Love it or hate it, internet dating makes meeting people a lot simpler. There’s a cornucopia of variety quite literally at your fingertips. But it’s still a jungle out there. Choosing a dating site is sort of like choosing a club. So how do Swedish online dating sites differ?
A study at the University of Rochester showed that online dating is the second most-common way for mates to meet nowadays in the US. We don’t know how the Swedish figures match up, but in such a tech-savvy city as Stockholm, it can come as no surprise that net-dating is popular. There are plenty of Swedish fish in the sea…so grab your gear and choose a spot to cast a line.
Badoo
Badoo is an international “social network” (dating site) where Swedes and expats get it on. It’s not a Swedish site (it has 130 million users from around the world) but has many members in Sweden, many of whom write their profiles in easily-accessible English. Badoo likes to market itself as a meeting place, like a virtual nightclub – it helps you meet people and what you choose to do from there is up to you. And it’s free.
Badoo is like a virtual nightclub – what you choose to do from there is up to you
OkCupid
OkCupid is another popular international dating site – this one unabashedly focused on dating. The fun (and addictive) part of OKC is all the questions. You can quite literally answer thousands of questions about yourself and mark the answers you desire in a partner, as well as level of importance. The answers are compared to those of other users, creating “match”, “friend”, and “enemy” percentages. It may not be science, but it’s sort of cool – there’s nothing like the thrill of getting a message from a 97% match. The selection of Swedes is slightly limited – and dare we say a bit reserved? If you’re looking for a sweet nerd or a devoted guitar player (or gamer), try it out. Also free.
Happy Pancake
We know, we know, the name has you wondering whether to guffaw or run the other direction. But despite it’s very odd, and very English, name, Happy Pancake is the place to go if you really want to meet Swedes. Of course there are Swedes on Badoo and OKC as well, plenty of them, but HP is a specifically Swedish dating site, in Swedish, and half of the Swedish population are members (whether they admit to it or not). There are no quizzes or personality tests here, just a profile section and an album. You can filter searches based on diverse criteria, however, including self-ascribed attributes such as “devoted” or “likes (certain type of music)”, not to mention height and age.
Half of the Swedish population are members (whether they admit to it or not)
Mötesplatsen
Supposedly Mötesplatsen is the Swedish dating site which scores “best in test”, although we have a hard time sourcing that claim. A few magazines at least apparently ranked it above other Swedish sites such as Match.se and eDarling. It’s also a Swedish site, and therefore full of mostly Swedes, but it’s generally a bit older and a bit “more serious” than Happy Pancake. It does cost but you can choose different types of payment and subscriptions to suit you – just be sure you cancel membership before the automatic renewal deadline, if you so choose.
Tinder
Alright, Tinder isn’t a dating site. It’s a dating app. But if you want to meet people of the opposite gender in Stockholm fast, then it’s gold. It’s also the most international of the options – visitors from around the world use Tinder while in town for a weekend, a day, or a month, meaning you won’t just find Swedes, but Italians, French, Irish, Americans, South Africans, and pretty much every nationality there is. You don’t get a lot to work with here, just a few pics and a few lines of text – and then you swipe to the right if you like how someone looks, left if you don’t. If you both swipe right you’ll be given the ability to message each other. Shallow? Yes. But simple and effective.
Just like in real life, any online dating site will have both keepers and creepers. So be yourself, be careful, and have fun. Happy hunting!
Featured Image: Robynlou Kavanagh
