Trying to find someone you’d actually want to date seems nearly impossible these days. I haven’t bumped into the love of my life at the grocery store, the guys at the bar have never not been creepy, and I haven’t gotten asked out over the romance section at a quaint bookstore, which leaves the dreaded option of dating apps.
I know, I know! I’m having a visceral reaction, too. Dating apps can be absolutely the worst. The options seem bleak, the features are lacking, and the idea of asking a stranger how they are for the 50 billionth time isn’t something I necessarily get excited about. But the trick to scoring on dating apps is to know that while, yes, they are atrocious, some are less so than others.
While the general idea of any dating app is to swipe to find someone you’re compatible with, you’d be surprised at how complicatedly bad these apps make this process. So to make it a little easier on you, here’s a betchy ranking of dating apps. While there are over 1,500 dating apps out there right now, unless you have some super niche dating requirements (are you only looking for single farmers, perhaps?), these are the only ones you really need to worry about.
7. League
While it was supposed to be a dating app set up to help likeminded successful professionals get together, all it is is a weird, elitist and kinda racist platform that shows you the same type of person in 50 very similar versions. If you’re looking to breed Ivy-league robots, go ahead but for any normal person this app is just awful all around. What is this, LinkedIn? Last place!
6. Plenty of Fish
If you’re looking for scammers and catfishes, Plenty of Fish is the dating app for you! If you’re looking to find love… LOL!
5. Coffee Meets Bagel
If you’ve never heard of this dating app, it’s because it’s just really bad — and not meant for anyone who doesn’t live in a major city. While the idea behind the app seems like it’d be a success (it’s meant for people who are tired of swiping by only providing a few, curated matches for you to sift through), the app isn’t really that great at presenting you with matches. So when you’re only given like six matches a day and they’re all pretty bad, it makes the overall experience not so great.
4. Tinder
If the other dating apps weren’t so absolutely shit, this would be at the bottom of the list. Tinder should no longer be considered a dating app, it’s strictly a hook-up app. And hey, there is nothing wrong with using an app to find people to fuck. What is the problem is the general way people speak to you on the app because they think everyone’s on it to hook up.
3. Raya
If you’re a social media influencer, you can use Raya to find yourself a billionaire spouse. Seriously. But otherwise, it’s kind of a hard app to get into especially without a referral. It’s a little better than other apps because the vetting process is more intense, meaning the quality of your matches is going to be a bit better, but it functions pretty much like any other dating app otherwise.
2. Hinge
While I truly hate Hinge because of my experiences on it — let’s just say men don’t know how to speak to people these day — it really is up there compared to the other apps. The prompts and profile set up are meant for people who are looking for relationships, and you get to learn a lot about potential matches through what they’re required to present to you.
1. Bumble
Sure, I hate being the first person to send a message, but once I get past that I usually have pretty decent conversations. And, because the people joining the app know they have to wait for the women to message first, it’s full of nicer people. Any app that doesn’t let a man contact me unless I contact him first is a godsend. Congrats on first place!
