The bar was empty as I waited. Outside it was snowing and dark, another typical evening of what seemed like of what was an endless blanket of snow. Or, as we call it, February in Boston. 

"Can I get you a drink?" the bartender asked.

"I am meeting someone," I said. "I will wait until ... the person I am supposed to meet shows up."

I glanced at my phone for the time. It was the same phone that set up this date. Why shouldn't it tell me the time? It was 5:08 ... she was late. I've been down this road before. Set up a date through an online dating site and get stood up. It is one of the perils of putting yourself out there: you are asking to be let down. 

This time, I hadn't actually used a dating "site" to meet somebody. It was actually an app. For more than a month, I threw myself into the world of mobile dating. At least, I tried to throw myself into the world of mobile dating. I used only mobile devices and apps to try and find dates and maybe, just maybe, find that special someone.

It became an exercise in patience and humility. 

No Matter Where You Go, There You Are

When I was younger, I thought I could reinvent my entire personality by moving to a new city. Meet new people that did not know my foibles, get a fresh start and be a completely different person. After a couple attempts to recreate myself in a different place, I came to a clichéd but (at the time) startling realization: no matter where you go, there you are.

Just because I changed my surroundings didn’t mean that I was fundamentally any different. And this is kind of how I now feel about dating apps.

(See also: Taking My Dating Life Mobile: A Social Experiment)

Before taking my dating life mobile, I had a long history with online dating. Between Match and eHarmony, OKCupid and others, I have kept a profile active for the sake of curiosity and serendipity. If someone happened to message me, great, I would do my due diligence and follow up. If not? Well, no skin off my back.

The problem comes when you put your eggs in the online dating basket. When you actively try to find a match on a dating site, such as Match, you are asking for frustration.

I sighed. The phone read 5:11. "This isn't the first time you've been stood up," I told myself. The bar had acquired two other patrons, a couple of guys sitting at the very end. The two bartenders leaned against the counter, very bored, watching the red carpet show ahead of the Oscars on TV. "Only thing to do is have a drink and then get going," I mumbled. I signalled one of the bartenders over. 

A momentary gust of wind swept the bar and everybody looked toward the door.

And there she was.

Here’s The Scenario

Note: this comes from a man’s perspective. I have heard several similar stories from women, but I don't claim that these experiences are universal.

Still, anybody who's spent much time in online dating likely knows this scenario. You browse a lot of profiles. Along the way you “wink” or “like” several of them. If you feel a particular connection, you send along a message. 

And wait.

And wait.

Many times you never hear anything back. If you are lucky, you get that ping where somebody has responded. This is your opening. You send a couple of messages back and forth. After an appropriate amount of time, you ask the person if they want to meet.

Silence. 

[See Also: Top Dating Apps For iPhone, iPad And Android]

Sometimes the conversation just peters out. You ask a question that never gets answered. You are left wondering what the hell just happened. 

This basic script is no different between online dating and mobile dating apps.

An hour drifted to two. What I had envisioned would be an hour of awkward get-to-know-you conversation and then fleeing the date turned into casual, witty banter between two people whose personalities may be bit comfortably askew.

I looked at her and sipped the last bit of my margarita.

"One more drink?" I asked.

"Sure," she said.

The Difference In Going Mobile

Notifications ... everywhere The basic human experience in digital dating may not be all that much different between the online world and the mobile world. The same neurotic habits of profile browsing and inefficient, unresponsive communication are present in both environments. 

Yet, there is one big difference when it comes to using mobile app: immediacy. This immediacy is created by three distinct mobile features – geolocation and push notifications and social media.

When you are sitting at your computer flipping through profiles, there is really no such thing as geolocation. You do not know if somebody is from where they say they are. People may say they live in Boston when they really live out in the suburbs. You do not really know until you start talking to them.

When you have your phone filled with dating apps, you know when people are close. Why? Because your smartphone will tell you. 

The typical message looks something like this:

“Hey, a potential date is nearby. Want to message her?”

This can create some odd moments. I live near a pub, and every time somebody with one of these dating apps was at the pub, I'd get a notification. This can be kind of cool, like vetting the dating pool at the pub before deciding to leave my apartment. On the other hand, it can be highly obtrusive. I don't know if women were seeing the same message coming from the app about me, though I have to assume they probably were.

Another problem? Driving.

One particular app called MeetMoi is especially aggressive in its push notifications. I was driving to New York City from Boston in early March, with a quick stop at Foxwoods Casino on the way. On I-395 in northern Connecticut, I was getting basically non-stop notifications. 

“Hey, a date is near. Message her?”

I suppose there are a lot of single women in northern Connecticut.

