Used hinge, tinder, okcupid, and maybe a couple others. I’m a guy who doesn’t date men, 30s, in a large urban area, average looks and fitness.

I found I could get about a date a week if I put in effort. Most people aren’t putting in effort. Most of your effort is going to go into the void. You just have to accept that most people kind of suck and aren’t going to respond. But just reading their profile and sending a message like a normal person puts you well above average.

Many people seem to just half ass it and I don’t understand why. Like, their profile says they love NK Jemisen. You write that you love her books and ask if they read her latest. They write back with “no”, and of message, no follow up. Like how do you expect that to work out favorably? If you don’t have time, don’t respond. If you’re not interested, unmatch. A dead end reply just wastes everyone’s time.

The apps themselves are not focused on good outcomes. They want money. That doesn’t always mean giving you the best match right away. But sometimes it works out anyway.

I tried tinder once 8 years ago when I moved to a new city. Quickly deleted it. Basically every swipe was a match but then the men would not answer, eventually unmatched without ever answering or immediately text something sexual. Oh and so many “my profile says X but actually…” I think I met with three guys over the course of three month or so and they all tried to pressure me into having sex on the first or second date. One even mocked me for thinking any man would look for anything other than quick sex on tinder.

So it was pretty horrible and I felt mostly unsafe with the guys I met so I quickly stopped using it. I think it’s a horrible way to meet people.

Used tinder, got married, been married for a few years now. 9/10, the app deserves a 3, but it worked.

I met my wife IRL, but that was after more than a decade on dating apps and multiple long relationships from them. They are the best tool ever created for learning to accept rejection, and learning to feel attraction dynamics/what your preferred partner may be attracted to. Best tool ever, also, if you struggle with confidence around your attracted gender, or struggle with self esteem. Even hyper attractive people who are looking for “the one” have to learn to overcome these things, it’s just how romantic value works psychologically. These issues used to be my main barriers (and some baggage) and I didn’t have a single date for 8 years before I decided “fuck it” and made a tinder account. It was awkward and it fucking sucked at first. Actually, using the app basically always fucking sucked, but it generated hope, at least, and opportunity. I had social and performance anxiety out the ass in the beginning, though.

Relationships/dating are like anything else: practice makes perfect. It sounds weird, I know. You don’t need multiple partners necessarily, but you will grow and change and being in a relationship is the only way to promote that growth and change specifically in response to a relationship. In addition to “practice”, these apps also allow you a LOT of vetting before you spend a single dollar or minute on a bad fit. This can be so frustrating with meeting people IRL and finding out a deal breaker after a LOT of investment. Usually you’re only getting big picture information, but for me, a person who doesn’t jive with the majority of the culture in my community (religion & politics), they were an absolute game changer!

It’s been a long time, so take a big grain of salt with these recommendations, there may be better or more specific options for you! Hinge was my favorite. I only actually went out on dates with 3 people, but they were all high quality encounters. This was just after it came out, too, so there is probably a bigger user base now? Second I would say bumble, but it’s a little more specialized.

A long time ago tinder was the best for volume and minimal investment time, it was also the one I used the longest and with by far the most success. Not sure how it is now, but as the cis man I was at the time I swiped right on every single profile and didn’t get myself invested by being picky in the searching phase on tinder. There is plenty of time to reject before the first meet up and, even with people who swipe you back, the vast majority will simply ghost you after a bit, and that’s just how it is, unless you are lucky enough to be drop dead gorgeous. I was learning not to set myself up for heartbreak by dreaming dreams I was gathering from pictures and text blurbs. You must learn to accept the rejection and stop letting it bother you first, and tinder was amazing at that, eventually you run out of people in your area, or at least I did, but this strategy on tinder made it so I didn’t waste a lot of time reading and lopsidedly investing in anyone who was going to simply swipe my ass left in 0.5 milliseconds anyway. You can also run into people you know on any of these apps, which can be good or bad. Patience is key, don’t lose hope, gain strength and resilience. Frame it as practice and self improvement, and not as magically finding the one in the first week.

Lastly, my absolute best dating advice in retrospect is MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY FIRST. Find a passion, find what fires you up, find your creativity, explore things that make you uncomfortable, take yourself on trips, or out to interesting activities with interesting people, grow as much as you possibly can outside of a relationship, even after you are in one. Regardless of gender, race, culture, sexuality, etc. every human on earth is attracted to passion, security, and ambition in a partner. Work on those traits first (also: hit the gym/eat right, it’s just the reality of physical attraction) and you will attract people to you, which is natural and the ultimate goal in order to meet a person that can grow with the best version of you. In short, become the person you would be attracted to and definitely do not expect your future partner to make you into that person, or allow you to become that person after the fact. It’s on you, no matter what stage of the journey you are at when you meet them.

