Whatever hot dating app everyone’s writing about, it’s already over. Tinder, OkCupid, Bumble, Hinge, Grindr, PornHub comments—say goodbye to those relics, grandperson. I’m a cutting-edge tech journalist living in a cyberpunk future, so I tried out 18 new dating apps that you won’t find on the Verge, that CREAKING DINOSAUR of a “website.”
My employers pay by the game-change, so I only had time to jot some quick notes and move onto the next assignment. Move fast and break hearts.
1) SingleMatch
It’s where singles meet their match! But it’s also where you only get matched a single time. If that doesn’t work out, tough shit. Go elsewhere, heathen. SingleMatch was founded by Focus on the Family, which believes in the traditional model of courtship and abhors serial dating.
There are also no ads on SingleMatch. Just a roadblock video of a group of teens passing around a piece of Scotch tape, each handling it until it’s gross and un-sticky. This video is unskippable.
2) Meat Market
Profit-sharing comes to dating. Meat Market charges users to send messages and gives kickbacks to the recipients. So if you’re finding everyone else a disappointment, at least you can make a profit.
3) Metadater
Schedule dates inside of your other dates. Schedule speed dates inside those dates. It’s dates all the way down.
4) Goggles
Augmented reality dating. Finally choose dates based on personality alone by filtering your partner’s appearance in realtime. If their personality still sucks, wait for Goggles’ text-to-speech conversational overlay.
5) Listen
Showed up to my first date to discover a recording studio. Whole app is a front to get new guests on the founders’ branded podcast. I was halfway through the Stamps.com ad copy when I caught on. AVOID.
6) Second Chances
A dating app populated only by your exes. At this point you’ve all run out of new options and seen just how bad it is out there, so just retrace your steps and see if, in your search for Mr. Right, you passed up a solid six.
7) Daterabbit
At any time during your date, you can tag out, and one of Daterabbit’s contractors (NOT EMPLOYEES) will smile and nod while your suitor maps out a path to a Sanders nomination.
8) UpFront
No games, no bullshit. Every user’s profile is a close-up of their genitalia. Founder tells me: “We’ve had great adaptation among half of our target market, and we’re working hard to get some women on here, too.”
9) SlipStream
Wasted a week on here before realizing every user was also a journalist on assignment.
10) Nickel
Nickel proves that free dating apps can be high-quality—if you pay for them. You can make do with the basic text-only account, or for 99 cents each:
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Add a profile picture
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Message another user
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Share your phone number
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Answer a quiz question
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Block dick pics
11) Snipe
You’ve matched, you’ve flirted, you’ve made a date. Think you’re set? Think again! Someone might snipe that date. Keep upping the ante with a fancier restaurant, a nicer outfit, and promises of sexual favors. If someone beats you out, the date is theirs. Bids are open until the last minute. So before you head across town, make sure your date hasn’t been swept off her feet!
12) Datum
Data-driven dating is bullshit if it all disappears the night you meet in person. Use compatibility tests, profile picture analysis, and extensive essays to meticulously build a compatibility probability. Then maintain that compatibility throughout the relationship, or you will be legally required to end it.
Datum delivers regular prompts to maintain date productivity. Always-on mics analyze conversation, and gentle alerts steer it toward high-impact topics. Motion detectors track intimate activity, with graphs encouraging steady, sustainable escalation. Can your relationship scale?
13) Build-a-Bear Cute Meet
For fans of Build-a-Bear to schedule dates at Build-a-Bear and discuss their favorite bear lore and activities.
14) Locksmiths Only
For lovers of the locksmith lifestyle, “pickers” and “dupers” alike.
15) Tawdle
Tawdle’s UI is built entirely of easy-to-understand pictures and symbols to make dating easier for toddlers.
16) Doctor Consigliere’s Quagmire Island
This app whisks you away to the fantastical island paradise of Doctor Consigliere. Pleasures untold await you at this romantic tropical Shangri-La, populated only by the finest human specimens, all in peak physical condition. Pay no attention to the guards; they are there to ensure your happiness! Sorry, laboratory? That’s not a laboratory, that’s a power station. That’s a power station to power this luxurious free-love resort we invited you to. Here, try this cocktail, it’s three colors, don’t ask how! Tell them I sent you; for every referral I get a $50 Lyft credit.
17) Piña Colada
No matter what you search for on this app, you’ll only find your current partner.
18) Make It Nice
Just a nice site where people are nice to each other, so we don’t have to moderate anyone, and we don’t have to kick anyone out, and no one’s feelings get hurt. Just be nice, OK?
