‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps::For a decade, apps have dominated dating. But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people – or reverting to old ones
Here to offer hope and advice to anyone that’s given up. I’m a 52-yo American male and have knocked it out the park with dating apps. In the 4-years since my wife left, thank god, I’ve had 15-20 dates and 5 steady gf’s for a bit. Getting married 11/24 if y’all want to come!
Pro tips:
- Post a variety of pics. Nothing controversial like guns, dead animals, any other women your age. Or your fucking truck/motorcycle/sportscar. If your Confederate flag bed sheets are really important to filter people, go ahead I guess. If the person you’re looking at does not have a wide range of pics, red flag. Women are great at glamour shots. Take the worst pic of the bunch and assume that’s what they look like IRL. Worst case, you’re pleasantly surprised. (Happened to me many times!)
- Don’t be too judgmental. All you’re aiming for is a first date, see how it goes. What’s it cost a man? Dinner for two? Better yet, I dated a woman who said neither party should pay anything on the first date. If you don’t click, no one’s out anything. Go to a park, thrift storing, antique mall, whatever floats your boat. It costs nothing to walk around, talk and gauge each other’s interests and mutual attraction.
- Sorry, but this bit can be expensive. Sign up for half-a-dozen sites. If you’re fishing, it’s best to bait 6 poles vs. one, right? Try the free options of course, see how it goes, but spread yourself around as much as possible. You never know. And that bears repeating. You never know what will happen. More on that shortly.
- Keep initial communication short and sweet. Too much gets lost in text, too many misunderstandings. "Hey! Love (something in their post that you’re seriously interested in, or why else are you contacting them)! (question about something you want to know about them)? Want to (go to the park, get coffee, go thrift storing, whatever)? And then go on the damned date, and do it ASAP, before something stupid happens like a misunderstood text, other plans/dates cropping up, whatever. Just go. If I have to say, “Don’t be an ass and pressure for the date.”, you’re not ready for a relationship.
How I met my fiancé:
She hit me up on eHarmony. Gods that site sucks. Only date I ever got there. Blew her off because her pics were… not so great. She had nothing interesting to say about herself, barebones bio. 3-months later I’m revisiting and saw her “like”. “Yeah, what about this girl again?” She posted more about herself, and more attractive pics and here we are.
About the judgmental thing; If I knew then what I know now, the date would have been a hard NO. She’s a city girl (Manilla), never even been in the woods. No shit. Jealous as fuck, and I’ve spent 30-years saying that’s the one thing I won’t abide. She was a Christian preschool teacher at private school. Fuck all that nonsense. You get the idea.
But we click so hard it’s silly. I feel like I’ve landed some kind of fantasy girl. And she feels the same! 11/24/23, NW FL, you’re all welcome to the wedding.
What’s it cost a man? Dinner for two?
If I could afford to pay for a stranger’s dinner out I probably wouldn’t be single, haha. I buy two takeaways a year as a special treat for myself, mainly for my birthday. That’s all I can afford.
No way am I paying for someone else’s food on a date anyway, this isn’t the 1940s, women and all other genders are equal to men and they need to put in just as much effort on a date as a guy does.
You don’t get a free lunch because you’re a woman, and if you’re the sort of sexist woman that demands that sort of thing I wouldn’t be interested in you anyway.
I hope I don’t seem overly harsh, I’m just tired of sexism in dating. It’s ubiquitous and gross.
women and all other genders are equal to men and they need to put in just as much effort on a date as a guy does.
You’re spending a lot of money and time on your hair, makeup, and outfit right? Probably asking friends for advice and thinking about it all week? Not eating the day of, so you look your best? Wearing expensive cologne and some shoes that make your butt look good?
You’re doing all that right? I know you want to be equal and put in just as much effort, so you must be.
I literally track every calorie and workout every day to look remotely decent for women, yes. I have no hair, so that part is less relevant.
That’s not expensive. And I do the same because it’s fun to workout. Tracking calories is like 10 minutes per day.
It’s always the people doing the least who complain the most. You didn’t mention anything else, so I assume you don’t ask anyone for advice, don’t wear an expensive outfit, and don’t put on cologne. Hopefully you shower but you didn’t mention that either…
I’m a different guy, just had my heart broken. I put an extraordinary amount of effort into relationships, to the point it is considered self-betrayal by professionals. Just saying it’s not always so one-sided.
