6 Dating Apps That’ll Help You Find Love, Stay In Love, Or Make Love
This app aims to take the awkwardness out of one-on-one blind dates, by encouraging groups to meet up. Rope in two friends, then use the app to arrange a blind date with a potential match and two of their friends. Each of you pay a $20 into the app, which then goes on your first round of drinks.
Tinder hooks up with your Facebook profile, then shows you an album of selfies for potential matches, based on your location. As you flick through the photos, swipe them to the left to discard, or to the right to indicate you like them. If anyone you have ‘liked’ has bestowed a right swipe on your profile photo, you will both be notified of the match. You can then chat online through the Tinder platform.
The app is free and has a rapidly growing US and UK user base. The main attraction is that you don’t have to deal with rejection, since you only chat with people who have already ‘liked’ your photo. However, the system doesn’t lend itself to those seriously looking for love in the same way an online dating profile does. The average user is just 23 years old, and since matches are based on looks alone, it can be difficult to get a conversation started.
Twine works in a similar way to Tinder, but is based on interests not looks. Twine lifts your information from your Facebook profile, but blurs your image. The app suggests potential matches based on GPS location information and shared interests. You can message each other through Twine until you are comfortable enough to reveal your profile photo. With the permission of both you and your match, Twine simultaneously reveals the profile images of both parties (only to each other, no-one else can see the photos). In a bid to get users to focus on the quality of matches rather than quantity, Twine limits the number of candidates it matches you to.
Kahnoodle is a relationship app aimed at couples. It enables couples to rank gestures and gifts they prefer, then log when they do something nice to each other, to accumulate credit in their love tanks. The app also sends push notifications as a reminder to do nice things like ‘initiate sex’ and ‘give an affectionate hug’.
Critics claim the app sucks the spontaneity and thoughtfulness out of these gestures, which is what makes them special in the first place. But if you have been together for a long time, and are stuck in a romance rut, this can be a great way to kick-start your affections for each other.
This is a book and app combo, which takes the 2,000 year old text on lovemaking, and gives it a modern spin, by combining it with an app that provides 3D illustrations. The images allow the complex positions to be examined from all angles, so you can work out who’s foot goes where, and whether your knee really ought to be bending backwards, while your elbow is lodged in their ear.
The pocket Kama Sutra is a standalone app, with no book required. The instructions may not be as easy to follow as the Xcitra’s detailed illustrations, but the app does allow you to keep track of the positions you’ve mastered, much like progressing your way through a love-making video game.
Whether you’re on the look out for love, want to spice things up, or get back into the habit of appreciating your partner, there’s a relationship app out there that can help you do it.