The toll of dating app burnout
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
>She recommends that app users stop scrolling and talking to other matches once they have found nine people they feel some level of connection with, and dedicate their time to really trying to get to know those people first.
Oh, stop at nine? Well I'll let you know when I eventually hit nine concurrent matches. Hasn't happened yet, eight years and counting. I'm sure I'll be able to stop scrolling any year now. It's like reading about a different planet.
Again, there are male dominated niches, and if you consume media in those niches you do note a decided male bias to the content.
I'm not stating this to brag but only for context: I get many concurrent matches when I'm on dating apps. I'm wealthy, pretty good looking (but short which is a big hit), and have a lot of hobbies and am in good shape. Overall, I'd say I get ~100x more matches than most guys and actually have girls who slide into my DMs on Twitter and Instagram. I still deleted all of the apps because I'd rather meet women in real life and I'm way happier and suggest all guys do the same for their mental health.
Online dating doesn't compare to real life. Not saying it can't happen (my ex-ex-girlfriend and I met on Hinge and it was great), but it's just not the same. I find I can meet higher-quality women in real life because I can show up with full energy and depth and showcase confidence in a way that's impossible when she's looking at me in a sea of other matches. I also think dating apps are a bad deal for women as well. They meet a bunch of men who will sleep with them but aren't looking to settle down. It's hard for women to judge the real energy and confidence of a guy online. It's just not a great dynamic for both parties IMO unless you're exclusively looking to hook up (which is fine and people should do what they want).
I was too (and still to a degree am). I once shared a rental with a female socialite. She said she accepts EVERY invitation to go out and suggested I do the same.
Getting used to being around people and being in awkward situations where you have to talk to randoms will develop calluses. It is a skill you can develop by just practice. (public speaking is another example).
I look forward to talking to you in a random party! :)
Sitting at home watching Netflix all evening and doom scrolling won't get you invites.
One of my no-gos was going to weight room/area of the gym (I could tolerate cardio area) and one of the first homework activities things my therapist gave me was going to weight room and sitting for 5 mins to do some stretches. It was awful, but within a few months I slowly progressed to the point I was even confident enough to work with a personal trainer.
Slow but consistent incremental exposure to my triggers absolutely made a huge positive impact for me.
Due to a back injury (from pushing myself too hard, it wasn't just a shit-happens injury hencemy user name) that had me in horrible pain for the last 2 years I now get literal panic attacks in the environment I used to go to RESOLVE a panic attack. Ain't that some shit? My fear of reinjuring myself and going through the whole experience again is just too much. Even though I've learned my lesson and just desire to stay fit and functional I don't think I'll ever step foot in a traditional gym again. I like being able to sit down to make a poop in the morning without a burning ice pick shooting up my spine... I see what pro athletes talk about when a catastrophic injury and the painful and lonely recovery process robs them of the confidence to perform.
In between the pandemic and this injury the last 3 years have been very isolating. I've developed real fear of being in public from the amount of time I've been alone and physically confined. I feel like I got out of a 3 year relationship with a crazy overbearing girlfriend that no one could stand to be around and realizing how it just pushes people away.
Is getting better but doing things like progressing from a coffee to-go from a cafe, to actually sitting down for prescribed lengths of time and observing the waves of anxiety has been... interesting. You have to continually and willfully push your boundaries as you said but in safe increments the same way you increase your lifts in safe manageable increment. But it's hard to quantify how much more difficult one social setting or situation will be versus another. What's the "add 5 pounds" for exposure therapy? Haha. I'm sure it's different for every person.
I work with a therapist and it's going to be a process. Just started doing in office visits again. Social calluses indeed.
In the same way I associate discomfort and stress with progress in powerlifting (and subsequently in physical therapy) I try to tell myself that I'm not going to improve socially by putting myself only in comfortable situations.
Good luck. Looks like you've got a program that is working.
My experience, too, is that the energy of meeting someone in person is much better than "meeting" someone online. Also, it's much easier to qualify if the person you're dating is mentally stable and at ease with themselves if you see them in person. It's way too easy to hide serious character flaws when only chatting online. But for a relationship, they'll be deal-breakers.
That means unless you want to waste hours on dates that lead nowhere, you need to quickly meet the other person in-person to do the basic sanity check.
Plus there's all that pheromone stuff which is impossible to check for online.
I am sorry but this is BS. Mathematically speaking it's impossible.
It's the emotional component which makes people feel like perennial underdogs and say abominations like the above.
No matter how rich you are you can only bring one girl to a dinner date per night. Even a guy like Dan Bilzerian is on the record saying that a vacation in which he brings more than 8 girls rapidly becomes hell
What is true is that the top 1% of males is desired by 90% of women but that is also true the other way around given that men too have become extremely vulnerable to PR , advertisement and the promotional industry in general. So they deeply desire Kim Kardashian even though the college girl next door is probably conventinally hotter considering age and height.
Only if you assume the "dating pool" is 1:1 men/women. If you take the view that it's 10:1 men/women then that conclusion is "obvious."
And at least in the context of Tinder, I have read that the ratio of users leans men.
Rappers, actors and people who feel the need to bring 5 or 6 girls on a date, that's so rare that doesn't even merit counting. And also it ends up pretty quick.
Dinner is no longer a requirement. Being exclusive is no longer the assumed default.
What emotional component? Who said anything about dinner?
You bring a girl over at 6, then another at 8, then 10.
You have a different girl for every day of the week.
It's well known most girls during a certain period of their life will prefer to have a fraction of a high value guy than all of a low value guy.
And that girl has a different guy for every day of the week.
It's like war. You only occupy the territory you control with your line of fire.
Likewise you only occupy the time of the person who is with you. As soon as they are out the door then you don't occupy anything anymore and other people will.
It's not a new concept either. All Playboy bunnies had boyfriends and they devoted their time 85% to their boyfriends and 15% to Hefner.
Hefner got more variety in exchange for less claim on each individual Playboy bunny time.
I don't think he was suggesting that those successful men are dating 8 women concurrently - rather, that the other seven women themselves would rather be single than date anybody in the "bottom" 90%. I've been married for a long time now, but this matched my observations from back when I was dating, and from everything I've heard, things have gotten much, much worse for men since I left the market.
The basic problem is the dating apps have made the pool so large that they can keep trying to get the top 10% and the well never runs dry. Thus they don't settle for what they can actually get.
Thus you get a lot of men with no dates and a lot of women who get dates with men they aren't good enough to actually hook. In reality both sides lose.
That means dinner isn't required. Plus if the average unlucky guy has 1 date per 2 weeks, it would be entirely possible for a lucky guy to have 14x more dates. A 14:1 starting ratio leading to a 10:1 success ratio seems plausible to me.
Remember, for most people most days it's no date at all.
I've learned to really enjoy all the other feelings around sex not ejaculating and that has given me a whole new lease on the act and my partners have really, really appreciated that I don't go for 5 to 10 "cum and done".
There's tons of methods of training yourself out there. Just Google around. It really helps when dates are thinking if they should keep dating you.
And yes, sex isn't everything but good sex sure does help and it's an intrinsic, important part of coupling.
I agree 100% and echo the same.
> Just Google around.
Google and YouTube will give you pelvis exercises, and that’s “not” the solution. My friends with that syndrome have met therapists and doctors to no avail.
I've heard these numbers passed around but does anyone have a source for this? I ask in part because my own life experiences and observations match well with your first sentence - a person who works on themselves, IE: has hobbies and activities, has a viable career, etc - will be attractive to someone out there in the world. There is a body size and shape that will appeal to everyone, education and career are negligible as long as you are doing "something" with your life, etc.
I do not believe this to be true just based on what I observe in my social circles. It might be a bit skewed but these numbers sound absurd - do you have any source to back them up?
Men and women are not so different.
Like I just don't understand the scenario here?
Post college, it just feels like online data is the only real option.
That said, you want to target the underachievers, not the people who are seriously doing the activities.
I hike. I've met multiple people out there who see it as a way to meet the opposite sex. Oops--every man I've met doing this is in male-dominated groups, every woman I've met doing this is in female-dominated groups. Difficulty levels, not sexism.
