Online dating. It’s nothing new to the world, but it is new to me. Now that I’m looking to get out there in the world and go on some dates I’ve needed to sign up to a few sites, and I have to say my experiences on each have been very different.

Here are my own personal thoughts on those I’ve signed up to so far.

Bumble

By far and away my favourite app, for a few reasons. One of them is shallow and superficial; most of the women on it are hot! I’m not talking girl-next-door attractive; I’m talking about stunningly beautiful, the sort of women I would be too intimidated to approach in real life.

But the real twist is around first contact. Unlike every other site out there, on Bumble only the woman is allowed to make the first move. If you find a match she has 24 hours to initiate contact with a message before the connection is lost. Once she has the conversation can continue normally, but this puts all the power in her hands.

What this does is mean that only those women who are a bit more confident are signing up to it. They are comfortable making the first move, meaning they have a higher level of self-esteem and self-belief than users of many other sites. It also means I don’t need to come up with that first line to grab her attention and don’t feel so bad when I get no replies.

Oh, and the interface and UX are brilliant too.

Plenty of Fish

This one is good, but a little scatter-gun. It seems to have loads of different ways of connecting me with women, such as the normal swipe-to-match functionality, matching with people close by, with those likely to respond, to those most like me and more. I do wish they would streamline a bit as I feel confused sometimes and that I might be missing out on a bit I don’t know well enough.

The women on it seem to be the full spread of the attractiveness spectrum. Yes, there are beautiful women on there, but there are also a lot of those who are less aesthetically pleasing to me. Yes, I know I’m no oil painting and the beauty is more than skin-deep, but I’ve decided that the woman I eventually strike up a relationship with must be a physical upgrade on my ex. Petty, I know, but it is what it is! On this app almost all of those who want to meet me aren’t people I find physically attractive, though there have been exceptions.

Not bad as an app and probably my second favourite after Bumble.

Tinder

The big one, and the one which has garnered the most public notoriety. It’s easy to get swiping blindness on it as the number of women on there is huge, and as it’s on location they are all within a certain radius of me.

It’s pretty easy to use, though on the free version there is a limit to the number of right-swipes you are allowed to do in a day. I try to find ten ‘likes’ to swipe each time I use it, which often takes less than five minutes.

Match.com

Much more to do with finding relationships than dating, Match made me go through a long questionnaire before it started matching me with people it thinks I’d like to meet.

Trouble is, in order to actually get in touch with them I need to pay. There’s no real free option to speak of, which is bloody frustrating. My inbox gets filled up with potential matches that I can’t do anything about.

Perhaps after a few months, when I’m more ready for a relationship, I might try this one out but for the moment I’ll keep deleting the emails.

Matchaffinity

To be honest, I signed up to this one by mistake. I thought I was redoing the Match.com survey, but apparently it was for a different site! Exactly the same problem is in place though – no matter how many matches I have, or how many women winnk at me, I can’t see or get intouch with them without a paid subscription.

One for the future, perhaps.

 

So, are there any others that I should sign up to? Suggestions would be very welcome!