On Saturday night Sharlene, who did not wish to publish her last name, opens Tinder and finds herself swiping through the same people. 

In Dalby, Queensland, population a little over 12,000, the dating pool feels more like a puddle. 

She sees the guys she went to high school with, her old neighbour, a client from her job, and worst of all, her ex. 

“In a town like Dalby these are people I went to school with that I can see have already swiped on me … seeing how many of my ex’s friends who have swiped on me, and it makes me feel gross,” Sharlene said.

A survey conducted for this story found that many people have shared similar frustrations, roughly 63% of of the 19 respondents either found using dating apps in rural areas as a negative or very negative experience.

Bonnie Buckley encountered the same problem after moving to Mitchell and downloading Tinder again – soon the novelty wore off and before long she was swiping on the same people. 

“You flick through Tinder for the Mitchell boys and there’s like six that are around your age, so then very quickly you have to open your circle and up your radius out all the way,” she said. 

Three key challenges survey respondents found when using dating apps in rural areas were matches living too far away, seeing the same people repeatedly, and the awkward social overlap. Only one respondent reported not having any major challenges.

Dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge promise connection anywhere, but are they actually designed for people living outside major cities? 

When Sharlene did arrange a date in Dalby, she ran into 10 people she knew.

‘There’s just no privacy … everyone’s involved in your relationships in small towns,” she said.

‘There’s nothing out here, there’s nowhere really in town where I can go without running into like a million people.”

‘Everyone knows everyone’ in these small towns and so relationships don’t stay private for long. Research from 2023 found that people in rural communities see their reputation is more vulnerable because social visibility is much higher. 

Interdisciplinary love researcher, Dr Adam Bode, said the visibility that comes with dating in a rural town can feel confronting, but expecting complete anonymity may be unrealistic in a time where we share so much of ourselves on social media. 

‘Privacy is a little bit interesting, people just go posting stuff about themselves on the internet,” he said. ‘There’s a lot of oversharing.’ 

When the local options begin to dry up, rural users are left with one option, expand their radius. For Sharlene, she finds herself having to travel up to two hours to meet matches, including to Brisbane. 

“If I want to date somebody I either have to travel to see them or they have to travel to see me and it’s just really inconvenient,” she said. 

If users like Sharlene are forced to make the distance to connect with potential matches, dating can quickly go from being a casual endeavour to much more intentional, adding to the pressure there already is. 

Dr Bode said dating app users in larger cities can have a date lined up every night if you wanted. 

“In the really big cities you can constantly be on dating apps, whereas in smaller places you run out of potential matches in an hour,” he said. 

According to Dr Bode, long-distance relationships can be successful, although it can take more time to build the initial interest.  

“A lot of the things that drive maintaining relationships like physical contact, sex, and physical intimacy are not there. These are not necessary but are very important,” he said. 

The emotional toll of using dating apps is not limited to rural users. A 2026 study on dating app use and psychological health found that dating app users reported significantly worse psychological wellbeing in comparison to non-users, with higher level of anxiety and depression.  

For rural users, where loneliness is already an epidemic, dating pools are smaller, and social overlap is harder to avoid, those pressures become amplified.   

Some rural users are turning to dating platforms like ‘Howdy’, which was specifically designed to ‘bridge the gap between singles in the bush’. 

Mia, the creator of ‘Howdy’, says the app was built to tackle the impact of isolation for single people in rural areas. 

In the 12 months since launching, Mia says the app has reached more than 20,000 downloads. She reported that over 80% of the successful relationships through the app have been more than 300km apart, highlighting how distance has become an expected part of the rural dating app culture.   

There is still hope for rural singles, survey respondents agreed that the top three means of meeting people is through friends, at social events, or through sporting clubs and gyms.

Bonnie Buckley did just that, meeting her now husband Brendan through a mutual friend. 

“I went out with my friends to the footy and then went and had drinks at the leagues club, that’s all stuff I enjoy doing and he was out after his own sporting game having a few drinks celebrating,” she said.

Bonnie said it was much easier to connect with someone this way, without the pressures she often found using dating apps before. 

‘There is either pressure to have sex or pressure to have a relationship just because you met on a dating app, whereas when you meet in real life … there is no expectational pressure,” she said. 

Dr Bode said that most people using dating apps are looking for a spark with someone, but most romantic relationships are built through the familiarity of friendships. 

“From a study I led, people who have met their partners online are less satisfied with their partners over time and love their partners less,” he said. 

A 2021 report supports Dr Bode’s view that friendships are one of the most common ways people form long-term relationships. 

For many people in rural communities, connections still happen the old-fashioned way. For Bonnie, it came through a mutual friend, a night at the footy, and drinks at the local. 

For Sharlene, dating apps remain part of her search for a relationship, even if it means driving hours to meet someone new. Intentional dating in rural Australia means making the time, effort and distance.