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Of course this does not take into account all the many of us who never had a fun time dating in our 20s. Are we such a tiny minority? I can say with mathematica

Of course this does not take into account all the many of us who never had a fun time dating in our 20s. Are we such a tiny minority? I can say with mathematical certainty that no decade will be worst than my 20s.

jsqu99 5y ago
I'm with you. In my 20's, I was crippled with anxiety when trying to talk to any female I was interested in. After two marriages (very happy in my second), I feel like I could go out do pretty well if I were single. I wish I had my present personality/confidence w/ my better-looking younger self (i'm almost 52 now).
- pier25 5y ago
  I'm 42 now and I wish I could go back to my 20s with my current wisdom, confidence, etc. I was such an idiot and made so many mistakes in pretty much all areas of my life.
  - hhsbdbdbdbdb 5y ago
    Please share your wisdom. I am 25 with horrible anxiety. I have been working a job I don't like for over a year because I can't get an offer. I either look way too anxious in the interviews or don't even show up due to fear.
    - pier25 5y ago
      I suffered from anxiety too in my 20s. Between 14 to 29 years were the worst years of my life (so far). Since then, life has been getting better. Something that caused me a lot of suffering was a feeling that I was running out of time. I see that now, but back then I couldn't even describe this anxiety. I couldn't even realize the anxiety in me. It's like there was no life after 30. This made me make a lot of mistakes and waste a lot of time because I was obsessed with achieving results instead of focusing on the process. I've been thinking a lot about 20 year old me lately. To the point that I'm even considering writing a book, a newsletter, or something.
    - brimble 5y ago
      Easier said than done, but I think the key is learning to (selectively!) not give a shit. It's crudely put, but is the gist of what a lot of self-help stuff is, including fancy-pants stuff like Stoicism. The blocks are purely in your head. Bad interview? It'll be forgotten by everyone but you in a week or two, if even that long, unless we're talking something outlandishly catastrophic ("... and then his tie caught on fire!"). Awkward when talking to a stranger? They'll forget you existed by the morning. One helpful exercise can be to think through the actual harm—not how you'll feel about it, but all external-to-you harm—from a worst-likely-case scenario. Interview when you already have a job? The harm approaches zero. Talking to a stranger? Ditto. The harm of those is almost entirely something you do to yourself. One simple way to practice social skills is to play little games when things are extremely low-stakes. Like, "today I'm going to compliment a stranger on something", or (a tad more advanced) "today I'm going to find out what a stranger's favorite sports team is", or whatever. Really little efforts are all it (usually) takes to reduce social anxiety quite a bit, it's just that lots of people never even try that much. As for interviews specifically, the usual advice is "do practice interviews until no longer anxious".
    - kingcharles 5y ago
      I feel for you. I can tell you issues like this seem to diminish with age, but that doesn't help your situation now. Your anxiety is so bad that it's having an incredibly negative effect on your life. Can you get professional help?
    - mleonhard 5y ago
