‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps::For a decade, apps have dominated dating. But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people – or reverting to old ones
The problem with dating apps is the commodification of human relationships. The way people use these apps is too superficial. They’re looking for the perfect man or woman, so if there’s something they don’t like or that person has a flaw, they don’t take the time to really get to know them on a deep level. There’s a lot to choose from! FOMO!
Perfection does not exist in this world and we must really try to connect on a deep level. Unfortunately, some people use these apps for window shopping and shallow relationships.
I agree with this but would say it’s just one of the problems.
I always have trouble with the idea that in reality these dating apps can’t want you to be perfectly successful or else you’d never use them again. There’s a real insidiousness there
7 of 9 just lookin for perfection baby
I saw a terrible new dating app that was all about how super incredible you are and how you should only accept true partners who can battle your wits and income level, while it made vague references to coders and crypto.
It’s a website for those antisocial nerds that think themselves superior and anyone that goes on there is always going to be judging every partner as to their closeness to perfect. Anyone on there is a narcissist for sure.
What a terrible reduction of spouse to that. No wonder no one is having kids and people are lonely. That is how the “elite” view themselves and each other. Our society deserves to be burnt to the ground.
Once you realize their business model incentivizes them to not get you a life partner because then you’d stop using the app, they kinda don’t make sense to use.
I liked what bumble did with the “lifetime premium”. It gives them an incentive to actually get you a match.
Coincidentally… I met my current girlfriend on Bumble after trying a litany of apps over the course of years… Definitely not saying it’s a good or easy option though. Part of it is that I’m picky, but I treated it a lot like a job for years to get this relationship.
Met my wife on Bumble and we just had a baby in June
Congratulations :)
Wait until you find out that she isn’t real, and you’ve been transferring almost all your savings of semen to one nasty guy in Nigeria…
(lol, this presumes you haven’t even met your “baby” yet, only believed in the cute photos your “wife” sent of them, since she still needs a bit more money (probably crypto or giftcards) to be able to afford the transport to come live with you!)
Hopefully, it’s a very different story. Anyway, congratulations!
I think the lifetime premium is a joke because you’re paying a lot up front instead of monthly or weekly. Yeah, they may get less money, but probably not. As the article says, people tend to stop using them after a month or two regardless of the outcome (that’s definitely my experience), so getting like $150 up front for lifetime access is a lot better than someone paying $35/month for two months.
For me, it was definitely a huge money saver. Working in tech (now a remote job), not drinking, not being religious, and having extremely “meet a girl” friendly hobbies like hiking and gaming … it was extremely limiting.
A 1 time $150 was a steal compared to some of the other apps like the scam that is eharmony.
Wow we’re like the same person… Maybe I should give this lifetime Bumble a try
I mean, if you’re wasting money on other apps… And you just want an app with a pretty good population that you’re not constantly paying money into and also not artificially knee capped on… It’s a pretty good deal assuming they still offer it
And having a practical monopoly by Match doesn’t help either.
Kinda like Luxottica being the reason why most sunglasses cost $175 for $0.10 worth of plastic.
That pisses me off more than anything.
I really wish the FTC would go ham on Match Group and break up that monopoly…
Match group beat Apple. In Europe.
Their business model doesn’t really require that, as relationships have a natural attrition rate, and new people are constantly entering the market.
Back in the day, plenty of fish did an interesting blog post on that very topic. Unfortunately, it vanished when they were brought up by one of the big dating site groups that now dominate.
They also did some amazing meta data analysis of their users, and discussed it publicly. E.g. including the word “awesome” in your opening message improved multi message response rate by 18% (from memory).
It was actually OkCupid.
They also did one where they looked at how men and women rate each other on looks, and found that women rate a whopping 80% of men as below average attractiveness.
This was made back when you could rate profiles out of 5 stars.
I stand corrected. I used both back in the day. I even met my wife on there! Somehow I got the 2 swapped in my mind.
The way I remember them is that POF had a horrendous turquoise website design and looked like a circa-2003 webpage that hadn’t been updated in years, while Okcupid was a lot more competently designed.
I met my partner on Kijiji. Never been happier, so they can work just fine.
I admit I’m as surprised as anyone because it was such a slog before talking to her initially.