Now, there's something to be said for Serendipity. Maybe one of these days one of those push notifications is going to have the woman of my dreams. Most of the time they are just annoying. 

Social Profiles

The classic online dating sites highly encourage users to create in-depth profiles from a multitude of questions. Part of the reason for that is that they want to help you “find your perfect match.” The other reason is that they are just like any other website ever: they want to know as much about you as possible to help with advertising.

Mobile is a little different. Creating an in-depth profile through an app on a smartphone is a little bit more difficult. It is harder to type and not all touchscreens are created with the same type of responsiveness. It is much easier for the app developer to just hook your profile up through your Facebook profile and let you edit it from there.

Apps like location-based Tinder and Let’s Date do this. Both will also show you if a prospective mate has any Facebook friends in common. Sometimes you can click on their Facebook profile from the app. And yes, you are going to end up clicking on that link.

You might tell yourself that you are curious. And you are, no doubt about it. But, checking out a stranger’s Facebook profile is also kind of creepy and stalker-ish. If you use one of these apps, you are going to want to go into the settings and make sure that random people cannot click through to your profile. 

The red carpet festivities had started in earnest on the televisions above the bar. The sound was off so all we got were the pictures of pretty people in fancy clothes. We proceeded to go all Mystery Science Theater 3000, making up interview questions and responses, basically being giant dorks. 

It was fun. 

Another hour rolled along. The latest. We finished the last round of drinks and checked the time. It was past 8:00, pretty late for two working people on a Sunday night. We left the bar, into the thick snow of a Boston that seemed deserted.

"Can I give you a ride home," I asked.

She looked at me, perhaps a little sideways, and shrugged.

"Yes."

How’d That Story End?

You want to know how many different people I met, don’t you? It's OK. I get the voyeuristic nature of writing about online dating. I chatted with several women through a variety of apps. Just about all those conversations fizzled out.

Except for, well, one.

One.

That’s right. Through a full month of using dating apps all the time, everywhere I went, I met exactly one person for a date in the real world.

And that's all I'm going to tell you about that.

Images of couples courtesy of Shutterstock

Let's be honest — does anyone really go to South by Southwest for the keynotes? Often hailed as "geek spring break," South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) turns the city of Austin, Texas, into a sprawling bacchanalian hot mess — one with hook-ups aplenty, even for us geek types. 

A Different Kind of Awkward For The STD Talk

In one of the better press releases to grace my inbox this week, a company called Qpid.me wants to help you achieve your ultimate SXSW 2013 goal: Getting laid, you know, without all of those nasty drawbacks to promiscuity. From the press release:

It’s a known fact that there is a huge amount of “Sex” that happens at SXSW as creators, indie film makers, up-and-coming stars flock there to spark ideas, find investors, create together and…have sex.... But is the free love of the festival worth the after effects of coming home with an unwanted gift like some Spring Breakers, an STD?

Qpid is a social network with the well-meaning mission of making it easier for people to share verified information about sexual health status before they shack up. While it would make way more sense as an app, it isn't one — although the information can be shared via text.

Of course, that's only one reality hurdle standing in the way. The founder of Qpid is obviously well-meaning, but in practice the whole process is no less awkward than the analog version of the same conversation, although it does add verified test results for nasties like HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhea into the mix.

Qpid Means Well...

Of course, if all of the people you know on OkCupid were on Qpid too, that would be an awesome thing. So would be a world in which we weren't all so weird about talking about sexual health in the first place. But they aren't and we still are, for whatever reason. If you're willing to broach the conversation at all after a long night on Sixth Street and you've both conquered your health care provider's likely reticence to disclose medical records to something that sounds like a hookup app... well, bully for you! Keep up the good work! Etc.

There's bound to be a handful of success stories out there, but until culture catches up to technology, most of us will still be just as squeamish talking about the ickier parts of sex — with a tool like Qpid or without it.

Image of date via Shutterstock

Let’s face it: Dating is hard.

Where do you meet people? How do you get them to know you might be interested? Which dating site works best? Single people know there are thousands of ways to meet a potential significant other. Whether that means trolling the bars and coffee shops of your city or reluctantly agreeing to let your friends hook you up on a blind date with their friend, dating has become a complicated mess of connections, potential and frustration. How to make sense of it all?

Fortunately, there’s an app for that. Actually, there are thousands of apps for that.

2012 saw an explosion of dating apps, helping the social apps category to pass gaming as the apps that people spend the most time with, according to a Flurry report.

It makes sense. Dating apps are designed to get you to spend a lot of time with them, trolling through photos and profiles either out of genuine interest or morbid curiosity. Either way, from the serious platform to the creepy and stalker-ish, here are some of the most popular dating apps on iOS and Android to help smartphone users find love (or maybe just somebody to cuddle). 

