A conflict of interest to flag: I'm the founder of Settled, a relationship and matchmaking company with free and paid tiers. That may create bias in what I notice and what I recommend, so weigh these recommendations accordingly. I’d love for some of you to sign up to Settled, but my aim here is to share something useful whether or not you ever do.
There are a variety of known problematic dynamics associated with dating apps, ie:
And despite this, dating apps are still a common way that couples meet today.
A massive number of single people are on dating apps, so they're your biggest pool of potential matches. They are also good if you have broad preferences, or if a specialised app (ex. Feeld, Coffee Meets Bagel, ChristianMingle) narrows down your pool of preferences. If it does make sense for you to keep using the apps, here’s some tips:
People overthink first dates enormously. Whether the joke landed. Whether the outfit was wrong. Whether they should have picked somewhere else. If they should have offered to pay instead of split, or criticizing why they fell short of producing the single best insight on planet earth.
We ask both people for feedback after every date we set up, including what the other person could have done differently, and here’s what it tells us:
Among the responses that did suggest something, the most common themes we saw are:
So, yeah: be yourself, ask questions, and be on time.
If you've ever set two friends up and then spoken to both of them afterwards, you'll know how this goes: they describe two different evenings. That's not unusual, it's the normal case. Reading a stranger accurately, while also managing your own nerves and performance, is genuinely hard.
We see this phenomena at scale: we ask both daters for feedback after every date. One question we ask is, “How interested did they seem in you?” on a 1-5 scale. Here’s how it pans out:
So yeah, it’s sometimes hard to tell how the first date went.
And, we also learned that it’s hard to know how the date went even from your own perspective. When asked if they want to see the person again for a second date, 30% of daters choose our “middle” option of “"not sure yet.” Figuring out the answer to this question is one of the things we often work on together in coaching.
Our advice:
The topic of physical attractiveness comes up often and in many different ways in dating. We don’t want to undercut its importance: research shows that physical attraction is not a minor factor (Eastwick et al. 2014), and there are real population-level patterns in what people find attractive.
But mostly, we talk to people who care about physical attraction amongst many other things, have a rough ‘type’ that’s somewhat flexible, and are generally more worried about things like kindness, intelligence, and open mindedness. A few items we think are worth mentioning:
All of the dates we’ve set up are blind dates, meaning neither person sees a photo of the person before the date. So, there are 100s of smart, kind EAs who are happy to go on dates without seeing the other person in advance.
Here’s what 1K+ singles from the Settled community reported when we asked, "How important are looks when it comes to who you're attracted to?" As you can see below, 12% ranked it as very important, but also 13% say they have no type or that looks don't matter. Many say attraction builds once they know someone.
Note that this group is people who have self selected into dating via our service which does blind dates and are mostly EA/Rationalist, so we expect these numbers reflect those factors.
OkCupid “blind-date day” saw that blinding dates made almost no difference in whether people enjoyed the date.
In 2013 OkCupid ran a blind-date app, Crazy Blind Date, that paired about 10,000 people for in-person dates. Each person saw only a first name and a scrambled photo of the other. Afterwards, the app asked both people how the date went. When OkCupid matched those answers against the daters' attractiveness scores, the gap in looks between the two people made almost no difference to whether they enjoyed the date. About 75% of women and 85% of men had a good time.
Rudder's summary: people "appear to be heavily preselecting online for something that, once they sit down in person, doesn't seem important to them."
Note: this is company data reported in a book, not a peer-reviewed study.
When people tell us dating is miserable, they're usually describing a fairly specific set of things:
Notice that most of these are not about the dates themselves. Most of the misery is in the overhead and the silence.
We think dating sucks less when a few conditions are true, and these are the conditions we try to create at Settled:
Now, do these conditions mean that we will definitely find your person? We don't know, and per 70+ paper reviews, nobody knows.
But here’s our evidence that dating doesn’t have to suck: 85% of the time, daters say their Settled date was a good use of time. 78% said that they’re open to seeing their first date again and 72% end up in a serious relationship within 6 months.
We hope this write up was helpful.
If this thinking resonated with you and interested in trying a different approach to dating, you can:
A few things to know that may be unusual about how we work:
I'm biased in that I found my current partner on veggly and she's great, but I would seriously recommend using it. Yes, it's pretty dead, but that's also kind of a good thing. Sort by new, check it once a week, and expand your surface area for luck, especially if you'd be aligned with someone interested in veggly enough to try it out
Congratulations, that’s amazing to hear! And I think “expand your surface area for luck” is exactly the right frame. Whilst dating apps may not be the best, spending time on them definitely increases your odds of finding someone. A small pool where everyone already shares something you care about can beat a huge one, which is very much our philosophy too.
Like Veggly, we take diet into account when matching two people, alongside things like whether you want kids, where you live, and relationship style. The main difference is that it doesn't require swiping and messaging week: you fill in the form once, and we get in touch when we have someone we think could be a good fit.
72% end up in a serious relationship within six months... with each other/another date from Settled? If so, that's remarkable!