But here's some suggestions: bus stops, the park next to a bakery, library if you like books, art classes, sports events, museums, opera, larp if you like costumes, some cafes and cinemas have singles events, boat tours, zoo
I'd advise against clubs, beaches, or sauna if you don't feel confident yet, because those locations are unnecessary difficult.
And basically any place where something predictable happens that you and other people can stop and look at and talk about is easy. Like if you stand next to a construction site, girls who want to talk to you will have an obvious topic to initiate the conversation with.
It only means that your (purely online, purely digital) presentation in your dating profile isn't as good as it could be. But whether they like your profile text is almost uncorrelated to the fact whether the same women would enjoy spending time with you in real life.
Plus there's ghostwriters, photoshop, and other services to fix your profile if you really want to. Or did you expect others to actually look in real-life like they look in their photoshopped Face-app-ed Tinder pictures? In that case, you've been comparing yourself to other people's aspirational advertising. There's a reason why even for models the RAW files of their photo-shoots are under NDA.
The most contagious stuff in the world is genuine excitement and happiness. And I'd put pheromones at a close 2nd. But both only work if you do some social group activity in-person with others. In my opinion, social media and online dating exist purely to agree on date/time/location to meet in person.
I'm not saying I want to meet someone at work. But, work is the 2nd most common place to meet someone. Friends are #1 but as I mentioned my friends don't come through here.
Bars don't seem my thing. I am going to a dance event regularly but so far nothing there and even then, I can't talk while I dance as I need to concentrate on getting the moves right (it's a well known style of dance, not just club dancing)
Trying to go to meetups but COVID is still a thing so outdoors only. And it can be burn out on those two because rarely is there anyone I might be interested in. (single, age appropriate, and seem compatible). I know it's a numbers game, I just am running out of ideas on how to increase the numbers.
The apps don't work for me. I get at most 3~4 dates a year out of them. It's better than zero but not by much.
Consider paying for them. From a male perspective, it’s strictly a numbers game.
Tinder Platinum did wonders for me. Saves your time, and gets you pushed higher in the stack of the cards, which leads to more matches.
What's the outcome when everyone pays for it?
Back to the popularity contest, and virtually impossible to use without paying.
Or they’ll just add a higher tier.
It’s a very cruel numbers game.
It’s very dependent on the age group (and of course, people themselves).
I’d be willing to bet that in 18-25 (maybe even higher) age group most people are looking to have fun, not get married.
unintentional blindside question in a softball interview
I was paying £69 a year for Tinder Gold and then £99 a year for Tinder Platinum.
Having laws is one thing, enforcing them is another.
Just look at the huge number of websites that are not GDPR compliant.
TBH, being GDPR compliant isn't that hard, just don't track your users lol. A lot of the web was GDPR compliant by default 20 years ago.
I.E. don’t take shots with perfectly styled hair, a leather jacket, and a motorcycle, if your day to day and date attire will be a t-shirt and jeans and you’re going to arrive on an e-scooter.
That means: on concerts, on hacking camps, in art exhibitions, especially exhibition openings, on film sets etc. These places reflect my interests of course, so I don't go there because of women, I go there because the stuff there interests me. So for you it could be a sports club, a library, an animal rights organization or any number of other, similar places where people of similar interest gather.
The point is: if you want to get to know people (regardless of their gender) exposing yourself to situations where you actually get the chance to meet new people is a good way to increase your chances. Just like your chances of rolling a 6 increase with every roll of the dice.
The important thing is to do it because you like, not because you expect to find women there.
> The important thing is to do it because you like,
As I said, I do, but none of the things I like involve enough people of the opposite sex. It doesn't help that I'm old so it might be true there are some 20 somethings at a hacking event but there are no 50 somethings.
Boring redpill ideology stuff.
Of course, the phrasing is dumb as hell.
There's also a definite error. Note that an ugly guy who brings himself up to normal with surgery doesn't go through the neurotypical question. That arrow should go back to the top.
> looksmaxx, moneymaxx, surgerymaxx
> daygame, nightgame, warm approach
The language itself reveals deeper structuring principles in terms of truths/untruths, from which the knowledge presented in the chart arises.
The problem isn't that it's ideology; the NYT is equally ideological (ironically I had a far more visceral negative response to the angle of the OP article than to the above chart). The problem isn't even necessarily that it's TRP/manosphere ideology, but that it's treated unreflexively.
The question that immediately comes to mind is "why are the only categories 'sub5', 'normie', and 'chad'? What grounding principles must I assume in order to decide which of these categories I'm a part of?" Same goes for the proposed actions: what worldview must I assume so that these action-words "make sense", are coherent?
I can't speak for everyone, but when I personally dig into these questions, the answers I arrive at don't align with the other ways I elect to live in the world. I'm not saying the chart is "wrong", but rather that it's not relevant, for me at least.
I'm so far removed from this stuff generally I didn't really understand anything in that sentence (lol)
I went to a travel blogging meetup at one last year (hosted by library staff members), some events on making podcasts, regular board game nights at another, and there's a whole maker lab set up in the basement of my nearest library, with 3D printers, multiple sound recording rooms, multiple video recording studios, a vinyl cutter, a laser cutter and computers with Adobe suite installed on them that you can use pretty much whenever.
Just looking at next month at adult events at my nearest library: yoga, drawing with pencils and charcoal class, conversational ESL, STEM workshop, a DIY craft event, a cooking class, photography club, meditation class, mixing live albums with Logic Pro class, dungeons and dragons event, coffee and conversation event, business topics workshop, folk art craft diy, trivia night, open mic night, aztec dancing event, line dancing, toastmasters (public speaking), film club, financial planning talk, 24 hour comic book creation event, state paranormal history talk, knitting, writers group, and several book club events. That's not even the kid or teen events. That's a lot, and a wide variety of things.
Re: concerts and libraries, you meet people outside of them (for concerts, in line for them, or in the pit waiting for the show to start), not at them per se.
I don't know about "hacking camps" (hackathons? code boot camps?) — never been to one — but a close cousin of these, [industry niche] startup events, tend to attract just as many business cofounders as technical cofounders; and the business cofounders tend to be an even gender split. (They also attract seed-stage VC scouts and marketing people, and these jobs actually tend to lean female.)
> As I said, I do, but none of the things I like involve enough people of the opposite sex.
So... take up some new hobbies?
And when I say that, I don't mean to work "bottom up" starting from what you might like; but rather, "top down", starting from what hobbies your ideal partner might have, and then filtering those for which ones you feel at least amicably neutral about. E.g. if you feel like you'd enjoy being with someone who's also 50yo and "creative", and you're not against e.g. painting, or pottery, or creative writing; then attend a continuing-education course on one of those. Because that's where you'll find other 50yos trying to learn those things.
I think people are going to be weirded out by someone hitting on them at a business event.
However, I should note that as a technical cofounder attending these events, I've been approached and flirted with heavily by single female entrepreneurs who have ideas they haven't started building yet, who seem to be looking for a convenient all-in-one package of "a boyfriend who's also an entrepreneur, who can 'yes, and' my ambitions, and who has enough skill+experience to actually build the tech side of the things we imagine together." I'm neither single, nor a free agent business-wise, but some people can be both very pushy and presumptive.
The first step is always getting to know the other person. Hitting on the other person with romantic interest from the start is a sure way not to get to know them in a low pressure environment. If you get to know the other first, they also get to know you. Typically you'd be searching for someone you are willing to spend your time with, and who is willing to spend time with you. And this is only a feasible endeavour if you know them and they know you.
That means: Your goal is not to find someone to "hit on", your goal is to get to know people. You can still explore if the other is interested in a little bit more, once it is established that you find them interesting and they find you interesting.
My experience is there is a good number of 50 somethings in tango.
And like I said elsewhere, it's much more of a café scene than a bar scene, making it easier to socialize.
Hacking camps are sure not a typical source of women, but what I said was not "search places where women are", but rather "put yourself out there, but in places that match your interest". If it turns out that place has no women at all, sure that won't help for that purpose. Keep in mind that I cited examples that worked for a young (35-ish) person like me.
