A Month On Feeld: Is The Horny Dating App Better Than The Normie Dating Apps?

Chances are your matches are being angels on Bumble, and devils on Feeld.

I wrote this piece back in March for a site, and it never got published so I thought I’d share it here.

Enjoy!

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I’ve been on dating apps since their birth in 2012. 

I remember being at university when Tinder was born, kicking and screaming its way into the world, and matching with my friends in that “haha, look how ironic we are” kind of way we used to do on dating apps over 10 years ago. The apps were embarrassing, and we didn’t need to be on them, but we were just sussing it all out. Nothing to see here! I’m not desperate enough to be online dating yet! That’s for old people or whatever!

It’s my firm belief you probably didn’t need a dating app when Retro night at Wollongong existed, but alas, things have changed.

Fast-forward a good decade and I am willing to claim the desperately dating title. At this point in my life, I’m a dating app aficionado. I have been using them, on and off, enough to start questioning if I’m the problem. I live in the biggest city in Australia and I now recognise people on the apps, even if I haven’t met them. “Oh, Scott’s still here,” I’ll murmur, before startling myself and yelling, “BUT I’M STILL HERE?!” and going into a deep state of dissociation. 

I met my only long-term partner on Tinder in 2013, though obviously we lied about how we met initially because it still felt embarrassing. But dating apps have changed a lot since that time… and not always for the better.

At the end of 2022, I was ready to Give Up. I deleted all the apps, bidding farewell to my bestie Bumble, my first love Tinder, and my mortal enemy Hinge. I was breaking the cycle of addiction, cold turkey, very well aware the apps had been designed to make us keep using them, not to actually help us find our forever person. I no longer wanted to discuss pineapple on pizza, spicy margs, or how Ben’s weekend was before we slowly ghosted each other out. I had seen everything I needed to ever see.

Or so I thought. 

In February, a friend told me about being on Feeld. I had heard of it before, and knew it as the horny app: The app people use when they want to fuck. The kind of app people should probably be using when they’re seeking an ethically-non-monogamous third instead of blasting it all over their Hinge profile like they’re the only people who have ever thought about having a threesome.

A couple of weeks later another friend mentioned being on Feeld with their partner – they were dipping their toes in the overflowing pond of open relationships and figuring it all out together. With one friend having a successful hookup encounter, and another going on actual, real, organised dates, my curiosity was piqued. I had thrown everything I could give to the normie apps – was it time to see what the horny app provided for me?

A month on Feeld: is the horny app better than the normie apps?

Upon downloading the app and leading with my mysterious new name, “T”, I began trying to swipe through. The interface is different to other apps, but the premise is all the same: you like (or ping!) someone in hopes you will match. Feeld encourages users that they don’t have to put their actual name on their profiles – so while I was basic as hell choosing “T” while setting up my profile, I swiftly started to learn men out there were more forthcoming, swiping my way through a faceless DomDaddy, a seductively smiling PussyLicker and, well, Matt, who was just here for a good time, not a long time. 

Feeld encourages you to state exactly what you’re looking for: whether it’s a specific kink, or you’re a couple looking for a third, or you’re just single and want to get down and dirty. For those who are curious but a little scared by this sexually adventurous world, you can also put down that you're looking for mates, friends with benefits, or dates. The app has the whole range! 

By week 2 on Feeld I had caved and paid to become a member so I could see who had already liked me. It’s a good way to cut through what you’re not looking for (sorry, DomDaddy) and start matching with more people. Once the matches started lighting up, things got intense, but not in the way you’d initially expect.

To my other ladies out there who enjoy (for lack of a better term) dating men, listen up: the men on Feeld not only consistently started the conversations, but they’d ask questions and even FOLLOW UP if you hadn’t replied within a mere matter of hours. Hours! 

If you’ve heard of the apps and never used them, you’re probably like “OK isn’t that the point?”. But if you’ve been on and off the apps you know this is where the bar is set. A man actually starting a conversation? A man actually writing paragraphs of text to you, instead of just “hi”? A man finally asking what you’re looking for…because suddenly he’s not scared that it’s marriage and kids? Crazy.