Thank you! It's not from just our introductions. We always encourage people to date outside of Settled as well as going on our dates. We help them with profile feedback and coaching. Therefore it's the combination of the Settled dates + the intentionality in dating that we think gets us to this number!
But then isn't claiming that number simply misleading marketing, or do you have data, that the coaching helped them (how), and that's how you arrived at the number? I feel this really depends on the quality of your survey. I can imagine people who paid for your service may just feel obligated/ or may just want to rationalize their spending from the past by saying, "this helped me in my future dating." "Intentionality in dating" seems very broad; it's worth explaining what you meant :)
Great writeup! I have been working with Settled’s team for a while now, building their tech stack, and - even though I am biased - I am in constant awe about how much Ann cares for making sure the dates she sets up will genuinely make people happy. If she can’t find a good match at the first go, she will tell the person, and keep looking further, until she does find the right person.
Thanks for sharing your insights, Ann. I don't have a "settled" opinion on whether your theory of dating would scale, but I'll just share quickly my two largest worries upon reading your article.
1. Misaligned incentives.
You mentioned it briefly at the end based on what Spencer wrote, but I think the problem deserves much larger consideration — and hence care. Profit making, under the capitalist framework, works reasonably well to increase social and material wealth, but only as long as its core assumptions are sufficiently met. One of those assumptions is that the buyer knows exactly what they'll get in return. Dating apps are very bad at that, especially the ones that ask to pay per "service" rather than something tangible like a "relationship obtained". So the system fails to convert market signals into a price that reflects the product value.
The even bigger issue with paid dating apps is that it's one of those rare things that, in economic terms, you ideally "consume" only once (for the majority of people; seeking monogamy). You pay for a relationship, get the best one and done. Pure profit making would get the incentives to keep the people on the app through ads or subscriptions, and near-misses to kindle their hope. This fact really cannot be overstated, and is the reason why running a dating app like any other company is doomed to stay extremely sub-optimal; it may work for some but at a terrible psychological and financial cost to the population as a whole. We, EAs, should aspire at something truly, altruistically effective.
Of course, I'm pretty hopeful that Settled is meant to maximize social well-being as opposed to pure profit. But the fact that Settled is registered under a for-profit commercial entity doesn't help.
People are aware of those, especially in EA circles. And trust is one of the most important factors for the success of a dating app (since, as I said, its value is not tangible at purchase).
2. Separation between relationships and friendships.
Lots of research, including from some of the authors you mentioned, shows that people found their life partner mostly through mutual friends in the past. I personally think this is a better way than organized dates. People find a life partner through shared values, not unlike friends. Separating the two seems counter to the EA culture, in my opinion. Most of my stable romantic relationships emerged organically from friendships. Would be great to have more research on that to see the effect of the meeting origin (friends, app, etc.) on relationship outcomes (satisfaction, duration, etc.). Lmk if you have any seen any research on the matter!
Also I'm wondering what's your take on this and why you chose to go that road with your company.
Bonded by Evolution is a nice book to explore relationships from an evidence-based perspective if you're interested.
I really appreciate that someone is building something for this audience. Finding value-aligned, sharp, ambitious EA/vegan partners through mainstream apps feels close to impossible, and this deserves more attention. The critique below comes from wanting this to work.
First, the conflict-of-interest disclaimer is good practice, but the post still reads like an advert framed as a general-interest Forum post. The "observations" lead step by step to "this is what Settled offers," and the strongest numbers are about Settled's own outcomes.
I'd prefer a post that simply said: "We run an altruistic dating service, here's why we think it matters, here's how it works, here's our data." That would also be a stronger case. The real argument for a service like this isn't that dating is generally hard. It's that many people in this community work long hours on demanding problems. We don't have days to spend browsing a thousand misaligned profiles to find one person who shares our values, our diet, and an understanding of why we work the way we do. That's a compelling, EA-specific case, and the post undersells it.
Second, my first concern when I looked at Settled was incentives. The structure seems easy to exploit, deliberately or not:
a) Payment upfront. The service is paid for before outcomes are known, so the incentive is to produce something that looks like success quickly.
b) Contrast effects. If someone gets three dates and two are clearly weaker, the third will look better than it would alone. People may "settle" (the brand name doesn't help here) for someone who meets some important criteria because of the contrast, not because the match is strong. Relationships formed that way may not last.
I'm not claiming this is happening. My question is: how do you protect match quality against the pressure to show quick results and win more clients? For example, do you track relationship outcomes beyond six months? Is there internal review of match quality, or any separation between who makes the match and who gets credit for success metrics?
Third, the figures at the end (85% "good use of time," 78% open to a second date, 72% in a serious relationship within six months) carry most of the persuasive weight, but the post doesn't say how they were calculated.
72% in a serious relationship within six months is extraordinarily high for any matchmaking service. And it's a bit suspicious that this includes people who didn't meet anyone through your service but, e.g., "were more intentional about dating" afterward, which you take credit for. Answers given directly to the service you paid may skew positive.
As I said in another comment: if the claim is that the coaching helped, is that number really evidence of this? Or is it misleading marketing? It depends heavily on the survey design. People who paid may feel obliged, or may want to justify the spending by saying "this helped my future dating." Also, "intentionality in dating" is very broad. It would be worth explaining what you mean and how you measure it.
