It has been almost two weeks since I started my journey on Bumble. During this time, only one girl matched me which didn’t lead to a date since she didn’t begin a conversation. So far, I relentlessly swiped so many girls and almost none of them liked me or if I want to be an optimist they are not informed about my interests. I googled this tragedy to find some empathy and I figured out, lots of people are also disappointed in online dating apps such as Bumble. In the following lines, I try to mention a few reasons for Bumble’s inefficiency. Please note that I will recite my personal experience with online dating and what you read is very intuitive, but I hope we all find the best matches.
Diabolical algorithm
Bumble developers assert that it is free to use and will remain free, however, one should ask about the algorithm behind dating on Bumble. Seemingly, they created a kind of algo that displays new profiles to the people based on the profile creation date. It is not bad, but it gets worse if they start ignoring your profile as it gets outdated and the terrible thing is that they expire your profile much sooner than you expect.
For me, it was only one day, because the moment I created my profile, two girls matched me quickly. Afterwards, I got no like from other girls and after about 13 days, nobody matched me. One might say, the appearance and social status are essentially important to attract potential partners. Well, I don’t consider myself ugly and while my social status is not elegant, it is acceptable. I think the issue is that Bumble is not showing my profile to other users or it changes the order of appearance in a way that my profile is displayed after a huge number of swipes. Maybe I am a kind of last resort!
Abundance of choices
This is a matter of communication. Each channel has a certain capacity to receive messages. If the messages exceed the threshold of capacity, new messages either won’t get received or they will perceived incompletely. Online dating applications offer lots of choices to you based on your criteria. Well, I think the first 100 swipes are not a big deal indeed while more than that would be a pain in the ass and mind! When your mind knows it has to pick from a collection with a certain number of members, reaching the final decision is much easier. On the contrary, when you know, the collection is unlimited, you continue the picking process to find a better match and this endless search may go on for a long time.
Bumble also increases the sense of greed. It implies that even if you find a perfect match, there might be a more perfect match and this is an illusion that reduces chances of choosing the right person.
Inadequate data in profiles
I criticized Bumble mechanisms, but the users also must be blamed for unsatisfying experience on the app, especially, those whose profiles are not filled in with enough data. I swiped left many girls only due to insufficient data on their profiles because I needed to know not only about their habits and interests, but also about their job, education, and skills. Yes, I am not in the position of screening candidates to fill a vacancy in a prestigious company but to match that person, I require data.
Some people just create a profile with the least minimum information and they expect to get their favorite partner. This approach sucks, because the people who seek serious relations, also want some serious information and crucial data about their potential partners.
Lack of follow-up feature
Following-up is a good practice in a relationship as you normally do it with your partner, friends or even family members. Bumble is not providing a follow-up feature. So you don’t know what would happen to your match request.
When you swipe right a profile, you should wait until they do the same thing on yours and this period may take a long time. Personally, if I want to develop a dating app, I would add a tracking feature that fulfills following-up functions. Such a hypothetical feature allows users to monitor their swipe status in different stages and gives them the ability to cancel their swipe if it is ignored or has not been seen by the other user.
Date fatigue
Finally, they say date fatigue is another factor that contributes to the low rate of getting matched. Date fatigue is a psychological situation that hurts people after consecutive, casual dates. It also might happen when a user on Bumble is addicted to swiping right and left iteratively.
I don’t know how long it takes to recover from this fatigue, However, it would be a great deal if you can’t overcome this. Online dating apps never help to reduce date fatigue, because you need to get rid of dating apps for some time to complete your recovery, and it means a reduction in user base which hurts their reputation and finances.
In summary
I was so desperate when I installed Bumble on my phone and hopefully expected to find someone with whom I could experience true love with all its ups and downs. However, Nothing has changed so far. The lonesome cowboy is still swiping profiles. As I said, there might be some reasons that Bumble is not working for me including malfunctioning algorithms, abundance of choices, lack of data in profiles, lack of follow-up features, and date fatigue.
PS: Please wish me luck and love. I promise to update this post if I find my love.