Here to offer hope and advice to anyone that’s given up. I’m a 52-yo American male and have knocked it out the park with dating apps. In the 4-years since my wife left, thank god, I’ve had 15-20 dates and 5 steady gf’s for a bit. Getting married 11/24 if y’all want to come!
Pro tips:
- Post a variety of pics. Nothing controversial like guns, dead animals, any other women your age. Or your fucking truck/motorcycle/sportscar. If your Confederate flag bed sheets are really important to filter people, go ahead I guess. If the person you’re looking at does not have a wide range of pics, red flag. Women are great at glamour shots. Take the worst pic of the bunch and assume that’s what they look like IRL. Worst case, you’re pleasantly surprised. (Happened to me many times!)
- Don’t be too judgmental. All you’re aiming for is a first date, see how it goes. What’s it cost a man? Dinner for two? Better yet, I dated a woman who said neither party should pay anything on the first date. If you don’t click, no one’s out anything. Go to a park, thrift storing, antique mall, whatever floats your boat. It costs nothing to walk around, talk and gauge each other’s interests and mutual attraction.
- Sorry, but this bit can be expensive. Sign up for half-a-dozen sites. If you’re fishing, it’s best to bait 6 poles vs. one, right? Try the free options of course, see how it goes, but spread yourself around as much as possible. You never know. And that bears repeating. You never know what will happen. More on that shortly.
- Keep initial communication short and sweet. Too much gets lost in text, too many misunderstandings. "Hey! Love (something in their post that you’re seriously interested in, or why else are you contacting them)! (question about something you want to know about them)? Want to (go to the park, get coffee, go thrift storing, whatever)? And then go on the damned date, and do it ASAP, before something stupid happens like a misunderstood text, other plans/dates cropping up, whatever. Just go. If I have to say, “Don’t be an ass and pressure for the date.”, you’re not ready for a relationship.
How I met my fiancé:
She hit me up on eHarmony. Gods that site sucks. Only date I ever got there. Blew her off because her pics were… not so great. She had nothing interesting to say about herself, barebones bio. 3-months later I’m revisiting and saw her “like”. “Yeah, what about this girl again?” She posted more about herself, and more attractive pics and here we are.
About the judgmental thing; If I knew then what I know now, the date would have been a hard NO. She’s a city girl (Manilla), never even been in the woods. No shit. Jealous as fuck, and I’ve spent 30-years saying that’s the one thing I won’t abide. She was a Christian preschool teacher at private school. Fuck all that nonsense. You get the idea.
But we click so hard it’s silly. I feel like I’ve landed some kind of fantasy girl. And she feels the same! 11/24/23, NW FL, you’re all welcome to the wedding.
To me, it sounds like you’ve neatly described why people have fallen out of love with dating apps.
What’s it cost a man? Dinner for two?
If I could afford to pay for a stranger’s dinner out I probably wouldn’t be single, haha. I buy two takeaways a year as a special treat for myself, mainly for my birthday. That’s all I can afford.
No way am I paying for someone else’s food on a date anyway, this isn’t the 1940s, women and all other genders are equal to men and they need to put in just as much effort on a date as a guy does.
You don’t get a free lunch because you’re a woman, and if you’re the sort of sexist woman that demands that sort of thing I wouldn’t be interested in you anyway.
I hope I don’t seem overly harsh, I’m just tired of sexism in dating. It’s ubiquitous and gross.
women and all other genders are equal to men and they need to put in just as much effort on a date as a guy does.
You’re spending a lot of money and time on your hair, makeup, and outfit right? Probably asking friends for advice and thinking about it all week? Not eating the day of, so you look your best? Wearing expensive cologne and some shoes that make your butt look good?
You’re doing all that right? I know you want to be equal and put in just as much effort, so you must be.
I’ve been on like 5 or 6 dates from the few years I lived in NYC (it was right before COVID happened, of course). Not a single one of them looked like they went out of their way to prepare for the date. Usually just jeans and a nice shirt, or maybe a cute dress, but they didn’t get all dolled up like they were going to prom. One worked in finance and came from her job, and then went back it to after our date. This was like 8 pm.
If you want to spend a bunch of money, starve yourself, and do various other things so you feel that you look good, that’s on you, don’t expect the guy to pay for you just because you feel you’re owed it because of what you did. That’s really not much different than the guy who is like “I bought her a present so she should be willing to have sex with me now”.
