Diving into Dating Apps

Friends of Julia Semple told her the men were on Tinder, so she gave it a try, with one condition that contradicted the app’s reputation: She made it clear on her profile she was looking for a serious relationship rather than a casual fling.

She matched with a man named Charles J. Hattman in May 2019, and they made plans to meet up to go for a walk. She remembers seeing him as she parked her car. He was nervous. So was she. Soon they learned they had a lot in common.

“I loved how comfortable he was in his own skin and how comfortable he was with the full human experience,” Semple says. “He was just himself no matter where he was, and yet he was also so accommodating without going overboard.”

Semple, of Fort Collins, says she and Hattman valued, respected and supported each other as they learned to be a team. Not only that, but they had fun together. He was funny, she says, and he loved music and food. He was the love of her life.

In 2021, the couple was getting ready to leave for vacation. His birthday and their engagement party were the next day. Then he suffered a massive heart attack.

She tried to save him with CPR. He didn’t make it.

Since then, Semple has dabbled in online dating, but she hasn’t connected with anyone on the same level. She lived on the east coast before moving to Colorado, and so far, she’s not impressed with the dating pool.

“Guys in Colorado have the trappings of being evolved without ever digging deep and doing the work on themselves,” she says. “Because they run up and down mountains and are comfortable asking what your pronouns are, they think they are done working on themselves.”

Whether those conclusions are accurate or not, Semple is done with online dating for now. But for anyone currently looking for the love of their life, she says online dating is a good way to make initial connections. After that, she recommends talking on the phone and meeting in person as soon as possible to start getting to know one another.

Popular free dating apps include Hinge, Bumble and Plenty of Fish. Those looking for hookups or more casual dating can get on apps like Tinder and Grindr. Then there are apps for farmers. For Christians. For music lovers. For nondrinkers. For conservatives. A new dating app, TruuBlue, soft-launched in Colorado last September for progressives.

Needless to say, there’s an app for everyone. Semple’s story both demonstrates that and shows how difficult it can be to find love on a dating app.

Why niche can be nice

Amanda Dunn is a licensed counselor in Greeley and works primarily with adults, both individuals and couples. She says the old adage that opposites attract isn’t really true, especially over the long haul.

“We know that shared interests and commonality are going to keep a relationship going in the long term,” she says. “You don’t need to share every hobby, but if someone highly values politics, for example, that may be a good initial filter.”

One local entrepreneur hopes that’s true.

Dennis Hefter founded TruuBlue, a new dating app that aims to bring socially progressive singles together. Once it brings in 3,000 or 4,000 users, the company will do a full launch, he says.

Hefter has been married since before the internet was born, and certainly before dating apps came along. But his entrepreneurial spirit led him to explore the possibility of designing a dating app.

He has started, built and sold eight companies over the course of his career. This latest idea came about when his adult children stayed with him and his wife, Ellen, during the COVID-19 lockdown. His sons mentioned they’d noticed more women putting in their dating profiles that if men were conservative or if they’d voted for Donald Trump, they were not interested.

Hefter thought there had to be a dating app based around progressive social and political ideology already, but after doing some research, he found that wasn’t the case. So, he got to work.

Hefter points to data from the 2023 American Perspectives Survey, which found that political affiliation is now the fourth-highest dating criteria, following whether or not someone has children, whether they’re a smoker and what religion they practice. According to a 2021 poll by Generations Lab and Axios, 71 percent of single Democrats say they would not go on a date with someone who has opposing views.

“If you match on these social issues with another person, your probability of having a real relationship going forward is substantially higher than if you don’t,” Hefter says.

In addition to catering to the socially progressive—not necessarily just Democrats, Hefter notes—the company has worked to integrate artificial intelligence into the algorithm.

Without getting into trade secrets, Hefter says the matching algorithm digs into users’ conversations to pull things out that offer a more holistic view of a person. The app’s “sentiment analysis” also pulls out “green flags” to rank matches and help users figure out who they might have the best chance of connecting with long-term.

If the Colorado launch is successful, Hefter hopes the app will expand to serve folks across the country. Colorado is a good place to test the app, he says. Beyond the fact that Hefter himself lives near Boulder, the state has an interesting political dynamic. While Denver and Boulder are reliably more liberal areas, large swaths of Colorado skew more conservative.

“You have to assume that if you are a Democrat, it might be harder to find a date in Greeley than it is in Boulder,” he says.

The downsides of niche apps

There can be drawbacks to looking for specific aspects in a partner. The obvious downside, Dunn says, is that people are limiting themselves to a smaller group of potential partners and overlooking others who might also be a good fit.

“We’re often looking for quick snippets about people, but people are not simple,” she says. “People are complex. Dating app profiles tend to be shallow at best.”

That’s not to say a dating app profile has to be extremely long and detailed to be effective. But Dunn brings up a good point: Recognizing that dating apps barely scratch the surface shows us that the next step is to dig deeper.

