Like many girls I know, dating apps have flitted in and out of my life rather like periods, the gym and my interest in Kylie Jenner. As a single girl it seems like once a month, without fail, I end up curled up on my sofa in front of a random episode of KUWTK swiping incessantly (usually left). However before long my need for some form of snack inevitably distracts me from my phone before I even begin to respond to Jamie, 25. Well, this month I decided that “enough is enough” and I proceeded to set one of the more millennial goals of my lifetime: try really hard on Badoo for 24 hours and actually attempt to get a date.

Spoiler alert: it freaking worked! Here’s what went down…

First off, my friends wrote me a new bio, to show what a fun-loving, good time gal I am!

Hopefully not digging myself a hole there lolol (geddit – INDIAna Jones).

I then reorganised my profile pictures like a visual dating CV. I wanted to let my potential baes know that whilst I can obvs look amazing, I can also conduct a topographic archaeological survey like a pro.

Although I did have to repeatedly mansplain “that’s not my boyfriend.”

Again “these aren’t my boyfriends.”

I started trying out a winky face to add playfulness to anything I was saying. In hindsight I think this was slightly confusing for the potential baes and led to some ghosting (they were obviously too overwhelmed by my rampant playfulness).

While the winky face did little for my chats, it seemed the Panda sticker was like the equivalent to the Golden Buzzer on America’s Got Talent. An express route to a date, no small talk required.

Ok, so for the most part online dating requires very minimal movement – aside from perhaps the odd rush to brush your hair when a guy tries to video call you out the blue (cheers Badoo). But this time I actually got out of bed and went walking past Soho’s Joe & The Juice three times to “bump into” the fit guys that work there. (Do they literally hire people because they are fit??)

If you haven’t used Badoo before, it’s got this feature where you can see all your friends’ friends who are on the app (I know, lol). It’s pretty cool not just for a good stalk, but also because the quality of people on there are likely to be much higher (because all your friends are fit, duh) and it also means you have a ready-made conversation starter “How do you know Ellie? Did you kiss her? Did you get with her??” I found two of my friends’ exes and a guy I went to Pizza Express with when I was 14, so the effort was worth it just for that.

Apparently, Sunday at 7pm is the BEST, most prosperous time to be using a dating app according to some stats I read somewhere, so I cancelled my plans (put McMafia on record) and spent the evening swiping on my sofa. I got slight PSTD (Post-Swiping-Tension-Disorder) but it was totally worth it. Matched this cute guy called Tom.

Now I had my main target (cute guy called Tom) I needed to impress. After my experience with emojis, I realised I had to actually put in a bit of “Google search” time and find some puns that would make me seem like a laugh (I actually am one in person, I promise). This was also a good way of assessing Tom’s own wit and ingenuity as well, kind of like a match of the matches… err lol.

I literally want to marry this guy.

So after 24 hours of actually trying on Badoo I managed to find a cute guy who was funny AF (over text at least) and I can’t wait to actually meet up with him. NGL the convo went a lot further than fish puns but I’ll leave that to your imagination. Let’s just say we have a date planned at the London Aquarium next Tues and it will probably be a wet one. Definitely recommend any single and dating-app-weary-girls to give it a proper go on an app, like Badoo, like I did – because doing your dating admin actually does pay off.