While Facebook wasn’t designed to be a dating platform, that hasn’t stopped the desperate from trying to score using it. If you’re a woman, then you’re well aware of what we’re talking about. Having scores of random men send you a creepy message is a regular occurrence in the life of any woman, regardless of where you are in the world.
It makes sense that men would want to use Facebook to hit on women. It’s a platform with billions of users from across the globe, offering ways to connect with each through private or public means of communication.
It’s not surprising then that a few dating apps have tried to harness the power of Facebook. For instance, the app ‘Hinge’ scans your Facebook friend list for potential matches instead of trying to set you up with complete strangers. A more promiscuous app, ‘Bang with Friends’ lets you know if both you and your crush on Facebook are both willing to sleep with each other.
Finally, Mark Zuckerberg and Co. have now entered the matchmaking scene with their own offering: Facebook Dating. Launched in the US in September 2019, Facebook Dating is an additional feature on the main app rather than being a separate release. The concept is simple: users create separate dating profiles that are separate from their main ones and then express interest towards others. In this review, we go in-depth into its main features:
Signing Up
Unsurprisingly, the sign-up process for Facebook Dating is quite simple. If you’re already logged into the main app, you can access the feature via the app’s main menu. Clicking on it will prompt users to set up a profile. You won’t be asked to provide information since Facebook can simply pull everything it needs from your main profile.
Your dating profile will already be populated with existing details like your name and date of birth, and you’ll be able to pick photos from your Facebook albums. Pretty much the only ‘work’ you’ll need to do is creating a short bio. Even so, you can choose to have it populated entirely with emojis or simply answer a series of default dating questions. Overall, it takes about five minutes or less to be done with the process.
Members
While the main Facebook app has millions of users, its Dating Feature hasn’t really caught on yet for some reason. The app is fairly new after all, especially when compared to veterans in the scene such as Tinder or Grindr. As a result, you shouldn’t expect to find a whole host of potential matches in your local area just yet. It could be true that the app will bring in more users as it develops past its ages, but for now, it feels a little bit like a dating wasteland.
Communication
Communication isn’t as ‘sneaky’ with Tinder, where you swipe right on a profile if you’re interested and that person will only be notified if he/she does the same. With Facebook Dating, you’re instead sending a ‘like’ to a profile that immediately notifies him/her of your interest. Hence, it does require some bravery on your part. If the person you’re interested sends a ‘like’ back, then the app will open up a messaging space for you, allowing you to take it from there.
Features
Secret Crush
Secret Crush is a workaround to the more straightforward ‘like’ system. With this feature, you secretly express your interest in a person. That person will only be notified if he/she ever does the same for you in the future.
Second Look
This is a feature that allows you to go back and look at users you’ve turned down before. This is quite useful if you happen to change your mind about a person or if you rejected them by accident in the first place.
Gender Identity Options
You can choose to identify as one of many genders and look for users across all of these.
Facebook Dating allows you to link up your Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Safety and Privacy
When it comes to data privacy, Facebook is one of the world’s biggest offenders (remember that whole thing with Cambridge Analytica and Russian hackers influencing American elections?). While it isn’t the case currently, there’s no telling if the feature will be used to mine your data and show you ads based on your behaviour, just like with the main app.
What about fake profiles? Facebook has an entire department of employees tasked solely with verifying whether profiles are genuine or not. However, with millions of accounts, it’s hard to really monitor them all. Hence, you need to exercise a little caution on your end as well.
Would We Recommend Facebook Dating?
It depends. If you’re looking for a free service and you happen to live in an area where there is a decent amount of users on the app, then you might found this somewhat useful. However, the app is still in its initial phases and doesn’t offer much, especially not the user base that apps like Tinder can boast. We would recommend Dateme1st as one of the better dating sites.
With any free service, women have it the hardest. Facebook Dating may encourage random men to send likes or use it to locate your main profile and slide into your DMs with creepy messages. For a better experience, we’d recommend a paid site like eHarmony, Be2 or match.com. You’re much likely to find serious men on platforms like this since the mandatory payments weed out the desperate cheapskates.
