CURRY BEAR

Curry Bear had the pleasure of hanging out with the people behind TwoMangoes.com back when he was relaxing in Canada. It was a pleasure to meet them. TwoMangoes.com is a dating site for South Asians with a different approach to the whole online dating scene & way cooler than your typical matrimonial sites. Before I left Canada, I got a chance to interview some of the passionate people that work for this site. Here are some of the questions I asked them. Read this interview to learn more about the newest dating site in Canada that is making its way over to the US. Also, note that this is the first time I left in the middle of an interview to check out porn, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.

1.
CB: So why did you choose the name “2 Mangoes” for your site?
2M: Well, we’ll be honest. We wanted MangoMatch, but, as I’m certain you and your readers will investigate, that domain was already taken…by a porn site. So, after we recovered from that, we started thinking of non-matrimonial names (ahem, ahem). We’re desi. We love mangoes. What’s better than a mango? Two of ‘em. So there you go. We threw it out there and everyone loved it and the rest, as they say, is mango history.

2.
CB: {After spending a half hour at the porn site} OK, I’m back. So what makes your site better than these other sites like shaadi.com? Do you hire hookers to go online and meet with people to improve your success rate? If not, can you?
2M: Well, presently there are no plans to hire hookers, because, as we understand it, their unions are no joke. We’re still better than those other sites for a few hundred reasons. To name just a couple- we take the focus off of marriage and put it where it should be: dating. Do with your meetups what you want; are you looking to casually date? seriously date? meet interesting people without the pressure of mandap shopping? Join TwoMangoes.com. Oh, also, we eliminate the “fob factor”, no offense to fobs. It has nothing more to do with the fact that NRIs and desis in the motherland are culturally raised differently and compatibility can often be an issue. We gear our site to NRIs across the globe.

Our site is also cool because of our ‘MangoWire’- an idea inspired by the Facebook news feed. In a similar fashion, our users have a news feed on their profile page. This lets you utilize Facebook Connect, so (if you want), it can pull basic information from your Facebook profile and then edit it for your TwoMangoes profile. It’s a social media world, and we like to keep up with the times.

Why else are we better? We’re pretty cool people. Check out our Meet Our Team section on our blog and oh, yeah, HAVE YOU SEEN OUR VIDEO?!

3.
CB: I heard there is a requirement for your site that if you find love you have to name your first born after a fruit. Is this true? If it is, then I call dibbs on Pineapple Patel!
2M: That’s only partly true. We do ask that if a love connection happens and a child is born of it, that their middle name be “Mango”. Although Pineapple Patel is a pretty rad name. And wouldn’t it be funny if someone’s last name was “Sheikh”, and they had a kid and named her Pineapple? She’d be Pineapple Mango Sheikh. Just awesome.

4.
CB: Yes, they would have a delicious child. So, you guys are always giving away free shirts, tickets, and other exciting merchandise? How can I stay in the loop? Because being Desi, I love getting free shit!
2M:Oh, that’s simple. If you see us at a party, we’ll give you stuff. Free! No catch! Gum for your post-drinking breath? We’ll take care of you. “Single Desis Wanted” t-shirt? We got you covered. Frooti mango juice when it’s scorching hot out? Yup, we’ll hand you one.

5.
CB: Do you guys have any exciting events coming up? Like meet ups, speed dates, or parties?
2M: Lucky for you and your readers, we are all over the place- NYC, New Jersey, Toronto, San Francisco, Boston, Australia (Australia?? Yep, Australia.) You definitely want to be checking http://www.twomangoes.com/events for events in your city.

We also suggest following @twomangoes on Twitter and make sure you frequent our blog (link blog.twomangoes.com) to keep up with the goings-on. There’s something happening every weekend in multiple cities and we keep expanding, so if we’re not in your city yet, fret not- we will be, soon!