Interactions with strangers in the online environment of dating platforms tend to be superficial. There are several reasons for this and they all stem from the poor design of the platforms:

Lack of Trust

Is the person you are talking to real? When you can’t even trust that you are talking to an actual human, you naturally don’t put in the effort to make meaningful communication — not at first, at least. Instead, at first, you might make a flippant comment in an effort to try to get a human-like reaction out of the other person. At the very least, your guard will be up.

Too Many Options

When you can very easily move on to the next person, why would you waste your time thinking of something meaningful to say to this one match? Better to just blanket-comment dozens of people with some set phrase, see who actually replies, then send some more copy-and-pasted phrases until enough “trust” is built up to initiate a date. This has become a common strategy among legacy online dating platform users.

Too Much Rejection

Closely connected to the “Too Many Options” problem, rejection in online dating comes quickly and with seemingly no explanation. The two problems in fact feed off of each other. Again, because people have so many options in online dating platforms, as soon as something better comes along (from their perspective at least) they switch to that. They may not even put in the effort to say goodbye. Mid-sentence “ghosting” therefore is now a common online dating phenomenon.

Nothing to Say

The online environment is not a natural place for human communication. In the real-world we have dozens of subtle physical cues to read when communicating, such that attraction between two people can happen without a single-word being spoken. But in the online environment, text and emojis are typically all we have. What do you say to a person you’ve just matched with? You can’t just say “Hello” (too boring) and you shouldn’t ask a serious question (trying too hard). Do you comment on their hairstyle from a picture that was taken two years ago? Do you draw from a list of one-liners? Do you have go-to “pickup-artist” dialogues that are designed to manipulate your target? There’s no easy answer because the design of the platform works against you.

In a world where meeting people online is increasingly the norm rather than the exception, we need a way to make online interactions more like real-world interactions. Doing so will lead to much better results in the online dating world.

Some of the key features of the Hicky platform that improve upon this situation are:

• A face scanning tool that matches your face to your verified identity document.
• An incentive structure built around the HKY token that increases the value of each interaction by attaching a small cost to it and encourages good behavior through small rewards.
• A community of users-as-judges who verify information and settle disputes.
• An additional feature that has now been made an integral part of the Hicky platform is a system of voice messaging that must be completed before participants can settle down into a chat.

While at first this may seem like an unnecessary — even annoying — step, it must be remembered that Hicky is building an online platform that simulates real-world interactions and in so doing, a platform that builds relationships more effectively than has ever been possible in the online environment. The goal is to eliminate the scourge of superficial interactions that have become commonplace in legacy online dating platforms.

Here’s how it works:

Before initiating a text chat with a match, participants will be required to record their answer to one of 36 questions that are specifically designed to build relationships among people who have just met. For example:

Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
Would you like to be famous? In what way?
Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

Basic Trust

The process of recording an answer to one of these questions drastically reduces the chance that the match is a bot. At a basic level, listening to a match’s answer to one of these questions contributes to the belief that you are actually speaking to a real-human. This is an important first step in establishing the trust that is necessary to start a real relationship. Building on this, since a voice is far more intimate than a text, right from the beginning both parties get a deeper insight into each other’s characters. The stage is set.

Less is More

The questions challenge you. You must think carefully about your answer, as the questions are designed to reveal something about your character. You must also think carefully about the tone of your voice. For those who think this is too much work, remember that making it hard is the whole point. Reducing the number of people you can interact with while increasing the quality of those interactions is the goal. Less is more.

When you meet someone in real-life, you can’t just copy and paste your questions and answers to them. If it’s too easy, we run into the problems outlined above (too many options and too much rejection). Hicky is simulating real-world interactions in the online environment so forcing people to come up with thoughtful answers is a necessary part of the process. Having invested the time and energy to go through this process, participants will be far less likely to ghost each otherwise behave badly.

Something to Say

Finally, these questions give you something to talk about. They are the perfect starting point for a relationship building conversation because they humanize the person you are interacting with while opening up the possibility of sharing viewpoints on commonly discussed values. For example, discussing a question like, “What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?” could lead to very interesting results from which both participants can learn a lot about each other’s core beliefs. This is the start of a real relationship.