There is a dating app for those who attended to private school - the concept is repugnant
I'm not the type to gasp.
For years, I've written and broadcast about sex, relationships, and dating — and I've met a lot of people who some might consider 'out there,' including findoms who turn men on by emptying their bank accounts, naked cleaners, and a dominatrix who wouldn't let her slave 'Chicken Boy' talk to me unless she first got permission.
It's safe to say that during the course of my work, I've encountered a number of "not so ordinary" people and been in situations that would have surprised others. But no gasps have ever escaped my lips.
That is, until I learned about Toffee, which bills itself as "the world's first dating app for privately educated people." I was all gasps and serious obscenities as I read more about their 'exclusive' service, which would have the poshies grasping for their smelling salts.
Let me give you a little more information from their news release. While you read, oik me has a cup of Rosie. (I'll leave their inexperienced writer's errors in.)
'The first dating app for people who were privately educated is now available for free to everybody (who attended a private school)....'
It then goes on to say that its customers must of course' have gone to a fee-paying school, before adding that 'Toffee wants its users to spend their parents' money on what they love, not on discovering it.'
Do you wish for more? Lydia Davis, a self-described professional matchmaker and Toffee Co-Founder, continues, "If you've paid to go to school, we believe you've earned the right to date the best in class, for free."
How. This. Is. Even. Genuine? I'm not sure I've ever heard of anything quite so obnoxious and arrogant. And I spend the majority of my time on Twitter.
This software also displays one of the most repulsive elements of this country: the rich and privileged's ugly-smug, in-built superiority complex. And, yeah, I'm referring about the disgusting, unsettling dog whistling that the classless class enjoys.
This software is subtly implying that only the wealthy should reproduce with the wealthy, and that only the most 'attractive' individuals should be reproduced. ('Eugenics,' Tarquin, is such a lovely name for your firstborn.) Classism is revolting!
Lydia, as Co-Founder of Toffee, would no likely say that all this talk of 'best in class' is nonsense — and that her line, "we all know that it's our shared values and experiences that helps us stick together," is a rational reaction to real-world study. However, the 'opposites attract' notion she's dismissing – one that we're all acquainted with - is predicated on discovering complementing features, not breeding out the peasants.
Even if Lydia Toffee does not believe that humans are superior by birth, what was she thinking when she published that blurb? Is she unable to read the not-drawing room?
To say the least, the app, the premise, and the Toffees who use it all revolting. I'm sorry, but I'm unable to Adam and Eve them. And, full admission, I was on the verge of becoming one of them. I'm almost qualified for the application. I attended seven different schools, one of which being a private institution. My builder father and housewife mother couldn't pay the school tuition, so I dropped out after a year.
Which is the most working-class thing ever: they wanted to give their children more opportunities than they had, but pawning Mum's wedding ring on a monthly basis wasn't enough money. (And I'm not sure my school would pass the Toffee test... A property in Tooting, south London, isn't quite up to their standards. Thank you, God.)
Credits Bibi Lynch