The Dating Apps 3some

The dating apps, a nightmare of a place to be. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy them, most of the time. Right now though I’m really not enjoying them. They seem like hard work, tedious and boring. So i’ve stopped going on them.

So just to give a bit of context to this blog, I decided to have a week dedicated to one of the dating apps a week, swiping on profiles each day. Using Tinder, Bumble & Hinge I decided to swipe every single day. 80 swipes a day.

In a similar time scale at the start of lockdown I had around 90 conversations on the go. Some moved to Whats App, some stayed in the apps. All these chats were decent chats, not just one or two messages. The conversations didn’t always last very long. Theres only so many times you can chat about when you are in the middle of a pandemic.

As lockdown ended I was excited to see how this would play out and how many matches i’d end up with. Lets take a ride from the start and see how exactly these went and how I’d personally rate the apps.

Bumble

So I started on Bumble, the great people over there gave me a free week of “Boost”. This was unrelated to the week of swiping, they weren’t aware of it I don’t think.

I like Bumble, its probably my favourite out of the 3. The women make the move when you match, it feels like the interest is more genuine. It’s rare on the other apps the women will message first.

So here’s a breakdown of the days from my week on Bumble:-
Monday – 47 right swipes – 2 likes
Tuesday – 47 right swipes – 2 likes
Wednesday – 41 right swipes – 1 like
Thursday – 38 right swipes – 1 like
Friday – 37 right swipes – 1 like
Saturday – 36 right swipes – 0 likes
Sunday – 39 right swipes – 0 likes

285 right swipes out of 560. 7 likes, that I didn’t swipe right on and 7 days later I was begining to wonder what I’d let myself in for. I was a week in to this and my inbox was drier than the Sahara! The matches I’d got expired. In that week no chats started. It was the week after that I ended up with 5 new matches from the weeks swiping and that led to 5 new conversations. I’ll come back to conversations after the overview of each app.

Tinder

Week 2, I was jumping straight in to Tinder. Nothing free here, I’d stopped paying the fee for unlimited swipes. I was at the start of another week, another 560 swipes to go.

I’ve done alright on Tinder in the past. I was looking forward to swiping on there. I knew I had a decent amount of likes on Tinder, you can’t see them though unless you pay for it. But I wasn’t paying. As much as I don’t mind Tinder, it feels hard work sometimes.

So here’s the breakdown of how Tinder went:-
Monday – 41 right swipes
Tuesday – 43 right swipes – 1 match, we chatted, but the chat died down
Wednesday – 38 right swipes
Thursday – 41 right swipes – missed various potential matches
Friday – 38 right swipes – missed various potential matches
Saturday – 33 right swipes – missed various potential matches
Sunday – 40 right swipes

264 likes out of 560, numerous missed matches. The one chat I had in the week was nice. She was chatty, she was pretty and we had things in common. It was however, slightly disappointing when we just suddenly stopped talking. It’s a good job Bumble had picked up to keep me company. I seemed to have got in to a rhythm here, the week after when I started on Hinge, I got matches coming through on Tinder.

Hinge

The final week was Hinge. Now the concept of Hinge is great. Like someone, send a short message to catch their attention. Hinge itself though isn’t something I’m overly excited by. It’s the app designed to delete dating apps. I’m not against it for that reason, it would be great to delete the apps. I think you’ll see what I mean when you see how I got on.

When I first got on Hinge it was great, the majority of the 90 matches at the start of lockdown came from Hinge. I really don’t know what went wrong.

So here’s the breakdown of how Hinge went:-
Monday – 4 right swipes – 1 like
Tuesday – 4 right swipes – 1 like
Wednesday – 11 right swipes – 1 match and a chat
Thursday – 3 right swipes
Friday – 8 right swipes – 2 likes
Saturday – 4 right swipes
Sunday – 4 right swipes – 4 likes and 1 match

38 likes, yes thats right 38 likes out of 560! What had happened to Hinge? I’d had a friend say to me “Hinge is crap, it’s no good for me I hate it!” 9 likes without matching and out of the 38 likes i’d made I had 6 matches and chats.

The Aftermath

Ultimately, I feel I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for this. The chats were hard work, it wasn’t them, it was me!

The chats were short and sweet. I couldn’t get my head in to it. I wanted to, but it all felt very forced from my end. The apps gave me a feeling of fatigue. I was getting bored and fast.

On each app the chats probably lasted no more than 2/3 days. I was missing notifications or just ignoring them. I had no reason to, other than I just couldn’t get my mind in to wanting to chat.

The last chat I had from Hinge went to What’s App, only because she said she didn’t like being on Hinge. She was pissed at the time, quite funny with it, but then after the night of drunk texting I’ve not heard from her since. I ended the chat on a double text, I’m not that keen on her to triple text! Sorry if you’re reading this and it sounds like it might be you.

Thoughts On The Apps

Bumble was the app for me. More right swipes from me on the app and better chats, when they came about. I do enjoy Bumble, I used it less when I was active on the apps. That will change when I decide to get back on the apps. I’ve had great chats in the past, when I’ve wanted to be on the apps. I seem to get more likes from the sort of people who I tend to be more attracted to. The women that come up when I’m swiping seem to be more the type that I’m attracted to. Overall the quality of matches on Bumble are probably the best I’ve had out of the 3 dating apps.

Hinge however, well, what a barrel of shit that was. I had massive hopes for Hinge when I started this. I thought it would be the best by far. I’d had some great chats early lockdown and I was hopping things would continue. At times I know I’m fussy, aren’t we all? But the choices that were coming up on Hinge just weren’t my type at all. I guess when you are “the dating app designed to be deleted” it’s going to pull a lot of people in. I don’t know how to say this without me sounding like a bit of a dick. A lot of the people on the app really aren’t my type.

Tinder, for me is still a decent app. You can still get a good connection with people that are on the app. It doesn’t feel as much as a hook up place as it used to be, I do get the feeling though that a lot of blokes may well still use it for that though. I don’t think i’ll be in a rush to be paying for it again. I didn’t see the benefit. This may sound stupid but Tinder would probably be my 3rd choice out of the apps. I know I’ve just moaned about Hinge but before this I had some great chats with some lovely women. Just a shame they didn’t really go anywhere.

Its not been as busy as I thought it could have been. I was hoping I would have a fair few chats still on going, maybe even a few dates lined up. Alas its not to be. For now the dating apps have had the notifications turned off. I’ll have some time to myself away from them and then i’ll probably start back on Bumble.

I know a few of you were waiting on this to hope it might give you some idea about the dating apps. Don’t be discouraged by the low numbers, I think this was down to me, mainly not being interested to a degree.