Don’t you dare let a man steal your queen energy! You’re a boss bitch! /s
Sometimes when you put that much effort into something that doesn’t need that much effort, it can look like you’re trying too hard, which can be off putting.
I’ve been on like 5 or 6 dates from the few years I lived in NYC (it was right before COVID happened, of course). Not a single one of them looked like they went out of their way to prepare for the date. Usually just jeans and a nice shirt, or maybe a cute dress, but they didn’t get all dolled up like they were going to prom. One worked in finance and came from her job, and then went back it to after our date. This was like 8 pm.
If you want to spend a bunch of money, starve yourself, and do various other things so you feel that you look good, that’s on you, don’t expect the guy to pay for you just because you feel you’re owed it because of what you did. That’s really not much different than the guy who is like “I bought her a present so she should be willing to have sex with me now”.
This comment is hilarious because you assumed I’m a chick.
Hair, makeup, nails, and outfits are what it costs for a woman to just go outside, not to prom. A regular ass haircut can easily be a hundred dollars. I didn’t even mention all the skin creams that make you look “naturally beautiful”. Have you even heard of waist trainers?
A lot of women, especially in NYC, are doing this regularly even when they don’t have a date. NYC is lopsided with more women than men. That’s how they get dates. If you know any women who don’t put much effort into their appearance, you start to realize they don’t go on many dates.
A regular ass haircut
Unsure if you literally mean removal of hair in the ass, which you might also believe is expected of all women before they just go outside … or if you’re just swearing to seem like a dynamite chick?
It’s possible a total makeover every day is how some people get their dates - it’s a style, and it attracts certain types of people. But by having that “dumb” appearance, they also help all the brainier people who are looking for a partner with more in the head than on it, discarding them, since brainy people are more often interested in finding meaningful relations with interesting minds, rather than meeting “perfect” appearances, I believe.
I understand it’s a serious problem that many try to live up to all these “beauty” expectations. It sounds like it’s a bit of a burden to you, and I’m sorry if you and the people around you are seriously unable to discard the definition BigBeauty told you through many years of carefully planned commercial ads, but every real definition of beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and since only some of us truly believe in what BigBeauty claims, it doesn’t necessarily prequire a daily total makeover of your face for someone to think you’re beautiful.
Congrats man :)
The cost for the search is generally far more than money. It takes some time, yes, but it also consumes energy and mental health to absorb repeated rejections and expressions of fear. (I understand the fear, to an extent. Some men are genuinely scary, and can make someone very sour to future encounters) It also constantly judges your self worth as a person. Wise people can turn away the misjudgments of young fools, but often only so many times.
I’d probably consider going back if I could find hard evidence of some level of interest and commitment from anyone on any of those sites. I have never seen it before, and don’t expect to. One time I was on a tour in another country, and learned that the women in my group were putting themselves up on dating sites within the area, even though they were being bused around the country on the tour, and had no chance of ever meeting with interested parties. It was purely for the attention-seeking. I’ve decided my attention is not free, and it’s been a powerful move for my mental health - for the better.
I did all that for like 7 years in NYC and what did I get? About 5 dates, not a single one turned into a second date. I thought I had one in the bag… Then she sent me a long text saying that she didn’t want to see me again because I made her “uncomfortable” at the end of the date, even though her body language or verbal language said nothing or the sort.
I moved back to Southern NJ a few months after that and ended up talking to a cute woman for a week. She was 42 and I was 37,we would send a few long messages back and forth, but I always kept it casual. I knew she was vegan because she had it on her profile. We went to a bar/restaurant and she was like “yeah I can’t eat anything here, I’m not hungry anyway.” We both got a drink and chatted for another 1.5 hours. Towards the end of the date she said “so you said you’re thinking about moving to Miami…” and I responded "yeah, but that’s up in the air right now, nothing is trying me to down there, and now that you’re in the picture, idk how that would work… " then she said " Oh, I don’t think I’m in the picture, we don’t have enough in common and I wouldn’t date someone that isn’t vegan. We had been talking for a week and she never mentioned that once. I just sat there, shocked, and was thinking “why did you agree to this then?” it wasn’t because of the free food or drinks (she had one hard seltzer) and she was like “So I guess this is it? I’m gonna head home, I’m tired”.
