A Groupon Dating Site? Um… What?
When you think of dating; the fun of meeting a new person, the excitement of flirting, the joy of beginning a relationship, what is the first word that comes to mind? Sparks? Romance? Connection and exhilaration and chemistry? How about
SPAWN?
Yeah, not so much, right?
To me, it kindles thoughts of the movie Alien, or some disgusting cluster of larvae or maybe just a really annoying kid in a grocery store knocking things off the shelves. But apparently, to the people at Groupon, it’s the perfect name for a dating site.
Disclaimer: I LOVE GROUPON. I have spent the last year as a Groupon junkie, purchasing almost every one of the coupons that landed in my inbox, to the point that I had to disable e-mail notifications because I was scooping up every restaurant, facial, rock climbing and waxing coupon that came my way. There was no way I’d ever have time to use them all…. but boy oh BOY do I love Groupon. That being said,
WHAT? WHAT?! Why is this a thing? A quick perusal of the site showed it was just as I expected, a silly, Bay-area hipster driven site full of “jokes” and “witty sayings” and other “jokes.” Barf. And apparently they’re offering a couple that met on a Groupon date and had a baby a college fun for their, ahem, “Grouspon.” Double barf.*
I am used to Groupon’s off-brand, uncomfortably strange comedic additions to their e-mails. I always tried to squint my eyes to skim it and make sure there were no terms or conditions listed in the end blurb of their e-mails so as to not have to subject myself to some silly “fact” someone made up by way of Mad Lib book. No thanks, just give me my ten bikini-line laser treatments for 5 dollars and spare me the small talk.
This site’s language is very similar to the Groupon e-mails: packed like a fat lady in acid-wash jeans with “quirky” jokes that serve no purpose (e.g. my reference to a fat lady in acid-washed jeans).
I think that Grouspawn is a joke (I hope that it’s a joke), but there are definitely a solid array of real, normal(ish) looking people with profiles and pictures that look like they may actually be looking for a date on a website that sells COUPONS.
But hey — who am I to judge. We’re living in a time when over 10% of the population is unemployed and people are living paycheck to paycheck and children are starving and schools don’t have like, paper. If people can meet and fall in love on a site where it is pre-emptively understood that coupon usage is not only somewhat acceptable but quirkily adorable? Uh, sure, let’s do it.
We wish you luck, Grouspawn. I think.
[*I'm not even gonna go into the whole idea of the Grouspon fund because reading the FAQ is like trying to wade through a transcript of a Robin Williams stand up routine. No thanks. ]
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