I first tried online dating almost 10 years ago, and after several years of absence a few years ago I returned to the world of online dating apps. Back then, Angyalkak.hu (“little angels”) was The Lesbian Dating App - let’s see what we can find today! We’ll start with the most popular ones, then go deeper down the rabbit hole...
Tinder
How it works:
Tinder is based on geolocation. On your profile, you can upload a picture, and maybe a few sentences about yourself. You can also show your age, and maybe your workplace or your school if you choose to. You can only log into Tinder via your Facebook profile, so it automatically imports the data from there. Next, you must choose who you are looking for based on three factors: gender, age, and distance from you. You’re all set! You can now swipe right or left based on whether you like the person’s profile or not. The chat is only available if you’ve matched with the person - that is, you both swiped right on each other’s profile.
Tinder definitely has the largest user base and the largest number of new users. Unfortunately, the algorithm is often broken - many times it shows me girls who are only interested in boys (and sometimes even boys, too). That being said, since you can only chat with someone if you have both swiped right, you don’t have to worry about embarrassing yourself by chatting up a straight girl.
Being popular all over the world and used by tourists as well as expats, Tinder offers a wide range of people and you have the potential to make plenty of interesting matches, even from other cultures.
OkCupid
How it works:
Based on geolocation, it works both as a website and as an application. Much more sophisticated than Tinder, meaning that besides a picture and basic demographical data you can tell everyone about yourself by finishing some pre-written sentences on your profile. For example, “Six things I could never do without…” and “On a tipical Friday night I am…”. Like Tinder, you only see the profiles of those who fit your established criteria (age, sexual orientation, gender, distance, and the type of relationship you’re looking for). Unlike Tinder, however, OkCupid lets you message anyone whose profile you see.
This would probably be my favourite dating app if more people used it. Oh, and watch out: if you look at someone’s profile, they get a notification.
Those two are the dating apps that Hungarians mostly use and are also the closest to my own personal taste in terms of user base. Still, I say the more the merrier, so I am also present on a bunch of others.
Wapa (earlier: Brenda)
How it works:
Geolocation again. This application is specifically for women and the information on the profiles includes a picture, age, a short description, height and weight (?!). The other users are listed based on their distance to you and you can only filter by age.
Wapa was one of the many applications I found on Google Play. I have downloaded plenty of apps, but I soon deleted most of them: either the developers were clearly not the best at their jobs, or I found that nobody in Hungary used the app in question. Well, wapa doesn’t redeem the world either. It’s a Spanish application, and I seem to be one of the few Hungarians who use it, other than the Spanish, Brasilian and Italian girls living or visiting here.
In Hungary, usually around five people are shown using the app. Just as a fun fact, here’s what I saw one morning in Las Palmas when I glanced at my phone:
Those were the top three applications, and now let’s see some of the others:
Onlywomen/Onescene
How it works:
To this day, I still don’t understand the technology behind this pair, but someone really messed something up. This one’s also based on geolocation: the mobile app is called Onlywomen, the website is called Onescene, and sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don’t. For example, I only had to fill my profile on Onescene (a picture, basic demographic data, a few questions about your interests), but it carried over to the app as well. However, the messages sometimes show up in one, sometimes in the other. Also, Onlywomen has a website version of its own, but I have never managed to log in there.
Truth be told, I wasn’t very impressed by this pair, but maybe I just couldn’t find the right people.
Sweetcandy
How it works:
Sweetcandy is an oldschool-type Hungarian dating site. Your profile contains a picture and some basic data (where you live, how long your hair is, what you’re looking for), then it shows you everyone’s profiles and you can use some simple filters to browse. This site is in fact added to the list because it’s used by a lot of people, but in my experience, the community here wasn’t really for me.
Pinkvanilla
How it works:
This one’s similar to Angyalkak.hu. Sort of like iwiw (Hungarian social network site before Facebook) for young lesbians.
And a few others, just by names: Scrissr, Pinkcupid, Fem, Badoo, Angyalkák. The last one is currently going through some renovation, but it’s been sort of dead for years (ever since it stopped being free, in fact).
Bonus: While I was searching, I found plenty of awful dating sites that I won’t even name, as well as a bunch of Facebook groups, chat sites and forums. I honestly thought those stopped being a thing ten years ago.
So is it worth it at all?
Personally, online dating contributed some great things to my life. Not necessarily in terms of romantic relationships - if I had really been that lucky on that aspect, this article likely wouldn’t exist. That being said, online dating helped me get out of my comfort zone, and I got to know some amazing people that I still talk to and visit regularly. Plus, it helped me improve my English as well.
If fear is the only thing holding you back, I recommend you to take the plunge and try online dating at least once!
Translated by Alexa Sebők
