In a 2023 Pew questionnaire of US adults, nearly one-third of respondents said they had used an online dating site or app at least once. More than half of women who had used the apps reported feeling overwhelmed by the number of messages they had received in the past year, while 64% of men said they felt insecure from the lack of messages they had gotten. Though an overwhelming majority of men and women said they’d felt excited about people they connected with, an even-larger proportion of respondents said they were sometimes or often disappointed by their matches.
Online, it isn’t always easy to know whether the human behind an alluring profile is who and what they say they are. Even relatively innocuous virtual deceptions – such as outdated or ultraflattering photos of themselves that misrepresent how they look in person or fudged facts about their interests and accomplishments – can be disheartening. Then there are the people who fabricate or steal their entire profile, a practice known as „catfishing,” leaving anyone getting hit up by a stranger online justifiably skeptical. All these deceptions have left many people with dating-software exhaustion as they search for ways to take back some control of their romantic fate.
LinkedIn’s attention while the a dating website, according to people who make use of it that way, is the platform’s ability to hand back some of that manage and you will improve caliber of its prospects. Since the top-notch-network website requires pages so you can link to the newest and you will former employers’ character users, it has got an additional covering off credibility you to definitely other public-media systems lack. Many users additionally include basic-people records out-of former colleagues and you can executives – actual people with genuine character profiles.
For even people that timid away from having fun with LinkedIn so you can direction to have times, your website has been a chance-in order to device having vetting close candidates receive through antique relationship apps or in-people experience
Some users have taken this idea to the extreme. Last summer, a British expat in Singapore, Candice Gallagher, made waves after send a beneficial TikTok video clips in which she said LinkedIn had „A-grade filters” for finding „A-grade men” – namely, doctors, lawyers, and „finance bros whatsyourprice studiepoeng.” In the post, she touted the various filters you could use to track down ideal partners. More recently, a screenshot of the tech entrepreneur George Hotz’s LinkedIn bio was shared on X. In his bio, Hotz declared that he now used the site „exclusively as a dating platform” and laid out a catalog of requisite attributes – „intelligent, attractive, female, in or visiting San Diego” – for his ideal match. „Send me a message and invite me out for a drink,” he wrote.
„Social media is but one big matchmaking app,” John explained. „Almost any social network where you are able to find mans images is capable of turning on an online dating app. And you may LinkedIn is even better since it is not merely appearing people’s bogus lifetime.”
A matter of agree
Charlotte Warren, a 30-year-old content creator who lives in Austin, sees things differently. Warren posts TikTok films on the matchmaking and has received more than her fair share of advances from unknown men on LinkedIn. Though she said that the men were usually reaching out under some flimsy guise of professional networking or „mentorship,” many had bare-bones profile pages that suggested they weren’t seriously using the platform for work. Several of her friends and colleagues across genders have received similar messages, she said, and were similarly put off by them.
„Visitors uses LinkedIn differently, however, I believe generally, anyone find it pretty intrusive and you will incorrect” for all of us to use it as a way to discover romantic lovers, Warren explained.
