8 ms·

95% of Tinder swipes by women are passes compared to 47% for men. Women tend to date up. Online dating apps are rigged for men. These apps are search engines op

95% of Tinder swipes by women are passes compared to 47% for men. Women tend to date up. Online dating apps are rigged for men. These apps are search engines optimized to match women with the top 5% of men. These apps are designed for women. Being average or even above average will almost never result in a date. Tinder was designed like a slot machine which will ruin your self-esteem from constant rejection but your hope of a large reward will keep you going for ages. You will have a much higher success rate as an average guy simply with a completely cold approach. That is how bad online dating is for men. As an example, a slightly above average man who generates 16561 swipes on Tinder will generate 7666 likes and 8675 dislikes. Out of these there will be 290 matches and 7596 no-match. A rate of 2.5 matches per day and an overall 3.7% match rate. Out of 290 matches he will send 87 messages and receive 12. 191 matches will never result in a message. Of the 99 messages 31 will be left on read or never even opened the initial message, resulting in 68 conversations. 40 of these women ghosted him, and our subject gave up on 17 of them. Ultimately this resulted in getting 11 phone numbers. These 11 phone numbers in 4 months led to 3 dates and 8 gave up on texting, declined the dating offer, or our subject simply gave up on them. All 3 dates did not materialize into anything long term. It was a complete waste of time. Considering that online dating is the most common method used to find a date these days, the options are grim for men who are less than very appealing if they use these online platforms.