The Buzzworthy

These are the mobile dating apps that everybody's talking about.

Tinder: iPhone

This new iPhone app that is all the rage among the college crowd. Tinder is an anonymous, location-based app that allows you to look for singles in your vicinity. The app will look for people near you it thinks you may like. If you do, you can "Like" them. If they Like you back, you can chat right within the app. It is kind of like Highlight or Banjo for singles. Some people find it kind of creepy, but thousands of satisfied (no pun intended) college students may be on to something. 

Let's Date: iPhone

Calling itself, "the Instagram of dating," Let's Date tries to eliminate the creepy and awkward portions of the online dating world. Whether that is even possible, given the genre, is hard to tell. Let's Date lets you to create a "dater card" through your Facebook profile and browse other people's dating cards. When you see when you like, you hit "Let's Date." If the other person likes you too, you can chat through the app to set up the encounter. When the date is over you can leave feedback and earn badges. Yes, badges. Because we always wanted an app that gamifies dating. 

The Ones With Potential

These apps have some buzz, but can't the hype of Let's Date or Tinder.

Moonit: iPhone/iPad

This "flirting" app connects to your Facebook profile and theoretically uses your astrological sign to help you make connections. In reality, it is just a way to connect your Facebook profile to a "dating" app and gives you a bunch of random, sortable lists of pictures and profiles. You can chat and share pictures, and get "stickers" for random "achievements." Moonit is free but has an extensive in-app purchase system based on its Star Membership feature. To connect or flirt with a potential match, you have to use the Stars, a virtual currency. You can purchase more stars or become a Star Member for $9.99 a month with discounts for signing up for longer periods of time.

Blendr: iPhone/Android

Yet another location-based flirting/dating app that uses location and your Facebook profile to help you connect. Blendr's mix of location and profiles is more granular and specific than Moonit's and does not tack on the silly astrology quotient. It has an "Encounters" setting that lets you cycle through nearby people but allows you to do so only with "Super Powers" - yet another expensive in-app purchase currency/subscription model. 

MeetMoi: iPhone/Android

Still another location-based dating app that connects to your Facebook profile. MeetMoi gives users more specific profiles than some of its competitors, but really isn't all that different from Blendr or Moonit, except for a slightly slicker user interface. 

For Traditionalists

These traditional Web-based dating sites have mobile apps associated with them. 

Match.com: iOS/Android

Mobile-only dating apps are a little bit like the Wild West. You are not quite sure what you are going to get for your time and money. Services like Match.com are a little more trustworthy, a little more reliable. You are still going to pay, but there are more predictable expectation of what you are going to get and who you might meet. Tied closely to the Web version of the service,  Match.com app is easy to use and understand. It does not connect to your Facebook profile.

eHarmony: iOS/Android

From a pure platform perspective, there is really not that much difference between Match.com and eHarmony go about finding you a mate. But the eHarmony apps are much slicker and more enjoyable than Match.com's. This is app design with thought and insight as opposed to just trying to copy the style and feel of a website onto a mobile device. Say what you want about the inherent charms of eHarmony vis-a-vis the competition, the app is certainly slick.

OKCupid: iPhone/Android

In the war among Web-based dating sites, OKCupid has long been the nerdy, slightly neurotic destination compared with the stuffier Match.com and eHarmony. The younger crowd in particualr, swears by it. From an app design perspective, it is really nothing special - using the classic mobile layout of top and sidebar menus, messaging and photos, and the ability to find people near you. The kicker? Unlike basically every other app or service listed above OKCupid is totally free.

Something For Everybody?

The mobile dating apps listed above are only the beginning. There are plenty of alternatives, including 

• Dating DNA: One of the first dating apps on iOS or Android - but few have heard of it.
• Skout: Similar to Tinder or even Banjo or Highlight. 
• iLove: Dating app from Germany that recently went global.
• Lovoo: A "flirt radar" location-based meeting app. 
• Singles Around Me: Another in the location-based  "social discovery" genre. For iPhone, Android and even BlackBerry 10. 

Finally, if you have a very specific dating interest (looking for love with a sea captain or a farmer, for instance), check out this roundup of interest-specific dating sites from BuzzFeed. Be warned, however, some of these preferences are extremely specific.

Are you looking for love through your mobile device? What apps are you using? Have any good, bad ... weird experiences? Let us know in the comments. 

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Online dating is weird as hell. You'd think this wouldn't be the case. After all, the algorithms that connect people on dating sites aren't theoretically all that different from the ones that power search engines and generate billions in revenue. So why is online dating still such a thoroughly imperfect experience? 

