To gather information about whether the digital world of dating has its perks (or not), FMT spoke to four Malaysians – all of whom have had mixed results and varied encounters.
Danial, 49, tried not one, but four dating sites following his divorce in 2015 and relates his experience.
“I’ve tried OkCupid, Bumble, Tinder and Badoo, and I think I’ve been on more than 50 dates since my divorce,” says the father-of-two, who is also a chartered banker in a Canadian bank.
He mentions that he’s had sweet dates, but also short dates that have taken on a bizarre note.
“There have been quite a number of times where I’ve turned up for a date and the lady bluntly asked me for money,” he reveals.
On another outing, his date had cooked dinner, and when Danial professed tiredness at the end of a long day, the lady accused him of wanting to see another woman.
“But I had some really nice dates, too, when once, before MCO 2.0, I asked this girl to meet me at the fast-food drive-through.
“She agreed, we met and parked our cars and chilled with burgers and drinks by our cars, like we were teenagers – except when we were teens we didn’t have our own cars!” he chuckles.
Still, such enjoyable outcomes tend to be quite rare, if online dating newbie Zanariah’s experience is considered.
The 36-year-old sales manager and divorced mother of three opens up about her own experiences in 2020.
She’d been hesitant to start dating again despite the bitter end of her 10-year marriage in 2018, but friends pestered her to give online dating a try.
“I did try Badoo, but I found Coffee Meets Bagel had more of what I preferred,” she says.
Zanariah was hesitant to try online dating simply because, as she says, “I didn’t want my date to be pretentious or psychotic, or worse, turn out to be someone’s husband and lied about it on his profile.”
Her experiences, though, ranged from strange to mildly threatening.
“I was chatting with one guy on the site and he became extremely affectionate online as if we were already a couple in love.
“When I asked him nicely to take it easy – because we hadn’t made plans to meet in person yet – he started calling me all kinds of names and being verbally abusive. It was nasty.”
She also had one man refuse to meet her because, although Zanariah is a Star Wars fan, she wasn’t enough of a hardcore fan for this man, so he abruptly ended their online interactions.
She laughs at the memory now, but advises any woman who wants to take the online date to a real-life meet: “Make sure you meet them in a public place near a police station.”
She is serious.
For Aileen, 25, her foray into online dating began when she was 18 and studying in the UK.
“I once met up with a guy on Bumble for coffee, but we found out we were related,” she laughs.
“It was funny, even though it could have gone horribly wrong, but we’ve remained friends.”
It has not always been pretty, as Aileen relates an incident where a man she’d met online invited her to his apartment so he could share his draft manuscript for her to read.
She offered constructive criticism, which he did not take well, and refused to offer her any food.
And by the time Aileen decided to leave, it was too late for her to take public transport, so she ended up staying the night, hungry.
“But I did meet my first proper boyfriend online,” she smiles and added that she went on to have a long-term relationship with him.
Unfortunately, the relationship had to come to an end when she returned to Malaysia.
“I know apps like Tinder are mostly for casual flings, but sometimes you could find a great friendship, too.”
Jeevan, 48, is less optimistic, having tried Tinder once some years back because his friend Ross pestered him to try it, and decided it wasn’t his cup of tea after three attempts.
“There were three ‘matches’ and once I started chatting with them, I realised quickly that they were total strangers and one of them, after a coffee date, went a bit psycho,” he winces.
The coffee date lady kept texting him incessantly, and when Jeevan wouldn’t respond in an hour, she’d text him messages such as “Excuse me, are you dead? Why haven’t you replied to me yet?” every hour, until he gave in and responded.
“And none of them used their actual photo online,” he sighs.
Certain types of people will gravitate towards online dating, but according to Jeevan, “I’m just not one of them.”
He feels such apps or sites “are a bit of a weak and forced way of meeting people, even if it is convenient because it’s all on your phone”, but he also believes that it is perpetuated by an endless cycle of false hope.
“You can’t expect an app to take care of your love life, just as you can’t expect a casual fling or hook-up to turn into a life partner.
“I do have friends who are long-term users, but for me, if chemistry is going to happen, I hope it happens in person, not over an app,” he adds, somewhat wryly.