“A modest State official, single, Catholic, 43 years old, entitled to a pension, wants to marry a Catholic girl, who knows how to cook and, if possible, sew, with assets.” Joseph was looking for with this concise advertisement written in 1920 in the German Catholic newspaper Altoettinger LiebfrauenBoat (Post of Our Lady of Altotting) find a wife. Since his message went unanswered, four months later he added that he was an “average official.” It was then that Mariacook, contacted him.
The fleeting courtship ended in a wedding that same year and, from that marriage, their three children were born: in 1921 their eldest daughter arrived Maria, who passed away in 1991; later, george Y Joseph. The latter, Joseph RatzingerHe was elected Pope in 2005.
The methods of conquest have changed a lot since the moment the fathers of the king met. ex-pontiff Benedict XVIAlso for Christians. The way in which people live their faith has also mutated over time.
That ad in Altoettinger Liebfrauenbot It is the closest thing in this century to a profile to find a partner in a dating app. About six million Spaniards (12.83%, according to data from Statistical) have some of these applications on their mobiles.
However, these 21st century matchmakers don’t always lead singles to find the lasting love that many Christians seek. With the premise of serving religious singles seeking “a lifelong relationship and hopefully marriage,” SALT, an exclusive dating app for Christians of all confessions. Although, they point out, users “have to explore that at their own pace and without unnecessary pressure.”
Flirting in a club, on Tinder or conquering a friend of a friend does not always go well. And “in church it can be a bit difficult, awkward and intense to find a guy to marry,” she says. Sarah PaxtonDirector of Operations at SALT.
Paul Riderwho previously worked as a consultant at Deloitte and as a business advisor at Innovate Finance, and Erti-Chris Eelmaawho was a Viagogo programming engineer, created this app in 2018 in the United Kingdom and it already has more than 500,000 users worldwide.
From the British Isles, he moved to Australia and is currently is present in 24 countries, among them Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico or France. Since he arrived in Spain in February of this year, he has already attracted 15,000 singlesaccording to data provided by the company to this newspaper.
Paul Rider met his wife through online dating. He then encountered “a number of problems” with the options offered by mobile dating applications for people with religious beliefs. “A lot of them seemed very old-fashioned, old-fashioned, and just not relevant,” he says. In founding SALT, he hoped that “could change” and wanted his app “make a difference for Christians around the world.”
As they state on their own website, SALT is an app designed “by Christians and for Christians”. “Most of the SALT team has faith and we are a mix of denominations,” adds Paxton, who also stresses that almost all workers at the start-up are devout and practicing believers.
“In the app, the important thing is that people consider themselves Christian and that faith is something essential for them,” says the Director of Operations. This app is intended as a “safe space” for Christians, a place where they can “share speeches and conversations” with the people they meet.
SALT limits the number of people you can see each day to avoid commodifying others”
Everything that appears in SALT has religious overtones. When a user swipes all the profiles they can see in one day – which are much less than those offered by other apps like Tinder-, illustrations appear with biblical devotions such as “he can move mountains“(he can move mountains)”. SALT limits the profiles that can be viewed each day “to avoid the commodification of others”they say from the app.
At the moment when singles are about to fill out their profile, instead of indicating what their Zodiac sign or how often they go to the gym, as it happens for example in Tinder, in SALT they must specify what their religious affiliation is, who they consider to be their “heroes of faith” or what they like most about their church.
Of course, SALT gives rise to establishing homosexual relationships in the app, since it allows you to choose, regardless of the user’s gender, whether they are looking for men or women.
SALT has a channel of Youtube and an account of TikTok with conversations, speeches and advice “to encourage and entertain users throughout their relationship journey”, from single to relationship. SALT workers who present such content even go out on the streets to find out if non-Christian youth would be willing to date someone of faith.
sexual encounters vs. lasting relationships
Rosalia sing in hentai what “The second thing is to screw you and the first thing is God”. Although nowadays it is not always so common for God to be given a priority place in love conversations, SALT encourages the creation of a lasting relationship between users based on faith instead of the sporadic sexual encounters so common in relationships born in other apps.
For David, a 33-year-old Protestant who has been using this app for Christians for two weeks, the women he finds on this app “have different values” than those who join Tinder, Badoo or Grindr. In SALT, users “look for other types of relationships, the conversations are more respectful and are not sexualized”he maintains.
In SALT, users are looking for other types of relationships, the conversations are more respectful and are not sexualized”
David, 33 years old, Protestant
“In the areas where I am, there are no Christian girls, because my environment is not religious. So, I said: ‘Since this app is a bit different, I’m going to try it,'” he confesses Mario (not his real name), a 28-year-old Christian. He started using SALT a week ago, after a co-worker “mockingly” taught it to him.
“I found it interesting, because it was a different application than the typical one, which is Tinder,” he says. The majority of SALT users with whom this medium has contacted opt for this app for Christians, because in other dating applications “it is more difficult to find the type of relationship I want,” he says. Javi, a 33-year-old Catholic.
For Christian singles, sometimes “it turns out difficult to find people who have that inner life“, says a 34-year-old user who prefers that her name not be disclosed outside the app.
Javi, who is looking for a lasting relationship, says that he has had two stable relationships in which her partner was an atheist and of the opposite ideology. “That has not been an obstacle to the proper functioning of the relationship. In fact, it has been very enriching for me,” he says.
But, in the long run, the vital plans of each of the members of the couple end the relationship. He wanted to start a family at “some point in my life”; she does not. That was “the reason for the breakup.”
past the thirty, Christians have a hard time finding a partner in Church circles. “At my age, 33, women are usually married or engaged,” says David.
From the app they reiterate that they consider SALT to be a “great opportunity” to help Christian singles in Spain “meet, date, form relationships and marry”.
Intruders in the app
Despite the fact that Javi estimates that “there are many similarities in the conversations” of SALT with respect to those that can be held in other dating apps, on many occasions singles focus the conversation on “talking about how each one lives the faith” or “what importance do you give [a la religión] in their day-to-day.”
It is therefore easier to distinguish which atheist or agnostic people have entered the app to scan the ground. “If a person is not very involved” in religious matters, Javi assures that “here in zero point, in a random conversation, he is caught”.
“In the few conversations I’ve had, because of the jargon, you know more or less the level of people,” he adds.
Sergio, a 33-year-old SALT user, entered the app “to poke around a bit, to see what was there.” “I didn’t do it very seriously either”confess.
He says that “people write more than on Tinder”. Sergio was surprised that one of the users with whom he spoke suggested meeting him in person and, before meeting in person, he asked her a picture of him smiling. This request is far from those made in other apps, in which the conversation sometimes leads to exchanges of racy photos.
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like the app does not allow sending imagesalthough there are audios, he asked her to follow him on Instagram. When asked for her number, “the conversation was cut off.”
“There are no guarantees. You have to talk to a person and, little by little, get to know each other. We hope that all SALT users find their ideal matchbut it doesn’t always happen,” warns Sarah Paxton.