More spouses are filing for divorce after catching their spouse on a dating app. Photo / 123RF
They were once the preserve of the young, free and single, looking for love – or at least a no-strings good time. But dating apps are now hotbeds for those already coupled up, looking for titillation and an ego boost on the side.
According to one recent study by Erasmus University in the Netherlands, 25 per cent of users on Tinder (which facilitates over one million dates in 190 countries around the globe every week) come with many, sometimes hidden, strings attached.
Some actively pose as single; some are just browsing for kicks; some, appear to be in open relationships. Couples have even been seen with joint profiles, searching for "other connections" to spice up their marriage.
Whatever their story, the Erasmus study, of European and American online dating users, found non-single Tinder users "generally report a higher number of romantic relationships, French kisses, one-night stands, and casual sexual relationships with other Tinder users compared to single Tinder users".
All of which means, if you're single, you could unwittingly find yourself dating a married man or woman. Far worse, of course, is the idea that your spouse could secretly betray you by setting up a profile to talk to (or even meet up with) an endless supply of singles, themselves.
If your thumb is agile enough, you could hypothetically flick through upwards of 500 Tinder profiles on your iPhone while watching the 6pm news. And when swiping turns to chatting, it would be easy enough to secretly have multiple conversations with strangers over WhatsApp while sitting next to your spouse on the sofa. In an era when our entire lives play out on our smartphones, it follows that our affairs are conducted on them, too.
Family lawyer Nicola Mccinnes says that years ago, clients would hand her envelopes with grainy photographs of cheating spouses in illicit meet-ups – now, she is handed USBs filled with screenshots of conversations snatched from their husband or wife's iPad.
"Often people will show us pictures of people together or screenshots of their husband of wife's messages. We get all sorts. People tell you everything when they're going through a divorce, as we're often the first person they speak to."
Some find out through old-fashioned snooping – linking Apple IDs and Uber accounts to shared devices has much to answer for – others through genuinely single friends who have made an awkward discovery.
She is seeing more clients filing for divorce after catching their spouse on a dating app.
"There has definitely been an increase in husbands and wives going on to an app like Tinder and having a bit of a nosey," she says.
"It might just be for a bit of a giggle at first, then it can turn into something more serious. People start looking and before they know it they're saying things they shouldn't be saying."
Mccinnes believes people who turn to apps when they are going through a bad patch in their marriage often see it as an easy, harmless way to test the waters, but it can all too quickly spiral into a more extreme betrayal.
"People like attention, that's what it comes down to. And if you're not getting the attention you probably need, you look elsewhere for it.
"It's almost like checking what's out there before you actually do anything. But it's not just like going on Facebook and reconnecting with an old friend, because Tinder is specifically a dating app."
Interestingly she sees more husbands who have discovered their wives on dating apps than vice versa - she puts this down to women being more curious. Tinder wasn't around for those who were dating before the app was launched in 2012.
Many celebrities have turned to the app after a marriage break-up.
Singer Hilary Duff, 31, went on Tinder after she broke up with Mike Comrie in 2014, while rapper Eminem, 46, who admitted having trouble dating since breaking up with wife Kim, said he'd had a few dates via the app.
Singer Katy Perry decided to give it a go after John Mayer. And Bond girl Halle Berry, 52, admitted to online dating "to see what everybody is talking about".
But you won't find Good Morning Britain host Susanna Reid on Tinder. The 47-year-old admitted this week she was ready to start dating after splitting with her partner of 16 years, but not online because "It doesn't feel like the right thing for me."
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Carl, 35, did not delete his Tinder profile after meeting his long-term girlfriend on the app.
"Swiping is just a way to pass time sometimes.
"Friends and I mess about to see who can get the most matches (I always lose). If someone sends a message though, that's different."
But one person's cheating is another's innocent chatting, so how far is too far? If your husband set up an account and chatted to a couple of people to prop up his ego, but never met up with them — is that grounds for divorce?
Gurpreet Singh, a counsellor for Relate, the relationship charity, says an apparent rise in open relationships has made attached people on dating apps even more of a grey area.
"What is considered cheating is dependent on each person and each couple. For some people, if they suspect an emotional connection they consider that cheating. In other instances, going on the dating app isn't but if you go and meet someone then yes, that's cheating."
The common thread, he believes, is loneliness, and the quick validation fix an interaction with someone on an app can provide – the Erasmus study reported that "narcissism and Machiavellianism were positively associated with using Tinder for an ego-boost".
"If there's a gap in the relationship that's generally what leads to these sorts of things," says Singh.
"Somebody's not feeling completely like they belong in a relationship, and instead of addressing what the problem is in the relationship they will go outside it and explore their options, because it's that much easier to do. Creating a profile takes minutes. To get a few responses takes minutes. Between motivation and action there used to be such a long gap, but now between motivation and action there is 60 seconds."
One app, Hinge, has recently introduced a function which allows users to give feedback on people they've met up with, meaning you could notify them if your date turned out to be married.
But the We Met feature is the first of its kind — most apps have no means of sifting out people already in long-term relationships, let alone a way to alert other users that someone is posing as single.
It's hard to imagine that beyond that initial ego boost, being chatted up online provides any real gratification, even for the loneliest of spouses. It's rare to make real connections on a dating app, even when you're single and above board. But as Nicola Mccinnes says: "Life is quite mundane at times and this is just not real life at all" — and that, surely, is all part of the appeal.
How it works: Once you've created a profile, it lets you see photo-profiles of other users in your area. Swipe right if you like what you see, or left to pass and go onto the next profile. If someone you liked, likes you back, it's a match and you can start messaging.
150m active users
25% come with strings attached
190 minutes spent on average daily by users
190 countries use it
11 billion connections between users have been facilitated
1 million Tinder dates around the world each week
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