First base is hooking up, second base is talking, third base is going on a date

Why not? It may be slightly exaggerated, but it rings pretty from my experience. From a biological perspective, the sole "purpose" of any animal, humans included, is to reproduce, which is accomplished by not dying and, for males, mating as much as possible. Why should we be surprised that this is an overwhelming urge?

I find it interesting how whenever I see people looking into data from dating sites drawing any conclusions from the data is written off as “incel talking points”. It’s pretty easy to do an experiment on dating sites where you control for other variables by testing for matches with photos and different descriptions and you’re going to find attractiveness is a large part of the effect because the point of these apps is casual sex.

I am interested with the derision people react with by even pointing out that the world of casual sex is not egalitarian particularly for men. I find it interesting that is a stigmatized fact.

> This feels like an incel talking point.

I mean, it is... because it's a fairly consistent finding across all dating apps. It's not uncommon for women to get hundreds of matches, whereas it's extremely common for 'average' men to get nothing but bots.

Whether this is indicative of people's "natural" behaviour is somewhat irrelevant because perception is reality, and the reality for many young men is that they don't feel attractive or desired by anyone. Swiping right hundreds of times and not receiving a single match is incredibly dejecting; of course, many don't realize that they're being manipulated and that "Tinder matches" != objective desirability.

> Especially considering that tinder controls algorithm and will just do whatever makes the most money.

Spot on.

I think it's also worth mentioning that the Match Group, which owns Tinder, has been aggressively purchasing dating apps and monetizing them in ways that intentionally sabotaged people's ability to find a partner. I believe the success of Tinder has also lead to them copying the same shallow and problematic mechanics (quickly swiping yes/no based on a picture) into other apps which previously tried to find meaningful matches for people.

Online dating has rapidly replaced traditional methods of meeting romantic partners. For many people, this (intentionally) dysfunctional system is all they've ever known, and is considered normal.

>This feels like an incel talking point.

I think you're probably right that it's a common talking point, but it is factual based on the data. Maybe that's why they consistently reference it?

That doesn't mean it isn't true. OkCupid used to publish all sorts of interesting data before they were bought by Match, including similar statistics to those.