Vibe is a dating app that doesn’t talk

It’s summer, there are no heavy corona measures and people want something. Of course you can meet a nice person at a festival, but if you’re not into that, or if you prefer to be busy with other things during a festival, you can reach for a dating app. But then you have to chat endlessly again and what do you say? That is why the Dutch app Vibe was introduced.

Swipe, match, chat

Anyone who ever visits Tinder or another dating app knows it: you swiped, you have a match, you are happy: then what? You can of course have a nice opening sentence and have a funny conversation, but when do you turn to that question: are we going to see each other? If you do it too fast, you will chase some people away, if you do it too slow, you will soon disappear among the pen pals. Sometimes you have to find the right timing and not everyone can do that.

Now you can say: but if someone is interested, it will come naturally, but you can also use an app such as Vibe. You also swipe in Vibe, but you don’t have the option to chat at all in the event of a match. You immediately make an appointment for a date. Fortunately, Vibe is a smart app: based on your answers and those of your date (on a fairly extensive survey) you get nice options for activities. You don’t have to do something very sporty if you have indicated that you only want to cocoon.

Immediately on a date

That is it. One of the matches suggests a date, chooses an activity, then Vibe comes up with an option to do that activity and then the app invites your match to the date. Handy that Vibe comes with options, because not everyone is a hero at coming up with dates. But, not being able to talk to your match makes it all extra exciting: will that person show up? At the same time, Vibe is quite strict: you cannot just create an account, your profile is first viewed and must be approved in order to use Vibe.

There is some extra information before you swipe: because you both complete the survey, you not only see someone’s face, age and name, but also how many percent you match. You can even check what you match so you don’t end up with a smoker if you hate that, or someone who’s on the thin side when you’d rather have more to grab. The idea behind Vibe is clear: it’s about the feeling you get with someone, but it feels weird not being able to measure that feeling. Often you can already read something about someone in someone’s words or the way someone speaks. On the other hand, that can also put you completely on the wrong track, so that you better meet someone right away.

Dating App Vibe

An instant date, sounds like hassle? Still, you don’t have to show up in your best Sunday clothes right away. By keeping it a little more casual, someone will see how you feel most comfortable and what you probably look like most often, so there isn’t as much pressure on you. On that first date it’s a bit of looking out of the tree at first. Precisely because it’s a date right away, while you haven’t spoken to that person, Vibe seems to want to make dating a bit more like in the United States. Here you are not constantly chatting with matches, but you just have more real dates on which you make your judgment.

Vibe isn’t for everyone, but it does provide a breath of fresh air through dating apps, and a Dutch breeze too. You may have to have a little more guts for this app, but especially if you live or work in a big city, for example, then you can start dating quite easily. The app is clear, looks professional and is very accessible. The only thing that is unfortunate is the heteronormative approach. We have not been able to find how, for example, as a woman you can find other women to match, or as a man other men. Or maybe both. This is also apparent from the images that Vibe uses in its communication, for example: it is all very much the same man-woman dating image and in several areas, inclusivity is a missed opportunity as far as we are concerned. Especially for an app that calls itself ‘a modern-day dating app’. So not quite the breath of fresh air it could have been.

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Do you ever go on dating apps and think Vibe is right? Leave your opinion in the comments to this post.