Gravityloss 4y ago
How does an average woman find the process?
- orangepurple 4y ago
  I don't know. I will speculate that they will go on dates with attractive men but because the top tier of men by appearance attract so many women there is little incentive to stay in a long term relationship for the man. If this is true then there is a very narrow middle ground between the extremes which could explain why fewer meaningful relationships are formed via online dating relative to a cold approach.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mavhc 4y ago
    So you have a grand universal theory about dating apps, but have never talked to any women about their experiences with them?
    - orangepurple 4y ago
      This is not true
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  My understanding is that average women get a lot more matches and messages, but start about the same number of conversations. The filtering step just happens later
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    Women will start about 12% of conversations after a match. 12/(87+12)
chii 4y ago
> the options are grim for men who are less than very appealing. And you wonder why there's a fairly large community that have the so-called 'incel' behaviour. It didn't used to exist back in the pre-net dating era!
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  'Incel' dates back to 1997 which is only technically later than the earliest internet dating sites.
- pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
  Yeah, back then unattractive men couldn’t even form a community.
  - spacemanmatt 4y ago
    To be sure, it's a ridiculous way to align a community today. Evidence: The ridicule.
    - orangepurple 4y ago
      Disenfranchised social groups form support groups to cope.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        The sad thing about this particular disenfranchised social group is the disenfranchisement is re-enforced by the group. Contrast with other support groups that help their members learn how to live a healthy and fulfilling life while coping with or managing whatever disenfranchised them.
        spacemanmatt 4y ago
        I would not sooner hook up with a gang of Christians than incels. Some of us are just better off with smaller groups aligned by positive interests rather than a sense of collective victimhood.
nnoitra 4y ago
Yup. In the Western world if you aren't a >= 7 in the looks department you will definitely struggle.
- silverpepsi 4y ago
  Better to say strictly >8, as surveys have found that women rate 80% of males as "below average" in the looks department.
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    80% are not struggling with women. Most dating frustration is due to unrealistic expectations and a lack of effort. Some of the ugliest men I know have gotten married and have maintained relationships because they put in the effort to be interesting, listened to their SOs, found common interests, kept up with personal hygiene, and maintained the relationship long-term... which includes both sharing time together and giving each other space. Are their SOs conventionally attractive? Not really, but I think their intimacy with their best friend makes up for it.
benj111 4y ago
Speaking as not the most attractive guy in the world, and also a prior user of dating apps. I don't think it's as one sided as you make out. Yes women probably want to trade up, but so do men but then if you actually want a relationship those things aren't really important so it's more a case of filtering the dross to find someone who actually wants a relationship. I'm not sure that would be easier as an 'attractive' male or female, your still going to get all the dross. To add to your 1 data point, I'm currently in a long term relationship with someone I met online.
- atlasunshrugged 4y ago
  I'll second this comment- I'm definitely not in the top quartile of men in terms of attractiveness but on Hinge I regularly get dates, in no small part to being able to write messages when liking. Tinder and Bumble are meat markets, definitely, but Hinge (and probably others, I haven't tried that many more) do work with some effort put into crafting a thoughtful introduction message.
  - wnolens 4y ago
    Jumping on here too. It's a lot of work, and can feel demoralizing.. but at the end of the day I go on way more dates than I ever did without apps. I attribute it to being able to display more about myself in a quick snapshot for women to peruse. Rather than just see my average face, they get the sense from my profile that I am interesting.
    - mrwh 4y ago
      Plus one to this. I think it's both true that the app-based dating world is demoralising and heavily biased towards a privileged minority of users and that the pre-app world was even worse.
justaman 4y ago
Apps that introduce scarcity are the best at matching. Bumble and Hinge only let you "heart" three people a day(unless you pay). Certainly as a woman there is a sense of scarcity in cold approaching. An attractive woman may have one man flirt with her and ask her on a date once per day.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  As a woman on Bumble if you only get three chances why would you ever heart someone that wasn't the most attractive you could find?
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I had to delete Bumble as the app repeatedly told me a photo of myself wasn't me, meanwhile I could upload a black square and it would take it days to flag it.
kbrannigan 4y ago
Get of these apps. I think many men who use apps, do so because they are too afraid to approach a woman they find attractive if the situation is appropriate. They don't bite, if you make a move with enough respect and confidence. In my opinion while convenient, they should be last resort.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  They are only worth using as a man if you are ranked in the top 10% of superficial appearances. Those guys are going on dates with different women daily with these apps. If you don't believe me look up any YouTube video going undercover on Tinder masquerading as an attractive man. The thing is Tinder has 75 million active users. If we assume 75% of these active users are men, and only the top 10% of men will reliably match, approximately 51 million men are gambling their time away (75×.75×0.9=50.625)
  - webinvest 4y ago
    Even if the dating pool consists of only the top 10%, women are still only going to swipe right on the top 5% of that.
    - orangepurple 4y ago
      I'm not sure that this is a correct statistical interpretation
  - jjj123 4y ago
    While I don’t disagree that it’s probably hard for your average straight guy to get a date on Tinder, I encourage you to stop thinking about attractiveness as something objective that everyone agrees on. There’s no such thing as a 1-10 scale everyone falls on. We all have types, and sometimes those types run counter to the mainstream definition of “attractive”. The trick is to figure out what type you are, and try to become the best version of that.
    - deleted 4y ago
SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
What’s the source of this?
- shrikant 4y ago
  At least for the "top 5% of men" thing, it's an oft-repeated meme on this forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=top%205%25%20%22men%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... In fact, it gets repeated so frequently in threads/topics like this one, that I wonder if the true origin of this "statistic" is in fact some of the... more interesting corners of Reddit/4chan.
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    Run your own experiment if you don't believe me. On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog. Burner SIM cards for verification are cheap too.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - nnoitra 4y ago
    It is indeed true. Just go on a Tinder as an average man and see what you get.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    OkCupid's blog posted similar statistics back in the day.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
      Can you link to some?
cryptica 4y ago
Reading stuff like this makes me really glad that I married my first girlfriend. We've been married for over 10 years now. She was really out of my league. I did compromise on many things including age gap (she is older), past baggage and the fact that I have to let her win every argument and do everything she says but I'm glad because she was the opportunity of my life and I took it and I've never been so lucky since about anything since.
- flak48 4y ago
