Let’s Date
Her rating: 3/5
Her review: Messy user experience, but it has potential
Signing up: There’s a lot of potential with this app, but it suffers from a messy and often dysfunctional user experience that’s more bewildering than dating itself.
For example, when you get a match with someone, it loads a calendar so you can set up a date, which is pretty nifty. But when I used this feature, the app got mixed up and sent me push notifications saying, “Mike asked you on a date and you haven’t replied. Let him know either way?” Awkward.
It also suggests matches from far-away places and has a feature that lets you strikethrough what you disliked about a person’s profile but never takes that feedback into account. [Let’s Date recently announced an update that corrects the location problem. –Ed.]
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Above: Joe took me to the Latin America Club.
That said, despite frequently wanting to throw my phone at a wall while using it, the app got me plenty of matches. First I chatted with Daniel, who was pretty standard for me: a 29 year-old network engineer at a gaming company. He was too busy to meet up during the week I’d allotted for the experiment, so I decided to move on. I ended up chatting with a 22-year-old investment banker and Joe, a 40-year-old bartender.
The date(s): Amusingly, the 22-year old promised me that despite his age I “wouldn’t be disappointed.” But it would be a bit weird to date someone that young, so I instead I agreed to meet Joe at the Latin America Club. As I suspected, I found it refreshing to talk to someone who didn’t work in my industry.
The one tech related thing we did discuss was how Joe didn’t like Let’s Date, although “it couldn’t be that bad since it led me to you.” (Smooth.) Although I had fun with Joe, I backtracked on the second date I’d semi-agreed to. I also had to tell the 22-year-old that I’d only been using the app for research. Now that all that’s sorted out, I don’t intend to continue using this app.
His rating: 0/5
His review: A ghost town? I gave up in a week
Getting started: Let’s Date was already installed on my phone from a few months prior. I hadn’t spent more than a few minutes using the app, but I distinctly remember getting a
few connections when I first installed it. For this project, I updated the app to the most recent version and logged in with Facebook (the only option for signing in).
Above: Some of the profiles on Let’s Date appeared to be fake
Theoretically, Let’s Date is a great idea. It’s similar to Tinder, but in addition to pictures, you also see a person’s interests, location, and “tags,” such as “stoner,” “diva,” “brogrammer,” or “Instagrammer.”
You have two choices on each profile, the first being “Let’s Date,” which means you’re interested. When you click the button, you’re asked to “Flirt” (send a message) and move to the front of the recipients message queue, or “Skip.” When you write your message — surprise, surprise — it’s an in-app purchase for $3.99. Thanks for telling me ahead of time. So, on every profile I liked, I hit “Let’s Date” and then “Skip.”
The date — or lack thereof: When you click the ‘No Thanks’ button on a profile, you’re asked to draw a (very
emotionally satisfying) red line through the section of the profile you don’t like, such as their age, location, or pictures.
In practice, Let’sDate is the DMV of dating — but worse, as you’re charged to wait in line.
The interface was an unwieldy maze. The “No Thanks” button didn’t customize my matches — I was expecting that after I drew a red line through Sacramento, Let’sDate would stop showing me potential matches from that city. And after a week of begrudgingly using the app, I had zero (nada, zilch) matches.
I could have been using Let’s Date incorrectly — maybe “Skip” actually skips the profile, leaving only a paid Flirt option as a means of reaching somebody. Maybe the app is a ghost town, abandoned for Tinder and OKCupid. But whatever the reason, I’ve now deleted Let’s Date.