6 ms·

I found a good match via online dating recently, but only after about half a decade of usage. I honestly cannot stand online dating. In all my years real-life d

by colmvp 5y ago

I found a good match via online dating recently, but only after about half a decade of usage. I honestly cannot stand online dating. In all my years real-life dating, online dating had substantially worse experiences. Last winter on a 'Zoom date' one match multi-tasked while I was trying to talk with her. She was literally shopping. Another 'left the chat' after I said I wasn't a property developer, I was a software developer. I hesitate to even mention this because it practically reveals my identity to friends who know that story. I've met women who chatted for a while, and setup a date, only to finally reveal at the 11th hour that they are seeing someone. Sorry! I've also met women who used very, very misleading photographs in their profiles. I've had 'matches' who return curt answers to very simple conversational questions, as if how dare you attempt to grace their presence with your messages. I'd take a non-reply over that sort of signal. I would not be texting them in the first place if they hadn't also swiped right on me. My real life experiences dating someone from Meetup/College/Work had substantially more honesty and humanity. In online dating, I truly feel there's a loss of treating others like human beings instead of a disposable item. And to be fair, I am guilty of that sin as well. But for all the talk I've heard from my female friends about how guys are awful on online dating (and I believe it), I can assure you that it's not any easier on this side.

munk-a 5y ago
I found my partner through a common interest and I'd suggest it as a preferable route for most folks looking. Do the things you enjoy and be open to friendships and other relationships with the people you enjoy doing it with. I would admit that I'm rather introverted and never really felt the need to seek a relationship specifically - I was pretty happy existing on my own until I found a good partner.
- maroonblazer 5y ago
  Agreed. In my experience with yoga and book clubs the females tend to outnumber - sometimes significantly - the males. I'm sure there are others.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Even in hobbies that are usually seen as male dominated like comic books and video games - you'll find a significant number of women that are interested, though they may be quite defensive due to constantly being pursued.
    - Dracophoenix 5y ago
      Then your back where you started with the ratio issue.
      - munk-a 5y ago
        In the world there exist more women then men - I think it's reasonable to assume that homosexuality and asexuality are pretty gender independent factors, so there are more women looking for a relationship than men. It isn't a ratio issue - with apps it's my opinion that the experiences they provide are inherently toxic and drive away a lot of the potential customers - but this isn't an issue with society at large.
        Dracophoenix 5y ago
        Most of the, for lack of a better term, "extra" women of the world are widowers who outlived their husbands between their 60s and their 80s. Few of them are going be as springy as Madonna. I doubt the ones among them that are looking for a stable relationship are going to be compatible with 20-40 year olds looking for an energetic partner. Areas where there are a surplus of contemporary women have language barriers and cultural differences that make a relationship more prone to dissolve. It's not impossible, but there are more problems than gains unless there's some quality that offsets those disadvantages (i.e. desperation to be married, partner has money or is of a favorable nationality, desire for a certain temperament in a partner, etc.). And this is on top of the usual issues and tradeoffs of a relationship. All things being equal, it's much easier to have a partner of a similar nationality or cultural understanding than going international. While none of this changes your point about how "toxic" online dating is, let me remind you that the source of that "toxicity" is the people themselves. People are willing to take others for granted unless or until there's something in it for them not to so. This is also the case IRL in diplomacy, friendships, families, and all sorts of interpersonal relationships. The difference is that online dating brings a more brutally honest version of this dynamic into full view. No couching in euphemisms, no friendly facades and handshakes, and no "I regret to inform you...". Just an unspoken "show me what you've got". If you think this isn't practiced in society at large in some form or fashion, then it suggests you haven't looked closely enough.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  And if you’re interested are too niche, force yourself to press tone interested in things you don’t really care about right?
  - MonaroVXR 5y ago
    Can't really do this, when it's incredible boring or bad.
twic 5y ago
You should get into C#, that lets you declare as many properties as you like.
to11mtm 5y ago
I place most of the blame of the terrible state of online dating squarely on Match Group. OKCupid was a serviceable platform until they took step after step to monetize it, on top of making everything a series of 'swipes'. It reinforces the idea that people are able to be just discarded, which is a real shame. Frankly, I would love if somebody could get a hold of the old OKCupid codebase, back when matches were based on hashtag type matching, Didn't allow photos in chat (eliminates certain types of harassment,) and perhaps added a 'one-time-verify' fee. i.e. Pay 10$ to get yourself verified with a photo-ID, and perhaps have some sort of 'review fee' for reporting; if you report someone and it was found fradulent, -you- have to pay 10$. If the report was valid, the other person gets banhammered. So simple, but it doesn't make money.