  If you don't mind me asking, what are some things you like that you feel make it worth being with this person? (since you mentioned past baggage and having to 'let her win every argument' - that doesn't sound too nice)
  - cryptica 4y ago
    Good looks and strong character. Also, we are comfortable to tell each other everything. Also, it helps that she has a very unusual taste in men and I happen to meet her requirements.
- computerfriend 4y ago
  > I've never been so lucky since about anything since. Your toxic-sounding relationship is holding you back.
  - cryptica 4y ago
    How can you say that when you don't know me? Maybe I'm ugly, poor and with a terrible personality.
- fbanon 4y ago
  Sounds miserable tbqh.
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  If the following is true and not hyperbole: "and the fact that I have to let her win every argument and do everything she says" You are in an abusive relationship.
hobo_mark 4y ago
No idea where the figures would be from, but it sounds like a lot of this could be automated away, anyone invented swipe-bots yet?
- turboponyy 4y ago
  https://github.com/jeffmli/TinderAutomation https://github.com/jeffmli/TinderAutomation https://github.com/philipperemy/Deep-Learning-Tinder https://github.com/philipperemy/Deep-Learning-Tinder https://github.com/joelbarmettlerUZH/auto-tinder https://github.com/joelbarmettlerUZH/auto-tinder
spacemanmatt 4y ago
> Women tend to date up What if the 53% of men swiping right ("accept") are attempting to date "up" I think there may be some hidden assumptions you should investigate, there.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  With such a dismal acceptance rate there is no point in swiping left as a man yet men will still on average swipe left about 50% of the time. To throw another wrench in the process, swiping excessively to the right may further derank your profile, causing a positive feedback loop. It's an insane system.
- bitshiftfaced 4y ago
  Even if you're right, I'm having trouble figuring out what conclusion I'm supposed to draw from it. Are you saying that GP's sentiment is unfounded?
- gowld 4y ago
  everyone attempts it, but women succeed, because the top men date many, many women; many, many men date 0 women, and all the women date far fewer. Draw a diagram to see the effect, or look at world cultures where polygamy is normal and most men are single or dead.
anovikov 4y ago
Because it hardly takes more than 2-3 seconds to swipe, and there were so few matches you couldn't probably waste too much time on handling them, it looks like about 5 hours of work gets you 1 date. I think it's more than OK. A date itself takes more time and more money. This is efficient.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  In the worked example 16561 swipes over four months resulted in 3 dates that went nowhere for a slightly above average male.
  - anovikov 4y ago
    Went nowhere in the sense: did not result in sex? Then it's certainly something the guy was doing wrong, the girls are going for Tinder dates specifically with that goal. The OP said they they "did not result in anything serious", so i assumed it meant "no relationship", but this is simply not what Tinder is for. Yes i know a lady who built relationship from Tinder, but she had to do about 500 dates over 3 years go be able to pick the right guy, it was exhausting and not an efficient way to do it for sure. Spending 15 hours to get 3 hookups is good. One could do more swipes to get more, spending proportionally more time, if the city they live in is good enough (and yes Tinder is a numbers game so it works for guys only in big cities)
l5870uoo9y 4y ago
While I agree that the matching experience is completely different for men and women, I think (many) women find them just as disappointing (and abusive) as men. Tinder pressures women to expose themselves to strangers who primarily are looking for sex and will just swipe if they aren't satisfied. Is there even anybody who wouldn't be positively affected by some limitation on sexualised content and online dating?
- orangepurple 4y ago
  I completely agree with you. It can be difficult to find meaningful long term relationships on Tinder for women as well. There is no denying that. I think the chances are best with a cold approach or a warm introduction.
  - webinvest 4y ago
    But many women on Tinder and Bumble aren’t looking for a relationship. When I fill in the “Looking For” parameter with “Relationship” instead of leaving it blank on Bumble, my incoming like count would drop by 40% percent. When I’d remove that parameter, my likes would go back up.
    - idrios 4y ago
      But now you know the other 60% of people still liking you are probably looking for a relationship.
wnolens 4y ago
Well not completely wrong, this is a very pessimistic take. > You will have a much higher success rate as an average guy simply with a completely cold approach This is where I think you're wrong. First, I'm probably never going to cold approach in public and neither are most men I know. It's not a matter of "growing a pair", it would require a personality change or being disingenuous. Second, cold approach is a terrible way to meet someone. It's like a tinder swipe where both parties have only 1-2 photos and no profile. Dating like this is a strict needle and haystack approach to finding a compatible partner. > These 11 phone numbers in 4 months led to 3 dates Before apps I was at 1-2/year. Now 1-2/week is possible, though time and energy keeps me at 1-3/month.
- arvinsim 4y ago
  > Before apps I was at 1-2/year. Now 1-2/week is possible, though time and energy keeps me at 1-3/month. You may not realize it but you are already in the top percentages of men.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dayvid 4y ago
I liked OkCupid a lot more than Tinder. You could write more about yourself and personality played more of a role in matching. I had an ex out of OkCupid. Tinder on the other hand values looks over everything and Bumble feels like LinkedIn dating. A pessimistic part of me feels like people are optimizing their personalities and lives to be Tinder or Bumble successful. Focusing on cool photos, looks and having a nice job title over having a personality or unique values.
- sgtnoodle 4y ago
  As a guy, OkCupid was pretty much a complete waste of time for me. The only date I readily remember going on, the woman showed up 1.5 hours late for lunch, absolutely reeked of flower perfume, and brought up astrology as a topic in a non-flirty way. Oh, there was also a woman with a toddler that was ready for me to be her baby's daddy by the 3rd date. I dug up some SLR photos of me with buzz cut hair and a nice shirt, and tried out Tinder. I actually went out on some quality dates once in a while. It was even then still a time sink, and after thinking through the algorithm a bit, I started just blindly swiping right. A month or so later I was in a relationship with my eventual wife.
webinvest 4y ago
I wonder what number of suicides each year can be attributed to disenfranchisement on dating apps. They can rob an above average man of his self esteem, self worth, and self value from past accomplishments and cause depression.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Suicide maybe not so much, but "dropping out of society" definitely. No partner, no kids, there goes most of the reason for people to work hard.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  75.8% of Android Tinder app users are male and 24.2% are female. (Tankovska, 2021) By 2023, the number of dating app users in the US is forecast to reach 25.7 million. (Tankovska, 2021; Kats, 2020) Just imagine the scale of the psychopathology if 17 million of these men are essentially living in a casino in just one country.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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mberning 4y ago
And for his trouble he is relegated to picking through "leftovers". Harsh to even write that, but it is true.
nkrisc 4y ago
If these dating apps are used by a large group of women to date a comparatively tinier group of men, then it makes no sense for men to even bother unless they're part of that small group of men that gets all the attention. Likewise, unless these women plan to date for the rest of their lives and never settle down, they can't all end up marrying that small group of men, so they will end up marrying "down". Then the strategy becomes clear: ditch the dating apps and look to meet women who are ready to settle. Easier said than done, sure, but it sure looks like dating apps are useless to all but the top percentile of men, so why bother?

