Actor and filmmaker Joy Ofodu, host of the Dating Unsettled podcast and comedy creator, was seriously and strategically looking for a boyfriend who'd become her husband someday. A lot of her friends mentioned Bumble, so it was the first dating app she joined when she became single in 2021.

She was on a slew of other apps, too: Hinge, BLK, Raya, Tinder, The League — at different points over a year and a half. "It was so exciting and fascinating, almost the entire time," she told Mashable. "It really opened me up to a lot of wonderful Black men from different walks of life who made me feel seen and valued."

SEE ALSO: Dating apps feel broken. But these couples found love anyway.

There were horror stories of disgusting interactions and bad treatment, too. But the process was so meaningful to her that she started Dating Unsettled to document and remember it. 

"Right before I met Ivan, I had almost given up on finding that more serious connection that aligned with all of my prayers and criteria for partnership," she said. 

But then she and Ivan, an estimation engineer and head soccer coach, met, and while they spoke as friends for the first few months, they're now preparing to get married.

They're just one of many couples who fell in love after swiping right Mashable interviewed four such couples about their experiences, and each of them has advice for today's singles — like not setting expectations and remaining open.

Believing in love (on the apps)

Joy does believe that, from what she can see from afar, dating apps have changed since she and Ivan got into a relationship. 

"I'm in conversation with single women who have been on the apps for years and are still looking for their partner," she said in an email to Mashable. "I think this widespread fatigue is contributing to the ghosting phenomenon that everyone's experiencing, so now the apps are trying to prompt people to do or say or voice note ANYTHING that will continue the conversation."

Joy’s advice for today’s dating app users? Don't let the horror stories determine your private dating experience, she said. "Your outcome is not dictated by others' experiences or surveys or statistics, or even by your worst experience."

Don't waste time educating or convincing skeptics or naysayers, Joy continued. Instead, "focus on spending time with daters and community members who actually believe that healthy love and partnership from the apps is possible."

Credit: Ian Moore/Mashable/Adobe Stock

"Surround yourself with romantics and artists and believers. Someone in this gigantic world is looking for the exact person that you are and will be. If you give up, they will not be able to find you."

"Surround yourself with romantics and artists and believers. Someone in this gigantic world is looking for the exact person that you are and will be. If you give up, they will not be able to find you." - Joy Ofodu

Elizabeth, a 31-year-old social media manager has also seen how dating apps have changed since she met her husband, Joe, on Hinge in 2020. She compared what's going on on dating apps — like screenshotting weird messages — to how everyone's attention span has eroded in recent years.

"TikTok is so popular, and…you're watching every video on 2x speed," she said, "I feel like that kind of goes hand in hand with dating apps, too."

SEE ALSO: App fatigue is real. I tested the best dating apps of 2026 to find the ones that really work.

She advised daters to put their best foot forward and show as much of their personality as they can. 

When Joe re-signed up for Hinge, he didn't set expectations, which is his advice for others. 

"A lot of people, in general, are very idealistic about what they're looking for," he said. "I just feel like that's a surefire way to be disappointed."

Sexologist, sociologist, and relationship expert Dr. Jennifer Gunsaullus suggests balancing hope, discernment, and emotional honestly. She also believes that if you do set expectations, do so based on your values and needs.

"When reading through profiles and looking at photos (and when you start DMing), consider what values the other person is conveying," she told Mashable over email. "But it's also valuable to directly share your values and needs and ask about theirs!"

Acknowledging harmful messages

Ashley, who met her husband Matt on OkCupid, remembers receiving "heinous messages" from other dating app users, another common complaint. Major dating apps have attempted to remedy this, such as Tinder's "Are You Sure?" feature, which detects potentially harmful messages before they're sent, and "Does This Bother You?", a prompt that lets users report inappropriate messages. 

"It's still so easy to feel in the moment like, 'OK, like, I really want to do this. I really want to meet people,' and go through profiles and swipe, and then close the app and kind of forget to open it again for several weeks," Ashley said. "It hasn't really changed in that aspect, and it feels like it's the same for other people."

