10 ms·

From Swiping to Sexting: The Gender Divide in American Dating and Relationships

54 points by loser777 4y ago

spaniard89277 4y ago
In my experience the only apps that I found helping people feel less lonely, finding partner and friends, have been couchsurfing (now paid) and Meetup. In my 2nd tier spanish city Id say it's a great success. In other cities I've heard every meetup group feels like a business, but here it's language exchange, going to eat something, museums, etc. Apparently it's a bit pricey for group hosts. In my particular case I was stuck with friends that do nothing at all. Got into meetups and met a lot of new people, allways have plans, and just met an Italian girl who may develop (or not) into a relationship. I've been in Tinder for years. Im ok looking and I get dates from time to time and it's not even close. It always felt shallow and I had to force myself throufh it, as the experience is pretty meh. I hope Meetup doesn't become another bussiness like Couchsurfing, trying to milk the community and destroying it in the process. Edit: Creeps can also destroy groups. I've seet it happen, and I guess that's more of a problem in other larger cities, but there are some men out there that make people, specially women, really uncomfortable.
- O__________O 4y ago
  Neither Couch Surfer, nor Meetup are designed for dating — and in my experience anyone using them for dating has a negative impact on there intended use. In the case of Meetup, there are dating groups, but in my experience those are a waste of time.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    You don't have to use them for dating to feel less lonely. You can use them to build up a network of friends and have relationships form more organically. Weren't you also the user posting about a friends first approach? This seems like the closest thing to that.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      Used to attended wide variety of Meetups and used Couch Surfer too. It’s pretty obvious when people are attending or using a platform for dating, though they rarely say so. For example, hosts that only host attractive females on Couch Surfer. Or meetups where attendees leave if there’s no attractive female that are in attendance or only talk to the attractive females. Even females that are interested in dating are easy to spot too in my experience. — Very rarely are people that are interested in dating taking a friends first approach, it’s time consuming, and to my knowledge no platform that enables users to build a “friend reputation score” based on users rating them.
  - soco 4y ago
    Anything that you do "for dating" usually goes south because it will be by definition forced. The above comment said instead going to meetups for museum visits, dining, basically sharing experiences, opening yourself to new.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      Not really true, but is true that it’s highly random and takes a large sample in my experience to actually find someone. In my experience, all the event types mentioned are largely attended by single people looking for dates. Even the language exchange groups, which have a highly specific and functional intent, tend to be single oriented. On the flipside, if platform attempted to enforce maintaining 50/50 balance of user base that’s single or not single and explicit forbids users mentioning dating unless they are above a predefined “friend score” — it would remove a lot of people that are not interested in relationship attributes.
  - orthoxerox 4y ago
    I remember someone writing an article about becoming a couchsurfing host to have one-night stands. By the end of the first summer the dude - learned how to reliably tell if his guest was willing to sleep with her hosts before inviting her - came up with a rehearsed tour of the city, complete with a spontaneous romantic lunch in a hidden gem of a cafe (with a reliable poker-face waiter) - ironed out the kinks in the "from the front door to the bedroom" follow-up routine
    - O__________O 4y ago
      Also relatively easy to spot hosts like this if you know how — though platform oddly doesn’t actively ban users doing this. Honestly, I don’t think a lot of users understand how potentially dangerous some online services are or for that matter, how to manage or recognize risks; not to mention platforms generally hide their risks, since it impacts user engagement.
jack_pp 4y ago
> The process of finding a partner—and the struggle it frequently entails—is an omnipresent feature of the American cultural landscape Ah, yes, only Americans try to reproduce.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 0x264 4y ago
  It's a completely factual statement, and relevant in the context of the article. It doesn't claim that the same cannot be observed, or doesn't happen, somewhere else.
- vinay427 4y ago
  There are cultures in the world that are very dissimilar to the broader cultural landscape in the US. There are still many, for example, in which arranged or other family or community-oriented marriages take place, and these tend to not have as significant a focus on finding oneself a partner.
durnygbur 4y ago
I wonder how many college educated persons work in or for tobacco companies... or at least somewhere in their supply chain...
slig 4y ago
I'd love to read an updated version of the infamous OkCupid blog.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  They were bought out and turned into another version of Tinder, Badoo, etc. - there is no commercial incentive to release it.
- bongoman37 4y ago
  [dead]
- O__________O 4y ago
  Thing with OkCupid is people refuse to actually practice the science of relationships. For example, they repeatedly were able to show blind dates produce better results, but the user base refused to participate in blind dates. At the point you’re cherry picking and reading dating science as entertainment or to back one off patterns that meet your desired outcome, that’s opposite of what the authors intended.
  - favaq 4y ago
    >the user base refused to participate in blind dates And I can see why. Higher chances of a good result, but also higher chances of getting a fat woman or something like that.
    - Majestic121 4y ago
      It's a date, not a lifetime commitment. And who knows, maybe the fat woman is worth knowing?
      - favaq 4y ago
        If it's only a date, you want someone attractive to have sex with. I don't see the difference.
popcalc 4y ago
Disclaimer: published by the American Enterprise Institute, a centre-right think tank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute
- mshake2 4y ago
  >a center-right think tank Well-poisoning[0]. If there are flaws with the surveys, criticize that. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
  - alexpetralia 4y ago
    No, I think if there is a clear bias from the source, you can also acknowledge that _and_ evaluate the piece itself. The source in this case has a clear conservative bias. https://www.aei.org/policy-areas/poverty-studies/ https://www.aei.org/policy-areas/poverty-studies/
    - mshake2 4y ago
      You haven't argued that it isn't well-poisoning, just that you believe the well-poisoning is justified.
  - popcalc 4y ago
    A poisoned-well "argument" has the following form: 1. Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented by another. (e.g. "Before you listen to my opponent, may I remind you that he has been in jail") 2. Therefore, the claims made by person A will be false. I didn't make any assumptions on the veracity of their data or claims. Think tanks are politically motivated groups whose work entirely revolves around shifting the public's and decision makers opinions. I don't think it hurts to add a disclaimer.
    - mshake2 4y ago
      Do you post on liberal sources "Disclaimer: this comes from a liberal source" too? If you're not doing it uniformly, regardless of bias, then yes, you are poisoning the well.
majikaja 4y ago
Aren't there traditional matchmaking agencies for people looking for serious relationships in the USA?
- soco 4y ago
  I know somebody who made a small fortune by matchmaking her own brides catalogue. Like, not just organizing the get-togethers and technicalities, but actually working to know both sides and, well, match them on the person level. So by my 1-sized sample I would say human touch can still beat algorithms.
