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If you’re single in 2016, you’re undoubtedly familiar with app dating. From Tinder to Bumble to Hinge, we’ve tried (and most likely failed) at them all. Part of the essential problem with finding love using these apps is that they’re based primarily on appearances, which, as we all know, is dangerous to use as a predictor of relationship success. While the vapid blonde you’d never say two sentences to IRL gets a right-swipe, the average-looking potential matches with similar upbringings, interests, and hobbies get left-swiped into oblivion.
However, what if there was a way to make sure that your match had the same interests as you before you ever even met? If you both have a nostalgic love for handheld video games from the ’90s, you’re in luck, because you might actually meet your other half sooner than you think. While Pokémon Go has had a ton of issues from causing injuries to server crashes, it comes with an unexpected bonus: it’s drawing tons of people to the same location through gyms and Pokéstops, creating chance encounters with strangers that otherwise would never have happened.
For some people, these encounters are actually turning into budding romances. Take, for example, 25-year-old John who was wandering around Brooklyn not searching for a date, but for Pokémon, when he stumbled upon another girl doing the same. After a conversation, John asked out his fellow Pokémon Go enthusiast, saying that he’s “never met a stranger and felt so connected. It’s like you shared the same childhood.” Ok, so this is kind of adorable and much better than telling your future kids that you met on a hookup app while in NOLA for a bachelor party. While telling your friends that you met playing online Pokémon is at least as embarrassing, you’ll at least know that your new date shares the same interests as you, and you never know – they may even help you fill up your Pokedex along the way. .
[via Wall Street Journal]
Image via Shutterstock
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Steph W.
Steph W. is a new Master's degree graduate with an intern's salary and six-figure taste. She realizes her expectations far exceed reality, so she spends her days pinning away Loubs she pretends are in her physical closet instead of her virtual one. Her hobbies include attempting to trapping her boyfriend into marriage before he finds out how insane she is and pretending that Black Box wine tastes as good as the kind she could afford when she was gainfully employed. Send her tips for getting out of student debt at recruitchairtsm@gmail.com
@therecruitchair
I’m going to die alone.
Not if you get out there and catch some Pokemon.
Was walking down the street the other day and saw two people at a street corner, one male and one female. They were both playing Pokemon GO and the girl said to the boy “Hey, I think we’re playing the same thing.” The boy laughed and started to talk to her. The crosswalk turned light turned green so I didn’t hear anything else, but in my dreams, they became lovers.
Maybe they banged right there on the street corner.
Brisk Saturday morning in Seattle yesterday, walking around PokeStops, found a girl doing the same. We went to Starbucks a block away
“…the average-looking potential matches with similar upbringings, interests, and hobbies get left-swiped into oblivion.”
I always right swipe for these considering they’re the only real chances I have at getting a match.