‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps::For a decade, apps have dominated dating. But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people – or reverting to old ones
‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps::For a decade, apps have dominated dating. But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people – or reverting to old ones
I really loved OkCupid back before they sold out. They would share a lot of interesting data on their blog posts, and seemed genuinely interested in making successful matchups based on how your profile was presented to others. It was fun to be on there and didn’t feel like you were just being presented for “dateable” you were if you didn’t want to be.
I also met my wife on OkCupid, but that was just before the site really took a nosedive. Pretty annoyed they deleted my account without warning, so the first message she ever sent me is gone forever.
My wife and I also met on OKCupid, probably around the same time as you – Tinder-like features were starting to appear, but the core of the experience was still about reading other users’ personal essays and comparing compatibility quiz responses. Of all the services I tried, OKCupid (in that particular incarnation, at least) seemed like the only one that was genuinely aimed at fostering deep personal connections. I haven’t been on any of the apps in almost a decade now, but it really seems like the shallow, gamified Tinder model of “swipe right if they look hot” ate up the marketplace, to the detriment of everyone.
Yeah that’s literally all it is now, a few apps are like “there’s no swiping here” but then the mechanic they came up with is worse.