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Different Types of Dating Platforms | Consonance (Gleichklang)
You have already come a long way and are now directly facing the start of your online partner search. Very good. But which online platform is suitable for you, your personal attitudes and characteristics, your relationship wishes, and your ideas about partnership?
This is an important question that urgently needs a well‑founded answer. Because the various dating platforms differ greatly from each other and are more or less suitable for different types of contacts.
The following chapters are intended to help you find your way around the dating market. You will receive various suggestions on how to find a suitable platform.
First, you will learn about the three different types of online dating:
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Dating apps: In dating apps, profile presentations are usually based on geodata. People who are nearby are shown to each other. With most providers, however, it is also possible to search in other regions. The main selection criterion for making contact is the photo; other information plays only a subordinate role.
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Dating platforms: Members can choose people from the entire pool of profiles themselves and contact them. No selected profile suggestions or partner recommendations are made.
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Matchmaking services: These platforms attempt to bring together compatible members using psychologically based algorithms. Almost always, the algorithms are based on the assumption that similarity connects.
These three different types of online dating are based on different models of getting to know each other:
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In dating apps and dating platforms, motives of entertainment, virtual flirting, and eroticism are more prominent than in matchmaking services, where the search for a long‑term partnership is the focus.
Furthermore, dating platforms differ in the extent to which they take into account gender diversity and different sexual orientations:
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The major matchmaking services or dating platforms often allow only “woman” or “man” as a gender specification, and only “heterosexual” or “homosexual” as a sexual orientation. Non‑binary persons or persons with bisexual or pansexual orientation are not represented here. Other platforms are specifically aimed at the LGBTIQ+ community (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer people). There are also platforms that value diversity and take into account the most diverse gender identities and orientations.
Another difference between the platforms lies in their inclusivity toward people with disabilities, illnesses, or impairments:
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No platform excludes people with disabilities or illnesses, but many platforms ignore the topic, which is already evident in their online and advertising appearances that exclusively show non‑disabled people. On such platforms, people with disabilities must expect frequent rejection from other users, which can come close to an implicit exclusion.
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Some platforms, on the other hand, make special efforts to create a climate of acceptance and make this clear in their online and advertising appearances.
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There are also specialized platforms for people with disabilities, where mainly people with disabilities meet each other, which on the one hand can reduce inhibitions and improve mutual understanding, but on the other hand reduces inclusivity.
Specialized platforms exist not only for people with disabilities. In fact, there are even very many specialized platforms, most of which belong to the type of dating platforms. These specialized platforms are specifically aimed at people with certain characteristics, such as socioeconomic characteristics, sexual preferences, highly specific interests, single parents, or people with particular body shapes, to name a few examples.
Specialized platforms can improve access to contacts for people with special characteristics or preferences. However, a disadvantage is that a single characteristic generally says little about whether a sustainable relationship basis can develop between people.
Furthermore, the various dating platforms differ in the extent to which they attract people with serious or unserious intentions. Among the platforms themselves, there are also reputable, less reputable, and even fraudulent providers.
Free platforms in particular exert a strong attraction on people who only want to browse profiles or flirt playfully without having a real interest in getting to know someone.
There is also a large number of portals that operate in the gray area of fraud and employ paid chat moderators who pretend to members that they are interested in getting to know them.
In the following chapters, you will learn which type of platform offers the best chances of success, how you can combine platforms sensibly, and how to protect yourself from dubious offers. The crucial challenge is to find a reputable platform where you meet people with whom you can find a good basis for a relationship.
First, the special features of dating apps, dating platforms, and matchmaking services will be examined in more detail. This will be followed by general quality criteria that you can check for any platform. Finally, you will learn how you can combine different platforms with each other.
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