The world’s slowest dating app doesn’t involve pictures — and it’s kind of awesome

The speediness of online dating apps is a virtue. Or is it? You swipe left. You swipe right. Suddenly, you’ve amassed a bajillion matches. You start a handful of chats. And inevitably, you wonder if you’ll ever find someone whom you can have a meaningful conversation with. Well, there’s a new dating app that’s looking to do just that. It’s called Appetence, and it is an intentionally slow dating app to force substantive conversation.

How does the Appetence work?

First, you download the app (duh). Then, you go through and select a ton of interests and personal tastes: music, television, books, pets, etc. Once that’s complete, the app will use an algorithm to match you up with a special someone with similar interests and tastes. So far, this is all pretty standard.

But here’s where it differs: The app purposely blots out his profile picture with a quirky pattern.

Before you can actually see your match, you must first engage in the wonderful (and long lost?) art of conversation.

To break away parts of the overlaying pattern, you must say things that are worthy of the other person’s likes. So, don’t just think you can blah, blah, blah your way into seeing his/her photo. You must earn 50 likes before you can see his/her photo and vice versa. You can also earn likes by unlocking each other’s tastes and lifestyle choices. Cool trick, yeah?

So, what’s the worst that could happen? You spend time getting to know a new human being, and you find out you aren’t physically attracted to him/her? Is that so bad? And hey, for those of us who still need that instant match (gratification), there are no shortage of dating apps to get our fix. All’s fair in love and love, we say.