How to Be Good at Dating | Hacker News Reader

How to Be Good at Dating

fantasticanachronism.com

58 pointsjger1533 comments

> Very roughly the ratios for me were 100 swipes → 1 match → 0.1 dates → 0.05 lays → 0.005 meaningful connections

Yeah I think I'm going to stick to becoming friends with friends of friends and with random new people at places where we generally have shared interests, and then seeing if there's any mutual romantic interest after that.

This process sounds emotionally draining.

I suspect there's some tongue in cheek with those numbers unless the one meaningful connection they have was the result of literally 20,000 swipes.

He said he spent several hours a week swiping. Several hours a week times 3 years is a lot more than 20,000 swipes.

I imagine this is completely serious, and isn't that different from what I've seen in a big city (NYC). Back when I was permitting myself to use these apps (2017, before I truly assessed the cost-benefit analysis), I met a girl who apparently swiped left on every guy. She showed me her Tinder and she had over 5,000 matches (and for some reason was meeting up with me, although it didn't last very long. I think she did get married a few years ago, though). That experience makes me think that the 20,000 number is legitimately a reasonable estimate.

They apparently recommended† spending an hour a day on swiping and chatting; six months of chatting is presumably on the order of 2000 different chattees, so in all likelihood the number of swipes is closer to 0.2 million.

______

† I'm getting a server error, so I'm taking others' word for it.

You can download your Tinder and Hinge swipe/like stats, so it's likely accurate.

The sad part is that this what "success" looks like. The funnel looks way worse for most guys.

I'm not looking but these ratios are insane.

Surely this is why we've traditionally let the parents decide. Seems much easier, and no need for an app or AI.

In a society (or family) where there is no generational gap and parents and children are aligned, parents can be a good judge for a relationship fit.

"i'm into tall kinky guys and you seem exactly my type"

OP has revealed he has a huge advantage. You can't teach being six foot, and in my experience that's the number one qualifier for racking up body count.

He deals with this specifically in the article.

How can you be so sure about that? (genuinely curious). For instance, is charisma less important?

He claims, "The first thing you must understand is that dating markets are ruthlessly efficient at matching people of equivalent [attractiveness]. (...) dating apps brought gay dating norms to straights." If the first claim is true, you'd expect unattractive het men just get matched with het women who just aren't as attractive, rather than to get matched much less. So they aren't in competition with attractive het men in the same way they might be otherwise.

The article does make this contradictory claim, though, in accordance with your own: "The relationship between attractiveness and results on the apps is a power law. If you improve your appeal by 5%, you're not going to increase your matches by 5%, you will double them. The people far above you are doing unimaginably well."

(I also take issue with the assertion that height is the most important determinant of sexual attractiveness for men and boys. Being a 1.8-meter-tall 13-year-old was definitely much worse for my attractiveness than being 1.5 meters tall was for twentysomething men I met later. And there are a lot of other considerations like "personality", which includes not just the "vulnerability" mentioned here but also being able to smoothly follow social norms when you want to, a big disadvantage for autists like the OP.)

This is important for a certain class of women, but that doesn't have to be your class, and if you're on here you can solve it with the same skills that presumably make you a highly paid professional tech type.

Also, go for women taller than you.

> I had no idea it was even possible to meet a hot young woman who begs you to spit on her face on the first date.

This is quite off-putting. It's one thing if that's the author's particular fetish, but on the first date?

We all have our kinks, but I'd be concerned if a girl wanted to be degraded by a stranger. I really hope this isn't that common.

You probably aren't very familiar with kinky people, probably because they sense that if their kink is not your kink, you will judge them for it, so they don't tell you about it. Humiliation is very much not my thing (from either side) but I can tell you it's a surprisingly common kink. People who find it sexually exciting don't usually lead lives that are especially unusual in other ways; it's up to you to decide whether that means they're actually okay or that the rest of us are not.

EDIT: Although I think my reply still stands, please try not to take offense at it. I object to your response, but I was not personally offended by it.

> You probably aren't very familiar with kinky people

That's quite the assumption.

> Humiliation is very much not my thing (from either side) but I can tell you it's a surprisingly common kink.

That's fairly common knowledge, as I understand it.

> People who find it sexually exciting don't usually lead lives that are especially unusual in other ways

Who said they did? I sure didn't.

> it's up to you to decide whether that means they're actually okay or that the rest of us are not.

Yeah, and I can say it out loud, too.

