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I'm getting married next month, a relationship started from a date found in possibly the worst of all the apps (Match, if you can believe it).

I dated for a lot of years and, despite having some positives outlined by this article, I was also divorced and have a son. That made it massively more difficult to find a long term match given that many women flatly reject that combo.

I learned though to be upfront. About your life. About what you're looking for. You're not looking for 95% of women to be attracted to you! You're looking for one. It sounds like you're optimizing the search already, so don't waste time worrying about 95%. People always say be yourself and I didn't appreciate what that meant until I started taking control of my dating journey.

For example, I stopped tailoring dates around what they wanted to do. I planned stuff that I wanted to do and if somebody I was talking to wanted to come along, awesome. If not, I did it anyhow. I stopped hiding my love for Country music and went anyhow. My wife loves Country. :)

Also, if you're honest in your profile and somebody wants to start casual.. consider it. People have a hard time in the dating scene and you can't fault them for not wanting to invest 100% right away. Have confidence in yourself and know the right one will stick around no matter what they said in the beginning. And if they don't, that's cool too. Hopefully you have some fun dates and life experience to make you a better date when the right one does show up. It does take practice.

Much of a long term relationship starts when two people are at the right points in their lives. You can't really plan it, it just happens when it does and that's why people say they feel lucky. Much of it is luck. Leave space for that to happen too!

Good luck to you.

I was widowed after 15 years and I have been using dating apps for the last few years and in my experience you are absolutely correct on pretty much everything.

I know who I am and what I like. I advertise that on my profile and I take folks on dates that I like to do by myself. I’ve had a lot of success with relationships of all different lengths and levels of casual-ness.

If you are a dude in the dating pool and you are positioning yourself as what you think women want, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

"I am starting to realize that dating apps are broken, if you are looking for a serious relationship"

Dating apps are optimized for usage, not success. If you find a serious relationship, you stop using the app (Hopefully).

A dating app that helps you find a long term partner has failed to maximize your LTV

I found my spouse on OkCupid but notably it was pre-Match buyout. Maybe try to find some non-Match sites / apps if you're looking for long-term.

This is mostly for large cities. As someone who’s lived in many big cities like NYC and London, education and pedigree is extremely important.

It’s also about the illusion of choice and “settling” for worse. When you know there are attractive Harvard lawyers, why would you bother with some state school government worker? Now there’s no guarantee these women can actually land the first group but why not try?

As rational actors maximizing their utility, that’s the right move. The real question is what utility entails for that individual. But the default norm is by school and job prestige alongside physical looks.

Chasing the top is not rational when considering the very rational fact that the top has options.

I'm taken, but if were single, I'd rationally consider myself average-looking to decent. I would not find it rational at all for me to chase a supermodel (if beauty was the selector), I would in fact not try at all. Because rationally, some things are too good to be true.

I would correct that to *chasing the top can be rational under certain assumptions.

The worse the inequality gets in society, the more rational it is to chase the top, in fact - specifically for women. As I wrote in another comment, it can be better to be the Nth wife of a prince rather than the first wife of a commoner (if you're optimizing for the survival/fitness of your offspring, albeit unconsciously).

I got off all dating apps a couple years ago and I'm not going back. They're not optimized to help you find connection, but to extract value from you for shareholders through addiction and FOMO.

I changed my focus to meeting people IRL and my dating life is better than ever!

As I mention every time dating comes up on HN, often men on HN live in areas that skew male. SV, Seattle, Bangalore, etc. If you live in say, San Jose, there are 130 men for every 100 women. It not necessarily that apps don't work just the marketplace is not in balance in those cities. On the other hand a not insignificant portion of men send the dumbest msgs. Not that hard to write something better.

Also some women might say that are not looking for something serious when they really mean just not interested in long term with the person asking. Sadly, men murder women, so women have to be careful about letting men down.

Plenty of people have met their spouse on dating apps, so the idea "if you are looking for a serious relationship - there's just no way you are going to find it on here." just isn't accurate.

I've been to a few weddings now where the couple met on an app. Keep your chin up, king.

These apps are broken no matter what you search, unless you are a somewhat attractive woman looking for quick hookups and don't care with whom.

Just came here to say don't give up, like you pointed out the current wave of dating apps aren't optimized for long-term relationships. VC-backed apps have to optimize for retention and revenue per user.

I remember the previous era of dating sites (eHarmony) proudly published stats about committed relations + marriage.

Anyway, have you gotten friends invested in your search? The first thing I would do is ask friends, their partners, and their partners' friends, and their partners' friends meddling aunties to set up a few blind dates. Mention that you're trying to meet "the one."

Good luck out there, hope your story is different one year from now!

> the current wave of dating apps aren't optimized for long-term relationships

That sentence...

Nothing personal, you're obviously right. It's the sheer technicality of it. I wish young people would find love as they used to, at balls or smth..

part of the 'narrative' sold by society is that people fall in love while going through their casual dating 'phase'. nobody under the age of 30 (maybe 35) is going to be looking for a 'serious relationship'. if you explicitly state this in your profile or even on the first handful of dates nobody is going to respond well.

You state this as some casual observation, but it's wild.

In my country, 80-90% people in their early 20s are in long term relationship and thus already off the market. They may not be in their final relationship, but they are of a somewhat serious nature and not a one-night stand.

By the age of 30, should they be so lucky, many/most would buy their first home. And move in together. If you think that's early, my dad had all of this settled at the age of 19.

35 is almost middle-aged. It's absurd to only start looking for a serious relationship then. It's like extending college/party years by 15(!) years.

you misunderstand what i wrote. 30 is when people start admitting to themselves they're looking for serious relationships. before that they are pretending not to be.

Got it, and interesting point.

im south asian

Races tend to date within their own race. Really wish we could see your profile though to see if you're doing anything I perceive as wrong. I've seen guys with your exact description show me their profile and they have only one picture where it looks like they haven't showered in a month.

Here's the gwern mirror of the okcupid blog showing the race preference. It seemed true there with the one exception: Asian women preferred White Men in the dataset from 2009 to 2013 though it matched the rest for 2014 https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/raceandattraction20...

Interesting result, though at that time the US demographics were not as they are today so Asian is likely not South Asian as GGP comment references self as. Though who am I to guess.