Disintermediating friends: Online dating displaces other ways of meeting (2019) [pdf]
web.stanford.edu
web.stanford.edu
Contrasting this to events occurring in person, you're only ever in the game when you're at a bar actively looking or at some social event. Even better you might mainly be there to see friends and the potential love interests is just an extra. And when you're done at the place you're done. You're not trying to attract some abstract far off person while sitting on the subway. On the subway you're off and thinking about other stuff.
I think the issue is similar to the problem of not being able disconnect. It just feels mentally unhealthy to me.
I'd always rated myself quite low before trying Tinder, but it gave me a much better perspective on my datability. I haven't used it in a while now, thanks to lockdown ending meetups, but I've since partnered with someone who I previously would have considered out of my league.
I think everyone has something valid to complain about in dating: offline, online, and hybrid.
So, one could be matching or rejecting more than realized.
If I were developing an app like Tinder, I would introduce a small number of totally random shows besides those algorithm-driven.
edit: Actually I'd like to respond to this more closely:
> I don’t see how opening an app is less of a temporary experience than being at a bar.
An app is always available. You have the potential to be in "dating mode" at any moment at all. You can be on the toilet. You can be your kitchen. You can be at work. You can be with friend. If you don't allow yourself that capability, when you are alone, you are alone. When you aren't in the bar or in other social situations, you're not in those situations. This doesn't detract from your previous comment about this being a "choice" (of course that's true), but I don't see how anyone could argue that the effective boundaries in their life of digital app like interaction and in-person social interaction ever could be the same.
Here is a direct link to the chart as an image, https://thebrowser.com/content/images/size/w1000/2021/06/ima...
I think the animosity many people have for the apps comes from the idea that using the apps is dating. For a certain generation, the first generation that grew up with the various dating apps now, using the apps is often considered dating. This is, however, a creation of the dating app companies. More people using the apps = more user numbers/engagement/data for $$$$.
Couple that idea of dating as using the apps with the general decline in the use of social institutions like clubs/societies/team sports/ etc. (the decline in social partnerships and friends in general for many), and you get a generation that views dating apps as the sole way of meeting people for dating and that often recoils from the idea of asking someone out in person.
They are not so great for finding love in my opinion. It's a meat market, and one that's not particularly favourable to all. It magnifies biases about attractiveness and race, for instance.
"Figure 1’s apparent post‐2010 rise in meeting through bars and restaurants for heterosexual couples is due entirely to couples who met online and subsequently had a first in‐person meeting at a bar or restaurant or other establishment where people gather and socialize. If we exclude the couples who first met online from the bar/restaurant category, the bar/restaurant category was significantly declining after 1995 as a venue for heterosexual couples to meet."
A graph of "age when met" for current couples would be interesting, if today's "final" couples meet at a later age than in the past because people don't want to settle down as early, you'll have less school couples.
We also need a graph of "number of relationships still around started by year" - if fewer relationships started in 2018 are still extant compared to ones in 2014, that's gonna skew numbers too.
Yes.
Though I would suspect that if you broke each of these meeting methods out and analyzed the failure rates for each, "met in college" would be one of the best 3 methods in terms of success rate. I would suspect "met in church", "met in college", and "met online" to be the methods leading to the most long term success. Further, if you asked about whether there was marital satisfaction as opposed to simply a marriage that didn't end in divorce, I would suspect "met in college" to be the best overall method.
The only better methods of meeting, I would suspect, are not mentioned here. For instance, a lot of successful marriages likely come from people who were in the peace corps together. Shared hardship and passion kind of thing.
Just my intuition though. No data to back any of that up.
> Previous research with the longitudinal follow‐ups after HCMST 2009 showed that neither breakup rates nor relationship quality were influenced by how couples met, so the retrospective nature of the HCMST “how did you meet” question should not introduce couple survivor bias (Rosenfeld 2017; Rosenfeld and Thomas 2012). [6] Once couples are in a relationship, how they met does not determine relationship quality or longevity. [7]
I would not have guessed that.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...
But she has far more success than most men in translating online contact into dates in person. The women demand extensive correspondence before being willing to meet, and the feminine style of her writing appeals to them in a way that the feminine style of her body and personality doesn't.
