A man who swiped endlessly on dating apps but couldn’t get a date finally found love the old fashioned way - and created an app of his own to help others do the same.
Josh Wood, 31, was in his early twenties when he first downloaded Tinder and reckons he was one of its earliest users.
Even being invited to the dating app’s launch party, Josh, originally from Surrey but now living in London, had high hopes for Tinder.
But as the years went by and more dating apps like Hinge and Bumble crowded the field, Josh found himself with lots of potential interest - but very few real-life dates.
Overall, Josh reckons he had 300 matches across dating apps in the years he was using them, but he was frustrated when hardly any of them led to dates.
“When I moved to London I continued to use dating apps for about a year. I’d tried them all but always had the same frustrations that girls didn’t reply,” Josh told The Mirror.
He explained he thinks there are pros and cons to how apps have changed the dating scene.
“I think they have obviously made it a lot easier to date and opened you up to a lot of new people. You can connect with someone so easily and there are so many success stories,” he explained.
But he added: “People have a lot more choice and it makes people picky. They’re just looking for that absolutely perfect person because they can swipe through 5,000 people.”
After giving up on the apps for good, Josh knuckled down at work and pushed the idea of finding love aside for about three years.
But one day, while watching the Champions League final at a bar in Chelsea, Josh saw a woman who caught his attention - and decided to introduce himself the old fashioned way.
The woman he said hello to was called Lisa - and the pair are now in a happy relationship.
While Josh’s love life had picked up, he had also been busy with work, developing an app of his own.
Bloc, which has now been operating for five years, is a social events app - that can lead to a date if people want.
Populated with every public venue in the world including arenas, stadiums, restaurants and bars, users of the app can ‘check in’ at the venue and then ‘swipe’ on other people who have also checked in there.
“Although the idea of Bloc was sparked from dating apps, we didn’t want it to be a dating app,” Josh said.
“We mainly reward people for checking in and attending venues. The byproduct of that is you can see all the other people who have checked in there.”
Every time a user checks in using Bloc, they are gifted the app’s currency, which they can then spend on the app’s store.
“The biggest problem we’re solving is that you’re very likely to meet that person in that venue if you’ve connected with each other, whether you want to date them or not,” he said.
Josh added the app had a “rollercoaster couple of years” when the pandemic hit and no one was checking into any venues at all.
But since lockdowns have eased and life has tentatively returned to normal, the app’s activity is increasing - and it now has 200,000 users.
Another issue that Josh hopes his app has tackled is safety - particularly for women. Every user goes through a verification check when they first sign up, and the team is working on adding more layers of security.
He said: “The big difference is when someone meets a person on Tinder or Bumble, they go to meet them alone.
“With Bloc, it’s about checking into a venue like a bar, which you’ll usually go to with your friends.
“Maybe a boy and a girl would match on the app and the boy would ask the girl and her friends to hang out with him and his friends.
“It’s usually in a group so there’s safety in numbers.”
While most of the app’s users are based in the UK, it allows you to check into venues around the world - and Josh wants to expand in the near future.
He said: “You can download it here and then check into a nightclub in Vegas if you wanted to.”