Gravityloss 4y ago

How does an average woman find the process?

orangepurple 4y ago
I don't know. I will speculate that they will go on dates with attractive men but because the top tier of men by appearance attract so many women there is little incentive to stay in a long term relationship for the man. If this is true then there is a very narrow middle ground between the extremes which could explain why fewer meaningful relationships are formed via online dating relative to a cold approach.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mavhc 4y ago
  So you have a grand universal theory about dating apps, but have never talked to any women about their experiences with them?
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    This is not true
pclmulqdq 4y ago
My understanding is that average women get a lot more matches and messages, but start about the same number of conversations. The filtering step just happens later
- orangepurple 4y ago
  Women will start about 12% of conversations after a match. 12/(87+12)

chii 4y ago

> the options are grim for men who are less than very appealing. And you wonder why there's a fairly large community that have the so-called 'incel' behaviour. It didn't used to exist back in the pre-net dating era!

bigbillheck 4y ago
'Incel' dates back to 1997 which is only technically later than the earliest internet dating sites.
pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
Yeah, back then unattractive men couldn’t even form a community.
- spacemanmatt 4y ago
  To be sure, it's a ridiculous way to align a community today. Evidence: The ridicule.
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    Disenfranchised social groups form support groups to cope.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      The sad thing about this particular disenfranchised social group is the disenfranchisement is re-enforced by the group. Contrast with other support groups that help their members learn how to live a healthy and fulfilling life while coping with or managing whatever disenfranchised them.
      - spacemanmatt 4y ago
        I would not sooner hook up with a gang of Christians than incels. Some of us are just better off with smaller groups aligned by positive interests rather than a sense of collective victimhood.