You can interpret this as evidence that one thing contributing to problems in the online dating landscape is that women don't know what they want. They have one set of requirements for agreeing to a date, and a different -- to some degree conflicting -- set of requirements for thinking that a date went well.
(Vincent contrasts contemporaneous experience dating men -- she specifically comments on the coherence between what they want online and what they want in person. To agree to a date, men want to see your picture. And in person, they're happy if you look like your picture.)
(I'm also unclear on what "feminine style of writing" means, but would think for such an experiment to be really useful you'd need to pretend to be a man in your writing as well!)
I had far more success in online dating when I started moving towards "let's meet in person as quickly as possible" because (even for me as a man) I found that the physical connection was harder to predict yet also more important than just a text-based one. The only area where my experience doesn't match hers is that I didn't encounter much resistance to something along the lines of "hey, let's meet up in person and see if we can keep this going" after just a few messages.
I think the contradiction is that women over text might want a loving, caring guy - someone that is romantic, replies to messages and is thoughtful.
Most women will rationalise this romantic guy, while time after time will end up with the “bad boys”. Why? Raw attraction kicks in. And raw attraction isn’t something you rationalise, it’s an instinct that sits somewhere in your gut.
And unfortunately, the type of guys they are attracted to might be different to what they logically want to be attracted to.
It’s exactly the same with guys too - I’ve really wanted to be in love with girls in the past that I can rationalise would be great partners, but there is a disconnect between the gut and the head.
(As a side note, I agree on suggesting a meet sooner rather than later - the main reason for me is because I don’t believe the level of attraction over app is a particularly strong indicator of the level of attraction when you meet, or at least not as strong of an indicator as you might expect)
Preach! I made the mistake initially of putting in lots of effort to woo some very introverted women with long text conversations because I fell in love with their detailed profiles. Then we meet in person and they were inevitably, if not autistic ... severely socially challenged.
In the end I married a woman with a very simple dating profile instead. We just clicked really well in person, and she's really smart, just not the kind of person to live on the internet and write really detailed profiles. Which is a good complement to me because I tend towards being that person :-p
My interpretation is that communicating in a feminine style (more subtext, longer messages, longer + consistent correspondence is how I would interpret it) is what will get you a date, but initial attraction and in presence masculinity (communicated via a different conversational style, appearance, and behavior) is what is preferred.
So the contraction is that there is a difference in communication styles online and in person.
Pretending to be a man, irl, wearing a disguise? I'm not sure that translates to anything. Saying women rejected her for not being masculine enough could easily be a nice way of saying "while I wouldn't dare question whether you are, in fact, a man, here in front of me, something about this feels off putting for me".
I'm not sure what difference you see between "rejecting someone for not being masculine enough" and "questioning whether they are, in fact, a man".
One of those is a personal taste, the other is an alarm bell that you are being deceived, possibly failing to hit a number of subconscious sensors.
I wonder what percentage of these women would've guessed right had she straight-up asked "do you think I'm a man or do you think I'm a woman pretending to be a man"?
That's the difference - the idea that someone you're dating is deceiving you on such a huge level isn't something that's going to be at the front of your mind by default.
(Though I have a higher-level question here: why are we simply believing stated reasons for rejection? People lie about that all the time. It's not you, it's me. People try to avoid confrontations. Someone who's blatantly lying to everyone else has to consider the possibility that they're being lied to as well.)
I have no problem accepting two things from this account: high-effort communication helps, and not being in disguise helps. I think anything beyond that is largely speculative and especially don't see any contradictions.
This is a question that can't be usefully asked -- it would never come up in any normal circumstance, so just the fact that you asked tends to give the answer away.
> not being in disguise helps.
Women don't seem to agree with you. I've seen some pretty dramatic "makeup / no makeup" picture spreads.
Not surprising that she's good at wooing women with the written word.
I suppose you can! It's intensely bizarre that you would, though.
Another way to interpret it would be to say that there's a certain minimum level of communication skills that some of us aren't quite meeting.
I have trouble imagining how that was determined. Everything I have seen indicates women expect you to emotionally bond and establish a relationship before they can get all hot and bothered and men don't typically need that.
