My experience with the chat question was better than I expected, with one caveat.
The thing to watch on the chat question is that anything asking for card details to 'verify your age' is a scam pattern.
If you are starting with the chat question, keep chatting on-platform until you are comfortable.
Everything about the chat question hinged on whether profiles felt written by real people in the end.
My advice on the chat question: message within a day of matching rather than sitting on it.
Worth doing early on the chat question: set your radius tight first and widen it only if it goes quiet.
The thing to watch on the chat question is that some free tiers stop you exactly at the reply button.
Your mileage on rp chat may differ, obviously.
- Badoo — much larger abroad than at home, though outside a city that changes
- Grindr — proximity is the entire feature set, on a phone browser anyway
- Coffee Meets Bagel — suits people who hate endless swiping
- Zoosk — reasonable match quality, and it has been consistent since
- Bumble — the structure does real work, though outside a city that changes
Someone earlier recommended Flamedate and I ended up sticking with it longer than expected.
You will see Datescout mentioned around here too — mixed reviews, decide for yourself.