Seated aside the crackling fireplace with his laptop open, Santa Clarita resident Dave Goss is at work.
Above the roaring fireplace, a bobblehead figure takes space on his mantel. Flanked by an American flag and photos of the man and his wife Tanya, the plastic caricature is of the President-elect of the United States — Donald J. Trump.
Goss, a staunch Republican, is playing virtual matchmaker.
Santa Clarita resident Dave Goss sits in a chair during a Signal interview.
“With today’s divisiveness, dating has become hard for people,” Goss said.
The man, who doesn’t consider himself a modern-day Cupid by any means, explained how couples often enjoy their first couple of dates before a political bombshell is dropped.
“One of them will say, ‘Oh, I’m voting Hillary or I’m voting Democrat,’” Goss said.
“The other person will say ‘I’m voting Trump or I’m voting Republican.’”
At this point, the relationship kicks the bucket.
Goss decided to remove that mysterious political element out of the mix and hypothesized a dating website for like-minded singles who share the same ideals and values — and those who express presidential support for Trump.
He bought the domain TrumpSingles.com and, over a rousing game of darts, floated the idea for a dating website to a friend.
Several months later, the website launched.
“We actually give you a better chance of a meaningful relationship,” Goss said.
The first few months, the site saw a modest user base. A few weeks later, everything changed.
On June 10, Goss’ smartphone buzzed and a New York-area phone number came up. It was the New York Post.
The Trump fan admitted his team was severely unprepared for the influx of attention their site received.
“It was bigger than anything we had expected,” Goss said.
“All of a sudden we had big publications like Time Magazine calling us to do interviews.”
The user base grew from a few thousand users to 10,000, all before the business mogul received the Republican nomination for President of the United States.
Fast-forward to Nov. 8.
“I’m sitting in a bar with a beer in my hand at 5 o’clock in the afternoon just trying to figure out how I’m going to rebrand this site,” Goss said.
The man, like many Americans, assumed Trump wouldn’t win and, in turn, formed an alternate plan.
Five hours later, the hotel tycoon swept Pennsylvania.
“Crumple up that piece of paper, throw it away, we don’t need any new ideas,” Goss chuckled.
In one month, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the nation’s 45th president, perhaps making Goss’ brainchild the first dating service based solely on a U.S. head of state.
“The whole point of the website was to bring people together,” he said.
“Nothing’s going to change.”
