The 5 Worst Ways to Choose a Dating Site

Dating apps are dying. At least, that’s what TIME recently announced. And although I don’t think they’re actually going away, I do think some of them perhaps should. 

Because if you’re looking for a loving, committed relationship, it matters not only who you choose online. It matters where you’re choosing them. And some of the things that make a dating site sound most appealing are exactly the things I’d tell you to avoid.

1. Choose it because it’s free.

Free is wonderful when you’re getting samples at Costco. It’s less useful when you’re trying to screen for people willing to invest something in finding a partner.

Does paying for a dating site prove someone is serious about commitment? Of course not. Married people have credit cards. Players have $39.99. But paying creates a small barrier to entry. Someone had to decide, Yes, finding a partner matters enough to me that I’ll spend something on this. That’s information.

So I prefer sites that charge—or, at minimum, offer a paid membership and make it obvious who has chosen it. You’re looking for intentional people. Choose a site that helps you identify them.

2. Choose one that won’t tell you what people are looking for.

This one makes me nuts. If you want a long-term, committed relationship, why would you spend your time dating people to discover whether they want one too?

Dating intention should not require excavation. A good dating site asks what people are looking for—short-term dating, long-term relationship, marriage, casual connection—and then, importantly, shows you the answer.

Someone who wants casual sex isn’t doing anything wrong. They’re simply the wrong candidate for someone seeking a life partner. You don’t need more candidates. You need better information about the candidates you’ve got.

3. Choose one that lets people skip the photograph.

Yes, I frequently warn people about the dangers of instant chemistry. No, I’m not advocating a passionless existence. But there’s gotta be a baseline.

A photograph can’t tell you everything about whether you’ll be attracted to someone in person. Attraction can grow as you experience someone’s voice, movement, humor, warmth, scent, personality, and the way they look at you. But physical attraction matters in a romantic relationship. You need enough visual information to determine whether someone clears the initial bar of Maybe.

You aren’t asking, Am I wildly attracted to this photograph? You’re asking, Could attraction plausibly grow here? Instant chemistry can mislead you. Zero information isn’t the cure.

4. Choose the site with the most people on it.

People routinely confuse a large dating pool with a good dating pool. They’re not the same thing.

If you want a committed relationship, an enormous site disproportionately populated by people looking for hookups isn’t necessarily an advantage. You could have 10,000 candidates. If 9,950 of them want something fundamentally different from you, that’s not a win.

Choose a site whose culture and clientele lean toward what you actually want. Look at how it markets itself. What does it emphasize? What kind of behavior does its design encourage? What are people going there expecting to find? Don’t choose the biggest pool. Choose one with your fish in it.

5. Choose it because you can swipe through people on your phone while waiting for your latte.

Convenient! Also: This is your life partner we’re talking about.

And the device you use isn’t necessarily neutral. Turns out, people give more weight to pictures and what immediately feels right when they use a touchscreen, but when they use a mouse, they give relatively more weight to other information.  

Swiping on phones is exactly backward from how I want my clients choosing a partner. A photo matters, but so do the things you have to slow down and read: what they want, who they are, how they live, and whether any of that actually fits you.

So I prefer dating sites that are used on a laptop or desktop computer—or at the very least, give you that option. Plus, on a larger screen, you can see more information at once. You can read. Notice. Consider.

Most people wouldn’t research a major investment by flicking photographs of companies left and right while standing in line at Costco. Your life partner is a bigger investment. Treat the decision accordingly.

None of this means a paid, desktop-accessible, relationship-oriented dating site containing photographs and clearly stated intentions will magically deliver your person. It means something much less magical and much more useful: It gives you better information with which to choose.

That’s what I want for my clients: not the site with the most people, the one that’s easiest to use, or the one everyone else is on. I want the one that makes it easiest to answer the question that actually matters: Is this person a good candidate for me?

I don’t think online dating should die. But dating platforms that make it harder to choose well?

Maybe we should stop trying so hard to keep those alive. 

Dating gets a lot easier when you know what to notice—and what to do with the information you’re getting. If you’re 50-plus, I’ve made a free 15-minute training to help you find and choose the right person without settling or falling back into old patterns.

coaching.lovesciencemedia.com/freebie

References: 

Barua, M. (2026). Dating Apps Are Dying. TIME, September 2026. 

Brasel, S. A., & Gips, J. (2015). Interface psychology: Touchscreens change attribute importance, decision criteria, and behavior in online choice. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(9), 534–538. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2014.0546 PubMed Central (PMC)

They experimentally compared people making an online choice using direct touch versus a mouse while holding screen size constant. Touchscreen users searched more alternatives and gave greater weight to tangible/visual attributes and their own instinct, while mouse users gave relatively greater weight to intangible attributes and external information such as reviews. The authors’ broader conclusion was that interface can affect how online information is explored, perceived, remembered, and acted upon.

Photo by Devin Avery on Unsplash