This comment is hilarious because you assumed I’m a chick.
Hair, makeup, nails, and outfits are what it costs for a woman to just go outside, not to prom. A regular ass haircut can easily be a hundred dollars. I didn’t even mention all the skin creams that make you look “naturally beautiful”. Have you even heard of waist trainers?
A lot of women, especially in NYC, are doing this regularly even when they don’t have a date. NYC is lopsided with more women than men. That’s how they get dates. If you know any women who don’t put much effort into their appearance, you start to realize they don’t go on many dates.
A regular ass haircut
Unsure if you literally mean removal of hair in the ass, which you might also believe is expected of all women before they just go outside … or if you’re just swearing to seem like a dynamite chick?
It’s possible a total makeover every day is how some people get their dates - it’s a style, and it attracts certain types of people. But by having that “dumb” appearance, they also help all the brainier people who are looking for a partner with more in the head than on it, discarding them, since brainy people are more often interested in finding meaningful relations with interesting minds, rather than meeting “perfect” appearances, I believe.
I understand it’s a serious problem that many try to live up to all these “beauty” expectations. It sounds like it’s a bit of a burden to you, and I’m sorry if you and the people around you are seriously unable to discard the definition BigBeauty told you through many years of carefully planned commercial ads, but every real definition of beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and since only some of us truly believe in what BigBeauty claims, it doesn’t necessarily prequire a daily total makeover of your face for someone to think you’re beautiful.
I literally track every calorie and workout every day to look remotely decent for women, yes. I have no hair, so that part is less relevant.
That’s not expensive. And I do the same because it’s fun to workout. Tracking calories is like 10 minutes per day.
It’s always the people doing the least who complain the most. You didn’t mention anything else, so I assume you don’t ask anyone for advice, don’t wear an expensive outfit, and don’t put on cologne. Hopefully you shower but you didn’t mention that either…
I’m a different guy, just had my heart broken. I put an extraordinary amount of effort into relationships, to the point it is considered self-betrayal by professionals. Just saying it’s not always so one-sided.
Don’t you dare let a man steal your queen energy! You’re a boss bitch! /s
Sometimes when you put that much effort into something that doesn’t need that much effort, it can look like you’re trying too hard, which can be off putting.
Congrats man :)
I did all that for like 7 years in NYC and what did I get? About 5 dates, not a single one turned into a second date. I thought I had one in the bag… Then she sent me a long text saying that she didn’t want to see me again because I made her “uncomfortable” at the end of the date, even though her body language or verbal language said nothing or the sort.
I moved back to Southern NJ a few months after that and ended up talking to a cute woman for a week. She was 42 and I was 37,we would send a few long messages back and forth, but I always kept it casual. I knew she was vegan because she had it on her profile. We went to a bar/restaurant and she was like “yeah I can’t eat anything here, I’m not hungry anyway.” We both got a drink and chatted for another 1.5 hours. Towards the end of the date she said “so you said you’re thinking about moving to Miami…” and I responded "yeah, but that’s up in the air right now, nothing is trying me to down there, and now that you’re in the picture, idk how that would work… " then she said " Oh, I don’t think I’m in the picture, we don’t have enough in common and I wouldn’t date someone that isn’t vegan. We had been talking for a week and she never mentioned that once. I just sat there, shocked, and was thinking “why did you agree to this then?” it wasn’t because of the free food or drinks (she had one hard seltzer) and she was like “So I guess this is it? I’m gonna head home, I’m tired”.
After being tired of the North East I moved down to Miami about 2 weeks ago! People are definitely a lot more friendly down here and I gotta get out of my NYC habit of leaving everyone alone because no one wants to talk to someone that they don’t know.
I did all that for like 7 years in NYC and what did I get? About 5 dates, not a single one turned into a second date. I thought I had one in the bag… Then she sent me a long text saying that she didn’t want to see me again because I made her “uncomfortable” at the end of the date, even though her body language or verbal language said nothing or the sort.
Gonna be real dude, it’s not the apps, in this scenario.
