8 ms·

> on Tinder, men outnumber women by 9 to 1. > Women just aren’t using these apps Couldn't it be that women just don't need to use a dating app to find partner

> on Tinder, men outnumber women by 9 to 1. > Women just aren’t using these apps Couldn't it be that women just don't need to use a dating app to find partners? Was this a problem they faced before the apps existed? Meeting people through work, school, friends, parties, etc. seems to have worked fine for women so far. The bottle neck here might be the preferences women have, not being unable to meet men without an app. The app would have to address that to solve their problem rather than purely trying to get people to meet which may again be limited by their preferences if they only like 20% of men as cited.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
> The bottle neck here might be the preferences women have, not being unable to meet men without an app. I would say there is a quite a bit of evidence that would corroborate this thesis. The majority of dating is moving online: https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-way-u-s-couples-meet/ https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-w... (Meeting online has become the most popular way U.S. couples connect, Stanford sociologist finds) But female participants aren't finding what they want: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-gap-hook-up-culture-female-graduates https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-... (The dating gap: why the odds are stacked against female graduates finding a like-minded man) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jomf.12603 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jomf.12603 (Mismatches in the Marriage Market) referenced by: https://nypost.com/2019/09/25/women-are-struggling-to-find-men-who-make-as-much-money-as-they-do/ https://nypost.com/2019/09/25/women-are-struggling-to-find-m... (Women are struggling to find men who make as much money as they do) > “There are shortages of economically attractive men,” lead study author Daniel T. Lichter tells The Post. Although we like to think marriage is based on love, he says, it “also is fundamentally an economic transaction,” and women want partners whom they can call their equals. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/better-educated-women-find-it-harder-to-meet-partner-1.3108512 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/better-educat... (Better-educated women ‘find it harder’ to meet partner) > While women in their mid-to-late 30s perceive a dwindling pool of prospective partners, men at this age perceive an “endless supply” of possible partners as it is more usual for an older man to choose a younger partner than it is for an older woman to, the study says. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2020/02/the-cost-of-thriving/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2020/02/the-cost-of-thriv... (The Cost Of Thriving) > While Americans see traits like “be caring and compassionate,” “contribute to household chores,” and “be well educated” as of nearly equivalent importance to being a “good husband” or a “good wife,” they are far more likely to describe “be able to support a family financially” as a very important trait for a good husband. This finding holds across education level, race, and gender: 72 percent of men and 71 percent of women say being able to support a family financially is very important for a man to be a good husband, compared to 25 percent of men and 39 percent of women saying the same about being a good wife. (My note: Money shot; what society says and what people are doing are two different things) The high level TLDR is (based on the data) men are content to date down, women are not, and economically disadvantaged men (which there are more of due to globalization and other macro factors) are exiting the dating marketplace, creating a market imbalance. Toss in data showing men online target ~20-25 years old for a partner, while women prefer to date around their age as they age, and here we are.
- wwweston 7y ago
  > While women in their mid-to-late 30s perceive a dwindling pool of prospective partners, men at this age perceive an “endless supply” of possible partners Possible? Maybe. Interested? Hardly.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    That’s not what the data shows. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/201908/why-many-younger-women-prefer-older-men https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/2... https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/mar/02/evolution.genetics https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/mar/02/evolution.ge...
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Have you tried? I'm in my 30s having the easiest dating life and I can totally understand the results if that one study pointing out that men peak in attractiveness at like 36. If you aren't finding dates in your 30s, then I doubt you were ever successful with women, assuming you didn't just let yourself go.
    - wwweston 7y ago
      > Have you tried? Not sure what other response is appropriate here other than "lol yes." > I doubt you were ever successful with women Arguably true, at least in that there doesn't seem to be some program of personal activity I can follow that reliably results in dates leading that lead to a relationship. Arguably false, in that periodically something just happens (sometimes through my efforts, more often not) and there's a strong connection and it grows into a months or years long relationship. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Not saying I find it impossible. I'm saying I find it so hard to relate to "an “endless supply” of possible partners" that I'm inclined to look on it pretty skeptically. If it were just me, then I'd consider the likelihood that I'm a bit of a niche good with some niche tastes, or I just need to work through some dating equivalent of _Cracking the Coding Interview_, but I know from conversations with my friends over the last 10 years that I'm far from the only one who's perceived their mid-to-late 30s dating life through a lens of non-abundance.
jfengel 7y ago
