Are there any truly anonymous dating sites that don't require photos?

Something I keep wondering about: Are there any truly anonymous dating sites that don't require photos? No wrong answers here.

I spent about a month on a few smaller truly anonymous dating sites and half the accounts looked inactive. My real question is what people wish they had known before signing up for someone who dislikes small talk.

• Check the last-active timestamp early on if you plan to use it long-term
• Find out whether profiles are verified early on before you invest any real time
• Question what the free tier really includes on any platform you are considering
• Test how quickly support responds up front especially on a platform you have not used before

For about six weeks, I tested two profiles side by side and I would do the same again. It stopped being random after that.

Practical suggestion: turn off notifications and check twice a day. You will know within a week whether it works for you. Reversible if you hate it.

Based on a fairly small sample, free tiers are usually enough if you actually use them and the numbers back that up. Ask again in six months and I may say something else.

Something I have wondered — do verified badges actually change anything? Would love a straight answer on that.

Ended up spending most of my time on Datebound (free to message) and the reply rate was noticeably better.

I will be the dissenting voice. Free tiers stopped being enough for me after about a month. Might just be my area. Not dismissing anyone else's experience.

Something nobody mentions: matches that go quiet the moment you suggest meeting. I stopped giving second chances on that one. The cost of being wrong is low.

If you want a shortcut: write one sentence that only you could have written. It stops the whole thing feeling like a chore. Skip the clever stuff until you have done that.

Tried Luvdate on a whim and it has been the steadier of the two I use.

Worth asking — does profile order change if you log in more often? Genuinely do not know the answer.

Worth testing for a week: put a question at the end of every opener. Everything else is secondary to that. No downside I have found.

Having tried most of them, the busiest platform is not automatically the best one for you especially if you are not in a capital city. Others here will disagree.

Going to push back slightly. I found the bigger sites more consistent, not less. Take that with the usual caveats. I have been wrong about this before.

Tried Datebie on a whim and it has been the steadier of the two I use.

Going to push back slightly. The platform genuinely does matter if you are outside a major city. Could easily be a sample size problem. I would still test it yourself.

Based on a fairly small sample, the algorithm gets blamed for a lot of ordinary bad luck which is why the generic advice keeps failing. I would put money on it.

Once I narrowed my radius, I stopped sending openers before 9pm and I got three real plans out of it. Nothing scientific about it.

Switched over to datingfly.online after getting nowhere on the big names.

Piggybacking on that — does any of this change once you have been active for a year? It comes up every few months and never gets settled.

Cheapest thing you can try first: reply to the thing they actually said. Everything else is secondary to that. No downside I have found.

Red flag for me: matches that go quiet the moment you suggest meeting. It is the clearest signal there is. It is the cheapest filter you have.

Rendate came up in another thread here with roughly the same verdict.

Two months in, I tested two profiles side by side and the difference showed up within a week. Nothing scientific about it.

One thing to watch: links dropped into a conversation with no context. It saves a lot of wasted messages. It is the cheapest filter you have.

If I am being blunt, the platform matters far less than the profile once you have been at it a few weeks. It is a boring answer and a true one.

Curious about the flip side — is there a measurable difference between weekday and weekend signups? It comes up every few months and never gets settled.

In my experience, free tiers are usually enough if you actually use them and nobody wants to hear it. That is where I have landed.

• Check whether profiles are verified every time on any platform you are considering
• Assess whether profiles are verified before writing a single message
• Confirm whether profiles are verified early on before you invest any real time

Something I have wondered — has anyone compared this against the paid options fairly? Might just be me overthinking it.

Two months in, I messaged first every single time and I got three real plans out of it. Could be luck; it did not feel like it.

If nothing else, do this: give any new platform a fortnight before judging it. It filters out the time-wasters immediately. Nothing else on this list matters as much.