Recently on Reddit I learned that there is a dating/friendship site just for a-spec people! It's called AceSpace. I wanted to share it here to help spread the word to anyone who might be interested.
It does not follow the swiping model popularized by Tinder. Instead you search all users (with filters)! There no limit to how many people you can like, match with, or message. There is also a built-in social media feed that anyone can post to. Because of the small community, it's a very relaxed place.
All the main features are free, and they're going to stay that way. Anything you have to pay for is either purely cosmetic or not necessary to enjoy the site.
You are not required to have a profile picture, although that is strongly recommended, but it doesn't have to be a photo of you. One of your pet, or a Picrew, or something like that is fine! You are also not required to use your first and last name.
Right now it's browser only, but a mobile app version is in development.
It's pretty small at the moment because it's fairly new, so don't expect to find 50+ people in your area. I think right now word-of-mouth is the main (or only) way people are finding it.
It's also friendly to all of these people!:
Aromantics and anyone on that spectrum
People looking for Queerplationic relationships
People looking for Polyamorus relationships
Sex-repulsed people
Romance-repulsed people
Link to AceSpace
Under the cut is more info for how it all works!
Okay, let's go through this one tab at a time!
Home:
This is the social media feed I mentioned earlier. So far my experience is "it's like if Facebook wasn't full of old conservative people, unfunny memes, and clickbait." Which is to say it's mostly life updates, asexual memes, and "Hi! I'm new here." Everyone on AceSpace is allowed to post here.
When you post, you have to option to specify that the post is relating to one of your interests. It's the button inside the text box that says "AceSpace". Only people who have the same interests on their profile as you will see these posts. For example, if I change it to "crochet" only other crocheters will see it on their feed.
You can filter your feed by your interests and your location, but some locations and interests don't have any posts right now.
Discover:
This is where you find and match with people! Since the userbase is pretty small, searching all users is not as overwhelming as it sounds. Especially once you have a few filters set the list of people will become much more manageable.
On the left, there's a sidebar with the current filter settings. By default, the filters are set to what you specified you're looking for on your profile. But you are free to adjust them as you wish.
If you set your profile to relationship only, only people looking for relationships will see you in search results. Same with friends only. So if you're only there to make friends, you won't have any people who don't stop to read trying to flirt with you.
Right now most of the userbase is in the US and UK, but there's a handful of people in other countries.
Messages:
Pretty self explanatory. Just your standard DMs. No limit on these, nor do they expire or close after a certain time.
My Profile:
The profiles have a ton of room to give a detailed description of yourself, your interests, and what you're looking for in a partner/friend. You also have more than one text box to fill out, and you can title those boxes whatever you want! Although there are preset titles to get you started on what to write.
On the right is a sidebar that gives the basics for what you are looking for in a partner/friend. Specifically age, gender, and their repulsion-favourableness towards sex and romance. Unlike for your own attitude, you can set this as a range. (e.g. Indifferent to favourable towards romance.) If you want to get any more specific in what you're looking for, you will have to write it out yourself in one of the bio sections.
The rest of sidebar gives basic details about you, so you don't have to write them out in your bio. Not just gender and age, but your physical build, your education level, your feelings about marriage, your interests/hobbies, kids or no kids, your preferences with long distance relationships, your political leanings, how much you do or don't drink, and more.
VERY IMPORTANT: DO NOT LEAVE OPTIONS BLANK
Let's say you're indifferent about marriage. You'd be happy with whatever your partner wanted to do. So you just leave your feelings about marriage blank/as prefer not to say. Well, unfortunately this means anyone searching for "does not want marriage," "open to marriage," or "does want marriage" won't see you! Sadly, there is no way to say you feel indifferent with these options. The closest thing is "open to it."
So if you want people to find you, fill out all the options if possible.
(I'm only bringing this up because I've seen so many profiles where people only filled out half of the options. Or just the required ones. So I don't see them in search results unless I clear almost all filters, and the same goes for everyone else on AceSpace.)
Okay, but what is it like to use AceSpace?
I've been on there for about two or three weeks, and I'd say it's pretty slow paced and easy-going. You don't need to constantly check it or always have the tab open unless you're currently messaging someone.
The busiest the feed gets is one post every 15-20 minutes, but usually it's about one post an hour. I'm able to fully catch up on all the overnight posts in like 5 minutes. So yeah, you could easily just check in once or twice a day and be fine.
So far I've only had one person Like my profile and send me a message, but they never got back to me. (They might have deleted their profile, actually.) But! I'm not losing hope. This is pretty standard to see on any dating site. Lost of people come and go and come back again.
