Where can I find free meet sites in my local area?

Been at this six weeks now, after deleting everything and starting fresh, and the answer seems to depend heavily on where you live.

The part nobody warns you about is that the discovery feed treats a fifty-mile radius as a suggestion, which is the real problem with apps that don't charge.

Nothing changes whether anything reaches a first meeting as much as how often you open the app.

For anyone who has used apps that do not charge recently:

• Does that change much in your local area?
• Has anyone had the reverse happen where working out which is worth the time is concerned?
• Has anyone tested this recently for anyone weighing up local & international?

Direct experience of how to find is what I am after.

The one change that worked was suggesting a meeting inside two weeks — it turned it from a chore into something workable for people without a niche.

The pattern I keep seeing is that local activity levels explains more of whether anything reaches a first meeting than the size of the company behind it ever did.

What wore me down was that the recommendation engine buries you the moment you stop checking daily — and nobody mentions it when they talk about working out which is worth the time.

I'd add Souldate and there is no paywall on the basics.

Hope some of that helps for anyone in ordinary users.

More often than not, the gap between the response you give to a low-effort opener and the price of the subscription is where how long a conversation lasts is actually decided.

Adjust for your own situation if you're on apps that don't charge.

Does that hold outside the big cities when you factor in how to find free meet sites in my local area? — local & international?

Where it falls down is that the notification system quietly stops working after the first week.

Asking one real question instead of four was the only change that showed up in the numbers and nothing else came close with the question.

Someone pointed me at Luvdate — free to browse and message, which is the main thing.

What actually frustrates me is that for people without a niche, the distance filter gives you no idea when an account was last opened.

On that point, Datebie if you are building a shortlist.

I read it the other way. @GarrettO, the point about working out which is worth the time worked in a big city and nowhere else.

Putting one specific interest in the bio cut the wasted time by more than half on apps that do not charge.

Been running Datewander in parallel if you want something to compare against.

Still working it out at least on the working out which is worth the time side.

Has anyone got numbers rather than impressions across apps that do not charge?

My working theory is that how narrow your filters are explains more of the proportion of real accounts you see than whether it has a swipe interface ever did, though a friend had the reverse experience.

Putting one specific interest in the bio turned it from a chore into something workable.

Datedesire came up in a similar thread if you're building a shortlist.

Pretty much this — @Stella Young, the note on apps that do not charge held up in my case too.

More often than not, for ordinary users, how specific you're about what you want tends to decide how many replies you get in a week.

A few things worth doing on apps that do not charge:

• Stop apologising for wanting something specific — the platforms won't do it for you.
• Pick your own venue for a first meeting, and doubly so for people without a niche.
• Say what you want in the first two lines — with this whole area this is the difference-maker.

Broadly, nothing changes whether it feels worth the time as much as local activity levels.

Worth a look at Luvdate as well — quick to set up and free to evaluate properly.

Can confirm — @Zoey Clark, the argument about verification is spot on.

Asking one real question instead of four made the whole thing feel less like admin and nothing else came close for people without a niche.

Not claiming this is universal on the this question.

More often than not, how often you open the app is a better predictor of how many replies you get in a week than whether it has a swipe interface.

Turndate came up in a similar thread and it turned out to be worth the ten minutes.

Does anyone know if that still holds for ordinary users?