What Is MeetMe and How Does It Work?

MeetMe is an app for finding people near you. It describes itself as a place to find friendship or a serious relationship, with free chat and live video. It is not only a dating app. It is closer to a social app with dating in it, so you do not swipe your way to matches like you do elsewhere. It also has a live video network where people watch streamers and send gifts.

MeetMe presents itself as an app for finding people near you, whether you want a friend or something serious. Chat is free, and it has live video.

It has been running for a long time and is operated by The Meet Group, Inc. That tells you something about how to use it. It is built as a broad social network, not as a narrow tool for finding a partner.

So if you ask whether it is a dating app, the fair answer is that some people use it that way, and many use it for something else. Your own message has to make your purpose clear.

The terms describe a Live Network. Users can watch streamers, and they can send virtual gifts bought with Credits.

Credits are used only inside the Live Network. A gift sent to a streamer can earn that streamer diamonds. In plain terms, this is a place where watching live video and tipping the person on screen are the main activity.

That matters if you are there to date. Time and money spent in the Live Network is aimed at streamers, not at women you might meet for a drink. Buying gifts for a streamer is a way to support her, not a way to start a date.

Users have to be at least 18. The terms also say MeetMe does not run criminal background checks or identity verification on its users.

Read that second part carefully. It means the app is not vouching for anyone you meet there. A profile that looks real may or may not be, and you have to apply your own judgment before you trust someone.

MeetMe also sells subscription packages with extra features. They renew on their own unless you switch auto-renewal off.

The same rule applies as with any paid service. Read what the package gives you before you buy, and note the renewal terms. If you decide to try one, set a reminder so you are not charged again by accident.

It depends on what you want, but it is not the first place most serious daters begin. Apps built around matching and intent tend to put you in front of women who are also there to meet someone.

MeetMe can work if you like a social, chat-based setting and you are comfortable sorting through a mixed crowd. It works less well if you want a short path to a date with someone who shares your goal.

If you do use it, set a clear limit. Spend your first sessions on free chat and see who responds, instead of buying Credits in the hope of getting noticed.

The principles that work on any app work here:

• Use clear, recent photos in daylight where your face is easy to see.
• Say plainly what you are looking for, so you attract the right people.
• Write a first message about something specific on her page, not a copy and paste line.
• Move a promising chat toward a plan within a few messages, rather than chatting for weeks.

a dating coach's point about messaging applies as much on a social app as a dating one: use the chat to get to a call or a date, not to build a whole relationship in text.

Because MeetMe states it does not verify identity, take sensible care. Keep your first meeting in a public place. Tell a friend where you are going. Do not send money or gifts to someone you have not met, and treat a request for either as a reason to stop.

The same goes for someone who steers you quickly into paid features or into the Live Network. A woman who wants to meet you does not need you to buy her a virtual gift first.

MeetMe is a social app with a dating side and a live video side. It is free to chat, it asks for no verification, and its paid parts are mostly about the Live Network and subscription extras.

If your goal is dates, spend your effort where women are most likely to want one, and judge each place by how many real conversations you get out of it. If you are spending hours on an app and getting few replies, the cause is usually in your photos and your first line, not in the app you picked.