Life

This App Tells You If You're Good At Online Dating

by Sara Levine

If you're suffering from Tinder fatigue, then The Grade, a new dating app, might be for you. Are you tired of opening your inbox on some dating sites (ahem, OKCupid) and being flooded with more “hey gorgeous” messages than you can keep up with? Have you lost track of the times a guy has tried to use, “Hey girl, are you Jamaican? Cause Jamaican me crazy!” as a legitimate conversation starter? Are you so fed up with the online dating pool that your standards have now been reduced to anyone with a basic grasp of English grammar? Is your personal dating anthem “No Scrubs”? This app says it will solve your problems.

The Grade is like any other dating app you know and love (or love/hate). You upload some pictures, insert a bio, swipe through people, only message with people you match with, yadda yadda yadda, with one twist: users are graded on a scale from A+ to F. Rather than having to weed through extremely subjective comments and try to decide who’s genuine and who’s bitter like in some other apps, The Grade scores you on three criteria: popularity, response rate, and message quality. So basically if you don’t match with anybody (which may be code for “if your profile is obnoxious”), if you’re never on the app, or if all the messages you send start with “HEY GURL” or “Your hot,” you’ll get a low score.

I’m seriously hoping this app gains traction because if I see one more weirdly sexual pickup line (one time I got a message from a guy saying he wanted to “paint me green all over and spank me like a sexy avocado”— not even making that up), I’m going to rip my hair out and then adopt six cats.

Some important things I think are especially worth noting, according to The Grade’s website:

  • The message quality grade is based on several factors including grammar, spelling, and inappropriate content.
  • Spelling mistakes, offensive words and phrases, and slang such as hbu, yolo, fomo, and lmao, so please write thoughtful and compelling messages or your grade will suffer.

That’s a real bummer because I like to start out all my conversations with “Hey wyd? Yolo bogo swag swag lmfao.”

Grades are calculated using some super-secret algorithm, and update every 10 minutes. If you have a grade below a D you might get expelled. Expulsions can be appealed, but they make sure to note that “we are not obligated to respond or let anybody back in.” Hear that, creepy guys? Persistence and hostility might get you answers on other dating apps, but not here!

So if you or a dude you know is a) not a douchebag and b) knows how to use spell check, I beg you: convince them to download this app. Let’s make No Scrubs a reality, once and for all.

Images: ayeshamus / Flickr ; Giphy (3)