Mobile Dating - Serious or Just a Bit of Fun

Mobile Dating: Serious, or just a bit of fun?

The meteoric rise of the mobile dating phenomenon is of the course the dating technology story of the last decade. By taking the conventional internet dating model (where users register, upload a profile and their dating preferences, and then search for matches), and taking it mobile, these services have revolutionized the process of meeting a stranger for a casual date.

Certainly mobile dating has some users who like the way it works: “I’ve told all my friends about Meetmoi,” says Therese Bain, an enthusiastic 23-year-old user of one of the better known services. “My friends are always complaining about how the only guys with the confidence to approach them in bars are arrogant jerks. I met my ‘nice guy’ boyfriend Aaron through mobile dating, and I bet there are plenty of others like him out there who use it.”

However, despite success stories like Therese’s, there are plenty of users of mobile dating who say that they use the service more for as a way to casually chat to someone when they’re bored, as opposed to using it when they’re out and looking to meet up with a stranger for a date.

“I use mobile dating all the time,” says interior design student Tammy Black, 24, “But more like in the line for the movies, or while I’m on the bus. It’s a way to kill time by talking to someone that you’d otherwise never meet. When I’m out, it’s usually with girlfriends, and we just want to dance and have fun. I haven’t used [mobile dating service] Meetmoi during a night out yet.”

This sort of sentiment seems to be echoed by others. “I’ve only met up with one girl through mobile dating,” says web designer Tom Adams, 29. “And it was a total disaster. When she got to the bar I was at she was already really drunk, and she told me and my friends quite a dirty story. It was really embarrassing. I actually prefer to use mobile dating just to have funny conversations with ‘randoms’ [i.e. strangers]. I like the flirting aspect of it, and being witty.”

The fact that a lot of users of mobile dating services are not using it in the serious hopes of finding love though, may actually be enhancing its reputation and popularity. Unlike some other approaches to dating, mobile dating is seen as less desperate and tragic, and more as just a way to chat, kill time, and maybe once in a while meet someone for a drink.

“I’ve been to a few speed dating nights,” says Jim Roberts, a 31-year-old IT manager, “And I hated them. All the women there had a kind of desperate look in their eyes, as if they had to find a man to marry them that night. I was just looking for a fun night, so it was a serious turnoff. I wouldn’t go back to one in a hurry. On the other hand, mobile dating is just good fun. Not so serious.”