My point was that I find it neither appealing nor a sign of good mental well-being for someone to be want to spat on by a stranger on the first date, and the author speaking as if it's an achievement to have kinky acts with a girl on a first date is to me a sign that he has a maturity that is beneath his age. That's my opinion, and I made it extremely clear that I am not making a statement about kinks in general. As people have a right to have kinks, I have my right to decide what I consider a red flag. In my experience, a woman wanting sex on the first (and often only) date is a sign that she doesn't have her head in a place I think is ideal.

When people (men and women) seek out casual sex, sometimes it does come from an unhealthy place, but sometimes it does not. It does involve some risk, emotional and physical, but that risk can be fairly small. These facts differ a bit by gender but not nearly as much as many people assume.

So, let's stipulate that someone is looking for casual sexual encounters. Wouldn't it be counterproductive for her to not have sex on the first and only date? If she's obligate-kinky, do you think it would be healthier for her casual encounters to consist of vanilla sex she doesn't enjoy?

What would you do at a sex party --- only have sex with people you'd kissed at the previous one? Or do you think going to sex parties in the first place is a "red flag"?

As for the tacit implication you identified that "kinky acts with a girl on a first date" is an achievement, I also found that framing a little offputting. The article contains a peculiar mix of exploitative pickup-artist memes ("SMV", "negging", "easy-mode levers like money", "hitting a bodycount", casual dating as a way to develop serious-relationship skills, "hoe phase") with explicit rejection of them ("honesty", "vulnerability", "is it alright if I kiss you?", "Sex isn't something you 'get' from women—it's something you create together", "trust is necessary if you want to have great sex", "other people who play games, a perfect little soup of toxicity", "Be honest, be present, be genuinely interested in your partner's pleasure".)

I'm not really sure what's going on there. Is he incoherent, is he trying to phrase his radical message in redpill language so he can deprogram the redpillers, or are we maybe just misinterpreting him?

I'm getting a server error, but the page survives in archive.today: https://archive.is/20250320170908/https://fantasticanachroni...

> You need to actually commit to the process, which means setting aside at least an hour a day for swiping and chatting on the apps, and consciously optimizing both yourself and your profile to achieve your goals.

Yeah, no, I am out.

Not because of the work but how incredible harmful it would be for my mental wellbeing if I did that for any extended period of time. The commodification of sex and relationships that these apps promote is probably causing lasting damage.

> probably causong lasting damage

And it shows very much in the article imo. Don't hate the player, hate the game?

Edit: i actually like the guy's take on fitness. But this is totally twisted:

> Lead an interesting life that your potential dates would want to be a part of. But do it for yourself first of all.

"The social double-bind game can be phrased in several ways:

The first rule of this game is that it is not a game.

Everyone must play.

You must love us.

You must go on living.

Be yourself, but play a consistent and acceptable role.

Control yourself and be natural.

Try to be sincere.

Essentially, this game is a demand for spontaneous behavior of certain kinds. Living, loving, being natural or sincere—all these are spontaneous forms of behavior: they happen "of themselves" like digesting food or growing hair. As soon as they are forced they acquire that unnatural, contrived, and phony atmosphere which everyone deplores—weak and scentless like forced flowers and tasteless like forced fruit. Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them. Faith—in life, in other people, and in oneself—is the attitude of allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its own time."

- Alan Watts

Just wow! It's crystal clear to me that double bind is at the core of so many of my internal struggles.

Your comment was literally eye-opening, thank you!

That's correct. Just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it's not correct, it's because there are opposing pressures you need to follow.

This advice is thorough, but as the author admits a bit autistic. It approaches a relationship as a specific highly-fixated goal that requires reps / practice.

In general, I think any guy trying to do this is not going to find what they want.

I can only give my own (likely more applicable) advice to other straight men on here (which I suspect is a very high % of the users), but I would ignore much of this advice and do the following:

* Live your own life to the fullest. Don't even worry about dating / the apps. Just do activities you love and develop a passion (or more than one!). The apps are basically designed to mess with your psychology and the yield of your time spent on them is very low unless you are extremely attractive (not me lol!). Start rock climbing and go to a bunch of meetups for it, meet new people, and be the one who asks people (men and women) to meet up for climbing. Copy-paste this onto whatever activity you want (I've done it with skiing, climbing, mountain biking, and sailing). You will eventually meet a partner through these group activities and you won't waste any time trying to "date", and often you'll be able to vet your partner in a less intense "setting" than a date. For example, you can talk about what money "means" to each of you while walking to the crag and realize that although she might be attractive, you'll probably just fight about money all the time.