It is not easy to find someone you like, regardless of gender, but putting yourself out there is one of the best ways to do it. Even if your thing is IT, there might be places that need it. E.g. a friend did IT for kids in need and he certainly met one ore another women his age there.
they often complain they are made to feel uncomfortable by that
If you're worried you will be perceived as a creep then you need to work on your delivery/how you approach strangers.
Members of the opposite sex are just people. They want to be treated normally. My most successful male friend(in terms of dating) just treats females like they're normal people. He pretty much never has trouble and he is a 6 at most with a shitbox car.
I used to think women only care about money etc; and That is true..for a certain subset of women. So many more don't care at all, and just want a nice loyal person who won't shit on them. And yes, you need to moderately TRY to look attractive. Go to the gym, get a proper haircut, stop wearing those shitty jeans and ugly shoes. YOU also need to put in effort, it's not just on the other gender.
Just a suggestion. You think he is a "6" but you are probably wrong because you are unable to view him from the perspective of a woman's gaze. See my other post in my profile's comments about the flow chart stuff.
I appreciate your input though!
You work on getting to know people as friends, some of whom you may consider dating.
Compare to most of the relationships I've had, those were people I knew 6+ months before we got interested in each other. Classmates, co-workers, group friends.
i started climbing and bouldering recently and while I haven't met anyone romantically (I have no interest in pushing this, I want to do it for the hobby first, and for meeting people second), the group I go with usually has more women than men and in the gyms it seems to be about a 50/50 split so I can easily see how you could meet someone there in the way you imagine.
though I must emphasize not to do it to meet women as the primary purpose, I feel like that's kind of creepy vs. an event that is explicitly for that purpose (like single bars or whatever).
just seconding this. the gym is already a pretty tough environment and people coming for this purpose make it outright hostile. it's not a bar.
do climb though, it's a great way to get strong and do something fun!
* It's a natural two-person activity with a bidirectional trust exercise.
* Heights provide a little amygdala stimulation.
* It's hard and physical and you feel like you deserve a beer afterwards.
* If your date is not already a climber, you get to play the role of the teacher/master.
* It weeds out the extremely uptight / neurotic.
that said, it does make for a good first date and i definitely got a bunch of random people into climbing that way... =)
So you do know where to look, you just don't want to look there.
YMMV but that's the case in my area in Europe. Maybe the US has a different culture.
There are also quality bars.
The Hollywood scene where girls hang around alone by the bar waiting for guys to hit on them doesn't exist here.
If you want to go to a bar and meet other people, go to one with a pool table. Hitting on women is much smoother when you meet their girlfriend's boyfriend first, and better tolerated whether she's interested or not.
I don't know that it exists anywhere anymore. It can be dangerous for a woman to out drinking alone.
But ladies do go out in groups. As a guy you just have to be nice and chat up the group and don't get hyper focused on any one person. None of them are probably going to drop everything and go home with you that night. But you can often get a phone number (or two) and go on a real date from that.
And, my experience doesn't seem to indicate that meeting interesting people in bars only happens in certain countries.
That said, I didn't necessarily go to the bars or nightclubs purely with the objective of dating. I went there to have fun, dance and meet people (men and women).
It's on you to figure out how to do that without making it weird.
He might not even drink!
Order water.
That's why dating is a multi billion dollar industry.
not just for dating, for all kinds of 'network reboot'. doesn't have to be traditional grad school either, any kind of high-investment cohort-based bonding experience should do it
agree with you that hollowing out of local institutions is rough, esp for over-30s post-pan. The web has not done a good job of delivering IRL social networks; tinder is IMO fairly good at this, with the caveat that it's impossible to turn the connections into a true community
The tradeoffs though... like student loan debt!
Is that ballroom dance with lead/follower? If that's the case, I cannot recommend it enough. It's hard as hell in the first couple of years, but then you'll grasp it. See this graph for the learning curve of ballroom dancing, and don't give up [1].
[1]: https://www.salsafs.com/site/assets/articles/learning_curve....
I love ballroom, been doing it more or less since high school (10+ years and some breaks), but I wouldn't really use this curve for any other reason than to motivate new men to attend classes.
In the beginning, followers may have a slightly easier time since it's probably a bit easier for a follower to learn from a more advanced leader than the other way around, but this plateaus pretty soon (low single digit months).
Also, leaders tend to pick and followers accept / reject, so in that respect, "attractive followers" will have a bit of an easier time (more offers) than if you're a shy, not very attractive leader.
But that's mostly just for newcomers. Eventually, few dances in, people get familiar with your level and you with theirs in a given group. And I've yet to see a place where one could get no partners, even as a "beginner with only a handful of introductory classes" (unless through some pretty obvious breaches of ethics / personal hygiene).
Eventually (maybe a few months in), both leaders and followers have to do some introspection and practice things like technique, posture and musicality. And there's simply no way other than mindful practice.
On a dating app women are happy to swipe left and see who's next but when there is a man right in front of them the calculus is way different.
I'd like to counter-argue with a quote from this random Reddit thread in /r/AskWomen [1] titled "What is one place you hate to be hit on?":
> Grocery store. I'm just like, dude, leave me alone, I'm here to get my food and get out as quickly as possible. I'm not interested in having to pretend not to be annoyed by you interrupting my day, fuck off.
And I'd like to point out that "Earth" is also an answer there.
I feel for the OP because he's stuck between a rock and a hard place: hitting on women is often annoying for the woman being hit on, but at the same time not hitting on women means that he can only date people who he meets for reasons other than dating. It's like a Zen riddle: "What is that which you can only have once you stop desiring it?".
This is the landscape that gave rise to the hell we call "dating apps", and I really wish we had something better.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskWomen/comments/pzojno/what_is_on...
It's just so easy to understand when you look at it logically. Talking to people (skillfully, which requires practice) will eventually lead to befriending some percent of those you talk to. Befriending people will lead to more opportunities to befriend others from a place of more trust. It's a simple networking process.
Eventually, some percent of the people you're meeting and befriending will be love interests. There will be mutual attraction, especially when you don't come across as desperate. Eventually some small percent of these mutual attractions will also be compatible partners under the right circumstances.
It's just a numbers game!
The problem is people design their conversion funnels all wrong. At the top of the funnel is conversations, then acquaintances, friends, mutual interests, compatible interests, partners.
At every stage there is a network/feedback effect leading to more input at the top of the funnel.
Go talk to people!
"Do you know a good brand of pasta sauce? I don't like garlic, and it seems everything has garlic in it."
"Are the waist sizes honest here? I'm a 36 but some places that's like 40 inches."
And leave it at that. Maybe somebody will continue the conversation, but most won't. It's a numbers game.
I recognize that feeling! It took me a long time before it disappeared. Practice helps a lot. And if you forget a move, it's okay to get back to the basic (assuming you are doing a partner dance and not a line dance - I suck at line dances).
I don't know which style of dance you mean. You may consider different dance styles.
I did a bit of ballroom in grad school, then years later learned salsa, then added tango, then some swing and other dance styles (modern, Scottish country, Swedish folk dance).
Each one has a different social scene. Where I lived, tango tends towards older people, and is usually combined with a social/café scene (a milonga). "Older" means 40s and up.
Salsa is more at clubs. As a bouncer once pointed out, he loved the energy of the dancers, but they don't drink much so it doesn't make much revenue for the bar.
It took a couple of years of salsa classes, and dancing salsa elsewhere, before I realized that I didn't like the salsa style my teacher taught, and preferred another studio. So that's also something to consider.
Swing tended to be a younger, more energetic crowd (late teens/20s), with dance events at more specialized locales that had more open space (where I was, that was generally a yoga/dance studio or the OddFellows Hall, which hosted a lot of smaller dance events).
My limited ballroom experience was that the higher levels tend towards ballroom studios. I got the feeling that engineers lean towards ballroom because there are more specific steps and progressions to learn.
The folk dancing scene is pretty laid back. The basics aren't hard to learn, and people will help you with them. It's the most family-friendly of the dances I did, with quieter music, and more often held outside (if the weather is good) because it doesn't need a special dance floor.
For what it's worth, at my peak I was dancing about 25 hours per week. I met my wife at a dance event, held at bar.
