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Dating apps are terrible because they don’t want you to actually find a good partner. If you find a good partner, you have no need for the dating app anymore. So they’ll match you with people that’ll peak your interest, but ultimately won’t work out.
Obviously there’s more to it than just that, but this is a big part of the problem.
Almost everything is owned by the same company, match.com. So all the apps are built to extract as much cash as possible out of whatever demographic they’re designed for. AFAIK the only one that isn’t owned by them is bumble, because the woman who started bumble helped found tinder and was sexually harassed by one of her male co-founders. Imagine that.
I don’t remember where this figure came from, so take it with a grain of salt, but I believe that something like 75% of all dating app accounts are dudes.
My afvice is to find a hobby that can be social and meet someone that likes doing what you do. I hear all the hotties are protesting inequality now…
I met my wife on one of the apps. For the life of me at this point I don’t remember which one.
I had all but given up on the entire idea of online dating and was ready to delete my profiles. I had spent years, and embarrassingly some actual dollars on these apps, sent probably thousands of messages over the years and had a handful of first dates and little else to show for it.
I was the first person my wife connected with. Not that she hadn’t dated before, just had never used an app to do it.
What a lucky coincidence. :3 Maybe not immediately, in your case, but I’m glad you found each other!
I had more luck meeting people on a penpal app than getting a single match on any of the major dating apps. The algorithm just always seems to sort me out. It can really mess with your self esteem when you’re never getting a single match or reply to your messages.
It’s definitely not me, because I get hundreds of letters on Slowly, where it’s actually about communication and I’m even going on a vacation with a girl I met there next week.
Tinder & Co. are useless, objectifying apps that build on greed and should be burned to the ground.
That sounds nice. What’s the name of the pen pal app?
Slowly!
What’s. The. Name. Of. The. Pen. Pal. App.
I’ll see myself out.(Also many thanks ☺️)
Also dating apps are a complete privacy nightmare
And a waste of money
I paid $0 for the app I met my wife on.
I paid a little bit and met my wife on one. No idea why anyone has a problem with paying for something they use. Two children later, I would say a lifetime the woman of my dreams made the few months that I paid for the tinder subscription was worth it. There were useful features then that came with it. No idea about it now.
Which app, and how long ago was it?
OkCupid for me and we’ve been together over 10 years now.
Yeah same meme then. OKC and every other dating site have gone so far down hill they’re underwater at this point.
I was on OKC 10 years ago and I really liked it. I’m OKC now and my fucking god is it useless… It’s tinder 2.0 along with every other dating site Match Group bought… Oh and it’s like $50+ a month if you’re crazy enough to pay.
I’m sure I’ll still be on there in another 10 years when it’s just swiping from live stream to live stream…
Yikes! I make sure to buy my wife flowers ASAP. I don’t want to end up dating again.
Things have gotten a hell of a lot worse since then
For those of us still in Nam, kill me, please.
Please kill me too, right after this guy 😭
Please kill me three, but before these two I’m impatient!
:P
Kill me fourth, but before these first three
Im trying to solve this like some sort of logic puzzle
Arent you the guy everyone says to touch
Oh God yes.
Look me and my wife met on a dating site. No shame in this. We both had pretty detailed profiles with lots of photos and luckily for us we were living fairly close by in the same stages in life. Our first date we both kinda knew what we were about. At the same time neither of us had real social media accounts so yeah no weird stalking games.
Now, me and her dated for three years until we moved in together. That was enough time. Time to see each other as people, warts and all. We have our share of embarrassing memories. I remember the time she got wasted and threw up BBQ squid and wine on me on the train. She remembers the time my card got declined at dinner. We had seen each other frustrated, failing at something, ill, broke, in the morning, drunk, out of work, and all the other downs real humans have. Both of us decided we were okay with that and well we are still together today.
Now I see the black mirror like horrorshow that is tinder from my younger friends and hear them say things how they consider it sus if you aren’t on Instagram. I see them acting like a date is a job interview. Gameification and weird cryptic terms like “high value”. Long lists of must haves and must nots.
Mother of fuck how and why would anyone want this? I felt like we had it pretty well figured out when in my early 20s. You could meet someone the traditional way or you could use a dating site and find someone who has the same fun hobbies as you. Oh they aren’t exactly who you normally date? Ok. See what happens.
