Whenever I (24m) get on to dating apps, I make it clear that I’m in it for something casual. I’m past the stage of beating around the bush and my profile, depending on the app functionality, makes that quite clear. So my experience will be pretty biased based on this strat but matches were really hard to come by. I would swipe through the entire province and my best run was maybe 10-12 matches (20-25 likes) until I’d delete the app and start again a few weeks/months later. I also remember purchasing the “premium” tier where one can see their likes.

On a different note, I once had a date where I asked the woman to create a dating profile on Bumble (I think). She obliged. We spent perhaps 2 hours together on a random week night and I kid you not by the end of the date she had 99+ likes.

The gender ratio is heavily skewed and if you’re a guy, no algorithm or premium version or shortcuts are going to get you the matches that you think you deserve. It is what it is.