Check Out These Veterans and Military Dating Sites

Love is out there. Beware scams, but there is someone, somewhere waiting for you

a hand with flowers is coming through a computer screen

Photo Illustration: Paul Spella; (Photos: Getty Images (3))

Katherine Gustafson,

AARP

Published December 22, 2022

Frequent travel and the intense demands of serving your country in uniform have always been tough on relationships. Veterans often have special dating needs as well — seeking partners who understand and respect the military ethos and culture.

This means that veterans and military personnel often have a harder time than the average person finding the right romantic partner. Mainstream dating sites like Match, eHarmony and EliteSingles have options such as hashtags and categories to help military-connected daters, but they’re not set up specifically to serve such users.

Getty Images/AARP

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The good news is that there are a range of dating sites that work especially well for the military community. Here are five options to explore.

Zoosk

While not military-specific, Zoosk works well for military members and actively helps protect those users from scams. According to Zoosk, daters who reference “active duty” get almost three times as many messages from potential matches as the average person, and those who refer to military service or veteran status get 65 percent more messages. To reduce the risk of scams, Zoosk partnered with SheerID to allow active duty military and reservists to verify their identities.

MilitaryFriends

MilitaryFriends offers free memberships that allow users to browse other members and give them “winks” to let them know they’re interested. Users can give 50 winks a day, but can only chat with those they wink at if they pay for a premium membership. Users can use “Spark” to get fed photos of potential matches that they then can swipe into the “heart” pile if inspired. Users can block selected members from contacting them, an important feature of any dating site.

Army Dating Service

Army Dating Service offers free and paid versions, with nonpaying members able to send up to 10 “flirts.” Users must upgrade to a premium membership to send messages to other users. Note that the site is part of a dating-site network and will automatically include your information on related dating sites unless you opt out of this via privacy settings. Members are from all over the world, and users can search for same-sex matches.

Military Cupid

Launched in 2006, Military Cupid has more than 1 million members, including civilians and members of all branches of the U.S. military and foreign militaries. The site offers free and paid memberships, and only premium members can receive messages from interested users. As with other sites, it is possible to block and report users who give you unwanted attention.

Forces Penpals

Created in 2002 for the British military, Forces Penpals now has a U.S. arm and presents itself as a military social network site that enables dating as well as other types of interaction. Users can connect in ways that don’t involve romance, but considering the love that can bloom from a pen pal correspondence, there’s something to be said for going beyond the “wink” and the “flirt” of other more typical dating sites.

Bottom line: Proceed with your eyes wide open. While there are other military-specific dating sites, many are targets of complaints about fake profiles and other problems. The sites listed here are the most likely to lead you to legitimate dating experiences, but always beware of potential scams and fraudulent users.

Romance scams are rife in online dating, with military sites targeted for specific types of fraud, according to Army CID. In one instance, male prisoners posed as women and blackmailed service members using a dating app. Remember the old adage: “If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is.”

You should trust but verify. That said, you should also feel confident that there is someone, somewhere out there waiting for you.