>Women do not have an abundance of choice. There are more women than men in the United States. In major urban areas there are many more mating age straight women than men. When you look at the number of college educated straight women compared to their male cohort in urban areas, there are more women. This is reported, often, in the media.
This is absolutely incorrect. Actual numbers are irrelevant, what's important is experiences. Talk to actual women using online sites and find out their experiences. My ex-wife, just after we decided to break up (but before actually being divorced) got on OKC and was absolutely bombed with messages from men. She had a bunch of dates, no bad experiences at all, but basically got overwhelmed with all the attention and shut it down for a while. (Then she ended up meeting someone through a friend and they're a couple now.) Men just don't have this experience, unless maybe they're over 60 or something. Ask any man if he gets a lot of action on online sites. They don't, unless they're a very rare minority who's very successful for some reason. The frequent complaint on OKC is that they write a bunch of long, thoughtful messages and get no responses.
You're looking at the absolute numbers of women and men, but that assumes that they participate in online dating in equal numbers. I think that's a completely flawed assumption. Men have long been more likely to participate in online dating, and women have long been far more wary of it. Also, I think a lot of women simply avoid dating altogether in their 30s because they have kids.
Finally, you're flat wrong about women in urban areas. It's well known that single women outnumber single men in east coast cities (esp. DC and NYC), whereas the reverse is true in west coast cities (esp. SF/SV and Seattle). Men and women don't work in the same industries in equal proportions, and certain industries are concentrated in certain places (e.g. tech in SV, fashion in NYC).
>Women in their thirties ... There are more of us
This is flat wrong too, if you look at population figures. Men outnumber women from birth to about 30 (children are more likely to be born male). Around 30, the numbers become equal. Women don't really outnumber men until after 40 or so, because men die earlier than women usually.
>If you're looking for something casual, I think your profile should reflect that. Then you meet someone who isn't looking for a relationship right now.
You obviously don't talk to many 30+ women, and you obviously haven't swiped through thousands of women's profiles. There are zero women like that over the age of 30 on Tinder. There's a tiny number of swingers, and that's about it. Everyone else says "no hookups". (I'm not looking for something casual, I'm just pointing out the fallacy here.)
>There is lots of information out there about how guys are successful on Tinder. From what I've seen most of it seems to be from the PUA perspective, which relies on chipping away at a woman's self esteem, and games.
Yeah, and that information is being sold by people who are trying to profit off that advice; it may or may not be correct. But if it is, that really says something about women, doesn't it? Actual research (by OKC's data people I believe) has shown that women are frequently dishonest about what they want and what attracts them (and not just dishonest with men, but dishonest with themselves too). If women really were repulsed by PUA tactics, then they wouldn't work, would they?