We both had pretty detailed profiles with lots of photos
Same with my wife and I who met online a couple of years back. Even back then, lots of other men would complain about having a hard time getting matches, being poorly treated on dates, etc. which did happen to me, but just as often I’d make a promising connection.
I think part of the reason I was relatively successful despite not being terribly attractive is I treated online dating a bit like online shopping, whereas I think others treat it like a virtual version of bumping in to someone at a bar.
To give you an example of a profile I might skip:
My idea of a great first date: Just about anything!
Likes: food, traveling, and probably your dog
Dealbreakers: pineapple on pizzaFirst prompt tells me nothing about you besides you’re easy going. That’s a great opportunity to share something you like doing, squandered.
Second prompt is the same likes that everybody writes in their profile, and doesn’t lead to naturally staring a unique conversation. Everybody likes “travel and food” so, “Where have you travelled,” and, “What’s your favourite food,” are well-trodden and tired topics IMO. Either share something specific about food or travel, or mention something else entirely.
Third prompt takes another opportunity to save us both some time by stating an actual deal breaker, squandered into a cliche joke.
A better version of that profile could be (just winging it off the top of my head):
My idea of a great first date: I love to ride my bike! Let’s ride some trails and then get a dessert. I know the best spot in town for croissants!
Likes: blunt communication and lots of personal space to get to know someone
Dealbreakers: if you still live with your parentsFirst prompt tells me that you like biking which could be a conversation breaker about which trails you like, what type of bike you ride, and we could also talk about that croissant place, or our other favourite desserts.
Second prompt is useful as someone approaching dating you, and could be a deal breaker for potential suitors.
Third prompt states a real deal breaker which could save us both time, and it’s not something (religion, political affiliation, hair colour) which is usually covered in the profile and filterable in your preferences, or in photos.
In my opinion, there were a lot more of the former type of profiles, but I found it easier to break the ice and connect with the latter type of profile. The former profile is fine if you’re both just looking for a hook up and the prompts are secondary to the eye candy, but if you’re looking for a long lasting connection, it’s all about the prompts.
My question to those who are dating just a couple of years later: how have things changed?
whereas I think others treat it like a virtual version of bumping in to someone at a bar.
Little to do with your point, but I think it’s worth mentioning here.
I read this whole thing about how it’s absolutely nothing like bumping into someone in a bar which is part of why it’s so bad.
The jist of it is that in a bar, your options are limited. So even if someone doesn’t visually meet your ideal, you often get over the hump quickly and get to know them as a person which might all of a sudden make them attractive to you.
On an app, if they don’t meet your visual ideal, the next candidate is just a figurative swipe left and so there is zero chance to get over that hump.
Gameification and weird cryptic terms like “high value”.
Oh man have you seen that ad that is all about how it’s a dating site only for “high value” people called like Elite Singles or some bullshit.
Literally they make it seem everyone is literally some Sherlock type when most people that think they are, are much more likely Lastrade except hyping crypto more.
I think everyone is just looking for a way to pretend harder that nothing is wrong and if they grind their face against the wheel a little harder they will be finally able to be good enough off to not think about it all. It seems miserable.
“High value” is also a term used in the FemaleDatingStrategy community, which is a community of women who advocate for traditional chivalry, abstinence until commitment, and strongly opposes BDSM under the belief that it’s essentially abuse.
I’m not sure if that has any bearing on the emptymology of the common usage of the term.
FemaleDatingStrategy community,
I think I will tell my wife right now how much I love her.
They’re flipping the Pickup Artist concepts on men, so that particular concept long predates app based dating and the FDS community. “High Value” is definitely a specific phrase used in discussing attracting women over 20 years ago.
Good to know!
I felt like I had already missed that chopper until I met my current gf earlier that year
I’m getting close to 40 and feel like I got left behind. It’s rare that I even meet someone I would want to date let alone them want to date me as well. I don’t have any interest in dating apps because they require too much information and putting pictures online so unless I happen to meet someone in real life I’ve just gotten comfortable being single.
At least I know there are other people who will know what it’s like when I get to that stage
It can work out. I met my wife on a dating site when I was 38. Happily married over 15 years now.
You do have to be careful though; you can meet all sorts of weirdos on the internet. She’d agree with that.
That’s great but I’m not putting pictures or details about myself online. That’s a hard no.
Tinder and the other apps are pretty bad. Partly because they want to make money, not matches.
