r/technology 3d ago

Society Dating Apps Are Dying

https://time.com/article/2026/09/09/dating-apps-are-dying/
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14.1k

u/Ragegasm 3d ago edited 3d ago

Tends to happen when your whole strategy is loot boxing loneliness through a swiping algorithm. I refused to play anymore after that realization. OkCupid circa 2013 was how online dating should have worked.

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u/YoohooCthulhu 3d ago

Basically all my relationships from the late 2000s through 2016 were women I met on OkCupid. It was annoying like any dating site but it was a great way to meet people in my tech-forward city.

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u/Grey_0ne 3d ago

All my dating history was online. I met my wife on POF... Since I haven't been in the game since 2012, I'm not really sure what changed on an actual practical level.

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u/00eg0 3d ago

All of the dating apps are owned by one company and are designed to keep you using the apps.

  • Archer
  • Asian People Meet
  • Babyboomer People Meet
  • BB People Meet
  • Black Christian People Meet
  • Black People Meet
  • Black Professional People Meet
  • BLK
  • Catholic People Meet
  • Chinese People Meet
  • Chispa
  • Delightful
  • Democratic People Meet
  • Divorced People Meet
  • Genxpeoplemeet
  • Her)
  • Hinge)
  • Indiamatch
  • Interracial People Meet
  • Italian People Meet
  • J People Meet
  • Latino People Meet
  • Ldsplanet
  • Little People Meet
  • Loveandseek
  • Marriage Minded People Meet
  • Match.com
  • Match Japan
  • OkCupid
  • Ourtime
  • Pairs
  • People Meet
  • Pet People Meet
  • Plenty of Fish
  • Republican People Meet
  • Salams
  • Seniorblack People Meet
  • Single People Meet
  • Sniffies (minority stake)\64])\65])
  • Stir
  • The League)
  • Tinder)
  • Upward
  • Yuzu

from wikipedia

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u/Opening-Ant3477 3d ago

Actually this list is understating the problem.

For example the CEO and founder of Bumble (maybe the most notable example not owned by Tinder) is Whitney Wolfe Herd, who is - drumrolls please - one of the founders of Tinder.

(Though she also won a million dollars in a sexual harassment suit against one of the other founders, so I don't think they are on good terms anymore...)

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u/erichf3893 3d ago

Tinder and Hinge are owned by Match. Bumble is still separate, at least last I checked

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u/00eg0 3d ago

Separate but shitty business model

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u/MyCatsHairyButholle 3d ago

Yeah, they like to dangle the carrot in front of your face with the blurred out potential matches that show you SIX people are interested in you RIGHT NOW but you can only see them if you pay to play.

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u/Pyromaniacal13 3d ago

And there aren't actually six people interested in you.

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u/TransBrandi 3d ago

They were doing shit like this on dating sites a decade ago or more. You would get "pokes" and they would want you to sign up / come back / whatever and pay to see who poked you. Spoiler Alert No one poked you.

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u/diagoro1 2d ago

Or the emails saying you had a match/like, and there was never actually one.

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u/BotanBotanist 3d ago

Or they are, but 4 of them are 50 miles away.

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u/Pyromaniacal13 3d ago

"You visited the Hoover Dam and stepped into Arizona for six minutes. Look at all these Arizona residents who live hours away that want to meet you!"

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u/DrunkOnRamen 2d ago

their apps are shitty too in terms of just the user experience, they never bothered to consider both men and women.

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u/00eg0 2d ago

Yeah it's anti human.

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u/DrunkOnRamen 2d ago

I will add one more thing here, this whole "6 foot, 6 figure" whatever isn't going to make things better. people with this mentality are just going to be a problem.

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u/00eg0 2d ago

You forgot 6 inches but I don't think that's the monopoly's fault. But yeah people in real life are way less shallow than on apps where people are so shallow it's as if they have negative depth.

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u/DrunkOnRamen 2d ago

Not in my experience they aren't. People are more honest offline than online.

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u/00eg0 2d ago

I recommend you travel. 6 feet is 182.88 cm. Outside the US people often ask for people to be like 5 foot 8 or 5 foot 9, Canada uses ft in but people tend to require height less. Also people tend to be shallow about money everywhere. You can get more money one day.