      I'm 41. Things that consistently reduce my anxiety: - Slow breathing. Count to four for each step: inhale, pause, exhale, pause. - Cardio exercise - Talking with my partner about anything. - Physical intimacy - Five full cycles of sleep every night. You have to measure this with a device. - Being in nature - Spending time with friends - Acetylcysteine (NAC) 14mg/kg per day. I started taking this a week ago. It feels like somebody turned down my emotions from 11 to 3. I still feel the same emotions, but their intensity is reduced. - Vipassana meditation. I took the free 10-day "Goenka" course and learned the skill. Then I worked through some things, which was a lot of work. The payoff is in reducing the time and energy I spend ruminating. The meditation skill is also useful for dealing with stress. - Therapy - Having money in the bank Things that increase my anxiety: - Caffeine. Caffeine's effect is cumulative for me, building up to a maximum over about a week. If you suffer from anxiety and you use caffeine, stop immediately and completely forever. Quitting caffeine and feeling better takes about a month. - Alcohol - Noise. Vehicles with fake mufflers. - Sudden loud noises. Vehicle horns and revving engines with fake mufflers. Sudden loud ring tones when using headphones. Sudden alarms. Set your phone's alarm to start quietly and slowly increase in volume. - Dark-themed tv - Staying up late - Ruminating - Sugar Good luck to you!
- niek_pas 5y ago
  Please don't use the word 'female' to refer to women.
mrits 5y ago
Given one of the top threads on reddit today is a discussion between thousands of males that have given up on the modern dating scene, I doubt you are the minority.
- Bilal_io 5y ago
  I think thousands are still in the minority. And even among those you'll have some that give up on giving up.
- 9530jh9054ven 5y ago
  I'd hesitate to say that it's the majority though. Reddit tends to select for those that would spend a great deal of time on the internet, and a thread that would be about asking the issues with modern dating would probably select for those that have had issues with said dating that are frustrated enough to talk about it. Survivorship bias is very much so an issue in a discussion thread like that.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Folks forget just how big the Internet is. Thousands of people is very far from a meaningfully representative group in nearly any national context, especially so in the US. And globally? Forget about it, thousands of people is just so small.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Reddit is not a cross-section of the population. Reddit caters to people who are bored, angry, and have a lot of free time. People don't spend hours complaining on Reddit when everything else is going great in their lives. The people commenting in that thread (before it hit the front page) had to actively seek out that topic and choose to subscribe to it. It's the opposite of random sampling. Reddit's front page is only an indicator of what active Redditors are thinking and saying, nothing more.
  - mrits 5y ago
    During the most busy times of my life I spent an enormous amount of time on reddit. I was on a plane so much I barely had time to see my real life friends and family. I love browsing the subs of different cities I'm about to visit as well. I think your experience is slightly jaded.
TameAntelope 5y ago
I married the first woman I dated in my (late) 20s; I was not having fun up to that point, and my 30s have been substantially better as a result. Sometimes, you just know. Having my family figured out is such a gigantic load off my mind, knowing someone's got my back for literally the rest of my life is so much better than flitting around trying to meet new romantic partners, honestly I wonder if they interviewed people who were comfortable talking about their dating life, which means people like you and I get massively under-represented.

