Opinion

Guest Post: Why Entrepreneurs Need Their Own Dating Space

The following post is a guest post submitted by Jon Pellington, Founder of www.thesingleboss.co.uk


Everyone loves success. It’s hard work becoming successful, but once you’re there you get laid (the tale goes). But just look at the stats on how many successful people have unsatisfactory relationships. Maybe it’s the type A meeting the type B and hoping to gel? Or the type B hitching their wagon to a shooting star and discovering that the ride’s too fast? Let’s look at the types.

You know the entrepreneurial type. Full of get-go, caffeine, can do attitude, and actually wants to solve problems. And most likely broke. The herd here is thin, and gets culled every day. Between the endless pitching to VC’s who want to know your blood group, and insist you name your firstborn after them if they spare you a dime, to the constant rejection, you have to respect the persistence of the entrepreneur. When they make it, they really make it. A lot of the time, whether the win is big or small, they can end up feeling misunderstood by their partners if they are in a relationship.

You also know the super employee, the type we all hate loving. Geeze where do these people come from? They are driven, and drive everyone insane with their German efficiency, Japanese work ethic and British humour: they turn up early, finish late, are passionate and make things happen. They are not just a cog in a machine, they are ‘the machine’ and often labelled as such. Guess what, they have few people to share their success with who “get it”. Even the terminator has feelings.

We can’t forget the business owner. Most of us work for them and want to be them unless we’re the entrepreneur: These are the people who make the world go round, the ones who care about more than just their pockets, and in solving all our problems their pockets swell. We love them, mainly because they enable our Netflix, overpriced gym, yoga and matcha addiction. They allow us to not live at home in our twenties, put up with our favourite cause, adopt insta-twat-gram because, well to not do so, is simply bad business. And like entrepreneurs and super employees, they are often lonely. Cats just don’t make the cut.

You yourself might fall into one of these groups (let’s call them jointly the kick-ass group). You no doubt know someone who does. Now how does this relate to dating? Well, it could be lots of things, but what I’m getting at is this. They find it hard to connect with a majority of people! You’re probably thinking… what the hell are you talking about? But let me back it up: of course, if you’re part of the kick-ass group you get on with people, you have to, no two ways about it. But you probably find dating hard! I’m talking shooting the breeze, getting into a relationship and simply having non-work conversations over a coffee.

I hope you’re still with me. You see, most people work 9-5, do their job well (or well enough not to get fired) and, work is work. Now as these people make up a majority of the population, there is inherently some conflict when they meet up with someone from the kick-ass group. From experience, and knowing many many people in a similar situation, talking about your passion, with passion, is something let’s call them the “other half” don’t get.

Now, this isn’t meant to sound in any way, shape or form elitist, exclusive or self-aggrandising, but the fundamental mindsets at play are different. Of course, there are people in the other half who ‘get you’, ‘get it’ and are happy for you and are maybe close to doing something slightly out of the box themselves, but, it’s not a huge number. So date after date you run into the same issue, occasionally finding a gem, but it’s so much more work than you expect. And you work hard enough as it is.

So how do we solve this? What’s the solution? IS there one? We believe so, and if not ‘the’ solution it’s a damn good way of addressing this problem. We created the www.thesingleboss.co.uk specifically to deal with this issue by bringing together singles from this kick-ass group. A lot of these people don’t meet as often as you may think, and when they do it’s strictly business.

Yes, there are meetups, networking events, speed-dating, ethnic dating, launch events etc etc. But who actually relaxes at those? We decided to take the relaxed, comfortable and fun approach for single, passionate, energetic, high achievers. It’s a more fundamental approach to meeting and clicking with people of the same mindset.

Catch the next event on the 30th August, at Perini and Perini, Oxford Circus by going to www.thesingleboss.co.uk. GDI readers can enjoy 25% off with checkout code GDI-KICKASS.

Scott Harvey

Scott is the Editor of Global Dating Insights. Raised in Dorset, he holds a BA from The University of Nottingham and an MSc from Lund University School of Economics and Management. Previously he has written about politics, economics and technology for various online publications.

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