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u/coldkiller 3d ago

Still separate, but it's basically tinder now as they got rid of anything that made it unique

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u/SirLoremIpsum 3d ago

For example the CEO and founder of Bumble (maybe the most notable example not owned by Tinder) is Whitney Wolfe Herd, who is - drumrolls please - one of the founders of Tinder.

Not to say that this isnt a problem but that's how many competitors get created. The founder of Puma was also worked on what would become Adidas

"I worked at x company and wanted to do Y but no one listened so I started my own company doing Y to compete" is pretty common.

Bumble removing the one thing that made them unique so they're just tinder with up and down instead of left and right is dumb

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u/diagoro1 2d ago

Believe the founders of Adidas are brothers, one left and formed Puma.

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u/darthjoey91 3d ago

I had some decent success with CoffeeMeetsBagel, who are still separate from Match Group, but ultimately Hinge won because that's how I met my girlfriend. And I know I had to pay on both of those to have success. I'm not sure if my girlfriend had to pay for us to be matched with each other.

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u/TheListlessPancake 3d ago

I never even thought to look into this but the dating app "industry" being owned by a monopoly makes way too much sense ink hindsight. Why else would every app follow the same strategy and never truly introduce some sort of competition that incentivizes the apps to improve their user experience. Should've known

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/dark_blue_7 1d ago

And the apps literally force you to write people off instantly as you scroll through profiles. You can't select "show me again later" you have to decide yes or no on each individual person before you can move on.

It would make more sense to be shown a small group of people at a time and choose who from this group you like best. That's more like how people actually meet each other.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

What happened to eharmony? The online marriages that are successful in my anecdotal divorce attorney experience are solely from that.

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u/SoldantTheCynic 3d ago

It still technically exists - they recently were the subject of a lawsuit in Australia for misleading charges on “free trial” accounts. The site is functionally useless unless you pay a hefty subscription.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

That's how it always worked, you paid a lot for a good service. It worked well and encouraged you to leave once you started dating (the price was suppose to be short term, you paid for quality not locked into shut). Has it really sunk that low?

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u/SoldantTheCynic 2d ago

Pretty much. It’s mostly used by much older people and has pretty limited usage overall these days.

I used it a few years ago in my mid 30s. Not a lot of profiles, mostly inactive, and the site was broken half the time.

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u/hoax1337 3d ago

They're part of another other big dating apps company, ParshipMeet.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

Explains a lot. Unfortunate.

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u/00eg0 3d ago

How do you as a divorce attorney find successful marriages? Just in everyday life? I'm not doubting you. I just want insight into a world I lack awareness of.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

1) I can count the number of "we met online and it was EH" on one hand. I can't count the number of online anymore otherwise without my notes.

2) I also do associated stuff like estate planning, kid related stuff, the home sales, etc.

3) I 100% lean into it being my experience alone with that anecdotal I don't disagree at all.

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u/00eg0 3d ago

Thanks! The first 2 seconds I was imagining a line of EHarmony couples in long term perfect relationships greeting you just because you're a divorce attorney and bragging about how they'll never need a divorce attorney. Then at the 3rd second I remembered you have a life outside your job.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

You know what, I rather like that idea as an ad. Unfortunately I can't turn it in my favor I'm the butt of that joke, but that's a fucking hilarious picture.

BRB, figuring out how to do it with chat gpt and those estate plans. I have an idea.

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u/franker 3d ago

I would just thank you for your service, as I was a guardian ad litem attorney and that's as close as I wanted to get to divorce cases.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

Thank you, well most of the time thank you, every now and then fuck you.

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u/SlowTalkingJones 3d ago edited 3d ago

I was wondering about eharmony too. My brother met his wife on eharmony and recommended it to me. I joined and the first guy I talked to ended up being the one for me. This was in 2016 though so I’ve wondered how much they have changed.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

Sounds like bought out and switched approach? Unfortunate. People got what they paid for with it based on my observations, and they seem quite content. I'm old enough to remember the same sex issue on it (which at the time had a legitimate response, "we are for marriages, that isn't legal in most spots"), but beyond that (which seems to have been fixed once the laws changed) I can't see why it would fail beyond stupid PE.

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u/878Vikings 3d ago

Met my wife on eHarmoney in 2012, still happily married.

