Number one, prepare yourself emotionally. You will be hurt. Your feelings will hurt. Your ego will be bruised and broken. People will flake on you. People will ghost you. People will lie to you. It happens. You’ll likely get your heart broken once or twice before you have good experiences. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find a great one right away, but I won’t lie: it’s rough out there. Especially as you age.

Number two, there is no correct app, the ideal strategy is to just rotate through them and see who’s out there. Don’t take it personally if you don’t get matches or if people dump you mid-convo. It’s like a giant slot machine. They literally use gambling principles in their app design. They’re not meant to find you The One, they’re meant to keep you coming back to date more. That said, Bumble seems to be the most benign, or it was when I was using it. Tinder seems to be more oriented towards hookups, and the rest felt interchangable. Oh, and be prepared for a lot of people on the other side of the world setting their location to somewhere in the US in pursuit of finding an American husband to sponsor their immigration for them. Don’t spend too much time on them. And definitely do not use all of them at once. Install one at a time, maybe two, and try your luck for a month or two before moving on. Ideally, if you have other social connections, try to avoid the apps entirely if you can. They will take a toll on your mental health over time. They’re literally designed to.

Number three, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Keep a casual mindset towards it and figure things out as you go. Don’t go around advertising your lack of experience. It’s literally nobody else’s business. I mean, if things go well enough it might come up but you’d be surprised just how much of it comes naturally.