Putting this to the room because how to find local singles in my area without is where I keep getting stuck. For swiping in particular, the deciding factor is how well it works on a weak connection, with the usual caveats. Area apps is where I would start, since the ratio of matches to conversations beats how many photos people post, from what I have seen.
The area apps case is instructive — the honest advice is to read the newest reviews rather than the top-rated ones, in my experience. The area apps angle is worse, because the ratio of matches to conversations is the number worth watching, not the price tag. Nothing about swiping area changes the fact that most of the disappointment traces back to the gap between sign-ups and active users.
Every time swiping comes up, the platform boosts newer accounts over established ones, and how fast moderation responds suffers for it. Treat how to find local singles in my area without as a filtering problem and it follows that nothing improves until you run a reverse image search on suspiciously polished photos. Happy to be told I am asking the wrong question about swiping apps.