That may have nothing to do with writing style and everything to do with simply being willing to put in the time.
> Ned made an impression not just because he gave these women at least a pale version of the reading material they seemed to crave, but because he did it so willingly. It was rare, most of them told me, for a man to write at such length, much less to write with consideration and investment.
It was rare, most of them told me, for a man to write at such length, much less to write with consideration and investment.
To me, that boils down to what I tried to say above: women expect commitment and evidence that you will stick around. "Writing at length" is, in part, simply a matter of putting in the time.
I think this is a difference in perception. Sending poetry is not commitment or evidence that you will stick around. But women may perceive it as being that anyway. More generally, I see systematic and large differences in how men and women choose to describe exactly the same behavior.
I like Craig Morgan's song That's Why. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEfJ8Q6keRk ) And a primary message that I see in it is that one way to be valuable as a husband and father is by paying the family's expenses.
I expressed this idea to my sister and she was disgusted with my point of view. But when, later, I played the song for her and asked what she thought, what she thought was "that guy sounds really sweet".
Can you clarify what you mean by this? I don't see where women are taking a greater risk in dating or why you think women, or anyone at all, should by default receive an implicit payout in the form of a free dinner. No one on a date is a victim or supposed to be treated like one. On a date, both participants have enough agency to decide whether or not a date is not worth one's further time. Ergo both participants should by default be expected to pay for their own food.
Meeting in person exposes you to many factors more than just looks. Smell is a big thing that people are often not consciously aware of but if you are a heterosexual female and you meet a woman dressed as a man, you may subconsciously react to "This doesn't smell like a man. Something ain't right."
Voice tone is another. It has nothing to do with communication style, but her voice just may not be deep enough for a heterosexual woman to go "Yeah, I would hit that."
People seem to think it boils down to "looks" or something and that doesn't really fit with what I understand about life, the universe and everything.
Based on this cover, I would have thought it was a very gender neutral looking person, and probably a lot less masculine if she wasn't frowning like that. But yeah, there's a huge difference between not being masculine enough vs. not being obviously a man.
I can imagine the second photo passing as male but not in a good way.
There are subtle body language differences between men and women and that may be a factor.
I'm tall for a woman. I've had very short hair for like fifteen years. It didn't initially get me mistaken for male.
After being homeless for a year, people began calling me "sir" if they initially saw me from the back. (I would turn around and they would apologize for their error.) That was partly due to clothing but probably also my body language changed in ways I was not conscious of.
There are myriad subtle details that help us distinguish male from female. It isn't any one thing.
Edit: I will add her hair is hair that is short for a woman but on the long side for a man. Men with long hair are often bearded. They have hair all over.
The photos are almost an uncanny valley in terms of trying to look like a man. Like she didn't quite get it but thought she did.
No comments on smell were noted, but she did get comments about not being hairy.
Or the participants are not desirable enough for the other party.
The former can be helped by letting your network decide your price as they may be able to do it more objectively, so anyone introduced to you by your network is likelier to be in your price range. This, of course, depends on you having access to a good network, but I suspect that is also on the decline.
This predicament isn’t really unique to online dating though. Lots of society throughout history have had polygamy (elite men get many wives, others are shit out of luck).
I’ve been wondering if war mongers in times past have been driven by this—decimate men to rebalance the scales towards the general male population (and also the elites who don’t fight).
There were baby booms after the two world wars. How much of that was due to a perceived scarcity of men among women? Did that cause them to settle quickly?
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/51710349-the-weirdest...
It goes into the implications of institutions that were against polygamy and their impact on history among other things. It's a really interesting book.
Last winter on a 'Zoom date' one match multi-tasked while I was trying to talk with her. She was literally shopping.
Another 'left the chat' after I said I wasn't a property developer, I was a software developer. I hesitate to even mention this because it practically reveals my identity to friends who know that story.
I've met women who chatted for a while, and setup a date, only to finally reveal at the 11th hour that they are seeing someone. Sorry! I've also met women who used very, very misleading photographs in their profiles.
I've had 'matches' who return curt answers to very simple conversational questions, as if how dare you attempt to grace their presence with your messages. I'd take a non-reply over that sort of signal. I would not be texting them in the first place if they hadn't also swiped right on me.
