Why I’m doing this
I’m 47. I’m LDS, divorced, raising my kids, working full-time. And here is my honest situation: in my ward, there is exactly one other single adult my age.
I’ve been going to some of the 45+ activities in my area, and they are wonderful for the people they serve — but most of the people in the room are in their 60s and 70s, and I don’t fit in. At all. I can meet friends, and that’s good, but I’m definitely not finding someone to date. The firesides and big mixers put a couple hundred of us in one room, and the honest math is brutal: almost no one there is compatible with almost anyone else. Wrong ages, wrong stages of life — and after talking to people after, you still really don’t know anyone.
The apps reduce all of us to photos and one-line bios and endless swiping. How can you tell if you’re compatible with someone — or really show who you are — with just the little information you can give or get? And the Facebook groups? Meeting someone there means hours of reading threads, commenting on posts, slowly becoming familiar to strangers. I work full-time and I’m raising kids. I don’t have that kind of time.
There are supposedly around 20,000 LDS singles in the Salt Lake Valley (I could be wrong), but the simple truth is I don’t know where to meet quality men I’d actually be compatible with — and so far, Facebook groups are not it, and neither are the dating apps. I don’t think I’m the only one.
I’ve even looked at the speed dating events and wondered if I should sign up — but then I realized I probably wouldn’t have anyone there I’d be even slightly interested in. Not because I think I’m better than anyone — just a completely different age category, or stage of life, or something else. And here’s the thing: I think speed dating could actually be a great idea — if you were in a room with people you might actually be compatible with.
So — I had an idea for meeting compatible people, and helping others meet compatible people, and I’d like to see how it goes.
How it works
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1
Answer the questions. About 20 of them, ten minutes, and you can speak your answers instead of typing — where you really are with your faith, what your family life looks like, what you love doing, what you’re hoping for.
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2
A group forms on purpose. When enough compatible people have joined, an evening is put together — around ten women and ten men whose lives and hopes actually make sense in the same room. Nobody comes in random.
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3
We do something we actually like. The activity comes from what that group loves. Hikers hike. Game people play. No swiping, no name tags in a cultural hall with 200 strangers — a small room you were chosen for.
One important thing: this is for people in the greater Salt Lake area — the events are real evenings in real rooms here in the valley. If you’re within driving distance and you’d actually come, you’re in. If this works here, who knows where it goes — but for now, it’s local.
Notice what we don’t ask
No last name. No address. No birthdate. No payment information — ever. Nothing on the questionnaire could be used to take anything from you. A photo is only requested later, when a real evening forms and you’re invited — so the room is real people, same as you.
The plain-language privacy promise
Your answers go into a private form that only I can open. They are never posted, never shared, never sold, and they’re used for exactly one thing: building the groups. You’ll go by a fun name you choose (that part’s actually fun) until you decide to share your real one. And if you ever message me the word “delete,” everything you gave me is gone that day.
About money
The first event is free. If evenings someday cost anything, it’ll be splitting the pizza — paid at the door, never online, never to me in advance.
Yes, I build this with AI
I’m a full-time teacher and a single mom of six, building this in the cracks of my day — AI is the reason one busy person can do what used to take a matchmaking agency. It can hold every questionnaire in mind at once and notice that you and someone across the valley would love the same Saturday. What it doesn’t do: decide who’s invited, or show your answers to anyone but me. It’s the filing clerk. I’m the one who’s trying to make this work.
This is just the beginning
The 20 questions are the start — but the idea I actually began with is bigger. There’s a much deeper questionnaire behind this one, completely optional: the kind that asks not just what you believe but what you actually do, not just what you’re looking for but what you bring. As the table grows, those answers make real one-to-one matching possible — thoughtful introductions between two people whose answers genuinely fit, with both saying yes before either learns the other’s name.
Activity nights come first, because meeting in a real room beats any algorithm. But if this works, it grows into the thing I wish had existed all along.
One more honest thing: this works much better when a lot of people join. The bigger the pool, the better every group gets — more truly compatible people at every table. Five answers can’t make a good evening; a few hundred can make a lot of them.
I don’t know yet if this will work, but I definitely want to give it a try. If you know someone who belongs at this table — a sister, a friend from your old ward, that guy from work — send this to them. That’s how the table fills.
Worth ten minutes to find out.
— Heather
About 10 minutes · speak or type · no photo needed today