I wanted to push some love towards a San Francisco couple, one Todd and Clare, who have helped my little sister find love, using her smartphone…
Warning: This is kind of therapy for me writing this, so feel free to bail if it’s too long and you’re not in for the extended read.
My 15-years-younger-than-me little sis, Taylor, had been looking for a truly nice (as in decent) guy - truthful, thoughtful, kind to others… for over 2 years since she left college. She was one of the millions of Americans who didn’t find her “true love” on campus. To give you more information, this is a girl who has not had good father/male role models to aspire to —our parents divorced way before her teens, and it was a horrible acrimonious divorce to put it mildly.
With her baby steps in traditional internet dating (match.com, pof.com, okcupid etc), the main problem she’s had both through college and online is that some of the "nice guys" she’s gone out with have not been genuinely nice, they have had a thin veneer of manners and "nice guy" behavior over a core of bitterness, resentment and entitlement.
From a young woman’s perspective; it hurts when you are friends with a guy and share and connect and then the guy drops you because their interest in being friendly with women only extends towards getting a girlfriend. That’s been Taylor’s typical experience dating online.
In her offline world, she’s mainly dealt with the awkwardness of being friends with guys who have a crush on her but will never make a move, which she’s found extremely frustrating. She’s told me she (like I suspect many girls in Taylor’s situation of being young and single) can tell the guys are interested in her but will not come out and just ask her out, because the overwhelming majority of the time they only want to hang out until they figure out she doesn't want to date them and then they bail on the "friendship".
It's a waste of her time to connect with these guys because there's no polite way for her to just blurt out that she’s not romantically interested in them. And when they haven't actively introduced the subject, she’s stuck being friendly while trying to give off the vibe that she’s not interested.
Taylor told me a couple of years ago she wanted to find a man like my husband of 15 years who I met in college. He had no money BUT he worked 2 minimum wage jobs to pay for his schooling. He showed his character in how he treated others, and quite proudly has been the most enduring, credible role model for Taylor ever since I could remember.
Such men are in short supply and not part of the internet dating world, it seemed, until an old female friend of mine last year, in summer 2014, sent me an RSVP to my inbox entitled “Todd and Clare –find a guy by email”. At first it looked like another circular women send each other, until I realized this was actually a kind of email dating agency. At the time of writing in July 2015, Todd and Clare still don’t have an actual website, but I’ve heard one is coming to put the network on the web before 2015 is out. So, Todd and Clare is like a kind of online village of friends who know each other. It’s like a community helping out friends, brothers, sisters and cousins in their city.
The biggest appeal of Todd and Clare is that everyone who is on the email database they’ve been accumulating since 2011 (including the guys) are someone’s friend who you know through someone. To give you an example of how this goes down: Woman A will have a brother, call him Man A, who is looking for a girlfriend. Instead of Man A persisting through the known high rejection rates of most common date sites, Man A will privately add his name to his sister, Woman A’s Todd and Clare list.
Woman A, then sends Man A’s name to Todd and Clare, with a short bio on him he’s forwarded her, a picture, and then his cell phone number and email. That list then gets sent to all the existing women friends in Todd and Clare’s database (tens of thousands) who in turn send the list to all their women friends and so on and so forth. Everyone can know that Man A is a verified, single guy with a stable job etc as a candidate, and think of a single girl they might know who would be in his area and good for him. It’s fun and generally women love helping friends.
In my sister’s case, she has been introduced to a guy—an investment banker called Josh who also lived in Astoria, NY—through Todd and Clare’s email list. Josh was one of the names on the circular list that came through to my inbox (Todd and Clare’s emails arrive like clockwork every Friday morning EST at 10.30am) Even though I didn’t personally know Josh, the fact his name was on the list, I knew he was a friend of a friend (I actually went to school with a friend who knows his sister)… so he’s someone’s brother… and armed with his backgrounder and bio, I felt comfortable about forwarding Josh’s details to my sister. She replied she was interested, putting down her cell number… he responded, they spoke a few times on the phone (this was back in April) met up for coffee and as they say, the rest is history. I don’t want to prejudice things, but obviously, it’s going well or I wouldn’t be writing this. I’m so happy for them both.
Todd and Clare is clever because the girls know the guys have arrived through someone, the guys obviously know that any girl’s details they get sent come from someone’s friend, sister or cousin etc. Almost all the guys on the list I’ve seen are white-collar professional graduate types, whose details I would be happy to pass on. I’ve sent Todd and Clare emails to about 10 of my girlfriends who have in turn passed it on. Even sent one to a friend of mine in London.
