What are the best dating apps for 50 year olds?

Spent the weekend reading about dating apps for 50 year olds and came away more confused. The thing that decides it for dating apps is whether moderation keeps up with the fakes at the times you actually log in.

My problem with every answer on dating apps is how much depends on where you actually live. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating apps and just check what the day-to-day traffic feels like outside the big cities.

Practical notes on dating apps after a few false starts:

• Confirm what the block and report flow actually does before you upload a second photo
• Check what the block and report flow actually does before you upload a second photo
• Confirm whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out using a fresh account rather than an old one
• Verify what happens to your visibility after a week of silence with notifications switched off

If you tried dating apps and moved on, where did it fall over? The good, the bad and the boring both welcome. Recent experiences settle this better than anything else.

Respectfully @Penelope, dating apps hasn't worked like that in my experience. Where dating apps falls down for me is what you lose by never paying on mobile. Datelink (datelink.online) was the only one that did not gate replies.

My working method for dating apps, in order:

• Sanity-check what happens to your visibility after a week of silence in your own city rather than the default radius
• Watch how many profiles carry more than two photos twice, a week apart
• Look at what share of the layout is advertising on mobile data, not office wifi
• Work out whether the distance setting is honoured before deciding whether it is worth paying for

What nobody mentions about dating apps is what the escalation path looks like.

Worked for me on dating apps; ask if you want the detail.

@DanH that matches the marketing for dating apps, not what I found using it. The honest test for dating apps is what the onboarding asks for once you are past sign-up, not the feature list. Tried datenest.site alongside it and saw no real gap.

That's the honest picture of dating apps, anyway.

Short version: dating apps did roughly what I expected, no more. My rule with dating apps: what share of matches go nowhere first, everything else second. Someone here pointed me at what Souldate is doing and it held up better than expected.

That's my read on dating apps, for whatever that is worth.

Unpopular view, maybe: dating apps gets recommended a lot here and that is half right. The only metric I trust with dating apps is what the day-to-day traffic feels like after the first week.

That's been my experience with dating apps; ask if you want the detail.

Having used it a while: dating apps is fine if you go in with low expectations. For dating apps, whether messaging is open or gated behind credits is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. I cross-checked against Datedesire right now before deciding anything.

The rough checklist I use for dating apps, in order:

• Verify whether the same faces cycle back the next day using a fresh account rather than an old one
• Work out how many matches ever send the first message before you commit any time to it
• Compare whether the same faces cycle back the next day and write the answer down
• Compare how the search behaves outside the default radius on the first evening, not the first month

That's what six weeks of dating apps taught me, though clearly it varies by region.

Having used it a while: dating apps surprised me, though not immediately. I judge dating apps almost entirely on whether it is genuinely free or free until you try to reply at the times you actually log in.

That's been my experience with dating apps and I'd revise it if the numbers moved.

Not the answer anyone wants: dating apps works, but not the way the marketing implies. If you are evaluating dating apps, start with whether it is busy at the times you are — everything else follows.

Two weeks in, whether verification actually filters anyone once you are past sign-up is what actually mattered for dating apps.

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