While this may be a brand new blog topic- this is far from a brand new topic of discussion for the two of us– dating and relationships! We both happen to be single twenty something year olds, who were single before the pandemic and still are- which means that we have a very unique perspective on being a single young adult longing for love during the time of a lockdown. Okay– so longing may be a bit dramatic, as the two of us are very much introverts who appreciate alone time and independence, but still this past year has presented us with our fair share of moments of feeling single and lonely AF.
Now that there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel, with restaurants and bars opening back up, there is a surge of energy to get back out there and have more of an active dating life which for us means re-downloading and or updating those dating apps! As if the lack of socializing this past year weren’t enough to motivate us to get swiping, then surely moving to a brand new city has been the final push at getting us to become very active dating app users. So for those of you who are single and in the same boat as us, wanting to lead a more pro-active dating life, then keep reading to find out the two dating apps we have been conducting swipe seshes on since moving to our brand new city of Dallas and as we embark on lots of dating adventures and of course some mis adventures. And be sure to continue to look for updates from us as we blog more about all things pertaining to dating and an exciting project in the works!
Bumble
For all of y’all who are not familiar with dating apps– this was created as the feminist dating app, as girls make the first move aka initiating convo. This also happens to be an app that was started by a woman who was living in Dallas at the time, so it gets a special first place shoutout from us two Dallas based bloggers! While there was some hesitancy from the two of us to use bumble before the pandemic because we are not afraid to admit that we just genuinely don’t enjoy starting off the small talk on apps, it has become the app that we have gotten accustomed to and are definitely active on! It also happens to be the one app that we both have noticed, is the one app we have ever really heard any of our friends or friends of friends meeting their long term significant other on!
Why we Like Bumble: This app gives you more agency, if you are the girl, as you have to be the one to reach out– giving you full control over who you talk to and invest time in matching and then messaging. We also love that this one sort of forces us to be active in our dating life and not resorting to our procrastination tendencies, as you have to message within the first twenty four hours of matching before the match expires.
Hinge
If you are not a huge fan of messaging first, like we were when we first started out on the dating apps, then Hinge provides a great alternative. This app requires all users to answer three prompts, which we think makes for a better way of deciding whether or not to match with someone. This also makes you feel like it’s more of a relationship focused dating app since users have to put in some (very minimal but still some) time to answer questions about themselves in order to join. Whether that be the case or not, is up in the air as we haven’t heard of as many couples meeting on this app — but we do hear about it all the time in convos with our other single friends and have def had some fun dates come out of this one too. But we will say that we feel like we, and a lot of our friends, have had way more conversations on hinge, which could attest to our lack of desire in messaging first but it’s still enough to suggest that this is an app to download to meet singles!
Why We Like Hinge: When the idea of starting up small talk feels too overwhelming, this is the app we turn to! We love that it forces the prompts as these can be good conversational topics to reference but also a better way at narrowing down a large dating pool (if you live in a big city) to meet matches who seem to have similarities or interests you’d want in someone you would go out on a date with. Although this probably shouldn’t factor into what is considered romantic or not, in a very virtual world where dating apps are the norm for meeting singles, the idea of hearting and or commenting on someones dating profile seems slightly more romantic than just swiping right on them!