Maybe Paying for Dates Doesn’t Actually Work

Why pay for the date when you can use the app to sext for free?

Earlier this week we looked at new dating app Ohlala, which invites men to post prospective dates as well as how much they’re willing to pay the woman who agrees to date them.

There’s an App Where Men Can Pay Women For Dates

Ohlala’s website makes it clear that this is not an escort sitch, this is just a site where men can give women money in exchange for their presence at a specific place for a specific length of time.

Ohlala does, however, have a blog tag labeled “sugarbaby,” and there’s currently one post attached to the tag: Five Tips for Dating Older Men.

5 Tips for Dating Older Men – Ohlala Blog

Older men have lived longer and have had countless more life experiences than you. They are interesting and they are wise and can hold incredibly engaging conversations, so match them.

Wow. Okay. Older men are interesting and wise and you’re young and might not know how conversation works, but they’re paying you, so listen to their countless life experience stories with a smile.

Ohlala is not the only dating site for potential sugar babies, of course. This week, XOJane ran a story about a young woman who tried to find sweet love and sweeter money through SeekingArrangement.

I Tried Being a Sugar Baby and Failed Miserably

“The media outrage made it sound so easy,” Caly Hope writes—which is a great quote and something I would consider getting tattooed on my body—before letting us know that it was not easy at all and she did not, in fact, make any money.

Instead, I sifted through messages written by men who made less than six figures promising, well, nothing. They never discussed payment, and we never actually met up. I did not realize that many of them were just looking for sexting partners, and I was also naive enough not to realize that if a man from these websites sends you 15 sexual messages in a row, he is wasting your time. Promptly ask for payment in the form of an Amazon gift card and block him. Said payment is never coming.

Ohlala prevents the wasting time issue by limiting its chats to 21 minutes, although I can definitely see a scenario where a guy uses those 21 minutes to send 15 sexual messages plus a few photos (or asks you for photos before closing the chat). But at least with Ohlala, you get paid if you show up for a date. The woman who used SeekingArrangement booked a date to determine whether she should be paid for future dates, and—guess what!—the guy decided that wasn’t what he wanted.

That was the only date she was able to book through the site, as it turns out. Just one date, and a lot of time spent sending winky emojis to chats and sexts. (“They are interesting and they are wise and can hold incredibly engaging conversations, so match them.”) This sounds like every other dating app out there, whether or not money is involved, and I’m very curious to see if Ohlala ends up exactly the same way. If you’re dating “on demand,” you could very easily Netflix-scroll your way through a bunch of women that don’t feel good enough for what you want right now—until you get bored and a little tired and decide to stay home and watch actual Netflix.

Even when money is involved, dating apps are still the worst. Maybe especially when money is involved.

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