Bumble Review

If you’re on the dating scene you’ll be familiar with apps such as Bumble, Tinder and Hinge. My favourite of the three is Bumble so today I want to talk about that app and why I recommend it for dating.

Bumble has three features; dating, BFF and business. While I’ve never used the business feature I have used both the dating and BFF features. I’ll be focusing on the dating feature and what to expect if you download the app and try it for yourself.

My favourite feature on Bumble is that if you identify as female and match with someone who identifies as male, you get to make the first move. At first, this put me off but now I like knowing I can set the tone of a conversation from the get-go. My current favourite opener is ‘If you could have any superpower what would it be?’. This way I get to open with something fun and it gives me some kind of insight into their personality.

Now what happens if you match with a woman or non-binary person? Well, while I haven’t yet, I do believe it means that either person can send the opening message. However, another cool feature on Bumble is that you have 24 hours to send that message, and then the other person has 24 hours to reply, encouraging you to make that initial contact.

Bumble also has some very good safety features, including an easy-to-use unmatch and report feature where you can state you just are not into someone, or if you hit the block button you can give details on what behaviour they showed that caused you to make that choice.

So you’ve matched with someone on Bumble, it’s going well, and now you're arranging to meet. Did you know Bumble will ask if you’ve met the person? It brings up options ranging from no we didn’t, to we are planning to, to yes we did and we will again or won’t again. And if you hit that you met and it didn’t go well, the app also gives you the chance to report any behaviour that made you feel unsafe.

Bumble also gives you a limited amount of likes each day, to help encourage what they call ‘mindful swiping’. I personally like this as it means you are less likely to just swipe right on numerous people (or swipe left!) and you’ll be more likely to read profiles.

The last feature I’ve been enjoying is the speed dating option which runs every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. While I’ve yet to find a good match via speed dating but it is a good way to chat with someone you may have been more likely to swipe left on.

Two features I cannot review as I don’t pay for the app are Best Bees and the ‘Who Likes You’ features. Best Bees is sometimes given as a freebie, and I do like this feature as it is based more on your swiping habits so you might find a better match.

Overall I’d easily give Bumble 4.5/5. I adore the app and find it so user-friendly. It only loses points for locking some features behind a paywall. Personally I won’t pay for a dating app, so I cannot review these features, but I’m sure with them the app would be an easy 5 stars.