Other things I did, to meet people, were local community college classes (as a new resident to the state, I like the local state history course the best; the teacher also hosted a monthly local history event, which I went to - nearly everyone was 55 and older so I was the youngest by far) and Sierra Club hikes.
>I suspect that most volunteer coordinators will be happy with volunteers who are perhaps not passionate but do turn out when they say they will, arrive prepared, and do the work. Agreed.
Volunteering with a political campaign where the candidate's promises are strongly appealing to young people is probably the sweet spot in terms of meeting young people.
In which country COVID is still a thing that prevents indoors meetings?
Regardless, outdoor there is a world of events happening; it isn't just "indoors". Just check on meetup.com.
> I can't talk while I dance as I need to concentrate on getting the moves right (it's a well known style of dance, not just club dancing)
At social dances, dancers often socialize on the sides of the dance floor, taking a break rather than dancing the whole evening; socializing or not is very much a choice.
I think you're confusing unable to go to indoor meetings versus unwilling.
The majority of swing dance socials will have very low levels of intoxication (because everyone is there to dance!), and it is a social atmosphere where it is expected and encouraged to introduce yourself to strangers and ask them to dance. If you are a man (or dance the lead role), don't worry about not being able to do so much fancy stuff while you're dancing. Often, experienced followers are perfectly happy to try out individual stylistic variations while the leader holds a nice steady basic.
I'd recommend going with the intention of trying to expand your social circle, and seeing where you end up!
> dance
Alternatively, aim to make friends, and meet THEIR friends. This is always the absolutely best way
I figured I'd add a bit of guidance in addition to "go with the intention of expanding your social circle" since I'm writing another message, for anyone that is interested:
* Start going to swing dance classes (I recommend Lindy Hop for beginners)
* In classes, say hello to all the people you dance with as you rotate, ask how they are doing, and start gradually making small talk focused around whatever moves you're learning that day (though not to the point of distracting from the class!)
* Chances are some people coming to the class will be in couples. If there is one partner of the couple who you small talk a bit more freely with, at the beginning or the end of the classes, go and say hi and make some small talk with those couples, get to know their partners too
* As a single person going to classes it's generally a lot more relaxed talking to couples than other single people to start with
* Slowly start including others (couples or single people) in these pre/post class conversations
* At this point everyone is probably still terrified at the idea of going to a social dance, thinking they aren't "good enough" yet
* Make a group chat with the people you've been talking to before and after classes with the goal of coordinating a social dance that everyone can go to together so they don't feel so terrified of going alone
* Add more and more people from the classes to the group chat, and more and more of the nice people you meet at the dances to the group chat (others in the group chat will be doing this too!)
* Before you know it, you'll have a new social circle of 20+ friends, hooray!
Drinking alcohol at the alcohol place is not an interesting thing.
Few things. First, why is covid still a thing? You can just as easily catch it on a date or at work, just go to the indoor meetups. I'm in a liberal big city in the US and covid isn't a thing anymore. It's been three years. I don't want to die alone, do you? I had long COVID, it sucks, but it's unfortunately not an option.
Second, some meetups have different people going to it in each event. Those are the date targets. But, focus on making friends there, this happens if you go regularly, weekly, to the same ones.
Are you doing competitive dancing?
If you’re dancing for fun yet you’re more concerned about dancing “properly” than you are about just socializing, people are probably wondering why you’re taking it so seriously.
I took years of dance lessons, and at my peak was dancing about 25 hours per week. My social life was my dance friends, made after I started taking it so seriously. My friends also went to dance lessons, and worked to get the moves right. My now-wife, for example, studied for a year to be a ballroom dance instructor then taught courses and private lessons.
In traveling dances like tango and waltz, the lead must learn not only the basic forward motion, but also how to turn corners, and how to avoid people. At the beginning, this took me a lot of effort. My first few tango milongas were mostly "step, step, stop, think; repeat" unable to hold a conversation and dance at the same time.
Things got better once I had enough practice in moving about floor, but at the beginning, it was tough.
And that was after several years of salsa dancing. A real beginning tango dancer would likely have it worse.
There are also people who believe "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well."
And some people have a sort of impostor syndrome - they know they are beginners, they see the better dancers, and they think people won't like them or dance with them until they get better. This is wrong, but the solution isn't to suggest stop taking it so seriously, but to get those dancers to know it really is okay to be a beginner dancer - everyone was a beginner once. "Taking it seriously" is respected because that's what those better dancers did to become better.
There's also the opposite - beginners who want to learn more complicated moves right away, before they even get the basics down, and end up making the follow annoyed for being lead into uncomfortable positions, being stepped on, etc. To anyone reading - don't be like that.
I think the best thing you can do is focus on yourself, particularly by cultivating hobbies that you enjoy—bonus points if they’re things you can enjoy alone and with others, because they’re easy inroads and great first dates (worst case you get to spend a bit of time doing something you like!).
The second thing I’d encourage is to get any potential dealbreakers out of the way early (e.g. religion, political views, desires for parenthood, career aspirations). It’s a slow path, but it’s helped me avoid the major pitfalls I’ve seen in my friend’s’ and colleagues’ relationships.
But first you have to meet the person to go on a date with.
I usually don't talk while dancing with someone too, but social partnered dancing is how I met my wife. You don't have to be super social, but hopefully you naturally form some friends out dancing you can talk with while you're sitting out a dance. Just the act of being friendly and social with others puts you in the right situation; women usually prefer someone like that to someone sitting by themselves silently.
I don't know what's the universal experience regarding this, but for me and other people I know, males are extreme disadvantage in the context of dating apps; this applies also to the app that supposedly reverses the roles.
I have the suspicion that the elephant is the room is that for men, online dating takes many, many hours (I can't quantify, but an hour a day or so, seems the minimum to me) of effort, often for nothing (I definitely know at least one man who's able to game the system, but he's an exception).
This is definitely a recipe for burnout, and it's very specific to online dating . If one wants to find potential mates, any organized activity (sports, etc. - Meetup is perfect) will do; the effort to talk to a potential partner, in that case, is virtually zero.
lucky for me I suppose I got married before dating apps became a thing..
It says that women rate most men as less attractive than average, yes. But then women are quite willing to message men who are rated as less attractive than average.
Meanwhile, the men rank attractiveness on a shockingly mathematical-looking curve. However, at the same time, men overwhelmingly refuse to message any but the most attractive of women.
Thus, if you're an average-looking man, your odds of getting messages are actually greater than they are for an average-looking woman.
Untrue. If you're an average-looking man your share of female-to-male messages is greater than an average-looking woman's share of male-to-female messages. The woman is still getting a far larger number of messages.
No, they don't, or at least it isn't shown in that data. Those graphs refer to the proportions of messages for each gender, not raw numbers. Each male user sends 3.5 times as many "first contact" messages as each female user, according to their 2016 data.
average-looking women are disadvantaged because men appear to be far more selective than women are:
Absolutely agree. But they're disadvantaged against other women, not against men, if you're measuring by, as you specified, "the odds of getting messages". An average man will receive fewer messages than an average woman.
The point is, while average-looking men are disadvantaged by the sheer number of men on these apps, average-looking women are disadvantaged because men appear to be far more selective than women are:
"2/3 of male messages go to the top 1/3 of women. When it comes down to actually choosing targets, men choose the modelesque. Someone like roomtodance above gets nearly 5 times as many messages as a typical woman and 28 times as many messages as a woman at the low end of our curve. Site-wide, two-thirds of male messages go to the best-looking third of women. So basically, guys are fighting each other 2-for-1 for the absolute best-rated females, while plenty of potentially charming, even cute, girls go unwritten."
It's unclear what you mean by more selective. If you're an average woman, you get more inbound interest than an average man. The tricky statistical massaging you're doing amounts to "well men are even more open-minded when it comes to more attractive woman." But that doesn't make sense: if a man has sent you a message, does it suddenly become half a message if he then messages someone else? You're penalizing men on open-mindedness for messaging more women.
That said, the blog post is weirdly presented and its graphs a bit misleading because of the skewed distributions. What would be most useful is comparing the median number of messages received by men and the median number of messages received by women (or best of all calculating the Gini indices of the respective distributions), instead of bothering to use the star ratings at all.