My anecdata was that I found a great many women on Tinder and other sites where I live (Washington, DC). Not fake profiles; I had plenty of dates. I like to think that I'm a good catch, but I don't think I'm exceptionally physically attractive, and am certainly not wealthy. (I was working for a startup and often made no money at all.) I don't believe I was doing anything other men couldn't replicate. I can't vouch for the male-to-female ratio, but I never failed to find somebody interesting on Tinder within a few days. I did hear a lot of horror stories from women about men on such apps, many of whom behaved very badly and others who were quite obviously unsuitable partners (boring, inarticulate, cheating, etc.) Maybe it's just where I am, or there's something else confounding my observations. But from what I saw, there were a lot of women on Tinder, and if men were failing to connect with them, the problem may not have been the numbers.
- bsder 7y ago
  > Washington, DC DC-NoVA area is known for having a surplus of women relative to men. Basically, every dating mechanism works for men in that area. This, of course, points out that it's simply the availability ratio that changes the behavior of women.
- fossuser 7y ago
  DC is a great place (for heterosexual men) to find dates - I found the ability to get dates via apps to be highly variable depending on the city (maybe M/F ratio, but probably a bunch of factors). If you want to see this for yourself just change your city in the apps from SF to NYC or DC and swipe. It's pretty obvious and dramatic.
  - novok 7y ago
    I'm curious if this imbalanced market effect happens with gay demographics anywhere? Are certain cities known to be 'bad' for certain gay demographics other than for homophobia reasons. Like not homophobic, but still bad for some reason?
maximente 7y ago
well, that is awfully low bandwidth in an internet-connected world. you may only be exposed to 500 potential mates that way. in a market like NYC, merely being on tinder would probably expose you to orders of magnitude more than that! makes sense to leverage tech to parlay your assets (e.g. attractiveness/mating value) to reach a wider audience in order to get highest possible match you can.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I believe this is the root problem of all dating "apps" or websites, assuming the goal is for two people to find each other and settle down. Without computers, databases, and the internet, you might only have so many chances to meet someone, and so you are mentally ready to accept someone that may be a few bands "below" you. And you might grow to like them. But with so much of the cost and friction gone, and a seemingly infinite number of chances to meet someone, especially in bigger cities, that mentality is gone. Why accept someone who might be okay for you when you can aim higher? And if everyone has this mentality, then you can see where the market goes. I also think there is an issue with wealth/income gap and easy availability of data rendering certain people who aren't seen as able to be economically viable mates to have a value so low as to not be worth dating period.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    If one’s goal is to settle down, why spend time dating someone who has any deal-breaker (whether religious, smoking/drugs, economic, or any other)?
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      Because you have to compromise? That’s my point, is that the infinite selection offered by online dating makes it seem like you don’t have to compromise, whereas the years go by and you keep losing value as you age. Not that there’s anything wrong with dealbreakers, and maybe they are warranted, but it all depends how much you want to get married.
fossuser 7y ago
This gets a little into the 'things you can't say' territory, but online dating just isn't very good for most heterosexual men due to selective pressures (it's probably better when the population is closer to an even split, but even then there are problems). This does change as men get older and there's less competition (online dating is bad for men in their 20s and good in their 30s). Dataclysm - Christian Rudder's book (cofounder of okcupid) has a ton of data you can look at to see some of the problems. One is solved by Tinder, Hinge etc. which is women getting too many messages (making things better for heterosexual women) but the other issue is the response graph itself. There's a graph in that book that shows number of messages received based on attractiveness, for women there is a massive spike at the right end of the attractiveness scale and it gets lower at the lower end, but is still around 4-5 messages a week. This means there are opportunities to at least go on dates if interested and get better at selection/what you like and don't. For men it's a flat line at zero until the extreme right of the attractiveness scale where it goes up to 1-2 messages. For men not in the top 10% of attractiveness online dating is not viable so things trend towards a broken state where women select the same group of highly selected men (which tends to lead to less long term interest on the side of the highly selected men). I think large amounts of men ~80% get very few dating opportunities and so are generally bad at the social skills required for success. For most heterosexual men (those not in the top 10% of attractiveness) you're better off meeting people in real life where you can make a better impression. These issues are compounded in the bay area where there is a large imbalance of men and women (things are less broken in DC and NYC). If I had a suggestion for a new type of dating site it would be less about the matching part and more about how to help men get better at the prerequisites for success (social skills, dressing better, fitness etc.). The pairing part is less important.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I don't know... I'm absolutely nowhere near the top 10% of male attractiveness, but I've had good luck getting dates on dating sites. From talking with many women about their experience on such sites, I think that attractiveness is far less important than behavior -- the vast majority of men that women hear from, it seems, are very poorly behaved.
tsukurimashou 7y ago
women control natural selection since birth control, of course they don't need these apps. It is the same for night clubs etc... no entry fee for women, some dating apps do the same, you have to pay if you're a dude, but it is free if you're a female. An average looking women will never have any issue finding someone to date, an average looking guy on the other hand...

