Check your date!
2009-11-06 08:10
A product was launched last month in the States that allows people with iPhones to run a background check on prospective dates to see whether they measure up. The initial check assesses their criminal activity and marital status (and can even tell whether they're living with someone). It can then dig a little deeper to provide details on financial status, the size of their home, the state of their taxes and so on.
The information is provided by Intelius, a background-check powerhouse that has now turned its focus to the social market. Its marketing punt suggests that there are many lying sleaze balls out there, and that by filtering them out at first encounter, people can save themselves a lot of heartache.
I fully agree that sleaze balls should be caught out and weeded out, but the ability to check up on people's details like this really takes the fun out of the dating game - and breaks trust before it has the opportunity to develop.
I thought of two couples I know who probably wouldn't have got together if the bald facts had been laid out right from the start.
One guy wasn't that up to date with his taxes, he was running his own business that wasn't really bringing in an income and he was living in a low-rent commune with his business partner. On paper, that's enough to make any prospective partner run screaming. Then, he got involved with a woman with a child. He sorted out his tax, found a job, bought a house and really became as close to the ideal husband and father as she could have wished for.
Another woman I know was fairly unemployable and looking for a partner to support her. If he had run a background check, he would have known the full extent of what he was in for. Still, it must have been fairly apparent pretty quickly that he was going to be the primary breadwinner. Then he got terribly ill, and she ended up having to find a way to support him - which she did for a number of years.
So, yes, of course, everyone wants to avoid being hurt by lying scum, but at the same time - the non-negotiable criteria you may be inclined to lay out at the outset of a relationship could also prevent you from finding the person who ends up being exactly right for you in other surprising ways.
The Intelius's website offers the same service, and I ran a background check on two of my friends who live in the States. I was unwilling to part with the fairly paltry $14 fee, so I just skimmed over the kind of information available - without actually learning what they earn, or how much their houses cost - but I was horrified that I could have found it out if I wanted to. It's none of my business!
There's nothing to stop this kind of service being offered, once it's possible to do so. Intelius even offers summaries of social networking activity, affording users insight into what kind of things interest their prospective dates on Facebook.
It's just sad that we trust each other so little, and are such terrible materialists that the only way to proceed with dating someone is to know so much about them before they’re ready to reveal it themselves.
- Georgina Guedes is a freelance journalist. She thinks that $14 makes it far too easy to pry into people's private lives.
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