The odds are in your favor if you use an app that connects you with hundreds of local single women in your area. You can entertain potential partners with a volume you couldn’t recover if you were at a bar to seal the deal (many have tried, all have failed).

However, using an app to get lucky has its drawbacks. Putting out feelers for casual connection with strangers you haven’t met yet can get tricky pretty quickly. It can also take some time to find the right approach. You want to make your intentions known, but you need to do so in a way that doesn’t come across too strong or make her feel uncomfortable. You need to exchange a few messages to see if you feel each other, but you also don’t want to become pen pals with someone you’re just trying to make it work with.

Are dating apps just for hooking up?

Amusingly, there seem to be two conflicting misconceptions about dating apps: Some people think they are only for people who are looking for contacts while others think they are only for people who are looking for relationships. How did this idea catch on? Well, some apps are intentionally vague about their purpose and try to be all things to all people. Tinder, one of the most popular dating apps, is a good example: some people swipe for short-term fun, while others use it to look for love. To solve this problem, some apps have decided to specialize. For example, Bumble is known as a female-friendly relationship app, while other apps are more targeted at short-term problems.

Of course, you want to use the right dating app to get the job done. Fortunately, you’re looking for a casual encounter at a time when new apps and features are constantly evolving to find exactly what you’re looking for. Not sure which apps to start with? We’ve compiled a list of the best hookup dating apps, as well as our advice on how to use them to your advantage to get lucky tonight.

How to use dating apps for hookups

When using apps to find a local hookup, there are a few basic rules to follow that will set you up for success in the long run. The first is deciding what to include in your profile. If you’re really here for a good time and not a long time (for casual sex rather than a long-term thing), Elite Dating Manager founder Isabel James says it can be as easy to attract your next casual encounter as it is to be in your profile from the start. ‘Explicitly state that you’re looking for a connection in your profile,’ she says. ‘Something like,’ I’m not looking for a long-term relationship. I want to have fun tonight! ‘ makes it clear. ‘ If you’re direct with your expectations from the start, you’ll only be able to match with women who are also looking for something casual, with no strings attached. This will save you time assessing whether your matches are there for the year or not the same reason as you. Dating sites work much better when your match knows what you are looking for and you are not misleading.

As always, transparency and etiquette are important when approaching potential contacts you’ve worked with. ‘The key to initiating a connection on a dating app is patience,’ says Caleb Hacke, health and wellness expert at Maple Holistics . ‘Ultimately, it’s more important to make sure you don’t offend or scare off anyone who isn’t interested in connecting than it is to get your point across as boldly and quickly as possible.’

Hacke also recommends testing the waters before proposing a connection. ‘Try to get flirty and see how she reacts,’ he says. “As long as your potential partner matches your flirtatiousness blow for blow without seeming distraught or crazy, you’re not going wrong. You can gradually escalate the nature of your flirting until you’ve moved on to sexual innuendo. At that point, if she still seems interested, you have some sort of green light to try to connect. ‘ In summary:

• Look for connections for connection apps
• Be open about what you are looking for
• Be flirty without being creepy
• Escalate flirting along with her interest

The best apps for hooking up

1. Ashley Madison

Ashley Madison is well known for a variety of reasons. The site helps individuals or connected individuals find single or connected individuals for discreet online personal and sexual encounters. So, basically. Ashley Madison is straightforward and simple, with a layout that users can get familiar with right away. Standout features include a nine member topics section for each profile, a variety of remarkably relevant profile fields, and the ability to see who has checked out your profile. There is a lot to like with Ashley Madison, but keep in mind that the site had a known security breach.

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MeetKing

Adult Friend Finder, the flagship of Adult Friend Finder Networks, is an established adult dating site that attracts a large number of members looking for casual hookups both online and in person. The hookup site offers all the basic features of a dating site, but goes a step further by offering dozens of additional tools to make your online dating experience more sexual, interactive, and enjoyable.

