Who the Hell Is Actually Using Facebook Dating?

A 29-year-old teacher and musician from Richmond, Virginia, Yongbanthom didn’t know much about Facebook Dating before creating a profile in 2023. Still, his matches sort of made sense. “It’s just a mom thing to be on Facebook, I guess,” he says of the perception around the social network. What Yongbanthom couldn’t figure out was why he also kept matching with people who were so far away. “No one is ever near me, which is interesting given there are so many users on Facebook Dating.”

Twenty-one million users, actually. In November, for the first time since its launch in 2019, Meta shared with WIRED user information about Facebook Dating, and the figures landed to the sound of collective astonishment. Suddenly, the platform was a secret hit—and bigger than Hinge, its closest rival. Even more bewildering was how Facebook Dating seems to be slowly catching on among young ...