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> One possible aid for sexual loneliness might come from online dating apps such as Tinder. In theory, online dating could provide an efficient way to find a pa

> One possible aid for sexual loneliness might come from online dating apps such as Tinder. In theory, online dating could provide an efficient way to find a partner. However, online dating divides people heavily into winners and losers – perhaps even more so than traditional dating. While women can get attention from thousands of men online in just a few hours, men are lucky if anyone is interested in them My wife doesn't get it ... I often tell her that if both her and I signed up for a dating app, her inbox would be flooded with messages. Yet, if I were to message hundreds of women, I might get lucky and get a handful of responses. She thinks I'm exaggerating ...

71a54xd 4y ago
I have a healthy dating life outside of apps, but yeah - I think women understanding how difficult and dramatically different online dating is for men in comparison to women will never truly be accepted or taken seriously by women.
- RationPhantoms 4y ago
  The best way I've heard to explain the difference is men are dying of thirst in a desert and woman are dying of thirst in an ocean.
  - Zigurd 4y ago
    I hope the depth of that analogy is intentional.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  I think women get it when they experience the same thing in their 40s.
  - bt4u 4y ago
    [dead]
- dashdot 4y ago
  It's definitely different. But difficult is subjective. Personally, I prefer the experience as a male. Instead of getting flooded with goofs, I can focus on a small amount of matches.
  - 71a54xd 4y ago
    I think the most damaging reality of these apps is when a man who himself thinks he's low-value and doesn't understand how to improve only gets a few matches from the algo of women who are below average attractiveness. I'm going to get flamed for this but in general I think it's right to assume that the average woman in 2022 is less attractive than the average man, BMI / height stats support this. This outcome generally signals to at-risk men (in terms of mental state) that women they would find attractive have all swiped left on them only leaving below average or physically unfit women. It's also entirely likely that they might just not be desire-able on dating apps and in fact, are only matched with people who don't have standards. That said, I think standards are important on both sides AND I've had men far more attractive than me also encounter a situation of only having a handful of matches even in NYC.
    - astrange 4y ago
      > I'm going to get flamed for this but in general I think it's right to assume that the average woman in 2022 is less attractive than the average man, BMI / height stats support this. What's your definition of attractive height…?
      - 71a54xd 4y ago
        Definitely 6' and up - and I'm shorter than that. It's pretty obvious, but I don't lose sleep about it. I also meant BMI relative to height, not height in general. Statistics don't lie in terms of what each population generally finds attractive.
        astrange 4y ago
        > Definitely 6' and up For women? Maybe in the Netherlands.
Wojtkie 4y ago
I found this video a while back that highlights what you're talking about.[0] Might be an interesting one to show to your wife. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZTIbHIsIYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZTIbHIsIYw
CSSer 4y ago
Maybe you two should try it together for fun? Pro tip: You should probably agree to swipe right on everyone indiscriminately to avoid a potential argument. Not so pro disclaimer: I'm single and not married, so your mileage may vary. Please report back for... research purposes. :)
- LesZedCB 4y ago
  unless you're already accustomed to jealousy management via some sort of ENM, it's probably unwise.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    if his wife is pretending to be him this shouldn't be an issue.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      Could easily result in her losing interest in him when she sees how coldly other women treats him. Emotions are fickle and an experience like that might change the way she sees him.
- afavour 4y ago
  One potential danger here is single friends seeing you/your partner on the app. In the ideal world they'd bring this to your attention and you'd be able to explain it away easily. In the real world it's absolutely how vicious rumors start.
pyriku 4y ago
My partner and I are in a ENM relationship and that is spot on. I get some matches here and there but she gets 100s of likes
richbell 4y ago
The problem with dating apps is that there is an inherent divide, and Match Group (the company that owns pretty much all online dating apps) actively exploits this. Lonely men are deliberately targeted and charged more for services. It may seem silly or nonsensical from above, but for many young men apps like Tinder are the only way of finding "love" they've ever known and they directly equate swipes (or the lack thereof) with their desirability and prospects. OLD used to be a great way to meet people. However, helping people establish meaningful longterm connections and stop using the service isn't a sustainable business model. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patie...
tiborsaas 4y ago
Suggest her to try being a recruiter on LinkedIn as a thought experiment. Initial message should be "Hello, I have an exciting job offer for you, I've seen you know React".
cuuupid 4y ago
To be fair this is not entirely due to social dynamics but rather due to MatchGroup companies following identical monetization patterns. They’re just capitalizing on male desperation and artificially widening or narrowing the gap depending on how much you pay. If you observe the actual dating climate it’s nowhere near this bad and in larger cities like NYC it can even be closer to 1:1. Rather than a social problem this is an economic problem, and as dystopian as it sounds I personally think the solution here is a non-profit or even govt sponsored dating app. It would be stupidly easy to do this and also add a whole lot more trust (bad actors may face real consequences), which is one of the other huge reasons why dating apps struggle with getting women into their app.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Can we skip the dystopia and do some free-software peer-to-peer or federated solution somehow? Are ActivityPub-like protocols useful for this?
  - claytonjy 4y ago
    Sounds like a great way to build a dating pool with even fewer women than the current ones.
    - darkwater 4y ago
      You made me chuckle :)
      - webinvest 4y ago
        It seems like the only valid answer
  - cuuupid 4y ago
    Possibly, as disgusting as it sounds this is a pretty good use case for web3. Federate identity via blockchain to prevent bad actors, require a $1 or so NFT to use the app to prevent scammers from mass-botting, and some regular security and privacy measures = you’re good to go Expanding user graphs for matches across multiple nodes isn’t just easy, it’s actually way more efficient too. Have nodes calculate match likelihood among their users and verify they’re using the same algorithm with a simple hash. Then you’ve reduced getting matches for user X from the entire population Y (calculating distance, applying filters, and then ordering by compatibility, all expensive tasks) to getting matches for user X from nodes N that are purposely geolocated nearby reducing the search space even more. Basically not only could you do this open-source and decentralized, it would actually be more secure, safer, and way better both accuracy wise and cost wise at finding matches.
notch656c 4y ago
Tinder is straight up depressing for the median dude. My mind was blown just how much harder it was to get a date on tinder vs getting a date in real life. I can do the latter pretty easily but trying to get one on tinder would be like months of constant effort to then get ditched before the date even starts. It feels like 90% of women on there are chasing the top 10% of dudes and not settling for anything else.
- astrange 4y ago
  That's Tinder. I'm told Bumble and Hinge actually work for people. Of course, what really helps is to be on the favorable end of the gender mismatch if you're somewhere like SF or NYC. It's not nearly as bad as online people say it is though. You only need to find one person!
- farmaway 4y ago
  >It feels like 90% of women on there are chasing the top 10% of dudes and not settling for anything else. It feels that way because it is that way (stats from OKCupid, but I suspect the effect generalizes): https://archive.is/lGIdO https://archive.is/lGIdO
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Those 10% dudes are smart enough not to settle for a 90% woman for more than a few dates when they can pull a new one off the app at a moments notice. In the end they are the only winners in this situation.
