Comment by vgel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vgel | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I wonder what, if anything, will replace dating apps. As someone who tried dating apps for a while, I never had much luck with them. I ended up meeting my wife in person at the LGBTQ center at my college, we were friends for awhile, started dating, then got married a couple years later.

I'm not sure what dating apps optimize for. It's easy to say "for hookups!", but it seems like a very low% of matches on those apps lead to any kind of in-person connection, date or hookup: anecdotally I think I had a few hundred matches on Tinder, but only went on ~10 dates / hookups as a consequence. For most matches, the conversation would fizzle after a few messages. Maybe it's different for straight people?

My hypothesis is there's a "Market for Lemons"[1] problem here: take a pool of potential matches on Tinder. The pools narrow like so:

100% of people are on the app (given)

x<100% of people will match with an average person (picky)

y<x% of people will message or reply to a message[2]

z<y% of people will go on a date / hookup with someone[2]

People in each pool will be selected out of the swiping pool, leaving the people left for you to swipe on being, on average, less committed to ultimately going on a date. For example: people in the `z` group will get into short/long-term relationships and stop using Tinder. People in the `y` group will be busy texting with someone they met on Tinder (using pickup lines, etc.) and swipe less. Etc, etc.

I'm not sure how a dating app would solve this issue. Traditional ways of finding partners, like meeting people at a bar or hobby group or at college, doesn't either: it's just there's a benefit to making friends or talking to people beyond trying to hook up or start dating them. Most people, if they make 5 friends at a college club but don't start dating any of them, are still happy, I would think.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

[2]: Why would people match or reply to a message, but not want to go on a date? I've anecdotally known several people who do this: some just wanted validation from random strangers, some are just shy and would theoretically want to go on a date but didn't work up the courage to actually do it, etc. etc. Lots of reasons.

> I wonder what, if anything, will replace dating apps.

A friend of mine, John, first met his future wife while accompanying a third friend to an evening of speed dating.

The thing is, neither John nor his now wife, actually participated. They were both there, begrudgingly providing moral support to their respective friends, and smugly watching the whole spectacle from the sidelines, when they struck up conversation.

This would make a great romantic comedy^^

Hey, this is exactly how I met my now wife and we've never heard anyone else with this story before! Long shot, but did this happen in Los Angeles?

Nope, UK

As a 45yo straight male, I’ve found women are eager to set up a meeting within the first five or so messages, sometimes even hinting at it by the 2nd message… all I have to say is something like “it says we’re 15 miles apart, what part of town are you in?” and they’ll suggest meeting somewhere in the middle.

Of course I’m dealing with an older than primary demographic (30-50), which might have something to do with it, but I think you’ve hit on a scarcity issue caused by the temporal nature of interactions on the apps themselves. The longer you spend online, the higher the chance that someone else will come along and be more efficient in setting something up with the one you’re talking to.

I’ve only been on the swipey apps for a month now, but I’ve found myself regularly unmatching anyone where I feel like it will be too much work because of this phenomena. It’s like an incurred opportunity cost of dealing with people who are too hesitant.

> I’ve found women are eager to set up a meeting within the first five or so messages, sometimes even hinting at it by the 2nd message

That's probably because they've had enough experience to become aware of "the great lie" with all of these approaches to dating, and are tired of wasting time with it. That is, the fantasy that the online conversation actually has any real meaning whatsoever.

No matter how much time you spend chatting or exchanging messages virtually, it is completely and utterly meaningless when held up against the first 5 minutes of that first in-person meet-up. So getting to that stage as quickly as possible tends to be the best for everyone.

While I agree with this in spirit, it isn’t the experience I had back in the early days of OLD before it became mainstream - I regularly got pushback for suggesting meeting up too early… there seemed to be a trust issue or maybe being too expedient meant looking for a hookup.

It’s certainly a component for sure, esp as the marketplace is so hard for guys meaning they’re willing to go to greater lengths to stand out… but I feel this is more an issue of the process being so transactional and transitory.

Back in the old days meeting somebody from the internet was "scary" because it was so new, and unusual.

These days I can think of many many friends who've had relationships start via online dating, and the stigma/weirdness has completely gone away.

>and the stigma/weirdness has completely gone away.

Well, not completely - anecdata but plenty of places on this planet (in the West too) where online dating = you are too desperate and you have no other options = stigma (especially for straight men).

I met my partner (of 3 years) on Tinder, and I agree this is a thing.

One thing she often says is I was within a hairs breath of being deleted, because we chatted on Tinder and then WhatsApp for a couple of weeks before our first date. For me it was natural, as I've always been comfortable chatting to people online (via IRC etc)

There is always the next match, looking better, funnier or whatever you are looking for... That's why.

I think a largely unsolved problem is it's more satisfying to match than to re-kindle a conversation with a past match. The window after a match where a conversation can spark and lead to an offline interaction is fleeting and, once gone, it feels weird to re-message a past match.

I feel like this is partly something the dating app companies do on purpose.

There is this inherent problem that if the dating app does its job well, it will inevitably lose the customer. The ideal customer does a lot of matching is more into hookups than actual dating, so the dating app in incentivized to optimize for this behavior rather than focusing on matching people based on character to increase the possibility of a long term relationship.

My wife actually did that for me.

She pinged me and we talked briefly, but at the time I had just gotten a new job a couple of hours away and was considering moving closer to the job (and away from her), and she didn't want to do anything long distance.

About a year later I had switched jobs back into the area, was still on the same dating platform, and she pinged me again. We've been together for over six years now.

Doesn't help that some dating apps archive your expired matches conversation so you don't even have the option of going back.

I think most dating apps right now target desperate people, since they pay huge amounts of money they could actually make up the majority of sales. There are other apps but I don’t think they’re successful or profitable enough to really stand out.

I think just meeting in-person will replace dating apps. There was a downward trend in chatting up strangers and in-person events, but I think that’s going back upward now. Because most people got lonely during the pandemic, and now that the vaccines are out hanging out is getting back to normal.

The fundamental issue is that dating apps don’t actually give you much information or preferences vs in-person, and most people who are attractive and looking for partners get in-person matches anyways.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com