Swipe, Match, Connect: Best Gay Dating Apps
As a colour from the palette of LGBTQ+ community, looking for the same shades of your hues can sometimes be difficult in this busy world. This is where technology comes into play. There is a whole spectrum of LGBTQ-friendly apps and sites designed to help you jump through this hurdle and find your person to cuddle. So let's take a look at these gay dating apps and sites and unlock the infinite possibilities of the discovery of love, lust, bonds, connections and everything leading up to them.
Grinder
The OG of the talk, Grinder is a widely preferred dating and social networking app for the LGBTQ+ community especially designed for the gays, bis, trans and queer people. Grinder uses the users’ location to help locate other members of their preferred community around them for friendships, dates, hookups, and whatever they are looking for.
Tinder
Tinder is not exclusively a queer dating app but with its wide range of selection, users can set their sexual preferences and orientation which align with their interests and choices. The interface provides a few pictures and a brief description of the other users according to the preference settings and the user can swipe left to ‘pass’ or right to ‘like’ a profile. If two users swipe right on each other’s profile, they are matched and then they are enabled to chat with each other via app.
Scruff
Scruff is a dating and networking app oriented towards enabling easier connection, friendships and love establishment among gay, bi, trans and queer community’s individuals. This app has a similar start process as other apps, i.e. first create a profile with your good pictures and create a bio which reflects your interests and personality as this would be the first thing about you which the other users will be interacting with. The app provides a safe and protected space to the individuals to post images and event listings and search and contact the other users.
Jack’d
This gay-dating app aims at providing a safe space for its users to find their potential matches, hook-ups and friendships. Using geo-location technology, it enables the users to go through the profiles of the other signed-up users in the same locality and swiping them based on their liking.The app has features to enhance user safety, such as private photo albums and customizable privacy settings.
Bumble
Bumble originally was designed for changing the dating dynamics by letting women make the first move once two profiles match, but in the later half of 2016 bumble took a step towards making its interface LGBTQ+ community-friendly. The app allows the users to set their gender preferences and then work towards enabling them to match with same gender or opposite gender folk depending upon the setted preference.
OkCupid
OkCupid is a LGBTQ+ friendly dating app which uses the user’s responses to questions to find them a match based on the importance of the potential match’s answers indicated by them. This feature helps the users to find a much more compatible match than otherwise. The app allows users to create a detailed profile reflecting their interests and gender preferences. OkCupid has both free and premium features available where the premium version provides certain extra features such as advanced filters, etc. The platform implements measures for user safety and moderation, including reporting and blocking features.
Hornet
Hornet is a social networking app designed by the gay community for men with the gay and bisexual preferences. Like various other apps, Hornet also uses the geolocation feature to allow the users to connect to the other individuals based on their location. In order to improve the user experience of the app, Hornet now offers the individuals to see verified users who have gone through a well- sculpted course of verification with the Hornet team member.
Surge
With the motto of NO LABELS, Surge is a free dating app providing a safe and judgment free zone for gay and bisexual men to explore their sexuality and meet and connect with other individuals based on their geolocation. Surge provides both free and premium features to the users such as filters for preferred age and distance, secret pics, swiping to match, etc under the free category which can extend to features like private mode, power message, after- match gallery, my history, etc once you get the premium mode after paying a certain amount based upon your needs.
Romeo
Launched almost 11 years back, Romeo is a dating and socializing app for the gay and LGBTQ+ community. Romeo encourages community interaction and engagement through its services like forums, interest groups, and chat rooms. The platform also organizes various LGBTQ+ focused events, parties, meetups , etc to enable offline socializing as well. It is accessible through a website as well as an app to make the accessibility more flexible for the users.
EliteSingles
EliteSingle is not specifically a LGBTQ app but due to the preference attribute it is well compatible for a wide range of audience. On signing up, users go through a detailed personality test to determine their values, lifestyle, personality, etc. Furthermore, the algorithm uses the result from this test to help the users in finding their compatible matches. EliteSingles provides their features through an app with a user friendly interface to make matchmaking easier for the users.
CONCLUSION
All the listed apps and sites have an ‘18+ only’ policy which is highly suggested to be strictly followed by the users. Apart from this, each app has its own set of rules and terms and conditions. The users are suggested to go through these before starting their journey for a seamless experience with the app. The users and the future potential users are expected to respect the community guidelines of maintaining decency and not engaging in any hurtful and discriminating activities against any other users.