  - nannal 4y ago
    Tinder appears to be doing fairly well given it's their situation that they've engineered.
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      Fair enough, trendy restaurants and bars also probably do well.
  - deleted 4y ago
spaniard89277 4y ago
I've been running online communities for years and this, as far as I can see, factual. I've read somewhere, maybe multiple times, that most men are emotionally and sexually deprived. That sounds correct given the data I have. I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. I still struggle sometimes. Many of my friends do much worse than me. I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-looking, that have not been touched by a woman in years. We don't talk too much about this but it's clear to me that it hurts them a lot, because it's not only about feeling desired, self-steem, or they can't fullfill their sexual desires. It's that they don't have those moments of intimacy that you have with members of the oposite sex, when you're naked or just cuddling. The only advice I've told them is to get out of any online stuff and hit bars. But they're in their 30s, their self-steem is already pretty low, and when I bring em somewhere it's pretty difficult to get it running. The times we've been around women, they get tired after a while and just want to grab me and go somewhere else. The've had GFs and hookups from time to time (meaning maybe about 2 years), and from my POV the've been treated pretty badly. IDK what to say, but I try to not think about it too much because it makes me sad.
- cmh89 4y ago
  It's interesting to me. I have female friends in their 30s who go on tons of dates but reject pretty much all of them for any long-term relationship. The ones they seem to be in to tend to reject them after a couple of dates. I'm not there in those interactions but I wonder how much of it is a mismatch between what you desire in a relationship and who you are attracted to in a person.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Or how much the "game" influences it. People tend to want what they can't have and reject things that come too easy.
    - avmich 4y ago
      I'd agree, but the important word here is "tend". It's definitely not a universal statement.
wpietri 4y ago
You say that like she's getting the good end of the deal. But everything I've heard from women on those apps, they'd rather have the "handful of sincere responses" experience than the "bazillion goofs spamming them and sending dick pics at the first hello".
- nh23423fefe 4y ago
  This isn't a refutation. You aren't saying women would trade places with men. You're saying women would trade the current experience of massive attention for a new experience of curated sincere attention. So damaging the male experience further.
  - maweaver 4y ago
    I don't know if they would trade places with men, but it's definitely not a fun experience for them either. There seems to be a large group of men out there who are, not to put too fine a point on it, "single for a reason". Curating them out of the matches would damage their experience, but vastly improve the experience for everyone else. And maybe help clue them in that they need to make some changes if they want to find a compatible partner. Assuming a perfect curation system, which, I concede, is impossible.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    It's been a while since I was on a dating site, but my experience was exactly that of a small amount of incoming attention, but almost all of it sincere. So yes, I think a lot of women would be happy to make that trade. I just never saw a lot of the awful behavior that women get on the regular. E.g., the guys who will go from "u r hot" to "fuck you bitch" in a series of DMs over 12 hours with absolutely no response from women. It honestly amazes me that so many of them stay in the dating market at all.
- wolongong942 4y ago
  Those women would rationalize all of those goofy behaviors as being OK if the guy had the good genetics.
flatline 4y ago
The perceived imbalance in likes is not really the problem, it’s just the difference in social norms across genders. OLD is not terribly easy for men or women, let alone NB folks. Women have to sort through all those men, while men have to swipe on tons of women. There are also more men on the sites. The result is low quality matches all around because men are incentivized to swipe on everyone. Women will have an easier time just obtaining sex, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good, and it’s not what most women are looking for, for numerous reasons.
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wyager 4y ago
As with many sexually dimorphic behaviors in humans (and mammals in general), this flows from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis You can have a stable/growing population with only 1 male per n>1 females. So, the evolutionarily optimal strategy is to crank up trait variance in males and have females select only the top 1/n males (hand-wavily speaking). Most modern human cultures suppressed this dynamic via socially enforced pair bonding. When you lose that social adaptation, you revert back to more atavistic matching dynamics.
- uoaei 4y ago
  Very interesting, from a systems perspective it makes a lot of sense that this would be the limit cycle behavior. The conclusion is a kind of corrolary to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bateman's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bateman's_principle, as regards the presence of energy bottlenecks (namely, gestation) in the process that propagates a species.
- mythrwy 4y ago
  Yep this is it. We are seeing our evolutionary state manifest as we work to undo a few millennia of "repressive" cultural norms. The sad truth is most men are disposable (from an evolutionary point of view), much like the vast quantities of sperm they produce.
- gorilla0 4y ago
  Came here to say something similar. Humans are much closer to “other” animals than what they think, and social instituions like marriage were created to prevent social mayhem.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    > Humans are much closer to “other” animals than what they think Plain false. Humans are very unique compared to other animals as I wrote in another response. See prof. Sapolsky's lectures on the topic. He's an outstanding anthropologist.
jrumbut 4y ago
Yeah, but you don't have deal with her problem which is an inbox flooded with random noise. It might be flattering for a minute but after that I'm sure it's a burden not much lighter than the empty inbox. Besides, as long as you get those few responses, that will be enough for all but the most active and adventurous daters. There are only so many hours in the day.
- jbuhbjlnjbn 4y ago
  Downvoting my comments does not make them less valid. You could actually test your hypothesis,make yourself deliberately less desirable, then check the reactions and what that does to your self esteem. Some anecdotal evidence from a female who wrote a book about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Made_Man_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Made_Man_(book)
- jbuhbjlnjbn 4y ago
  >It might be flattering for a minute but after that I'm sure it's a burden not much lighter than the empty inbox. I guess some things have to be experienced for real understanding. No, this is surely not a burden by any measure, it is a huge privilege.
  - evilduck 4y ago
    Feels like there's a strong analog between tech careers and recruiters and men and women in the online dating scene. In tech, fending recruiters off with a stick is far less of a burden and stress than being unemployed or permanently underemployed or underpaid in a different field. It's annoying, sure, but it's not going to cause you depression to have so many people showing interest in you, it validates some amount of self-worth. Recruiters also take an approach to recruitment very similarly to men in online dating, treating it as a numbers game and where they don't care about candidate quality before first contact. Blast out interest and feelers indiscriminately to anyone and then evaluate the quality of those who respond and be happy to settle for any commission in the end. Both are broken processes of course, but the power dynamics seem similar.
    - 4y ago
Zigurd 4y ago
i know women get inundated with messages on dating apps, but I would not blame the structure of dating app for the misfortune of some men. The #1 cause of men not being datable is the advice they get from other men. Try listening to women instead. In workplace settings, men tend to speak up whether or not they have something wise to contribute. This communications style carries over into the way men use dating apps. Also, you can't sell the libertarian techbro thing as attractive. It isn't. Your prerogative to be that way. It doesn't bother me in a workplace setting. But it is a massive turn off. You are lowering your odds. You can find counterexamples, such as that when I was an undergrad, women ran the Objectivist newspaper. But outliers be outlying.
