Tinder is turning ten. Bumble has 45 million active users. The Irish online dating scene is about to see a new arrival, in the form of an app for the unvaccinated.
“What I have noticed in the last month Plenty of Fish makes a point of asking you to put your vax status on your profile. If you decline it comes up again every time you log in,” newbie online dater Mary Anne (49) says.
What’s so important about vax status in social society now that segregation is finished? Quite a lot, it turns out, as a Galway based Irish-Canadian couple get ready to launch their new business venture.
“It’s meant for someone who is not vaccinated but we do not discriminate,” co-founder Rick says.
He does not want his full name used.
“If someone wants to join and they are vaccinated we don’t disallow that but the whole point is to meet other unvaccinated people,” he said.
The idea stems from a meet up group for the unvaccinated that he organised in his native Toronto, Canada. He says choosing not to take the jab made he and his wife outcasts.
“Our families on both sides didn’t want anything to do with us, we were lepers basically,” he said.
Through their Unveed.com website, they established a new social circle.
“We had to start from scratch, make a whole new bunch of friends and we were lucky that we found some great people. We held conferences on how, literally, to escape Canada,” he said.
The couple had plans to relocate to the west of Ireland before covid arrived and bought a house here in 2019. They arrived this month and held their first social meet-up group last week. Rick plans to launch the dating app next month.
“My motto is that if I don’t do it someone else will.
“The website is up and we are doing some testing on the app to get it to work how we want it to. In the meantime, because the dating app is sort of self-sufficient, we still believe and encourage people to meet in person because personal contact is what we missed in the last two years," he said.
Media reports place the vaccination rate in Ireland at 95% but booster uptake is poor.
Rick estimates there are up to half a million unjabbed in Ireland.
“My daughter is online dating and the biggest question she always has on a date is are you unvaccinated because there’s so many people out there that haven’t said anything so we believe it’s actually higher than that,” he said.
The group in Canada had more than one hundred members at its peak. Numbers fell back once restrictions lifted.
“We now have a core group of around 70 and we stay in touch. Here in Galway, we have just started the group and currently we have 12 members,” Rick said.
He plans to organise regular outings, such as hikes, gigs and dining out, all geared toward an unvaccinated audience. The age demographic currently is from mid-twenties to mid-fifties with a female to male ratio of three to one.
"The social night is for making friends and for romance, it's both. It's all about making connections," Rick said.
The drive to demonise the unjabbed in Canada was intense, with bans on train and air travel.
“We had four families that left Canada before us; they went to Mexico, Uruguay and to Honduras. So there were a lot of people moving out of Canada and there still is because it is so repressive there, even to this day.”
It was a difficult time for the family, as Rick’s wife’s father passed away in Ireland but the family were prohibited from travelling to attend the funeral. Then she lost her job.
“That was probably the hardest part. When her father passed away, she couldn’t see him because she couldn’t travel. She worked as a grade school secretary in Canada and the staff and the kids loved her. One day she got a notice saying she couldn’t work anymore and that was it.”
“We’ve been through a lot. But we had our goal in mind and our plan to move and retire here and we stayed steadfast in that,” he said.
Elsewhere in the world, larger unjabbed populations have driven successful dating sites, such as ‘Unjected
,’ established in May 2021 by two mothers in Hawaii.
The site describes itself as a platform of ‘health conscious covid-19 unvaccinated humans’ who can find love with ‘mRNA free partners.’ Unjected also offers a directory where users can advertise their vaccine-free semen, eggs and breastmilk.
Two months after its launch, Apple removed the Unjected app for violation of its policies regarding Covid-19 vaccines.
More recently, the Daily Dot website reported that the Unjected website left users’ data exposed.
Rick’s site offers privacy through paid membership.
The fee pays for encryption and the ‘filtering out of people and bots that are not of the same mind-set, keeping sensitive discussions, lists and events private.’
The app will offer Irish users the ability to cut to the chase.
Mary Anne (49) has been using dating apps for the past six months and says it is rare to find a man that’s not vaccinated.
“What I have found from dating vax free and vaxed is that I have more in common with vax free guys as they are questioning the narrative so from the outset we have common ground. Also more vax free guys are into alternative health beliefs and are proactive in living a healthier lifestyle which I find attractive.
“I thought when I started back dating that really it didn't matter if someone was vaxed or not, but I have done a full U-turn on that, after having some big debates with guys I have dated who are healthy guys with functioning immune systems who are not at risk of Covid and they were lining up for their booster shots and I'm saying if the first two shots didn't work what makes you think the third one will!
