HAPPY NATIONAL CAT DAY: THERE’S A NEW DATING APP FOR ‘CAT-FORWARD LIFESTYLE’
Source: Fox News (Extract)
Posted: October 30, 2021
If you wanna be their lover, you gotta get with their furry friends.
We’ve all seen the dating app profile tropes: Dude posing with big fish, guy hugging big dog, woman with cat(s) smooshed to her cheeks. And we judge.
But there’s a new app — Tabby, the dating app for “cat-forward lifestyles” — that could help singles overcome some catty misconceptions. It’s also a purr-fect way to trend on #NationalCatDay, a k a Friday, Oct. 29.
“If you could cut to the chase with something that really matters most to you, that alone is useful [in a dating app],” Leigh Isaacson, co-founder of Tabby, told The Post.
According to one recent study, 43% of singles believe they can ascertain a dating app user’s personality based on their profile pics alone. Posing with a pet may indicate a few positive qualities, such as responsibility and care. However, research shows that there is a common stigma attached to cat ownership, as one recent study suggests that some heterosexual women “found the men holding cats to be less dateable,” as opposed to men with dogs, the Conversation reported.
Of course, it’s cat-owning women who have been long-oppressed by the “crazy cat lady” stereotype, and a 2019 poll of women with cats found that 62% of them agreed that it comes with preconceptions. A cautious 21% of the women polled even hide their cat ownership until they’re sure their potential match is amenable to pets.
And then there’s the most tragic scenarios of all for singles with cats — to learn the person they thought to be “the one” has turned out to be allergic to their fur baby. Or, that they just don’t care for cohabitating with animals.
With cat owners putting this much stock in their pets, it’s a wonder that it took so long for an app like Tabby.
“Pets matter so much more than what a lot of other niche dating apps offer,” Isaacson told The Post.
She might be on to something: Another recent poll revealed that an estimated 68% of Americans would defer to their pets in a relationship, and are willing to break it off with their partner if they couldn’t all get along. Even more — 71% — believed their pets’ judgement of character in another human to be better than their own.
Isaacson and sister Casey Isaacson, based in New Orleans, launched Tabby on Aug. 8 of this year, otherwise dubbed International Cat Day. Following the success of their original dog-centric dating app Dig, which debuted in 2018, the duo have since taken Tabby to ABC’s “Shark Tank.”
The original app was borne out of Casey’s own romantic woes — a relationship cut short due to her dog. “She’s the one that said to me: I wish I just knew from the start that this wasn’t going to work because of the dog,” said Isaacson.
The pair knew they had a good idea on their hands, based on all the wide-eyed reactions they’d get to the idea. It was an “of course this is gonna work type of [look],” she recalled.
Pet ownership “is how people already find love,” because they are seeking companionship, Isaacson added — so, why not lean in? “It makes so much sense.”