Today’s guest post is by Eddy Ankrett. Sixteen years ago, Eddy set up Elite Introductions – an offline dating service with a strong focus on personal contact with members. Today, Eddy is Chairman of Dateline PLC, one of the UK’s most established dating companies, which offers online and offline with a personal offline home interview. Eddy is also a Director at White Label Dating.
As the online dating industry continues to boom, niche dating services are also rapidly growing in number. From pet lovers and vegetarians to singles with an exceptionally high IQ, it is now easier than ever for daters to find a service offering to put them in touch with potential partners sharing their interests.
Although compatibility is one of the keys to successful relationships, dating expert and Chairman of Dateline Platinum Eddy Ankrett warns that matching purely on the basis of a shared interest or lifestyle choice can potentially limit the long-term success of relationships.
Daters all have certain pre-requisites when it comes to their partners – looks, personality or behaviours that they either cannot tolerate or won’t be happy without. As a result, it makes sense to establish at an early point in a relationship whether a potential match suits their unique needs. However, limiting relationships to partners who share a single specific interest is a very extreme way of doing this.
Not only does this fail to take into account other aspects of a potential partner’s personality, but only dating people with the same interests and experiences to our own limits the chance of discovering new activities or interests through our relationships.
It is far more important that the decision to meet a new partner is based on an accurate and complete profile, which gives daters a clear idea of a possible match’s looks, personality and lifestyle. This helps to ensure that there are no obvious clashes, without restricting the range of people and personalities who can be met.
Niche Dating is a great way of opening a door to new relationship through joint interest, but beware that there is far more to love than ‘liking cats together’.
