Matchmaker for the Mentally Ill
Getting intimate with the man behind the first dating website for singles with psychiatric disorders.
It’s been ten years since James Leftwich first created No Longer Lonely, a dating website exclusively for people with mental illnesses. Leftwich spoke with me about the challenges of running the site and about why he believes forming loving relationships should be recommended more frequently than pills.
Why did you create No Longer Lonely?
It was one of those things where I looked for something and it didn’t exist. I thought, this is a really logical thing. This should exist. People with mental illness tend to band together. It’s kind of an unsympathetic world.
How did No Longer Lonely start?
Around 2004 it was underway but it wasn’t as big as it is now. A dating site is something that has a critical mass where it’s not very effective until you get a certain amount of people. I’m still facing that challenge but it’s a big world.
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