Valentine's Day is just around the corner, which means it's that time of the year again when most of us feel the most pressure about still being single and not yet tethered to a partner for life, or even for the next two months.
Still, the day is more than a good couple of weeks away, and if you know where to look, you might just be lucky enough to find someone who's willing to take you out on a date for Valentine's Day, whether it's just a casual meet-up over coffee, a one-night stand, or your soulmate to sweep you off your feet you're looking for.
There's a reason Tinder became extremely popular over the last year. It is set up in such an addictive way that can have you swiping for hours looking through profiles of people you might be interested in. Plus, it places a premium on privacy and minimal emotional investment, as it banks mostly on physical attraction to get a pair to meet up. Tinder's become a hotbed for sleazeballs in the recent months, though, so if you can't handle the bad jokes and even worse pick-up lines, there are plenty of other options.
OkCupid is basically the mobile version of the OkCupid website, one of the biggest dating websites that has been around for a while. Everything you can do on the OkCupid website, you can also do on the app, including create your own profile, check out and rate other people's profiles, chat with people you're interested in, and answer questionnaires to match up with someone similar to you.
Plenty of Fish apparently attracts 60,000 new members every week, which shouldn't be surprise as the app relies on the old saying that dating is a numbers game. Like OkCupid, Plenty of Fish is a dating site turned mobile app where you can build your profile, find matches, and message them. It has also taken a page out of Tinder's easy swiping strategy to allow people to quickly scan through all the matches they get.
Bumble (iOS)
If you're sick of the not-so-occasional pervert that turns up on Tinder, Bumble is the perfect alternative for you. This iOS app is actually the brainchild of a Tinder co-founder who left Tinder and sued another co-founder for sexual harassment. This explains why Bumble has a bit of similarity with Tinder by letting users swipe right when they like someone. The difference? Bumble lets women take control by being the ones who have to make the first move. They have to do so in 24 hours, though. Otherwise, the match disappears and you spend your entire life wondering what could have been if you just had the courage to chat up that hottie.
This app relies on the premise that two people who have the same idea of what a perfect first date would be like would hit it off on their first date. HowAboutWe works by letting you broadcast a suggestion for a date and have other people contact you when they are intrigued. It's a free download but members will have to pay if they want to receive messages from other members.
Coffee Meets Bagel (iOS, Android)
If you don't want to sift through tons of profiles to meet a date, Coffee Meets Bagel will do it for you. Every day at noontime, this app will match you up with one person that you can either like or pass and who shares at least one mutual friend on Facebook. Over time, the app learns what type of people you'd like to meet and will be able to show you better matches. Plus, the existence of a mutual friend makes it a bit safer than having to meet up with random people you meet on the Internet.
Hinge is basically Coffee Meets Bagel on steroids. Instead of being matched to one person every day, you get matched to 15 different people each day. Like Coffee Meets Bagel, Hinge pulls information from your Facebook profile and matches you up only with people who are friends with your friends, therefore taking out the creepiness that normally comes along with dating people online.
Pure (iOS)
Pure was developed for one thing and one thing only: to help you get laid and erase evidence of what happened later. Branding itself the "Uber for dates," Pure lets you post a request to meet up with someone for a date, and that request will be sent to everyone within a certain distance from where you are. If someone accepts, it's hookup city for you. If not, all traces of your meetup request will be deleted and no one (except probably the NSA) will know.
Grindr is one of the best places for you to meet gay, bi-sexual, and bi-curious men that are near your location. In fact, Grindr has become pretty much a part of many gay communities that when people meet others in person, they ask for their profiles on Grindr instead of Facebook. Grindr is a free app that makes money off advertisements. If you want an ad-free environment, you can pay for Grindr Xtra, which comes with additional features as well.
As Grindr is for men, Dattch is for lesbian, bi-sexual, and bi-curious women. This app offers a fun, fresh vibe for meeting other women to date or just other women to make friends with when you just moved to a new city. When you're feeling uncomfortable about chatting up other people, you can play the app's "Would You Rather" game to break the ice and meet other women who might suit your preferences.
At First Sight (Android)
Plenty of pictures and a well-thought-out profile are no match to video when it comes to telling something about a person. That is what "The Bachelor" host Chris Harrison had in mind when he developed At First Sight. With apps such as Vine becoming more and more popular, it won't be a wonder if At First Sight sets the stage for the future of online dating.
Tastebuds (iOS)
Research shows the types of music we listen to define the type of people we want to date. For instance, if you're a Beatles fan, you're likely going to hit it off with someone who likes the Rolling Stones. On the other hand, if you listen to Jay-Z and Eminem all day, you're not likely a match with someone who loves Andrea Bocelli. That's what Tastebuds banks on as it aims to match people based on their musical preferences.
