by Chrissy Iley
New statistics about how we date, how we meet people and fall in love alarmed me. It seems that no one meets and becomes meaningful in the old fashioned way – eyes find each other across a crowded room and ignite.
You feel you met this other person in another life and you can’t wait to get to know them in this one. No, that is a fairy tale. Life changed with the arrival of Tinder. Sex if not love became all too readily accessible with very little effort.
So often I hear horror stories and women saying `This man was really into me, it was full on, and suddenly he disappeared.’ Perhaps that is because there was no real connection.
Dreamcliq have come up with something better. Something, that they feel is unique and connection forming all at the same time. It is dating by pictures. A brand new approach to online dating, based on visual communication
It’s a dating site where if you like the pictures someone posts it could mean you like the look of them. You don’t have to be attracted to the same pictures; it is just the idea that you get to know them more than through a regular dating profile. The visual is somehow more visceral. With images there are no lies or half truths.
We asked Melissa Jones, founder and CEO, how she came up with it and why:
First of all who are you?
I’m a creative director working in NYC. I have a small agency called DTE Studio and we do branding and advertising for fashion, lifestyle and luxury clients.
What gave you the idea for a dating website based on the mutual connection to various images?
I am the publisher of an arts blog called Dream The End; and one day we thought, wouldn’t it be so cool of you could grab the art, music, writing you loved and be connected to others who liked the same things? Since we did not want to limit it to artists, we wanted to include things that everyone loves, like books, fashion, travel and leisure – then Dreamcliq was born.
Do you think that both men and women respond to visuals the same way?
I think everyone responds to images in their own private way. I think that a visual profile can be more expressive of your passions and what you’re into, even subconsciously it can be very expressive. On Dreamcliq you can create a profile that is filled with lots of different images of all the things you love from style to travel to music and art – it’s the combination of these images that creates a much faster glimpse into someone you don’t know.
What convinced you that if you are attracted to the same visuals there would be a meeting of minds, a connection?
I don’t think you have to like the same things (or images) to be a good match romantically. The idea is that when you’re trying to get to know someone through their dating profile, it’s much easier to see if you might have a connection to someone through a visual profile. Our goal is to create opportunities for you to find someone you’re inspired by. If that means it’s someone who loves exactly the same things as you then great, but it certainly doesn’t have to be that way.
Did you study the psychology of this? If so, what did you learn?
When we very first had people join Dreamcliq, I used to write personally to every new user to introduce myself and get their feedback. I loved looking at everyone’s profiles to see what images they grabbed, it told me so much about who they were, it helped me know how to write to them too – that’s another great thing, it just makes the conversation-starter so much easier when you can see what someone loves through the images in the profile. There were many people who loved much of the same art that I love, or had posted many of the same record covers that I love and I would see the images on their profiles and see things I had yet to discover and it was so nice discovering and being inspired by our users.
We do have a section on our blog that covers the image trends that we observe. Funny things like people in their 20s tend to like to travel to cities whereas 30-somethings like me love a relaxing beach.
Popular bands, books and TV shows tend to get a lot of love too. The Great Gatsby is the most popular posted book on our site which is interesting – I haven’t derived much from these things yet, we’re still just excited to see what people share.
Do you like the same pictures as your partner?
I’d say my partner and I have a cross over, and I think it is like this for many people when relationships are good – two people can like the same things, not just in art and images, but in how they like their travel, style and music, then there’s a part of the relationship where each person brings their own way of discovering the new, whether it’s a new restaurant, a new place to travel to, a new idea or a thought-provoking topic and you start to discover, to be inspired and grow together.
How it works…Browsing and saving profiles you like is free. You only pay a small fee ($2.50/£1.50) to send a first message to someone you are interested in. The recipient has 7 days to reply to that first message and after that it’s free to message forever.
Users are much more likely to reply when they know you have paid specifically to speak with them. If you do not hear back from your ‘crush’ within 7 days after the first message is sent, they will credit you half back so you can use it towards CLIQ’ing with someone else.
Dreamcliq.com, $2.50 (£1.50) for 1 Cliq Credit; $20.00 (£12) for 10 Cliq Credits; $35.00 (£20) for 20 Cliq Credits.