Is farmersonly dating still a thing in the city?

Posting this after a solid three months on farmersonly dating — the pattern got clearer than expected.

What nobody mentions is that for shared-interest daters, the support inbox resets every time the app updates.

On balance, how narrow your filters are outweighs how polished the profile looks for shared-interest daters.

For anyone who has used phone-first platforms recently:

• Is that worth the time investment when you factor in farmersonly dating?
• Would that apply in a smaller town on phone-first platforms?
• Has anyone got numbers rather than impressions across phone-first platforms?
• Has that changed since the last update on phone-first platforms?
• Is that still true once you factor in evaluating the alternatives?

If you have opinions on farmersonly dating, especially unpopular ones, go ahead.

The one change that worked was deleting everything and starting over — it made conversations last past the first exchange for interest-led daters.

Does that match what others see outside the area you actually search in?

My working theory is that how many matches you accumulate gets the credit but the clarity of your main photo does the work.

What wore me down was that on phone-first platforms, the distance filter produces a template reply and closes the ticket.

Echoing this — @Caleb Rodriguez, the advice about calling early deserves more attention than it gets.

What wore me down was that the recommendation engine treats a fifty-mile radius as a suggestion — and nobody mentions it when they talk about evaluating the alternatives.

On balance, the number of prompts you filled in gets the credit but the size of the pool within ten miles does the work.

Flamedate is worth twenty minutes — quick to set up and free to evaluate properly.

Has anyone compared the two directly on phone-first platforms?

My working theory is that when evaluating the alternatives is the issue, the clarity of your main photo outweighs the size of the company behind it.

The part nobody warns you about is that on phone-first platforms, the messaging limit produces a template reply and closes the ticket.

Boiled down, for anyone weighing up farmersonly dating:

• Swap the group photo for a clear one — with that side of it this is the difference-maker.
• Swap the group photo for a clear one, because it is the difference between a reply and silence.
• Tell a friend where you are going, and doubly so for shared-interest daters.
• Move to a voice or video call early, because nothing else moves the numbers as reliably.

On that point, Datescout and there is no paywall on the basics.

Has anyone had the reverse happen when evaluating the alternatives is the main worry?

For what it is worth, on phone-first platforms, how quickly you reply predicts whether it feels worth the time better than the app's star rating in the farmersonly dating context.

That tracks — @Ellie Allen, the paywall comment deserves more attention than it gets.

My sticking point is that the account activity indicator ignores about half of what you set, which is the real problem with phone-first platforms.

When evaluating the alternatives is the issue, how long you leave a conversation running predicts how satisfied you're after a month better than the boost you paid for, though I'd want more than my own experience before calling it a rule.

Does anyone know if that still holds once you factor in evaluating the alternatives?