One Married Woman Tries Six Dating Apps

I am a married woman and I didn’t meet my husband online — which is yet another reason why I feel cut off from my generation. If this were the 70s, I would have metaphorically never gone to Studio 54.

This fact however, does make me uniquely qualified to review the various efficacies of different dating apps. At least, I think so. Why? I guess because I have no skin in the game. Plus I am curious. What is Studio 54? Was it cool? Or was it just so weird? Was Michael Jackson there? (Yes)

Tinder

Tinder has been exhaustively written about, although I don’t even know why because it’s not funny at all. The app uses a combination of your Facebook profile, a two-line description and your location to give you a random sampling of the men in your area. Essentially, it is like going to a bar where you don’t know anyone and there is nothing to lose.

The very name seems to conjure low expectations. The app is not called “The Fires Of Love,” for example. Still, I was surprised how many app-users seemed so anxious in this relatively no fail system with zero stakes. There seemed to be so much fear in the eyes of the men on this site, who were usually leaning against a building, hiking outside, or taking a kind of vain selfie of the top of their eyes. It was sad. I started to feel bad for everyone like I was Holden Caulfield and they were my kid sister Phoebe.

Hinge

Hinge is just like Tinder, but based on the assumption that you never want to leave the dysfunctional, airless social circle you are a part of. Based on Hinge, all of the men I would possibly be suited for are wearing Breton striped sweaters with boat necks?? Why! What does that say about my airless social circle? I have to get new friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happn

Happn (the lack of “e” was such a surprise. No one mentioned that to me) is this app that uses Facebook (honestly, how anxiety provoking that they all use Facebook) and your location (which they rip from your cellphone) to see which fellow app-users you have crossed paths with throughout the day. Then they show you a selection of those people.

It’s like the plot of You’ve Got Mail or the mechanism by which Ted Bundy stalked and killed his victims. On this site, the men seem to go to great lengths to seem nonthreatening. They are all holding dogs, or crouching. But that is exactly what Ted Bundy did to lure his victims!

Bumble

Bumble is the “feminist” dating app. Essentially it is the same as anything else, except the women are the choosers, like the Sadie Hawkins dance of your nightmares. As a woman full of embarrassment, this didn’t necessarily seem to be the liberation I was looking for but then I actually went on the app. The men on this app are INSANELY good looking. They literally look like models. This could be for two reasons: 1) The men who have signed up for Bumble are there because they know what it is like to be objectified and they have Leaned In to never doing any work ever again 2) It is a Ponzi scheme by Bernard L. Madoff, which he is operating from prison! That smart bastard.

Ok, Cupid

Ok, Cupid (that’s how I spell it, with a comma of regret) makes everyone take an exhaustive questionnaire and then matches you up with a stranger according to how many of your answers to these questions match. It’s very work intensive. You can write, like, literally an essay in your profile. For example, one profile I saw had an entire description of the inside mechanics of a pen. It think it was supposed to be a metaphor for dating??? Hard to say.

The League

I knew this experiment was at its close when I tried to join another dating site called “The League” (good lord) and like some sort of dystopian George Orwell nightmare, “The League” asks for both your Facebook AND your LinkedIn password. I don’t remember my LinkedIn password! What is LinkedIn? The end.

Rebecca Harrington — hilarious Oh Boy guest, fridge revealer and writer of this MR story about wrinkle cream — is the author of “I’ll Have What She’s Having.”  She is also a frequent contributor to The Cut where she attempts unique diets that no one else should.

Illustration by Katlyn D’Angelo; follow her on Instagram.