“The amount of cringe turned out to be prohibitive”: how I tested unusual dating apps

I am 25 years old and have never used a dating app. I personally know several happy couples who have found each other there, but still I am skeptical about this way of dating. Tinder and Badoo have always seemed to me like an endless catalog where users rate each other like a commodity. Because of this, I did not really want to install them, but I would not approach strangers on the street either.

I decided to take a closer look at the online dating market and find applications where they approach the search for a partner a little deeper and offer to choose him not only by a photo and a short description. The result was a selection of five services available in Russia. I used them for a month and am ready to share my impressions. Just in case, I’ll clarify that I didn’t plan to look for a future husband and rather wanted new acquaintances, but I didn’t mind if one of them turned into something serious.

1. Vox

How the application works

Instead of filling out a standard questionnaire, Vox users record a short audio business card. With a mutual like, a chat opens where you can exchange voice and text messages and call. Communication must begin within 24 hours. If during this time no one takes the first step, the chat will disappear and you will not be able to find the person. You can only see your profile picture after the match.

My impressions

In social networks, I regularly came across videos with funny profiles from this application, so I was the first to remember about it. At the same time, I wanted to register here least of all. The reason is simple: I hate sending and receiving voice messages, so I will probably not be completely objective in assessing the service. I was pleased that for the same adherents of text messages as I am, Vox has a function transcripts audio. It does not always work perfectly, but it still makes using the application more convenient.

After a couple of unsuccessful takes, I wrote down my business card and passed the voice color test that is offered in the application. From it you can find out your compatibility with other users. A funny thing, but, as it seemed to me, devoid of meaning. It is hard to believe that one can say something about the character by timbre and tone, and in the end I didn’t notice much difference between the “fiery” and “snowy” voices.

Then I got comfortable and began to listen to the questionnaires. The amount of kringa was overwhelming.

I constantly came across equally unfunny jokes about sitting on the face, tackles in the spirit of “Are you alone here?” and various sounds that were clearly not made with the help of the speech apparatus.

In contrast to such creative recordings, there were numerous voice recordings, where users limited themselves to a short “Hi! Write to me” or for 15 seconds they said they didn’t know what to tell about themselves. What can be learned about a person from such a speech is not very clear. There were meaningful and witty audios, too, but to find them, I had to listen to too many strange voices.

Although I got into a lively conversation with a few matches, I don't really want to go back to Vox. Unless suddenly there is a desire to listen jokes.

Who is the app for: Audials and those who just want to have fun.

2. Fitil

How the application works

When registering with Fitil, you need to take a test of 111 questions to find out your personality type and find the person with whom you will have the best psychological compatibility. But just writing to him will not work - instead, you can send an invitation to one of the offline events organized by the application team.

All events are paid and are designed for 8-20 participants, an average ticket costs 1,000 rubles. Under the card with each event, you can see a list of potential participants and those who have already purchased a ticket. Users with whom you have compatibility are marked in it with a special icon. After you visit the event, the application will offer to put a fit (like) to all the participants you like. If sympathy turns out mutual, then the couple will open a chat for further communication.

It should be said right away that Fitil is suitable for residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg. So far, the service holds its events only in these cities, but plans to expand its geography over time.

My impressions

I didn’t want to start filling out such a giant questionnaire for a long time, but I spent no more than half an hour on everything about everything. The questionnaire consisted of two parts: the first included 20 sociological questions about career, education, marital status and external data, and the second assessed the tendency to eight manifestations of personality, For example introversion, spontaneity, rigidity and others. It was interesting to pass the test and study its results, it turned out to better understand my strengths and weaknesses.

There is no separate tape with Fitil profiles. You need to independently navigate to each profile through the lists of event participants or an inconspicuous section at the bottom of the page, which displays people who have recently logged into the application. To do all this, to put it mildly, is inconvenient, but the profiles that I managed to study left a good impression.

The application has many versatile, creative and active people who would be interesting to meet.

At the same time, I did not stumble upon a single profile with dubious jokes in the description or strange photographs. Perhaps the point is the average age of the Fitil audience: it is quite difficult to find a person under 30 here.

When it came to buying a ticket to the event, my enthusiasm waned. The choice was wide: from a one-day hike and a knife-throwing master class to a book club and a concert at the planetarium. I wanted to visit everything at once. And, perhaps, I would have done so if my main goal was not to get to know a man.

After reviewing the lists of participants in events, I realized that they almost always consist of 70-80% of women. I didn’t really want to feel like a heroine of the show “The Bachelor”, so I eventually passed the only purchased ticket. But I'm not going to delete Fitil in the near future and will follow the poster. I can hardly find a couple using this application, but friends and new impressions - quite.

Who is the app for: mature people with serious intentions and those who want to attend interesting events more often.