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Match

Arguably the best-known name in online dating today, Match has been helping users find dates, relationships and marriages for 23 years. Part of Match’s appeal is its widespread use and popularity, but even better are the site’s features and functions. From member discovery to face-to-face communication, Match has all the top-notch features that make for a straightforward and successful online dating experience.

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4. Bumble

If you don’t have the patience to weed out matches that are explicitly looking for a no strings attached connection, a quick search in Bumble will probably make you pretty happy. You can search for potential matches using filters ranging from proximity to sexual preference to cup size. Too lazy to search? The app has a list of compatible profiles that will be sent to you for review.

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5. Hinge 

Hinge is aimed at users looking for sexual encounters of all kinds, making digital and in-person sexual encounters easier than ever before. It is the quintessential adult dating site, and in many ways the hookup site is more like a porn site with an added layer of social networking. As with many activities (and users) on the site, registration is simple. This allows members to dive into their sexual fantasies in less than a minute. The site is largely uncensored, so you may not want to open it on your work computer. Behind all the obvious sexual expression, however, is a dating platform that offers hand-picked matches to discover others based on similar sexual interests and seemingly endless opportunities to network while turning yourself and others on.

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Bonus: Best Gay Hookup App

Grindr

If you’re in the LGBT + community, you’ve almost certainly heard of it Grindr This is the largest dating / hookup app of its kind and a pioneer in the field. Creating an account takes no time at all, and then you are connected to individuals near and far. You can interact with people by sending either text or audio messages. If you like the way of interacting, you can even share your locations to connect quickly and easily.

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Bonus: Best free hookup app

Bonus: Badoo

You may already have one (or more) potential connection partners in mind who also happen to be your friends on Facebook (or friends with your friends on Facebook). Don’t you wish there was a way to see if they’d be interested in an arrangement with no strings attached? Enter: Badoo, the app that connects you with your Facebook friends (and friends of friends) who are down to get down. But don’t worry, the lady you’re eyeing won’t know you’re down for a date unless she says she’s down for one with you, too.

Checking Out Badoo

Bonus: Best extramarital hookup app

OkCupid

The site is ideal for singles looking for connected individuals, as well as connected individuals looking for sexual arrangements outside of their current situation. Due to the heavy influence of videos on the site, including member-uploaded videos, live streams, and video broadcasting features, the site also meets the needs of individuals interested in cyber sex encounters. OkCupid is aimed at individuals or attached persons seeking discreet casual sex, either in person or online.

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Bonus: Best Sugar Daddy Hookup App

Luxy

This is a site for men and women who are unabashedly looking for a finance-based relationship – sugar babies who want cash, and the sugar daddies (or mommies) who care about them. This may not be right for everyone, but if both parties know the score before they get involved, there should be no room for confusion. Despite its specialty, Luxy works like any other dating site in many ways. You upload pictures, write nice things about your personality, and then use simple search tools to find potential matches. The main difference with the competition is that the monetary aspect is an essential part of the experience.

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Bonus: Best Fast Hookup App

Pure

Pure offers an even shorter window than Lucky and deletes conversations and photos that are exchanged between users an hour after they are sent. That means you spend more time getting busy and less time exchanging niceties. It’s openly branded as a hook-up app, so you know the intentions of those you chat with without having to play the guessing game. Not only does this app protect your anonymity by self-destructing messages and images, but it’s also free to download. Talk about a win-win situation.

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Bonus: Best anonymous connection app

Wild

Wild offers users the anonymity that other dating apps don’t. For starters, no social login is required. The app also goes a step further to verify its users (meaning you have to send a photo of yourself that gives a thumbs up, which is then compared to photos you’ve posted to verify it’s really you) the awkwardness of meeting up with a potential contact who doesn’t resemble their picture. You can also filter by intent so you don’t waste time sorting matches that are here for something serious. Once you find a connection for the night, you can set your profile to invisible so that other users don’t send you messages when you’re in the middle of something.

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