toomuchtodo 7y ago

> The bottle neck here might be the preferences women have, not being unable to meet men without an app. I would say there is a quite a bit of evidence that would corroborate this thesis. The majority of dating is moving online: https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-way-u-s-couples-meet/ https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-w... (Meeting online has become the most popular way U.S. couples connect, Stanford sociologist finds) But female participants aren't finding what they want: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-gap-hook-up-culture-female-graduates https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-... (The dating gap: why the odds are stacked against female graduates finding a like-minded man) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jomf.12603 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jomf.12603 (Mismatches in the Marriage Market) referenced by: https://nypost.com/2019/09/25/women-are-struggling-to-find-men-who-make-as-much-money-as-they-do/ https://nypost.com/2019/09/25/women-are-struggling-to-find-m... (Women are struggling to find men who make as much money as they do) > “There are shortages of economically attractive men,” lead study author Daniel T. Lichter tells The Post. Although we like to think marriage is based on love, he says, it “also is fundamentally an economic transaction,” and women want partners whom they can call their equals. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/better-educated-women-find-it-harder-to-meet-partner-1.3108512 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/better-educat... (Better-educated women ‘find it harder’ to meet partner) > While women in their mid-to-late 30s perceive a dwindling pool of prospective partners, men at this age perceive an “endless supply” of possible partners as it is more usual for an older man to choose a younger partner than it is for an older woman to, the study says. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2020/02/the-cost-of-thriving/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2020/02/the-cost-of-thriv... (The Cost Of Thriving) > While Americans see traits like “be caring and compassionate,” “contribute to household chores,” and “be well educated” as of nearly equivalent importance to being a “good husband” or a “good wife,” they are far more likely to describe “be able to support a family financially” as a very important trait for a good husband. This finding holds across education level, race, and gender: 72 percent of men and 71 percent of women say being able to support a family financially is very important for a man to be a good husband, compared to 25 percent of men and 39 percent of women saying the same about being a good wife. (My note: Money shot; what society says and what people are doing are two different things) The high level TLDR is (based on the data) men are content to date down, women are not, and economically disadvantaged men (which there are more of due to globalization and other macro factors) are exiting the dating marketplace, creating a market imbalance. Toss in data showing men online target ~20-25 years old for a partner, while women prefer to date around their age as they age, and here we are.

wwweston 7y ago
> While women in their mid-to-late 30s perceive a dwindling pool of prospective partners, men at this age perceive an “endless supply” of possible partners Possible? Maybe. Interested? Hardly.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  That’s not what the data shows. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/201908/why-many-younger-women-prefer-older-men https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/2... https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/mar/02/evolution.genetics https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/mar/02/evolution.ge...
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Have you tried? I'm in my 30s having the easiest dating life and I can totally understand the results if that one study pointing out that men peak in attractiveness at like 36. If you aren't finding dates in your 30s, then I doubt you were ever successful with women, assuming you didn't just let yourself go.
  - wwweston 7y ago
    > Have you tried? Not sure what other response is appropriate here other than "lol yes." > I doubt you were ever successful with women Arguably true, at least in that there doesn't seem to be some program of personal activity I can follow that reliably results in dates leading that lead to a relationship. Arguably false, in that periodically something just happens (sometimes through my efforts, more often not) and there's a strong connection and it grows into a months or years long relationship. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Not saying I find it impossible. I'm saying I find it so hard to relate to "an “endless supply” of possible partners" that I'm inclined to look on it pretty skeptically. If it were just me, then I'd consider the likelihood that I'm a bit of a niche good with some niche tastes, or I just need to work through some dating equivalent of _Cracking the Coding Interview_, but I know from conversations with my friends over the last 10 years that I'm far from the only one who's perceived their mid-to-late 30s dating life through a lens of non-abundance.

jfengel 7y ago

My anecdata was that I found a great many women on Tinder and other sites where I live (Washington, DC). Not fake profiles; I had plenty of dates. I like to think that I'm a good catch, but I don't think I'm exceptionally physically attractive, and am certainly not wealthy. (I was working for a startup and often made no money at all.) I don't believe I was doing anything other men couldn't replicate. I can't vouch for the male-to-female ratio, but I never failed to find somebody interesting on Tinder within a few days. I did hear a lot of horror stories from women about men on such apps, many of whom behaved very badly and others who were quite obviously unsuitable partners (boring, inarticulate, cheating, etc.) Maybe it's just where I am, or there's something else confounding my observations. But from what I saw, there were a lot of women on Tinder, and if men were failing to connect with them, the problem may not have been the numbers.

