What makes dating at Lovetastic different?
We believe in love.
Our community is independently run by gay men who believe in the Lovetastic philosophy: that gay men deserve love and want more than hook-ups.
We treat you like a whole person.
We don't assume that, just because you're gay, you care more about a guy's six-pack than his soul.
- Unique randomly-generated profile interviews, which make every profile different.
- Thought-provoking profile questions, designed to draw out what makes you unique.
- We want our profiles to nudge guys into thinking about who they really are and what matters to them. To foster such self-disclosure, we ask all members to keep their clothes on in profile pictures. It's not that we're prudes (far from it), but we don't want anybody to fall back on their hot bodies to do the talking. At Lovetastic, who you are, how you feel, and what you think are what matters.
Simple concept, simple site.
The concept of a gay personals site with a respect for love and romance is pretty simple. Which is why we are proud (if a little surprised) to have been the first gay dating site of our kind.
We also spend a lot of time thinking about and refining the aesthetic experience of gay online personals. Many social networking sites, especially those aimed at gay men, are sloppily designed, full of unwanted features, overrun with quasi-pornographic ads, and just a generally tacky mess. We believe in beauty and simplicity—and hopefully it shows.
A public service
Lovetastic is completely FREE. To encourage people to take their interchanges on the site seriously, we limit you to making contact with one new person per day. There is no "premium" or paid plan.
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More about us
Ryan Norbauer
Lovetastic Founder and Partner
I probably became destined to create Lovetastic over a decade ago when I was 14 years old, growing up in rural West Virginia. I happened to fall in love with my best friend, who happened also to be another boy. We shared everything in life—a habit of writing bad poetry, a love of spending hours off exploring the forests of Appalachia, a fondness for old movies and books—so it seemed entirely natural to me when we began also to share a physical love. He reached over to kiss me one day, and I kissed back. And that was that.
The innocence, simplicity, and depth of that relationship showed me what love between men could be like when it grows first out of the union of two whole persons rather than first out of the union of two bodies. We didn't realize until much later that falling in love with your male best friend made you "gay," and that this was supposed to imply a host of other cultural traits and affinities. We wouldn't have known that. We just knew we enjoyed each other's company, and each other's warmth.
Now, I'm older. As I grew up I was exposed to the outside world's view of what being gay is supposed to be all about, and I didn't like being expected to conform to all of it. I didn't like the emphasis on hook-ups, physical appearance, drinking, drugs, and commercialism. I didn't like that being gay had become a television cliche and a "target market" for advertisers to sell beer and expensive clothes to.
Now I'm the proud parent of and partner in Lovetastic with my dear friend and colleague David Kooy. We're trying to change forever, and for the better, the landscape of social options among gay men. We welcome you to join us.
David Kooy
Lovetastic Partner
It was love at first sight.
I had always believed that there are other guys who feel, as I do, that gay men should have a place to meet that is not overly sexualized or blindly corporate.
So I was thrilled by the quaint, welcoming mom-and-pop zeitgeist of Lovetastic. As luck would have it, Ryan was both mom and pop, and after writing all the code and creating the website, needed a partner to provide the resources—spiritual, logistical, and financial—to help Lovetastic realize its ambitious and noble goals. Ryan and I hit it off immediately, and we decided to partner up and take the show on the road.
Welcome to Lovetastic. You'll love it here.
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Lovetastic is based in New York City, and has strong ties to Boston, and San Francisco.
Buzz
"I think this is a wonderful idea. ... It's so cute; it's just adorable. I just love it. It's very happy and bright, and it says it: it's about love."
Leo Laporte
"More dating sites should be like this."
Unfogged
"Lovetastic's interface is the cleanest, simplest and easiest on the eyes. In some ways it's got more class than any [of the gay sites we reviewed.]"
Techcrunch
You deserve love. So does your future husband.
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Lovetastic is a hopeful alternative for gay men who want to love and be loved.
Developed by the Ruby on Rails consultants at Norbauer Inc. in Boston.
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