So against my better judgement, I re-downloaded Bumble for 12 hours, wrote up a bio with entirely too much detail for somebody to think I’d tolerate a hook up, and put “a relationship” for what I was looking for. I realized that the algorithm for the app was putting the crème de la crème in front of me, those who had been the most-swiped, and adding in the fact I only swiped on those I found attractive both physically and via personality, and who had a robust bio, twenty minutes of swiping yielded zero matches. Bumble is now deleted, again.

What I found interesting was Bumble trying to push their Premium features onto me. The prices are so outstanding. I noticed this on Tinder as well - over $50, sometimes $100, worth of features I’m pretty sure are catered mostly (if not sometimes exclusively) to males. Bumble, for example, offered me I believe $66.99 for 3 months. No thanks.

Yet, these offers sell. Why? Then, the dark reality dawned on me.

Let’s do some math.

Let’s pretend you are a good-looking man with a solid career and other attractive attributes. You have your own apartment in a hip part of a bustling city and have a good command of the English language. You’re charming and intellectual. You have no qualms meeting a naive, lonely woman, whose behavior you mirror on dates, details about whom you pay close attention, and with whom you carefully craft a little drama of a first date where you pretend to toe the line between considering her as a potential serious partner and seeing her just a few times. Then, when, at the end of the first date, she trusts you, is mildly enamored with you, and hopes you’ll ask to see her again, you sleep with her, mention off-handedly how you’re not ready for a relationship, and usher her out in the morning, heaving a sigh when she’s gone.

Now, in contrast, the typical escort charges about $500 per 60 minutes.

Say this good-looking predator, with his $199.99 lifetime membership on Bumble, has 10 such “dates” per month, each averaging 4 hours (because you also pay escorts for time outside the bedroom). That’s ~$2,000 per woman x 10 = $20,000 he otherwise would have had to spend for “the same thing”, just with somebody who had hoped for an actual connection and he had to manipulate. But who cares about her feelings, right? Her sadness only makes it that much sweeter.

Thanks, Bumble. What a steal! /s