ETA:
> Divide the all raw numbers by 3.5, the rates will stay the same.
You're misunderstanding the data. It's not that men collectively send 3.5/4.5 of the messages; it's that each individual man sends 3.5 times as many messages as an individual woman. I.e. it already corrects for there being more men on the app. If men comprise 2/3 of users on dating apps, that means that 87.5% of all first messages are sent by men.
Any research/analysis on the topic pales compared to reality.
Here's what happens in real world ("Tinder Experiment: 18 Yr Old Woman Tries Being A Man!!!"): https://youtu.be/DZTIbHIsIYw?t=615. It's a larger view compared to the number of messages, but the principle still applies.
There's really aa difference between what men and women expect, and also between what they say and what they do. I'm pretty honest when I talk with someone, something serious and compromises are not on my horizon, a lot of women discard me when I say that, and I'm ok with it, but sometimes I continue talking with them, and they told me how many man lie saying that they want something just to get on the their bed sheets and they disappear after that. Overall, I found some great people and nice aquitances, but the time I had spent is not despreciable.
The net result is that neither men or women match easily, in many cases it's a tragedy of the commons. Even on the "app that reverses the roles" it's difficult to match to likely partners for either gender.
Just thinking about it makes me want to start dating again, it'd be like ad-block but for crypto bros.
I'm ready for the sarcasm
> auto-blocked if you didn't make it past the filter
This, if it could be made people-friendly, would be perfect. Block based on non-real and mis-spelled words to stay a step ahead of anyone trying to evade the filter with "dik", as well as filtering based on phrase, and down to the word. Then just auto-prioritize a list of words on a per-person basis, and let the rest be left as-is.
It may not scale perfectly, but it'll be fun until Match group apes your product, makes it pay-to-play, and puts you out of business.
Ratio is actually 3:1 and I agree with your viewpoint partly. People just keep swiping while talking to each other, so I don't see why x would be taking more time than y, however, women do indeed also need to spend that time finding their matches and QA them (excuse the engineering term), so I don't believe there are any parties winning here.
Of course, this requires having and maintaining the type of relationship with family and friends where this is possible.
This type of “screening” value provided by brokers is not limited to dating, but also any low frequency, high cost transaction such as real estate, businesses, hiring workers, etc. This is the less cynical side of “it is not what you know, it is who you know”, meaning that the cost of evaluating certain risks can be so high that it is worth offloading that onto one’s network.
It's not exactly surprising that the top % of men that most women keep matching with treat them as disposable. To those men they are.
This makes the common mistake in assuming that when a man gets a match, the majority of time it will be a good, high quality one that puts equal effort into the dating process. This is not the case.
Dating apps, as for-profit publicly-traded enterprises, have no incentive to work on fixing the problem
The only way out of this would be for a non-profit fully-FOSS dating platform to be created that considers satisfying its users dating objectives its one and only priority, rather than seeing them as a source of income. Make matching more likely by applying two-way filters in the swipe queue, discourage pointless accumulation of matches by clout-chasers and attention junkies, refuse any gamification, don't offer any feature for money but encourage donation on successful connection, and make "engagement" a negative KPI—the KPI should be how many users successfully connect to another and stop using the app, and how quickly they achieve it in terms of app usage.
Of course, setting up something like this would require significant effort and "investment" with no hope of profit. It's in my bucket list of plans on how to become a millionaire (from billionaire, that is).
Please don't come to my clubs looking to get laid -- parasitic mentality.
Creating a Meetup group that filters all the horny trolls out of it is such a hassle. If a workplace can be toppled by one errant affair, small club groups can implode off the wrong wink.
Idiots trying to use my Meetup groups as a stand-in for dates suck all the air out of the room.
To be clear, I'm not implying that's your motivation but just as there are bad extremes in the behaviour of some attendees and organisers, so are there extremes in the gatekeeping and sensitivity of others. Both are regrettable.
Then why say it? Comes across to me like a "no offense but..."
Well, offense taken.
I'm not puritanical and neither are the clubs I was referring to. However, American culture is so puritanical that they can't even think straight about sex -- can't even talk about and don't know how to get it.
And so idiots (all of them) end up at my tabletop clubs, my hiking clubs, my movie clubs, my woodworking clubs, and then chase someone's butt the whole time.
That makes it really uncomfortable for everyone else and also usually uncomfortable for whoever's butt is being chased. And then a club has to spend social energy creating a Code of Conduct and wondering who will enforce it.
Horndogs need not apply.
That doesn't excuse idiocy and horndoggery but social networking (and by extension improving dating chances) is a perfectly valid and ethical path to take beyond the advertised scope of the group.
Tinder specifically should be sued out of existence. It ignores location, will happily tell you your boost has been a "success" without a single match or you'll get a couple from 7,000 miles away. It's outright fraud.
Jokes aside... Dating apps suck. Generally so does going on first dates. So does interviewing for a job. So does making new/any friends.
Lots of things are hard and are a numbers game. The nice part is that HOPEFULLY you only have to hit a home run once. You don't have to become an expert at dating. You just have to try enough to meet someone who is as weird and fucked up as you and wants to spend a lot of time being weird and fucked up together.
If a given app has been snatched up by Match, it's almost certainly being optimized towards having you addicted to swiping.
The other 80% of men are pretty much ignored. As a counter reaction, they deploy a dragnet approach. Spamming many low effort messages as any love is good love.
Painting with a broad brush here, obviously.
Sure some guys take the scattergun approach, but I think also a lot of men are being too picky and swiping past good matches.
But I do very much agree with your overall point that this is an incredibly unnatural way to date. Reduce a full human to a 3 second review based on near-zero info and match it to some arbitrary shopping checklist as if people are a utility.
Perhaps that does break the dynamic somewhat. It's more like a slot machine. The lady in the article spent close to a decade spending hours per day just swiping. That's not dating, it's hardcore addiction.
> Abby, 28, has been on dating apps for eight years […]. A committed user, she can easily spend two or more hours a day piling up matches, […]. Not a single long-term relationship has blossomed from her efforts.
Perhaps if you can’t find what you’re looking for in 8 years and 6000+ man-hours, the problem is you?
Survivorship bias. I have friends who found their partners on there, too. But I got ten times more friends who did not get anything meaningful out of dating apps.
Surely after 8 years this person might have looked back on failed relationships, and tried to understand why they've failed. Is it because of the dating apps, and if so, why precisely? Is it because of the people on dating apps?
I feel like pointing fingers at dating apps in general is just wrong.
Maybe. Just some speculation here, but she might be looking for some kind of perfect man. Lots of people might seem perfect, but being perfect is quite something else. I would think finding a matching personality would be a better aim.
Also, some people are quite suspicious and jealous, which are not attractive traits. The same counts for a certain aggressive attitude, and yes, many women have certain ways of coming accross as aggressive.
Then there is the general issue that many people on dating sites are casual daters and not looking for the same as you. A lot of people that are good at relationships are already in a relationship. The people not being good at them will end up more on a dating site. Just a statistics thing, nothing directly personal.
And something else... How do you recognize your life partner? I knew a friend who told me of a date, and she knew he was the right guy the moment she saw him. They are now together more than 10 years. I don't have that nose and am trying to refine my nose in that regard.
The overwhelming majority of men will never get a single date from online dating.
You can do a lot of things to improve your level of attractiveness. Most of us don't roll out of bed looking like a peach, it takes conscious and consistent effort.
I'd say unless the girl is from out of town and it's a weekend you have to pretend you want a relationship even if you just want fun.
This wrongly presumes that every girl on Tinder wants a relationship. Not to mention that it’s very dishonest.
1) Be attractive. 2) Don't be unattractive.
You probably want to date people in the top 5 or 10% of your target sex/gender/age range. As does everyone else in the expanded pool that people can now access with the internet or the apps. Everyone has probably been told by the apps that they can get someone in the top 5 or 10% of what is available to them, so will feel unhappy with anyone else.
Most women will probably notice this as guys will only want to have sex with them if they are not what guys have been told they 'deserve' by the apps / society, or guys may settle for them if they are content with getting sex. A few will be able to optimally choose a guy or get all of the casual sex that they desire.
