Dating can be stressful, a drain on your mental and emotional energy, a time-wasting experience, embarrassing, or all of the above! One relationship site gives one set of rules, while another site gives out almost contradictory rules. Which ones to follow? Which ones to ignore? What to do? Where to go? Should you choose Tinder because of its popularity? Or should you go with Bumble, from the ex-Tinder employees? Or is the newest app The Grade a better option? Or the women-centric Siren, a good choice?
Ugh! Seems like a simple act of going out with someone interesting has become a hassle, and dating has become a nameless, faceless dragon to slay. Well, if you’re feeling something similar, fikar not, for there is a new dating app, Courtem, hoping to bring back old-fashioned courting to the present day. I know that another app ain’t going to solve all our problems, but hear me out.
Courtem page showing a user’s profile
Courtem is the brainchild of four brothers – Peter, Alex, Adie, and Andrew von Gontard. Unlike other dating apps which focus almost solely on physical looks to determine if a person is even worth your time, Courtem evokes the laws of courtship with the introduction of a direct date proposal system based on mutual interests.
Here’s how it works.
Similar to the existing dating apps, you can view a user’s profile info, their photos, their interests, along with any friends you may have in common. Now comes the interesting part. You can connect with another user almost immediately, who will court you “via a directed date proposal approach.”
Courtem page showing a date proposal submitted by another user
According the literature available on the site, it helps a user to recognize mutual interests so that they can court that person. By proposing a date which showcases your strengths, it helps you put your best foot forward. If you’re funny, come up with a date idea that leaves your date in splits. If you share a mutual love of ballet, then propose a date that you both would surely enjoy. Not just proposing innovative and perfect dates, but the app also helps set the date and time for the ‘perfect’ date, via its iCalendar function.
One of the founders, Alex, explains how Courtem works, “Once a user receives a date proposal, they have the option to a) immediately accept the date, b) reject the date, c) opt to bring a friend along on the date – using the app’s wingman/wingwoman feature (creating a potential double date scenario), or d) they can playfully ask the date proposer to ‘Up Offer,’ and respond to the date proposal using a scrolling feature of preselected responses.”
Courtem page showing the date proposals on offer
Currently based out of Dallas, Courtem’s direct approach cuts through the sometimes-useless banter, and actually lets you court someone, the old-fashioned way.
Alex continued, saying, “Singles join Courtem to see what someone might propose to them as the best date of their life. Courtem also simplifies an individual’s decision to either accept or reject a date proposal based on its unique user rating system. This rating system ensures that users only accept date proposals from top candidates, i.e., users with high star ratings. In addition, we also urge all our users to thoroughly review one another’s profile, interests, friends-in-common, proximity, and star rating to help them develop their best date proposal.”
One more interesting feature of Courtem is that once you propose a unique date to someone and they accept it, the proposal can be viewed by others and potentially be poached too! So if you’ve run out of unique date ideas, you could always cheat off of someone else 😉
Currently, the app is functional in Dallas, with plans to expand to major markets across US to cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami. The app executives are pretty confident that chivalry isn’t dead, and that they can definitely breathe life into old-fashioned courting principles in 21st century.
Featured image source: Google, copyright-free image under Creative Commons License
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