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This is the same problem that every modern dating site seems to have after they copied Tinder.

Swipe left - I never want to see this person again!

Swipe right - I must contact this person right now!

What happened to the idea of curating a list of interesting people who I may or may not want to meet right this moment, but I would like to make a list that I can refer to later?

Just look at OkCupid for what a disaster this turns into. I see an interesting young lady, but it may be late at night (like 2AM my time right now).

I would like to put her on my personal list of someone I may want to contact at a more reasonable hour, and after I've had a chance to read her profile more thoroughly.

My only choices are to swipe left and forget her forever, or swipe right and send her a "like" and I'd better send her a message right now!

Maybe there are a few young ladies I may be interested in contacting.

Why doesn't the site let me make a list of them?

I did finally figure out a hack. If I click the little "down arrow" at the bottom of the main page, it takes me to her profile. Then I can use the "share" link in Chrome to create a draft in Gmail with a link to her profile!

I have a lot of drafts now.

This really sucks. If you are a dating site, just let me make a list of the profiles of interesting young ladies!

The same applies to a site for musicians I may want to contact to play music with.




If there were a "maybe" button, then you could just click "maybe" on every single entry (or have a bot do that for you), and thus end up with the thing that's anathema to the Tinder monetization model: a directory of all users, for you to browse at your leisure, filtering and sorting and picking and choosing from it as you like, rather than as The Algorithm likes. (Which in turn means they could no longer upcharge people to appear immediately in other people's queues, etc etc.)

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Mind you, the more charitable argument is that allowing this would also massively decrease matches. Everyone would just say "maybe" to everyone else, because nobody is ever immediately sure that they like someone; the likelihood of two people both actually going back to their "maybes" to say "yes" to one another, and getting a mutual match, would drop to zero.

The Tinder model forces you to make a decision before you can move on, because the FOMO feeling generated by the possiblity of never seeing the person again if you press "no", is literally the only way to get a "yes" out of many people. An app based on a requirement of mutual matching, just wouldn't work without that coercion in place.

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That being said, there's a lot you could do to ameliorate both concerns. You could limit the number of "maybes" someone could hold onto at a time; and you could make "maybes" expire, so that a person has to eventually make a decision on them before they can move on. (Instead of "maybe", perhaps call the associated action "review later"?)


I would love a "maybe" button for apps like this. Apartment List is the only one I've seen with this option, and it's useful for all the reasons you've described. Glad to know I'm not the only one with this frustration.


a hack solution to your problem could be to become romantically involved with every option in as little time as possible




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