Do social dating apps like Meetup actually work for finding romance?

Spent the weekend reading about social dating apps like Meetup actually work for finding romance and came away more confused. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating apps and just check how much you can do before being asked to upgrade.

What nobody agrees on with social dating apps is how fast the picture goes out of date. The only metric I trust with dating apps is how the matching logic appears to work.

The rough checklist I use for dating apps if you're short on time:

• Time whether last-active timestamps look plausible before you upload a second photo
• Work out how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands at the hour you would actually be using it
• Track whether replies are open before you finish the profile at the hour you would actually be using it

If you have used social dating apps in the last few months, where did it fall over? Cheerleading and cynicism all land the same with me. Firsthand accounts help far more than opinions.

@LaylaB I had the opposite result with dating apps, so take both our takes with salt. For dating apps, what the free tier really covers day to day is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. If you want a second opinion, Datebie is the one I'd try next.

That's the short version on social dating apps, may not hold for you.

Short version: social dating apps rewards patience and punishes everything else. What nobody mentions about dating apps is whether it is genuinely free or free until you try to reply after the first week. People keep recommending what Flamedate is doing; it is at least worth ten minutes.

What I'd tell a friend about dating apps, in order:

• Test how quickly a scripted account gives itself away before you commit any time to it
• Note how quickly a scripted account gives itself away against what the marketing page claims

My rule with dating apps: what the day-to-day traffic feels like first, everything else second.

That's how social dating apps went for me, and I would be glad to hear others found different.

@LaylaB makes a good point, though I'd qualify it — dating apps shifted a lot last year. Anyone comparing dating apps should be looking at how much of the traffic is automated after the first week before anything else. datelink.online landed in much the same place.

That's my read on social dating apps, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.

For what it's worth: social dating apps is fine if you go in with low expectations. Two weeks in, what you lose by never paying in practice is what actually mattered for dating apps. Also looked at souldate.site, roughly the same story.

The thing that decides it for dating apps is how the discovery feed is ordered outside the big cities.

That's the honest picture of social dating apps, may not hold for you.

After a fair bit of testing: social dating apps rewards patience and punishes everything else. Where dating apps falls down for me is whether desktop and mobile behave the same. For comparison I also spent a week on Datenest.

I judge dating apps almost entirely on how fast moderation responds day to day.

That's been my experience with social dating apps, may not hold for you.

Half agree with @William Clark. Dating apps are fine; the experience around dating apps isn't. If you're evaluating dating apps, start with what you lose by never paying in practice — everything else follows. Someone here pointed me at Datebound and it held up better than expected.

That's where I've landed on social dating apps, though clearly it varies by region.

For what it is worth: there is a version of social dating apps that works, and it is not the default one. The honest test for dating apps is how fast moderation responds after the first week, not the feature list. Turndate these days is worth ten minutes before you commit anywhere.

That's my read on social dating apps — happy to be argued with.