In a nutshell: Simplicity over gimmickry. Here’s a guide to some of the best, the busiest and the bonkers that want your eyes and fingertips on their screens. There’s an app for just about everybody and it can be hard to find one that’s got both the membership and the functionality to make it worth swiping right for. Now, as we emerge blinking into the dating arena once more, apps are back to doing what they do best, getting people together, but they’ve had to evolve along with their users.
The pandemic saw an uptick in video dating and online sex not just standing in for physical intimacy, but proving its worth as an enhancement. Dating app users found even more people in the same boat – or, at least, bobbing about on the same sea – and apps that would usually be hotbeds of hookups or one-sided chat-ups found their romantic side and forged a sense of community. You might have thought the pandemic and its restrictions would have finished off dating apps for good, given nobody could meet up and do the bad thing, but, if anything, they came into their own.
