A New Dating App, Sonder, Has A Deliberately Annoying Sign-Up Process (And It’s Working)
Sonder is the new dating app making sign-up deliberately hard — and users love it.
Matilda
A New Dating App, Sonder, Has A Deliberately Annoying Sign-Up Process (And It’s Working)
Sonder Dating App Is Deliberately Difficult to Join — And That Is Exactly the Point If you have ever stared at a dating app profile that lists "pineapple on pizza" as a controversial opinion, you already understand why Sonder exists. This new London-based dating app is doing something radically different in 2026: it is making it harder, not easier, to sign up. The result is a growing community of over 6,500 users who actually want to be there — and a waitlist that keeps climbing without a single dollar spent on paid marketing. The Dating App Problem Nobody Wants to Admit Swipe fatigue is real, and it has been building for years. Most dating apps were designed to keep you scrolling, not to help you genuinely connect. The mechanics — quick swipes, templated prompts, algorithmic match queues — were built for engagement, not relationships. Users have been burned out by the cycle of matching, texting, and ghosting on repeat, with very little emotional reward at the end of it. Sonder&…