- astrange 4y ago
  Libertarian techbros aren't that common. Most tech people are liberals just like any other college educated group. (Similarly, richer people/political donors are usually liberals and the richer/more they donate the more liberal they are. It's all thanks to education polarization.)
  - Zigurd 4y ago
    I used to think so. Maybe they have become more visible now. It feels like outgrowing Ayn Rand as an undergrad missed some people lately.
- deleted 4y ago
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giantg2 4y ago
"She thinks I'm exaggerating ..." Probably best to keep it that way.
trustingtrust 4y ago
A friend of mine did a small experiment. She’s quite good looking so she made a new account and another guy friend made another account at the same time. She has usually has 3000+ likes on bumble so we wanted to see how many she gets in 30 minutes. In 30 minutes the guy got 5 because of a new account and she got 150. The ratio is so badly skewed that the apps end up working for no one. Neither men nor women.
- Teever 4y ago
  It's working for advertisers on this platform.
- bmn__ 4y ago
  It works for the top 10% of men.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> While women can get attention from thousands of men online in just a few hours, men are lucky if anyone is interested in them When it comes to dating apps, everyone I know falls into one of two categories: The first group invests time into generating a good profile. They put the effort into getting get photos of themselves and presenting the photos properly. They write a good bio, avoiding the tired tropes ("love food and travel"), and they iterate on their bio based on responses. They go out on dates with an open mind and are willing to give people a chance. The second group grabs random, unflattering pictures of themselves and throw them into the app without much consideration. They do things like use group photos where it's hard to even tell whose profile you're viewing. They grab a lot of silly or exaggerated pictures that make them look immature or present an image that doesn't match their personality. They write a short bio with useless tropes copied from other profiles. They make up their minds about people before even going on the first date. The first group isn't finding their soulmate in the first month, but they do well. I've attended a double-digit number of weddings from people in this group. The second group is just relentlessly cynical and disappointed. I know a group of people, some of whom are classically attractive women, who have been doing online dating for years while complaining about the lack of good matches. Online dating is a tool. Like any other tool, people get out of it what they put into it. You don't have to be in the top 10% of most attractive and successful people to match with others, but you do have to get over the cynicism and put in some effort.
- ryeights 4y ago
  Unfortunately this response is divorced from reality. I have observed many 20-something women swiping through Tinder and the #1 cause for a man’s profile to be rejected is his attractiveness simply being average or below average. Have you ever tried online dating on platforms such as Tinder?
  - astrange 4y ago
    "Attractiveness" is very under your control and like half of it is how good your photos are.
    - 4y ago
retrac 4y ago
I think it's very telling there's no real lesbian equivalent to the sex clubs for gay men, or Grindr for that matter. They do exist; relatively few women actually use them. Pornography by and for gay men, is as popular if not more so, with gay men as pornography is with straight men. The market for such material aimed at women, gay or straight, is rather marginal by comparison. Similarly, a very large % of gay men who are partnered romantically, are in open relationships. And by large % I mean around half. At least with American gay women, open relationships are a very minor thing, similar to the rates with heterosexuals. The sexual behaviour of homosexual men and women is very different at a population/statistical level. Whether it's nature or nurture can of course be debated, but it seems like a very strong indicator that women's and men's sexuality are of a slightly different nature.
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- morbia 4y ago
  > Similarly, a very large % of gay men who are partnered romantically, are in open relationships. And by large % I mean around half. At least with American gay women, open relationships are a very minor thing, similar to the rates with heterosexuals. I would love to know the actual number here, as someone in the gay male open relationship category. I remember discussing this with a friend of mine, who is also in an open relationship. He came out with a fascinating statement that he had never seen a long term monogamous gay relationship where both parties were perfectly happy. After he said it, my first thought was that was ridiculous and then tried to think of friends who were the exception... I couldn't name a single one either. Every monogamous gay couple I've met going for longer than >1 year had at least one person in the relationship air that they were sexually frustrated to me in private and wanted more. Most were jealous of our relationship, but worried about the consequences of opening their relationship. I am sure the monogamous gay couple who are happy is out there somewhere, but I've yet to meet them.
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dheera 4y ago
> her inbox would be flooded with messages Yeah this is a unstable feedback loop. Women want men to message first. So they don't message first. So a lot of men spray all the women with generic messages first (because spending even any amount of effort on a single woman is most likely going to get ignored, so men just assume 1 in 100 people respond and don't put much effort until there is at least one response from her). Women then get inboxes flooded. Women then increasingly don't message first because they get complacent with the hundreds of messages in their inbox. The dating culture needs to change, women need to stop expecting men to lead, take some control, and pick and message people they'd like to get to know. If men start getting some nonzero amount of inbound from people who like them, they are less likely to need to "spray" the entire female population with generic messages.
- astrange 4y ago
  That's how Bumble works. I don't need to use dating apps but a few coworkers tell me it works for them.
  - dheera 4y ago
    Except for a lot of people Bumble often just doesn't show your profile to anyone you swiped right on. Might be if you don't meet conventional attractiveness thresholds. It's a waste of time if you're not some DiCaprio. I get enough matches on other apps with the same profile that it's pretty clear there's something fishy going on in their algorithm.
throwaway6734 4y ago
The dating market for men seems very similar to the job market: * It's easier to find a partner when you already have one * There are much higher standards in getting dates (akin to interviewing) than once in a relationship * Theres a power imbalance due to cultural expectations that men are the pursuers
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > * Theres a power imbalance due to cultural expectations that men are the pursuers I've been told by a male friend who (quite successfully) uses several of these apps that even on that one that makes women initiate contact (is it Bumble?) the first message is just "hi" like 99% of the time. Meanwhile, that's a guaranteed way for a dude to get ghosted, on any platform where guys can initiate contact, as is responding with a reciprocal "hi" on that one. In either case the clear expectation is that the guy needs to present something interesting right out of the gate, very first message, and generally drive the discussion. (this guy attributes his success largely to his A+ chat game, so I'm inclined to believe his take on this)
- landgenoot 4y ago
  LinkedIn is like a reverse tinder. Hot looking women are texting ugly men, but they never respond.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > *Theres a power imbalance due to cultural expectations that men are the pursuers There is also a power imbalance due to men being physical more powerful than women, which is a concern for most, if not all women.
dudul 4y ago
Why don't you just try to prove her wrong? Seems like a pretty easy experiment.
mc32 4y ago
How you write profiles probably matters. If you're sparse or you're too wordy, that's going to put people off. You also have to have some hooks --things that are part of your personality that can instigate some interest. Could be climbing, playing an instrument, working on a farm, etc. But also don't make things up. Looks matter, but after that initial attraction, other things matter, are they organized, are they too compulsive... You know their habits and so on. You want someone normal but also not someone boring, for the most part.