Most guys will probably find that no-one wants to connect with them at all without payment, or getting something out of the deal or will be treated as if they don't exist. Things are probably really bad if they are in the bottom 10 to 30% in desirability. A few will be able to optimally choose a woman or get all of of casual sex that they desire.
I am not sure about subcultures / non-cis / non-het groups or situations outside my country as I don't have experience of dating them and don't know how things work.
"Everyone has probably been told by the apps that they can get someone in the top 5 or 10% of what is available to them, so will feel unhappy with anyone else." -- I think the fact that these apps have instilled a sense of "I can do better" attitude is probably one of the core problems here. So, I would still probably hold the dating apps responsible.
Then it changes dating a lot. Before, you often people from your extended social circle. You met people at your hobbies, at uni or even work, or when going out. You could ask common acquaintances to check someone out. And you had at least some kind of social connection.
And dating apps remove all ambiguity. You are not in an innocent everyday situation where you happen to like somebody, you start flirting and you move closer and see what happens. It is clear from the beginning that you are both there looking for something. I would find that immensely stressful, everything becomes a performance. I can't flirt "on cue" and I've heard the same from other people.
I wonder how modern dating would look like if the financial incentives of the app company was not the main driver. Maybe you'd have some "neutral" social network that people use IRL where dating was just an emergent side function? But maybe I'm biased because that's how online dating looked like in my early 20s?
That’s basically what Instagram is.
But I’ve used the dating apps, and I really don’t understand what the issue is with them. They’re a great way to meet people.
There is. It’s instagram, and “sliding into” a stranger’s DMs is how you walk across the room and say hi to someone you’re attracted to.
This is precisely what I find appealing. Maybe I'm just socially deficient, but I find it stressful to navigate the ambiguity of real life encounters. Especially in todays climate where unsolicited advances can get you in trouble.
I prefer to avoid flirting. In my experience, flirting can be done with anybody, I could even flirt with a male person. The person is interchangeable in flirting. Being curious about the person and shared interests and especially the shared view on relationships is for me a good way to start a conversation.
But now I do flirt with people I want to befriend as well as date. Lots of eye contact and smiling. Quick gentle touches on the shoulder to emphasize a point or accompany laughter. Extra acknowledgement of their points, ideas, viewpoints. Light, pleasant teasing ("Look at you, stunning everyone with your outfit, Okay, I see you over there").
Gotta be willing to try on new personas and interpersonal behaviors. Maybe take an improv class.
So although dating cultures have changed, people really overestimate the effect of dating apps.
I've simply accepted that I'm going to be single unless something dramatic happens in my life.
Quitting actually helped me recover from depression and now I'm alone and somewhat happy, while before I was a constantly dissatisfied mess. Hope you find someone if that's what you want, but just so you know, you can do well alone.
I'm 39 and single, although I have decent success offline when I expend any effort.
The women who I've dated in real life--I'm pretty sure they'd all ignore me on the dating app. Phrased differently, I find the women I've actually dated far more attractive (not only physically) than any who will engage with me online.
Agreed.
>unless something dramatic happens in my life.
I will kindly suggest that maybe that dramatic thing is you and what you will do starting today. e.g. Look at suggestions from others, NOT talking about apps.
For most straight men - dating apps are a form of purgatory and Sisyphusian efforts. The difference is so starkly different compared to all of the other people I know who aren’t straight men. Only straight men I know who don’t have these issues tend to be incredibly physically attractive to the point where they’d have women come up to ask them out on dates everyday. (Unheard of for an average man)
My advice is to pickup activities where women are and that have a natural social element. There are almost none of these btw. Social dancing is about the only one that exists still. The rest of activities out there that are social and involve meeting new people are completely dominated by men. Just brutally so. Most women I know don’t go out to meet new people via social activities like dancing. They go to insular parties, hang out with core group of friends, or stay home and watch Netflix. Very few are truly outgoing and willing to take the leap and meet new people by themselves. I can count on maybe one hand all the women I’ve met who are like that - and I’ve met thousands.
Similarly, many comments have talked about bars not being a good place to meet single women. From my experience this also isn’t true. You don’t walk up to a girl alone at the bar like in the movies though - you’re friend group mingles with another friend group, and one person in that friend group is probably single. The process is way slower than immediately going and talking to the person you want to meet.
But, this is HN so our social skills level is probably one standard deviation lower than anywhere else.
Traffic is bad enough with the incoming flow. /s :)
Genuinely - with your experience and the way you advertise it as being incredibly slow - it sounds like you’ve met maybe a half dozen women this way and got lucky with a couple and ascribe this to a winning strategy.
I’m just saying - it’s not sounding great for meeting lots of women. It sounds like a good way to meet a dozen women and either get lucky or have incredibly low standards that allows you to pair up with 1 out of 12 women.
Or travel. Either way you have to be social
If I move, as smart/thin/no children yet/no drug problems woman, I suppose I'll stand out right away (and less flatteringly, compensate for some of the legit downsides/difficult nature of dating me...)
But the variety of eligible men will be way lower, and I think I'm romanticizing the types available ("maybe some engineer in his thirties will move back home to take care of his aging dad") Hallmark channel thinking, I know... The numbers would be against me and I'll be the fodder for gossip as an 'outsider' right away... Seems you can't make any mistakes in a small town, and petty folks might lie about you even if you don't.
The best of the city men (smart, stable etc) want to stay in the city by disposition or are tied there by profession. And some of the best of city men in brains/looks/disposition combo somehow don't want children, so what's the point?
Honesty on dating apps requires a lot of intuition about reverse-psychology and theory-of-minding and signaling (which is why average stem-y men often have terrible profiles, but I digress)
Women often can't actually just state outright boundaries/goals, as it attracts bad elements that want to push those boundaries, exploit them, or indeed seemingly share your goals but for the wrong reasons.
In my case, if you try to filter for men eager to leave the city to homestead, buy a cabin, leave the grind etc, by stating that, it accidentally attracts bad people eager to trap a woman, Kaszinski types (without even the harvard cred lmao).
Maybe it's that misanthropy in women (and/or myself) gives me cat lady vibes at worst, but misanthropy in men becomes scary and deranged. Being too clear about a goal like that also scares off decent men who might consider it if they already were in love with you, but not ready to chop wood next month, easier to swipe left on ambivalence.
The way to get the perfect intersection of a. wants to leave metropolis, b. wants family, and c. wholesomeness/decency is pragmatically in America just....Christianity.
Christians Conservatives have such an easier time of this game, it's a cluster of unspoken boundaries and norms and vibes, that does all the filtering/signaling without outright stating it ("no hook-ups" just invites 'challenge accepted' sleaze, whereas implied christian morality basically signals sex will move way slower, men are far less presumptuous etc etc)
It's a cohesive "aesthetic" but it feels super dishonest to me to try to co-opt it for benefits without going all-in. Christian partners would not be happy with my level of actual belief (I'd say 3/10).
Regardless, there needs to be a dating app for people who can remote work post-covid who are willing to move anywhere or filter by big general regions.
Changing the location on Hinge to talk to people and get the 'lay of the land' in small towns feels dishonest.
e.g. "How to start horse ranching" or "Beginner guide to essential tractor repairs". Maybe there's a farming conference you can go to where you can scope things out.
I DO realize there's probably not many "How to raise farm goats" meetups in Manhattan but you might be lucky if you live close to somewhere more rural.
1) "Looks shouldn't matter!" But they do. You don't need to be a model, but you probably need to be more healthy. I went to the gym almost every morning (missed about 3 days) for a year, got in better shape, etc. Now use a home gym.
2) Be less judgemental. Log, splinter, eye, etc. You're not perfect, so don't expect her to be.
3) Don't be argumentative. The Internet trains western internerds to be argumentative little snots. It's pathetic. Just don't be like that.
4) Ignore the crazy twitter feminists. Actual women like to feel appreciated and respected. Ask about her field of expertise, her hobbies, etc, and appreciate her expertise in those areas.
5) Stay away from chicks with high bodycount. They are a health risk at the very least. If she doesn't respect her body and yours, you're not safe.
