Why we would rather send you no one
Why we built it this way 4 min read Updated
Quick answer
Six rules in our matching are absolute: children, essential faith, two people both rooted too far apart, marriage timeline, anything a member named as a dealbreaker, and a declared faith-difference exclusion. They are applied before any scoring and nothing outweighs them — so when nobody near you clears all six, we show you nobody rather than someone who nearly fits. In a growing market that means some members wait, which is a real cost we would rather carry than hide.
Key takeaways
- The rules are applied before scoring, so a high compatibility score elsewhere can never override them.
- A "last resort" relaxation would become the normal path within weeks, because in a thin market the exceptional case is the usual case.
- The bar for a rule being absolute is that no amount of knowing each other resolves it. Everything else is weighed, not obeyed.
- This makes waits longer where a market is still growing. The fix is more members in one place, not looser rules.
Every matching product faces the same moment. Someone has finished their profile, verified who they are, and is waiting. The system looks for a match and finds that nobody currently fits. And then there is a choice, which almost nobody makes explicitly and everybody makes: do you show them the closest thing, or do you show them nothing?
Showing the closest thing is enormously tempting. It produces activity. It makes the app feel alive. Nobody complains about an introduction that did not work out nearly as loudly as they complain about silence.
We show nothing. This page is the argument for that, including the part where it costs you something.
What "absolute" means here
Most compatibility systems, including ours, work by scoring. Values, life plans, character answers and lifestyle all become numbers, the numbers are weighted, and the highest total wins.
The trouble with scoring everything is that a strong score in one place quietly pays for a catastrophe in another. Someone who does not want children and someone who wants them within the year score badly on that one question — and then a good result everywhere else outweighs it, and the system proposes them to each other. The member who was asked the question directly, answered it honestly, and got the opposite is not looking at a scoring artefact. They are looking at an app that did not listen.
So six things are removed from the scoring entirely. They are checked first, before any number is calculated, and nothing can outweigh them because they are not in the calculation at all.
The six
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Children, and when
Whether you want them, whether you have them, and how soon. A person who does not want children and a person who wants them within the year cannot both get the life they described, and no amount of liking each other resolves it.
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Faith, where it is essential
Some members say a shared faith is essential. Where someone has said that, it is treated as essential rather than as a strong preference something else can outweigh — which is what "essential" means, and what they will have assumed we understood.
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Roots, when both are planted
Two people who have each said they will not move, far enough apart that one of them would have to, are not a match however well the rest reads. Somebody who is open to relocating changes this entirely; two who are not, do not.
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Timeline
Wanting the same thing at different speeds is one of the most common ways a serious relationship quietly fails. It is asked directly, and a genuine mismatch is disqualifying rather than something to be discovered in month eight.
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What you said you could not live with
The things you named as dealbreakers, matched against what the other person has said about themselves. If you excluded it, we do not propose it. You were asked the question; the answer has to mean something.
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A faith difference you named
Distinct from the rule above: where a member has explicitly said that a difference in faith is a dealbreaker for them, it is applied as one, in both directions.
The bar for joining that list is deliberately high: no amount of knowing each other can resolve it. Money, personality, taste, background and a hundred other things are weighed rather than obeyed, because two people who want the same life can negotiate them. These six are not negotiations. A shared life either happens or it does not.
The argument we keep having, internally
The obvious objection is not a stupid one, and it comes up roughly every month: why not relax the rules only as a last resort? Keep them absolute normally, and when a member has waited a long time with nothing, loosen the least critical one rather than leave them with silence.
We have looked at this seriously and rejected it, for a reason that only becomes obvious when you think about frequency. In a market that is still growing, having nobody suitable is not the exceptional case. It is the ordinary case. So a rule that applies "only as a last resort" would, within a few weeks, be applying almost all of the time — and the absolute rule would exist only in the marketing copy while the software did something else.
A last resort that fires most of the time is not a last resort. It is the default, wearing a different name.
There is a second reason, which matters more. The whole proposition here is that an introduction means something — that somebody looked, and that the person in front of you was chosen rather than produced. That promise is not partially true. The first time we relax a rule to avoid an empty screen, every introduction afterwards is worth less, including the good ones, because you can no longer tell which kind you are holding.
What this costs you
It would be an odd essay about honesty that skipped this part.
Where a market is still thin, this policy means waiting. Not forever, and not without us working on it — but longer than an app that would have shown you somebody. If you are in a city where few members have joined yet, the honest description of your experience may be that nothing happens for a while, and the reason is on this page rather than hidden in a settings screen.
We would rather carry that than the alternative. Anyone can show you somebody. The only thing that makes an introduction worth opening is that it might not have come.
The fix, to be clear, is not looser rules. It is more serious people in one place — which is why we would rather grow slowly in a few cities than thinly in fifty, and why the thing we are working hardest on is not the algorithm.
Frequently asked
Why has Date to Marry not found me a match yet?
Most often because nobody near you currently clears every one of the six absolute rules for you, and for whom you clear theirs. The matching will not relax those rules to produce a result. In a growing market this means some members wait, which is a real cost and the honest reason the app sometimes shows you nobody.
What are the absolute rules in the matching?
Six, applied before any scoring: children and their timing; faith where a member has said sharing it is essential; two people both rooted too far apart to share one life; an irreconcilable marriage timeline; anything a member named as a dealbreaker, matched against what the other person declared; and an explicitly stated faith-difference exclusion.
Could you not just relax the rules when there is nobody suitable?
That is the option we have deliberately rejected. In a thin market a last resort becomes the normal path within weeks, because the situation that triggers it is the usual situation. The rule would then exist only in the copy, and the promise the product is built on would be gone.
Does this mean the app works better in some cities than others?
Yes, and it would be dishonest to say otherwise. A matching product depends on how many suitable people are near you. Where a market is still growing, waits are longer, and the fix is more members in one place rather than looser rules.
