Are you looking for your soul mate? A new dating app just launched in South Africa that is focused on intentional, purposeful dating.
Intentions is the brainchild of Ayal Belling. After living the single life and dating in London and Cape Town for a few years, Ayal Belling grew tired of the “superficial and gimmicky” world of swipe-style dating.
In 2015, he began working on his own dating app that would strike the right balance between simplicity and still enabling people to find enough common ground to increase their chances of having a good first date.
The first version of the app, named Predict, was launched in 2016 and after early market interest he joined forces with partner Maritza van den Heuvel and they reimagined the app as Intentions – the dating app that promises more good dates, sooner.
The app relaunches in South Africa this week and is different from other dating apps because it focuses more on written content and compatibility than images alone.
“People can be as superficial, dishonest and lazy as their technology allows them to be. At Intentions, we highlight people’s words by always showing them prominently (no more verdicts on photos alone) making people more inclined to write and read profiles,” the app’s website explains.
“It encourages particularly men (but also women and transgender people) to be honest about their values and dating intentions. Women (but also men and transgender people) can control whether they’ll match when important values and intentions are not shared.”
Users are asked twenty carefully crafted ‘yes/no’ questions to help understand their personality and values, and are then matched with the profiles of compatible users.
You can also choose to never match with anyone who has answered differently to you on up to four questions. The answers to your Twenty Questions are completely private.
The app also has a Free Now feature that makes dates more likely to happen. By showing you’re free for a date in the next three hours, you can see which of your matches are available too, overcoming the hit-and-miss of scheduling things outside of the app.
“In every part of our lives, the restrictions of lockdown have shown us how to be more mindful, deliberate, and to live more lightly and appreciate the small things in life. Dating, and online dating, are no exception, and we see how people are seeking to connect more, and more deeply, during this crisis,” explains Ayal.
“Dating has become a slower and gentler process where honesty, vulnerability and caring are sought out and there is potential to form long-lasting, strong partnerships. Let us hope we can retain some of these changes when the crisis passes.”
The Intentions Dating App is available on the App Store and Google Play.
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