Facebook Dating available now in the US, along with new 'Secret Crush' feature

Update, September 5, 2019 (12:15 PM ET): Back in April, Facebook committed to bringing Facebook Dating to the United States by the end of 2019. Here we are in early September and the new dating features are live (via The Verge).

You will need to opt-in to the dating features through the Facebook Android app. The service is totally free; you can learn more about it in the original article below.

If you don’t have the Facebook app, click the button below to install it:

Original article, April 30, 2019 (03:40 PM ET): In September last year, Facebook rolled out Facebook Dating features in Colombia as a test run. Now, the service is live in five countries with 14 more on the way very soon.

Today, Facebook committed to bringing Facebook Dating to the United States by the end of 2019 (via TechCrunch).

We covered the initial test run of Facebook’s first dating features here, and not too much has changed since then (it’s basically a dating app but within Facebook). You still need to opt-in to use Facebook Dating and there’s still no plan to monetize the service.

Facebook did introduce one new feature today which is called Secret Crush. The purpose of Secret Crush is to help you connect to people with whom you are already friends.

The way Secret Crush works is that you select up to nine people on your friends list whom you are crushing on. If they have opted-in to Facebook Dating, they’ll receive a notification that a friend of theirs has a crush on them. If they then go through their own list of friends and pick you as one of their nine crushes, you’ll both match up and a Facebook Messenger chat will automatically begin.

Essentially, Secret Crush is an ice breaker: it alerts two people that they like each other and then facilitates a conversation.

If the first thing you’re thinking is that people will just keep subbing in new friends until they get a match to game the system, Facebook has that covered: once you select your nine crushes, you can only sub out one of those crushes each day. If you have hundreds of friends, it could take you years to get through them all. So choose your crushes wisely.

Facebook Dating has no specific release date for the U.S. as of yet but will be here by the end of the year.

NEXT: Facebook Dating is doing a test run right now in Colombia