facebook dating, tinder, bumble

What is Facebook Dating and how is it different to Tinder and Hinge?

It arrives this Wednesday


If you’re familiar with Facebook as a business, you know that they’re always eager to get a slice of the action when they see the success of other platforms doing their own thing. They did it with Instagram stories when Snapchat was the rage, they introduced Reels which was a near carbon copy of TikTok, and now they’re looking to get into the dating app scene with their latest release in the UK – Facebook dating.

It’s not actually all that easy to find the answers to the many questions you likely have about the new app. Like, how do I get Facebook Dating? Do people know if I like them on Facebook Dating? Can I only pick from my friends on Facebook dating? In this article, we have all the answers to these questions and more.

Facebook dating, the tab, tinder, bumble, dating app

How does Facebook dating work?

For starters, this idea has been around for a long time – seriously, there are videos outlining its features going back over a year on YouTube. However, this is the first time it’s been available for people in the UK to try out after its successful trials around the rest of the world.

The idea is that you potentially find a romantic connection with people that share the interests that you do through groups and pages. Having said that, the majority of millennials follow pages that they liked when they were in secondary school, so we’re unsure how it’s going to work having people matched on their mutual love for High School Musical and JLS.

Not that exciting yet, right? Well, it’s the Secret Crush feature that makes things really interesting. Essentially, you express an interest in any of your existing Facebook AND Instagram friends, and they’ll only find out if they select Secret Crush on you too – I can already tell that a lot of toes are going to be dipped outside of relationships with this feature, and I can’t wait for the tea!

How do I get Facebook dating?

There is no need to download an app, as the feature will appear on all mobile and desktop versions of the site this Wednesday, so make sure you save the date. WEDNESDAY 28TH OCTOBER. Who knows what this means for people in a relationship that have a Facebook account already, because now they’re all technically on a dating app!

How is Facebook Dating different to Hinge and Tinder?

It seems to be different in a lot of ways. It looks from other countries’ versions that there is a swipe left and right function which is standard, but the added Secret Crush part seems to be completely unseen before in how connected it is with Facebook’s existing infrastructure.

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