The dating part comes because it’s like matching through friends, looking down a list of guys thinking of your friends you know are single, and filtering what you would envision her with, and then pushing his contacts in her direction. Most people are loathe to admit the truth about biology. It's too impolite and inconvenient, but there is something biologically assuring in Todd and Clare’s “verified by friends” dating process.
If Todd and Clare do end up making a website out of this for everyone, I’m guessing they’ll need to somehow verify all the women who join, the guys verification will come from how they hear about it from their friends, coworkers, sisters etc… like Woman A’s brother. Like you, I of course can see flaws, what happens if he’s a serial killer right? But if the guys you’re dealing with are decent (and most guys are) then it would still work and at least the second part… of connecting to verified women through her friends… that doesn’t change.
I hear they’re going to keep the cell phone connection part which I really like; I’ve said to Taylor many times before she found Josh, the best way of meeting someone is going to be through someone you know. And connect with him OFFLINE asap, to find out if there’s any chemistry.
As long as Todd and Clare keep to their philosophy, don’t engage in any emotional manipulation experiments, I think their email or cell-phone network will help a lot of people in the dating scene, both guys and gals like my little sis, find someone good.
To any girls who read this and receive a Todd and Clare RSVP invite, you have my sincere wholehearted recommendation. In a time when most of the dating advice you're going to get from popular media is just wrong, these folks Todd and Clare in SF may have just solved a major problem through their interesting network of helping single women find eligible single, professional guys in cities.
The only advice I’d give to any men getting connected to verified women in Todd and Clare’s email/cell phone network:
Work on your own life. Get fit. Read more. Take care of your home. Be a guy who is "going places." It doesn't have to be about money, it's about direction.
Find your passion. Be a friend to yourself. Find the thing you love, that you feel confident about and then pursue it. Women are attracted to confidence.
Acknowledge the fact that women are attracted to passionate, assertive men. Learn the subtle art of being clear about your needs and intentions, without coming across like a rude asshole.
At least Todd and Clare have helped my difficult, impossibly lonely little sister find a great guy in Josh… so what better recommendation of something is there than that? In the narrow context of what they’re aiming for, Todd and Clare works like a charm.
I will be one of many female followers waiting to see how Todd and Clare’s website tackles some of the concerns I’ve raised if (or when now apparently) they transitions their existing email network to an online one that is open for the public…
UPDATE OCT/18, I've now learned that Todd and Clare's website is now up, here's the link: https://www.toddandclare.com/
Todd and Clare - the online dating by cell phone
by Hannah Bell
Jul 7, 2015
I wanted to push some love towards a San Francisco couple, one Todd and Clare, who have helped my little sister find love, using her smartphone…
Warning: This is kind of therapy for me writing this, so feel free to bail if it’s too long and you’re not in for the extended read.
My 15-years-younger-than-me little sis, Taylor, had been looking for a truly nice (as in decent) guy - truthful, thoughtful, kind to others… for over 2 years since she left college. She was one of the millions of Americans who didn’t find her “true love” on campus. To give you more information, this is a girl who has not had good father/male role models to aspire to —our parents divorced way before her teens, and it was a horrible acrimonious divorce to put it mildly.
With her baby steps in traditional internet dating (match.com, pof.com, okcupid etc), the main problem she’s had both through college and online is that some of the "nice guys" she’s gone out with have not been genuinely nice, they have had a thin veneer of manners and "nice guy" behavior over a core of bitterness, resentment and entitlement.
From a young woman’s perspective; it hurts when you are friends with a guy and share and connect and then the guy drops you because their interest in being friendly with women only extends towards getting a girlfriend. That’s been Taylor’s typical experience dating online.
In her offline world, she’s mainly dealt with the awkwardness of being friends with guys who have a crush on her but will never make a move, which she’s found extremely frustrating. She’s told me she (like I suspect many girls in Taylor’s situation of being young and single) can tell the guys are interested in her but will not come out and just ask her out, because the overwhelming majority of the time they only want to hang out until they figure out she doesn't want to date them and then they bail on the "friendship".
It's a waste of her time to connect with these guys because there's no polite way for her to just blurt out that she’s not romantically interested in them. And when they haven't actively introduced the subject, she’s stuck being friendly while trying to give off the vibe that she’s not interested.
Taylor told me a couple of years ago she wanted to find a man like my husband of 15 years who I met in college. He had no money BUT he worked 2 minimum wage jobs to pay for his schooling. He showed his character in how he treated others, and quite proudly has been the most enduring, credible role model for Taylor ever since I could remember.