“Part of me thinks a vax free dating app is a great idea and the other thinks the pool of vax free people is just too small for it to work. Maybe an app that focused on friendship which sounds a bit cheesy would be better. Some people have lost a lot of friends and family because of their vax free stance and are feeling very alone and a bit lost.”
Lauren (43) is enthusiastic about the app.
“I absolutely would use it. I have no idea what the vaccinated have been injected with and would rather see long term data before becoming properly intimate with a vaccinated man. Could he transmit something to me? Who knows but I’m not willing to take the risk. I feel the same about blood transfusions to be honest.”
Sandra (54) says a dating app for the unvaccinated will be ‘most welcome.’
“If they have taken the shot they are clearly on a different journey to mine and the relationship would be doomed from the start. I am on Plenty of Fish but hardly any of the men on it are unvaccinated in my experience. I have had some very interesting conversations and a fair bit of abuse.
“I actually have it written on my profile that the jabbed and mask wearers need not bother messaging me. Most think I am joking or see it as a challenge. Many lie and say they are unjabbed. Others get offended,” she said.
Martin (38) said he didn’t like the fact that segregation in Irish society was supported by so many people.
“For me, you don’t know what the story is with regard what the experiment has done to people and how you could be affected, nobody knows that. This is a completely new technology to humans, to civilisation and obviously you don’t want to be involving yourself in that experiment where you don’t have to.
“Before all this you could be more open about your opinions. You can’t really discuss things that are going on with somebody that has been vaccinated because they aren’t going to really listen to what you are saying, they’re not going to be responsive to it. They are just going to switch off so how are you going to have a meaningful conversation with them,” he said.
Derek (42) is concerned that someone who has taken a Covid 19 vaccine might be ‘easily manipulated.’
“I just don’t think they have the critical thinking skills or the resolve... and that when the next bus comes around, they might not be trustworthy to choose right from wrong.
“It’s just not worth it, just to hop into bed with someone. I never thought I’d be saying these words in my life. She could be Britney Spears or Marilyn Monroe. My convictions are solid. As good looking and all as they are, they are dead to me as far as dating or sleeping with them. Not a hope.”
Regarding numbers vaccinated in Ireland, I haven't found trustworthy statistics.
However, it turns out that in England their 92% vaxxed rate came about by the simple fact of leaving 8 million people out. To be included in the stats, you had to be a) registered with a GP and b) have been counted in the 2011 census. Neorman Fenton and Martin Neil, two professors in Queen Mary University in London did a study and came to the colclusion that the vaccination rate was between 74% and 80%. Or 20% to 26% unvaccinated. Study is here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365202828_What_the_ONS_Mortality_Covid-19_Surveillance_Data_can_tell_us_about_Vaccine_Safety_and_Efficacy?channel=doi&linkId=636a8ece2f4bca7fd040d999&showFulltext=true
Looking for stats on the Irish situation, I came across the following powerpoint:
https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/vaccination/covid-19vaccinationuptakereports/Covax%20slides%20for%20HPSC%20web%20based%20report%2020230116v1.0.pdf
On page 7 you will see the vaccination rates for various age groups, by county. Most counties to have a 99.9% rate for the over 50s (ie 1 unvaxxed per thousand). I am very dubious that any group would ever be that high, because there are always people who fall through the cracks - old batchelor farmers, alcoholics, mental health patients who won't leave the house, hippies/alternative lifestyle people, drug addicts and I'm sure a large etcetera.
That said, there is one county that stands out as an exception. For the authorities, an utterly satisfactory case, for the rational observer a complete joke. I mean Co Waterford, where according to this document everyone over twenty-one has been vaxxed; well, 99.9% of people in Co Waterford (including the city of Waterford with its large student population).
Oh, and at the bottom of the page they have this note:
"Where calculation of estimated uptake exceeds 100% due to unidentified data quality issues, the uptake will be rounded to 99.9%"
I suspect that they have severe data quality issues if they have found places where more than 100% of people have been vaccinated. But the suggestion that 99.9% of people anywhere have been vaccinated in any age group already demonstrates the poor quality of their data.
In one sense the experimental gene therapy and mass formation has done us a favour. It has sifted society in a way that was unimaginable prior to March 2020. If your blood is pure and your mind is free doesn't it make sense to connect with similar people because we know that times ahead are going to get more and not less challenging. I have seen how stressful it is for people to have partners who are not on the same page. Many have had to make difficult decisions. Thank God that my wife and I are rowing in harmony.