This App Will Help You Date Like A French Person

The age of swiping is over. (Phew! Our thumbs were beginning to hurt.) Once, France's most popular dating app, has officially launched in the United States, thereby making it that much easier to live that French fantasy we all dream of. And that means putting quality over quantity.

What sets Once apart from its competitors is its specificity. Once combines artificial intelligence with a computer algorithm to deliver users one match per day based on a user's type. This type is determined via a rating system wherein possible dates' faces populate a user's screen with prompts to rate them on a scale of one to five stars, with five being the most attractive. Once's system tracks these actions to better understand what each user is looking for in a partner. Think of it as a Hot or Not function built into a dating app. Where other apps aren't taking note of whom a user approves of or doesn't, Once does, and works to parse through individuals in effort to (a) not waste a user's time and (b) put individuals they're more likely to give five stars ahead of those they wouldn't. If they like someone, the other user has 24 hours to like them back.

Rachel Ore, a brand partnerships manager in New York City, has been on the app for a few weeks. "The rating system makes me feel safer," she says, touching on the app's goal of whittling out the creeps and time-wasters by delivering people it learns she'll like. Ore explains, "It's that transparency which really sets it apart from the other apps I've tried that seem to not really put my interests up front."

Once is, indeed, a location-based app, pulling in profiles of people around the user. It keeps the questionnaire portion to a minimum, focusing on the user's intentions for using the app. "I'm pleasantly surprised I haven't come across the one-night-stand type of guy," Hayden Manders, a writer in New York City, says. "The conversations I've had have been engaging and more human than my previous dips into the online dating pool." 

That has to do with Once's capability to rate and review a user's experience with another user. After a date, users are able to share how truthful their respective dates' profiles are, from their photos to how engaging they are. "It's nice seeing how these individuals exist beyond their profiles and have been on dates through the app," Ore says. "I can't tell you," says Manders, "how many times I've gone to meet up with someone off an app and had to double-check my phone to make sure I wasn't going crazy thinking they looked different from their photos."

"I also have to admit, the whole getting updated with a match once a day is pretty liberating," Manders adds. "I sort of had to let go and trust the app to do the legwork for me, which has, in turn, kept me from constantly going through nameless faces." He says it's the most honest dating app he's tried. 

An easy-to-use interface and advanced matching technology put Once ahead of the dating app curve with the goal of setting up real people with real people. What a thought, huh? No catfishing. No red tape. Just quality people looking for quality dates. C'est magnifique!