The Single Cynic: You can visualise your dating app data – but you may not like the results

If you like spreadsheets and tracking data to help you become your ideal ‘quantified self’, or even if you’re just curious, you can now visualise your dating app data.

Be warned though: seeing the figures may be somewhat depressing. Or maybe that’s just my own data.

On the other hand, perhaps these metrics might help motivate you to try something new; a different approach to meeting people – even if it only prompts you to refresh your profile and upload some new photos.

How to analyse your dating app data

It starts with a data request. All the major dating apps – such as Tinder, Bumble and Hinge – provide clear instructions and easy enough routes to make these requests, though they can take some time to process.

Once it’s processed, you’ll receive a data file such as .json and, not being a data analyst, you may not know what to do with this. Thankfully, there are free sites such as Tinder Insights and Swipe Stats that can convert these files into digestible data visualisations for you. (Both these recommended sites will strip your data of identifying personal information, but always check the privacy policy first to be sure your data won’t be mishandled.)

What my Tinder data revealed

My Tinder stats revealed that, since November 2014 up until early August last year, I swiped 564,398 times. Of those, 115,003 were right swipes. This led to a total of 249 matches and 163 chats. From what I can recall from those matches, I had only one or two actual dates.

With some dating apps, you can repeatedly see the same people on whom you have to swipe, so that’s unfortunately accounted for in these numbers as well. (The algorithms on those apps clearly aren’t very sophisticated.)

By my estimate, I spent roughly 16 days and eight hours on the app in total, out of eight years and about nine months. On average this was about 52 minutes a week, or just over seven minutes a day.

There were long periods – a number of months in one case – when I didn’t use the app, the data reminded me. Bear in mind that this time span covered periods of Covid restrictions as well.

I matched with a tiny 0.22% of people I swiped right on. That’s less than one-tenth of the average for men (2.5%), according to Tinder Insights.

For comparison, Tinder Insights data says that women, on average, match with 33% of the people they swipe right on.

Risk vs reward

It would seem I’ve had a worse than average experience on Tinder, but also that women seem to be having a vastly different experience on it than men. In terms of the matches and chats, the app has for some time required a paid subscription to see who has liked you.

I recall one of my more memorable chats moving to Instagram and continuing there. My potential date was smart and interesting with a great sense of humour. The chat was fun and witty. That sort of connection is agonisingly rare. I asked her out for lunch or coffee on a few occasions. But we never actually went on a date, to my great disappointment.

She ghosted me. I checked in a few further times and then I could see from her Instagram that she’d started a new job that involved a lot of overseas travel, after which I never heard from her again.

On one date I did go on, some years ago, we met for a coffee but there was no chemistry. She talked mostly about her ex-boyfriend, who was now her next-door neighbour after a gamble on rising house prices went wrong during the property crash. Neither of us texted the other afterwards and we never spoke again.

Tinder and its rivals arguably play on our anticipation of a possible reward when we see a profile of someone we are attracted to. I do sometimes resent that these apps are the gateway to that possibility as, at the same time, they’re taking advantage of our enduring hope. The hope for that hard-to-find connection that might just lead to a real-life romance.

Learn how to better navigate the world of online dating in our masterclass with cyberpscyhologist Dr Nicola Fox Hamilton.