bsder 7y ago
> Washington, DC DC-NoVA area is known for having a surplus of women relative to men. Basically, every dating mechanism works for men in that area. This, of course, points out that it's simply the availability ratio that changes the behavior of women.
fossuser 7y ago
DC is a great place (for heterosexual men) to find dates - I found the ability to get dates via apps to be highly variable depending on the city (maybe M/F ratio, but probably a bunch of factors). If you want to see this for yourself just change your city in the apps from SF to NYC or DC and swipe. It's pretty obvious and dramatic.
- novok 7y ago
  I'm curious if this imbalanced market effect happens with gay demographics anywhere? Are certain cities known to be 'bad' for certain gay demographics other than for homophobia reasons. Like not homophobic, but still bad for some reason?

maximente 7y ago

well, that is awfully low bandwidth in an internet-connected world. you may only be exposed to 500 potential mates that way. in a market like NYC, merely being on tinder would probably expose you to orders of magnitude more than that! makes sense to leverage tech to parlay your assets (e.g. attractiveness/mating value) to reach a wider audience in order to get highest possible match you can.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
I believe this is the root problem of all dating "apps" or websites, assuming the goal is for two people to find each other and settle down. Without computers, databases, and the internet, you might only have so many chances to meet someone, and so you are mentally ready to accept someone that may be a few bands "below" you. And you might grow to like them. But with so much of the cost and friction gone, and a seemingly infinite number of chances to meet someone, especially in bigger cities, that mentality is gone. Why accept someone who might be okay for you when you can aim higher? And if everyone has this mentality, then you can see where the market goes. I also think there is an issue with wealth/income gap and easy availability of data rendering certain people who aren't seen as able to be economically viable mates to have a value so low as to not be worth dating period.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  If one’s goal is to settle down, why spend time dating someone who has any deal-breaker (whether religious, smoking/drugs, economic, or any other)?
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Because you have to compromise? That’s my point, is that the infinite selection offered by online dating makes it seem like you don’t have to compromise, whereas the years go by and you keep losing value as you age. Not that there’s anything wrong with dealbreakers, and maybe they are warranted, but it all depends how much you want to get married.

fossuser 7y ago

This gets a little into the 'things you can't say' territory, but online dating just isn't very good for most heterosexual men due to selective pressures (it's probably better when the population is closer to an even split, but even then there are problems). This does change as men get older and there's less competition (online dating is bad for men in their 20s and good in their 30s). Dataclysm - Christian Rudder's book (cofounder of okcupid) has a ton of data you can look at to see some of the problems. One is solved by Tinder, Hinge etc. which is women getting too many messages (making things better for heterosexual women) but the other issue is the response graph itself. There's a graph in that book that shows number of messages received based on attractiveness, for women there is a massive spike at the right end of the attractiveness scale and it gets lower at the lower end, but is still around 4-5 messages a week. This means there are opportunities to at least go on dates if interested and get better at selection/what you like and don't. For men it's a flat line at zero until the extreme right of the attractiveness scale where it goes up to 1-2 messages. For men not in the top 10% of attractiveness online dating is not viable so things trend towards a broken state where women select the same group of highly selected men (which tends to lead to less long term interest on the side of the highly selected men). I think large amounts of men ~80% get very few dating opportunities and so are generally bad at the social skills required for success. For most heterosexual men (those not in the top 10% of attractiveness) you're better off meeting people in real life where you can make a better impression. These issues are compounded in the bay area where there is a large imbalance of men and women (things are less broken in DC and NYC). If I had a suggestion for a new type of dating site it would be less about the matching part and more about how to help men get better at the prerequisites for success (social skills, dressing better, fitness etc.). The pairing part is less important.

JohnFen 7y ago
I don't know... I'm absolutely nowhere near the top 10% of male attractiveness, but I've had good luck getting dates on dating sites. From talking with many women about their experience on such sites, I think that attractiveness is far less important than behavior -- the vast majority of men that women hear from, it seems, are very poorly behaved.

tsukurimashou 7y ago

women control natural selection since birth control, of course they don't need these apps. It is the same for night clubs etc... no entry fee for women, some dating apps do the same, you have to pay if you're a dude, but it is free if you're a female. An average looking women will never have any issue finding someone to date, an average looking guy on the other hand...