For better or for worse, dating has become increasingly dependent on swiping, matching, and shaking your phone. We live in a world of pings, messages, and alerts. The smartphone dating revolution also means its a little easier to find your niche. There are christian dating apps, farmer dating apps, dating apps exclusively for bearded men. Now, we finally have Glimmer: the first dating app that explicitly promotes inclusivity differently abled people.
Steve, 33, is a guy in Chicago living with cognitive disabilities. That impacts his life, but essentially, he wants the same things as most people: a fulfilling romantic relationship, companionship, friends. His brother, Geoff, watched Steve try out a few dating apps to no avail. Steve, like many other people with different abilities, was having a hard time with the apps.
Anderson saw the issue. There are specific dating apps that are meant to link up people from religious communities, as well as other factors people consider while dating. In fact, the whole dating app market is moving more and more towards niche group targets. People with physical or cognitive challenges needed something that was open and inclusive for them as well. Geoff, who has a masters in marketing, used his skill set to solve it.
Geoff worked with his mother, Christine, to get Glimmer started. The social app goes out of its way to make room for people with physical and cognitive challenges. Everyone is welcome on the app; it doesn’t leave anyone out. It just makes it a little easier to disclose information that might seem difficult to talk about on a different app. Everything is open to discussion, right away.
The team researched and attended conferences, speaking with patients about their wants and needs. Even just within the 18-35 year olds, the prime dating app age group, there are over 38 million people living with disabilities.
The app works like this: users answer whether or not they live with a disability, and then they decide if they want that to be visible or not. Next, they choose what type of relationship they’re looking for, be it romantic or platonic, with whatever gender they choose. They select for a few other settings as well, like age or location. They can also choose if they want to find people with a particular type of challenge, like if they want a friend who is also deaf, or also needs a wheelchair.
A little over two thirds of app users have identified themselves as having a physical or cognitive challenge, while the other third hasn’t. Geoff speculates the third without are willing to give the specific app a shot because they’re open, empathetic people, and because people who have been exposed to different conditions may be more cognizant of the community.
The app is free to download, and available over Apple as well as Google Play. Geoff was clearly onto something– the app quickly showed a lot of growth. Meeting up in person is still a little challenging, depending on location, but that may resolve as the app grows.
In the mean time, the positive results have propelled Geoff into motion with next steps. He’s meeting with investors, looking into a new version of the app that could include trivia and group dates.
