Dating

Bumble and Airbnb announced a partnership to provide a curated list of virtual dates to its dating app users featuring experiences from around the world.

Like most dating apps, Bumble has seen an increase in usage and messaging the last couple of months as people shelter at home in the midst of a global pandemic, and has sought to engage their users through its new video chat feature. The partnership with Airbnb is its latest effort to encourage connection while we shelter at home.

According to Travel + Leisure magazine, some of the date options include going to a speakeasy jazz club in Amsterdam or learning to cook Mexican street tacos with a professional chef, which have relatively low price points for a date ($12 and $9 per person, respectively).

Dating can be confusing, which is why so many people turn to their friends, social media or a Reddit forum to ask questions or to understand and resolve challenges they face. If you aren’t familiar with using Reddit, there are some very popular subgroup discussions for a wide range of topics that involve dating. 

Reddit is an open platform where people can anonymously post their story, question or dilemma and open it up for others to respond. Users can subscribe to different topics and get notifications when a new thread is added, or when their thread has a new comment. It’s a place where you can take a really deep dive into a subject that interests you.

There are a number of popular online dating communities on Reddit. We put together our own choices for you to check out:

POF is taking virtual dating to the next level with a new initiative called NextDate Social Hours on its POF Live! platform.

NextDate is like virtual speed dating, where users have the opportunity not only to meet new people but also win prizes for participating. Users can go to POF Live! and hit the “go live” button to join while the speed dating hours are in session. They can join NextDate by clicking the heart at the bottom on their screens.

Once a user has joined NextDate, they will get paired with a potential match who has also joined. Then each of you is given some prompts to ask questions and get to know each other while other participants can watch and send hearts and other virtual gifts of encouragement, according to POF’s blog.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, dating app OkCupid is seeing a surge of user activity across the globe.

In a recent blog post, the company shared some interesting statistics – including a 900% increase in mentions of “coronavirus” and “social distancing” on OkCupid profiles between February and March. And this translates to user activity as well. OkCupid reported a 20 percent increase in conversations and a 10 percent increase in matches globally as people are messaging and going on virtual “dates” in increasing numbers.

OkCupid also reported a 30 percent increase in messages since the beginning of March when people began to isolate at home. Women in particular are reaching out more than ever – they have increased the amount of first messages they send to matches by 40 percent.

Coronavirus has taken over newsfeeds and has affected all of us, no matter where we live. Now, it seems to be changing how dating apps operate, too.

Dating.com recently reported an 82 percent increase in dating app usage around the world since the beginning of March, when countries began putting restrictions in place. And as Forbes points out - dating apps are moving fast to offer new ways of virtual connection to attract more users and to keep them engaged, now that they have your attention.

Conversations over dating apps have increased. Tinder reports a 20 percent increase in daily messages worldwide. Since March 12th, Bumble has reported a 21 percent increase in both messages sent as well as usage of its new Voice Call and Video Chat features, according to Daily News. New York City – where the current epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak is - had a 23 percent increase in sent messages. And Bumble Bizz reported an even higher spike in activity – a 57% increase in usage over the last few weeks – because people are thinking about their careers and livelihoods as well as dating.

Dating app OkZoomer began as a joke, but has unexpectedly taken off among college students across the U.S.

The coronavirus has forced people to find creative ways to connect, and college students have risen to the challenge. Ileana Valdez and Patrycja Gorska, two Yale Juniors, noticed the Ivy League Meme Consortium was growing fast with almost 100,000 members who were posting memes about their new social lives over Zoom. They thought they could do something similar with virtual dating. 

According to The Dallas Observer, they created a Google Form to match people going on blind Zoom dates as a joke, but then they began seeing hundreds, then thousands, sign up. In just two days, almost 2,400 students from 170 colleges across the country had signed up. Gorska and Valdez recruited more students to help, with a total of six people staffing their project, including Valdez’s brother who created an algorithm to help with matches. Now just weeks later, they have over 12,000 sign-ups.