#dbnr

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."  -- James Baldwin

     About two years ago, I was sitting home during a typical summer break from college with this insatiable yearning to create something legendary. The moment to combine and capitalize on my life-long passion of fashion & culture with what I was learning during my time at NYU had finally arrived, or so I thought. Instinctively my core focus became queer men around the world, but starting in America, and trying to conceptualize the perfect mobile app would be to meet their needs and improve their lives  Being that I was incessantly using Grindr, a real-time geolocation gay dating app, I often found myself alienated and offended. After perusing through many profiles, it was easy to see that I wasn't alone by a long shot. One random morning after a summer of hell, I awakened as if the idea itself had tapped my shoulder, and as I normally do when this happens, I scooted to the edge of the bed and it came to me!

     Thus, Debonair Date, was born, an online dating platform based on the interests of men accustomed to a luxurious lifestyle and simultaneously looking for love. At that very moment everything in my life changed! This inexplicable warmth draped my body and the exhale that proceeded was unprecedented. All of the pent up frustration of feeling lost in the world, with no plan to conquer it had finally been released. It's the moment I found my calling in life.  Little did I know that after two years of developing the platform and the brand it would come to be something completely different.

     They say friends are two souls intertwined, which is why, the co-founder, and one my closest friends, Lamar Harmon changed everything. I would spend painstaking hours creating mockups on platforms I wasn't familiar with, teaching myself along the way, only to have Lamar with one glance say, "No." Its as if he had this discernment that made something in my soul acquiesce. Never in my life had I trusted someone else's judgement with my creativity so deeply, and it's probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Even though we do have vehement disagreements on certain brand choices, the honesty and absolute sincerity we share, has allowed us to create something that is necessary for our people and the world at large.