Archelaos 4y ago
The results of the survey this article is based on seems to be nonsense. The numbers for women and men in each category should more or less match, unless there were a huge difference in same-sex or one-to-many relationsships or in the absolute numbers of male vs female, which seems implausible.
- projektfu 4y ago
  There could be differences in definition between two groups, such as who considers themselves to be in a committed relationship. However, I agree that it appears they have some sampling problems. Also, the methodology is not apparent aside from sample size and I couldn't find it anywhere.
- giantg2 4y ago
  I saw that top for the number of single men vs single women, especially considering that women account for 51% of the population. I wonder if there was selection bias, or even if there could be some participants lying due to embarrassment of being single. Although your same-sex and multi relationship thing could be worth looking into. I don't know the numbers, but anecdotally I know way more lesbian women than gay men. And it's a trope that couple look for unicorns (indicating demand).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nextweek2 4y ago
  > The numbers for women and men in each category should more or less match Not quite, the survey focuses on 18-29 age group. It’s not covered in the article but women have a preference for slightly older men. The women answering in the 27+ age could have corresponding men outside the sample group of men.
O__________O 4y ago
I have done dating startups few times, even went on 1+ dates a day for six months and on each actively tried to understand how people date; in my experience, people are highly random, rarely reach anywhere near a significant sample, and tend to focus of characteristics of an individual instead of characteristics related to relationships. If I was to do another social platform that supports dating, it would be one that’s friendly first, dating second. Reason being that in my experience people don’t understand that they wrongly focus on attributes of individual when looking for a relationship instead of looking at the individual’s relationship attributes. Individuals attributes are things like: attractiveness, age, hobbies, finances, religion, race, profession, etc. Relationship attributes are things like: communication, engagement, supportiveness, helpfulness, honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, empathy, compassion, availability, reliability, consistency, mindfulness, openness, receptiveness, contribution, etc. The relationship attributes apply platonic and non-platonic relationships — but are much better predictors of non-platonic relationship success long term than the individual attributes.
- safety1st 4y ago
  I'll take the hardest pass ever on a "dating startup" that tells me I shouldn't care about the attractiveness, age, or finances of a potential partner.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    It’s not that they don’t matter, but that they’re significantly less important than if a person is actually has strong relationship attributes — all of which are measurable via platonic relationships. Most dating platforms as is are extremely hostile to their customers actually finding real relationships, since as soon as they do, by definition, they’re no longer customers; for a friend’s first platform, they would not be the case.
    - safety1st 4y ago
      They're not less important, they're table stakes. Is there wiggle room, sure. Maybe sometimes people are capable of being a little more flexible on these things than they realize. But for example, I think this is true of just about everyone: there's an age range that they're willing to date within, and outside of that range, everyone is a hard pass. I wouldn't date someone who was twice my age, no matter how great their personality was, it's an absolute no. Similarly if we use BMI as a proxy for attractiveness. This one may be a little more controversial but I suspect just about everyone has a BMI range they are comfortable with, and if someone is far enough outside of that range, there is no chance, no matter what anyone says, that you are going to date them. I agree that most dating platforms are hostile to their customers but I think the issues there run much deeper. They all have incentives to _keep you engaged with their platform for as long as possible_, that is how they make the most money. They don't make money by finding you a partner. They are really just social media that can charge a monthly membership fee.
giantg2 4y ago
"One 19-year-old women says that she’s looking for mutual respect in a relationship and someone who approaches issues with an open mind." And probably a dozen other things. Self reporting is very hard for this type of thing. Theynshould probably have surveyed ex-partners and prior dates to get both sides of the story. In my experience, most of the time when a woman says she wants you to have an open mind, it means she wants you to agree with her because her mind is already made up. Respectful disagreement is unfathomable because it could invalidate or compete with her position.
- O__________O 4y ago
  As a counter point, having gone on 100s of dates and met 10s of thousands of people in real life, in my experience people that mention open mindedness as a desirable attribute tend to mean it, at least as it relates to those who do not mention it.
  - soco 4y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong but pretty much everybody will list the very same desirable traits like open mindedness, humor... and you can go on.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      No, vast amounts of people that see being open minded as a negative predictor of a desirable attribute. If I had to guess, your sampling is biased. For example, someone dating in a rural region would have much less success sharing that they’re open minded, since it’s not a cultural norm.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Sure, the subset of people mentioning any trait is more likely to want that trait than the subset who doesn't mention it. But that doesn't mean the individual is accurately self evaluating what they want, especially when it comes to intangible things like open-mindedness. I assume preferenced on physical/tangible traits are more consistent between stated preference and reality.
hungryforcodes 4y ago
Americans (younger ones anyways), simply don't seem to know how to date to put it bluntly. I've been on Tinder in the US and to a lesser extent Canada, and everyone is hyper demanding and -- particularly women lately -- demand that the other person "proves" this or that (how cool they are, or how worthy of being paid attention to, etc). For hookups Tinder isn't bad, but for relationships it should be avoided at all costs, especially if you are somewhat docile. :P Badoo and OKCupid are somehwhat better. In other countries (Europe and Asia say), people date more normally - or as you would expect. "You seem nice, want to meet for coffee?" / "Sure."
jacooper 4y ago
For me the most interesting thing was that generally Republican men and women are measurably more satisfied then their Democratic counterparts. Is it because Republicans generally value family values and staying in stable relationships more? Also another interesting thing is Gen Z relying on Friendships rather than online dating to find their partners. I think we have a generation fed up with algorithms and how shallow online partner selection can be.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  > I think we have a generation fed up with algorithms and how shallow online partner selection can be. Not to mention the apps fuck with people, creating fake “matches” and downranking them to try to goad desperate people into paying them money.
bitwize 4y ago
Dating is bullshit, online dating is bullshit squared. It's like this game where you have to carefully scrutinize the other person while hiding your own flaws and not letting on that you are carefully scrutinizing them. It's stressful in the way job interviews are stressful. I only got married because I knew my wife really well -- for decades beforehand -- and so our relationship benefits from a sort of Lindy effect.