welshwelsh 4y ago
You are in the better position. Her inbox might be flooded with messages, but most of those messages are spam. Most of the guys didn't even look at her profile, and instead swiped right on everyone and copy-pasted the same message to all of their matches. If she replies, most of them will not respond. Few will put in the effort to have a substantial conversation, and fewer will actually try to go out on a date with her. If she goes on a date, she would end up in the same situation. She will probably carry the conversation and will be more interested in them than they are in her. Many will agree to have sex with her for the sake of their own pleasure, but few would attempt to give her pleasure. If she gets into a relationship, chances are the guy won't pull his weight (because he's not really interested) and she will end up doing all the work. He will regularly flake on her to hang out with his friends and play videogames, and will try to hide the fact that he doesn't actually like her as a person or enjoy being around her. On the other hand, if you get a handful of responses, that means a handful of women are interested in you. They actually want to talk to YOU, to the extent that you are accurately represented by your profile. The chance that one of those people are a good match for you, and that they are willing to give you a fair chance is high. And if they end up not actually liking who you are, they will do you the favor of ending it instead of wasting your time. As for guys who don't get matches or messages at all: it's because your profile sucks. Take better pictures. No, those pictures suck too, try again.
- bmn__ 4y ago
  > As for guys who don't get matches or messages at all: it's because your profile sucks. Take better pictures. No amount of picture taking changes the fact that being short or ugly or bald or old or non-white firmly entrenches the profile in the "never match" category.
- Der_Einzige 4y ago
  Funny for you to imply that women carry the conversations on dates. My experience on dating apps, and in real life dating (including with my current partner) is that it's the man's burden to entertain the date. The overwhelming majority of date time was spent with me asking questions to try to coax the girl into actually talking, and talking about themselves (which people like to do). Hell, most of the time that girls ghost guys on dating apps is because they're "boring". Dick pics are not sent out by more than half of all men who are rejected, but at least half of those rejctees we're "boring". One way to try to fight this is to jestermax or goofmax. I refuse. I shouldn't have to become a damn comedian to prove that I've got "game".
AdamH12113 4y ago
From what I've gathered by listening to women, there are fundamentally different problems. "Attention" is not valuable in itself. Getting spammed with dick pics is about as appealing as any other kind of spam. No one looks in their spam folder and thinks "Gosh, all of these advertisers think I have money to burn! What a great compliment!". It doesn't show any personal interest. It's not a sign that the other person is going to treat you like a human being instead of a sentient (flesh-)wallet. The difference in experiences starts early in life. For boys, girls showing interest in them is often an exciting and empowering experience. For girls, often as not, the first sign of sexual interest is a creepy older man making uncomfortable comments at them when they're 11 years old. IIRC this shows up in mental health statistics -- boys who start puberty earlier tend to do better; girls who start puberty earlier tend to do worse. And of course there are different social standards applied to men's and women's sexuality. Women also have much bigger safety concerns than men do, and have a harder time getting anything done about attacks afterwards. I think all of this does make it harder for women to understand the destructive loneliness that a lot of men (particularly young men) face. I've been there, and I remember that trying to talk about with my female friends was a frustrating experience. But over time I've come to see that women don't really have it any better than we do. We're wandering through a desert looking for an oasis; they're swimming through a lake of garbage looking for an intact water bottle.
- mbar84 4y ago
  > We're wandering through a desert looking for an oasis; they're swimming through a lake of garbage looking for an intact water bottle. I think it's more like, we're both in a corner store and while many men can't afford something to eat, though it's right in front of them; women won't stop looking before they find Caviar and a bottle of Champaign.
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- zozbot234 4y ago
  > The difference in experiences starts early in life. For boys, girls showing interest in them is often an exciting and empowering experience. Hence, if you're going to try and show interest in a woman, do it in a way that's clearly going to be interesting, exciting and empowering to her, even if she doesn't seem to reciprocate sexually. (Which in practice means you'll need to show genuine social interest and friendship to her, combined with a modicum of sexual interest that's demonstrably connoted as non-threatening. Mostly by showing yourself off as sexually attractive and attainable, and leaving it at that. Yes, it's very unintuitive from a male POV - many males will reject this approach as weak. But a neutral assessment of strategy says it will work, and give women what they're mostly looking for.)
wrldos 4y ago
Having done the dating thing for a while and being male, I've had no problem with making contacts and going on dates. Quality not quantity. Can easily end up on two dates a week. I'm nothing special.
amelius 4y ago
I think you'd have most luck by using ChatGPT to send messages in the style of 50 Shades of Grey. I wouldn't be surprised if some men were already doing this.
zozbot234 4y ago
Dating apps are terrible. Women respond well to genuine friendship and gradually deepening intimacy. No one, man or woman, wants to be thrown into a super short-term popularity contest where physical appearance and some shallow "chatting" is the only differentiator. That's not how you build community and intimacy.
bratbag 4y ago
From talking to people on either side of this, women are not getting what they want out of it either. For men it's like finding fresh water in a desert. For women it's like finding fresh water in a swamp.
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tibbon 4y ago
I hear this all the time. Perhaps demand follows an 80/20% rule because my experience doesn't align with this. I'm a man, 40 years, polyamorous, yet I have zero problems finding people to date. On average, I have more partners than the women I often date. I agree that Tinder and such are highly skewed, but it doesn't make it useful for any gender. In-person (events, social groups, etc), I find there are a large number of people who actively want to date me and spend time with me. I don't see a clear gender divide in dating opportunities in my personal experience. I haven't been able to figure out what is unique about my experience vs the majority of men. I am not a "10" in any way; I just have a lot of hobbies.
- bmn__ 4y ago
  > I have zero problems finding people to date […] I find there are a large number of people who actively want to date me > I haven't been able to figure out what is unique about my experience vs the majority of men. You are attractive. That's all there is to it. Hobbies are a red herring. You might not be a 10, but "just" an 8, but that still means you are two orders of magnitude more successful than a normie.
donedealomg 4y ago
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phkahler 4y ago
I've been told by a few women in person that I'm really good to talk to. I disagree and think I'm average at conversation. Apparently most guys actually suck at it, at least with women. I responded to one profile by noting the lake in the background of one of her pics and asking where it was. She about fell off her chair and said I might be the only guy on there who actually reads profiles. Up your f'ing game guys, it doesn't take much apparently. I got out of my shell by having dinner at the bar and talking to strangers of both genders. Now I'm a known regular and sometime people buy me a shot. This took years, so get started today.
- voviz 4y ago
  What kind of bars do you go to? I don't know much about bars, but I assume some bars are meant for that kind of stuff and others aren't.
  - phkahler 4y ago
    Not a club or pickup type place, just the local pubs where people eat, drink, and watch sports while seated at the bar. You can sit there and have dinner and not say anything, or choose to engage with the person next to you if they seem receptive. How to tell? Ask a question, see if they answer and make some attempt to continue - like asking something back, or telling more than a terse response.