tmp_anon_22 5y ago
> I'd take a non-reply over that sort of signal. My understanding is that women get so many messages that they're overloaded and invest most of their time replying to top candidates while folks lower on the totem pole get dismissed curtly or ghosted. And it makes sense, we all treat non-scarce resources pretty wastefully. The question is are dating apps still worth it even though it makes you feel like a commodity?
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  It's no different from job hunting or college admissions. We're all commodities. The more important question is whether the commodity is worth the effort. In online dating, the reasonable answer for all but a few people, certain special considerations notwithstanding, would be "No". Instead the average American male is either better off leveraging his under-appreciated qualities internationally in some from of sexual arbitrage or waiting until sexbots arrive.
lsd_throwaway 5y ago
Online dating is a skewed game (for M/F), if you're in the top 2% of attractiveness for men it's great - otherwise it's not worth it. This is compounded a bit by region, if your dating market is pretty even or skewed where there are more women than men (NYC/DC) it gets a lot better (I suspect actually for both men and women, but don't know) - in the bay area it's not worth it. Women get a lot of matches which while a lot better than no matches (can go on dates, get practice, etc.) leads to a filter problem. Many (based on OKC data [0]) tend to pre-select based on attractiveness*, so the top 2% of men get most of the matches, which pre-filters out high quality candidates that would have a chance in real life. It also leads to lower quality interactions (since those men have more options anyway). If you're a woman with hundreds of matches it's not really a surprise they'd be multi-tasking on a zoom date, the dates are abundant - each one has low value. This shifts as people get older though - if I had to guess that's probably part of why your recent matches improved after 5 yrs, suddenly there are fewer men available and the competition heats up (both because there are fewer available men and because there are more younger women getting more attention). If you're a man that gets one match at best every other month, they're so scarce the value is high. I think honestly women and men have a poor sense for how extreme the difference in online dating experience is. We're not that different from other apes in a lot ways, if you're not really good looking and you're in a skewed market online dating is a bad approach for you (imo). [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offline-Selves/dp/0385347391 https://www.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offlin... * Men do too obviously, but not to the same winner-takes-all extreme (based on the OKC data).
- baron816 5y ago
  I doubt it would be that challenging for the apps to rebalance things. All they have to do is say if a user has X number of likes per Y period, stop showing them so much. I guess they’re all working on the Yahoo! model though—don’t work too good or else people would quit before you make money off of them. But I bet someone could come up with a business model that makes money off of finding good matches for people and incentivizes good behavior.
  - lsd_throwaway 5y ago
the_only_law 5y ago
> I honestly cannot stand online dating. In all my years real-life dating, online dating had substantially worse experiences. I’ve talked about this recently, but I feel like the culture around dating apps has a way of stripping everyone down the the most generic, basic image of themselves. I really can’t imagine connecting with someone based off a few pictures and text snippets and developing any sort of mutual attraction via a brief period of text messaging. Unfortunately it’s the only way it seems for me to meet people. I go out and all, but I’m often the youngest person in any place I’m at by at least a decade. I’m also very boring when sober, at least superficially and stupid while drunk (although the latter can at least lead to a fun night). I can’t see anyone being remotely interested in or attracted to me without at least months of getting to know me. Most of my peers I know in a relationship, got it from being in an institution where they were forcibly around their peer group. Think high school, college, military, or even casual groups where shared interests were common (unfortunately I’ve failed to find one of these myself). I really haven’t had any of these. Was kinda a loser through most of school, around high school really put my focus in other things that totally failed, never went to college and ended up directly in the workforce. I’m still kinda a loser, not anything you can see explicitly, but a few important facts can reveal that. I don’t think I’m terribly unattractive, well besides being underweight and not photogenic (for some reasons 90% of photographs taken of me don’t look right, particularly but other people), but I’ve seen much worse make it.
- nradov 5y ago
  If you don't like your pictures it's easy enough to hire a professional photographer to take some candid shots with a proper camera and good lighting.

