Editor’s Letter: Mating Season


Dear Everyone, welcome to the next chapter in lesbian media, Velvetpark Mate. It was actually one year ago today that I returned to Velvetpark to pick up where the last great effort in lesbian media left off. So I’m marking this as a symbolic and auspicious day in Lesbianism.


While you dig in and explore the expanded profiles and interactive features, let me point out a few things to help you navigate. Once you’re logged in you can quickly access your profile page by clicking your name in your dashboard at the top of every page. The relationship link in your dashboard will take you to your relationships to see who’s pending, crushing on, or already BFF’d you. The "Mate" link in the menu takes you to search profiles — so you can find people quickly or just cruise the Park.

The love notes are pretty self explanatory. I noticed Diana already discovered how to “drunk text" using love notes.

When we conceived of how this dating site should work, it became clear to me that there was something wrong with the way online dating currently matches people.
 All other sites think it's a matter of calculating statistical data and creating an equation that works. If anyone has been on the free dating site Okcupid, where mathematicians try to analyze dating trends (that’s like asking Bill Gates to hook you up… gross), or if you’ve answered the bazillion questions on chemistry.com — then were told your perfect match is a builder, or answered the gajillion questions on eharmony only to be kicked off because you are a liberal wiccan queer, you know what I’m talkin' 'bout. 


I don’t care if you are a Harvard math whiz, or fricking Doctor Love you do not know sh*t about what makes a heart go thumpity-thump-thump.

Here is the conclusion I kept coming back to: dating and relationships are mysterious.

As Yonks so aptly put it in her comment earlier, sometimes a relationship that starts out as causal play can become serious and long-lasting. Who you are attracted to and your compatibility in a relationship evolves over time. Ex-lovers can become great friends, best friends sometimes turn into lovers, lovers turn into business partners... The mutation of our attractions and relationships are endless.

So we crafted Velvetpark Mate to reflect life. That’s right LIFE! And how do you navigate the ups and downs of life? With a little help from your friends. We are a community, people.

Diana said she is going to write a queer cultural historical analysis of Velvepark Mate for tomorrow, so I’ll wrap up my rambling to talk briefly about money.

Right now everything is free, but in a few weeks, several date features will be paid (full access to profiles, etc). As Alex explained in the video, we are keeping the rates really low. Basically, it will cost you less than 20 cents a day to use the dating features. I’ll give you more details on the why and the what before it happens, and again keep in mind it will cost you LESS than 20 cents a day!

Lets give a big thanks to Gwen our lead developer — without whom the world would not exist, Sketch our cute front end developer (who made Vp look the awesomest ever), Julia (and Chewie, her cat) who helped me think through all the features and wording. Thanks to all the contributors who gave input on the site and have kept the blogs rolling. Show some love to Alex, our plaid-clad video hostess; she was worried that she chose the wrong shirt to wear on the video.

And of course, to you! Thank you for believing in keeping community alive, and in the worthiness of lesbianism.

More to come.
 
In love and solidarity,
Grace Moon