I’ve never been one to find a long-term romantic partner on a dating app. Since they became popular around 2013, I’ve tried them all and they’ve never led me to a relationship. Many pieces have come out this year about dating app fatigue, with people even positing conspiracy theories that the apps are designed to keep people on the app rather than help them find their partner and leave.

One of the most difficult things about dating apps is that they require a big time investment. In order to find the right people to date, we have to sift and scroll through…hundreds? Thousands? Of people in our set dating radius.

I have to admit, they can be exhausting, and as an extrovert, I enjoy talking to strangers and meeting people in the wild.

However, while traveling where I don’t have a network or my finger on the pulse of the coolest places to hang out in order to stage an interesting meet-cute, the apps are amazing in giving you every single last single person available.

So, if there was a way to just cut down on the time! One Instagram influencer, Glo Atanmo, said she met her “person” (now fiancé) by spending 3 hours a day on dating apps while traveling. (She’s a Nigerian-American digital nomad, he’s Bosnian).

There is a pretty exciting new feature in 2024 that I think all the apps should be doing and that has the potential to save users a lot of time. I’ll get to it in a minute.

When I reflect on whether apps have worked for me, here’s a list of where I’ve met some of the men I’ve dated in the last decade:

2014 - NYC. Video Tech Guy. He sold me a pair of shoes. In person. And he got my number. We dated for a few months.
2016 - Austin/San Diego. Kevin 1. We met at an electronic music festival in San Diego. In person. We were together for 2+ years.
2019 - Boston. Biotech Guy. We met on Bumble. Dating app. We dated 2.5 months.
2020 - Boston. Foreign Guy. We met at an electronic music concert. In person. We spent one infatuated weekend together.
2020 - Boston/San Luis Obispo. Kevin 2. We reconnected at a concert (of his). In person. We had been friends and romantically interested in each other many years before. We were together 2+ years.
2023 - Boston. Medical Doctor Guy. We met on Hinge. Dating app. We dated for a few months.

In-person meetings have been a winner for me—previous long-term partners were met through friends in social spaces.

And yet, by necessity and convenience, here I am, using dating apps in 2024. Fingers crossed I can figure them out this time.

These are the apps I have currently on my iPhone: The League, Bumble, Hinge, OkCupid, and Tinder.

Here are my likes and dislikes:

Bumble - has been the more feminist dating app in which only the woman can initiate the conversation. This changed this week, however, so we’ll see how long it takes for this app to feel just like Tinder.
Hinge - I like how you have to start a conversation with someone to match—not just swiping. It’s more interesting, saves time, and seems to be less objectifying. However, it can take more time to find matches.
OkCupid - I don’t use this one as much but it seems to be popular in Europe. I like that it asks the users a lot of questions then shows you your % match with other users—so you already know if you have shared values.
Tinder - the user interface has really gone full video game lately! It’s surreal and not at all appealing to me. This app has the most users but that could be a downside too. I’m sure they’re a paid version to filter but I haven’t tried it.

It’s The League that has the best dating app feature, in my opinion: 1:1 randomly matched video pairings every day at 5pm. It’s called “League Live”.

In one of my favorite books about romantic relationships and the influence of our childhood experiences in influencing our love choices, A General Theory of Love, the authors, psychiatry researchers at UCSF Medical School, share that the brain is better than any dating app algorithm that tries to match people based on collected data. The brain will know in mere seconds whether someone is a yes or no; a “yum” or “yuck” as they say in Buddhist teachings. The human brain has been collecting data every second of every day since we were in the womb and is constantly applying that data to people it meets to make snap judgments about how to interact with someone.

Do I want to talk to them?
Are they safe?
Is this a potential new friend?
Am I attracted to them?
Is something they’re doing signaling danger in any way? Or am I uncomfortable?

And on and on.

And there’s only so much we can tell from a person’s dating app bio and photos. Humans must experience someone face to face to know if there’s attraction. So having a 3-minute 1:1 face-to-face video conversation with a dating app potential match…is genius. It lets our brain algorithm do its thing.

Like a speed dating event, at the end of the call, each user is prompted to select whether they want to match with this person, and if both choose “yes,” they’re connected on the app to continue chatting or to set up a date.

I had tried using The League app many years ago and found it wasn’t for me. Maybe paid users have better luck but it’s the most expensive dating app (that I know of). Here are the prices for different tiers:

Member

3 months: $399
1 month: $299
1 week: $99

Owner

2 months: $499
1 month: $399
1 week: $199

Investor

1 month: $999
1 week: $399

The different levels come with different perks.

However, at the start of 2024, I read an article about “Dating Sunday,” a Sunday in January that has the highest rate of dating app users. This is a combination of “New Year New Me” goals, Valentine’s Day approaching in February, and feeling pressured by family members over the holidays.

I read this piece in February about The League launching their new feature so I decided to try it out. I reinstalled the app and updated my profile. One weekday at 5 pm I hit the “join” button and waited as the app paired me with a real-live human being. It gave us a prompt question to start the conversations like, “What’s a book you’ve read twice?” It was thrilling! Much more exciting than endless swiping and texting. I had a 3 minute chat then it paired me 2 more times.

Unfortunately, being in the small town of San Luis Obispo, California at the time visiting my parents, I wasn’t matched with anyone in my town. I was paired with men in my time zone—so basically from San Diego, CA up to Vancouver, Canada. I tried this several more times while in California and it was thrilling every time although it never led to any significant connections. It was fun to talk face to face and with a countdown timer going.

The downside is that the pool of users is smaller on The League than on other dating apps—or maybe that’s a good thing? It links with a user’s LinkedIn and pulls a person’s last few job titles over to the bio—something that can’t be changed for free users. So, in that way, it tends to be for people with jobs and degrees they’re proud of. If that’s you and you’re looking for similar, it could cut down on time by having fewer users you’re not into.

I hopped on League Live in Europe when I arrived in March and my first video conversation ended up being a fun one—we kept talking and met up in person a few weeks later and had a great time together. That was my first in-person meetup to come out of The League app! I have some theories as to why I haven’t found great matches with preppy American men—that’ll have to be a separate blog.

I have had a few other interesting conversations—both video and text. However, it’s not a highly used app in Europe so the pool is tiny. Additionally, the chat happens with folks in the same time zone only. So, while in the Central Europe time zone, I was never going to talk live with someone in Ireland, UK or Portugal, who are an hour ahead. And now that I’m in Bulgaria, and soon, Turkey, I’ll no longer be matched on League Live with anyone from the Central Europe time zone (most European countries). This can be limiting for digital nomads like me.

I am attending a wedding this year where the bride and groom met each other on The League so I know of at least 1 success story. If you’re thinking of getting back on the dating apps and feeling jaded, try The League and League Live and see what you think.

I’m curious what would happen if all the dating apps had a short video chat option or if users were prompted to quickly move to video chat after matching. I think it could save people a lot of time, eliminating long, tedious text conversations.