Best dating app to use in sf

Dating in the Bay Area is a touchy situation for men. In both San Francisco and San Jose there are more than20,000 more single men than women.

This has led studies to find that SF is the “top city for marriageable men.” It makes sense considering San Francisco residents are some of the most educated, wealthy, and just, in general, have their shit together. But while having a large pool of highly desirable men and a dearth of women is great for single women, it isn’t for their male counterparts. 

The San Francisco Bay Area is a romantic war zone.

With women vastly outnumbering men, the cosmopolitan ladies of SF have their pick of the bunch. Women can even date out of their league because men have so few choices. It’s this recipe that has led some to label SF a hookup hub. People don’t really enter into monogamous relationships, rather they simply date around, have sex with people they barely know, and ghost their romantic interest when things start getting too serious. 

Whether this grim picture of the SF dating scene is entirely true or not is up for debate. What can’t be denied however is that dating in San Francisco for a man is well, not easy, to say the least. 

To make it a little easier for you we’ve compiled the best dating apps in the Bay Area. 

Before we get started it must be said that by the end of this article you’ll no doubt have a favorite app that you’ll ultimately download, however, one app isn’t enough. Considering how difficult the dating scene is, it’s suggested that you download various dating apps and maybe even mix in a coaching or matchmaking service to help you reach your goals. 

Here are our picks of the bunch. 

Dating in the Bay Area: What Are the Best Matchmaking Services & Dating Apps

Tinder

Duh, right?

Tinder makes this list for one simple reason – it’s the most used dating app in the city. This map details the most popular dating app in each state. As you can see Californians prefer Tinder. In fact, Tinder is the most popular dating app in 27 states, and a close second in just as many. 

Founded in 2012 Tinder took the online dating world by storm by heavily marketing the app at select universities across the nation. Naturally, an app that facilitated short-lived, shallow relationships based purely on looks caught on among college students. Their appetite for flings and ubiquitous use of cell phones quickly made Tinder the most popular dating platform in the USA, a title it’s kept ever since.

As those other than hormone-high college students began using the app, Tinder began to shed its stigma. While Tinder is still considered as a hookup app by some, it’s come a long way in distancing itself away from its initial image. 

Nowadays Tinder is used by over 50 million users worldwide and 7.9 million users in the U.S. 35% of its users are between the ages of 18-24 while 45% of its membersare 25-34.

Tinder still caters to a younger audience but as you can see, young professionals and those in their young 30s now make up the most size-able user age bracket.

Sure more people use Tinder than any other dating app -and by some distance– but why exactly do they use it? 

50% of Tinder users have never dated a match before. This is because Tinder is viewed more so as a game than a dating app. Users will swipe gleefully away to kill time while on the toilet or late at night to give their self-esteem a little boost.

A LendEDU poll found that out of 9,761 college-age students polled, 44% of them say they use Tinder to boost their self-esteem. Let’s remember though that the people who were polled were students. We can assume that as users get older they begin to use the app as a tool to find romantic partners rather than a game. 

As you can see, Tinder has its ups and downs. While it’s the one SF dating app you must use -depending on your age- there are others worth downloading as well.

Bumble

Bumble is Tinder’s feminist sister.

The two apps look the same, have a similar user-base, and were even co-founded by the same person. 

One way Bumble makes dating in the Bay Area easier for men is that it requires women to make the first move. Female Bumble users looking for heterosexual relationships have 24 hours after a match is made to pen the first message. If the 24 hours elapses without a message being sent, the match expires. 

Another major difference between the two apps is that 34% of Bumble users are female. While this may sound paltry, compare that to the just 22% of female Tinder users. You can argue that Tinder’s legions of users mean that still many more women use Tinder than Bumble. While that’s true you can also say the same for its male users. There’s the tradeoff. While the dating pool is smaller on Bumble, it’s also less competitive than Tinder. 

The third and most salient difference between the two is the user. Tinder users are more of the salacious frat boy ilk than Bumble users. Bumblers are more refined, laid back, and interested in a serious relationship. That may have to do in part because it’s a dating app designed for women by women and Bumble’s ambitions of being more than just a dating app. 

Note: If you’re using this app, consider upgrading to Bumble Boost – you’ll get unlimited swipes and other perks.

Hinge

Hinge is the“dating app designed to be deleted.”

Which is actually kind of weird when you think about it. What company in the right mind makes a product that’s designed to work so well that its users no longer need it? 

Hinge dismisses planned obsolescence and attempts to live up to its slogan by offering users what it considers are disparate features that other more superficial dating apps don’t. 