nnoitra 4y ago

Yup. In the Western world if you aren't a >= 7 in the looks department you will definitely struggle.

silverpepsi 4y ago
Better to say strictly >8, as surveys have found that women rate 80% of males as "below average" in the looks department.
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  80% are not struggling with women. Most dating frustration is due to unrealistic expectations and a lack of effort. Some of the ugliest men I know have gotten married and have maintained relationships because they put in the effort to be interesting, listened to their SOs, found common interests, kept up with personal hygiene, and maintained the relationship long-term... which includes both sharing time together and giving each other space. Are their SOs conventionally attractive? Not really, but I think their intimacy with their best friend makes up for it.

benj111 4y ago

Speaking as not the most attractive guy in the world, and also a prior user of dating apps. I don't think it's as one sided as you make out. Yes women probably want to trade up, but so do men but then if you actually want a relationship those things aren't really important so it's more a case of filtering the dross to find someone who actually wants a relationship. I'm not sure that would be easier as an 'attractive' male or female, your still going to get all the dross. To add to your 1 data point, I'm currently in a long term relationship with someone I met online.

atlasunshrugged 4y ago
I'll second this comment- I'm definitely not in the top quartile of men in terms of attractiveness but on Hinge I regularly get dates, in no small part to being able to write messages when liking. Tinder and Bumble are meat markets, definitely, but Hinge (and probably others, I haven't tried that many more) do work with some effort put into crafting a thoughtful introduction message.
- wnolens 4y ago
  Jumping on here too. It's a lot of work, and can feel demoralizing.. but at the end of the day I go on way more dates than I ever did without apps. I attribute it to being able to display more about myself in a quick snapshot for women to peruse. Rather than just see my average face, they get the sense from my profile that I am interesting.
  - mrwh 4y ago
    Plus one to this. I think it's both true that the app-based dating world is demoralising and heavily biased towards a privileged minority of users and that the pre-app world was even worse.

justaman 4y ago

Apps that introduce scarcity are the best at matching. Bumble and Hinge only let you "heart" three people a day(unless you pay). Certainly as a woman there is a sense of scarcity in cold approaching. An attractive woman may have one man flirt with her and ask her on a date once per day.

orangepurple 4y ago
As a woman on Bumble if you only get three chances why would you ever heart someone that wasn't the most attractive you could find?
the_only_law 4y ago
I had to delete Bumble as the app repeatedly told me a photo of myself wasn't me, meanwhile I could upload a black square and it would take it days to flag it.

kbrannigan 4y ago

Get of these apps. I think many men who use apps, do so because they are too afraid to approach a woman they find attractive if the situation is appropriate. They don't bite, if you make a move with enough respect and confidence. In my opinion while convenient, they should be last resort.

orangepurple 4y ago
They are only worth using as a man if you are ranked in the top 10% of superficial appearances. Those guys are going on dates with different women daily with these apps. If you don't believe me look up any YouTube video going undercover on Tinder masquerading as an attractive man. The thing is Tinder has 75 million active users. If we assume 75% of these active users are men, and only the top 10% of men will reliably match, approximately 51 million men are gambling their time away (75×.75×0.9=50.625)
- webinvest 4y ago
  Even if the dating pool consists of only the top 10%, women are still only going to swipe right on the top 5% of that.
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    I'm not sure that this is a correct statistical interpretation
- jjj123 4y ago
  While I don’t disagree that it’s probably hard for your average straight guy to get a date on Tinder, I encourage you to stop thinking about attractiveness as something objective that everyone agrees on. There’s no such thing as a 1-10 scale everyone falls on. We all have types, and sometimes those types run counter to the mainstream definition of “attractive”. The trick is to figure out what type you are, and try to become the best version of that.
  - deleted 4y ago

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago

What’s the source of this?