But also partly because the users suck at using them. People are like “I want interesting conversation” but reply with nothing but “lol”. Come in my dude put some work in.
But also partly because the users suck at using them. People are like “I want interesting conversation” but reply with nothing but “lol”.
A lot of profiles on these sites are entirely fake or bot-operated, to boost the impression that you’re getting matches. Some profiles are run by data miners who swipe match on everyone just to get the additional data that comes with a match. Others are run by businesses that are using the profiles for promotion.
Slapping “I want interesting conversation” in the profile is a great way to bait engagement, but more often than not there’s no dating prospect on the other side of the profile. This isn’t a string of incredibly vapid women you’re running into, its dummy accounts and scams.
Somehow I hadn’t even considered fake profiles. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse about the situation.
My coworker told me that even restaurants will post “profiles”, get matches and set up first dates at their establishments. The person will obviously get stood up, but they are more likely to spend money in the establishment since they’re already there. Like maybe a drink or 2.
Now that’s evil.
As someone who has been stood up consecutively 16 times. What a monsterous way to acquire business
yup if any dating service needs you to pay a subscription instead of a one time payment and it helps you until you succeed, they have an active incentive to keep you as a customer as long as possible and guess what makes you stop being a customer.
Weirdly, none of them really focus on the non-monogamous market. There’s a section of likely long term users.
I’m not someone remotely into that market, but my understanding is there isn’t a huge demand for this outside the Ashley Madison type who are cheating. The various cliques have their own methods of finding each other and generally aren’t interested in broadcasting that to a wider market.
A lot of the polyamorous people I know are on the apps or have tried them, but aren’t happy with them. Partly because the apps generally aren’t good, and partly because you end up with a lot of wasted “your desired relationship structure isn’t what I want” matches.
OkCupid has some support for it, but that app hasn’t been good or interesting in years. Tinder lets you pick your relationship type, but you can’t like filter by it. Soneone threatened to “report me” on Hinge (I think?) for wanting a non monogamous relationship. Maybe they thought relationship anarchy was something dangerous.
This might be different outside of NYC, where I am.
Not just dating, I think gen x looks at everything that way at this point.
This 👆
This, definitely.
We got to live our teens and twenties without smartphones and social media - and it was so awesome.
You did something incredibly embarassing last weekend when you were drunk? No need to worry about photos or videos online and nobody would remember or care a few weeks later.
You date someone a few times and things don’t match up? You move on, no need to worry about them stalking or badmouthing you online.
The world seemed to be on a course for the better and the dumbass populist movements were marginal in most countries. Future looked bright and it was easy to be carefree. We got to enjoy our youths.
There were no short or vertical videos. You had to read vast majority of the information available, which made you actually process the info. And someone had put in the effort to write the stuff coherently, because no-one would read the kind of crap that video bloggers are spewing out of their mouths.
By the time we started working, the economic situation was mostly stable and getting a loan for a house or an apartment was pretty much guaranteed.
And so much more. I count myself extremely lucky to have been born in the late 70’s.
80s babies got most of that too except we were the leading edge of the housing and college jobs crisis. Graduated right into the dot com recession and then 2008 wiped the floor with a lot of us.
But I don’t think the embarrassing history thing is as bad as you think it is. I think it’s just become a red flag to judge your date based on things that were a while ago. The real terror is being stalked. It is way too easy to get stalked these days.
I have some good friends who were born in the 70s, and some born in the early 80s. I’m essentially the cusp. My friends who are only three or four years older went through high school never hiding a phone in a hoodie pocket to text their girlfriend. I got my first cell phone my junior year of high school. Facebook came out essentially contemporaneous with my acceptance to college. Social media then and cell phones then are absolutely not the same as the shit we have now. It was a freedom to communicate, and privacy was your choice. Now, privacy is up to whichever service you use, and most likely it doesn’t exist. And it’s odd because kids today seem to be okay with it.
Myspace and flip phones were fantastic. There were drawbacks, sure, but overall they allowed people to spread their wings and find like-minded individuals. Now, it seems like it’s a funnel to nowhere.
What does this mean? How is Gen Z dating?
The data says mostly through dating apps, for one, which seems so impersonal and frustrating from the outside.
The idea of meeting people online seemed so exciting back in the 90’s and 00’s. How ever did it go so wrong?
i don’t know about the exact point/year, but probably when it went from meeting someone online to the only thing that matters being exterior looks
There have always been people who only care about looks. That’s never changed.