6) Have goals and work at advancing your life.
I don't think this is dating app burnout, this is just dating burnout. Dating apps just make it easy to connect with potential matches (relative to not having dating app burnouts). And if you have dating burnout, take a break from dating! It's nice to just be ok with being single sometimes and enjoy other aspects of life.
"Before she deleted the apps, she spent any moments of downtime swiping; after, she found she had time throughout the day to rest. ... But Dr. Turban believes that for some, simply deleting the apps is not enough. “It’s important to understand why the apps are causing problems for you,” he said, adding that therapists can be helpful for sorting these answers out. “Are you using the apps to self-soothe anxiety and inadvertently making your anxiety worse? Are you afraid you can’t attain love, so you’re settling for hookups, and that’s making you unhappy?” ... “People binge, and that is what exhausts them,” "
Now this does represent burnout of dating apps, and is a result of just not using them with patience and reflection as to the emotions you associate with them.
I generally view dating apps very positively (they, and in particular OkCupid, have led to numerous good relationships and friends) but as with anything it's possible to use them in an unhealthy way.
Profiles should be homogenous in form and style, and should include video Q/A in a fixed format so WYSIWYG. No clever bullshit, no editing images, just videos of your average self answering question.
I was looking for a comment like this before I wrote one of my own! Completely agree! I'm a happily married guy, but used nearly every dating app that existed from 2004-2012. Everyone's talking about how dating apps suck. They were, for me, another way to meet folks during those years and probably how I met most women I dated. They had and still have their highs and lows. Apps don't magically solve dating.
I think the real problem is the tunnel vision. You get sucked down the rabbit hole. Instead, spending time out with friends, exploring hobbies, and joining common-interest clubs are some of the ways that I was able to meet women when I least cared to meet them.
And that's the real magic - I've always had the best relationships grow from the most chance encounters, in-person. Something that blossoms organically somehow. The apps can't really recreate that moment and subsequent sequence of good events.
I've also started balding since I was 20 and it puts that much more pressure on me to find someone through these apps. It's so unhealthy but I don't know what to do anymore. Male pattern baldness is a horrible disease especially since it is genetic and not something that can necessarily be stopped, just slowed down by medications that aren't even effective for me, lol. I hate to think like this but it makes me mad that there are unhealthy and overweight individuals out there with great genetics and I'm just sitting here losing my hair at an unfair age even though I'm very health-conscious and fit.
I know for a fact I will have no luck with dating apps if I shave my head and go bald in my early 20s and I might as well give up now. At least when I know that when I go bald by 25 or 26, I can at least delete the apps and maybe I will feel relieved?(probably not)
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Please don't give up in general, but please give up with apps. It's obviously doing your head in.
If you just read the comments in this thread, the general consensus is that they (apps) don't work for the majority or they don't work for HN'rs.
If you profiled the HN community, you'd probably won't be surprised we're (on average) not that good looking. We hack too much code, we're generally overweight (well there are some here that are REALLY into fitness), some have crazy or no hair, some have way too big ears, or even too many heads (zaphod beeblebrox).
But a lot of us have SO's. wtf? How can that be?
Think about this. Everyone on TV is so bloody good looking with shiny teeth and great hair. How can we (HN'rs) compete with that?
Answer: A lot of people out there are boring as fuck and don't know anything of the world. They talk about sports, how crap their job is, the problems with their front lawn and about owning the other political party. That's it. Yawn.
We're reading about some cool nuclear reactor type or how to bake bread, or reading about some benedictine monk seeing strange lightning.
We generally still love to learn about cool stuff and can generally have a good conversation with above average IQ people. We can see the funny side of life and often are quite funny (which is very attractive to potentials).
TLDR: Don't knock yourself down too much. We all have strange things going on and still get by. There's lots of good looking people that are SUPER dull.
One could say we might even have an advantage! ;-)
It sounds like you, and your mindset, are your own worst enemy right now.
Inevitably when I ask them about their height filters they look at me like I'm dumb and say "oh, only 5' 11" or above, duh".
My wife, who is 5' 2" told me she did the same thing and would have never met me online (I'm 5' 9" in tall boots).
Wondering how it can be enforced from business model point of view.
2. To use the dating app you must first marry a subsidiary of the corporation, which has a prenup with specific conditions.
3. To get married, you must first divorce the corporation and pay the prenup
That really seems like quite a lot to me...
I'm sure some men are creeps, but if you don't want people to speak to you in real life, then apps are your only option.
I may have garbled this, but I think it is the gist of their theory.
Ideally people would be realistic but women especially are being encouraged to want more. I think this mismatch of expectations is very damaging to society. I know a lot of alpha widowed women who are now going through a major crisis in middle age and I expect the problem to get much worse.
To find a guy you want to settle down with (and for you both to generate the required level of mutual trust) can take multiple years with no guarantee the relationship will endure.
People are looking for the best they can attain and dating apps distort the impression of what one can attain. Just because you managed to go on a date with a 9 doesn't mean you can actually land a 9. This means someone just looking for sex and who is near the top in desirability will end up with a lot of sex. Since it's mostly men who are looking for just sex this results in a lot of women who want someone like that handsome guy that got away--not realizing that they were being used.
I would also argue that you can work on your attractiveness but this can also easily take a toll on you and while working out and eating healthy are rather accessible for most people, making a lot of money or changing further features of themselves might not be. I have multiple friends who suffer from androgenic alopecia in their 30s or who have facial features which deviate so far from the norm that the only way to actually "fix" them would be to have plastic surgery.
Sometimes I wonder if the smart move would be to actually move somewhere where the societal norms around this are different.
If something really gives you grief or you feel bad about your appearance, I think considering what you can do about it is probably helpful. My surgeon seemed to have a lot of clients in for hair loss and that's a big quality of life improvement to not have to worry about, I would think?
I met my wife at a running club. Of my friend group, most met while active in sports or other activities. A few were introduced by common friends on a "you might like so-and-so" basis. And a few met in college. I'm only aware of two couples in my extended friend group who met using dating apps - and both of those were premium subscription models, not freebie Tinder-like apps.
Dating apps strike me as a very low-quality (low fidelity?) way to match couples.
It's true, but a lot of people don't have the opportunity or patience for those other approaches. If they're not just homebody introverts in the first place, they may already have a pretty saturated schedule/network without many suitable people around to pair off with. This happens to a lot of people as college recedes and life establishes a professional, mid-life rhythm.
Dating apps are garbage, but alternatives aren't always practical.
Then they really don't have the time for a relationship. Maybe they just want a hook-up, but that also takes time to connect with people and build relationships for something casual. It's all just work, at the end of the day, and a lot of people are unsatisfied with that answer. Things like being on the high-end of attractiveness are like cheat codes, but those people still have to put in effort to connect with people before they get to the fun part.
You can take it a step further, if you stay in a surf hostel, you'll meet other people that like surfing. Replace surfing with any other activity you like (or want to learn). I think this works well, because you meet people that you have something in common with and have a similar lifestyle.
Same, same.
Been on and off dating apps for about 6-7 years now. Trying a new one like every quarter or so, quitting it after 6 months, frustrated by the whole experience. Giving it a new try at the beginning of each year, because "new year, new chances" or something like that.
I know that as an obese person I do not work well with what most people are looking for, but the "no answer at all"-cases are still hurting. Rejections are "fine" (kind of), but no answer at all really fucks my brain up, even after all those years.
Online dating is strange. There are fast-paced online dynamics, combined with our hormones, deeply-rooted human wishes, gamification elements and "pay2win"-stuff. Things that should not be thrown together are totally thrown together and we never learned how to handle that. At least I didn't.
I'd focus on losing weight first if I were you.
Loooooooooong way to go then.
> I'd focus on losing weight first if I were you.
Yeah, I'm on it. It's complicated, but yes.
Not wanting to be offensive, but I do understand where people are coming from. I myself am more in a niche, though it is physically less visible, and I also understand where you are coming from. I do believe it might be good to find a fitting partner, so not sure why the "most people" qualifier is there. What I am trying to get at :) If you are obese, how is your success rate with obese women? If out of 100 sent messages 1 good conversation comes, it is still something.
