy, totally chilled, and we laughed a lot.”
Learnings
We’ve had reasonable success so far. Only 15% of dates since the start have resulted in a “No” to meet again from both sides. The rest have resulted in at least 1 person saying “Yes” with almost 40% with a “Yes” from both sides. Not bad, huh?
Closures, good or bad, are important. Once I have feedback from both parties after a date, I’ve decided to dispassionately communicate the outcome to both parties without letting my need to protect anyone’s feelings come in the way.
When there’s a double opt-in after the first date, I just connect the two people over an email now and expect them to take it forward. Turns out people are lazy and very few really end up meeting again. Sigh.
With Google Meet, I don’t have to be kabab mein haddi even on the first date. So those of you worried about me awkwardly hanging out in the beginning or hoping that I’ll come in the end to say bye can be assured that i won’t be coming in from next week. Hail Google Meet!
A surprising number of people are not open to meeting people from different cities despite being a part of a virtual blind dating program.
Cool Date Ideas
I was kind of hoping to crowd source this one but everyone seems to have kept it damn normal. Apart from one date where people discussed anime and another where people sang Kannada songs together, I haven’t heard anything too out of the box
….or may be you haven’t told me?
Humans of Dinner Club
Because this experiment last week turned out to be so fun (well, at least for me), I’ll do this one more time but with two ads this week: one girl and one guy respectively.
T: Pretty minimal and pretty optimistic about life. Like most people, I enjoy traveling, reading, exploring new music, and meeting new people. Staying active and eating healthy are very important to me, and I try to practice this every day. I spend most of my free time trying out new beers with friends, or checking out local cultural events in the city.
V: I'm a technology enthusiast, passionate about blockchain and healthcare. Mostly trying to solve problems. Hakuna Matata, This is the way! I once got lost in Coorg forest with two other friends, I love tomatoes, I believe in aliens, etc. My life is slightly complicated in it's own way, I'm a bug magnet at times and I usually sort things out.
Dinner Club Events
As promised, here’s a link to the event that will be held next weekend. This is a 60-min interactive workshop on Identifying your Partner Type…
On 25th July 2020, Saturday at 11:00AM IST.
There are 10 spots available, and the event is priced at 10 social credits per person. Believe me, it is definitely worth more than two dates.
What’s up next week?
I don’t have news, but I have a bunch of requests to make. Thanks in advance.
Peeps, I appreciate your faith in my abilities, but I am one person running the show. If you can be clearer in your feedback forms instead of emails, that would be fab. Oh and I do love getting your emails about other things in general.
Reminder to fill the new availability tracker, if you haven’t already filled it. If you could just pick at least 5/12 slots, that would be great.
When I send you an invite for a date, please RSVP at least 24 hrs before the date, so I am not running behind you on the day of the date.
It’s not nice to keep people hanging. I sit and wait by the date feedback tracker after everyday and when I don’t hear from you, I don’t sleep well that night.
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Kidding, nothing has ever come between me and my sleep. But you get the drift.
If you’d like to invite your friends to dinner club, share this link...