Yeah so just stop interacting with people. "You’re creepy."™
The correct answer here is to
A) be less creepy
Or
B) get better at finding people who like your specific brand of creepy
There’s someone out there for everyone. Used to be good friends with a dude we literally called “Creepy” as a nickname back in college, because h was just so fuckin awkward. He married a chick who absolutely loves the smothering thing he’d do. He’s a good guy and they’re super happy, and ngl it really touched the heartstrings.
I knew she was vegan because she had it on her profile. We went to a bar/restaurant and she was like “yeah I can’t eat anything here, I’m not hungry anyway.”
I kind of feel like that there might have been the problem. There are loads of great vegetarian / vegan restaurants, especially in New York. Like 10 seconds of googling to find one would show that you actually paying attention to what she’s saying.
This wasn’t in NYC, but South Jersey, as I clearly said. We never actually agreed on getting dinner, just meeting up at some place. I hadn’t been on a date down there in like 18 years so I didn’t know of a good adult spot, so I chose a place I knew that served both dinner and had a full bar. Also she didn’t live or work in my city, so I chose one of the few I knew that was on her way home (worked in one city but lived in another). I mentioned it beforehand and she agreed, if she didn’t like it she could have said so beforehand, everything isn’t up to me. It’s annoying when people agree to something then complain about it later.
The cost for the search is generally far more than money. It takes some time, yes, but it also consumes energy and mental health to absorb repeated rejections and expressions of fear. (I understand the fear, to an extent. Some men are genuinely scary, and can make someone very sour to future encounters) It also constantly judges your self worth as a person. Wise people can turn away the misjudgments of young fools, but often only so many times.
I’d probably consider going back if I could find hard evidence of some level of interest and commitment from anyone on any of those sites. I have never seen it before, and don’t expect to. One time I was on a tour in another country, and learned that the women in my group were putting themselves up on dating sites within the area, even though they were being bused around the country on the tour, and had no chance of ever meeting with interested parties. It was purely for the attention-seeking. I’ve decided my attention is not free, and it’s been a powerful move for my mental health - for the better.
Congrats, dude. The advice is solid, and you really do sound as though you fell into something good.
Keep initial communication short and sweet. Too much gets lost in text, too many misunderstandings. "Hey! Love (something in their post that you’re seriously interested in, or why else are you contacting them)! (question about something you want to know about them)? Want to (go to the park, get coffee, go thrift storing, whatever)? And then go on the damned date, and do it ASAP, before something stupid happens like a misunderstood text, other plans/dates cropping up, whatever. Just go.
This is generally good advice. I would clarify that you shouldn’t ask them in in the first message
You should have at least one volley where you verify they can read and write, and clear any deal breakers you might be bringing to the table (have kids, enm, whatever). After they respond with interest, then you ask them out.
Who would have thought that looking at 5 pictures and a shit bio would lead to you not being able to find a meaningful relationship?
My buddy met his wife on Hinge during COVID. He’s a good looking dude that dresses well. Me? I’m not exactly the most photogenic person and my sense of style is “I work in IT” 😄
Wearing clothes that fit is the most important thing for being good at men’s fashion. A very simple tshirt and jeans can be really affordable and attractive IF they fit.
I apparently have an odd body shape, shorter legs and I carry all my fat in my gut, so it makes finding comfortable jeans very difficult. What fits me is about a 31 or 32" waist (before I gained weight, now it’s like 35") and like 28" or 29" length, but no stores sell that so I started buying them online. Also I have minor gynecomastia (“bitch tits”) so tight shirts just look bad on me. I’m nipping like a woman in a freezer.
Before COVID I dropped 45 pounds and went down to 135 pounds at 5’9", everywhere else I had practically zero fat, but still had a decent sized gut and man boobs even though I had like 12.5% body fat. I bought a bunch of clothes that fit, then couldn’t do anything for 9 months and gained the majority of it back.
I’m trying again after 3 years and will need to buy new clothes again, but this time for a tropical climate, so it should be easier to find clothes that fit me well since most shirts everyone wears are button ups to let the air through and shorts.
OkCupid wasn’t like that until Match bought them.
When the apps suffer turbo enshittification, everybody tires of it fast. Tinder is little more than an ad front for Instagram, over half of every profile’s bio (which is hard to see on purpose, because of how Tinder works) is just @whoever . Tinder may also show a profile you already "Nope"d a second time, same with a profile you give a “Yeah”, effectively wasting a like.