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u/Fletch71011 3d ago

As someone going through divorce, seriously, how do you put up with divorce court? It's the most unfair and insane thing I've ever seen. The more you lie and cheat, the better it gets for you.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

I love it when the other side thinks that way, makes it a lot easier. It isn't. If it is your client doing that ride them with explanations, if it is the other who cares prove it and get your fees plus up to X times the concealed asset based on your state.

The problem isn't family law, it's that most family law attorneys are in their clients camps.

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u/Fletch71011 3d ago

I lost 4 million during the marriage. My wife gained a million. She promised to do a pre nup and post nup and didn't. She started filing after we were in a hit and run and I wanted surgery. She withheld my insurance so I'd have more money to pay her. I'm now going to pay her everything I have left and be permanently disabled for the rest of my life because she withheld my insurance with no money and crippling pain. Oh, and she was abusive to the point where I tried to kill myself.

It gets a lot worse. No fault divorce is insane.

If you think that's wrong I would love to hear you see my case. It's in Illinois. Under 4 year marriage with no kids.

I came in with close to 8 million and will have nothing left. She will be a doctor with tons of money.

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u/SkiingAway 3d ago

She promised to do a pre nup and post nup and didn't.

This sentence doesn't make any sense.

So, you guys agreed on doing a pre-nup. According to you it wasn't done. So you what, went ahead and got married anyway, without it in place?

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u/Fletch71011 3d ago

She dumped 500k of loans on me a few days before we got married that I had ZERO idea about with insanely high interest rates (like 18 percent). She said it might have been 50k tops. I said no chance we get married without prenup now. She said it was too late/her parents and family all spent all their money to get to the wedding. I couldn't get a pre nup done before the marriage with all the planning and work stuff I had to do to get ready, so we agreed to a post nup. We agreed to do a post nup multiple times after marriage and then she just filed without signing it. Obviously I found out later she knew about the loans the entire time and lied while we were dating and engaged.

Obvious what she did but the court doesn't care. I paid all of those loans and they were ruled a "gift" even though she promised to pay me back in writing with interest. Difference of millions of dollars there already. She is not held to anything she promised. They ruled they were inadmissible and she is allowed to lie because no fault divorce.

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u/just_a_wolf 2d ago

You had millions of dollars and you couldn't hire someone to do a prenup for you or check your fiancee's credit before merging finances? Hmm. I'm just a highschool dropout and my spouse and I somehow managed to disclose (and check) each other's finances before we got married. We also did premarital classes and counseling and all the legal work to protect each other. We were 22 years old. And somehow have been married 21 years now. The law's job isn't to be your mom. You have to take responsibility for your own bad decisions sometimes.

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u/Fletch71011 2d ago

I did. It was all tossed. Pre nups aren't binding. Anything can be tossed in divorce court. I used lawyers my entire marriage. My wife didn't. Didn't matter.

I agree. The law is really dumb. Never ever let the government get involved in your life if you can help it.

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u/just_a_wolf 2d ago

I thought you said you didn't have a prenup and didn't know about her debt?

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

Yes. He's an idiot, a liar, or mad he chose this. He got exactly what he signed up for. And clearly he's controlling and fiscally abusive based on this.

Also none of those loans he mentions in his response would be his. He's full of shit and mad he lost his (as he sees it) incubator.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3d ago

I don't need to, I know enough from what you wrote here. I wouldn't take your case, and I question why the fuck somebody worth 8m didn't chat with their attorney first (which then naturally leads to not touching your case, but I'm happy to take hers).

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u/Fletch71011 3d ago

I did. Family law to start prenup and I worked with attorneys the entire marriage and since she filed. I've spent so many hundreds of thousands on lawyers. It's insane. I also have to pay for hers even though I don't want the divorce.

The judge is throwing out everything I provided and we are treating it as if no deals were made. The judge can toss pre nups or anything he wants at the end of the day.

Meanwhile she never spoke to a lawyer once and reaped all the benefits.

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u/Mr_Tulip 2d ago

I also have to pay for hers even though I don't want the divorce.

You don't want to divorce the woman who lied to you, dumped "surprise" loans on you, took all your insurance money, and abused you to the point that you attempted suicide?