“During the early stages of a relationship, there’s a lot you don’t know, and that’s exciting,” Dunn says. “Spend time reminding yourself that people are dynamic. They change, and you can get to know them over and over in your romantic relationships and friendships.”

Dunn says she’ll meet with people who have gone on hundreds of first dates—sometimes thanks to an app—but struggle with going deeper. She explains that our brains and bodies often want to take the path of least resistance to the thing we want. Our brains love quick and easy dopamine, a chemical in our brains that gives the feeling of pleasure, satisfaction and motivation.

“Our brains enjoy these shortcuts,” she says. “Dating apps can be quick and rewarding, but what’s next?”

Jeff Birdsall, a Fort Collins resident, says he hasn’t yet found a person he’d like to have a relationship with, though he’s had some success on Tinder and similar apps. In his experience with hookup apps, the women he meets in person often don’t look like the photos they post. He says it can take a long time for him to get a match, and it’s usually not with someone he’s excited to meet, but he stays on it because he wants to meet new people.

“I feel most women’s standards are a bit too unrealistic,” he says. “I can’t even get a date or start talking to 99 percent of the women on the apps.”

While hookup apps might not be the place to build a relationship, many enjoy them for what they are. For others, there are plenty of tried-and-true alternatives.

OG dating sites still work

AdriAnna Breuer met her now husband, Colin, in person for the first time when she picked him up from the airport. They’d first connected on eHarmony and spent the previous few months talking, a process that included video calls to ensure neither of them were lying about their identity.

They agreed that the only way for the relationship to move forward was to finally meet in person. The only catch was that Colin lived in Fort Collins and Breuer lived in Fairbanks, Alaska.

“We spoke on the phone, and I said, ‘There’s no relationship until we meet in person, and no meeting in person unless the first meeting is in my town. I’ll cover housing if you’ll cover the plane tickets,’” Breuer says. “This was my safety measure because if I was going to meet a random dude from another state, it was going to be where I was familiar and had friends.”

She was prepared for him to reject the offer. It was a big trip, after all, and to top it off, it was July 2020, when COVID-19 was still somewhat of an unwieldy mystery.

But Colin made the trek and stayed in Fairbanks for a week. They hit it off.

“I guess you could say that our first date was just us going for a walk along a bike path. It was nearly midnight, but thanks to Alaskan summers, it was nice and bright,” Breuer says.

Breuer recalls teasing him when he took her hand. “I’m going to start thinking you like me or something,” she said. “I didn’t fly to Alaska to be subtle,” Colin replied.

For the next eight months, the couple continued dating long-distance. Things went well—so well that Breuer moved to Colorado before the next winter.

“He said if I moved to Colorado, there would be a beard, a dog and no negative 40 winters,” Breuer says. “Well, he kept the beard, I filched his dog and the winter was warm. Since he kept his end of the bargain, I kept mine, and we are happily married now for a year and a half.”

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Pillars of a Healthy Relationship

Diane Bauer is a therapist in Fort Collins who specializes in individual, couple and family therapy. She says that regardless of whether people meet via an app or in person, the pillars of a healthy relationship remain the same. Those include:

Communication. This is one of the most common issues Bauer helps couples work through.

“There are dozens of ways to misunderstand each other,” she says.

Slowing down and staying curious about your partner can help you to remain open rather than getting defensive, she says. She often sees couples who struggle with communication due to habits and patterns that began with their families.

“We learn how to communicate in our families of origin,” she says. “Then you put two partners together who came from two different families of origin and two different ways of communicating, and you’re butting up against old patterns.”

She often tells couples to think of it like they are learning a new language together. Using “I” statements to express how you’re feeling rather than “you” statements that can make partners feel defensive is another useful communication strategy she teaches.

Assume the best. When couples are first dating, they probably aren’t being their true, authentic selves, Bauer says. They’re probably showing up as their best selves, which is great, but not sustainable over the long term. When the rose-colored glasses come off, it’s important not to jump to conclusions and assume the worst of your partner.

“Over time, a lot of partners begin to assume the worst because they think they have this history of how their partner responds,” she says. “They might think, ‘If I ask for what I need, I might not get a great response.’”

That’s called “negative sentiment override,” she says. Couples can counter this tendency by working to assume the best in their partner instead of jumping to conclusions.

Be authentic. Check in with yourself and assess whether you feel comfortable being authentic around the person.

“You may or may not feel safe to be really vulnerable when you’re getting to know somebody,” Bauer says, “but if you can keep as true to yourself as possible, that’s a good start.”

Social media and dating apps are rarely an accurate, authentic reflection of someone’s life, she says. If you start comparing your life to someone else’s highlight reel on social media or comparing your partner to all the other options available to you on dating apps, that can create a vicious cycle.

Have conversations face to face. Even if you met online, Bauer says it’s important to have hard and important conversations face to face. If that’s not possible, do it over a video call.

“That way you still get most of the information that would be missing in text or a phone conversation,” she says. “It’s far more difficult to be inauthentic when you’re eye to eye with someone.”