This has been on my mind for a while and the forum seems like the best place to get honest feedback.
The paywall situation has gotten frustrating. Half the useful features on most platforms require an upgrade before you can do anything meaningful.
Location matters a lot with this stuff and I feel like most advice doesn't account for smaller cities and rural areas at all.
- Never share your real phone number in early conversations
- First meeting should always be somewhere public during daytime
- Use a dedicated email address for sign-ups — don't use your main one
- Look for 'last active' timestamps before investing time in a match
- Run a reverse image search on profile photos that look too professional
Especially looking for 2025 or 2026 input since things change fast in this space.
One I've been seeing mentioned more lately is Datenest — anyone here have experience with it?