Twitter reacts to Toffee, the dating app you can only join if you went to private school

Want to get into the dating scene, but put off by the thought of mingling with the state-educated? Toffee Dating, a new dating app open only to those who attended private schools, believes it has the answer.

Unsurprisingly, the app is “tailored to people on the posher end of the spectrum”, says its creator, Lydia Davis. “Users are asked to answer questions about the society events they attend (Henley or SW4?), the sports they prefer (polo or rugby?) and how they divide their time between the town and the country.”

Unlike apps such as Tinder and Bumble that are free to join, Toffee Dating costs £4.99 to download, plus a further £4.99 per month - “to give the app a high-end feel”, Davis explains.

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Speaking to The Daily Telegraph’s Cara McGoogan, Davis says she was inspired to launch the service by her experience running the high-end matchmaking service Mutual Attraction.

“This work has given me a good grasp of the dating industry and made me realise how helpful a similar background can be as a starting point,” she said.

She is emphatic that Toffee is about helping privately educated daters find love based on their shared experiences, rather than encouraging “snobbery or social division”.

However, as you might expect, the launch of the app made a stir on social media. Some users expressed indignation at what they saw as a form of social engineering aimed at perpetuating a destructive class system.

However, others were simply amused by the “service”:

And one wag even saw the bright side of an app that separates the haves from the have-nots:

In response to the backlash, Davis told the Daily Mirror that Toffee Dating was no different from the myriad of existing matchmaking services catering to daters from specific professional, religious or cultural groups.

“It's just another niche dating app,” she said. “There are lots of other dating apps for normal people.”