My real life experiences dating someone from Meetup/College/Work had substantially more honesty and humanity. In online dating, I truly feel there's a loss of treating others like human beings instead of a disposable item. And to be fair, I am guilty of that sin as well.
But for all the talk I've heard from my female friends about how guys are awful on online dating (and I believe it), I can assure you that it's not any easier on this side.
Women get a lot of matches which while a lot better than no matches (can go on dates, get practice, etc.) leads to a filter problem. Many (based on OKC data [0]) tend to pre-select based on attractiveness*, so the top 2% of men get most of the matches, which pre-filters out high quality candidates that would have a chance in real life. It also leads to lower quality interactions (since those men have more options anyway).
If you're a woman with hundreds of matches it's not really a surprise they'd be multi-tasking on a zoom date, the dates are abundant - each one has low value. This shifts as people get older though - if I had to guess that's probably part of why your recent matches improved after 5 yrs, suddenly there are fewer men available and the competition heats up (both because there are fewer available men and because there are more younger women getting more attention).
If you're a man that gets one match at best every other month, they're so scarce the value is high. I think honestly women and men have a poor sense for how extreme the difference in online dating experience is.
We're not that different from other apes in a lot ways, if you're not really good looking and you're in a skewed market online dating is a bad approach for you (imo).
[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offlin...
* Men do too obviously, but not to the same winner-takes-all extreme (based on the OKC data).
I kind of wonder if the app makers just viciously slashed the number of likes men can give out, if things would get better. You often see men just blasting swipes to the right through hundreds of women just trying for any scrap of match they can get. I think that really messes with things. As a result of this, women get inundated with literally hundreds of matches, and then proceed to ignore the vast majority of those matches because there's so many they're all virtually meaningless. And then men swipe more and more and more because they've realized it's really just sending out the dating app equivalent of a Nigerian prince spam email looking for any sign of life at all.
If you only give men say 5 swipes a day, maybe women would value the matches they get, conversations would actually happen, and people would actually meet. Just a theory.
Interestingly a lot of them also complain that physical attractiveness of the man isn't necessarily a good predictor of getting used and ghosted.
This sounds to some like a better problem to have but I don't think it necessarily is.
The best fix might be an objective feedback mechanism on dates that future swipers can see. The women who filter these men out will consequently pay more attention to the other men.
Of course, people will try to game it like nothing else so it would need to be a good mechanism that had inbuilt protections against this.
I think Bumble does cut down on the amount of grief women deal with though--less disgruntled men are even able to send angry "why aren't you talking to me" messages since women have to message first.
The reason men swipe a lot is because even with that most get few matches (~0). If you limit their swipes then most will never get matches and they'll stop using the service.
Bumble solves little, many 'initial' messages from women are ".", "hi", or ":)". It's basically equivalent to a match where the men have to initiate contact. The pre-selection winner-take-all issue is still there.
I think you can't fix it via apps - because the issue is upstream sexual selection that's been in place for thousands of years. It's good to have an honest view of it though because it lets people navigate it rather than becoming bitter and miserable.
Even if you had an app where men make profiles and don't swipe at all, one where women just select people and then men get notified - you still end up with only the top 2% of men getting selected and women would have to notify someone they're interested who may not have mutual interest or message them back (a rejection of the type mutual swipe matches are supposed to avoid).
Also, I think at least some women like having hundreds of matches because it's a nice self-confidence ego boost (I think complaining about this is 'high-status' humble bragging). If you took that away I suspect they'd also use the service less. Most women don't want to actually be the pursuers (a lot of men don't want to be either probably, but don't have a choice) - sexual selection doesn't work that way among most other mammals, humans are probably not an exception. If you try to force it with an app I'd doubt it would work.
So this doesn't solve the underlying issue, and economically wouldn't work because men that drive income for dating sites wouldn't have much of a role to play beyond creating an account and waiting (even though functionally this is basically the action they're doing anyway for the most part on the other services).
Men need to play to their strengths - online dating turns you into a commodity competing entirely on looks. If you're not going to win in that arena (and 98% won't), get out.
