New Bedford Man Ditches Dating Apps and Creates DatingKen.com

Ladies, if you’ve seen a strange ad pop up on your Facebook timeline asking you to “Meet Ken,” let us explain. New Bedford resident Kenneth Pereira is looking for love in the year 2023, but he’s thinking outside what has become the box of modern dating.

Instead of perusing through the myriad of dating apps, swiping and swiping and swiping in the hopes of making a love connection, 33-year-old Pereira created DatingKen.com, a website that explains who he is and why a woman should date him.

He said it’s his opportunity to get more out about who he is than what most dating apps provide.

“It’s just swiping endlessly until you find someone that may swipe back on you, and I was getting tired of doing that so that’s why I created my own site,” he said in an interview Monday on WBSM. “My website shows a lot more than a simple bio, and they can go through, and if they’re interested, they can send a message.”

As an IT professional by trade, Pereira understands how the dating apps work – or don’t work, as the case may be.

“All these apps nowadays are designed to keep getting the money out of you, the people that pay, and it keeps on endlessly going. It’s like a pay-to-win system,” Pereira said.

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He created the “Meet Ken” Facebook page and Instagram account to purchase targeted ads on social media to get his page in front of women who might be interested in him.

“When they’re scrolling through their social media, if they’re part of the criteria and the keywords I put in, then they should see an ad,” he said, admitting he hasn’t spent too much on the ads just yet. “I don’t want to go all out just yet, just testing it out to see what I can get from there.”

When a potential date goes to Pereira’s website, she’ll see photos of him as well as his interests; he’s described as “not your average nerd” on the site.

You can even see photos of Pereira’s dead-on (no pun intended) cosplay of Stranger Things hero Eddie Munson.

“I tend to cosplay, which is something relatively new, post-COVID,” he said. “I’ve been going to a (convention) up in Boston called PAX East since 2011, but I never cosplayed until 2021. So that’s a big hobby of mine. Most of the people I know now are cosplay friends.”

He said he’s also into video games, movies and television, but that he also works out and is willing to go on just about any other adventure that comes up.

“Last week I went to Goth Night in Boston, so it’s not just nerdy things,” he said.

Another thing for which Pereira is known is winning sweepstakes and contests.

“I’ve actually won a lot of trips for free, to places like L.A., Miami. I was actually supposed to go to London before COVID happened because I won a trip to London, but eventually they just gave me the cash value,” he said.

He also won a BMW motorcycle, but he ended up getting rid of it, he said, “because New England isn’t the best place to own a motorcycle.”

Pereira also has a collection of screen-used movie props such as Evan Peters’ Quicksilver goggles from X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-23’s glasses from Logan. He also has sports memorabilia as well, such as a Kobe Bryant signed basketball.

Oh, and Pereira’s friends call him the “Meme God” because he has a knack for always supplying the right meme at the right moment.

“I’m really good at coming up (with memes) during conversations and through group chats to make people laugh,” he said. “They love that because they might not be having the best day, but I’m always on point with those.”

So aside from getting memes texted to them throughout the day, what else can a woman who dates Ken Pereira expect?

“I’m obviously very honest. I’m loyal. I’m very genuine,” he said. “I think overall, I’m a very good person.”

With all this to offer, has he been hearing from women interested in dating him through DatingKen.com?

“There are people here and there that I’ve gotten. Some of them are not local because the story reaches beyond the region, but I prefer a local, like within the New England area,” he said.

He also reiterated that he doesn’t need to find someone with the same interests that he has.

“I’m open not just to nerdy people to go out with,” he said. “You never really know, really, so I just have to see what’s out there.”