Facebook Dating officially launched in United States on Thursday, adding to the plethora of apps aimed at helping people find romance.
While Facebook Dating has already appeared in 19 other countries, the feature is making its debut in the U.S. Users can find the new dating feature in the Facebook app and can use it as long as they are 18 years old or older and have the most recent version of the app.
How does it work? Here are some key features to know about Facebook Dating.
Your dating profile is separate from your main profile. If you opt into the feature, you'll be prompted to create a dating profile. Don't worry about your existing friends seeing your dating activity though — all your activity stays in Facebook Dating and isn't visible to people on the main Facebook app or website.
You can integrate Instagram. If you connect your Instagram account to Facebook Dating, you can integrate posts in your dating profile. Facebook says users will also be able to add Facebook and Instagram stories to dating profiles by the end of the year.
You won't encounter people from your "Friends" list — unless you want to. Facebook Dating won't match you with your friends on Facebook but it does offer a feature called Secret Crush. How it works is you can select up to nine Facebook friends or Instagram followers (if your Instagram account is connected to Facebook Dating) that you are interested in. If one of those people also uses Facebook Dating, they will get a notification letting them know someone has a "secret crush" on them. And if they also use the Secret Crush feature and add you to their list, you'll be matched. However, if they don't use Facebook Dating and the Secret Crush feature, or don't add you to their list, no one will know you have them on your Secret Crush list.
You can match with friends of friends and people you don't know. Facebook says it matches people based on preferences they select when they set up their dating profile in addition to their interests and activity on the main app.
You can share your date and location information for safety reasons. You can share details of an upcoming date, and even your live location, with someone you trust via Facebook Messenger. The tool is meant to help people feel safer when they're meeting a new person.
Still confused? You can watch a demo of the app below.