The security of self actualization also allows you to feel confident enough in yourself to recognize when a relationship isn’t working and take action, which is absolutely essential to not becoming trapped because you don’t think you could do better, or find anyone else. No matter what people say, no one is ever attracted to another person, indefinitely, simply because that person is also attracted to them, it doesn’t happen. Even in the highest value partners across the spectrum of all humans ever, attraction waxes and wanes. So, if your goal is a rock solid, “grow old together” kind of love, you absolutely must build it on a solid foundation that will survive the difficult moments, and that isn’t possible without being solid within yourself first and foremost.

I would not have had the confidence, or relationship skills to have met and married my wife without my time learning about myself through the use of these apps.

Used OKCupid from ~2008 to 2016. Maybe 10 or so 1-2 month relationships in that time. Plenty of first dates. Then met my wife. Married in '23.

I’ve heard it’s a fucking nightmare now though. OKCupid used to be all about the profiles and questions, but soon after we stopped using it, it turned into a Tinder clone with just photos. Add in a healthy dose of AI, and I’m sure it’s a very unpleasant time.

Tried one for the first time about a year ago, but only for a few days. Bi poly woman, looking for any poly individuals of any gender. (Not interested in being a unicorn for bicurious couples.)

I figured Feeld would be a good choice since its kink/queer-friendly.

• within one day I had over 70 likes. Despite living in a small town and setting <20km range. Almost every single one was from a (gender declared as) man that hadn’t bothered to fill out their profiles with anything at all. Maybe a third didn’t even have a picture (not that it would’ve mattered, because I want to meet people not bodies, but who do they think is going to swipe right on a sunset, or on Wrath of the Lich King box art?)

• Plenty of couples looking for unicorns that listed themselves as one person to be on my feed anyway. Always with vague filler that tells me nothing about them or what they’re looking for, stuff like ‘connect and see where it goes’.

• plenty of (hypothetical) women that were theoretically looking, but actually the profile was their male partner, whom you had to talk to first, despite saying nothing about her. No photos, no hobbies, nothing about her as a person. Idk if he was standing guard to feel in control and soothe his relationship insecurities, or if she wanted him to protect her from all the risk/effort, but either way: nope. They’re almost never looking for a mutual experience, theyre looking for a volunteer to perform her fantasies for free

• I had every permutation of individual switched on: trans men, women (cis or trans), enbies etc included… but 99% of what I saw was cis men. I don’t know if they were promoted by the app or they really are almost all of the users, but the app would literally start looping through the same empty profiles of cis men without ever showing me a queer woman (that wasn’t a couple pretending)

• Once I stopped including cis men (which i felt very conflicted about but i was so fucking overwhelmed), I finally started seeing queer women (and more unicorn hunters ofc). Almost all of them had fully filled out profiles but the amount of likes dropped to like… 2 over the remaining 3 days I had the app installed.

• one pan man put a ‘super like’ on me which let me see him directly, he’d actually filled put his profile which was great because it gave me something to open with. We had a great conversation but I slowed down on meeting up in person right away because I needed to attend to some real-life needs and invited him to connect outside the app while that happened, which he agreed with but then kinda disappeared without doing so. Maybe he assumed I wasn’t actually interested or I would take too long, idk. A shame because I did like him

I have a (mostly) straight male partner and he showed me his app experience: most of the straight women didn’t bother filling out their profiles at all either, nor did gay men. It seemed only queer women filled it out almost every time? We theorised that the queer dating pool is really small so it’s understood you have to represent yourself to be seen, and women want to have an idea of who you are before they reach out.

Meeting other women is hard so I’d probably need to get back on apps at some point, but damn. Really do feel sorry for everybody out there. All of the people I’ve actually dated have been met in-person.

You need to go at it with the right attitude and be okay with rejection and FOMO (the main business model of dating apps). I’d recommend meeting in person early and moving on quickly if it’s clearly not going to work out. Be nice to the people on the other end!

Stil, I don’t really like dating apps. The way they monetise preys on people’s emotions in a pretty ugly way. It’s also sad that capitalism even commodifies love/relationships. But as a person who struggles with meeting people in person I can’t deny they help. And considering I met my wife through a dating app, I can’t really argue with the results.

