The Scariest Thing We Ever Did Was Hit Launch

It’s spooky season, and this week we’ve been writing about scary games and who wants to play them with a date. So I got to thinking about which parts of building LFGdating would sound scary if you read them off a list. I’m going to walk through five of them. I should say up front that I’m telling you this with 13 years of hindsight. I’m not going to reconstruct exactly how I felt on each day, because I can’t, and I’d rather leave it out than make it up.

The phone call

Around 2010, Pat was a Marine officer stationed in Hawaii. One Tuesday night he called me with a question:

“You said you could make a dating site for gamers, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll need your help, but yes — we can do it.”

“Alright — we’re doing it then.”

Pat and Casey, roughly 2010

I will never forget that phone call. What I can tell you for sure is that I said yes before either of us had a plan, and that my answer came with a condition: I’d need his help.

4,200 miles of nights

For the whole development stretch, Pat and I were roughly 4,200 miles apart, me in Georgia and him in Hawaii. We worked on scheduled phone calls and work sessions across time zones. Meanwhile I had a day job teaching high school English, and my days looked like this:

“Wake up at 5:30 A.M., workout until 6:15, shower, dress, eat, and out the door by 7:15 to get to school by 7:30. Then, home by 4:30 or 5, eat an early dinner and grade papers or prep classes until about 7. Then I went into LFGdating creation mode until 11 or midnight.”

Casey

I also turned down two coaching opportunities, including a varsity boys basketball head coaching job, and an invitation to teach a higher-level curriculum. For a young, non-tenured teacher, that last one was damn-near career suicide to decline. Saying “sorry boss, I have other work to do” is the kind of line that reads as brave or reckless depending on how the story ends. We didn’t know the ending yet.

January 2012, the beta

By 2012 Pat was back in Woodstock, and we were meeting in person every week, sometimes three or four days in a row, at coffee shops. In January 2012 the LFGdating beta opened, and we closed it out in February 2013.

Looking back, this is the one that fits the title. Up to that point, the site was something Pat and I knew about. Once a beta is open, anyone can show up, and there’s no taking it back. I’ll call that scary as a reflection, since I’m not going to claim a feeling I didn’t write down at the time.

The elliptical

Here’s the jump scare. I was on an elliptical at the gym, celebrating the last day of semester finals, when my phone buzzed:

“Congratulations! You have successfully created a profile on LFGdating!”

My first thought was that I hadn’t created a profile. Then I got it: someone else had. We had our first ever LFGdating member, and I about fell off the elliptical.

Then the school intercom announced an immediate closure because of a blizzard. I went home, made coffee, and kept building.

Walking out of a date night

The last one is smaller, and I think it says more. I’ve walked out of a date night to email a member who had questions about LFGdating. Pat has given face time to his computer during family holidays to do the same. Pat and I work on this every day, and I’ll admit it’s borderline unhealthy and has, at times, led to disputes with our significant others.

I’m not holding that up as a model. It’s a cost, and I’d be leaving something out if I skipped it. I’m listing it because it’s part of the honest version of the story.

What the scary parts had in common

Go back through the list and you’ll find that none of it happened solo. The phone call started with a friend. The 4,200 miles only worked because Pat and I kept showing up to those scheduled calls and work sessions. Even the elliptical moment ended with me going home and building more, because by then there was something to build on.

That’s the bridge to this week’s theme, and I’ll keep it modest. Plenty of gamers will tell you a scary game is more bearable with a second player on the couch or in the voice channel. At the same time, people differ a lot on how much scary they want, and “no thanks” is a complete answer that doesn’t need an explanation. If you want to try it, our horror game date night guide and our post on how to play scary games with a date cover how to set that up so it stays fun for both people.

Starting something new with a stranger can feel like a scary level too, and I can’t promise it’ll go well. Nobody honest can. What I can tell you is that every new profile on LFGdating is reviewed and approved by a human on our team, and if you write to us, you’ll hear from the founders and not a ticket queue.

If you’re ready to find your player two, create your free profile or grab the LFGdating app. Bring your own scary-game limits. We’ll respect them.

Stay Classy,
Casey and Pat