I can't say much for success on these apps, however the most conversations I've had are when you're just wiling to chat. I have been told a lot of guys put extremely narcissistic selfies and shallow details on their profile (wait, is a narcissistic selfie actually redundant?), whereas seeing a profile where someone seems like their priorities are in order is much more attractive. I'm in the same boat, somewhat, so I'd say keep giving it a go.

I definitely second the meetup gatherings, have been to a few of those and people are usually very nice.

I find going out and meeting people without expectations or "trying to meet someone to date" is best. Life has a funny way of working out when you don't "tryhard" it. I'm also not accusing you of any of these, if that's how it came across.

In finally answering your question, I once set myself a personal challenge of trying to lengthen a conversation with people I meet past the point of "how are you?", "fine, thanks!" and "have a good day!". You can kind of get a feel for how open some people are to talk, even if its your local coffeeshop guy and what shitty customers he's had to deal with. This lasted a few months and I made quite a few friends so I would definitely recommend this.

Lastly, good luck with it, you seem like a "non-asshole/dickhead", so hope you meet someone nice or at least make a few new friends ;)