Beth Cook is a dating coach and writer. Want advice? Have advice? Send her an email.
What a year thus far for controversial dating apps! Bang with Friends, Crazy Blind Date, Playbook…and now, the flavor of this week: Lulu.
Already coined the “Yelp for guys,” Lulu is a self-described app for smart girls who want to privately review and recommend their male friends and ex-boyfriends.
Men and women from Reddit to Jezebel are in a tizzy—perhaps you’ve caught foul wind of it?
I know why this app exists, and I knew my 33 year-old-self wouldn’t like it, but for the sake of this column I gave it a peek.
After signing into the app via Facebook (required), I saw all of my male Facebook friends, one of whom had already been rated as such: an 8.0 average (out of 10) for humor, appearance, manners, ambition, and commitment; hashtags of #GreatListener and #Friendzone; and a comment that read,
“His face might take some getting used to, but he’s a perfect gentleman.”
72 people have looked at his profile and seen that awful comment.
I quickly searched other profiles to see if this kind of review was par for the course. Since none of my other friends had ratings, I ended up in the “Guys nearby” section. Scott A. (whose full name is used in the app) is rated 7.1; his hashtags are #BabyBlues, #OneTrackMind, #TakeHisKeys, #WanderingEye, #NeverAsksQuestions; and his comments include, “He might be allergic to commitment” and “He’ll never call when he’s supposed to.”
372 people have viewed his profile.
“Lulu is all about encouraging good, gentlemanly behavior, and providing a platform that makes girls’ research easier and more fun,” say the Lulu “About us” page.
I’m not buying it. If good behavior were the focus, the app wouldn’t include the following hashtag descriptors: #F***edMeAndChuckedMe, #BabyDaddy, #NapoleonComplex, #LoserFriends, #TotalF***ingDickhead, #CheaperThanABigMac, and #OwnsCrocs.
It looks like Lulu is “all about encouraging” judgment, public shaming, and objectification.
Why do some stoop so low? Because it’s easier to blame or mock someone than it is to admit that you’re feeling bad about yourself or your relationship status. Instead of dealing with romantic frustration and loneliness, some women will entertain their friends with belittling stories of men they have dated. And now, they tell those stories though a series of hashtags and comments on Lulu. 
The truth is, no guy is all good or all bad, worthy of either a 9.2 or a 4.5. Just because you don’t click with him doesn’t mean he won’t click with someone else. Some won’t be into you and some will—that’s the way the world works—and it’s better to just accept that. Lulu isn’t going to help you cheat the system in order to find the good guys. It’s going to make you cynical. It’s going to turn you into the men you dislike.
“Gals, we’re never going to win if we keep stooping to the same nasty, petty shit we’re fighting against,” writes Lindy West of Jezebel.
I couldn’t agree more.
Let’s start playing nice if we want to be treated nicely. Let’s stop putting our dates to committee vote and using them as fodder for girls’ night laughs. Let’s face our feelings head on, and actually be who we want to date. That’s the only way to get what we want.
And guys, check your Facebook privacy settings.
Screengrab via Lulu App