* As part of a full life, maintain your friendships. You need to be able to lean on your friendships to fulfill specific needs that your partner shouldn't need to or be able to do. I talk about code with my coding friends, not a girlfriend. I nerd out about sailing with my crewmates, not a girlfriend. I talk about espresso with a bunch of deep-pocketed coffee nerds on discord, not a girlfriend. Think of spending time with friends in the same way you do the gym: it might be tough to fit in on any single "session", but if you stop doing it after a while, you'll find yourself really behind the 8 ball. If you think you can't afford the time, I can almost assure you that the time spent in the company of friends will so vastly reduce your mental rumination / anxiety / depression you fight when you spend so much time alone that the "friend time" will more than "pay" for itself.

* Know what you want, and communicate it clearly. If you're looking for something low-key, be clear to your partner. If you are angling to get serious and move in faster, be clear about that. Most of the friction in relationships comes from when each individual is on different pages about the trajectory of where they want things to go.

* Talk about money. I see so many couples don't do this and perpetually fight over things that come down to "what does money mean to you?". For example, if your partner gets a tax refund and thinks "oh boy! let me buy a new computer" while you think "give me my interest-free loan back, US government, so I can shove this into an index fund and have greater financial security to tell my employer to kick rocks if things get too terrible", you're gonna have problems reconciling that unless you're very explicit.

* Table stakes are similar to the article though: stay fit, eat well, avoid mental numbing mechanism and substance abuse

Agreed -- the thing that frustrated me in the post is the idea that not going through a hookup phase before finding a serious partner is "like running a marathon without doing any training", as though the skills involved in sustaining a relationship were the same skills involved in hookups, as opposed to an amplification of regular friendship skills.

Abundance mindset doesn't need to come from a sense of mastery over a game sold to you by a corporate product. IMO it's better to have abundance from a rich life filled with solid friendships that let you feel supported in taking risks, which may involve getting hurt, grieving, pulling yourself together, and trying again.

> Live your own life to the fullest. Don't even worry about dating / the apps.

This doesn't work. I mean, it seems to work for you because you travel a lot or live somewhere where a lot of outdoor hobbies are possible.

For nerdy men, if you're not careful about hobbies you're going to pick some where you will literally never meet a woman into it, or else only strange or highly autistic ones who aren't good for you, and this isn't always obvious ahead of time.

I don't mean anything stereotypical about this either. Like "women aren't into video games or anime" isn't true, but they're not into it the way you might be into it. (In my experience they're healthier about it and like creating/producing things themselves, whereas men like complaining about them online. But this part is a bit stereotypical.)

You do need to know what women who are your type are into, and you need to genuinely be that kind of person or at least be able to appreciate it.

You've definitely called me out: I currently live in an area where I can do a bunch of different hobbies year round for the most part, and happen to enjoy them.

I totally agree that if one goes all in for their D&D hobby, meeting women directly is not likely, but it's totally possible to connect to other people via that hobby (e.g. to the dungeon master's single female friend, etc).

I guess the point I was trying to make is don't singular focus on "finding a girlfriend" and then contort oneself into doing things they don't find enjoyable for extended periods (e.g. cooking classes, volunteering with pets, salsa dancing. Those are great hobbies, but too often my awkward male friends begrudgingly do those even though they hate them because they think "that's where the women are").

> Don't even worry about dating / the apps.

Quite frankly this is the worst advice. As other commenters have noted if you tend to enjoy solo activities or activities that don't naturally involve the types of women you'd like to date, then it's not going to lead to you meeting anyone.

> You will eventually meet a partner through these group activities

Ah, the hope and pray method. Doesn't work. And when you do meet a girl you actually like, how do you figure you'll have the social skills to carry yourself through the dating process and developing a relationship? It's just natural? No, it's not.

This also doesn't work if you want to date an abundance of women and it doesn't allow you to meet women when you choose. Ever see a cute girl at the grocery store or at a coffee shop and you wanted to ask her out but you didn't know what to say? No amount of skiing and mountain climbing is going to fix that.

> but as the author admits a bit autistic

I don't know why (well, I can guess) it's such a turn-off for people to approach dating systematically. We don't criticize people for practicing math or coding, yet when it comes to social skills, if you're doing anything other than "just being yourself", it's somehow "wrong".

we need more of these on hacker news

So some top level thoughts. Yes, women like to have sex. If you’re going to pay the apps just go to Seeking and turn that 5/6 conversations going no where to 5/6 mets in a hotel a day later. Mention “CNC” in your profile and you’ll get passed on until Kingdom come. Also, talk is cheap from those screenshots

Until she finds your blog...

This is sad, weird, and very off topic for HN.

Guidelines: > anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity

I fail to see how this even remotely reaches that rather loosely defined bar.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com