Since I made a half-assed attempt at coming out as bisexual last year (meaning I didn’t tell anyone but rather just starting talking to women on dating apps), I have been on a whopping one date. And it’s not due to lack of effort. I spend around an hour every day chatting with people on social media, sending witty openers and trying to carry on dead conversations. So, I did the unthinkable: I bought a month’s worth of Bumble Premium.
Although Bumble wasn’t on my bingo card this year, after years of swiping unsuccessfully, I decided to try the Premium membership to improve my dating life. I’m now having a lot of thoughts after just a month.
Why Bumble?
When I decided to pay for a dating app, I got a lot of questions from my friends asking why I didn’t try Hinge. Since I started using dating apps seven long years ago, Bumble has always been my favorite and the app I’ve had the most success with. I find Hinge difficult to use, and I find myself never liking people and just waiting for others to like me (which leads to very few likes, ultimately causing me to come to a conclusion about once a quarter that I’m just simply not hot on Hinge, and that’s fine).
Bumble is more expensive than Hinge at $29.99 per month for their Preferred membership. However, I felt it was worth it because I knew I was more likely use it and the perks were amazing.
The Perks
Bumble Premium is there to make your Bumble experience feel better, but most of all, it’s definitely conducive to meeting new people. The most vital perk of Premium is getting access to your “Beeline,” the little section of the app that haunts you with all the likes you have, just waiting to be swiped on. Instead of searching for matches, you can already browse through a list of potential suitors and match with them.
Along with the Beeline, you get a ton of cool benefits, including unlimited filters, unlimited likes, incognito mode (where you can swipe but not be seen to others—it was very exciting to do this while in my hometown), and Travel Mode (which allows you to swipe anywhere in the world—during my Bumble Premium tenure, I swiped in London, Toronto, Vancouver, and Honolulu).
Bumble also offers BumbleBoost, which I found to be a huge cash grab. With Boost, you get unlimited likes, unlimited backtracks (for when you accidentally swipe left on someone cute), unlimited extend and rematch, one “spotlight” a week (where you can improve your chance to be seen by swipers), and five SuperSwipes a week, all for a grand total of $16.99 a month. Although this might make your Bumble experience even better, Premium is still exciting. You can avoid swiping and it encourages me not to swipe more. Premium offers all the same features, but you can swipe if you want (which I rarely did).
The Price
I paid $39.99 for a month’s subscription to Bumble Premium. Listen, I fall strictly in that category that’s like: If something is $20, I say, “Why not? It’s just $20”; if something is over $20, I say, “Do you think I’m the heir to a television network or something?” So swiping my card (or the digital version of it) on this really hurt.
You can get a week’s worth of Premium for $19.99, which I considered, but I felt like going for the full month would give me a better idea of the platform and was a much better deal.
My Experience
Bumble Premium was, despite my resentful feelings, a joy to use. Hey, I don’t like rejection—who does? Knowing that every Beeline friend I liked had already liked me made dating so much more enjoyable than a game I could win and lose. The burnout I often feel from dating apps didn’t occur while I used Premium, likely because I didn’t feel the pang of dismissal of every time I got excited about someone, all for them to never match with me. For the first time in my entire life, I felt like the hot school girl who could choose from anyone she wanted. That was enough motivation to keep myself going for a while.
Using a dating app in this way is so much more direct, and I actually swiped more on people I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. I’m known to get in a groove of swiping without really looking or paying attention to anyone, causing me to probably miss out on a lot of great people. I knew these people well enough to use the Beeline so I took the time to get to know them better. In one month, I met more people and had more conversations than I had in a year.
Other than the Beeline, all the features were just an extra perk. Travel mode was fun to do on a night at home watching movies with a glass of wine, and I highly appreciated Incognito Mode when I was visiting family in my small hometown and wanted to see who was there but didn’t want anyone to see me (IYKYK).
My Results
I loved a plus-size blogger who talked about how she paid for Bumble. She also met the man she would marry in a video that resonated with me. She explained that she wanted to pay so that she wasn’t wasting her time and that finding love finally became a written-in-stone priority for her, and it put Bumble Premium at the top of my wish list ever since. This is exactly what I felt when the money went out of my account. For the first time ever, online dating became a priority for me rather than just something I do because I’m bored.
This helped me to be much more clear about my goals. For the last year or so, my “looking for” status has been stagnant in the “I don’t know yet” category. I’m not looking for a serious relationship, but I also don’t want a ton of one-night stands. I felt much more comfortable being open and direct with everyone I spoke to once I had removed the rejection factor.
So I’ll finally give you what you came here for: Did I meet anyone? Yes and no. In my first days of Bumble Premium, I met a fella that I’ve been casually talking to for about two months. Had I not had Bumble Premium, I’m not sure I’d have met him at all, so in that regard, I have to call it a win. As time went on and I continued to use the app, I met a few other people who I’ve kept up conversations with.
However, I definitely went into this process thinking I’d leave with like five dates under my belt, and that didn’t exactly happen. For one, Bumble still isn’t the best place for me to meet other women. This could have to do with my location, but overall, it’s not hustling and bustling with LGBTQ+ women in the way it is with straight and bi males. To put it into perspective, I had more success with women going to Taylor Swift nights at bars than I did in a month of Bumble.
Final Verdict
Do you think Bumble Premium is worthwhile? It hurts me to admit, but maybe. Bumble Premium is expensive, but if you have the extra funds and want to see a positive uptick in the number of dates you’re going on, I don’t think you would be disappointed. While I think it’s worth it, I don’t think it’s necessary. Bumble has helped many people find their spouses and partners without spending a dime. It’s all about what kind of dating experience you want, and I don’t think it ever hurts to set the intention and invest in yourself if dating and putting yourself out there are goals for you.
Source: The Every Girl