Facebook Dating Review: Over the Top or Underrated?

Noelle Walker

On September 5, 2019, Facebook launched Facebook Dating: a feature that you can use on the site/app. According to the Facebook Newsroom, “Facebook Dating makes it easier to find love through what you like — helping you start meaningful relationships through things you have in common, like interests, events and groups.”

What doesn’t sound great about that? 

To find out if it was for real, I added the feature on my Facebook app.

Here are my results: 

Pros

It has a lot of good things going for it. There’s a filter option that allows you to filter through more than just age and distance–you can filter by religious views, children (has, doesn’t have or open to any) and height. That’s right. All of you who don’t want to date someone under 6 foot tall? This feature is the answer to your prayers. 

Forget Tinder Unlimited. Facebook Dating lets you see who likes you at no additional cost. To top it all off, it also allows you to look back on matches you said “No thanks” to. Once again, for no additional cost. 

Under “conversations,” the app shows both your active and inactive messages.

You can also see suggested matches through your events and groups, which could possibly lead you to someone with the same interests as you.

Worried about your dating profile linking to your actual Facebook page? Or about people on the app finding your actual account? Don’t. 

The Facebook Newsroom said that you control who can see your profile, and your Facebook friends won’t see your profile. It also said they won’t share your dating activity to your Facebook profile or News Feed. 

Unless you use the “Secret Crush” feature. The add-on says you can add up to nine Facebook friends or Instagram followers, and they’ll only be notified of who you are if they add you back as a secret crush as well. 

Talk about a modernized version of passing notes that say, “Do you like me? Check yes or no,” without the fear of rejection. 

Cons

Here’s the crazy thing: There’s no swiping involved. 

Instead, you have to press “No Thanks” located on the bottom left corner or “Like” located on the bottom right corner. A.k.a., not like your typical dating apps. 

You also have the ability to message someone you haven’t “matched” with yet (whether or not you consider that a pro or con is up to you).

Also, you get a notification if anyone likes you–which can easily get annoying and fill up your notifications quickly. 

The caveat is that there aren’t, at least in my experience, nearly as many people on it as Tinder or Bumble. This means you can go through your suggested matches in two minutes–if that. 

If more people joined it, it could have a lot of potential.  

Overall

While it does have its flaws (what dating app doesn’t?), the app was honestly a nice change in pace. The layout is simple enough to figure out, and it’s presented in a nice, clean way. 

Graphic by Rebecca Hooper

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