I've obviously got no real metrics, but I'd say it's not much better, not sure though. One woman directly told me she wasn't looking for somebody who "looks like her", which at least was a honest answer.
On the other hand: I myself do not prefer girls who are very slim (is that the right word in English?), so I don't write to/like these woman. Not sure if my "success rate" would be better with those, though.
I don't have a suggestion for this problem as some men tend to be really dedicated spamming the shit out of every female but my point is this is really nothing against you and you shouldn't be taking this personally at all.
Yes, probably, though this is obviously not that easy and you start thinking whether you are the problem or not.
My parents were involved in stuff like the National Organization for Women (NOW) while women's rights around abortion and equal pay etc were being attacked under the Reagan administration in the 80s. So I grew up having strong feminist role models all around me. I was taught to treat everyone as an equal, and to speak respectfully. Using terms like police officer instead of policeman, fire fighter instead of fireman, and so on. Think how quaint that sounds today!
I'm appalled that pretty much all of that seems to have died since the 90s. Grown women on reality TV call themselves girls. Traditional gender roles seem to be cemented in place by marketing. I see the most chauvinistic, repulsive men being rewarded for being an "alpha".
So I dunno, to me it feels like it's over. I don't see a way back to progress when half the population subscribes to gender stereotypes. I feel like I was prepared for an egalitarian world that never came to be.
And not just feminism. All of the social justice causes I'm most passionate about, beginning with the destruction of wealth inequality, seem to have fallen by the wayside. It's just all bad news all the time on every front. Maybe there's a silver lining there that it's all fake. Maybe we can shift out of this false reality and manifest a better one. That thought is about all that's keeping me going anymore.
It is worth being careful about judging the present state of society based on social media/marketing (so you buy stuff you don't need) verses reality. i.e. a lot of people are normal IRL but rabid animals on twitter/fb.
Nobody with an ounce of IQ should be watching reality TV (it's just grown up (barely) high school drama). In fact watching TV (in general), makes you dumber and angrier.
I think there are still a lot of people that care about 'stuff'. Maybe other sources of input would be recommended. e.g. ACLU has regular meetings in big cities. Earth-Justice is big (although not sure about meetups).
This sculpture is a tangible reflection of my mindset: https://mymodernmet.com/alexander-milov-love-sculpture/
For those people I recommend hitting the gym, getting a tan and optionally bleaching your teeth. This alone will bump up your attraction level a lot + you will feel healthier.
the medium is the message here. you scroll to find a new set of pans, and a new partner.
not sustainable or humane.
We had been at the same party, we exchanged looks but nothing happened. Only a week or so later I checked a profile on some app with the most stupid intro ever 'i think I know you, have we seen?' and bam nearly 6 years later we are still together.
Friction burn from too much shagging is real?
The problem seems to stem from an imbalance of the sexes. Men have found it a soul-crushing experience. Women get an abundance of matches, whilst men rarely get any. There are a few men that get an overwhelming majority of matches, the rest get nothing. It's winner-takes-all as far as the men go. Even that seems to be narrowing. Attractive men who would have gotten dates easily in the past find it increasingly difficult.
This would seem great for the ladies, but they seem to face the paradox of choice. With so many good prospects to choose from they have difficulty deciding which one to go for. The result is that all choices seem mediocre. There is a YT vid out there where a US-based Asian male model went onto a dating app. He described the process as brutal. And this is from a good-looking man. His major crime was to be an ethnic.
This seems to feed a further decline. The men try to strike up conversations, only to receive one-word answers from the women. The women put in zero effort because, hey, why would they, there is a plethora of suitors to choose from. Except that that's not how meaningful relationships work. There has to be effort from both parties.
This leads to men putting in less effort as they realise the futility of the exercise. The women complain that men aren't making any effort, and demurring on things like taking women to dinner and paying for it. After all, why would a man do this when the payoff isn't likely to be worth it?
And that's why dating apps are such a sh*tshow.
It might be worth thinking about this the opposite way.
Would you want to go out with someone who is so boring that all they do is sit around watching TV and swiping on dating apps?
A lot of comments here (it's a numbers game, pay for premium, other "tricks"), is IMHO trying to shortcut/hack the system and is unlikely to get anywhere (or extremely hard). You want to rethink what everyone thinks is the "modern" way to date and do what's worked for 1000's of years.
Interesting people with a wide range of interests and passions will not have problems. They will also have a network of like minding people and most likely don't use dating apps. It's worth trying to get into those circles.
Here's some tips:
- Stop using apps, you're being lazy/boring and unattractive to a partner. Put in the work.
- Most importantly stop looking to date. People can tell you're desperate and it's extremely unattractive. Stop asking everyone you see with a pulse out for coffee or drinks. Be friendly and someone who's approachable to have an interesting conversation with, without worrying about the risk of being hit upon. I think women really take notice when people do NOT hit on them and just 'nice'.
- Work is off limits. If there are social events be friendly/charming, but never hit on. If they have friends they will introduce you as a 'nice guy'. If you're creepy you'll never get into their circle.
- Make yourself more interesting (as other have suggested). Join sport teams, tech meetups, volunteer to help FOOs. Go to art galleries, small music events etc. Do NOT go here to date. Go to be a a more interesting person. If you see a cute person nearby, say something witty or ask their opinion about a painting your both looking at, a sculpture, the bands latest album etc.. (briefly, then disengage, SUPER important). Do not go full throttle and ask them out for coffee/drinks. The idea is to make yourself more comfortable talking to potentials and seem interesting w/o being creepy. It's a skill you have to develop. You can do this everywhere, at grocery stores, bars, museums. Interaction should not be more than 30 secs (no really). This prevents the creepy aspect. Again, you're trying to come across as non creepy and just want their opinion on the best salsa for tacos and move along.
- Increase your network of friends in the circles you want. If you friends just smoke weed and play video games that's not ideal. If you're friends play tennis, go to museums, music... great. If not find how you can get into them.
Some base tips (that you should be doing that you might not think is important, but helps with the above). This is obvious stuff, but somehow people have forgotten the the basics.
- Shower and wear clean clothes when you go out for an event. Maybe I have a better sense of smell, but the amount of bad smells I get from people is ridiculous.
- Shave. Most beards and hair fluff just looks silly and scruffy. If you face doesn't look kissable, it just makes everything else harder. If there's a group of men, you'll stand out with a clean face. Note: this is a great way to talk to people in bars. Go up to a group of the opposite sex. (becz they will feel comfortable and less intimidating) and say "My male friends all tell me that women prefer beards. I'm looking to date again and since I'm not going to hit on any of you, it would be really valuable to get some honest feedback from some good looking women." Important "DO NOT HIT ON THEM", be genuine and charming. After they provide feedback, thank them and walk away. Most likely they won't approach you as they are in a group and just want to chat with each other, but if they do, they will be able to find you.
- Do NOT wear after-shave. Really it makes people gag and want to run away.
- Go to the gym, run, get some dumbbells, long walks, whatever. Everyone could lose 10 pounds and it WILL make you feel more confident.
- Don't be a scruffy dresser. No need to go overboard, but you can go far with a nice shirt, clean jeans and SHOES (not fancy, but with black socks). Women seems to notice shoes. All this WILL make you stand out in a group in a "care's about their appearance but not a fop.
- Don't have bad breath. Yeah, it's ridiculous for it to be said.
- Don't smoke/vape. I know people will have strong opinions, but it REALLY makes your breath smell. I can't even be around people of the same sex who do this. YMMV.
To answer your question, WAAAY later than you think.
Once you are friends and they are comfortable with you. You know their hobbies/passions and things that annoy them. You're trying to understand if this person is someone you want to hang out with for a long time and you'd have fun with them even if you weren't 'together'. You have to be really 'into' chillin with this person.
Most people use the dating period to get to know one another. The problem is the desire to 'date' and have sex (as early as possible) is a real turn off. Your ability to not want sex makes you a LOT more attractive and serious. Women put up with this becz most guys do this. Not doing this puts you in a different league.
Really you're trying to get the woman to let YOU know she's really into you and wants more.