One of the breakthroughs of internet technology has been to enable people to find a short/long-term friend, or a partner of their liking including, their sexual orientation, or look for a person for a one-night stand, by visiting one or more of these so-called digital dating apps. Companies or franchises that run such apps globally may or may not be able to help their clients find a perfect match as per their wants, but these do make a lucrative sum of money by charging a fee to their clients for services rendered. Finding the right connection or a compatible match costs money. A Google search showed that globally, the revenue of the online dating industry amounted to US$ 9.65 billion in 2022, and upwards to US$10.49 billion in 2023.

How do these companies make clients pay for their services? On the surface, almost all companies, including eHarmony, Match.com, Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and Bumble offer clients a free membership. While surfing the site and enrolling as a member, one has to fill in details on his/her demographics like sex and date of birth, city of residence or postal code, gender of the person being sought, and acceptable geographic proximity for the search of that person of interest, besides filling details on one’s likes, dislikes, hobbies, activities, and some desired characteristics of a person being sought, and finally, one’s recent photograph(s). A company uses all this information to compile a client’s profile. A company would match this profile of the client with that of a profile of the person being sought to check the compatibility, full or in part, of the two. In industry’s terminology, the profiles of a seeker and that of a person sought are matched for fair compatibility to maximize the likelihood that they would successfully connect and happily move on.

Once a company has completed a profile of its potential client, it would show the client photos of his/her potential matches available on its site. A person is free to look at the pictures placed on the computer screen and may opt to say ‘hello’ or write a few words of salutation to introduce him/herself to the person of interest. The company would not allow the message to go through (some companies, however, let it go, but would block replies). Once the company senses that the client is interested in certain potential matches and wants to communicate with them, the company informs the client that the communication between the two parties is available only to the paid, or so-called premium, members. In other words, the free membership is over at this point; it is time to pay up if one wants to send and receive messages from the potentially chosen matches of one’s liking. That’s how a dating app company allures and coerces a client to pay. Join a site for free is just a sales pitch. A company capitalizes on a client’s strong human desire to meet and communicate with his/her chosen matches.

Almost all companies offer a monthly, 3-monthly, 6-monthly, and 12-monthly (or annual) membership plan, payable mostly in US dollars. The longer the term of the plan, the lower the rate charged. Men pay the full membership fee for their chosen plan whereas women usually don’t pay or pay a discounted membership fee. A company would enroll a wide selection of women of different ages, ethnicities, shapes and sizes, and sexual orientations to attract more male clientele – its paid membership – that contributes the lion’s share of a company’s revenue.

Reasons people use dating apps by gender and age

People use dating apps mostly to find love, a romantic partner, a short/long-term companion, or a casual one-night stand hookup. According to the paper titled “Online Dating by the Numbers” by Matt Seymour (updated to November 18, 2023, and available on Google), 84% of all online dating app users looked for a romantic relationship whereas 24% a sexual relationship (the sum of these two percentages exceeds 100% because some users, looking for both romance and sex, have been counted twice).

Men more than women are more likely to use online dating apps. Again, one out of every five male users looked for a hookup compared with one out of twelve females. Nonetheless, both men and women are likely to search for more than one date. The failure rate, i.e., the search for the desired match is not successful – for one out of four women users compared with close to one out of six men – indicating that women are likely more selective in choosing their dates than men.

The key reasons for using online dating apps, i.e., to find romance, a friend, companion, or sex-mates are very much age-dependent. When one is young between the late teens and twenties, one looks for romance, a partner, or a friend not only for companionship but also for sexual hookup or lasting physical gratification. The same is true when one gets divorced, separated, or loses a partner between the thirties and the sixties. If users of online dating apps in the United States are any example, those 18-29 years old accounted for 26% of all users in September 2023 whereas those 30-49 years for 61%. The remaining 13% were 50-64 years old (Google search).

Put simply, 87% of all online dating app users in the U.S. in September 2023 were 18-49 years old. Presumably, a similar breakdown by age holds for dating app users around the globe. It is evident from this statistical evidence that this game of finding a friend, partner, or sex mate is primarily meant for young and middle-aged persons. It’s not designed for the older folks in the seventies and eighties, who likely have the same or even greater desire to find a companion or sex mate as their younger counterparts.

No dating app company refuses a client based on age. A company would gladly enroll a client in the seventies and eighties and accept his/her membership fee. However, how successful that client would be in finding a compatible match or matches hardly concerns a company. It simply shows pictures of potential matches of all ages to a client and what that client does or how he/she approaches to communicate with matches is left on him/her.

For example, an old man may see pictures of women in their twenties, thirties, or even more than eighties, living in/outside the proximity of the search requested. What good are geographically inaccessible and/or mismatched by-age matches for a client unless one is looking for May-December relationships, or is willing to play the role of a sugar daddy? Such relationships are far from ideal, especially for older and lonely men looking for a steady long-term relationship. Such vital issues of concern to older men clients mean nothing to a company, concerned only with making money by accepting their fees.

The older men may not only get frustrated by a lack of support from dating app companies for not providing the appropriate matches but may also feel constrained by some personal reason(s) – be it poor health, physical immobility, lack of money, lifestyle, and the extent of willingness to adapt to the potential match’s lifestyle. After all, both men and women have ingrained lifestyles and habits developed over the seven or eight decades. Also, almost all persons at this age are likely to be a victim of one or more lasting health ailments which, in turn, may likely take away all the fun of dating.

There are, nonetheless, dating app sites for older men and women under different headings like dating for persons 50 years old and over, 60 and over, for seniors, for widows/widowers, and so on. One would think that it should make it easier for older persons to find a suitable match by joining one of such groups. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out as men find more or less the same women matches they found on other sites without any success. So, joining any dating site with a different name is equally futile for older men. They are not only doling out more money to companies but also getting more frustrated and disappointed in their pursuit to find a match of their choice.

As mentioned earlier, men are more likely to use dating app sites than women, especially older men who live alone and want to have a long-term friend or companion. Since most men are not that naturally endowed with social skills compared to women, they look for ways and means (including online dating apps) to develop their friendly circle (especially starting a new circle after the death of their spouse) whereas older women including widows could easily socialize with their group of old friends or spend time with their children and other family members on a phone, skype, or personal visit. No wonder, a widow feels much less lonely than a widower and as a result, relies less on using dating apps for any friendship/companionship.

Conclusion

For older men in their seventies and eighties, online dating apps are really not meant to find a friend or a short/long-term companion of their choice. These clubs, on the other hand, serve well the needs of persons 18-60 years of age. For older persons, especially men, paying membership fees to such clubs is a total waste of money. To find a compatible companion of choice, men have to look elsewhere including a gym, library, church, social club, shopping mall, or voluntary organization, where they can meet a suitable woman. Finding a companion in such places may take time, unwavering patience, and persistence, but it is all worth it in the end. One would eventually have a companion of their choice.

Keywords: Finding a match Online dating apps Older users Apps success rate Romance Sexual hookup Social endowment