Swipe left to Tinder; the newest mobile dating app has arrived. Clover, which is available for Android and Apple devices, capitalizes on the millennial dating trend of love being just a swipe away. To sign up, simply download the application from your phone’s app store. Next, you can establish a profile by syncing your information from Facebook. Don’t worry, Clover will not post on your Facebook feed and alert your friends you joined. Where Tinder and Clover begin to differ is the amount of information you can divulge about yourself. From height and hair color to your income, religion, and even a frequency in smoking cigarettes, Clover offers the option to personalize your account to share only information you are comfortable with floating around on the app.

Further, Clover gives its users badges to encourage a dedicated user-base. Badges offered include a Night Owl (using the app between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.), Desirable (getting liked by 100 people), Open Book (finishing all 20 questions provided by Clover) and many more. To even further ensure the potential dates that you aren’t a catfish, you can enter interests. Hey, who wouldn’t want to find a partner who equally loves Harry Potter and pug puppies?

The location-based dating app allows a user to filter those who come up as potential matches by age, distance, and sexual preference. While you can set a preference for either straight or bisexual men, a preference for women-seeking-women or men-seeking-men is not currently available on my personal profile.

The App IRL

To understand the app further, I decided to download it and see what the buzz was all about. Instantly, my phone lit up with “liked” notifications. Unlike Tinder, Clover alters you every time a potential match clicks like. You can sort through these likes and decide who to like back, or, in a similar manner to Tinder, flip through the date options in your area. Further setting itself aside from Tinder, Clover offers an option to set up dates via the app. Here, phone numbers do not need to be exchanged in order to make plans with a fellow Clover user to meet. Simply accept this feature within the app to browse other users looking for dates and receive notifications from users who ask you on dates, including a specific time or place.  

Personally, the biggest difference between Clover and Tinder are the messages. Yes, the occasional “Wanna hook up?” still graces my inbox; however, the majority of matches have been polite, well-behaved, and even held on interesting conversations about work, popular culture, and more. This may suggest that Clover targets a more mature demographic interested in a long-term connection rather than a one-night stand. For those hesitant about online or mobile dating, Clover exists as a safe, free, and easy-to-use option with various settings to personalize your account. Who knows, true love may only be a “like” away.

Written by: Nicole Baucum