TalkOverTea, as blind a date as you can get.

New-school dating is old-school again

Real, established dating sites have a few years of history now. They have a number of success stories and positive statistics to back them up, even if those data points are more marketing ploy than science. Their comprehensive nature changes the dating landscape for a number of reasons, not least of which is the ability to screen for nonnegotiables that might fail to otherwise surface in conversation until a few dates in: religion, position on marriage, whether or not someone thinks horoscopes are for real, and so on.

The smaller niche dating sites, though, are ironically quaint. They’re far more similar to meeting someone for the first time in person, the way it was in Ye Olden Days. You say hello, make small talk, and eventually discover some common ground. You have been to and enjoy the same disco; both of your mothers were suffragettes; you went to the same 4 Non-Blondes concert; etc. Having made that connection in the seething vortex of social interaction, you ask to see each other again. It was once that simple! In a world where you can spend some idle hours decoding the meaning of someone’s OKCupid username, never mind the rest of their profile, this has some appeal.

Sites like 4.everalone reduce dating again to straightforward commonality. Maybe it’s too simple. Simplicity can make it too hard to ascertain certain info before agreeing to meet someone—that they aren’t a shut-in, latent racist, or have a bedroom that contains Darth Vader sheets and Beastmaster posters. And, we hate to say it, but the sites are possibly unsafe and possibly ineffective.

Then again, perhaps this is the current generation’s variety of tools for experimentation. Our parents had Studio 54, swinging parties, and cocaine. We have the Internet, cat videos, and reddit.