Launching Dork Dating

Ana Luiza, a dork dancer, is on a mission. Through her life coaching and involvement in the community, she empowers and inspires others to love themselves and pursue a life of purpose. When she first learned the concept of Dork Dating, Ana felt inspired to turn this thing from an idea into something real because Dork Dating aligns with her beliefs and values. 

Ana hosts women circles each month, bringing women together to share a sacred space for shared vulnerability, discovery, and growth. As a life coach, community organizer, and dork dancer she understands the power of community and spirit of play to heal. She inspires and helps people with mental health everyday. For her, it’s personal.

Thanks to Ana’s leadership, creativity, and care, Dork Dating has turned into a real thing! Just a few days ago, Ana organized, designed, and led the FIRST EVER Dork Dating Event. Here’s how the event worked. 

Because Dork Dating is an inclusive space, open to different relationships, Ana created a system reflective of those intentions and values. The scheme was explained when daters first entered our event. Dork daters were introduced with tags and markers. Red, Yellow, Green, each representing different ideas. 

Red. I am looking to deepen friendships. Yellow. I am open to romantic interests. Green. I am actively looking for a partner. And then a pen for name, sexual preference, or anything else you want to share. 

What brings us all together, in this mix of people and possibilities, is a shared desire to do something good for mental health. We want to improve the relationship we have with ourselves, while making new friends and leaving possibility for romance. 

Ana lead a discussion on self-love. What does it mean and why does it matter? While opening up conversation around this idea, Ana created an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding. How we relate to ourselves matters, and by loving ourselves, we create more opportunity to cultivate the things we want in life. We are already complete as we are and we can learn to love ourselves unconditionally as a parent may love her child. 

With a sense of agreement and readiness, Ana opened the floor for speed dating. Ana prepared quality questions for different stations, designed to spark lighthearted, fun, and deep conversation. Daters referred to the questions but were given permission to go off script — it was up to the daters how they wanted to connect. Timer on. 

7 minutes. Switch. 7 people. That’s how it was planned. That’s how it happened. We shared good conversation, meeting new people and getting to know old friends in new ways.

To end the event, Ana shared the idea of Sologamy (the idea of marrying yourself first) and presented a marriage contract. As a group, we made a commitment to ourselves.

The event worked. It was a success. It was something light, with a culture of acceptance and understanding. By the end, we knew each other a little better, feeling positive as a group. 

It’s exciting to see the launch of this event and witness Ana’s leadership in hosting this space.

This first event spread mostly through word of mouth. We imagine things will only improve as we incorporate feedback, co-create with our community, and more actively market this new event 

For those who came to our event single, they left married. Pretty decent progress for a 2 hour event. We are loving ourselves and aren’t afraid to show it.