When Portia, a Black sex educator and content creator, was on the apps, some people said horrible, racist things that made her really uncomfortable. She said she can't even imagine what that's like now, "because I feel like people are so used to hiding behind a screen, even more so than they were nine or 10 years ago."

Professor and Mozilla Foundation fellow Apryl Williams argued in her 2024 book, Not My Type, that dating apps are not neutral platforms and that they perpetuate sexual racism. 

In an interview with The Harvard Gazette at the time, Williams stated, "Dating apps allow sexual racism to flourish because they rely on the white heteronormative standards of attraction, desirability, and gender aesthetics to perform the sorting and matching algorithms that we are so comfortable with these days."

A 2025 article in the journal Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology came to a similar conclusion, finding that dating app algorithms "reinforce patterns of exclusion and discrimination by filtering and prioritizing certain profiles over others." 

Portia has also heard horror stories from women in her life who feel dehumanized and disposable. Some of her single friends are a little afraid to be clear and direct — to plainly state that they're dating just to date, or hookup, or looking for a long-term partner. And in some cases, those single women have given up because dating apps have made them feel that way. 

Because of her work, Portia sees how dating apps have devolved over time. "There is perhaps too much of a good thing, and too much access to too many people can lead to devaluing of connections," she said. "It can make it really hard to navigate."

Licensed psychologist and relationship expert, Dr. Nikki Coleman, told Mashable it's not surprising that racist encounters happen online. "If someone experiences racism on dating apps, first, they should know that it has everything to do with the senders’ bigotry and nothing to do with their worth," she said over email. 

Coleman advises taking action that gives a sense of safety and care. "That can include simply leaving the conversation, reporting the user’s profile as a violation of community standards, blocking the user, or even responding directly to let them know how the comment has impacted them." 

"Most importantly, those experiences should not discourage someone from finding the right person for them," Coleman continued. "My best advice: Keep swiping and let the next match be what you look forward to!"

Be willing to grow together

Matt, a 42-year-old mover who married Ashley in 2020, would strongly encourage daters to accept that the person you're looking for "might need some work."

"They might not be fully cooked and ready when you meet them," he said. "Maybe they just need a year or two of like, being in a relationship with you to get more to that level of what you're going to want to be with in the long term." 

It's good to be open to dating somebody that might not be the "final product" of what you're looking for, relationship experts say. Kinsey Institute executive director Justin Garcia said much of the same when he spoke with Mashable in Feb. about Gen Z and love. 

"[A] relationship is the container for making mistakes and finding yourself and having a trusted co-pilot to pick you up and to support each other," Garcia said at the time.

"[A] relationship is the container for making mistakes and finding yourself and having a trusted co-pilot to pick you up and to support each other." - Justin Garcia

Ashley said she doesn't think people should necessarily put their all into trying to make it work with someone who's just not ready to be in a relationship, but in the transactional and quick nature of online dating, "maybe you are passing over people that you can have a connection with, just because it's so easy to do that."

Alternatively, you can explore spending time with someone who is a "big investment," Matt said.

Be clear about what you want

34-year-old sales representative Brian's advice is to be genuine, clear, and honest about who you are and what you're looking for. In a world of pickup artists and looksmaxxers, you may not find a real match if you're not being authentic.

Portia, Brian's partner, had a fun, fruitful, and exploratory dating life, and even though there were highs and lows, she believes she had a lot of highs "because, number one, I was always clear about what I wanted," whether it was a partner or not.

Gunsaullus mentioned something similar. "Instead of trying to attract and appeal to as many people as possible, switch to being clear enough, honest enough, and grounded enough to find someone who is actually a good fit for the real you," she said.

And if you are looking for a partner, you can't approach every scenario and interaction like it's life or death, Portia said. 

"I treated dating primarily as a mirror for myself and an opportunity for me to learn about me," she said, "to see how I respond to certain situations and certain types of people." 

For example, if she was on a date with someone she deemed "out of her league," or if she was on a date with someone who made her feel uncomfortable, she'd explore how that made her feel and how she reacted.

"Particularly if you're under 35 and you're not actively looking for a partner, dating is primarily an opportunity for you to learn about yourself and grow," she said. "And if you get to have great sex, if you get taken on awesome dates, if you have these beautiful connections, all of that is a bonus."