Such men are in short supply and not part of the internet dating world, it seemed, until an old female friend of mine last year, in summer 2014, sent me an RSVP to my inbox entitled “Todd and Clare –find a guy by email”. At first it looked like another circular women send each other, until I realized this was actually a kind of email dating agency. At the time of writing in July 2015, Todd and Clare still don’t have an actual website, but I’ve heard one is coming to put the network on the web before 2015 is out. So, Todd and Clare is like a kind of online village of friends who know each other. It’s like a community helping out friends, brothers, sisters and cousins in their city.
The biggest appeal of Todd and Clare is that everyone who is on the email database they’ve been accumulating since 2011 (including the guys) are someone’s friend who you know through someone. To give you an example of how this goes down: Woman A will have a brother, call him Man A, who is looking for a girlfriend. Instead of Man A persisting through the known high rejection rates of most common date sites, Man A will privately add his name to his sister, Woman A’s Todd and Clare list.
Woman A, then sends Man A’s name to Todd and Clare, with a short bio on him he’s forwarded her, a picture, and then his cell phone number and email. That list then gets sent to all the existing women friends in Todd and Clare’s database (tens of thousands) who in turn send the list to all their women friends and so on and so forth. Everyone can know that Man A is a verified, single guy with a stable job etc as a candidate, and think of a single girl they might know who would be in his area and good for him. It’s fun and generally women love helping friends.
In my sister’s case, she has been introduced to a guy—an investment banker called Josh who also lived in Astoria, NY—through Todd and Clare’s email list. Josh was one of the names on the circular list that came through to my inbox (Todd and Clare’s emails arrive like clockwork every Friday morning EST at 10.30am) Even though I didn’t personally know Josh, the fact his name was on the list, I knew he was a friend of a friend (I actually went to school with a friend who knows his sister)… so he’s someone’s brother… and armed with his backgrounder and bio, I felt comfortable about forwarding Josh’s details to my sister. She replied she was interested, putting down her cell number… he responded, they spoke a few times on the phone (this was back in April) met up for coffee and as they say, the rest is history. I don’t want to prejudice things, but obviously, it’s going well or I wouldn’t be writing this. I’m so happy for them both.
Todd and Clare is clever because the girls know the guys have arrived through someone, the guys obviously know that any girl’s details they get sent come from someone’s friend, sister or cousin etc. Almost all the guys on the list I’ve seen are white-collar professional graduate types, whose details I would be happy to pass on. I’ve sent Todd and Clare emails to about 10 of my girlfriends who have in turn passed it on. Even sent one to a friend of mine in London.
The dating part comes because it’s like matching through friends, looking down a list of guys thinking of your friends you know are single, and filtering what you would envision her with, and then pushing his contacts in her direction. Most people are loathe to admit the truth about biology. It's too impolite and inconvenient, but there is something biologically assuring in Todd and Clare’s “verified by friends” dating process.
If Todd and Clare do end up making a website out of this for everyone, I’m guessing they’ll need to somehow verify all the women who join, the guys verification will come from how they hear about it from their friends, coworkers, sisters etc… like Woman A’s brother. Like you, I of course can see flaws, what happens if he’s a serial killer right? But if the guys you’re dealing with are decent (and most guys are) then it would still work and at least the second part… of connecting to verified women through her friends… that doesn’t change.
I hear they’re going to keep the cell phone connection part which I really like; I’ve said to Taylor many times before she found Josh, the best way of meeting someone is going to be through someone you know. And connect with him OFFLINE asap, to find out if there’s any chemistry.
As long as Todd and Clare keep to their philosophy, don’t engage in any emotional manipulation experiments, I think their email or cell-phone network will help a lot of people in the dating scene, both guys and gals like my little sis, find someone good.
To any girls who read this and receive a Todd and Clare RSVP invite, you have my sincere wholehearted recommendation. In a time when most of the dating advice you're going to get from popular media is just wrong, these folks Todd and Clare in SF may have just solved a major problem through their interesting network of helping single women find eligible single, professional guys in cities.
The only advice I’d give to any men getting connected to verified women in Todd and Clare’s email/cell phone network:
At least Todd and Clare have helped my difficult, impossibly lonely little sister find a great guy in Josh… so what better recommendation of something is there than that? In the narrow context of what they’re aiming for, Todd and Clare works like a charm.
I will be one of many female followers waiting to see how Todd and Clare’s website tackles some of the concerns I’ve raised if (or when now apparently) they transitions their existing email network to an online one that is open for the public…
UPDATE OCT/18, I've now learned that Todd and Clare's website is now up, here's the link: https://www.toddandclare.com/