Telling the story of how a couple met used to be a very romanticized part of most people’s love story. However, with the advent of the internet and dating apps, this can be simplified as just saying you ‘swiped right’. There is no tutorial about finding love online that will work for everyone guaranteed. You’ll see below the most common ways people are meeting each other and possibly finding their soulmate.

We can start with the dating apps. Tinder, Happn, OkCupid, Bumble, Hornet. You’ve probably heard of at least one of those. Each one is designed for a specific audience, but they all share the same basic function of bringing two people together. You’ll have to set up a profile, take some nice pictures, add an interesting description and voilà! You can start checking out other profiles and liking the ones you feel attracted to. Once both sides like each other, they can start a conversation and then the magic happens.

Other social media can work as well. Participating in Facebook groups, following Instagram and Twitter hashtags or contributing to a subreddit with your favorite topic will increase the chances of finding someone who could be your next romantic interest. 

If you’re looking for cultural or intellectual growth along with a prospect date, there are also options like Tandem, in which you can learn languages by chatting with native or fluent speakers, and also teach others your languages. When travelling, you could look at Airbnb Experiences, where you can experience cities and participate in workshops with a local guide, and also meet other travelers in the way.

As you can see, there are almost as many options to date people online as in the real world, but similarly, you should be watchful for bad intentioned individuals and scammers. The US Federal Trade Commission recently reported last year that more than 21,000 people have reported being scammed by romance scams online, that lost a combined total of $143 million. According to the FTC, the average loss on these scams was seven times higher than any other type of online fraud! Another issue you can run into is the long-distance relationship factor, but that could be the subject of a different article.