I Followed Teen Instagrammers’ Advice for a Week

This isn’t that surprising considering that’s the exact kind of social-engineering BS you expect from Facebook. In the same way it encourages you to meet with friends you had no plans to see, or wish a happy birthday to someone you haven’t spoken to in years, Facebook Dating tells you how to act when you just wish it’d let you do your own thing.

But the main thing that makes Dating different from other apps is that it doesn’t listen to you-like, at all. When I select my distance preference to be within 40 km, age range from 26 to 35, and height within a solid 5’11 to 7 goddamn feet tall, half of my suggested matches are basically the opposite of that. Instead, I’m getting dudes like 44-year-old Stephane from small-town Ontario, and wee Peter at 5’5” even though I asked for them not to be there-no offence, guys.

And I’m not sure if it’s because I’m using the app in its early stages and not everyone knows it exists, the options I get are slim-pickings at best. Profile photos are a mix of blurry snapshots, pics that were clearly taken more than five years ago and others that are not pictures of people at all. There’s also way too many photo filters going on, like the one that turns you into a line-drawing (why is that a thing?) and the one that covers you with a glowing white light (again, why?). And just when I think I’ve come across a hottie, I’ll notice something weird in his profile, like a text overlay on one of his pics that says “your vibe attracts your tribe.”

Some are looking for their new “adventure buddy,” while others are bad sales pitches that include descriptors like “smart” and “good-looking.”

At first I am taken aback by how many guys seem to be looking for The One, but when you think about the nature of Facebook it makes sense.

In fact, when Mark Zuckerberg announced this new feature, he described it as a tool to find “real long-term relationships-not just hookups.” Because why not find love in the same place that your friends share baby pics and internet trolls get off on comment section arguments?

Another is the fact that Dating is a massive waste of time since it lets anyone start an conversation with you regardless of mutual interest

I can think of many reasons not to find real long-term relationships on Facebook-one being the fact that saying “we met on Facebook” is possibly the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

Pretty much immediately after I start using it, I begin getting those unsolicited messages on the “interested” page. Unlike the short, simple messages I’m sending to dudes, the ones I get are like the creepy messages that women find in their “other” inboxes from creeps and weird friends of friends. Plus, they’re all from guys I haven’t shown interest in.

For a split second, I tell myself it’s refreshing that Facebook is letting everyone shoot their shot. In the past, I’ve had guy friends tell me that they don’t get as many matches as women do on dating apps, so levelling the playing field like this does give people the opportunity to connect with anyone they want.

On the other hand, I do get some genuine messages that aren’t creepy and kinda nice from guys that I probably would not have swiped right on on Bumble

But if we’re being honest, the point of dating apps is not for it to be an open playing field-they function on the basis that you can be superficial and selective with your preferences. For example, at one point in the week, I haven’t checked Dating for an entire day and when I return to my phone, I have upwards of 30 messages from dudes who I haven’t shown interest in, nor are all of them within my preferences. If women wanted random men to approach them unwarrantedly, we could just mormon dating app walk down the street and reply to catcalls instead.