shrikant 4y ago
At least for the "top 5% of men" thing, it's an oft-repeated meme on this forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=top%205%25%20%22men%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... In fact, it gets repeated so frequently in threads/topics like this one, that I wonder if the true origin of this "statistic" is in fact some of the... more interesting corners of Reddit/4chan.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  Run your own experiment if you don't believe me. On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog. Burner SIM cards for verification are cheap too.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- nnoitra 4y ago
  It is indeed true. Just go on a Tinder as an average man and see what you get.
- kube-system 4y ago
  OkCupid's blog posted similar statistics back in the day.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    Can you link to some?

cryptica 4y ago

Reading stuff like this makes me really glad that I married my first girlfriend. We've been married for over 10 years now. She was really out of my league. I did compromise on many things including age gap (she is older), past baggage and the fact that I have to let her win every argument and do everything she says but I'm glad because she was the opportunity of my life and I took it and I've never been so lucky since about anything since.

flak48 4y ago
If you don't mind me asking, what are some things you like that you feel make it worth being with this person? (since you mentioned past baggage and having to 'let her win every argument' - that doesn't sound too nice)
- cryptica 4y ago
  Good looks and strong character. Also, we are comfortable to tell each other everything. Also, it helps that she has a very unusual taste in men and I happen to meet her requirements.
computerfriend 4y ago
> I've never been so lucky since about anything since. Your toxic-sounding relationship is holding you back.
- cryptica 4y ago
  How can you say that when you don't know me? Maybe I'm ugly, poor and with a terrible personality.
fbanon 4y ago
Sounds miserable tbqh.
stuckinhell 4y ago
If the following is true and not hyperbole: "and the fact that I have to let her win every argument and do everything she says" You are in an abusive relationship.

hobo_mark 4y ago

No idea where the figures would be from, but it sounds like a lot of this could be automated away, anyone invented swipe-bots yet?

turboponyy 4y ago
https://github.com/jeffmli/TinderAutomation https://github.com/jeffmli/TinderAutomation https://github.com/philipperemy/Deep-Learning-Tinder https://github.com/philipperemy/Deep-Learning-Tinder https://github.com/joelbarmettlerUZH/auto-tinder https://github.com/joelbarmettlerUZH/auto-tinder

spacemanmatt 4y ago

> Women tend to date up What if the 53% of men swiping right ("accept") are attempting to date "up" I think there may be some hidden assumptions you should investigate, there.

orangepurple 4y ago
With such a dismal acceptance rate there is no point in swiping left as a man yet men will still on average swipe left about 50% of the time. To throw another wrench in the process, swiping excessively to the right may further derank your profile, causing a positive feedback loop. It's an insane system.
bitshiftfaced 4y ago
Even if you're right, I'm having trouble figuring out what conclusion I'm supposed to draw from it. Are you saying that GP's sentiment is unfounded?
gowld 4y ago
everyone attempts it, but women succeed, because the top men date many, many women; many, many men date 0 women, and all the women date far fewer. Draw a diagram to see the effect, or look at world cultures where polygamy is normal and most men are single or dead.

anovikov 4y ago

Because it hardly takes more than 2-3 seconds to swipe, and there were so few matches you couldn't probably waste too much time on handling them, it looks like about 5 hours of work gets you 1 date. I think it's more than OK. A date itself takes more time and more money. This is efficient.

orangepurple 4y ago
In the worked example 16561 swipes over four months resulted in 3 dates that went nowhere for a slightly above average male.
- anovikov 4y ago
  Went nowhere in the sense: did not result in sex? Then it's certainly something the guy was doing wrong, the girls are going for Tinder dates specifically with that goal. The OP said they they "did not result in anything serious", so i assumed it meant "no relationship", but this is simply not what Tinder is for. Yes i know a lady who built relationship from Tinder, but she had to do about 500 dates over 3 years go be able to pick the right guy, it was exhausting and not an efficient way to do it for sure. Spending 15 hours to get 3 hookups is good. One could do more swipes to get more, spending proportionally more time, if the city they live in is good enough (and yes Tinder is a numbers game so it works for guys only in big cities)

l5870uoo9y 4y ago

While I agree that the matching experience is completely different for men and women, I think (many) women find them just as disappointing (and abusive) as men. Tinder pressures women to expose themselves to strangers who primarily are looking for sex and will just swipe if they aren't satisfied. Is there even anybody who wouldn't be positively affected by some limitation on sexualised content and online dating?