71a54xd 4y ago

I have a healthy dating life outside of apps, but yeah - I think women understanding how difficult and dramatically different online dating is for men in comparison to women will never truly be accepted or taken seriously by women.

RationPhantoms 4y ago
The best way I've heard to explain the difference is men are dying of thirst in a desert and woman are dying of thirst in an ocean.
- Zigurd 4y ago
  I hope the depth of that analogy is intentional.
BurningFrog 4y ago
I think women get it when they experience the same thing in their 40s.
- bt4u 4y ago
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dashdot 4y ago
It's definitely different. But difficult is subjective. Personally, I prefer the experience as a male. Instead of getting flooded with goofs, I can focus on a small amount of matches.
- 71a54xd 4y ago
  I think the most damaging reality of these apps is when a man who himself thinks he's low-value and doesn't understand how to improve only gets a few matches from the algo of women who are below average attractiveness. I'm going to get flamed for this but in general I think it's right to assume that the average woman in 2022 is less attractive than the average man, BMI / height stats support this. This outcome generally signals to at-risk men (in terms of mental state) that women they would find attractive have all swiped left on them only leaving below average or physically unfit women. It's also entirely likely that they might just not be desire-able on dating apps and in fact, are only matched with people who don't have standards. That said, I think standards are important on both sides AND I've had men far more attractive than me also encounter a situation of only having a handful of matches even in NYC.
  - astrange 4y ago
    > I'm going to get flamed for this but in general I think it's right to assume that the average woman in 2022 is less attractive than the average man, BMI / height stats support this. What's your definition of attractive height…?
    - 71a54xd 4y ago
      Definitely 6' and up - and I'm shorter than that. It's pretty obvious, but I don't lose sleep about it. I also meant BMI relative to height, not height in general. Statistics don't lie in terms of what each population generally finds attractive.
      - astrange 4y ago
        > Definitely 6' and up For women? Maybe in the Netherlands.

Wojtkie 4y ago

I found this video a while back that highlights what you're talking about.[0] Might be an interesting one to show to your wife. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZTIbHIsIYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZTIbHIsIYw

CSSer 4y ago

Maybe you two should try it together for fun? Pro tip: You should probably agree to swipe right on everyone indiscriminately to avoid a potential argument. Not so pro disclaimer: I'm single and not married, so your mileage may vary. Please report back for... research purposes. :)

LesZedCB 4y ago
unless you're already accustomed to jealousy management via some sort of ENM, it's probably unwise.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  if his wife is pretending to be him this shouldn't be an issue.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    Could easily result in her losing interest in him when she sees how coldly other women treats him. Emotions are fickle and an experience like that might change the way she sees him.
afavour 4y ago
One potential danger here is single friends seeing you/your partner on the app. In the ideal world they'd bring this to your attention and you'd be able to explain it away easily. In the real world it's absolutely how vicious rumors start.

pyriku 4y ago

My partner and I are in a ENM relationship and that is spot on. I get some matches here and there but she gets 100s of likes

richbell 4y ago

The problem with dating apps is that there is an inherent divide, and Match Group (the company that owns pretty much all online dating apps) actively exploits this. Lonely men are deliberately targeted and charged more for services. It may seem silly or nonsensical from above, but for many young men apps like Tinder are the only way of finding "love" they've ever known and they directly equate swipes (or the lack thereof) with their desirability and prospects. OLD used to be a great way to meet people. However, helping people establish meaningful longterm connections and stop using the service isn't a sustainable business model. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patie...

tiborsaas 4y ago

Suggest her to try being a recruiter on LinkedIn as a thought experiment. Initial message should be "Hello, I have an exciting job offer for you, I've seen you know React".

cuuupid 4y ago

To be fair this is not entirely due to social dynamics but rather due to MatchGroup companies following identical monetization patterns. They’re just capitalizing on male desperation and artificially widening or narrowing the gap depending on how much you pay. If you observe the actual dating climate it’s nowhere near this bad and in larger cities like NYC it can even be closer to 1:1. Rather than a social problem this is an economic problem, and as dystopian as it sounds I personally think the solution here is a non-profit or even govt sponsored dating app. It would be stupidly easy to do this and also add a whole lot more trust (bad actors may face real consequences), which is one of the other huge reasons why dating apps struggle with getting women into their app.

guerrilla 4y ago
Can we skip the dystopia and do some free-software peer-to-peer or federated solution somehow? Are ActivityPub-like protocols useful for this?
- claytonjy 4y ago
  Sounds like a great way to build a dating pool with even fewer women than the current ones.
  - darkwater 4y ago
    You made me chuckle :)
    - webinvest 4y ago
      It seems like the only valid answer
- cuuupid 4y ago
  Possibly, as disgusting as it sounds this is a pretty good use case for web3. Federate identity via blockchain to prevent bad actors, require a $1 or so NFT to use the app to prevent scammers from mass-botting, and some regular security and privacy measures = you’re good to go Expanding user graphs for matches across multiple nodes isn’t just easy, it’s actually way more efficient too. Have nodes calculate match likelihood among their users and verify they’re using the same algorithm with a simple hash. Then you’ve reduced getting matches for user X from the entire population Y (calculating distance, applying filters, and then ordering by compatibility, all expensive tasks) to getting matches for user X from nodes N that are purposely geolocated nearby reducing the search space even more. Basically not only could you do this open-source and decentralized, it would actually be more secure, safer, and way better both accuracy wise and cost wise at finding matches.

notch656c 4y ago

Tinder is straight up depressing for the median dude. My mind was blown just how much harder it was to get a date on tinder vs getting a date in real life. I can do the latter pretty easily but trying to get one on tinder would be like months of constant effort to then get ditched before the date even starts. It feels like 90% of women on there are chasing the top 10% of dudes and not settling for anything else.

