A Real Story

After my divorce I found one of those articles ranking ‘100 free dating sites’ and, being an unemployed data analyst with too much time, I decided to actually test it instead of just picking one. I made a spreadsheet with columns for signup time, number of messages in the first week, and how long before someone asked me to move to Telegram. Eleven sites in, three of them wanted a credit card just to see who’d viewed my profile, which felt like a bait and switch dressed up as free.

The weirdest one was a site that looked abandoned, all 2013-era layout and stock photos, but I got a message from a guy named Carl within twenty minutes who turned out to be a real, slightly awkward accountant from two towns over. We met at a diner, he brought printed directions because his phone doesn’t do GPS, and I remember thinking this is the least romantic possible setup for something that’s actually working. We’ve been out four times now and he still texts like it’s 2009, full sentences, no emojis, and somehow I don’t mind it.

The spreadsheet told me something the article never mentioned: the sites with the least polish had the most genuine people, and the slickest-looking ones were mostly bots or upsells. Three of the eleven were dead within a month of my testing them, servers basically ghost towns. I deleted all but two apps by the end, and Carl came from the ugliest one on the list.

If I’m being honest, I don’t think ‘100 free’ anything is a real strategy, it’s just decision paralysis with extra steps. But going through the exercise made me actually notice a real person instead of swiping past him for a better photo, so I can’t call the month wasted.