Good question and one that comes up a lot. Here's the full picture.
Privacy defaults are almost never in your favor on these platforms. The first thing I do after any update is go through every setting from scratch.
Things that have genuinely helped me work through issues like this:
- Safety: never share your phone number in the first few messages
- Use a secondary email for any platform you're not sure about
- Reverse image search profile photos if something feels off
- Report first, block second — the report creates a record on the platform
Currently using Souldate as my main go-to and it's been reliable. No major surprises, decent activity, and the settings actually do what they say.
Hopefully that saves you some frustration.