Did Millennials not use dating apps?
The apps hadn’t been so thoroughly ruined by Match Group yet. OKCupid used to publish interesting detailed reports about dating habits. Plenty of Fish wasn’t full of bots and scammers. The apps that charged you for basic features were largely avoided. The experience was weird and new.
The dating app landscape as it is now is basically just whichever is the latest one until Match acquires it.
No, we just kinda stumbled into each other in social situations and went from there.
Those of us who are right on the cusp (let’s say 95-99) all use the apps but end up finding partners irl instead anyway. Either that or not at all. Just not on the apps.
Gen z and millennials are the only cohorts now? Get off my lawn.
No no of course not, I simply forgot Gen X existed and I don’t care how earlier generations did it, they seem miserable and bitter.
Gen x is not considered, as they are the middle child of generations.
I don’t get all the hate dating apps get. I met my wife on bumble, so maybe I’m biased. But still, it seems significantly better than the methods previous generations had (blind dating, speed dating, getting introduced to random friends that might happen to have something in common).
What’s the alternative? You just happen to get lucky enough to meet someone in your daily life that’s a good fit? One of the advantages of dating apps is that you get introduced to a much larger pool of potential partners than you otherwise would, which makes it significantly easier to filter out the wheat from the chaff and find a good fit.
I think part of the problem is dating apps keep getting worse and worse as they try to squeeze as much profit out of their users as possible. Tinder just came out with a $500/month tier
Pretty much this. I remember OG OkCupid and it was rad. It was a site ran by data nerds who wanted to help nerds find each other, and they wrote pretty frequent blog posts about their findings and how they were changing things up all for like ~$15 a month. All that started eroding until they got bought out by Match and its a cesspool of microtransactions now.
May as well pay for a legitimate match making service at that point
Dating apps are designed to keep you on them. They cant make money of you use them for a few months and then delete it.
Young people are actually using social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to date. People you sorta knew in high school or college, share some mutual interests, and then hang out from there and see what happens.
I mean, that’s what every single one of your ancestors did since the beginning of mankind
Not really. Humans live very differently today than they did throughout the past several millions of years. Cities and 9-5’s were not the norm until relatively recently. Unless you have a group you hang out with where you constantly meet new people it can be very different to find a partner in modern society without some form of dating.
Sometimes I forget cities were just recently invented in the 2010s
That’s funny. Obviously cities go back thousands of years, but I don’t think it was the norm for the majority of humans to live in them until the last several hundred years or less. But in general, I do believe humans have fewer group social activities than we used to, and therefore fewer opportunities to meet new people.
There’s a cultural aspect to this too. I know in China it’s common for parents to be matchmakers and find other parents that have single kids for them to go on dates with. And historically in India arranged marriage has been common. So I’m probably looking at this from a western lens. But still, as far as dating goes online dating seems to be the modern evolution of it. And in my opinion an improvement.
Well if you were in a rural area you would just trade like 2 goats for a dowry. Times were much more simple back then.
fortunate son intensifies
yeah. plenty of fish / ok cupid era I had a date every night for two weeks at one point met some great people, a few relationships, then met my wife “organically”
Tinder only worked for the 80% m4m hookup, occasional m4f at like festivals or big events.
I met my wife in 2011, just before Tinder got big in our area. I remember our single friends being ecstatic when Tinder was first around, saying about how easy it was to meet people.
Many of them are still single and now well into their 30’s. They talk a lot about wanting to find someone special, but they just swipe and swipe and swipe all day to no avail. Shit’s bleak out there. And I just know that if I didn’t meet my wife I’d probably be stuck in the same rut.
Feel kinda bad for the younger generations. At this point they can’t even go to other countries to find a significant other because they’ll just plague those other countries too with their degenerate social culture.
I watch single millennial friends dating at it looks fucking miserable.
Very lucky to be hitched
I have a friend who is recently divorced.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re both better off, but it’s bleak out there for singles.
It’s an age thing.
People with desirable traits for pairing up do so more frequently than those who lack these traits. As individuals pair up, the average quality of the remaining unpaired pool declines.
So the dating pool for early 20 year olds might be 1 dud: 20 mediocre: 1 winner. By the time people hit 40 the dating pool is 500 duds: 5 mediocre: 1 winner.
