Every year around now, people start asking what the best gift they ever received was. We get a version of the question too, usually from friends who run normal businesses and are baffled by how we answer it. Our answer is an email nobody wants to get: a cancel notice.
Let us explain, because it sounds like a joke and it isn’t.
The email
When someone cancels a paid LFGdating subscription because they met someone, it lands in our inbox like any other cancellation. Nothing about the subject line tells you what’s inside. But when we open it and read why, it hits differently. In Casey’s words from a post we wrote years ago: “When we receive a cancel subscription notice because a paying subscriber has met someone, that’s basically every great holiday wrapped up into one email notification.”
We still mean that. Here’s why it matters in a post about gifts.
Our double bottom line
We’ve always said LFGdating has two bottom lines. The first is how many people are meeting and communicating on a daily basis. The second is financial. They’re not equal in our minds, and a cancel-because-I-met-someone email is the rare event where the first one wins and the second one takes a small hit, on purpose. Most businesses design everything to prevent cancellations. We built a site where a certain kind of cancellation is the best news of the week.
The first one, and the one we remember
We have a story we tell about the very first member signup, because it taught us what this feels like. Casey was on an elliptical machine at the gym, celebrating the last day of semester finals, when his phone buzzed with a message that read “Congratulations! You have successfully created a profile on LFGdating!” He thought: “Wait, I didn’t create a profile. Oh, someone else did.” It was our first-ever member. He’s said he about fell off the elliptical.
That moment was a different kind of gift: proof that someone, somewhere, wanted what we’d spent years building. The cancel email is the other end of the same story. Someone showed up, found a person, and left to go live their life.
What this has to do with gifts
We write a lot about gifts this time of year, and we’ve been honest on this site that gifts are rarely about price. We think the same thing is true of love in general. What matters is attention. Somebody noticed you, listened to you, and showed up. That’s the whole game.
The people who send us those cancel notes are usually not people who bought something expensive. They’re people who had a conversation, and then another, and then another. The best gift they got was a person who was paying attention.
Why you can email us
This is also why we answer our own mail. We’ve said it before: “We don’t hide behind a corporate banner of anonymity.” Members can reach us at personal addresses, and we keep a 24-hour response guarantee. That isn’t a customer service flourish. It’s how we find out whether the thing we built is helping people meet each other. A cancel email with a story in it is the clearest signal we get.
Casey put it this way once: “LFGdating is what it is because our members are so phenomenal. They deserve our time, energy and commitment. Even when we’re busy.” Busy is the operative word this time of year. We’re busy, you’re busy, everybody’s shopping and traveling. The cancel notes still get read.
What a good gift and a good match have in common
Neither one is about volume. A good gift isn’t the biggest one in the pile, and a good match isn’t the longest list of profiles. Both are about fit: someone noticed what you’re actually like. We built the site around that idea, and the gift guides this week are built on it too.
What we’d tell you this season
- Give attention first. A gift is a way of saying you’ve been listening. If you haven’t, start there.
- Don’t let the shopping crowd out the person. A rushed, expensive gift can be a way of avoiding a slower, harder conversation.
- If you’re looking for someone to give attention to, go find them. That’s what this site is for.
- If you find them, tell us. We’ll be happy to get the cancel email.
A holiday wish
We hope you spend this season with people who pay attention to you, and that you return the favor. If you’re already there, enjoy it. If you’re not, we hope the next gift you get is a good first message. The LFGdating app is free to download, and you can sign up on the web in a few minutes. If you want help choosing something for someone you’re already dating, our gift guide for a gamer partner is live now.
Stay Classy,
Casey and Pat
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