It's a week like any other: Joe Blogs continues his search for love. He checks out his various dating profiles, sends a few messages, and then decides to strike out with a new dating app that lets him offer to buy his prospective paramour a tank of petrol in exchange for her driving to a coffee shop to meet him. She accepts, and they have their goodbye kiss over the unleaded pump.
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No, it's not a scene from some as-yet unreleased romantic comedy, but the world put forth by new dating app Carrot Dating. A sort of unholy union of Tinder and eBay, Carrot Dating's premise is simple (if sure to make you a little nostalgic for a simpler time): convince people to go on dates with you by offering them a material gift in return. In other words, by dangling a carrot in front of him/her.
The official spin from Carrot Dating's creators is certainly a step away from the usual "love yourself so that others can love you" spin. Rather, they posit that whatever special gifts you bring to the date or burgeoning relationship are literally that, gifts: “This unique approach teaches singles to always bring something to the table. Whether it is a special gift or a unique activity, the Carrot Dating app gives you the power to prove your worth and date the man or woman of your dreams.”
It's perhaps not surprising that the app has a certain hint of the mercenary to it: Carrot Dating was designed by Brandon Wade, an MIT graduate who also invented SeekingArrangement.com (where enterprising young women – and a few men – seek "sugar daddies" and "sugar mommies") and WhatsYourPrice.com (where singles are able to set a price, yes really, for a date with them), among a number of other dating enterprises that would make Scrooge McDuck nod in appreciation.
There's been plenty of consternation about Wade's growing dating empire. The more polite coverage simply calls his success “controversial”, where others have called him “Mr Sugar Daddy” and wondered whether he is “a legal pimp”.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Wade dismissed the writer's claims that his spin on dating is effectively prostitution “because there is chemistry involved in these relationships. It's not a one-time exchange of money for sex. Most people who meet on the site don't have sex on the first date. After a relationship forms, sex becomes part of the relationship.”
The obvious difference between Carrot Dating and Wade's other sites is that bringing a gift (or, if you want, a bribe) isn't all that different from hokey old-fashioned ideas like bringing a heart-shaped box of chocolates to your date's front door.
So, does Carrot Dating bring a new dimension of, well, desperation to the notion of “desperate and dateless”, or does it simply recognise that the dating world is competitive and the offer of a new pair of shoes or tank of petrol might be just the kicker to lift your message above the throng?
It's true that, even at the best of times, dating can seem a little like hard work. From the vague hint of “job interview” of the inevitable 20-question-style initial banter to the logistics of where, when and who pays what, the search for the one – or even just someone – isn't necessarily non-stop romance.
But if you need a “carrot” in order to get to those 20 questions, you've got to wonder if your heart's really in it – and if you need to be the carrot-dangler (as it were) to get a date, it might be time to step away from the dating circuit and have a good hard look at yourself.
