Dating Website Plans To Fly NY Women To Bay Area For Dates With SF Men
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) - A dating company hopes to solve a matchmaking supply-and-demand problem by flying single New York women to San Francisco and linking them up with single men.
The Dating Ring, which organizes informal gatherings for singles in the two cities, has launched a fundraising campaign to fly the women from New York City to San Francisco.
"There are tons more single women in NYC, and tons more single men in SF. And, see, the two cities are only separated by a bunch of crappy airports, flight delays, and cheap roundtrip flights," reads the company's donation pitch on the crowd funding site CrowdTilt.
Women interested in making the trip are asked to chip in chunks of cash between $20 and $1,250 to fund the flights, housing and pre-date "coaching Skype sessions." Here's their video pitch attempting to explain the dating pool imbalance:
The Dating Ring CEO Lauren Kay told CBS San Francisco that the local numbers are really Bay Area-wide numbers, as opposed to San Francisco specific. She pointed to Trulia data showing a high density of single men centered around the greater San Jose area, as well as San Francisco's SoMa, Mission and Financial Districts.
She says the website's enrollment numbers have highlighted the disparity.
"We have 1.42 as many male signups in the Bay Area as female signups," said Kay, who noted that women in New York signed up a nearly a 2-1 ratio (1.82 to be exact).
San Jose engineer Van Phan said he's lived the problem firsthand.
"I just call it 'Man Jose,'" said Phan, who spent more than a decade looking for love in the Bay Area before meeting his future wife in Vancouver. "It's mostly tech around here, so the demographics are mostly men...when you go to bars there are mostly just dudes. There is not a great nightlife scene."
Phan said he would have been open to traveling cross country to find a partner, and said dating long distance was worth it when he eventually married his wife.
So far, The Dating Ring has raised $2,355 toward a fundraising goal of $50,000 to pay for the trip. The campaign runs for ten more days with the dates slated for late May.
ALSO READ:
