How do HN users go about meeting significant others? | Hacker News Reader

How do HN users go about meeting significant others?

16 pointssorwin19 comments

I am curious how other HN members go about finding their significant others. I have little time these days, but I want to make the best of it trying to find someone, but social dating apps seems to fall short. Time commitment is not an issue, but having to swift through endless potential matches is time consuming to the point where it does feel like it's hopeless.

View on HN

I treat all relationships the same. Every new person naturally finds its place in my life. Some become friends, some become business partners, and some become significant others. Dating apps force you to slot people before you've even met them and I don't like it.

Roughly speaking:

- Work in public. I have met a lot of people through the work I do (see my profile). All sorts of good relationships have come out of that. Being open, friendly and generous with my time has helped a lot.

- Be genuine. Join communities as a sincere participant. Don't join a community to hit on its members. Everyone hates that.

- Be open. I have taken to inviting interesting internet strangers to meet, and had a lot of success with it. If I enjoy people, I actively reach out to them. Most people are friendly, just a little busy.

"Don't waste your time chasing butterflies. Mend your garden, and the butterflies will come." -Unknown

Time to recreate your life anon.

Apps did not just fail to help me meet someone. They really harmed my self esteem. Even when a match on an app becomes a real date, the lack of any context other than the app makes those dates really weird. "Could I have kids with this suspicious stranger from the Internet?" I could never be myself. Never had a second date through an app.

Met my SO after I had stopped looking for romance at a hobby club. In social and hobby contexts people can glimpse the breadth and depth of your personality. Others can vouch for you and speak well of you. You actually have something to talk about. It feels much more organic and not forced at all.

I challenge you to make 200-300 friends and acquaintances and not find a romantic relationship. Looking back, that's actually what I was doing, and somehow romance fell into my lap. We go married last year.

How does an adult working a full time job even meet 200-300 people let alone become acquaintances/friends with them?

I find it a struggle to even become casual acquaintances with more than a handful of people a year.

I played adult rec league sports for many years. Ended up dating 5 people from that, 3 seriously, and married one of them. I’m sure I met many hundreds of people over that time, all while having a full-time job and while doing an activity I inherently enjoyed.

I get this is how people meet but I never liked this dynamic. Most relationships end and it can make it weird for everyone else. Wish fewer people comingled their hobbies and dating life like this.

How do you expect people to partner??

Online dating, bars, or any other social activity that doesn't involve the same group over an extended period of time.

Over 2 years, I attended once or twice weekly public speaking meetings. Became president of a club, VP of another, member of another (most are biweekly). Mentored and worked with dozens, met hundreds, spoke in front of thousands.

There are some very low resistance social graphs. Just travel them consistently.

If your social life is this small, then simply the pool of candidates is so small. You need to expand how many people you meet by a lot. Only then you can start thinking about how to attract romance, how to approach, etc, which is all a lot easier if you just meet a lot of people.

> I have little time these days

This contradicts everything else you say or imply here. Try to see how you fool yourself here.

If meeting a spouse is not that important — don’t pretend it is, just live your life as usual.

If it is important — then realize that it is not a business, not a process to measure ROI, not a jira ticket to resolve and forget etc.

you have to start trusting your gut feelings and be prepared to give away a substantial part of your time, your life, your energy to this new family you want to build together.

Our moms worked together and tried to fix us up. She was gorgeous and, though I'm a confident man, I felt she was out of my league. I thought it would be too weird and awkward if it didn't work out.

My mother kept persisting and I finally caved, just to shut her up. Three kids and nearly 20 years later, we're doing good. She's still gorgeous.

My only advice is:

- Create as many opportunity for chances as you can.

- Get out, attend activity-related events that aren't focused on dating (running or sports clubs, sewing clubs, meetups, whatever). Since they're not focused on dating, everyone's more at ease, their guard is down and everyone's more laid back.

- If you're in your 30s or later, consider long-term compatibility traits. If you are big on being smart with money or being healthy/fit, don't match up with someone who isn't. Chances are, you aren't going to change them. Same goes for the inverse.

I met my wife on a dating app, and we would have 100% never met without it. She is from Central America and happened to be visiting the US for a month. We went on a date, and then two and then three. Her one month stay turned into a five month stay.

We did long distance back and forth for ~2 years and then got engaged and married and now she lives with me in the US.

I met my wife at church. We have been married 28 years. Neither of us had a mobile phone or the Internet back then. I have taught my kids that relationships tend to follow on from friendships. So get yourself into a friend making place and see what happens.

"I have little time" and "time commitment is not an issue" feel a bit contradictory to me.

Anyway, what worked for me:

1- go to places where people hang regularly and have a chance to speak: climbing gym, diving club, a quite bar with game nights etc... Be ok to just making friends and see how/if that evolves

2- pay for dating apps, contrary to what people may tell you here. your time is precious and paying will allow you to skip some of the silly mechanics such as cool-down periods or gambling like mechanics (looking at you tinder!)

Edit (more thoughts on dating apps) don't overthink a match or a swipe, they're equivalent to a look from across the room in a pub.

Maybe if you’re like me, you might prefer to meet people in the flesh. A good way to do that I find is to join a club, or some other group hobby where you’re more likely to meet people - and also meet people who like doing similar stuff to you which is a nice, neutral way to make new friends and maybe even find a significant other.

I met someone and stuck with them.

It was a long time ago...before online dating so make of it what you will.

But it never was an optimization problem.

With relationships, all the work is ahead or it's not a relationship.

The selection process feels like work, but it isn't because it is easier than the work of a relationship.

Easier than the work of making a relationship work.

Good luck.

My grandma arranged me a meeting with a nice family oriented girl but I run off because the thing seemed weird. Looking back, my life would be much better had I listened to grandma instead of getting married to a pretty girl I met on the street.

A friend told me to get down to "The Pub" on friday as she would bring someone she thougt I ought to meet.

I was a year or so out of a 15 years relationship by then and she knew I had started to 'look around' again

Reply on news.ycombinator.com