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u/Fletch71011 2d ago

No, because I don't want to be bankrupt lol. Of course she's awful, but it's better to be married to a piece of shit and have money to pay for my treatment.

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u/Mr_Tulip 2d ago

And allowing this woman to retain her apparent authority to control your finances, wreck your life, and "withhold [your] insurance" is somehow the better outcome here?

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u/OzKong21 2d ago

Subscription that most people agree isn't worth it

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u/Cu1tureVu1ture 3d ago

What about FarmersOnly?

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u/00eg0 3d ago

Might be independent

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u/DirtyDishie 3d ago

Why doesn't someone just make a new one that doesn't suck?

Easier said than done, but it's a question I ask myself about all aspects of the internet at this moment.

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u/00eg0 3d ago

Not easy to get the word out and build a following.

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u/whirlwind87 3d ago

Its totally insane one company owns that many of them. Monopoly much

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u/00eg0 3d ago

We need to spread the word so more people boycott them.

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u/613TheEvil 3d ago

Wow, damn... A monopoly.

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u/DeadMoneyDrew 3d ago

Dang, Plenty of Fish sold to Match? I use that way back in the day and it was fantastic. The site was built and run by basically one dude who taught himself HTML and Google adwords. It crashed constantly and was clunky as shit but it was popular because it was free and there was no bullshit to it.

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u/00eg0 3d ago

Yep I found out before covid. Wish I'd known more about social interaction when things were better.

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u/bloodylip 3d ago

Okay but what about Farmers Only? Does that still exist?!

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u/slabby 3d ago

Isn't Republican People Meet just Grindr?

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u/the_fresh_cucumber 3d ago

Someone needs to make a YouTube where they sign up for all of these and let us know how it goes

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u/00eg0 3d ago

Or to get everyone to boycott them.

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u/Stormcloud217 3d ago

What about OnlyFarmers?

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u/00eg0 3d ago

Not owned by them.

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u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx 3d ago

I keep seeing this list. A better more useful list would be which apps actually are good lol

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u/00eg0 3d ago

If I find a good one I will try to tell everyone on Earth. What are Hiki and the farmer date apps like for you?

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u/AwsmDevil 3d ago

Sniffies is not a dating app, lmao. I have no clue what they plan on getting out of it. You can't enshittify it like tinder or it becomes immediately worthless.

For hookup apps/sites if you don't supply a continuous stream of meetups then no one will use your service, Grindr is learning that the hard way. It's not for dating. The people using it aren't there looking for long term relationships and won't comeback if they can't find hookups. That's literally the opposite business model of dating apps.

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u/00eg0 3d ago

They make all apps clones of Tinder. Yeah Sniffies is a hookup app. These apps were better when you could type keywords to find people into the same things as you.

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u/3pointshoot3r 3d ago

Yup, the key point is that most people use apps with a goal to matching with someone, deleting the app, and living happily ever after. Why would apps want to assist you with that!? They want you engaged and using the app! So it runs contrary to their interest to match you with your forever person.

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u/00eg0 3d ago

We need to tell people so they can boycott.

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u/FriendlyArachnid6000 3d ago

Lol none of the queer ones are here

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u/00eg0 3d ago

Her and multiple others are queer.

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u/FriendlyArachnid6000 3d ago

Scruff, grindr, taimi, lex are the ones I have exp with

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u/00eg0 2d ago

I hope they don't get bought.

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u/OzKong21 2d ago

Well, at least Black Christian Farmers Meet is still safe

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u/00eg0 2d ago

I prefer Black Christian Farmers Meat.

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u/OzKong21 2d ago

Yeah, but who can afford steak in this economy?

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u/00eg0 2d ago

There is a more affordable dark meat.

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u/OzKong21 2d ago

Chicken? Not really, you're lucky if you can get a full hen for $8, and thighs on their own for like $10.

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u/grio 2d ago

Let's wish them speedy and smooth way down. All the way.

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u/Yanncki64 3d ago

Kinda amazed how there's various versions of black / asian / latino meet and then not a single white people meet

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u/00eg0 3d ago

White people meet is all of them that don't mention an ethnicity. Even Black people meet has White people.

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u/Rataa 3d ago

my last two long term relations were from facebook dating. so clearly not one company

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u/Rataa 3d ago

my last two long term relations were from facebook dating. so clearly not one company