3. MemeDate

How the application works

Instead of questionnaires, the application offers to evaluate memes. If you and a user swipe several identical pictures to the right, you will be prompted to start a conversation. Profiles of other people can only be seen after the match. In addition to memes, they contain a photo of a person, his age and a short description.

My impressions

This is a very insidious application. It was difficult for me to study profiles for a long time, but while watching memes time flew by imperceptibly. In the application, they do not end, so you can get stuck for a couple of hours. And I liked that the memes were very different: in Russian and English, about cats and mathematics, with David Lynch and Gnome Gnomych. Everyone will find something funny.

I uploaded two dozen of my favorite pictures for my profile and gave probably more than a hundred likes to the memes from the feed. Doing this is more pleasant than choosing good photos and descriptions for the profile.

At the same time, it seemed to me that the resulting collection of memes reflects my character and tastes well.

But my efforts not allowed special results: in a month I had less than 10 matches, and I exchanged messages with only a couple of them. Of course, you can blame my sense of humor, but it seems that the problem is that there are not so many active users in MemeDate. The application was released in 2020, then it was written about in several publications, but since then no one seems to have been promoting it. Perhaps after the departure of Tinder, it will become livelier here, but for now, MemeDate is more suitable for finding memes, not dating.

Who is the app for: not too sociable lovers of funny pictures.

4. Tastebuds

How the application works

Tastebuds pairs based on musical tastes. To do this, you need to tag your favorite artists on your profile or share their list from Spotify. The application will analyze the data and offer profiles of users with similar preferences.

My impressions

As a teenager, I believed that I could only connect my life with a person who listens exclusively rock. My taste in music has changed since then, and life experience has shown that a playlist cannot tell much about a person. But it's much easier to start a conversation with a discussion of your favorite band than with the standard "How are you?", so the Tastebuds idea seemed cool to me.

Spotify is not available in Russia, so all the artists had to be added manually, which took a lot of time. After that, I chose the track that will play in my profile and filled out a short questionnaire. I really liked the questions from it, they were original and helped to get to know the person better. For example, the application asks you to tell how you will spend a million dollars and what song you will choose for your own funeral.

There were few users from my city, so I was recommended even those people with whom we did not match at all in taste. Although even so, the questionnaires ended in about half an hour.

But in Tastebuds, you can send a song or a message to anyone without a match, so communication in this application was enough for me in the end. For some unknown reason, mostly foreigners wrote. So it turned out to practice a little English.

Who is the app for: music lovers and those who want to meet people from other countries.

5. Twinby

How the application works

Twinby also selects a couple based on psychological compatibility. After registration, you need to go five-factor personality test, according to the results of which the algorithm calculates the percentage of compatibility with other users. Otherwise, the mechanics are standard: you need to like each other's profiles to open the chat. A feature of the application is a set of cards with questions on various topics, helping to get to know the interlocutor better.

My impressions

Perhaps Twinby is my favorite, and this is taking into account the fact that he sometimes freezes and works with errors. For starters, I liked the psychological test. It is short and simple, but evaluates the main features that you should pay attention to when looking for a partner. Over time, the developers promise to add tests to it for attachment style, dark traits and personality type. But I have questions about how compatibility is calculated. Now the highest percentage will be in the pair with the same indicators for each criterion. But I'm not sure that, for example, two straightforward introverts can easily get along together.

Twinby has two nice features that you usually have to pay for on other dating apps.

The first is the ability to see everyone who likes your profile. The second is a daily personal selection of profiles with maximum compatibility. These chips help you find a potential pair faster.

And the cards in general seemed to me a brilliant idea. They can be offered to any interlocutor if you do not want to lead standard dialog when meeting. I liked the questions, they helped to quickly get close to the person, and it was interesting to answer them even the second and third time. True, after moving to the next card, the discussion from the previous one disappears. It hinders the development of the topic a bit. To ask a clarifying question, I had to switch to the tab with regular correspondence, this created confusion.

Twinby's audience is quite young, with most users in their early 20s. But at the same time, I almost never met such strange profiles as in Vox.

Who is the app for: those who want to find a serious relationship or just chat on interesting topics.

Summary of my experiment

I would very much like to end the article with a nice story about how I found love of all life, but it won't. At the same time, I cannot call the experiment unsuccessful, especially since my expectations were initially low. I met interesting people, went on a couple of good dates, added to my collection of memes and added new tracks to the playlist. This seems to be a significant result.

By the end of the month, I realized that the difference between Tinder and the apps in this article wasn't as big of a deal as I thought. No matter which dating service you choose, looking through hundreds of profiles will inevitably turn into an exhausting routine, the same type of dialogues will begin to cause boredom, and every time you will show a keen interest in new interlocutors more difficult.

It seems that dating in such a short time has somewhat weaned me from holding on to people and appreciating human connections, because it seems that in a couple of swipes there will be a better option. These thoughts made me sad, but will I give up dating apps? Most likely no. Simply because there is no equivalent replacement for them now.