Yes.

Met a partner of ~5 years ok okcupid some years ago.

Met a partner of ~8 years on ok cupid after that.

I get a fair amount of dates on Tinder now, even though I’m getting old and have at least one major deal breaker.

It turns out a lot of people are really bad at using the dating apps. People don’t write anything useful in their bio. They waste their first message with “hey”. When they get a question they dead end it. Like “hey your profile says you love NK jemisen. Have you read her new books?” -> “no”. And then they’re like "why isn’t this working?'. My friends please be better at this.

Tinder still sucks and you can see where they’re putting profit ahead of a good experience, but you have to go where the people are.

I met my fiancé on Tinder during the pandemic. We were within 1km of each other so I thought that counted as the same bubble. Now we are going to get married next year

Dating apps work fine if you know how to date. Met my wife on PoF. Never had any issues getting dates on any of the programs and I’m a 5/10 at best.

If you have a very unique profile and provide thoughtful engagement to potential dates, you will find a partner eventually. I know it can feel like a slog sometimes, but it’s still a lot less bullshit than you’d get dating random strangers the old way.

A decade or so ago? Yeah, totally, dating apps worked fine. Recently? No. Everyone wants to sell you something and they can’t do that if you actually meet someone, so it’s just constant “people totally like you, we swear, you just have to pay and we’ll show you who!” and bots. I got messages/intros (where it’s allowed pre-match) because I’m a woman and it’s borderline impossible not to if you have a pulse, but it was mostly from men who were way too old and/or people where the only thing we had in common was geography.

I personally recommend that people (men especially) stay away from them.

I always struggled with confidence and self-esteem, so for me dating apps were just making that worse. I spent months swiping and the breakdown for me was something like 200 swipes before I’d get a match, then out of those matches, at least half were spam bots or fake profiles, then out of the other half, probably only 1/5 would answer my messages. The ones that did answer either weren’t very engaged or just never responded at all often the initial interaction. All of this just contributed to lower self esteem and more bitterness and depression.

I found the women on these apps would put in 0 effort at conversation, and yet would say things like “We should get to know each other first” when I tried to set up a date.

Then the dates that I did get, I felt catfished but more likely it was my own wishful thinking and being willing to overlook obviously misleading photos. I had at least one date with a girl who matched her picture but then was a complete psycho.

I don’t really blame the women, it’s just market forces at work. These apps tend to have way more guys on them than girls, so the women are (generally) able to just sit back and the men are expected to wow them with fantastic opening messages or have the exact right physical characteristics. For this reason, Bumble was the only app I had success with and would have recommended.

For me, I had hoped dating apps would be a useful tool for meeting other singles in person to get to know them, but I ended up with the impression that many women were just using them to inflate their own self esteem, and loved to chat and get compliments but never actually wanted to date.

Anyways, it sounds cliche and I’m sure someone has said this to you, but you should work on building yourself. What worked for me was to find an activity that I could be secure and confident in and also meet women in that setting. I found two different long-term relationships through coed rec sports, and it’s not like I was some superstar at sports impressing the women or anything. Just go into it thinking about improving your own mental and physical health, work on getting better and meeting more people.

Both women I met through coed sports told me that I was much more appealing in person than my dating profiles, so maybe some profile improvements were warranted, but I concluded that it’s just not possible to get a good sense of someone you might want to date through pictures and a chat. Dating apps are only useful if they lead to meeting people in person, so if they aren’t enabling you to do that then you just have to get out there and meet people without them.

I met my wife via tinder, way back when that shit was free.

Tried all the usual ones and they suck never got a match. Gave a chance to Boo and met my now fiancee on there. It’s a friend’s and dating app. Definitely be truthful about yourself and fill out the information. Worked for me.

I’ve had next to no luck with the dating apps. I think the longest relationship I got out of them was 2 months, and the majority of conversations ended before ever meeting. The dating app world doesn’t seem to accommodate my kind of person, where I want to get to know a person before we bed each other. It seemed like every match wanted to have a single date that ended in sex. Fuck that.

Understand the incentive model.

Dating apps are like every other app - they make money by keeping users engaged and using the app. If you find a good relationship, you don’t need the dating app anymore, and they lose two users.

People who have success on these apps do so in spite of the app.

You can still use the app to meet people who are also looking to date, but don’t expect the app to help you do it. In fact, expect the app to get in your way and mislead you. Take any advice the app gives you about who is a good match (or a bad match) for you with several large grains of salt.

I met my wife on POF. Before that, I paid for a a different service and got absolutely no where. Really hope that service is fucking dead.

Yes, on OkCupid about ten years ago. Met. My wife that way.

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Short answer is ‘No.’ Long answer is a lot more complicated. Had limited success on a few apps, but I had hardly any matches over the past year and a half since I became single. Modern day dating apps are definitely a scam. They’re all enshittified Tinder clones that charge you upwards of £40 a month just to see likes.

Meanwhile, every woman is like “6ft, 7 figures and 8 inches or GTFO”

Out of my four past relationships, two were LDRs that fell apart the moment we actually closed the gap and met in person, one I ended because my then-partner had no personality and conversation with her was really dry, and the most recent one used me for my money.

I’m 32, below average in terms of my looks, and that’s regardless of how I present myself: I have tried all kinds of hairstyles and outfits and nothing seems to work.

Shit’s depressing.

Met my wife on coffee meets bagel. Used other apps, and had lots of great experiences on all but bumble and shadii (tinder, match, pof, perhaps others).

My suceess got a ton better after one of my first matches helped me take new photos and update my text. She said I wasn’t selling myself well, and was 1000% right based on the results.

Yes. I hooked up with a few girls and settled with my (now) gf.

We are together for 7 years by now and when we met the scene was already pretty harsh. I’d only imagine it’s way worse now