Today’s fast-paced world leaves most of us with very less time to socialise and find partners. This is where dating apps come into play. From the comfort of your cell phone, you can connect with someone to find friendship, companionship, and casual dating based on common interests.

Though there are many options to find partners, most often people turn to dating apps when they can’t find a match within their known circles. For singles who use dating apps, some connections develop into serious relationships, while others remain friendships or unfortunately, end in disappointment. These apps also provide a valuable platform for the LGBTQIA+ community to find the right match.

Tinder, Bumble and Hinge rank among the most popular dating apps. Bumble lets you choose from a menu of options such as long- term relationships, life partner, fun casual dates, intimacy without commitment, ethical non-monogamy and marriage.
A recently launched app is Schmooze. While meeting strangers always has its pros and cons, after dating for a while, we trust our gut feelings about whether someone is the one. Let’s hear from people who have used these apps and their experiences with them.

Mallica, 28 yrs
“It is totally worth it, but it takes a lot of tries to find the right person. I’ve had to swipe over 500 odd profiles over the years, 200 right swipes at the least. Yes, I finally did. I knew it when I found my match. I’m engaged to my final match now. I’ve had both good and bad experiences on dating sites. I’ve made some wonderful friends over the years, some whom I’ve really liked, but decided to just be friends because of certain reasons. There have been multiple bad experiences as well, when someone doesn’t respect you, or their motive to be on the site doesn’t align with yours. Values are different or just rude people. So I read everyone’s bio. When there is a bio that’s empty or doesn’t have enough written, I swipe left, no matter how cute the guy is. When a guy takes an effort to fill out details and write something about himself it makes me feel like he cares, and wants to genuinely make a connection. Also, i swipe left on married men, people who are looking for something casual or just to hook-up.”

Ganesh, 30 yrs
“Most of the people look for serious relationships, even for a bride or groom in dating apps. But I look for something casual but it’s always the vice-versa!”

Bhuvanesh, 34 yrs
“It’s for people who have time management skills with best speaking and flirting skills. They can use it well and get more response from the opposite person.”

Selvin, 27 yrs
“Not worth it. Apps are cool, but the user database is bad and too many booty calls most of the time. Even with verified profiles, there are lots of fakes. After all the struggle, if you find a woman, she doesn’t take the initiative to talk or she ghosts you, and there are too many creepy women. Yes, I always find what I want and wanted. There’s a lot of ‘catfishing’—once you date, they threaten and blackmail you for money and stuff, which I’ve heard from friends but hasn’t happened to me. I met a sex freak, and she was very annoying. If women would be accountable for their actions—I mean, they say one thing in their bio and act differently in chats—it’s annoying. Most apps give a 24-hour time window, which is useless. Not many use dating apps daily unless they’re desperate to find a match. Most men and women use it to kill their boredom and for self-validation—that’s it. I know how to get what I want, so it works for me.”

Sathish, 35 yrs
“During the lockdown I started using a dating app after my friend’s suggestion. I have found that most of the fake profiles are handled by men to threaten men. When I started to chat, they tried to make a video call and record it, they do morphing with dirty content and threaten men for money. Beware of the fake profiles. Totally, I think the dating apps are scam.”

Bairavi, 32 yrs
“As my parents were looking for a groom, so instead of marrying a stranger I thought of choosing a partner by myself so tried using the dating app but most profiles that say “marriage or long-term relationships” are just fake and they look for a physical relationship in the name of marriage so I completely don’t trust people using these apps. But I found few genuine people who are still my good friends.”

Rohith, 27 yrs
“The way men are interested in porn, women are interested in getting attention, when it comes to dating apps, they prefer high standard men and there is only 1% of them. Dating apps look one-sided and appear to be more favorable for women than men. For me, Instagram is the best dating app if you maintain your profile well.”

Kavya, 27 yrs
“To be honest it’s totally a waste of time but sometimes it’s fun. I swipe right only based on the looks and that’s my first preference. After texting for few minutes I weigh whether this person is honest with me. I will meet them and then will decide whether they will be a suitable person for me or not. People get into dating apps for many things but for me it’s always ‘Love.’”

Mahima, 23 yrs
“It’s a complete waste of time to find love in these dating apps. There are no genuine people in these apps, you can find people who are looking only for physical relationship which is not I wanted. I will swipe right only for the men who have mentioned sensible information in their bio. I feel Bumble and Tinder are better compared to the newly launched app ‘Schmooze’ I had worst experience using this app.”

Aravind, 26 yrs
“It’s completely based on luck! If you search for love you can’t get one but I found only friends with benefits and girls who are looking only for fun. Also, mostly people use it to connect with professionals. Mostly dating apps are the best place for gays and lesbians to find their matches easily. Serious relationship is not on the cards in dating apps and even in the premium package you see most of fake profiles lined-up.”