Fourth, it seems to me like your pool is still pretty small? I think it would be great to be very upfront about that. Someone I spoke to felt their matches seemed fairly random given what they'd asked for. One account is anecdotal, but it fits the arithmetic.
Fifth, I think pricing and structure don't fit the risk. The upfront cost is high for a small number of dates. A tiered system would make more sense. Three dates is too few for people whose attraction is selective. Maybe photos aren't the answer (although I completely disagree here, and think they should be attached; for many of my EA friends, looks do matter; they go to the gym, have a healthy lifestyle, and want similar things from their partner). With three dates, the odds of meeting someone you click with in person are low. Five to ten dates feels more realistic at this price, but I suspect you believe the mechanism of limited choice will work better for success — but this means, again, you're trying to gamify the system for a great result, which I suspect might not last. Also, people might want some visibility into the pool, as the dates might not work, but wouldn't it be more beneficial to just know who's single and open in the database to start with?
Sixth, I wonder how you address the problem of trusting one matchmaker's judgment. Some people have great experiences and others don't. The whole outcome rests on one person's view of who fits and why.
Seventh, I heard the London in-person mixer felt awkward because it was unstructured. A few people got lots of attention, and others risked getting very little. Was that representative? If structured events work better, that would be a useful lesson to share.
I also thought a little bit about improvements/alternative ideas on this; not sure if useful, but I asked Claude to quickly sum up my thoughts on this here:
1. Go all in on the altruistic niche, worldwide. Settle the positioning: dating for people who've made altruism central to their lives. Then grow the pool far beyond the UK. My dream would be to know about any EA or animal-impact person anywhere in the world, in my age range, who is open to dating. Right now, the only option is meeting someone at a conference. I'd never want to do that because it can feel unprofessional and can involve power imbalances.
2. A curated catalog (a "Raya for altruists"). Write rich, values-focused profiles that members approve. Then offer access in tiers, for example:
This requires less matchmaker time per person, so the price could drop significantly.
3. The Altruists dating app with clear eligibility. To join, members would either work at a nonprofit, be a pledger, donate above a set amount to high-impact charities each year, volunteer etc. Profiles would focus most of all on values — no algorithm, just filtering systems; likes on both sides = match. Members who behave badly could be removed, which would make it a trusted space with clear norms.
4. Structured online speed dating by age group. Run Zoom events grouped by age, with breakout rooms and topic-based small-group discussions so people can see how others think before choosing who to follow up with. This scales across countries and fixes the problems of unstructured mixers.
5. A tiered membership funnel. For example:
6. Tie revenue to giving. Commit a set share of revenue to effective charities, perhaps letting each member choose from a shortlist of high-impact organizations, and report the totals publicly. This would strengthen the service's identity with an altruistic audience, give members another reason to join, and answer some "is this just a business?" skepticism.
7. Publish more about the pool. This would be the most useful addition to the post, and it would build trust. For example:
People with narrow criteria could then judge for themselves whether signing up makes sense.
Hi Ula, thanks for this, would you be interested to do a chat so we could talk through some of your ideas in more detail/more efficiently? Please shoot me a quick message at [email protected] if so.
A couple quick thoughts and additions below:
Just to clarify, my concern with the data was that the success number, the 72%, included both the clients who used the service and succeeded, and those who didn't but later found someone through what you called more intentional dating, which is then connected to possible positive effects of the coaching. I think it would be more transparent to divide this number, because even a modest success rate like 20% matches worked - is still quite a bit, given, as you said, you being new + operating with a small pool of people. Your website says: Date outcomes: 72% in a relationship after 6 months — I think this is very accurate, as you're not claiming this is in any way connected with your service, and I appreciate the marketing; for EA forum, I prefer a bit more precision.
I think if I were you, I would still think about some variants of your service I described above; e.g., I wonder if people would pay for: a) Online/offline events; b) Browsing an anonymous database of profiles and sending requests for matches; c) Paying extra for a successful match. I think you probably simplified the service for a reason, but I still wonder whether a tiered system wouldn't bring you more revenue.
I had a conversation with people who used the service and didn't succeed, and with people who are considering trying it. People who used it and didn't succeed - probably would still want to be matched, but not at that price; others probably want to use it, but wonder if it's worth the money. So there are multiple ways to tackle this, but I imagine you could quickly and successfully build a community around this through a triaging system and engagement funnels, with maybe even higher pricing for successful matches, and by clearly defining the client base.
I don't know; I am a comms person. I love marketing, and I just like to generate new ideas for business models; most of all, I truly believe in quick pilots to learn what works, and grows revenue. But I assume you also tried variations for this service, and maybe the ideas I mention just didn't work.
I wish you success with this, though. I have been very enthusiastic about this topic for years, seeing all my friends struggle with dating :) I feel like you are partly filling a gap that truly exists.
Thanks Ula! Really appreciate your ideas, feedback and support in hoping for our success.
We have been exploring other offers including events and other price points so appreciate your feedback there.
I understand your point on the 72% too - we'll think about how we can consider this better for future.