Meet the dating app for people embarrassed by their own profiles

Say you’re swiping through the pages of your favorite dating app, when you abruptly recognize a client from work. Or a friend. Or your boss. While being single, digital, and ready to mingle certainly has its ups, there is always the chance that your virtual dating profile will be spotted by someone you hadn’t expected – with awkward results.

That’s the kind of situation that a new dating app called Blindfold hopes to eliminate. Designed for those who would like to keep their private lives private yet still engage in the world of online dating, Blindfold keeps its users anonymous until both sides of a match agree to unmask.

“Blindfold users are singles who are conscious of their reputations, whether for personal or professional reasons,” says Blindfold founder and CEO Wendy Tse, who’s based in Singapore. “They may also be shy to be seen on online dating.”

Losing face

It works like this: you sign up for the service, enter some basic information, and get paired with a potential match – yet they can’t see your name or photo, and you can’t see theirs. The only information available is a username, some basic non-identifying info, and a blurred photo (or one with Blindfold’s mask on top).

The two users are hooked into a text chat, where they can get to know each other and – if the mood is right – decide to “unmask” to reveal their genuine information and plan a meetup.

To ease people into the world of online dating, Blindfold allows users to enter their Facebook logins and receive matches who are friends-of-friends.

“Having mutual friends also increases the chances of having similar values, interests, and sense of humor,” says Wendy, who is quick to point out that the feature is strictly optional, for those interested in dating within their existing social circles.

While designed for people seeking to avoid uncomfortable collisions of their private and public lives, the app also helps cut through the superficial nature of many modern swipe-left/swipe-right dating apps. Because user photos aren’t revealed until both parties have agreed to do so, it’s impossible to swipe through endless profiles, judging everyone by their appearance alone.

“Many of my most beautiful female clients are sick of men who only want them for their looks,” says Tse. “This is a way for them to screen the insincere ones.”

Expanding from Singapore

Wendy formerly worked as a manager at Society W, a high-end matchmaking service for Singapore singles. For now, Blindfold is still largely Singapore-based. Some features, like Blindfold matchmakers’ ability to check users’ personal identification numbers against the Singapore Registry of Marriages to assure that each person is actually single, are not easy to scale beyond the city-state.

Within Singapore, it is facing some competition from other dating apps, like Paktor and Noonswoon, but Wendy is less concerned with dominating the market and more focused on establishing a strong niche for Blindfold.

“Growing to a big user base is not the be all and end all for us,” she says. “We want our users to understand and trust us.”