astrange 4y ago
That's Tinder. I'm told Bumble and Hinge actually work for people. Of course, what really helps is to be on the favorable end of the gender mismatch if you're somewhere like SF or NYC. It's not nearly as bad as online people say it is though. You only need to find one person!
farmaway 4y ago
>It feels like 90% of women on there are chasing the top 10% of dudes and not settling for anything else. It feels that way because it is that way (stats from OKCupid, but I suspect the effect generalizes): https://archive.is/lGIdO https://archive.is/lGIdO
willcipriano 4y ago
Those 10% dudes are smart enough not to settle for a 90% woman for more than a few dates when they can pull a new one off the app at a moments notice. In the end they are the only winners in this situation.
- nannal 4y ago
  Tinder appears to be doing fairly well given it's their situation that they've engineered.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Fair enough, trendy restaurants and bars also probably do well.
- deleted 4y ago

spaniard89277 4y ago

I've been running online communities for years and this, as far as I can see, factual. I've read somewhere, maybe multiple times, that most men are emotionally and sexually deprived. That sounds correct given the data I have. I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. I still struggle sometimes. Many of my friends do much worse than me. I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-looking, that have not been touched by a woman in years. We don't talk too much about this but it's clear to me that it hurts them a lot, because it's not only about feeling desired, self-steem, or they can't fullfill their sexual desires. It's that they don't have those moments of intimacy that you have with members of the oposite sex, when you're naked or just cuddling. The only advice I've told them is to get out of any online stuff and hit bars. But they're in their 30s, their self-steem is already pretty low, and when I bring em somewhere it's pretty difficult to get it running. The times we've been around women, they get tired after a while and just want to grab me and go somewhere else. The've had GFs and hookups from time to time (meaning maybe about 2 years), and from my POV the've been treated pretty badly. IDK what to say, but I try to not think about it too much because it makes me sad.

cmh89 4y ago
It's interesting to me. I have female friends in their 30s who go on tons of dates but reject pretty much all of them for any long-term relationship. The ones they seem to be in to tend to reject them after a couple of dates. I'm not there in those interactions but I wonder how much of it is a mismatch between what you desire in a relationship and who you are attracted to in a person.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Or how much the "game" influences it. People tend to want what they can't have and reject things that come too easy.
  - avmich 4y ago
    I'd agree, but the important word here is "tend". It's definitely not a universal statement.

wpietri 4y ago

You say that like she's getting the good end of the deal. But everything I've heard from women on those apps, they'd rather have the "handful of sincere responses" experience than the "bazillion goofs spamming them and sending dick pics at the first hello".

nh23423fefe 4y ago
This isn't a refutation. You aren't saying women would trade places with men. You're saying women would trade the current experience of massive attention for a new experience of curated sincere attention. So damaging the male experience further.
- maweaver 4y ago
  I don't know if they would trade places with men, but it's definitely not a fun experience for them either. There seems to be a large group of men out there who are, not to put too fine a point on it, "single for a reason". Curating them out of the matches would damage their experience, but vastly improve the experience for everyone else. And maybe help clue them in that they need to make some changes if they want to find a compatible partner. Assuming a perfect curation system, which, I concede, is impossible.
- wpietri 4y ago
  It's been a while since I was on a dating site, but my experience was exactly that of a small amount of incoming attention, but almost all of it sincere. So yes, I think a lot of women would be happy to make that trade. I just never saw a lot of the awful behavior that women get on the regular. E.g., the guys who will go from "u r hot" to "fuck you bitch" in a series of DMs over 12 hours with absolutely no response from women. It honestly amazes me that so many of them stay in the dating market at all.
wolongong942 4y ago
Those women would rationalize all of those goofy behaviors as being OK if the guy had the good genetics.

flatline 4y ago

The perceived imbalance in likes is not really the problem, it’s just the difference in social norms across genders. OLD is not terribly easy for men or women, let alone NB folks. Women have to sort through all those men, while men have to swipe on tons of women. There are also more men on the sites. The result is low quality matches all around because men are incentivized to swipe on everyone. Women will have an easier time just obtaining sex, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good, and it’s not what most women are looking for, for numerous reasons.

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wyager 4y ago

As with many sexually dimorphic behaviors in humans (and mammals in general), this flows from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis You can have a stable/growing population with only 1 male per n>1 females. So, the evolutionarily optimal strategy is to crank up trait variance in males and have females select only the top 1/n males (hand-wavily speaking). Most modern human cultures suppressed this dynamic via socially enforced pair bonding. When you lose that social adaptation, you revert back to more atavistic matching dynamics.

uoaei 4y ago
Very interesting, from a systems perspective it makes a lot of sense that this would be the limit cycle behavior. The conclusion is a kind of corrolary to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bateman's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bateman's_principle, as regards the presence of energy bottlenecks (namely, gestation) in the process that propagates a species.
mythrwy 4y ago
Yep this is it. We are seeing our evolutionary state manifest as we work to undo a few millennia of "repressive" cultural norms. The sad truth is most men are disposable (from an evolutionary point of view), much like the vast quantities of sperm they produce.
gorilla0 4y ago
Came here to say something similar. Humans are much closer to “other” animals than what they think, and social instituions like marriage were created to prevent social mayhem.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  > Humans are much closer to “other” animals than what they think Plain false. Humans are very unique compared to other animals as I wrote in another response. See prof. Sapolsky's lectures on the topic. He's an outstanding anthropologist.

jrumbut 4y ago

Yeah, but you don't have deal with her problem which is an inbox flooded with random noise. It might be flattering for a minute but after that I'm sure it's a burden not much lighter than the empty inbox. Besides, as long as you get those few responses, that will be enough for all but the most active and adventurous daters. There are only so many hours in the day.

jbuhbjlnjbn 4y ago
Downvoting my comments does not make them less valid. You could actually test your hypothesis,make yourself deliberately less desirable, then check the reactions and what that does to your self esteem. Some anecdotal evidence from a female who wrote a book about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Made_Man_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Made_Man_(book)
jbuhbjlnjbn 4y ago
>It might be flattering for a minute but after that I'm sure it's a burden not much lighter than the empty inbox. I guess some things have to be experienced for real understanding. No, this is surely not a burden by any measure, it is a huge privilege.
- evilduck 4y ago
  Feels like there's a strong analog between tech careers and recruiters and men and women in the online dating scene. In tech, fending recruiters off with a stick is far less of a burden and stress than being unemployed or permanently underemployed or underpaid in a different field. It's annoying, sure, but it's not going to cause you depression to have so many people showing interest in you, it validates some amount of self-worth. Recruiters also take an approach to recruitment very similarly to men in online dating, treating it as a numbers game and where they don't care about candidate quality before first contact. Blast out interest and feelers indiscriminately to anyone and then evaluate the quality of those who respond and be happy to settle for any commission in the end. Both are broken processes of course, but the power dynamics seem similar.
  - 4y ago

Zigurd 4y ago

i know women get inundated with messages on dating apps, but I would not blame the structure of dating app for the misfortune of some men. The #1 cause of men not being datable is the advice they get from other men. Try listening to women instead. In workplace settings, men tend to speak up whether or not they have something wise to contribute. This communications style carries over into the way men use dating apps. Also, you can't sell the libertarian techbro thing as attractive. It isn't. Your prerogative to be that way. It doesn't bother me in a workplace setting. But it is a massive turn off. You are lowering your odds. You can find counterexamples, such as that when I was an undergrad, women ran the Objectivist newspaper. But outliers be outlying.

astrange 4y ago
Libertarian techbros aren't that common. Most tech people are liberals just like any other college educated group. (Similarly, richer people/political donors are usually liberals and the richer/more they donate the more liberal they are. It's all thanks to education polarization.)
- Zigurd 4y ago
  I used to think so. Maybe they have become more visible now. It feels like outgrowing Ayn Rand as an undergrad missed some people lately.
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giantg2 4y ago

"She thinks I'm exaggerating ..." Probably best to keep it that way.

trustingtrust 4y ago

A friend of mine did a small experiment. She’s quite good looking so she made a new account and another guy friend made another account at the same time. She has usually has 3000+ likes on bumble so we wanted to see how many she gets in 30 minutes. In 30 minutes the guy got 5 because of a new account and she got 150. The ratio is so badly skewed that the apps end up working for no one. Neither men nor women.

