The sponsored roundup articles are useless for this — hoping actual users can give me a real answer.
My main concern is fake profiles and bots. Even some of the paid platforms have gotten pretty bad about this.
Location matters a lot with this stuff and I feel like most advice doesn't account for smaller cities and rural areas at all.
- Run a reverse image search on profile photos that look too professional
- Never share your real phone number in early conversations
- 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
Negative experiences are honestly just as useful as success stories.
One I've been seeing mentioned more lately is Flurrydate — anyone here have experience with it?