Which Dating Apps Work in Pakistan?

Fewer than you would hope. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority announced that it blocked five dating and live streaming apps: Tinder, Tagged, Skout, Grindr and SayHi. Feeld lists Pakistan among the countries where it is not available, and Hinge's availability page does not include Pakistan. We found no app in our research that names Pakistan as a supported country, so no honest list of working apps exists to hand you.

The authority said it had sent notices to the five apps, asking them to remove dating services and to moderate live streaming content under local law. It said it blocked them when they did not respond in time.

It also said it could reconsider the blocks if the companies assured it that they would follow local law on moderating indecent or immoral content. So the situation can change, and any list you read, including this one, can fall behind.

The table covers only what the sources say. An app missing from it has not been confirmed either way.

Do not trust a list on a website, including ours, when an app's own page can answer the question.

1. Look at the app's own availability or help page. Hinge and Feeld both publish where they operate.
2. Read what the regulator has published about blocked apps. It names them.
3. Check the app store in Pakistan. An app that is not offered there is a bad sign.

If an app works on one phone and not on another, or only after a change you have to make yourself, that is not a service you can build a plan on. We do not cover ways around a block. Dodging an app's own country rules or local law is a risk to your account and to you, and it is not advice we give.

Dating apps are businesses that comply with the laws of each country they run in. When a regulator tells them to change what they offer or leave, many do. That is why a map of where an app works moves around, and why an answer that was right once can be wrong later.

For a man in Pakistan, the useful lesson is to stop betting on the apps being there. A plan that depends on one app staying available is a plan that can end overnight.

Most of what makes a man good with women has nothing to do with an app. It travels with him.

• How you come across in person. Posture, voice and eye contact work the same everywhere.
• How you write. A short, specific message that gives a woman something easy to answer works on any platform where you are allowed to write to her. The skills you build on one are the skills you use on the next.
• How you ask. A clear invitation to a specific time and place beats a long chat that never ends in a meeting.
• How you present yourself. Good photos in daylight and a plain account of what you do are useful on any app or introduction.

The apps are one tool among several, and the skills of conversation and approach are the lasting part. A man who has built those skills is not stranded when an app is blocked.

Pick the way of meeting people that you are legally and comfortably able to use where you live. Work on the parts that move with you: how you look, how you talk, how you ask. Check any app's own pages before you invest time in it, and treat a block as something that can be lifted or can spread.

If you find an app that names Pakistan as available on its own pages, that is the one to start with. Until then, the skills are the part nobody can block.