Teever 4y ago
It's working for advertisers on this platform.
bmn__ 4y ago
It works for the top 10% of men.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> While women can get attention from thousands of men online in just a few hours, men are lucky if anyone is interested in them When it comes to dating apps, everyone I know falls into one of two categories: The first group invests time into generating a good profile. They put the effort into getting get photos of themselves and presenting the photos properly. They write a good bio, avoiding the tired tropes ("love food and travel"), and they iterate on their bio based on responses. They go out on dates with an open mind and are willing to give people a chance. The second group grabs random, unflattering pictures of themselves and throw them into the app without much consideration. They do things like use group photos where it's hard to even tell whose profile you're viewing. They grab a lot of silly or exaggerated pictures that make them look immature or present an image that doesn't match their personality. They write a short bio with useless tropes copied from other profiles. They make up their minds about people before even going on the first date. The first group isn't finding their soulmate in the first month, but they do well. I've attended a double-digit number of weddings from people in this group. The second group is just relentlessly cynical and disappointed. I know a group of people, some of whom are classically attractive women, who have been doing online dating for years while complaining about the lack of good matches. Online dating is a tool. Like any other tool, people get out of it what they put into it. You don't have to be in the top 10% of most attractive and successful people to match with others, but you do have to get over the cynicism and put in some effort.

ryeights 4y ago
Unfortunately this response is divorced from reality. I have observed many 20-something women swiping through Tinder and the #1 cause for a man’s profile to be rejected is his attractiveness simply being average or below average. Have you ever tried online dating on platforms such as Tinder?
- astrange 4y ago
  "Attractiveness" is very under your control and like half of it is how good your photos are.
  - 4y ago

retrac 4y ago

I think it's very telling there's no real lesbian equivalent to the sex clubs for gay men, or Grindr for that matter. They do exist; relatively few women actually use them. Pornography by and for gay men, is as popular if not more so, with gay men as pornography is with straight men. The market for such material aimed at women, gay or straight, is rather marginal by comparison. Similarly, a very large % of gay men who are partnered romantically, are in open relationships. And by large % I mean around half. At least with American gay women, open relationships are a very minor thing, similar to the rates with heterosexuals. The sexual behaviour of homosexual men and women is very different at a population/statistical level. Whether it's nature or nurture can of course be debated, but it seems like a very strong indicator that women's and men's sexuality are of a slightly different nature.

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morbia 4y ago
> Similarly, a very large % of gay men who are partnered romantically, are in open relationships. And by large % I mean around half. At least with American gay women, open relationships are a very minor thing, similar to the rates with heterosexuals. I would love to know the actual number here, as someone in the gay male open relationship category. I remember discussing this with a friend of mine, who is also in an open relationship. He came out with a fascinating statement that he had never seen a long term monogamous gay relationship where both parties were perfectly happy. After he said it, my first thought was that was ridiculous and then tried to think of friends who were the exception... I couldn't name a single one either. Every monogamous gay couple I've met going for longer than >1 year had at least one person in the relationship air that they were sexually frustrated to me in private and wanted more. Most were jealous of our relationship, but worried about the consequences of opening their relationship. I am sure the monogamous gay couple who are happy is out there somewhere, but I've yet to meet them.
- deleted 4y ago
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- 4y ago

dheera 4y ago

> her inbox would be flooded with messages Yeah this is a unstable feedback loop. Women want men to message first. So they don't message first. So a lot of men spray all the women with generic messages first (because spending even any amount of effort on a single woman is most likely going to get ignored, so men just assume 1 in 100 people respond and don't put much effort until there is at least one response from her). Women then get inboxes flooded. Women then increasingly don't message first because they get complacent with the hundreds of messages in their inbox. The dating culture needs to change, women need to stop expecting men to lead, take some control, and pick and message people they'd like to get to know. If men start getting some nonzero amount of inbound from people who like them, they are less likely to need to "spray" the entire female population with generic messages.

astrange 4y ago
That's how Bumble works. I don't need to use dating apps but a few coworkers tell me it works for them.
- dheera 4y ago
  Except for a lot of people Bumble often just doesn't show your profile to anyone you swiped right on. Might be if you don't meet conventional attractiveness thresholds. It's a waste of time if you're not some DiCaprio. I get enough matches on other apps with the same profile that it's pretty clear there's something fishy going on in their algorithm.

throwaway6734 4y ago

The dating market for men seems very similar to the job market: * It's easier to find a partner when you already have one * There are much higher standards in getting dates (akin to interviewing) than once in a relationship * Theres a power imbalance due to cultural expectations that men are the pursuers

yamtaddle 4y ago
> * Theres a power imbalance due to cultural expectations that men are the pursuers I've been told by a male friend who (quite successfully) uses several of these apps that even on that one that makes women initiate contact (is it Bumble?) the first message is just "hi" like 99% of the time. Meanwhile, that's a guaranteed way for a dude to get ghosted, on any platform where guys can initiate contact, as is responding with a reciprocal "hi" on that one. In either case the clear expectation is that the guy needs to present something interesting right out of the gate, very first message, and generally drive the discussion. (this guy attributes his success largely to his A+ chat game, so I'm inclined to believe his take on this)
landgenoot 4y ago
LinkedIn is like a reverse tinder. Hot looking women are texting ugly men, but they never respond.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> *Theres a power imbalance due to cultural expectations that men are the pursuers There is also a power imbalance due to men being physical more powerful than women, which is a concern for most, if not all women.

dudul 4y ago

Why don't you just try to prove her wrong? Seems like a pretty easy experiment.

mc32 4y ago

How you write profiles probably matters. If you're sparse or you're too wordy, that's going to put people off. You also have to have some hooks --things that are part of your personality that can instigate some interest. Could be climbing, playing an instrument, working on a farm, etc. But also don't make things up. Looks matter, but after that initial attraction, other things matter, are they organized, are they too compulsive... You know their habits and so on. You want someone normal but also not someone boring, for the most part.

