A Scientology dating site? Really?
(CBS) - We're talking about Affinity Exchange, a dating site for spiritual singles. A sassy blogger at Jezebel wrote about it yesterday. You can imagine how our ears perked up upon reading the headline: "Scientology's Online Dating Destination." We just had to check it out for ourselves.
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Although the site is not overtly "for Scientologists," its "spiritual" nature suggests that it could be. "Use this spiritual matchmaking site to find your spiritual match. Use our spiritual chat or IM system to make spiritual, conscious connections with other singles in your local area or from around the world." So wait - we're not sure - is it spiritual?
Their mission? "For over 20 years, the Affinity Exchange matchmaking service has been helping people whose lives are dedicated to spiritual enhancement find one another and co-create together," says the site. "Our service is international and has resulted in hundreds of marriages!" Sign us up! (Kidding - kind of.)
Users can also indicate on their profile their choice of worship. On the list of selections: conscious/spiritual and Scientology.
Jezebel, which referred to Affinity Exchange as "an unofficial dating site for Scientologists," recalls back in 2003 when Australian newspaper The Advertiser reported a farmer paid the site, which has "ties to Scientology," $230,000 to find him love. But no, he didn't succeed.
For kicks, we browsed the site - they have that "it's okay to look" feature - hooray! We entered that we're "women looking for men between the ages of 25 to 50 near New York City." What turned up? More than 20 pages of men who may or may not be Scientologists. (I mean, how can you even tell?) We clicked on one profile - he's a 32-year-old Indian man who lives in Jersey City, N.J. who describes himself as intelligent, holistic, passionate and - of course - spiritual. He's looking for a long-term relationship or marriage, exercises six days a week, lives alone and is mostly vegetarian. Hmmm, nothing very "Scientologistic" about him. There are also short essay questions members can answer on their profiles, like: describe yourself, describe the type of person you'd like to meet, what should a great date consist of, what does being "conscious" mean to you, how long and what motivated you to be on a conscious path... Wait, what?! What did those last two essay questions ask?
Is that a Scientology thing - being "conscious"?
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You see, Affinity Exchange has recently become part of the "Conscious Dating Network, the largest exclusively conscious dating network on the Internet."
To this 32-year-old man, "Conscious means to have been awakened on some level from the conditioning of societal norms. To be conscious is to be aware of the unconsciousness of the world we were born into, and using it as a means to transform yourself, and helping others transform if they so desire... Conscious is also analogous to being 'unplugged' from the matrix that is the world around you, understanding that this physical reality is just a mental projection of electrical signals in the brain, yet, using this knowledge to move forward in your own spiritual path, and helping the world transform in the process."
Uhhh, this dating site might be too deep for our tastes. Unplugged? Then, we would be unconscious. Being "conscious" to us means drinking a cup of coffee at 9 a.m. and being equipped with a fully-charged iPhone.
Scientology site or not, we're going to have to pass on this one. We fear we're not "conscious" in the same way as its members. And that's no way to start a relationship - just think of all of the conscious-related arguments.