Then there’s the heavy push for users, mainly men, to pay for premium. But wait, there’s premium Gold and premium Platinum! And also stuff you have to buy separately!
Tinder was good back in 2015. It became absolute shit with time. That the majority of other dating apps literally abandoned what set them apart (like OkCupid, which had comprehensive profiles to be filled and ditched it all for the same like/dislike schtick) doesn’t make people trust in them either. “Same shit, less people”.
Not to mention fake profiles and bots, because of course the apps will pretend they have more users than they actually have. How else will desperate men pay for platinum premium?
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but OKC went down the tubes because it was bought by the same company that owns tinder (match I believe?). They actually own many of the dating apps at this point.
Match Group. Pretty much an evil conglomerate of dating apps.
Yep, they own like 25 of the major apps. I even tried match.com around 2016, thinking it would be better than the apps since it was the OG, but nope, same shit just without the swiping, and it costs astronomically more.
Dating websites were useless, turning them into phone applications just made them even less engaging then they already were.
An extremely tiny percentage of dating website users get anything positive from it. You might as well play a lottery instead.
I wouldn’t say that. I know several people in long term relationships that met on Tinder.
I just don’t see this. I’ve had lots of success and I’m not a typically attention-grabbing person on a dating app (my first line is about how I’m married).
I have numerous friends who met their long-term partners on dating apps.
The apps served a purpose. They raised the available pool of possible dates from “who’s in this bar with me right now” to “everyone in a 10 mile radius” or whatever, and everyone is there for the same reason, mostly.
But it also doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It shouldn’t be. Use an app you like and also go to in-person dating events. Just use apps if that’s your speed. Fuck the apps and go out there and meet people at the local cafe, or board game night, or beer league softball, or whatever. It can augment the old ways. It doesn’t have to replace the old ways.
Dativerse when? Seems like this is ripe for disruption by a free solution
There’s this pleroma instance and this github project.
I’ve thought about it before. The thing is with all the images getting loaded so much it would get expensive quick.
I think the bots and scammers would pose a much bigger problem
And wait til you see the pool of actual candidates.
Easy solution: date the bots and scammers!
I think those could be dealt with, but just the sheer bandwidth of someone loading 3-10 images per profile and then rapidly flicking through them and onto the next one…
The storage costs would be one thing, but the bandwidth of that would be another entirely.
As much as I’d like to think that people would donate, I’ve found the majority of people to be pretty cheap and unwilling to donate money for something they can get for free.
Yet Lemmy exists right now with videos and everything
I think most major instances only allow linking to videos and won’t allow you to directly upload it.
Yes, why can’t Lemmy just work for that?
Just create a “City Nama, M4W/M4M/W4W/W4M.MM4W…etc”
That would work no?
There’s no women on Lemmy tho.
Not with that attitude
Anyone can be a woman with the right leg and penis tuck strategy LOL.
No, because newer or more upvoted is not better. The way Lemmy is set up for news makes it bad for leaving a page up for your profile and getting people to look at it over time
It turns Into hookups and sexually explicit pics if reddit was anything to go by. But if it was for relationships not just hook ups, I’d like it.
I found my girlfriend just before COVID popped off, but I would argue that dating apps are insufferable now due to how polarizing the world is.
Just having basic conversations with people online, including Lemmy, is so tiring. Like how I was called names for saying Windows just works, and then as I was being attacked for it, I was literally typing the comment from a Linux distro that currently wont allow Steam to download at higher than ~120Mbps, despite my internet being 1900Mbps. Then the guy continued to go off, calling me names, telling me that I am such a moron, all because I showed a live example of how Linux wasn’t “just working”?
The internet is so exhausting and toxic these days.
The Internet is just trolls (whether paid shills or people doing it for fun). Sometimes you think that some of these people just might be higher up the spectrum. You’d be right for one out of five of them, the other four are also just trolls.
The dating apps would still be useful if they haven’t broken themselves in order to make short-term profit.
If they hadn’t all sold out to the same company who then ruined each one of their purchases that would also help as then there would still be some competition in the market. But sadly it’s now become monolithic and completely pointless
I gave up on online dating last year and I won’t be back. If that means I’ll end up dying alone, I’m honestly more comfortable with that idea than suffering though anymore of the bullshit that’s Tinder/Bumble/Hinge/etc. It’s become such a miserable experience for both sides (men and women).
