Before June 2021, I never imagined myself using a dating app. I had always imagined myself meeting people organically, especially after moving to a new city. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, I quickly realized that it was difficult to interact with strangers. Maybe it was because I had lost some social skills during the first year of the pandemic or maybe it was because I realized I was a natural introvert. Regardless, I decided to do the next best thing—download dating apps. With that, here are my personal experiences with three popular dating apps.
Tinder
The first dating app I downloaded was Tinder. My main reason for downloading this app first was because it was one I had always heard about, especially among friends. The first day I spent on the app was probably the most fun I had during the whole time on Tinder. Creating a profile, swiping left and right, and matching with a few people sparked the excitement of new possibilities for me. I learned though that Tinder wasn’t the app that I had previously made it out to be. For me personally, Tinder felt more like a “hook up” app with many users wanting something quick and casual with no-strings attached. While I’m sure there are users who are looking for long term or are fine with short term, personally for me, it didn’t work out and I quickly deleted my profile.
Bumble
After a day or so after deleting my Tinder profile, I decided to dive into the world of Bumble. I hadn’t heard a lot about Bumble, other than the fact that women made the first move. To be honest, Bumble felt very similar to Tinder where it appeared that matches were looking for something casual more than long term. If anything, I found myself getting bored of Bumble more quickly than Tinder. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because I held my standards unreasonably high or because I had seen many of the individuals I saw on Bumble also on Tinder. If anything, both Bumble and Tinder felt like it was more about the quantity of people available rather than the quality of those people. Either way, I found myself deleting my profile within a few hours and moving on.
Hinge
When I got Hinge, I promised myself that it would be the last dating app I spend my time on. While I hadn’t heard any reviews about it from my friends, I wanted to give it a try mainly because their motto is “the dating app designed to be deleted”. I remember when I first went on it, I was impressed. I enjoyed the simplicity along with the ability to narrow down my preferences quite a bit. There were also more individuals I hadn’t seen before on other dating apps, which brought back the fun and excitement. The next day, I could feel that fun and excitement fading again as I got into a similar pattern of repetitive swiping. Still, I decided to keep the app for another day, just to see if it was different. I’m honestly glad I did. Later that day, I got a message from a person I had matched with and almost immediately, we had great conversations. Long story short, he’s my partner and I couldn’t be happier.
While other people have success stories on Tinder, Bumble, and other dating apps and websites, I’m biased towards praising Hinge. Mainly because it really was the dating app I deleted not because I was bored but because I found my partner. However, I will be grateful to Tinder and Bumble. Those were the first two apps that gave me exposure to online dating and I had pretty decent experiences on them. If I had never gotten Tinder or Bumble, there’s a high chance I would have never gotten Hinge, which would have meant that I would never have gotten the chance to meet my partner.