After being tired of the North East I moved down to Miami about 2 weeks ago! People are definitely a lot more friendly down here and I gotta get out of my NYC habit of leaving everyone alone because no one wants to talk to someone that they don’t know.
I did all that for like 7 years in NYC and what did I get? About 5 dates, not a single one turned into a second date. I thought I had one in the bag… Then she sent me a long text saying that she didn’t want to see me again because I made her “uncomfortable” at the end of the date, even though her body language or verbal language said nothing or the sort.
Gonna be real dude, it’s not the apps, in this scenario.
We met up for drinks, we were heading home the same way so we waited for it to come together. Goy in the car, sitting next to each other. I put my arm around her and she cuddled into me. I pulled the move out slightly lifting her chin so she would face me and I French kissed her, and she happily responded. We stopped after a few seconds and sat there holding hands. We went off and walked about 500 ft to the next subway train, which was coming in 10 minutes. I joked “yay more time to make out” and she giggled. We preferred to make out, and add over does, they get a little handsy. She never said “stop”,*I’m done " or anything else. She was just there with a smile on her face. When he train came she pushed me off of her (I had her against the wall) and said “I can take it from here” and looked back and smiled at me.
That was it, except from the previous 4 hours they we spent at the bar really getting to know each other.
Yeah so just stop interacting with people. “You’re creepy.”™
The correct answer here is to
A) be less creepy
Or
B) get better at finding people who like your specific brand of creepy
There’s someone out there for everyone. Used to be good friends with a dude we literally called “Creepy” as a nickname back in college, because h was just so fuckin awkward. He married a chick who absolutely loves the smothering thing he’d do. He’s a good guy and they’re super happy, and ngl it really touched the heartstrings.
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All these dating apps are owned by the same company and are all kinda scammy. It’s very much a pay to play scenario.
Back when OkCupid first came out and they hadn’t figured out how to make you pay for everything, it was awesome. I went on so many dates.
Fast forward to last year and I’m dating again and try OkCupid and it was a totally different experience. I never would get messages organically. You have to subscribe to the premium package and then you have to pay to get more super likes so that women actually see your account. It’s pretty ridiculous.
So don’t use it as a gage to judge yourself. It’s just about how much money you spend on the app.
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My buddy has been married for like 2 or 3 years to a really cool, smart, and beautiful woman. He dated her for like a year or two before, and they had known each other before that. When I was hanging out with him one night, the topic of dating and the apps came up, I told him it was all a scam now, they want you to pay for everything. He was like “WTF? They only give you a certain amount of free swipes a day and then you either have to pay more or wait? That’s some bullshit bro.”
Of course before you pay they entice you by saying you have like 10 or 15 matches, but you need to pay to see who they are. One you pay that number is cut in half or less, and they’re usually not people you’d be attracted to anyway
You’re out there dodging bullets my man. Don’t let others define your self worth.
Sorry I can’t help with the dating advice. I’m old as fuck and married forever and the modern dating scene seems weird to me.
For what it’s worth, my son met a lovely girl while travelling. He also met lots of cool people through local online groups in the areas he was traveling to. Not sure if that’s useful at all.
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Hobbies if you have time or money? And not hobbies for the sake of trying to find someone romantically, but something you genuinely enjoy. Local game stores can be a good way to find out about other adjacent events (if they are big enough) or trivia nights at bars, etc.
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Ahh most of my hobbies have mostly outpriced me as well.
When I was motivated to go out and do hobby stuff, it was mostly a male dominated space so 90% of the time I just felt like a meat bag, and it really killed my desire to go out and do hobby stuff. So I ended up mostly at home.
The problem is that a lot of my hobbies are male centric.
Picking up something for the sake of finding someone is a shit reason to pick a hobby, to be frank. You mentioned the girl who said all the guys kept hitting on her and she was trying to just have a beer or whatever, that’s how it feels from a woman’s perspective. You’re just trying to go out and do something menial in life that everyone should be able to enjoy unmolested, or have the right to at bare minimum, and suddenly it’s dick o’clock.