As someone who had used online dating on and off for 10+ years, I can tell you one of the big problems - money and greed. I know it’s always easy to just “blame capitalism”, but I’ve seen first-hand the paradigm shift from an actual useful service (i.e. a way to meet people that you would otherwise not meet) to the blatant greed it’s become. The dating apps are so obviously profiteering off people’s loneliness it’s fucking disgusting. Back before Match bought everyone up, these services used to actually be okay for what they were.
Best to try meet people in the real world. It’s good for the mental state (especially nature and bodies of water), increases chances of meeting somebody, etc.
This has definitely been my experience. 8 years after my last relationship and I’m still single. I’m an average looking guy, I put up nice pictures, I filled out the profile, I spent time crafting a good opening message, etc… I had maybe 30-50 conversations, most of which quickly died out, some just wanted to keep talking for weeks before we met, at the end I think I ended up with less than ten actual dates, none of them went to a second date.
My first therapist even suggested an experiment (edit: this was actually my idea,but he supported it): replace my profile pictures with those of a male model and see if I get tons of messages or it stays the same. I ended up getting about 3 or 4 more messages total then usual, none of them went anywhere either.
What was your therapist’s theory they were trying to test, that you might be ugly? Seems a very odd thing to ask you to do.
I’m guessing they knew that it likely wasn’t a problem with being ugly, so the therapist did this ‘experiment’ as a way of demonstrating that. Seems pretty solid to me, actually.
Yeah it was my idea but he supported it, and pretty much wanted to help me prove that it wasn’t my appearance, just shitty apps. He said he had a bunch of clients that were in the same boat as me. I work in IT and do programming on the side, so I have an insight into how these things work, and of course if you actually find someone the app loses your business, which is bad for them, so it’s beneficial for them to string you along.
It was my idea but he supported it, pretty much testing to see if my pictures were the issue or not.
Some people say to never use selfie shots, others say it’s fine. Some say to have only pictures of you with no one else, others say it’s fine. It’s difficult to figure out what actually “works”.
This is the interesting thing about looking hot. It brings its own host of problems; serious problems they aren’t really acknowledged by society at large because of apparent privilege.
I couldn’t really find scientific research to back this claim up. Can you elaborate and back your claims up?
People actually want to be with you so it attracts the crazies. Opposed to us uggos that just get ignored.
You had 30-50 matches over eight years? Where do you live, bumblefuck?
Also the apps aren’t for conversations. They are for meeting people. If you are trying to have a lengthy conversation on Tinder, you’re putting screws in with a hammer.
Most dating apps are looking to make a profit first and provide a good service second. This is terrible, but we live in a capitalist hellscape so it’s not surprising.
HOWEVER. A lot of people are really bad at using dating apps. This is kind of a peeve of mine and I’ve been thinking of writing a book (or at least a blog post) about how to do better.
The premise is “throw the ball back”. So many people match and then just drop the ball. Their profile says they love NK jemisen so you write “she’s great! Did you read her new book 'the city we became '? It’s a total love letter to New York”. A fine message. And they write back “No”. End of message.
My dude that’s not how this game works. They’ve thrown you the ball with their message. You’ve caught it. Now throw it back by asking a question of your own.
If you’re not interested or don’t have the energy to be present, don’t say anything. If you’re not interested, just unmatch. If you don’t have the energy, come back when you do. If you never have the energy, delete the app you’re not ready.
And to all the people who just message with “hey”: please do better. You look incompetent when you do that.
That’s true of like all text messages, come to think of it. Some of you assholes probably message me at work on slack with “hey” instead of starting with the important part.
Also don’t be a fucking pen pal. If they matched and responded to your initial topic well, just ask them out. That’s what you’re both here for.
I’m an extremely average guy who doesn’t date men. If I can do this so can all of you.
When people find a partner, the dating service stops making money from them.
I agree. My sister and I both found our partners through online dating. I never found a decent partner until I completely changed by strategy, so yes, a lot of people are bad at it. Conversely to don’t say “hey,” don’t send massive walls of text with your entire biography either.
There are some people that online dating works better for. My sister is a trans lesbian in a conservative state and is only attracted to cis women. It’s not going to be easy for her to just go out and date.
