Facebook Dating is now available in the US, time for secret crushes to be revealed!

Facebook Dating, if you choose to use it, will be a totally separate experience from your regular Facebook profile. Of course, your name and other information, including pictures, can be used for your dating profile, but your Facebook friends will never know that you’re using the service unless you tell them yourself. To make sure that’s the case, Facebook would only suggest to you potential partners outside of your friend circle.

Unlike Tinder and other similar apps that only allow communication if there’s interest from both sides, Facebook Dating lets people see likes and comments from other users without any restrictions or paywalls. Naturally, users will still have tools at their disposal to filter any annoying or abusive users.

Facebook won’t miss the opportunity to make use of the fact that it knows who all your friends are, however, which is where a unique feature comes into play...

Secret Crush, Facebook’s way to become your wingman

The Secret Crush part of Facebook Dating allows you to add up to nine people from your friend list or Instagram followers (you can link your Instagram account to your Dating profile), presumably, ones you have a crush on or would be interested in dating. Then, if any of the people on the list are using Facebook Dating, they’ll receive a notification that someone has a crush on them, without revealing any names. Only if they also add you to their Secret Crush list would the match be shown to both parties.

It’s no secret that such unannounced feelings are pretty common among friends. This feature can be literally life-changing for some users and is arguably one of Facebook Dating’s strongest selling points. There’s a flaw the cynics in us spotted immediately, however. Some people might use it to fish out friends that have a crush on them by changing the names on the list until they find one, without any intention of dating them. We’re not sure if there are measures to prevent that so we’ve reached out to Facebook for some additional information and will add an update here when we get a response.

For most users, this would hardly be as big of an issue as this other flaw: you’d have to give Facebook even more private data. There’s no doubt that the biggest deterrent to people using Facebook Dating will be the company’s reputation when it comes to handling private data. The lack of premium memberships and so on is a great thing, but it also means that Facebook will monetize the service the same way it does the rest of its portfolio: by using your data to show you the best (or in other words most expensive) ads. Surely, however, there are plenty of users that have accepted that Facebook already knows too much and they might as well get a date or two out of it. Maybe even a long-lasting relationship, you never know!