Right, but I think women are extra choosy on the apps (going only for that top X percent of men) because they can be, because literally every swipe is a match, because men just fire off the right swipes by the hundreds. Just thinking about this logically, if every girl I swiped on Tinder was a match for me, I'd probably be more choosy too.
If men didn't have as many swipes, women wouldn't have such an extreme amount of matches. Maybe they'd widen their net and invest more time with the smaller number of matches they do get.
Again, hypothetical. Maybe not.
> Even if you had an app where men make profiles and don't swipe at all, one where women just select people and then men get notified - you still end up with only the top 2% of men getting selected and women would have to notify someone they're interested who may not have mutual interest or message them back (a rejection of the type mutual swipe matches are supposed to avoid).
Where do you get the 2% number? Just curious.
> I think at least some women like having hundreds of matches because it's a nice self-confidence ego boost (I think complaining about this is 'high-status' humble bragging). If you took that away I suspect they'd also use the service less.
So the cynical part of me does kind of agree with this. I do think there's some percentage of women who aren't even on the apps for meeting people. In that sense, the overwhelming number of matches is an ego-boosting feature, not a bug they would like to see fixed. I'd like to think this is a small percentage, but I'd be curious to see data on this.
It's an imperfect number, but it comes from one of the graphs in dataclysm. It was a graph that paired attractiveness vs. amount of incoming messages.
For men messaging women it's mostly linear (more attractive women get more messages, but the high end gets maybe twice as many as the low end).
For women messaging men, it's a flat line at zero until the top 2% of male attractiveness at which it ticks up (a bit, still pretty unusual even then).
This is an imperfect metric because a lot of that skew is around who initiates at all which mostly falls to men, but it's tricky to get perfect data. Swipe data would be better, but dataclysm was written before the move to swiping mutual matching started (and now the sites don't publish anything interesting).
I'd predict the swipe data would match the initial message data similarly, it'd be interesting to see it.
> Maybe they'd widen their net and invest more time with the smaller number of matches they do get.
I'd suspect they'd go to other apps where they have more power (and the men would follow).
I guess they’re all working on the Yahoo! model though—don’t work too good or else people would quit before you make money off of them. But I bet someone could come up with a business model that makes money off of finding good matches for people and incentivizes good behavior.
I think what happens is that both sexes go through it and come out the other side. If they were lucky enough not to pair off with a bad mate early they can then choose more wisely.
For a lot of men this means being unhappy and lonely in their 20s, for women it means being unhappy while sleeping around a lot in their 20s. Eventually people figure out what they want.
I'm not sure an app can do much to fix that.
Sexual selection's affect on behavior is a powerful thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7QZnwKqopo
OKCupid was a serviceable platform until they took step after step to monetize it, on top of making everything a series of 'swipes'. It reinforces the idea that people are able to be just discarded, which is a real shame.
Frankly, I would love if somebody could get a hold of the old OKCupid codebase, back when matches were based on hashtag type matching, Didn't allow photos in chat (eliminates certain types of harassment,) and perhaps added a 'one-time-verify' fee. i.e. Pay 10$ to get yourself verified with a photo-ID, and perhaps have some sort of 'review fee' for reporting; if you report someone and it was found fradulent, -you- have to pay 10$. If the report was valid, the other person gets banhammered.
So simple, but it doesn't make money.
I’ve talked about this recently, but I feel like the culture around dating apps has a way of stripping everyone down the the most generic, basic image of themselves. I really can’t imagine connecting with someone based off a few pictures and text snippets and developing any sort of mutual attraction via a brief period of text messaging.
Unfortunately it’s the only way it seems for me to meet people. I go out and all, but I’m often the youngest person in any place I’m at by at least a decade. I’m also very boring when sober, at least superficially and stupid while drunk (although the latter can at least lead to a fun night). I can’t see anyone being remotely interested in or attracted to me without at least months of getting to know me.
Most of my peers I know in a relationship, got it from being in an institution where they were forcibly around their peer group. Think high school, college, military, or even casual groups where shared interests were common (unfortunately I’ve failed to find one of these myself). I really haven’t had any of these. Was kinda a loser through most of school, around high school really put my focus in other things that totally failed, never went to college and ended up directly in the workforce. I’m still kinda a loser, not anything you can see explicitly, but a few important facts can reveal that. I don’t think I’m terribly unattractive, well besides being underweight and not photogenic (for some reasons 90% of photographs taken of me don’t look right, particularly but other people), but I’ve seen much worse make it.
