Online dating apps have made it easier than ever for singles to connect and arrange a date. The idea of meeting a romantic partner on the internet used to be taboo, but since the launch of trendy dating apps in the last decade, it has now become one of the most common ways to find someone.
It’s not just the Millennial and Gen Z generations looking for romance on their smartphones either. Plenty of tech-savvy older men and women are creating accounts on dating apps too.
Still, for someone looking to dive into the world of dating apps, a pertinent question remains: which dating app is the best one to use?
There are so many options out there nowadays. It can be overwhelming – and it’s also more than possible to waste a lot of time and money on the wrong app.
The best dating app for you depends on your personal preferences and expectations.
In this guide, we’ll explore how to choose the best dating app if you’re searching for older women in Wales.
Here are five important steps to take.
1. Weigh Up the Costs
Some dating apps are completely free to use. Others have paid add-ons that make it easier for you to find someone. Then, there are apps that require a monthly subscription before you can even send one message.
Your first decision is to decide which of these types of apps you want to use, and how much money you’re willing to spend per month.
A free app might sound tempting, especially if you know this app is popular in your area. However, there are a lot of problems associated with free apps that you might want to avoid.
Free apps tend to attract more scammers and catfishes, so be on your guard. You’ll find a lot of time-wasters on these apps too; women who are only using the apps for attention, validation or boredom relief. These are the types of women who will endlessly message you but never actually meet up.
Meanwhile, on a paid app, you can be more sure that the women you encounter are serious about finding a partner. In most cases, you’ll find that the women on these apps respond to your message faster and with more effort put into their messages.
2. Seek Expert Advice From Online Reviews
You might think there’s no way of knowing how effective a dating app is without testing it first, but that’s not strictly true. There are reputable websites out there where online dating experts will review the best apps and give their verdicts. The best review we’ve found has been what the team at Beyond Ages put together with their rankings of the best cougar dating sites and apps.
These reviews are free to access, so it makes complete sense that you would search for a review of an app before investing any time or money into it.
Use a reviews website where the experts actually test out the apps and report back with their experiences using them. That way, you know the expert opinion is based on their time actually using the app, not some press release sent by the app’s PR team.
If the app you were considering has bad reviews, take some time to see what alternatives are suggested by the reviewers.
3. Check the Popularity Among Older Women in Your Area
Have you paid to enter a nightclub, only to step inside and realise there’s no one inside except a handful of creepy and frustrated dudes?
This can happen in the world of online dating too.
It’s perhaps the most important step to discover how popular a dating app is in your local area.
After all, even the most functional and affordable dating app will be rendered useless if there’s only a handful of women to choose from.
If you’re only looking to date older women in Wales, you’ll need to investigate how many older women are using the app in the parts of Wales you’re visiting or living in. It’s no good using an app that’s packed with 18 and 19-year-olds if you’re trying to date a pensioner.
While it’s sometimes possible to find estimates of an app’s user base in a specific country, it’s harder to know how many will be using it in your city. The higher the population of the city, the more people you can expect to be using the app.
4. Are You Looking for a Hookup or Searching for Your True Love?
Some dating apps make it abundantly clear that they’re for people seeking short-term flings. These apps tend to be explicitly sexual in their marketing. Other apps take the complete opposite route, with all their marketing surrounding your search for ‘true love’.
You’ll need to pay attention to the language in the App Store or on the app’s website, decide what you’re looking for, then choose your app accordingly.
If you just want a hook-up, it’s better to use a hookup app. The women on these apps will be far keener to meet up without chatting back and forth for weeks or months.
Read the reviews of these websites first though. Scam websites are more likely to promise instant hookups than ‘true love’.
If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, that’s fine too. There are plenty of dating apps that sit in the middle of these two extremes.
5. Test Out Your Results
Once you’ve taken these previous four steps, it may be that there’s a small handful of dating apps that you want to test out.
At this stage, your best move is to try all of them. There’s nothing wrong with putting yourself out there on several dating apps. The more women see your dating profile, the more likely that you’ll find an amazing match.
Try all of the potentially suitable apps for one month. Then, if there’s one app that works particularly well for you, perhaps you’ll put all your eggs in that basket.
Either way, make sure you enjoy your online dating experience! Stay safe, only meet when you’re ready, but most importantly, have fun!
