Facebook Dating Is Upon Us: What Could Go Wrong?

It adds space for you to describe yourself in three words, sentences, or emojis. The platform matches people based on their preferences, interests, and Facebook activity.

Users can "like" or "pass" on people Facebook Dating suggests, and message them at any time, even if they don't both match with each other. The feature that removes a person's relationship status could make it simple to deceive your partner: He or she may see "married" or "in a relationship" on your regular Facebook page while you're operating a separate dating page without that information. Read more: October is the most popular month for men to sign up on affair site Ashley Madison — and there's an obvious reason why.

It’s Facebook Official, Dating Is Here

Granted, the ability to appear single to potential affair partners while in a relationship isn't unique to Facebook Dating. The folks working for Ashley Madison, he added, "aren't the only ones facilitating affairs. Additionally, Facebook Dating won't match users with anyone they're friends with in their regular Facebook profiles. This could prevent a prospective cheater's friends, or friends of their partner, from finding out they're using Facebook Dating.

- The Washington Post

Other apps like Tinder or Bumble, by contrast, don't allow users to filter whether they match with friends or friends-of-friends who could potentially out them as cheaters to their partner. Imagine you're going to a concert or outdoor festival, or you want to go kayaking this weekend and you wish you had someone to go with.

If the concert is one of your Events on Facebook, or you belong to a kayaking Group there, you can unlock that information in Dating and Facebook will match you with others who have unlocked those same Groups and Events and might be a good fit for you. Most offer to auto-populate your dating profile with information from your Facebook profile, and one, Bumble, used to actually require you to have a Facebook membership in order to sign up.

If you use Facebook Dating, it will be invisible to your Facebook friends. Because of all Facebook already knows, it can do a better job of making connections. Like this column?

Sign up to subscribe to email alerts and you'll never miss a post. Facebook built Dating to be privacy-safe, hoping to avoid the awkwardness of friends or family checking out your romance profile. But now Facebook has found a way to let you silently express your affection for a friend without them knowing unless they reciprocate. Facebook announced today at its F8 conference that Dating is opening in 14 more countries, bringing the total to It will launch in the U.