For the past few weeks, you lucky lot have gotten to follow the wonderfully romantic tales of our dating intern, Daria Lazo, through her blog on CLiKD. Well, her blog series is coming to an end * sad face * but never fear! She’ll still be writing a whole lot of fantastic content for us, yay!

As the internship draws to an end, we thought we would get Daria to answer a few questions and get her take on the whole gig.

Great Expectations Exceeded

With this internship, there were bound to be people who had something to say about our unconventional approach to testing the app and we did receive some criticism and even got banned from a couple of job sites when we first advertised it (Team CLiKD: Pah, we do what we want at CLiKD, haters can do one!)

“First things first, obviously I would be lying if I said I thought that doing the internship with CLiKD would be like any other aka. bringing coffee and all that boring typical stuff, you know? I would have been mad to think so. From the very beginning, even the interviewing process was like no other; the survey that the applicants had to complete and even the interviews themselves were just so different. The guys over at CLiKD were so fun and it was the perfect opportunity for my personality and creativity to shine through. The guys said they are all about being creative and they allowed me to be as creative as possible, which I loved! When they decided to hire me, I thought it would be an unusual journey for sure. I expected it to be a unique way to challenge myself as a blogger. Yet, in no way did I expect to end up being interviewed for publications or to be in their advertising campaign…”

That’s right, Daria Lazo the photographer ended up being in front of the camera! The woman who prides herself on capturing creative moments became the centre of one herself. Go on, girl!

Of course, we had to see how she felt about being a bonafide model for a little while because that’s beyond awesome! Not everyone can say they’ve had their face grace an ad in a place like Liverpool Station. Daria described it as “one of the coolest and craziest things ever! Please, tell me what other intern in the world has ever gotten such an amazing experience eh? I’ve never heard about anything like that ha!” Agreed Daria, that’s just CLiKD being creative and changing the dating game 😉

When Writing Gets Personal

The main part of the ‘Dates and Mates’ internship was to be willing to write about, and share, your CLiKD date experiences on a public blog. Daria Lazo didn’t strike us as the kind of person to shrink away from such a task but, none of us was prepared for how this task would challenge her in other ways… It started off as well as we could have expected and Daria was excited; “I was really looking forward to sharing all my dating experiences and I really enjoyed writing about my first horrendous date, which still makes me laugh.”

However, when she met her, now, boyfriend on her second CLiKD date, things started to get a little… complicated; “I’ll be honest with you, when I started dating my boyfriend I realised that every article became harder to write. First of all, I didn’t want to share too much information and I felt that it became a bit uncomfortable sharing special moments that should only concern the two of us. Obviously, I didn‘t want to offend anybody either. As you can imagine, it’s harder to make a story humorous when it’s all cheesy, lovey-dovey and I started getting worried that the readers might fall asleep! In the end, it turned out to be all positive. My boyfriend was very supportive about it and, in fact, didn’t mind me sharing any of our stories together after all.” Ah, could he sound any more perfect! Got to love a guy who supports women, take note lads!

Thoughts on All Things CLiKD

Everyone has an opinion on dating apps, whether they’ve used them before or not (some of those opinions have probably involved a fair amount of swearing and the cursing of genders… you know what I’m talking about.) We wanted to see whether Daria Lazo would feel that way about CLiKD now that the internship is over, luckily that’s not the case; “My opinion on the app hasn’t changed a bit! I still think it’s the best app out there for any creative and for people who prefer to interact on a more visual and intellectual level.”

Biased, I hear you say? Well, Daria disagrees; “I’m not just saying that because I’ve had this amazing experience with CLiKD. The app is funny, smart and it’s definitely not that boring old swiping left, right, left, right until your thumb falls off! I love the fact that everyone’s profile can look absolutely different and you can adjust it to your personality and interests. Yay to the GIFs as well, I’m really having fun with those now!” Who among us, doesn’t love a good GIF? They just add that extra little something 😉

When asked about her final thoughts on the internship, we could feel Daria’s enthusiasm from a mile away and it was more than a little infectious; “Without a doubt, I think we can all agree that this has to be the coolest internship in the world. Where else would you find a position where you get to go on dates, write fun stories about said dates, actually be on a mission to meet people and get paid for it?! Never mind meeting an amazing guy and being sent to a festival with him… I’m definitely one lucky girl! #winning” Also #goals, am I right? CLiKD couldn’t be happier for Daria and lucky No. 2, as she dubbed him her blog. Lucky indeed 😉

Self-Discovery Vis-A-Vis CLiKD

Like any good story of self-discovery, you tend to come out on the other side with many a word of wisdom. Well, to finish off, Daria Lazo would like to leave you with what she’s learnt about herself and some advice if you ever decide to take an unorthodox leap of faith like she did; “Moral of the story is, put yourself out there guys! Accept the challenge and have fun with it. Great things only happen to those who are not scared to experience life to the fullest. Seriously, no one is going to knock on your door and sweep you off your feet, ain’t nobody got time for that right? So, get out there because it’s time to get creative!”  You heard the lady, get on it ASAP!

Team CLiKD: Thanks for the interview Daria. You have been an amazing blogger, but, thankfully, this is only the start of your journey with CLiKD. We have some awesome things in the pipeline for you, so we can’t wait to hear/ see more from you in the future!

But, now that we’ve found you a boyfriend and also given you an awesome, fun and cool internship, it might be time to think about whether there is room for Internship Number 2…