I mean idk. I see it from a woman’s perspective, having been in that situation numerous times, I can tell you 90000% of life would be easier if I was just a dude. I could just go out and enjoy absolutely banal, stupidly mindless shit and nobody would bat an eye, because penis, I guess? Being objectified blows ass.
Not saying you were one of “those” guys, but to put it in perspective maybe, both of you were at opposite ends of the lonely spectrum, and felt isolated for different reasons.
I think everyone would be a lot happier in life, or at least at peace, with some solid introspection and having a sit down (with yourself) about things. There is so much social pressure to go out and do XYZ because fomo and you get so easily swept up in it when your immediate social and cultural circle is constructed on potentially damaging or dated concepts. I think there is much more to be gleaned from asking why you feel a certain way then trying to find how to put a bandaid on it.
I feel you bro. I lived in Manhattan for 3 years and got maybe 3 dates, a lot were just conversations on the app that went nowhere. I was like how the hell can I not find someone in a city of 8 million people (NYC in general)?! My buddy met his wife on Hinge during COVID. All it showed me was transgender people and “bottom of the barrel” people where I was like “you can’t seriously think that this is a good picture of you”. We lived about 4 miles apart.
I think the biggest kick in the balls was when my ex and I broke up. I went on bumble and literally 3 profiles in it recommended her to me!
I’ve had friends, professionals, and strangers on Reddit review my profiles, my therapist (who was around my age) looked over my profiles too. Everyone said there wasn’t really anything bad that stood out to them. If they did have any suggestions they usually conflicted what someone else had told me.
It’s been 8 long, lonely, depressing years. I’ve gone to social events via meetup and most of them were either dudes outnumbering women like 4:1 of it was a big mixer, or if it was something small it would be like 5 or 6 people just standing around at a bar or something being awkward. I started going to board and cars game nights three times a week, one of them had a fair amount of attractive women, but they always had their guard up because all the lonely dudes there would have the same idea. I became friendly with two of the cute regulars early on, I played it cool for a while. When we were waiting to order drinks at the bar one of them said “ugh, all these guys won’t stop hitting on me, I just want to play games.” and I was thinking “well… Shit…”
I finally got so fed up with everyone being so closed off up there (and other reasons) that I just moved 1300 miles away to Miami where everyone is a lot friendlier. I’ve only been here for 1.5 weeks and it definitely isn’t as easy to find social events to meet women and make friends like there was in NYC. They largely all sucked, but at least the opportunity was there. People are at least more willing to talk to strangers here though!
Who would have thought that looking at 5 pictures and a shit bio would lead to you not being able to find a meaningful relationship?
My buddy met his wife on Hinge during COVID. He’s a good looking dude that dresses well. Me? I’m not exactly the most photogenic person and my sense of style is “I work in IT” 😄
Wearing clothes that fit is the most important thing for being good at men’s fashion. A very simple tshirt and jeans can be really affordable and attractive IF they fit.
I apparently have an odd body shape, shorter legs and I carry all my fat in my gut, so it makes finding comfortable jeans very difficult. What fits me is about a 31 or 32" waist (before I gained weight, now it’s like 35") and like 28" or 29" length, but no stores sell that so I started buying them online. Also I have minor gynecomastia (“bitch tits”) so tight shirts just look bad on me. I’m nipping like a woman in a freezer.
Before COVID I dropped 45 pounds and went down to 135 pounds at 5’9", everywhere else I had practically zero fat, but still had a decent sized gut and man boobs even though I had like 12.5% body fat. I bought a bunch of clothes that fit, then couldn’t do anything for 9 months and gained the majority of it back.
I’m trying again after 3 years and will need to buy new clothes again, but this time for a tropical climate, so it should be easier to find clothes that fit me well since most shirts everyone wears are button ups to let the air through and shorts.
The apps served a purpose. They raised the available pool of possible dates from “who’s in this bar with me right now” to “everyone in a 10 mile radius” or whatever, and everyone is there for the same reason, mostly.
