Looking for love in Southeast Asia? These 6 dating apps can help you

Everybody loves somebody sometimes. This is true regardless if it’s Dean Martin or Keith Urban singing those sage words. Dating apps know this well, and they’re working to make it easier for all of us to hook up (well, those of us who aren’t already happily married – hi honey!). But lately it seems finding the right dating app for you is almost as challenging as finding the right person. At least people don’t judge you as harshly if you try more than one app at a time. Hopefully.

We all know Tinder and OkCupid, but people in Asia have other options as well; homegrown ones at that. In no particular order, because you never know where you might bump into your chosen one, here are six dating apps from Asia you can use right now.

Paktor

Hailing from Singapore, Paktor is probably the most well-known Tinder alternative in the region. In fact, the app bears more than a passing resemblance to the look and function of the famous US dating app. You swipe on a person’s profile card to indicate interest (or lack thereof), and there are chat functions when you and that special someone hit it off. There is also a group chat, which allows you to chat with multiple new people with similar interests.

What those interests might be, I will not speculate. The app has recently undergone a redesign and has added a bunch of new filters like age, job, and height, as well as an auto-translation function for multilingual flirting – which is sure to lead into all sorts of awkward but ice-breaking mistranslated come-ons.

Paktor is available on iOS and Android.

Noonswoon

This Thailand-made app is aimed at busy people who don’t want to spend too much time looking for a significant other. Every day at noon (get it?), Noonswoon suggests to you a person it thinks is a good match based on the information you have provided in your profile.

Basically, it’s that aunt who calls you up every day trying to fix you up with one of her friends’ sons or daughters. Then you have 24 hours to “like” that person. If they like you back, off you go to the private chatroom to further discuss things. That’s as far as the app can help you, though. After that, it’s up to you to make your date swoon over you.

Noonswoon is available for iOS and Android.