by colmvp 5y ago

munk-a 5y ago

I found my partner through a common interest and I'd suggest it as a preferable route for most folks looking. Do the things you enjoy and be open to friendships and other relationships with the people you enjoy doing it with. I would admit that I'm rather introverted and never really felt the need to seek a relationship specifically - I was pretty happy existing on my own until I found a good partner.

maroonblazer 5y ago
Agreed. In my experience with yoga and book clubs the females tend to outnumber - sometimes significantly - the males. I'm sure there are others.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Even in hobbies that are usually seen as male dominated like comic books and video games - you'll find a significant number of women that are interested, though they may be quite defensive due to constantly being pursued.
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    Then your back where you started with the ratio issue.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      In the world there exist more women then men - I think it's reasonable to assume that homosexuality and asexuality are pretty gender independent factors, so there are more women looking for a relationship than men. It isn't a ratio issue - with apps it's my opinion that the experiences they provide are inherently toxic and drive away a lot of the potential customers - but this isn't an issue with society at large.
      - Dracophoenix 5y ago
        Most of the, for lack of a better term, "extra" women of the world are widowers who outlived their husbands between their 60s and their 80s. Few of them are going be as springy as Madonna. I doubt the ones among them that are looking for a stable relationship are going to be compatible with 20-40 year olds looking for an energetic partner. Areas where there are a surplus of contemporary women have language barriers and cultural differences that make a relationship more prone to dissolve. It's not impossible, but there are more problems than gains unless there's some quality that offsets those disadvantages (i.e. desperation to be married, partner has money or is of a favorable nationality, desire for a certain temperament in a partner, etc.). And this is on top of the usual issues and tradeoffs of a relationship. All things being equal, it's much easier to have a partner of a similar nationality or cultural understanding than going international. While none of this changes your point about how "toxic" online dating is, let me remind you that the source of that "toxicity" is the people themselves. People are willing to take others for granted unless or until there's something in it for them not to so. This is also the case IRL in diplomacy, friendships, families, and all sorts of interpersonal relationships. The difference is that online dating brings a more brutally honest version of this dynamic into full view. No couching in euphemisms, no friendly facades and handshakes, and no "I regret to inform you...". Just an unspoken "show me what you've got". If you think this isn't practiced in society at large in some form or fashion, then it suggests you haven't looked closely enough.
the_only_law 5y ago
And if you’re interested are too niche, force yourself to press tone interested in things you don’t really care about right?
- MonaroVXR 5y ago
  Can't really do this, when it's incredible boring or bad.

twic 5y ago

You should get into C#, that lets you declare as many properties as you like.

to11mtm 5y ago

I place most of the blame of the terrible state of online dating squarely on Match Group. OKCupid was a serviceable platform until they took step after step to monetize it, on top of making everything a series of 'swipes'. It reinforces the idea that people are able to be just discarded, which is a real shame. Frankly, I would love if somebody could get a hold of the old OKCupid codebase, back when matches were based on hashtag type matching, Didn't allow photos in chat (eliminates certain types of harassment,) and perhaps added a 'one-time-verify' fee. i.e. Pay 10$ to get yourself verified with a photo-ID, and perhaps have some sort of 'review fee' for reporting; if you report someone and it was found fradulent, -you- have to pay 10$. If the report was valid, the other person gets banhammered. So simple, but it doesn't make money.

tmp_anon_22 5y ago

> I'd take a non-reply over that sort of signal. My understanding is that women get so many messages that they're overloaded and invest most of their time replying to top candidates while folks lower on the totem pole get dismissed curtly or ghosted. And it makes sense, we all treat non-scarce resources pretty wastefully. The question is are dating apps still worth it even though it makes you feel like a commodity?

