all photos: Im Gegenteil
Being single in Berlin and wanting to change it is not the easiest thing. Paradoxically the quantity of possibilites to meet and hook up with someone seems to go inversely proportional to the actual flirting happening in this city. That is why I gave you some advice on how to flirt on the public transport not so long ago. Did it help? Eventually. But we cannot ride in eternity in the single Ringbahn just waiting for the right guy or girl sitting next to us. So maybe the intrepid Berlin dweller wants to try his luck online hoping for cupid hitting him through the window of his browser.
Until now I would have told you that there is no way to flirt online with dignity. There is always the stinky slime of cheap superficiality all over it of choosing someone because his profile pic looks sexy, nice or interesting (whatever you are looking for). But two girls with entrepreneurial spirit finally did something I was thinking about in years without a concrete solution: Re-inventing online dating.
Im Gegenteil is a curated interview magazine featuring Berlin’s most interesting bachelors and bachelorettes. The look and feel, is very personal and the photos are high-quality and remind me of Freunde von Freunden, which is big compliment. So far so good. Still the page got me thinking and raised a couple of questions which I also discussed with my friends. Would we like to be portrayed on Im Gegenteil? Would we write somebody who is interviewed there? What happens with the interview after the single is not single anymore? Does it remain as an online memory of desperates times? Some personal answers after the jump.
UPDATE: Don’t miss a live reading event of the best stories from the Im Gegenteil blog taking place at Backfabrik on Wednesday, May 20th 2015.
As I said before, I think Im Gegenteil is probably one of the best online innovations I saw in the dating sector in the last years. I admire the hard work behind every interview and as someone who puts a lot of hard work himself into an online project I can appreciate this a lot. Also, I like that all the portraid people are different in age, gender, preference. The common ground for now is that all are good looking and have exceptional taste and interesting lives. This is obviously not the fault of the editors behind it because the project has just started, but still I hope for the future that there will be more diverse characters in the upcoming weeks. Maybe someone showing his apartment as a total mess but with a funny smile. Or somebody with a boring job but still a nice live. I know that the girls wanted to present the interview partners in the best light as possible, but maybe this gives im Gegenteil for me personally a little sour taste of narcissism. Fair enough, being single is also about loving yourself and embracing who you are. But is 20 beautiful pictures of you in your beautiful surrounding going to change the fact that you don’t want to spend your Sunday evening alone on the couch. I am not 100% sure.
Being very curious, I would love to know how many requests the interviewed people are getting. If they are submerged with pleasant dates or if the website is still to small to create enough potential outcome. Talking to a female friend of mine she told me that she really likes the website, but she pointed out that it is a site made by girls. “A guy I would love to date would never search for me on such a pretty, marshmallowish website. He is a hunter searching for the right girl in some dark beat pounding night club.”
“Also,” she continuos “I have enough problems with guys who are too intimidated by me and my life. Most of the time I have to play it low if I want to at least have 2-3 dates. Being on such a site with all the facts about me and all the photos of me and my apartment would scare off even more guys I might like and attract those Mitte-agency-office-stallions which are searching for a trophy girl to bring to Fashion Week – something I am not.”
This said, I think that Im Gegenteil has a lot of potential, also in terms of improving. By diversifying their interview spectrum and maybe getting some male opinions on the design of the site they would loose their hipster-lover-image and maybe getting interest from more kinds of people. What I also feel as difficult from my perspective is the privacy problem. Call me old-fashioned, but if I would meet someone I would love to introduce him into my life step by step, not serving him everything on a silver platter before I even know him. Even if I am not ashamed of being single I don’t need all Berlin to know about it in an interview. It would definitely feel strange to me, if my clients or any co-worker or maybe old semi-friends would read such a personal portray. But this is just my view on it.
I am glad that people in Berlin show such an active participation in solving the problem of the city. Im Gegenteil is a beatiful designed and edited solution for the lonely hearts of town and I am happy to recommend it. Just not to myself (for now). I still prefer to read articles about hooking up in an art gallery and other real live solutions/adventures that eventually will help in meeting the right one one day.
