The unfortunate truths about dating apps in 2021.

Over the years, dating apps have become my most reliable way of meeting women. I found dating apps to be less awkward, protecting my ego from the rejections I’d experience with day game and the harsh ones from going out at night. In a way, it worked for me when I first got on them and I have been on over 100 dates by using Hinge, Bumble, and Tinder. After almost 4 years of being on dating apps, I have noticed that things have changed in a big way and it is important for all of my readers to know about this.

You may not like some of what you have to hear and if your experiences have been different, please let me know. For now, here are some of the truths about dating apps in 2021.

They are trying to make resetting your profile damn near impossible.

Deleting your old profile in favor of recreating a new one, especially if you have better pics, is favorable. Dating apps work off of an algorithm, in order for your profile to even be seen, it has to appear on the feed of women who use it. When you have a good “ELO score”, your profile jumps to the top of the stack so more women see it. When you have a poor “ELO score”, it jumps to the bottom. A lot of guys often got better pics, restarted their profiles, and this usually netted them more matches.

Now, dating apps will keep your phone number and so much information about your phone that it is practically impossible to start over. While the methods do exist, you have to try a lot harder to get things set up compared to back when dating apps first came out. Speaking of when they first came out….

Bots and fake profiles galore, it’s the worst on Tinder.

Bots, OnlyFans accounts, fake profiles, and women trying to line their Instagram followers galore. The worst app for this is Tinder where I’d suspect a good chunk of women are fake profiles but I also see this pouring over into other dating apps. When I first got on dating apps, you got more real profiles but the noise now is so much with every third profile you see advertising their OnlyFans page. It gets annoying as well whenever you match and its someone asking you to follow them on Snapchat. You get tired of it too when half of your matches these days are porn bots.

It has become an aggressive money grab, how much you pay determines how many matches you get.

If you don’t pay for Tinder Boost or Bumble Premium, you are going to get a lot less matches. My friend did an experiment where he tried his profile with Bumble Premium and his profile without. The result? He got almost 70% more likes and matches by using Bumble spotlight. I have also noticed that in the past couple of years, if you do not pay for the premium packages, you do not get many matches.

I have seen guys get on premium version of dating apps, get a lot of matches for the time being, then get off and hardly get any matches at all. Hinge has been the safest from all of this but I am starting to see the premium boosts break in there as well so no doubt its going downhill. If you are not willing to pay, you are going to suffer greatly with dating apps in 2021. This was not the case even back in 2018.

Dating apps will deceive you on how many matches you have in order to get you to pay.

One thing I have seen both Tinder and Bumble do a lot if you use the free version is that they will show you what profiles like you, blurred out, and then make you swipe forever until that profile actually shows up in your feed. Say you have a like and in the blur, you can make out what profile that liked you looks like. Tinder and Bumble will put that profile towards the tail end of your swiping so you would have had to swipe through over 10 profiles to even get to that profile. Some guys might not want to swipe left as readily since they do not want to miss the profile that liked them. I have seen other tactics play out as well.

While working with a friend, Tinder showed him that he has 50+ likes and they were all blurred out since he was a free user. Not long after, friend pays for the app’s gold services and finds that he only had 8 likes. Apps such as Tinder and Bumble will often hide the real number of likes you have if you are a free user in order to get you to pay for their premium services. I think that this is a deceptive way to get people to pay to be subscribers. I have not seen this with Hinge but have seen it with Tinder.

There are really only two ways to consistently get matches on dating apps and you have to do both together at some point during the year.

1. Pay for premium services
2. Reset your profile

Often, you will have to do the two together. You may pay for premium services and for a short amount of time, notice an uptick in matches. Eventually, this fades out and you will once again be left dry. What this means is that you have to practically reset your profile again because the algorithm has eventually decided to put others at the top of the stack. I used to think that this was based on looks but I have found friends who are handsome guys facing the same issues now. The amount of matches my friends used to get back in 2018 has dwindled down significantly in 2021.

If you ever decide to put unvaccinated on your profile, get ready to be blacklisted.

A couple of my friends have had COVID already and recovered so they decided not to get the vaccine. On top of this, they do not like the politics that have taken hold which has further tightened up their decision on avoiding the vaccine. So both of my friends, who normally get a good deal of matches, put unvaccinated on their profile as well as started being vocal about how they are against the COVID politics. Both of my friends get almost no matches and their profiles have been glitching in a huge way. I’d just go with the flow on the vaccine and mandates debate on these apps.

Unless you are in a major world class city, it might be best to use them as supplements at best.

I had success with Tinder, Bumble and Hinge because I spent most of my twenties in NYC. Once I left NYC, the success has dropped off dramatically. You run out of people to swipe on and you run out of your profiles. I did do decently in Atlanta back when it was 2017 but as soon as I visited, I ran into the same problems in 2020 that I am noticing now on this post. Even in NYC, you get niche apps like Bounce that often alleviate some of the pitfalls of Tinder and Bumble.

So where it is it all heading?

Whether we like to admit it or not, dating apps are here to stay. Most people meet their spouses through dating apps these days and with the pandemic looming, they are going to continue to rise in popularity. People are going to continue to use them and pay for them because unfortunately, it is convenient. Even I find that it is much easier for my ego to swipe through profiles than flatter a girl at a bar who could very well be using me for a free drink. What I think is needed is disruption in the space to come out and make the other apps clean up their act.

When Myspace (for those who still remember) was the social media leader, it was unquestioned until Facebook came out. Then Instagram came after Facebook and although Facebook purchased it, it still made Facebook your grandma site compared to the more modern Instagram. Then TikTok took off and other sites came up as well along the way.

I think that right now, we need disruption in the dating app space. Some apps have tried but none have taken off yet because young people are not buying in.