One of these features is Hinge’s Dealbreaker. Everyone has a dealbreaker and Hinge knows it. It’s not going to waste time showing you profiles of people that smoke, drink, or are Libertarian when that’s not your style. Once you turn on the Dealbreaker feature, Hinge will prioritize users that don’t fit into your dealbreaker category. 

Apps have a tendency of glossing over a user’s personality, instead opting to highlight their photos. In order for Hinge users to view another’s photos, they must scroll down, past the written portion of their profile. It’s in this written section that you’ll find information regarding one’s religion, education, and lifestyle habits. Urging users to fill out comprehensive profiles, Hinge does well to allow users to portray themselves in a more in-depth and nuanced manner. 

What also sets Hinge apart from the dating apps we’ve profiled thus far is it’s Most Compatible feature. The feature helps you find a highly compatible user with the help of the Gale-Shapley algorithm. Developed by award-winning mathematicians, the algorithm was created as a solution to the “stable marriage problem.” In short, the stable marriage problem occurs when finding a stable match between two equally sets of elements proves difficult. 

Hinge leverages this algorithm by requiring users to answer a series of random questions that are then used to determine their compatibility with another user. Hinge offers users a new Most Compatible match every day. 

The last Hinge feature I’d like to highlight speaks to why Hinge is the preferred dating app of my clients. With many other apps, you both have to match to begin chatting. With Hinge, you can like a person’s photo or Hinge Answer and provide them with a comment. Signaling your interest by investing the time into writing a comment has the same impact as a Super like on Tinder would. 

The League

The League is exactly like Tinder… if every user had an elite higher education and made six figures. 

As the most exclusive dating platform in this article, The League accepts users based on their employment status, job, college education, and -arguably- looks. It’s been dubbed the “elitist Tinder” in part because of its strict acceptance policy and the fact that, according to its founder Amanda Bradford, “98% [of users] have college degrees, 8% are PhDs, 30% have advanced degrees, 14% are director-level or higher, 21% are managers, 13% are CEOs, founders, co-founders or owners, and over 39% are estimated to be making six-figure salaries.”

Like I said, just like Tinder.

The League caters to an older crowd, with the median age of its users coming in at 29. As you know it’s users are established professionally, intelligent, and are often wealthy. If this app sounds like its right for you go ahead and apply. Just be forewarned that only 20-30% of applicants make the grade. Also know that some applicants wait weeks before learning if they’ve been accepted or not. You can increase your odds of acceptance by either paying for a membership or filling out your profile in full. 

Facebook Dating

For those that haven’t heard yet, yes, Facebook is now a romantic. 

Just last year FB finally launched FB Dating in the USA. It had been rolled out at over a dozen countries previously and has now finally made its way into American phones and soon our hearts. 

FB comes in last on this list because it’s the newest of the bunch. There’s little that makes FB Dating stand out from the rest apart from the fact that, well, it’s FB. 

Facebook has been shy about releasing user numbers but seeing as how 221 million Americans use Facebook, we can assume that soon enough FB Dating will challenge for the title of the most used dating platform. Until then, you can log into the feature without downloading a separate app. Activate FB Dating by finding the feature in your FB app. 

Bay Area Matchmaking Services

Swiping through the millions of women on dating apps while on the toilet is just one way to meet women. 

Despite online dating offering users the largest pool of singles to backstroke through, a large percentage of singles have found dating apps to be rather infuriating. In a 2020 poll, Pew Research found that 45% of “current or recent” dating app users have reported feeling frustrated by these apps. 

This is largely because dating apps aren’t used as they should be. Biological anthropologist and Match.com’s Chief Scientific Advisor Dr. Helen Fisher says that dating apps should be treated like introductory apps. She is a proponent of users meeting up in person as quickly as possible instead of stacking matches or getting to know each other online before meeting IRL.

An alternative to online dating is matchmaking.

The difference between the two is with online dating you must actively pursue leads. With matchmaking, you can kick your feet up and wait potential suitors to roll in. 

But matching you with a compatible partner isn’t a guarantee of romantic success. What use is setting you up with the woman of your dreams if you’re inept at dating?

When you team up with us here at emlovz, we pair matchmaking with romantic coaching to ensure that you make the most out of your dating experience. We’ll discuss how to act on a first, second, and third date, how to ask a woman out using a TDL, how to escalate tension, and ultimately how to cultivate a meaningful romantic relationship. 

Allow our team of trained e-recruiters to comb through a myriad of social networks to find compatible single women just for you. To make sure we aren’t setting you up with any loonies, we’ll run background checks for every woman we put you in contact with. 

To get started, book a 1-on-1 New Client Zoom Session with yours truly so that we can begin to create a dating playbook tailor-made to your romantic goals. Together we’ll discuss your specific dating goals, create a strategy, and see if my coaching or matchmaking services is right for you.