Expats in love: Dating in Prague is a mixed bag for foreigners

Finding a romantic relationship in a new city has never been easy, and the problem is compounded when the new city you’ve chosen is in a whole new country.

This is the situation hundreds, if not thousands, of expats find themselves in each year when they arrive at the shiny spires of the Czech capital city. To find out the best ways to meet your match, we talked to nearly a dozen of them. And as experts in their own experiences, they had some great practical advice and the occasional stories about horrifying encounters.  

Most people agreed that the easiest way to meet new people in the Czech Republic is through online dating. According to a 2021 survey conducted by Kaspersky, the most popular dating app among local users was Badoo, with 54 percent of Czechs who have ever used dating apps logging in. Tinder was the next most popular (45 percent), followed by Seznamka.cz (32 percent), while 23 percent surprisingly tried to find a partner via Instagram. 

However, Eryn—a student at Anglo-American University—isn’t a fan of dating apps. For her, swiping around in the 18–25 demographic only means browsing one-night stands and hookups that will make you itch. She sticks to meeting new people through friends or coworkers because she already has an idea of what she’s getting herself into.

She recommended ditching online dating apps altogether, especially Tinder. “They’re a waste of time that only leads you to garage flats in Timbuktu, sleeping like an uncracked glow stick in skinny jeans, or batting back and forth over Instagram DMs with Captain Anti-feminism,” Eryn says.

As a person who identifies as aromantic/asexual, Fiona from the U.S. said her most successful relationships in Prague have been platonic ones built off “mutual hatred for bureaucratic jargon, love for the strange carvings on the side of every other building, and the handful of existential conversations that get us through the week.”

But she explains that it was partially through witnessing her friends’ experiences with Prague’s nightclub scene and their dating app horror stories that she was able to understand more about her asexuality.

Those horror stories are endless. Alissa from Brazil has had more than her share of them. When she first got to Prague, she was intimidated by dating locals. Often, she ended up going on dates with American students or French guys on vacation. But after a while, she decided to give Czech guys a chance. That didn’t always go well, she said.

“Europeans pride themselves on being progressive and anti-racist; until you mention Arabs or the Roma, that is. After a Czech guy said a racial slur in front of me, it finally dawned on me that ‘cultural differences’ are not an excuse for plain ignorance and racism,” Alissa said.

But after kissing a lot of frogs, she found a prince. “It was not until I met my current boyfriend that I had any faith that men weren't just put in this world to objectify me. We met online, and he is Czech-Canadian. When I said I was from Brazil, he did not ask if I lived in a jungle. All he said was ‘cool’.” They’ve been happy ever since.

Of course, some of the best stories for dating in Prague would come from, well, a Czech person! But being a native doesn’t necessarily insulate you from drama. Adela, who is Czech said, “I like to think I am an extroverted introvert – I enjoy people’s company (preferably friends and family) when I am in the mood to socialize, but I am far more comfortable in my little bubble. So you can probably imagine why, even as somebody who comes from the Czech Republic, I have a hard time dating.”

She confessed that even though she was born and bred here, she doesn’t know where to meet people. So she tried Bumble, where ladies have to make the first move which allegedly minimizes harassment (it fails in that task, by the way, according to her). Tinder, on the other hand, worked almost too well because her first ever date was a man with whom she had only been talking for three days.

But as kind and intelligent as he was, she bore the burden of carrying the conversation which, as a "partial introvert," was not exactly in her comfort zone. The date went bust when she said he decided they should kiss not 30 minutes after they met. The cherry on top? “Not only did he ask me when I wanted children and said that he wanted one in three years (I was eighteen at the time) but he showed me his car, a white van, and asked me if I would like to see the inside.

If there were no other red flags throughout the whole date, this set me off. My dad picked me up after the date, I deleted Tinder, apologized to my date, and told him I didn’t think we were compatible, and have been single since then. Happily so, might I add!”