I would admit that I'm rather introverted and never really felt the need to seek a relationship specifically - I was pretty happy existing on my own until I found a good partner.
I'm sure there are others.
If you're saying "But the ratio is off", your motives are probably incorrect about whatever "thing" you're thinking about doing.
*one derives joy out of the endeavor itself
*one just so happens to find camaraderie with a group of strangers
*at least one of these strangers is of the sex that appeals to oneself
*this particular stranger is single
*this particular stranger is open to dating in this group
*this particular stranger finds one, among others, to be worth dating
*this particular stranger is receptive to one's advances
*this particular stranger chooses one ,out of a bevy of potential suitors, to be the one and only S.O. (for the time being)
Any of these circumstances can and do go wrong more often than not. Pretending that one can just wait and see and everything might turn out well is leaving everything to a self-deceiving lottery. In which case, why bother? What's the point? After all, someone could just as well fall out of the sky. The chances are about the same.
I kinda stopped reading after this part. Best of luck in your search I guess.
I'll butt out (as I unsuccessfully tried to do before). Enjoy your day!
> I found my partner through a common interest and I'd suggest it as a preferable route for most folks looking.
(which then turned into a discussion of interest groups)
If you want to enjoy a hobby, enjoy it without the expectation of finding a mate. If you go in with that particular expectation, it might consume your enjoyment of the hobby. Plus, your odds aren't necessarily that much better, because of the reasons a poster above mentioned.
If you want to join a book club because you like books, do so. If you want to date someone, also do so (through apps or otherwise). If, however, you find someone who likes you at said book club, good for you! But please don't make everyone In the book club feel uncomfortable by making it obvious you're there to also look for a mate.
Areas where there are a surplus of contemporary women have language barriers and cultural differences that make a relationship more prone to dissolve. It's not impossible, but there are more problems than gains unless there's some quality that offsets those disadvantages (i.e. desperation to be married, partner has money or is of a favorable nationality, desire for a certain temperament in a partner, etc.). And this is on top of the usual issues and tradeoffs of a relationship. All things being equal, it's much easier to have a partner of a similar nationality or cultural understanding than going international.
While none of this changes your point about how "toxic" online dating is, let me remind you that the source of that "toxicity" is the people themselves. People are willing to take others for granted unless or until there's something in it for them not to so. This is also the case IRL in diplomacy, friendships, families, and all sorts of interpersonal relationships. The difference is that online dating brings a more brutally honest version of this dynamic into full view. No couching in euphemisms, no friendly facades and handshakes, and no "I regret to inform you...". Just an unspoken "show me what you've got". If you think this isn't practiced in society at large in some form or fashion, then it suggests you haven't looked closely enough.
Um, no. You should check these things rather than assume. Male homosexuality is much more common than female.
My understanding is that women get so many messages that they're overloaded and invest most of their time replying to top candidates while folks lower on the totem pole get dismissed curtly or ghosted.
And it makes sense, we all treat non-scarce resources pretty wastefully.
The question is are dating apps still worth it even though it makes you feel like a commodity?
Anyway its an interesting time we are in. One company (Match) owns like 90% of the dating apps and gets to “dictate” the future procreation of our species, if we put it in extreme terms.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/975925/us-tinder-user-ra...
But if there are proportionally less women than men, why would men look for them there ?
Most men don't have this. If a man wants a woman, he's gotta go pursue one. Dating apps present a lower-threat/easier way for men to pursue.
But even in a social setting where there is opportunity for co-mingling, men generally still have to be the ones who "make the move" right? At least in my experience. Start the conversation, feel out the situation, ask for the phone number if things seem to be going well. That's a male-driven process that takes some calibrated effort (be charming without overdoing it, try without appearing to try, etc). At any party I've been to, I've never had success with women by just waiting in the corner for them to find me.
What I'm saying is the apps provide a much easier, more available way for men to do the pursuit work. That's why I think men swarm to them in greater numbers than women.