If you’re a lesbian, stay away from any services that allow searching for “friends.” My sister was very upfront about being a lesbian with a penis and she still got tons of messages from creepy dudes
When people find a partner, the dating service stops making money from them.
Weirdly, most of the dating apps don’t really support ethical-non-monogamy. You’d think that’d be an easy source of repeat money. But ENM is a whole other tangent. People get mad about it.
Conversely to don’t say “hey,” don’t send massive walls of text with your entire biography either.
This is good advice, too! I’ve encountered too-much text far less often than not-enough, so I didn’t think to include it. Typically if I find myself wanting to write more than a couple sentences at once, I turn that into “I’d love to talk more about this on a date”.
The last woman who sent me far-too-much text also sent me a completely generic opener. I think it was “What’s the last piece of art that moved you?” This probably seemed smart and deep to her, but in my opinion it’s not a good opener. It’s generic. She could have sent that to anyone. Nothing on my profile indicates I have a particular relationship with art. Do not send a first message that could have gone to anyone. What you send should be particular to them.
Yeah. You need to give the message that you actually read their information and you’re not just trying randomly to score.
Meme representation of what happened:
I did online dating for many years. I used match, eharmony, tinder, pof, okcupid.
I fully understand the ‘soul destroying’ comment. For me it was a lot of work for little return. I started off being selective. Messaging one person at a time so I didn’t end up getting two responses and having to put someone off or turn one of them down. That was naive it turned out as I got very few replies. So I started messaging multiple people at once. I always tried to personalise things but my effort varied with how optimistic I was feeling about online dating.
Ultimately I think I got responses about 10% of the time. From them, 10% turned into a date, from those maybe 50% would get to a second date.
So overall it every hundred messages I’d write , 1 would end up in a date. I went on quite a lot of dates over the years, but I had to devote so much time to getting them it was, soul destroying.
I never thought i was unattractive, but online dating made me question if I really was. I never thought I was an ass, but online dating made me question if I really was. I would sometimes have very long conversations before meeting to find there was no chemistry in person. Sometimes I would like them when we meet and they would ghost me. Sometimes they liked me and I didn’t like them, but I always tried to be honourable and tell them, not ghost them since I didn’t like it happening to me.
I am male in case my experience doesn’t make it obvious. I often spoke to some of the women I got on better with about how online dating was for them and their experience was pretty awful for different reasons. Generally they were bombarded by messages and a good number of them were obscene. Guys trying to hook up rather than date. To manage their inbox was a real challenge and they probably missed out on good matches because of the noise.
My overall impression of the whole thing is that it generally sucks regardless of whether you are the one doing most of the messaging or whether you are receiving messages. I also think it makes it more like shopping than dating, dehumanising people. Do I want the 8K 42 inch TV or the 4K inch TV? Actually, can I even afford it?
All that said in the end it worked for me. Over 6 years since I last logged in and I think it was a bit of an addiction, or perhaps desperation born of loneliness.i also have a daughter now and there were times I thought that was never going to happen.
So for me online dating was years of frustration, difficulty and upset, but in the end I’m glad I did it but it took a long time.
It’s very superficial and any of the girls who are remotely attractive get tons of messages, plus they have to be on edge for anything out of the ordinary.
The one thing I’ll conceed to Pim Tool about online dating is that it can easily funnel all women to the top value men. That said, the most desirable men are going to exclude the unattractive women. Based on observing other people dating online, it seems like younger girls who are unattractive are aware that they can get older dudes who are probably desperate.
Dating apps are deeply, deeply enshitified because the economic incentive for them is the exact opposite of what monogamous users want. Specifically, the apps want you to keep subscribing, plus buy the super platinum plus extra added packs, but never really find someone and date them, because then you stop paying. Old school pre-sellout OKCupid had a great analysis of this in their blog, which was taken down the day they sold out.
This is why the few sites/apps that cater to non-monogamous or event based communities are still reasonably decent, e.g FetLife, Bloom and Feeld, though Feeld is partially down the enshitification pathway.
I’d be really interested in seeing what a fediverse dating app would be like, something that didn’t have the financial incentive to enshitify, and maybe had a match/search system like old-school OKC.
EDIT: missing word.