Dracophoenix 5y ago
It's no different from job hunting or college admissions. We're all commodities. The more important question is whether the commodity is worth the effort. In online dating, the reasonable answer for all but a few people, certain special considerations notwithstanding, would be "No". Instead the average American male is either better off leveraging his under-appreciated qualities internationally in some from of sexual arbitrage or waiting until sexbots arrive.

lsd_throwaway 5y ago

Online dating is a skewed game (for M/F), if you're in the top 2% of attractiveness for men it's great - otherwise it's not worth it. This is compounded a bit by region, if your dating market is pretty even or skewed where there are more women than men (NYC/DC) it gets a lot better (I suspect actually for both men and women, but don't know) - in the bay area it's not worth it. Women get a lot of matches which while a lot better than no matches (can go on dates, get practice, etc.) leads to a filter problem. Many (based on OKC data [0]) tend to pre-select based on attractiveness*, so the top 2% of men get most of the matches, which pre-filters out high quality candidates that would have a chance in real life. It also leads to lower quality interactions (since those men have more options anyway). If you're a woman with hundreds of matches it's not really a surprise they'd be multi-tasking on a zoom date, the dates are abundant - each one has low value. This shifts as people get older though - if I had to guess that's probably part of why your recent matches improved after 5 yrs, suddenly there are fewer men available and the competition heats up (both because there are fewer available men and because there are more younger women getting more attention). If you're a man that gets one match at best every other month, they're so scarce the value is high. I think honestly women and men have a poor sense for how extreme the difference in online dating experience is. We're not that different from other apes in a lot ways, if you're not really good looking and you're in a skewed market online dating is a bad approach for you (imo). [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offline-Selves/dp/0385347391 https://www.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offlin... * Men do too obviously, but not to the same winner-takes-all extreme (based on the OKC data).

baron816 5y ago
I doubt it would be that challenging for the apps to rebalance things. All they have to do is say if a user has X number of likes per Y period, stop showing them so much. I guess they’re all working on the Yahoo! model though—don’t work too good or else people would quit before you make money off of them. But I bet someone could come up with a business model that makes money off of finding good matches for people and incentivizes good behavior.
- lsd_throwaway 5y ago

the_only_law 5y ago

> I honestly cannot stand online dating. In all my years real-life dating, online dating had substantially worse experiences. I’ve talked about this recently, but I feel like the culture around dating apps has a way of stripping everyone down the the most generic, basic image of themselves. I really can’t imagine connecting with someone based off a few pictures and text snippets and developing any sort of mutual attraction via a brief period of text messaging. Unfortunately it’s the only way it seems for me to meet people. I go out and all, but I’m often the youngest person in any place I’m at by at least a decade. I’m also very boring when sober, at least superficially and stupid while drunk (although the latter can at least lead to a fun night). I can’t see anyone being remotely interested in or attracted to me without at least months of getting to know me. Most of my peers I know in a relationship, got it from being in an institution where they were forcibly around their peer group. Think high school, college, military, or even casual groups where shared interests were common (unfortunately I’ve failed to find one of these myself). I really haven’t had any of these. Was kinda a loser through most of school, around high school really put my focus in other things that totally failed, never went to college and ended up directly in the workforce. I’m still kinda a loser, not anything you can see explicitly, but a few important facts can reveal that. I don’t think I’m terribly unattractive, well besides being underweight and not photogenic (for some reasons 90% of photographs taken of me don’t look right, particularly but other people), but I’ve seen much worse make it.

nradov 5y ago
If you don't like your pictures it's easy enough to hire a professional photographer to take some candid shots with a proper camera and good lighting.