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Last Friday, I asked the GEM group whether they could share any suggestions / pitfalls to avoid regarding events that they had tried in their venues that could link to Valentine's Day.  I took an anecdotal conversation with friends, who like me had chosen a gallery or museum as the venue for their first date, to make a shocking assumption that others might have done the same.

I hoped to hear of stories of wedding vows being renewed, objects in the collections with a romantic resonance being highlighted, or just some simple ruse to entice would-be lovers to wander aimlessly (hand-in-hand) through the galleries.  But no, all of 3 people replied (thanks to them) but with stories of anti-Valentine's initiatives.

So why did I start this trail?  In conversation with Adrian Murphy at the Horniman talking about the Europeana Food Trail that the Horniman had been involved in the devising, he told me that Europeana was interested in seeing how they could encourage more people to use the platform in searching all the objects that have been digitally catalogues - several 10s of millions.  Then I read an article on the web (Mail on Line I think - obviously not trustworthy) that the Happn dating app had received 43 million registrations since the new year.

I have been talking about romance in cities for 10 years - it all started with a spoof called arm-in-arm.net* - in which we were trying to get people to be drawn into public spaces.  I have not really lost the 'romantic urge' (although my wife might challenge that), so I thought I would do a bit of thinking about all those digital objects on Europeana and all those sign ups on Happn.  Now what if, when you create your profile on a dating app you are asked to choose 5 objects from Europeana that most reflect your interests....what if you could pick a gallery or museum where that object was on display, as your first assignation.....

And just now I have come across this: http://en.forumviesmobiles.org/project/2016/02/02/sex-love-and-geolocation-sociological-study-tinder-3123

So museum world, as we have still got a dozen days before the date, can we not do a bit of match making?

What amongst your collections on display would you put forward as having a 'romantic resonance', and that could be chosen by someone looking for love?

Best, Andrew

Ever romantic  *http://www.rethinkingcities.net/romance/