[afarrell]

May I shamelessly plug my friend's startup?

http://www.jessmeetken.com/ is based on introductions from women to other women, which eliminated the problem that women's inboxes are filled with lots of low-quality (and occasionally vulgar) messages.

[yarou]

Seems like an interesting premise.

However, I don't know how I'd feel about being introduced to a potential romantic interest by a female friend.

I don't claim to be an expert on dating, but I intuitively understand how social dynamics work.

[imaginenore]

Yeah, a woman letting go of a great guy seems strange. Women fight over great guys, not recommend them to other women.

[daxelrod]

What about women who are already in relationships? Or platonic friends with the guy? Or not into men?

There's a lot of situations in which this dynamic would work just fine.

[asavadatti]

Why wouldn't they just recommend the guy in real life then? Why need a complicated set up?

[imaginenore]

What would such a woman be doing on a dating website?

[tomjen3]

The problem with that is that if I knew a girl I wouldn't need online dating.

He is right that there need to be some kind of filtering though - the problem is that the men women want to date are also the girls most likely to put up with the filters.

[pavel_lishin]

> The problem with that is that if I knew a girl I wouldn't need online dating.

You don't know any women?

I think that this differs from your scenario in that Jess is vouching for a guy for basically anyone, vs. Ken asking all of his female friends if they know anyone they'd be a good match with.

[afarrell]

Does the person in question not have any female friends? If not, then that is a problem they will want to solve first before getting into dating.

[kiiski]

How so? I don't have any female friends (I don't have any male ones either). If I started looking for a girlfriend (which I currently don't), I would indeed be looking solely for a romantic relationship, so I don't see how having female friends would be a prerequisite.

That said, I don't think that matters for the site in question. I'm just not a part of their target audience. Doesn't mean their idea doesn't work for other people.

[hluska]

If you really love women, you'll love being friends with women just as much as you love being in romantic relationships with women. If you don't really love women, I'd likely suggest that you just don't date - loneliness or social proof of your value are shitty reasons to get into a relationship.

[kenzokai]

I agree with the others.. why is your writing so hard to parse?

If you knew "a" girl, it doesn't necessarily mean she'd want to date you, or that you'd date her girlfriends (what if her friends were all guys?)

The idea is that you have a female to vouch for you, which is social proof.

[selimthegrim]

I'm having trouble parsing that last? The women men want to date you meant?