Spring 2024, Paige Goldstein were “Digital nomading“In South Africa when she received a fateful Linkedin report. A mutual connection had tagged her in the comments from a post by Grayson HarrisWhich was also digital nomading in Cape Town at that time. Goldstein clicked on “Connect” and Direct Messaged Harris and asked to meet coffee.
“I was only open to connection – especially as nomads, when you see someone similar to you, it’s about the deeper connection first,” she says. “But when I saw him it felt more like a date.”
Goldstein and Harris have been together ever since. He stopped following her to Spain, her next stop after South Africa, and they now live together in Maine. As the founder of The ripple effectA coaching program and society that helps female leaders build their brands on LinkedIn, Goldstein naturally spends a lot of time on the professional network platform. But she didn’t expect to fall in love there.
However, Hers is not the only love story that comes out of LinkedIn. In recent years, the professional network side has become more than just a resume storage; It is a place to follow the industry leader, cultivate your own professional persona and sometimes even become personal. Maybe you use it to find someone you matched with on a dating app before you meet personally, or if you pursue whose posts your ex like. Or maybe, just maybe, you fall in love with someone after clicking on Connect.
Cherie Brooke Liu, Co-Host for Business Podcast ”Tiger Sisters podcast“Worked on LinkedIn for almost five years as product manager before she became a full -time content creator. She definitely Know that the site is used to strive for romantic interests, she says: LiU remembers hearing about the more extreme cases at all hand meetings.
“The question they had to do with the most was harassment through unwanted progress through LinkedIn DMS, people who slip into LinkedIn DMS in a very strange way, especially because LinkedIn is a very professional platform first and foremost,” she says. “When people are in the way of thinking that it is a professional network platform, it can be very scrubbing to get undesirable progress through LinkedIn DMS.”
Many share the same perspective – that romance has no place in a professional environment like LinkedIn. But LiU sees the value of using the platform when it comes to other aspects of dating. “I think they open to slip into LinkedIn DMS is completely inappropriate, but I think LinkedIn is a place to do the background checks,” she says. “It’s not so much to learn about a person’s pedigree before you get to meet them, because it can remove some of the fun and romance, but when it comes to doing a background check, it is a real person, they are verified with their photo, which can be really useful.”
As headhunter, Katie Ortman Doble Is constantly on the platform – “all day, every day” for her job, she says. And just like Liu, she sees the site as a good tool for “getting a glimpse” in who someone is.
Such was the case with her now husband, Nick-fäven if she clarifies, “I don’t want to be painted as someone who would purposefully go on LinkedIn to find her husband, and I never encourage anyone to use the site that way.”
Ortman Doble stopped posting her LinkedIn Love Story 2015, and it went viral. History goes like this: In the mid-2010s, Ortman Doble was in the early 30s and looked “anywhere and everywhere” after a long-term partner. But on the apps and in real life she encountered “terrible” date after terrible date.
Enter: Nick’s LinkedIn profile. His company was looking to fill a position, and when she stumbled upon his photo, “I melted,” she wrote in her original post. She sent him a connection request and eventually a message and ignited one back and forth. After a few weeks, the duo met for a “network meeting” – alias and had a drink.
The couple celebrates their 10-year wedding anniversary in February. “Thank God for LinkedIn,” says Ortman Doble. “You can meet anyone anywhere. In a time when everyone is so on their phones, it’s nice to have something that is an option, in addition to the sweep.”
When Ortman Doble was single, it is the way of thinking for every meeting. (“If you were cute and we were in the product aisle in the supermarket, I would check you out,” she laughs.) It is an attitude that can open you to love, on LinkedIn or anywhere else.
Goldstein agrees: “I believe in divine contacts – that who to meet, you will meet. I think that when you open up for any opportunity it may happen.”
Lena Felton (She/her) is a senior content director at Popsugar, where she monitors special projects. Previously, she was editor at The Washington Post, where she led a team that covered gender and identity issues. She has worked in journalism since 2017, during which time her focus has been functional writing and editing and raised historically under -represented voices. Lena has worked for the Atlantic, Instyle, so it goes and more.