Now, if you're the kind of guy that sorta just shows up and suddenly women are handing you their phone number, congrats. You do not have the challenges the rest of us plebs have to deal with.
You're missing my point here. I'm saying hang out with groups of people and you will eventually talk with a girl and get to know one that you like. You may have to talk to 100 girls, but just be natural about it-- girls sense when you are faking it with some PUA stuff.
"What I'm saying is the apps provide a much easier, more available way for men to do the pursuit work. That's why I think men swarm to them in greater numbers than women."
Sure, but all the men in this thread are complaining that it's super focused on the pictures -- swipe left / swipe right -- and some are claiming only 2% of the men get a benefit from actually using the apps. So using the app is like a delusion. Just a more efficient way to not get a date.
So I am saying go talk to girls you want to meet in real life. Cut out the swiping.
"Now, if you're the kind of guy that sorta just shows up and suddenly women are handing you their phone number, congrats. You do not have the challenges the rest of us plebs have to deal with."
You know, they say that to get what you want, you have to know what is available first. I do well with women, but with women that would go for me. I'm not going to get the number from that 9/10 who has a beach bod and wants a guy with a muscle car. But what I have learned is that if a girl is single and might be into you, its worth saying hello in real life, or making a joke about how long the lineup is at the grocery, or it doesn't even matter what.
Just creating an opportunity. 100 times ot won't work. But 101th is what you're looking for.
Or move to another country. An American will be considered exotic and new in France, Germany, Asia, etc...on that basis alone you can meet girls.
The apps are just in theory easier and that’s why men use them.
You should try socializing or dating in another country then. If you are not having luck "here" (where ever that is), why keep repeating the pattern?
I once used the Tinder of an ex girl friend (with her permission) and told her, I find one for you. She was okay looking but not super attractive. Match rate of the guys I chose for her was 100%. Basically most guys use the App like : yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes...
When women try Tinder as men, they see how much harder it is
Ghosting happens on both sides. Most men can't even get to that stage.
Try to run your argument about 'unlimited access to sex' outside the dating app world. Let's take bars. A woman may (theoretically) find a new sexual partner in a bar much easier and more frequently than a man (with a notable exception of gay bars). True? True. Does that make her life easy and mens miserable? No. If finding a new sexual partner in a bar every week was the most important thing in the world, gay dudes would be happiest people around. Finding sexual partners in school and universities and workplace is also easier for women than men. Also true. So what? Does it make women happy and men miserable? Not in my experience. I've seen happy men and unhappy women (and the other way around) in and outside relationships. That's life. And 'easy' or 'difficult' are also something to think about. Is starting a business easy? No, it's HARD. Is becoming a doctor easy? No, it's HARD. What's easy is pumping gas at a gas station, but not very satisfying. Again, coming from a personal angle here - but I've struggled with women in my late teens/early twenties. However I became fairly successful in many niches, including interpersonal communications. And I know 100% that should I find a new sexual partner, I will be able to do so and dating sites is the first place I will to go, because that's where women that look form men are. And I've also learned by observing that the most miserable people out there are women who blame 'men' for things and men who blame 'women'. In my 40+ years I've seen INDIVIDUAL people going bad things (both male and female), but despite what's being told do us every day - I've never seen bad gender behavior. Toxic masculinity or toxic femininity, 'men are terrible' or 'feminism has ruined women' - that's simply not true in my opinion. Great people are out there. You can find them. Just don't expect relationships to be easy - they aren't.
Because they get unlimited sex in the regular life too. It's thrown at them every day by random strangers.
> Men and women are different in many respects, and sex is one of them.
But we're discussing sex, read the thread again. You're trying to move the goal posts.
> Does that make her life easy and mens miserable? No.
Yes, it makes her life easier. She gets sex whenever she wants. Most men don't have that.
> If finding a new sexual partner in a bar every week was the most important thing in the world
Straw man. Nobody claimed it was.
You're jumping from one logical error to another. I think you're either arguing in bad faith or simply not thinking through what you type.
Does this shift to online partly explain the recent declines in birth rates in the West?
Should we ban online dating, or regulate it?