Amy Webb, like so many others, learned just how flawed the science of online dating is by going on a series of comically awkward dates with some pretty unbelievable characters. In her book, Data, A Love Story: How I Gamed Online Dating to Meet My Match, the digital media consultant and former journalist outlines how she "reverse engineered" online dating, reevaluated her strategy and met her future husband. 

This being the week of Valentine's Day and all, we thought it would be an opportune time to talk with Webb about her process and share some of the lessons she learned with you, oh lonely denizens of the Internet. Trust me, this is way more interesting than the romance-themed infographics we've been getting pitched all week.   

Decide What You're Looking For

Most people approach online dating like they approach joining any other social network: Set up a profile, upload a few photos that happen to be sitting on your hard drive, and fill out some personal info. The difference, of course, is that dating sites have an objective far more specific than an aimless timesuck like Facebook. 

Webb kicked off her digital quest for a mate by listing 72 traits she wanted her future partner to possess, which is how she recommends online dating newbies get started. Her initial brainstorm included everything from personal habits and marital history to work ethic and Mac vs. PC preference (Hint: John Hodgman would not have made the cut). 

The exact number of traits isn't all that crucial, as long as the list is as exhaustive as possible. "The most important thing is to sit down and write out a list," says Webb. 

Rank Your Top Traits By Priority 

Next, she broke her 72-point list into tiers: Using a combination of personal preferences and past experience, she narrowed down the ten most important characteristics and listed them as "top tier" traits. These were, in her book, the absolute deal-breakers. They were then ranked 1-10 in terms of importance. From there, she chose another 15 "second tier" traits. Not deal breakers, but still very important.

"I was looking for patterns to analyze," says Webb. "For example, there was a lot of crossover in my list when it came to family, religion and attitude towards work. When I noticed a pattern, I tried to distill from it the most important aspect of that data point."  

This approach helped her sort and tag her list and ultimately rank everything by priority. 

Come Up With A Grading System

Once her tiered list was complete, Webb assigned a total number of points to each item. Her top-tier traits were each given a total potential score: 100 for her top trait (intelligence) and 91 for her least-critical item in her top ten list (No history of cheating). The second-tier traits were all assigned a weight of 50 or fewer points, depending on their overall importance to her. 

The result was a 1000-point scale that would allow her to grade - and subsequently reevaluate - the men she dated based on the most meaningful data points. She set a threshold: Based on her initial online interactions, nobody scoring below a 700 would be worthy of an in-person date.  

It all might sound a bit obsessive, but as Webb quickly realized, this formula could have saved her the agony of going on karaoke dates with high-fiving cheapskates just a few weeks prior. 

Size Up The Competition

This is where things get interesting. Before setting up her new profile, Webb decided to evaluate the competition. The way most online dating sites work, there's no easy way to do this from your own account. So using her 1000-point grading system, Webb created two profiles of imaginary dream guys. That's right: She masqueraded not just as a man, but as multiple men, in order to see what kinds of ladies would be vying for the attention of the men she would find most desirable. In the end, she had created 10 fake profiles and interacted with 96 different women. 

This wasn't just an exercise in digital creepiness. It was a data-mining experiment of enormous value. During this phase of her quest, Webb unlocked insight into many aspects of the online dating universe, some of them more predictable than others. What correlations exist between profile popularity and hair color? What about the vocabulary used in people's profiles? How much did successful online daters refer to their career goals? What kind of photos performed the best? 

Using spreadsheets, TextWrangler and "other kludged-together applications," Webb analyzed all of this and more, manually collecting data as she went. She paid attention to things like which gender initiated conversations most and made data visualizations of the most commonly used words in the profiles of popular women. 

"If I was in another setting – like a bar, or party or work – and found someone attractive, I'd immediately look around at my competition," Webb explains. While some sites do allow you to take a look at the competition (which would save you most of the trouble here in step four), JDate does not, so Webb had to game the system in order to see the big picture. 

In the process, she discovered that the LinkedIn-esque approach she had used to build her original profile was way off-base. 

Build Your Data-Fueled Super-Profile

Armed with these new insights, Webb set out to create what she calls her "super-profile." It was concise, used positive language and wasn't as fixated on work. She focused more on her desire to travel the world than on her HTML chops. She also realized that the photos she happened to have on her laptop weren't cutting it, so she uploaded new ones based on everything she had learned by looking at the more popular users.

She showed a little more skin and scaled back on attempts at humor, which can often get lost in the context of a social profile. In short, she optimized her profile, not unlike a product page - an analogy that isn't far off from how Webb encourages people to think about their presence on Match.com or OKCupid. 

"We SEO websites all the time to ensure that they get seen first in the vast catalogue that is Google," Webb says. "Why should online dating be any different?"