orangepurple 4y ago
I completely agree with you. It can be difficult to find meaningful long term relationships on Tinder for women as well. There is no denying that. I think the chances are best with a cold approach or a warm introduction.
- webinvest 4y ago
  But many women on Tinder and Bumble aren’t looking for a relationship. When I fill in the “Looking For” parameter with “Relationship” instead of leaving it blank on Bumble, my incoming like count would drop by 40% percent. When I’d remove that parameter, my likes would go back up.
  - idrios 4y ago
    But now you know the other 60% of people still liking you are probably looking for a relationship.

wnolens 4y ago

Well not completely wrong, this is a very pessimistic take. > You will have a much higher success rate as an average guy simply with a completely cold approach This is where I think you're wrong. First, I'm probably never going to cold approach in public and neither are most men I know. It's not a matter of "growing a pair", it would require a personality change or being disingenuous. Second, cold approach is a terrible way to meet someone. It's like a tinder swipe where both parties have only 1-2 photos and no profile. Dating like this is a strict needle and haystack approach to finding a compatible partner. > These 11 phone numbers in 4 months led to 3 dates Before apps I was at 1-2/year. Now 1-2/week is possible, though time and energy keeps me at 1-3/month.

arvinsim 4y ago
> Before apps I was at 1-2/year. Now 1-2/week is possible, though time and energy keeps me at 1-3/month. You may not realize it but you are already in the top percentages of men.

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dayvid 4y ago

I liked OkCupid a lot more than Tinder. You could write more about yourself and personality played more of a role in matching. I had an ex out of OkCupid. Tinder on the other hand values looks over everything and Bumble feels like LinkedIn dating. A pessimistic part of me feels like people are optimizing their personalities and lives to be Tinder or Bumble successful. Focusing on cool photos, looks and having a nice job title over having a personality or unique values.

sgtnoodle 4y ago
As a guy, OkCupid was pretty much a complete waste of time for me. The only date I readily remember going on, the woman showed up 1.5 hours late for lunch, absolutely reeked of flower perfume, and brought up astrology as a topic in a non-flirty way. Oh, there was also a woman with a toddler that was ready for me to be her baby's daddy by the 3rd date. I dug up some SLR photos of me with buzz cut hair and a nice shirt, and tried out Tinder. I actually went out on some quality dates once in a while. It was even then still a time sink, and after thinking through the algorithm a bit, I started just blindly swiping right. A month or so later I was in a relationship with my eventual wife.

webinvest 4y ago

I wonder what number of suicides each year can be attributed to disenfranchisement on dating apps. They can rob an above average man of his self esteem, self worth, and self value from past accomplishments and cause depression.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
Suicide maybe not so much, but "dropping out of society" definitely. No partner, no kids, there goes most of the reason for people to work hard.
orangepurple 4y ago
75.8% of Android Tinder app users are male and 24.2% are female. (Tankovska, 2021) By 2023, the number of dating app users in the US is forecast to reach 25.7 million. (Tankovska, 2021; Kats, 2020) Just imagine the scale of the psychopathology if 17 million of these men are essentially living in a casino in just one country.
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mberning 4y ago

And for his trouble he is relegated to picking through "leftovers". Harsh to even write that, but it is true.

nkrisc 4y ago

If these dating apps are used by a large group of women to date a comparatively tinier group of men, then it makes no sense for men to even bother unless they're part of that small group of men that gets all the attention. Likewise, unless these women plan to date for the rest of their lives and never settle down, they can't all end up marrying that small group of men, so they will end up marrying "down". Then the strategy becomes clear: ditch the dating apps and look to meet women who are ready to settle. Easier said than done, sure, but it sure looks like dating apps are useless to all but the top percentile of men, so why bother?