Does Anyone Actually Use Facebook Dating?

Yes, people use it, but Facebook gives no count for your town, so the answer for you is local. Whether enough women near you are on it, active and looking is something you can check in about ten minutes. After that, two weeks of your own numbers will tell you if it deserves a place next to your other apps.

Dating apps are local. An app can be busy in a big city and nearly empty an hour outside it. A figure for how many people use Facebook Dating tells you nothing about the women within reach of your home.

Facebook Dating is also only available in certain countries, so even the question of whether it exists where you live comes first. If it does, the useful question is how many real, active women it shows you.

This article does not quote a user count. A made-up number is worse than none, and a real one from another year or another city would not help you.

Facebook has not said who its Dating users are, how old they are or how often they log in. So any claim about the kind of woman who uses it is a guess.

What you can see is how the app builds your suggestions. It uses the preferences you set, the details you add and what you do on Facebook, such as shared Groups and Events, your hometown and the schools you list. It also suggests friends of friends unless you switch that off.

That tells you who tends to show up for you: people connected to your own circles. It does not tell you how many.

Turn on Dating in the Facebook app, build a proper set of photos and fill in your details. Then spend ten minutes going through who the app shows you. Look at four things.

How many women appear before you start seeing repeats? Do their pages have clear photos and filled-in details? Do you have anything in common with them, like a Group, a school or a mutual friend? Do you see women you would be glad to meet?

If you see plenty of real, filled-in pages, the app has enough activity for you. If you see few faces and half-empty pages, the pool is thin, and another app is the better use of your evenings.

New faces over a few days, not the same fifty on repeat. Pages that were filled in with care. Women who answer when you write.

That last one is the real proof. A pool can look full and still be quiet. What counts is that real women reply.

A thin list is often your own doing. If you switched on the strong preference option, Facebook gives you fewer and tighter suggestions, and each strong preference removes more women. Turning off friends of friends removes everyone one step beyond your friends.

Set your distance to somewhere you would really travel for a drink. Keep strong preferences for real dealbreakers.

There is no new app to download, and there is a chance of a mutual friend. A woman who went to your school or belongs to your running group is easier to open with than a stranger, and you get a built-in first line.

The cost is reputation. Friends of friends are part of the pool, so a man who treats women badly there may find that it gets around. If you are decent, that works in your favor.

Before a match you can send one message to someone Facebook suggests. After that you cannot write again until she replies or likes you back.

So pick one specific thing in her photos, say something about it in a line or two and end on a question she can answer easily. A bare "hey" uses your only message on nothing.

a dating coach's rule for every site is to test it and let the results decide. Use the app for two weeks with good photos, and write down four numbers: women you liked or wrote to, conversations that started, numbers you got and dates you set.

If almost nobody answers, look at the photos and the first line. If conversations start and stall, suggest a drink sooner. If you get dates, then somebody is using it and the question is settled. Keep it beside one other app, so a quiet month on either does not become your whole dating life.