But it also doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It shouldn’t be. Use an app you like and also go to in-person dating events. Just use apps if that’s your speed. Fuck the apps and go out there and meet people at the local cafe, or board game night, or beer league softball, or whatever. It can augment the old ways. It doesn’t have to replace the old ways.
From “who’s in this bar with me right now” to “everyone in the entire world” but mostly Russian spam bots, Only Fans, and ‘Influencers’ 🤮
FYFY
You forgot ‘South East Asian and African women GPS spoofing their way to matching with Western men with the aim of getting a spousal visa in mind.’
That’s what 65% of my matches on dating apps are. The other 35% are fake accounts using photos stolen from a model’s Instagram or Weibo. Unfortunately the mobile nature of modern dating apps makes it far more difficult to run a reverse image search and weed out those fakes. But generally if I match with someone hot enough to look like a model, I’m automatically suspicious.
This isn’t me having a preference. I just don’t want a long distance relationship with somebody who lives 5000+ miles away. Been there, done that.
I used to date a Japanese lady who came to the UK on a student visa to do a foreign exchange year. Our relationship fell apart the moment we finally closed the gap.
Also, I’ve known ladies who have married foreign spouses and the ordeal they’ve been put through by the Home Office to bring their husbands to the UK. I don’t want to have to surrender years of private chat logs to the government and be interrogated for hours because of their crackdown upon mail order brides.
Dativerse when? Seems like this is ripe for disruption by a free solution
Yes, why can’t Lemmy just work for that?
Just create a “City Nama, M4W/M4M/W4W/W4M.MM4W…etc”
That would work no?
There’s no women on Lemmy tho.
Anyone can be a woman with the right leg and penis tuck strategy LOL.
No, because newer or more upvoted is not better. The way Lemmy is set up for news makes it bad for leaving a page up for your profile and getting people to look at it over time
I did online dating for many years. I used match, eharmony, tinder, pof, okcupid.
I fully understand the ‘soul destroying’ comment. For me it was a lot of work for little return. I started off being selective. Messaging one person at a time so I didn’t end up getting two responses and having to put someone off or turn one of them down. That was naive it turned out as I got very few replies. So I started messaging multiple people at once. I always tried to personalise things but my effort varied with how optimistic I was feeling about online dating.
Ultimately I think I got responses about 10% of the time. From them, 10% turned into a date, from those maybe 50% would get to a second date.
So overall it every hundred messages I’d write , 1 would end up in a date. I went on quite a lot of dates over the years, but I had to devote so much time to getting them it was, soul destroying.
I never thought i was unattractive, but online dating made me question if I really was. I never thought I was an ass, but online dating made me question if I really was. I would sometimes have very long conversations before meeting to find there was no chemistry in person. Sometimes I would like them when we meet and they would ghost me. Sometimes they liked me and I didn’t like them, but I always tried to be honourable and tell them, not ghost them since I didn’t like it happening to me.
I am male in case my experience doesn’t make it obvious. I often spoke to some of the women I got on better with about how online dating was for them and their experience was pretty awful for different reasons. Generally they were bombarded by messages and a good number of them were obscene. Guys trying to hook up rather than date. To manage their inbox was a real challenge and they probably missed out on good matches because of the noise.
My overall impression of the whole thing is that it generally sucks regardless of whether you are the one doing most of the messaging or whether you are receiving messages. I also think it makes it more like shopping than dating, dehumanising people. Do I want the 8K 42 inch TV or the 4K inch TV? Actually, can I even afford it?
All that said in the end it worked for me. Over 6 years since I last logged in and I think it was a bit of an addiction, or perhaps desperation born of loneliness.i also have a daughter now and there were times I thought that was never going to happen.
So for me online dating was years of frustration, difficulty and upset, but in the end I’m glad I did it but it took a long time.
This has definitely been my experience. 8 years after my last relationship and I’m still single. I’m an average looking guy, I put up nice pictures, I filled out the profile, I spent time crafting a good opening message, etc… I had maybe 30-50 conversations, most of which quickly died out, some just wanted to keep talking for weeks before we met, at the end I think I ended up with less than ten actual dates, none of them went to a second date.