welshwelsh 4y ago

You are in the better position. Her inbox might be flooded with messages, but most of those messages are spam. Most of the guys didn't even look at her profile, and instead swiped right on everyone and copy-pasted the same message to all of their matches. If she replies, most of them will not respond. Few will put in the effort to have a substantial conversation, and fewer will actually try to go out on a date with her. If she goes on a date, she would end up in the same situation. She will probably carry the conversation and will be more interested in them than they are in her. Many will agree to have sex with her for the sake of their own pleasure, but few would attempt to give her pleasure. If she gets into a relationship, chances are the guy won't pull his weight (because he's not really interested) and she will end up doing all the work. He will regularly flake on her to hang out with his friends and play videogames, and will try to hide the fact that he doesn't actually like her as a person or enjoy being around her. On the other hand, if you get a handful of responses, that means a handful of women are interested in you. They actually want to talk to YOU, to the extent that you are accurately represented by your profile. The chance that one of those people are a good match for you, and that they are willing to give you a fair chance is high. And if they end up not actually liking who you are, they will do you the favor of ending it instead of wasting your time. As for guys who don't get matches or messages at all: it's because your profile sucks. Take better pictures. No, those pictures suck too, try again.

bmn__ 4y ago
> As for guys who don't get matches or messages at all: it's because your profile sucks. Take better pictures. No amount of picture taking changes the fact that being short or ugly or bald or old or non-white firmly entrenches the profile in the "never match" category.
Der_Einzige 4y ago
Funny for you to imply that women carry the conversations on dates. My experience on dating apps, and in real life dating (including with my current partner) is that it's the man's burden to entertain the date. The overwhelming majority of date time was spent with me asking questions to try to coax the girl into actually talking, and talking about themselves (which people like to do). Hell, most of the time that girls ghost guys on dating apps is because they're "boring". Dick pics are not sent out by more than half of all men who are rejected, but at least half of those rejctees we're "boring". One way to try to fight this is to jestermax or goofmax. I refuse. I shouldn't have to become a damn comedian to prove that I've got "game".

AdamH12113 4y ago

From what I've gathered by listening to women, there are fundamentally different problems. "Attention" is not valuable in itself. Getting spammed with dick pics is about as appealing as any other kind of spam. No one looks in their spam folder and thinks "Gosh, all of these advertisers think I have money to burn! What a great compliment!". It doesn't show any personal interest. It's not a sign that the other person is going to treat you like a human being instead of a sentient (flesh-)wallet. The difference in experiences starts early in life. For boys, girls showing interest in them is often an exciting and empowering experience. For girls, often as not, the first sign of sexual interest is a creepy older man making uncomfortable comments at them when they're 11 years old. IIRC this shows up in mental health statistics -- boys who start puberty earlier tend to do better; girls who start puberty earlier tend to do worse. And of course there are different social standards applied to men's and women's sexuality. Women also have much bigger safety concerns than men do, and have a harder time getting anything done about attacks afterwards. I think all of this does make it harder for women to understand the destructive loneliness that a lot of men (particularly young men) face. I've been there, and I remember that trying to talk about with my female friends was a frustrating experience. But over time I've come to see that women don't really have it any better than we do. We're wandering through a desert looking for an oasis; they're swimming through a lake of garbage looking for an intact water bottle.

mbar84 4y ago
> We're wandering through a desert looking for an oasis; they're swimming through a lake of garbage looking for an intact water bottle. I think it's more like, we're both in a corner store and while many men can't afford something to eat, though it's right in front of them; women won't stop looking before they find Caviar and a bottle of Champaign.
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zozbot234 4y ago
> The difference in experiences starts early in life. For boys, girls showing interest in them is often an exciting and empowering experience. Hence, if you're going to try and show interest in a woman, do it in a way that's clearly going to be interesting, exciting and empowering to her, even if she doesn't seem to reciprocate sexually. (Which in practice means you'll need to show genuine social interest and friendship to her, combined with a modicum of sexual interest that's demonstrably connoted as non-threatening. Mostly by showing yourself off as sexually attractive and attainable, and leaving it at that. Yes, it's very unintuitive from a male POV - many males will reject this approach as weak. But a neutral assessment of strategy says it will work, and give women what they're mostly looking for.)

wrldos 4y ago

Having done the dating thing for a while and being male, I've had no problem with making contacts and going on dates. Quality not quantity. Can easily end up on two dates a week. I'm nothing special.

amelius 4y ago

I think you'd have most luck by using ChatGPT to send messages in the style of 50 Shades of Grey. I wouldn't be surprised if some men were already doing this.

zozbot234 4y ago

Dating apps are terrible. Women respond well to genuine friendship and gradually deepening intimacy. No one, man or woman, wants to be thrown into a super short-term popularity contest where physical appearance and some shallow "chatting" is the only differentiator. That's not how you build community and intimacy.

bratbag 4y ago

From talking to people on either side of this, women are not getting what they want out of it either. For men it's like finding fresh water in a desert. For women it's like finding fresh water in a swamp.

deleted 4y ago

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tibbon 4y ago

I hear this all the time. Perhaps demand follows an 80/20% rule because my experience doesn't align with this. I'm a man, 40 years, polyamorous, yet I have zero problems finding people to date. On average, I have more partners than the women I often date. I agree that Tinder and such are highly skewed, but it doesn't make it useful for any gender. In-person (events, social groups, etc), I find there are a large number of people who actively want to date me and spend time with me. I don't see a clear gender divide in dating opportunities in my personal experience. I haven't been able to figure out what is unique about my experience vs the majority of men. I am not a "10" in any way; I just have a lot of hobbies.

bmn__ 4y ago
> I have zero problems finding people to date […] I find there are a large number of people who actively want to date me > I haven't been able to figure out what is unique about my experience vs the majority of men. You are attractive. That's all there is to it. Hobbies are a red herring. You might not be a 10, but "just" an 8, but that still means you are two orders of magnitude more successful than a normie.

donedealomg 4y ago

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phkahler 4y ago

I've been told by a few women in person that I'm really good to talk to. I disagree and think I'm average at conversation. Apparently most guys actually suck at it, at least with women. I responded to one profile by noting the lake in the background of one of her pics and asking where it was. She about fell off her chair and said I might be the only guy on there who actually reads profiles. Up your f'ing game guys, it doesn't take much apparently. I got out of my shell by having dinner at the bar and talking to strangers of both genders. Now I'm a known regular and sometime people buy me a shot. This took years, so get started today.

voviz 4y ago
What kind of bars do you go to? I don't know much about bars, but I assume some bars are meant for that kind of stuff and others aren't.
- phkahler 4y ago
  Not a club or pickup type place, just the local pubs where people eat, drink, and watch sports while seated at the bar. You can sit there and have dinner and not say anything, or choose to engage with the person next to you if they seem receptive. How to tell? Ask a question, see if they answer and make some attempt to continue - like asking something back, or telling more than a terse response.