This led me to numerous phone number exchanges, four first dates, and two second dates within the month. I met three men in quick succession in an almost job interview-like experience. From a pub lunch, to a coffee catchup, and then a casual drink, I went into the dating experiences knowing we had everything on the table already. These men weren’t here to wine and dine me and promise me a future and then disappear after three months, running away as fast as their icy cold feet could carry them after I mentioned I met my friend’s cute baby. It was all pretty simple: if we had a connection, we’d probably hook up in the future. If we didn’t, it was a simple thanks for your time, good luck out there, no hard feelings. 

As a heterosexual woman, I’ve fallen into the trap numerous times that if the date is OK and there are no obvious red flags, it’s worth a second chance even if I don’t feel an initial spark. Maybe it’s a slow burn? Maybe dating apps are unnatural and people aren’t their best, comfortable selves during the first meeting? Maybe a second date will feel less interview-like?

But in the first couple weeks of using Feeld I started to look at things more… like a straight man, if you will: if there wasn’t even a hint of attraction on my behalf, it made it easier for me to cut things off without the ridiculous feelings of guilt, or the subconscious pressure of giving people “second chances to see if things click”. It was pretty simple really: if I didn’t want to fuck them, it was a no, nice to meet you, good luck out there. No harm, no foul. 

Feeld, the horny app, had opened my eyes to what we were all doing. It was just another vessel for human connection, masked as sex-positive. It really wasn’t all that different to Tinder or Hinge, because for the most part, everyone’s end game is the same: we’re all striving to connect with someone who understands us in some way, shape, or form. 

Despite its reputation in the outside world of being the app where people want to fuck, get fucked, and then fuck off, it wasn’t like that at all. You had the horny people just like every other app,  but you also had the people open to meeting the “right person” and settling into monogamy if things clicked. On Feeld, it felt like people were in more of a safe space to expressly state what they were after, without judgement, even if they were also over on Bumble pretending that they weren’t horny little freaks and would wait for three sacred dates before trying to get you naked. 

The cons? They were pretty much the same as the other apps, if not slightly worse. If you’re on the Feeld, men take it as a sign to be more sexually explicit from the get-go, mistaking sex positivity for the fact you really do want to see their dick without consent. I saw a lot of dicks in my month on Feeld, most of them sent via DM without warning. Do you know what’s weird? Being in the middle of a MAFS recap at 10am and opening your DMs to see someone you talked to briefly about his brother’s wedding letting you know he was having a “lay and play” and sending you a photo of him jerking off. Do you know what’s even weirder? Being on the phone with your parents and having a 30-something-year-old man send you a full nude without warning, just because he’s desperate to seek validation from however many women he’s decided to send that one picture to. Put it away! 

After a month on the app, I left mentally drained but proud: I put myself out there, I tried to form a connection or two, I went on more dates than I had in the last six months, and yes, I did have some consensual fun. But I left with my brain in overdrive, and not just because I was sick of answering, “So Feeld, huh? Are you into kink then?” over a morning coffee. 

The popularity of dating apps has conditioned many of us to accept a low bar, regardless of who you’re dating, but it’s also conditioned us that people are replaceable and the turnover is high. We’re all disposable, me and you included. Feeld is no different from another app like Hinge, even if it’s marketed differently. I made connections, I had one goddamn awful date, I got ghosted, I ghosted someone, I made a really nice new friend. It’s a different name, but the same old game. 

Is the horny app better than the normie apps? Maybe for a little while, but in the end we’re all stuck in the same cycle, addicted to the dopamine hit of matches and shallow validation until that connection gets boring and we move on to the next person – or the next app. 

But if you do want to see a lot of unsolicited dick and find out all of your old dating matches from years gone by are supposedly into threesomes, polyamorous relationships, and kink, I recommend trying Feeld for something different. I’ll see you back there when I no doubt get bored again soon and re-download it because “this time, it’ll be different”.