What happened to meeting people at bars? What happened to running into the same cute girl at the coffee shop every morning and one day finally taking a deep breath and asking her out? What happened to meeting people in person? Well, while our social skills are totally down the drain, there’s an app that helps you meet people that you cross paths with Happn.
Back in the days where dating apps and services didn’t exist, people would happen upon one another and start talking. Happn capitalizes on this concept and helps you meet the people you would maybe have otherwise happened upon if you hadn’t been in a rush or if you’d only been looking.
So, does going to the same coffee shop as a guy or girl on an app really mean that you could be compatible? Well, I joined the app to see if it really works! Read on to discover my opinions on Happn:
First Impressions
My first impressions of the app are overall positive. The app is designed well and is super easy to navigate. The tabs along the bottom – labeled timeline, notifications, messages, and my account – are really easy to thumb across to find what you’re looking for.
The app tracks your location when you’re both using the app and when you don’t have it open. It tracks where you’re going so that when you do cross paths with another user – who fits your preferences – you’ll be notified. From there you can choose to mark that you have a crush on them, mark if you don’t like them, or say “Hi” (which will notify them that you’re into them). You’ll only get a match if the crush is mutual or if someone wants to say “Hi” to you. Though “saying hi” does cost you money. Think of it as the equivalent of Tinder’s super like.
Features
The app is a pretty basic like or dislike app. But instead of getting matches based on where you’re located in general, you’ll get matches based on your preferences and where you go throughout your day. In my opinion, it’s a super interesting riff off of the popular style of like or not dating apps.
In addition to the basic functions of the app, you can hit the little plus button in the center of the bottom bar to mark what you’re free to do. For six hours anyone who crosses your path will see that you’re free and are in the mood to do anything from “grab a drink” or “go see a movie” to “go on a run” together. This is a great way to get a date fairly quickly. Instead of chatting with someone for days to make plans, you can hint that you’re ready to hang out right here right now to those who happen upon you throughout your travels.
You can also go invisible for six hours. This is nice if you don’t want to match with people around where you live or if you don’t want to match with people in the location you’re in right now. This is helpful if you’re trying to be sneaky around town or if you’re going somewhere that you don’t want people to know about.
Pricing and membership details
The app functions really well as a free app. That’s what I like about this app; you’re not completely unable to use the app effectively if you don’t sign up. However, you can sign up for their premium service. Another thing to like about this app is that its premium is pretty reasonably priced. Their lowest commitment option is $12 for one month. Or you can get six months for one payment of $40 (which comes out to a little under $7 a month). And in my opinion, that’s pretty reasonable.
The perks that you’ll get if you sign up for premium is that you’ll get ten free “Hi”s a day, the ability to see who likes you before you decide on them, the ability schedule your invisibility, an ad-free experience, and you can hide your age. You can also see someone’s last active date and their distance away from you. In my opinion, the price of the upgrade is worth it for these perks!
Pros
Can go invisible: I really like that you can go invisible. A lot of apps are location-based which has some privacy issues that go along with it. Even with Tinder or Grindr people could be swiping and see that you’re less than a mile away when you don’t want to be discoverable. And honestly, that’s creepy when you’re swiping through people super late at night and see that someone is less than a mile away. Unless you’re in a commercial area that probably means that that person lives within a mile of where you’re standing.
The ability to go invisible helps with those issues of privacy when it comes to location-based apps like this one.
You can see the approximate location where you crossed paths: This app will show you how many times you cross paths with someone if you do end up crossing paths more than once. You’ll also be able to see approximately where you last ran into them. This is nice because if you always run into them at the coffee shop or bookstore you’ll know to look for the next time, or you’ll at least know that that’ll be a great place to set up the first date!
Cons
Small user base: What I’ve noticed is that – unlike apps like Tinder or Bumble – Happn doesn’t have that large of a user base. This is super unfortunate because if you’re like me and you live in a medium to smaller sized city, you’re not going to happen across a lot of matches. This app would definitely be more well suited for people living in metropolitan areas.
You can see the approximate location where you crossed paths…: While I sort of like that you can see the last place you crossed paths with someone, it could be super scary for some people. For instance, if I’m sitting at work and I’ve forgotten to set myself as invisible, there could be a good chance that someone who crosses paths with me could figure out exactly where I work. I could see how people – especially women – could be hesitant about using the app for this reason.
Man & woman are the only gender options: When you’re signing up, you only have the option to set yourself as a man or a woman and you only have the option of setting yourself as interested in men or women. This can be troublesome for trans people and those who identify as non-binary.
Conclusion
As far as I’m concerned this is a great app. It just might not be the best for those who are living in small towns. But if you’re living in a large city, I’d definitely give this app a try!
4/5 Stars.