With his French business school diploma and his job at an international consulting firm, Cédric Maalouf was following the same path that most successful Lebanese follow. But everything changed three years ago, when his heart was broken. Set on finding the right person for him, he signed up for a dating website only to realize there are virtually none in the Arab world. People can opt for either low quality dating websites used to chat anonymously, or social networks like Moroccos AlamJadid, which is designed to help like-minded people meet over common interests. It’s odd, explained the Lebanese entrepreneur, given how the social pressure can be to find someone after a certain age, and how tricky it can be to meet members of the opposite sex person in some areas. There’s a real regional demand, he said, pointing to the booming business that marriage agencies are doing in Saudi Arabia. Decided to seize this opportunity, Maalouf moved back to Lebanon to adapt compatibility algorithm-based dating services of the West, like eHarmony, to Arab cultures. Joined by Rakan Nimer, he launched Et3arraf in time for Valentine’s Day 2013. “It’s not a dating site,” he says, “because dating doesn’t exist in the Arab world. We position ourselves as an online marriage agency.” Et3arraf aims to help Arabic-speaking thirty-somethings who care about traditions and are serious about wanting to get married meet each other, hence the name Et3arraf, which means to meet in English. “We put various barriers to entry to make sure we only have serious members,” explains Maalouf, including an extensive psychological questionnaire (created with the help of a Lebanese doctor specializing in marital relationships), the limited number of members one can have access to, and the "progressive intimacy sharing" process. It works like this: members access their top 30 active matches with anonymous profiles – a pseudonym and no picture. After exchanging some messages, they can send a request to see pictures. Once they feel comfortable enough, they can send each other their contact info to meet in real life. This process places Et3arraf in opposition of Tinder, the minimalistic American app where users can only see a few Facebook profile pictures and mutual Facebook friends and likes, that’s been making a buzz in North America and Europe with its approach that focuses solely on appearances rather than a complicated affinity algorithm. Throughout the process, the Et3arraf team provides tips on how to marry online encounters with tradition, including how users can involve their families and how to organize the first offline meeting.
