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Facebook's New Dating App Lets You See Secret Admirers In Your Friends' List

Ciara Sheppard

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| Last updated 

Facebook's New Dating App Lets You See Secret Admirers In Your Friends' List

Featured Image Credit: Unsplash

We've all spent time stalking potential dates in our Facebook Friends' list, whether we'd like to admit it or not, carefully scrolling through their relationship histories and old holiday photos in sleuth-like fashion.

Now, a new dating app by the social media giant will allow users to find out if they, too, have any secret admirers among their friends.

Credit: PA
Credit: PA

People who signed up to Facebook way back when it launched have spent the last 15 years steadily growing their Friends' lists, giving their details to every friendly girl they met in a pub toilet, colleague they worked with for one summer, or friend of a friend they met once.

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Most of us will have Friends' lists in our hundreds by now, when in fact we only 'know' roughly 10 per cent of the cast. That leaves us a pool of hundreds of people we've fallen out of touch with - and among them, potential dates.

Facebook Dating, which launched in the US on Thursday and is expected to launch in the UK and Europe early next year, will run alongside the normal app, but requires users to create a standalone dating profile.

The most exciting feature is Secret Crush, which lets users select up to nine Facebook friends they have a - you guessed it - crush on.

The Secret Crush feature was announced at Facebook's F8 developer conference in April. Credit: PA
The Secret Crush feature was announced at Facebook's F8 developer conference in April. Credit: PA
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Those selected as a crush will get an anonymous notification letting them know someone is interested in them, and if they also add their secret admirer to their crush list, both will be matched and their names revealed.

This could get juicy.

Facebook Dating will also integrate with Facebook-owner Instagram, allowing users to check out each others feeds.

Mandy Ginsberg, the CEO of Match Group, which owns Tinder, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish and Match.com, said the company was surprised at Facebook's move considering its high profile data leak scandal and given the personal nature of dating.

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"We're surprised at the timing given the amount of personal and sensitive data that comes with this territory," she said in a statement at the time.

"Regardless, we're going to continue to delight our users through product innovation and relentless focus on relationship success. We understand this category better than anyone."

Credit: Pexels
Credit: Pexels

Despite this, shares with Match Group were thought to have dropped by over 20 per cent after Facebook's announcement.

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However, Facebook's CEO addresses privacy concerns by saying: "Your friends aren't going to see your profile, and you're only going to be suggested to people who are not your friends.

"This is going to be for building real, long-term relationships - not just for hookups."

It awaits to be seen if Facebook Dating will succeed as a digital cupid, but we like the idea of matching with people that aren't total strangers.

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What do you think?

Topics: Life News, Dating, Sex and Relationships

Ciara Sheppard
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