My first therapist even suggested an experiment (edit: this was actually my idea,but he supported it): replace my profile pictures with those of a male model and see if I get tons of messages or it stays the same. I ended up getting about 3 or 4 more messages total then usual, none of them went anywhere either.
This is the interesting thing about looking hot. It brings its own host of problems; serious problems they aren’t really acknowledged by society at large because of apparent privilege.
I couldn’t really find scientific research to back this claim up. Can you elaborate and back your claims up?
Coming from somebody in their early thirties who has had nothing but atrocious luck with women in general, I’ve mentally checked out of dating.
Every dating app is now a carbon-copy of Tinder where you can’t pull a lady unless you look like a fucking Chippendale, are above 5’11" tall, have your own property and are sufficiently wealthy. It also doesn’t help that Match Group hold a virtual monopoly over the market, with Bumble as their only credible competition. They literally profiteer from making the experience as miserable as possible so they can sucker you into paying a £40/month subscription.
Match also put the bare minimum into moderating and policing their apps. The sheer volume of love scammers, fake users and spammers shilling OnlyFans pages is massive, and it feels like they really couldn’t give a shit about enforcing their own rules.
Online dating really is that soul-destroying, and the longer I spend trying to use any app, the less it surprises me that the incel, MGTOW and red pill communities are growing, and that people like Andrew Tate and Sneako have such a huge following despite being such garbage human beings.
At the same time I wish there was a better alternative.
I really loved OkCupid back before they sold out. They would share a lot of interesting data on their blog posts, and seemed genuinely interested in making successful matchups based on how your profile was presented to others. It was fun to be on there and didn’t feel like you were just being presented for “dateable” you were if you didn’t want to be.
I also met my wife on OkCupid, but that was just before the site really took a nosedive. Pretty annoyed they deleted my account without warning, so the first message she ever sent me is gone forever.
My wife and I also met on OKCupid, probably around the same time as you – Tinder-like features were starting to appear, but the core of the experience was still about reading other users’ personal essays and comparing compatibility quiz responses. Of all the services I tried, OKCupid (in that particular incarnation, at least) seemed like the only one that was genuinely aimed at fostering deep personal connections. I haven’t been on any of the apps in almost a decade now, but it really seems like the shallow, gamified Tinder model of “swipe right if they look hot” ate up the marketplace, to the detriment of everyone.
Yeah that’s literally all it is now, a few apps are like “there’s no swiping here” but then the mechanic they came up with is worse.
Dating websites were useless, turning them into phone applications just made them even less engaging then they already were.
An extremely tiny percentage of dating website users get anything positive from it. You might as well play a lottery instead.
I’m married now but was pretty successful in meeting people through dating apps when I was single for a couple of years. Each and every person I met ended up being a complete shit show, by far the worst dates and one worst relationship of my life. The relationship was with someone who turned out to be an abusive narcissist. Fun.
By contrast, the relationships and dates that came from meeting people in person were the best, I think because they originated from spontaneous mutual interest, plus I could much more easily weed out the creeps.
I just don’t see this. I’ve had lots of success and I’m not a typically attention-grabbing person on a dating app (my first line is about how I’m married).
I have numerous friends who met their long-term partners on dating apps.
I used dating apps for 10 years. Got maybe a dozen replies and 1 date. So I’m looking at like a .00001% success rate. It’s heartbreaking how unattractive that makes me feel.
Well, if your goal was to get at least one date, then I’d say the success rate was 100%!
I would not call the date a success lol. I tried to plan to go somewhere but the girl knew a mutual friend so she said she felt more comfortable coming over my apartment. She was adamant about being pizza (which was awful), and when she walked in she cracked a joke about how easily she could get raped. 0/10. Did not see her again.
Oof, quite the story!!
No it isn’t. Those things are nothing but trouble
TBH app based dating has entirely ended the possibility of dating for me. It’s just not worth the effort and constant rejection. Add on being lower than normal attractiveness, and 5’5” to boot, it just isn’t something that makes it worthwhile anymore.
I’m no catch myself, and would need to do a lot of working on myself first if I wanted to date, but it’s not something that seems worth the effort now. It’s been so commodified that I just don’t have the will or want to put in the work.
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Of course not, most of the dates are still found by going outside