Perspective of Average looking guy in his 30s.

No. Did not find, got one date once.

Used for years on and off.

It was horrible.

One match a month at most that was not a bot.

Biggest problem: lopsided demand for male vs females.

Terrible way to meet people.

Used it in an attempt to find a girlfriend.

I have met several people - and eventually my wife - via apps. I’d describe the process as painful, possibly soul-sucking. I would not consider myself attractive, but am not super ugly either. It took a lot of effort though, and was generally highly depressing. I guess it worked, but I feel like there have to be better ways.

Used OkCupid about 9 years ago (mid 30s male). I tried it for a few weeks, liked what it was at the time, and did the 3 month cheap trial premium it whatever it was to get some additional data basically.

There were 3 girls I talked to repeatedly, and a bunch of one and done conversations.

Girl 1 seemed fun and had what seemed like good energy. We were supposed to talk on the phone and set up a date, I believe the situation was, but I was hanging out at my bandmate’s house and lost track of time and she started flipping out on text for not calling. It seemed pretty excessive for us never having met or anything yet, so I called it quits on that one.

Girl 2 was quieter and a little bit reserved, but I really enjoyed talking to her. I really wanted to meet her, but she never got over her nerves or whatever it was to call or hang out, and she would go a few days without being online to chat, so I didn’t know if it would lead anywhere.

Girl 3 was very conversational and outgoing. I feel we talked a week or so on the online chat and then we talked on the phone. We were supposed to meet up, but I didn’t hear from her. She had ended up falling asleep after work and was apologetic about it. We ended up hanging out later and hit it off very well.

We’ve been together almost every day since and got married this November.

So it took about a month for me to have success. My story seems to be an outlier. She had many bad experiences before meeting me. I feel bad that I hear they trashed the app though. I really enjoyed the experience and thought the matching process was pretty nice.

I’m super picky and not very good looking, so my “swipe right” rate is less than 1%.

I used OkCupid a while back. Found myself in a relationship for about six years. Eventually we decided to kinda’ go our separate ways.

Used it again. Got back into a relationship. It’s been ten years.

My one regret is that when I was first using the site about 15 years ago I sent them 5 bitcoin to turn off ads for six months.

I feel like they’re a boon to someone like me who doesn’t like to ask people out or even express interest in folks. “People should be able to go about their lives without someone like me hitting on them,” and that kind of thing. An app is a good way to opt-in to solicitation and has a low barrier to entry.

Something no one seems to have mentioned in this thread is what a huge culture change Tinder was. Tinder singlehandedly made online dating mainstream. Before Tinder I’ve literally had a couple of women tell me they would never meet anyone from online dating sites, that it just reeks of desperation, that it’s like putting an ad in a newspaper for a date and there’s no substitute for meeting someone in real life. A couple of years later everyone is on Tinder (including those same people). People shifted almost entirely to online dating and approaching anyone asking for a date IRL became “too forward and unwelcome”.

I think online dating has always been a cesspool of women getting creepy and threatening messages and guys shouting into the void with unreplied messages. Sure it pays off for some (I’ve seen some friends get dates and hookups, but back then no one wanted to admit to meeting online), but the widespread acceptance of these platforms hasn’t changed the fact that every website and app is just an enshitified mess.

My general experience is swiping through hundreds of people to get a few matches that seem promising only for none of them to respond to my intro messages (which I do take the time to write something unique and related to interests on their profile). The few that do respond typically stop responding after a day or two, I usually give it a couple weeks and then unmatch. Rinse and repeat for about a year and I might eventually end up managing to go out for coffee once a year, and it’s really a coin toss whether a second date happens.

It’s pretty discouraging but I did meet my current partner on tinder. It just takes a lot of time and patience, and not letting the experience make you disillusioned or jaded.

Found my now-husband on Hinge. I was on the app a while (a year and change) before we matched, but he told me that I was his first match on it. There were a lot of duds and a few first dates that led nowhere, but I didn’t have any interaction with people I felt where dangerous or anything like that. Hinge also didn’t feel like it had anything that felt overtly monetized compared to other dating apps (like bumble). This was back in 2020 so I have no idea what it’s like now.

Well, on the one hand I was raped on a first date with a guy from tinder. On the other hand, when I returned to the apps 4 years later, I went on one date, which turned out to be with the man I’m going to marry.

So I guess I’ve hit both the 0% and 100% success rate.