jsqu99 5y ago

I'm with you. In my 20's, I was crippled with anxiety when trying to talk to any female I was interested in. After two marriages (very happy in my second), I feel like I could go out do pretty well if I were single. I wish I had my present personality/confidence w/ my better-looking younger self (i'm almost 52 now).

pier25 5y ago
I'm 42 now and I wish I could go back to my 20s with my current wisdom, confidence, etc. I was such an idiot and made so many mistakes in pretty much all areas of my life.
- hhsbdbdbdbdb 5y ago
  Please share your wisdom. I am 25 with horrible anxiety. I have been working a job I don't like for over a year because I can't get an offer. I either look way too anxious in the interviews or don't even show up due to fear.
  - pier25 5y ago
    I suffered from anxiety too in my 20s. Between 14 to 29 years were the worst years of my life (so far). Since then, life has been getting better. Something that caused me a lot of suffering was a feeling that I was running out of time. I see that now, but back then I couldn't even describe this anxiety. I couldn't even realize the anxiety in me. It's like there was no life after 30. This made me make a lot of mistakes and waste a lot of time because I was obsessed with achieving results instead of focusing on the process. I've been thinking a lot about 20 year old me lately. To the point that I'm even considering writing a book, a newsletter, or something.
  - brimble 5y ago
    Easier said than done, but I think the key is learning to (selectively!) not give a shit. It's crudely put, but is the gist of what a lot of self-help stuff is, including fancy-pants stuff like Stoicism. The blocks are purely in your head. Bad interview? It'll be forgotten by everyone but you in a week or two, if even that long, unless we're talking something outlandishly catastrophic ("... and then his tie caught on fire!"). Awkward when talking to a stranger? They'll forget you existed by the morning. One helpful exercise can be to think through the actual harm—not how you'll feel about it, but all external-to-you harm—from a worst-likely-case scenario. Interview when you already have a job? The harm approaches zero. Talking to a stranger? Ditto. The harm of those is almost entirely something you do to yourself. One simple way to practice social skills is to play little games when things are extremely low-stakes. Like, "today I'm going to compliment a stranger on something", or (a tad more advanced) "today I'm going to find out what a stranger's favorite sports team is", or whatever. Really little efforts are all it (usually) takes to reduce social anxiety quite a bit, it's just that lots of people never even try that much. As for interviews specifically, the usual advice is "do practice interviews until no longer anxious".
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    I feel for you. I can tell you issues like this seem to diminish with age, but that doesn't help your situation now. Your anxiety is so bad that it's having an incredibly negative effect on your life. Can you get professional help?
  - mleonhard 5y ago
    I'm 41. Things that consistently reduce my anxiety: - Slow breathing. Count to four for each step: inhale, pause, exhale, pause. - Cardio exercise - Talking with my partner about anything. - Physical intimacy - Five full cycles of sleep every night. You have to measure this with a device. - Being in nature - Spending time with friends - Acetylcysteine (NAC) 14mg/kg per day. I started taking this a week ago. It feels like somebody turned down my emotions from 11 to 3. I still feel the same emotions, but their intensity is reduced. - Vipassana meditation. I took the free 10-day "Goenka" course and learned the skill. Then I worked through some things, which was a lot of work. The payoff is in reducing the time and energy I spend ruminating. The meditation skill is also useful for dealing with stress. - Therapy - Having money in the bank Things that increase my anxiety: - Caffeine. Caffeine's effect is cumulative for me, building up to a maximum over about a week. If you suffer from anxiety and you use caffeine, stop immediately and completely forever. Quitting caffeine and feeling better takes about a month. - Alcohol - Noise. Vehicles with fake mufflers. - Sudden loud noises. Vehicle horns and revving engines with fake mufflers. Sudden loud ring tones when using headphones. Sudden alarms. Set your phone's alarm to start quietly and slowly increase in volume. - Dark-themed tv - Staying up late - Ruminating - Sugar Good luck to you!
niek_pas 5y ago
Please don't use the word 'female' to refer to women.

mrits 5y ago

Given one of the top threads on reddit today is a discussion between thousands of males that have given up on the modern dating scene, I doubt you are the minority.

Bilal_io 5y ago
I think thousands are still in the minority. And even among those you'll have some that give up on giving up.
9530jh9054ven 5y ago
I'd hesitate to say that it's the majority though. Reddit tends to select for those that would spend a great deal of time on the internet, and a thread that would be about asking the issues with modern dating would probably select for those that have had issues with said dating that are frustrated enough to talk about it. Survivorship bias is very much so an issue in a discussion thread like that.
TameAntelope 5y ago
Folks forget just how big the Internet is. Thousands of people is very far from a meaningfully representative group in nearly any national context, especially so in the US. And globally? Forget about it, thousands of people is just so small.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
Reddit is not a cross-section of the population. Reddit caters to people who are bored, angry, and have a lot of free time. People don't spend hours complaining on Reddit when everything else is going great in their lives. The people commenting in that thread (before it hit the front page) had to actively seek out that topic and choose to subscribe to it. It's the opposite of random sampling. Reddit's front page is only an indicator of what active Redditors are thinking and saying, nothing more.
- mrits 5y ago
  During the most busy times of my life I spent an enormous amount of time on reddit. I was on a plane so much I barely had time to see my real life friends and family. I love browsing the subs of different cities I'm about to visit as well. I think your experience is slightly jaded.

TameAntelope 5y ago

I married the first woman I dated in my (late) 20s; I was not having fun up to that point, and my 30s have been substantially better as a result. Sometimes, you just know. Having my family figured out is such a gigantic load off my mind, knowing someone's got my back for literally the rest of my life is so much better than flitting around trying to meet new romantic partners, honestly I wonder if they interviewed people who were comfortable talking about their dating life, which means people like you and I get massively under-represented.