54 points by loser777 4y ago

In my experience the only apps that I found helping people feel less lonely, finding partner and friends, have been couchsurfing (now paid) and Meetup. In my 2nd tier spanish city Id say it's a great success. In other cities I've heard every meetup group feels like a business, but here it's language exchange, going to eat something, museums, etc. Apparently it's a bit pricey for group hosts. In my particular case I was stuck with friends that do nothing at all. Got into meetups and met a lot of new people, allways have plans, and just met an Italian girl who may develop (or not) into a relationship. I've been in Tinder for years. Im ok looking and I get dates from time to time and it's not even close. It always felt shallow and I had to force myself throufh it, as the experience is pretty meh. I hope Meetup doesn't become another bussiness like Couchsurfing, trying to milk the community and destroying it in the process. Edit: Creeps can also destroy groups. I've seet it happen, and I guess that's more of a problem in other larger cities, but there are some men out there that make people, specially women, really uncomfortable.

O__________O 4y ago
Neither Couch Surfer, nor Meetup are designed for dating — and in my experience anyone using them for dating has a negative impact on there intended use. In the case of Meetup, there are dating groups, but in my experience those are a waste of time.
- giantg2 4y ago
  You don't have to use them for dating to feel less lonely. You can use them to build up a network of friends and have relationships form more organically. Weren't you also the user posting about a friends first approach? This seems like the closest thing to that.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    Used to attended wide variety of Meetups and used Couch Surfer too. It’s pretty obvious when people are attending or using a platform for dating, though they rarely say so. For example, hosts that only host attractive females on Couch Surfer. Or meetups where attendees leave if there’s no attractive female that are in attendance or only talk to the attractive females. Even females that are interested in dating are easy to spot too in my experience. — Very rarely are people that are interested in dating taking a friends first approach, it’s time consuming, and to my knowledge no platform that enables users to build a “friend reputation score” based on users rating them.
- soco 4y ago
  Anything that you do "for dating" usually goes south because it will be by definition forced. The above comment said instead going to meetups for museum visits, dining, basically sharing experiences, opening yourself to new.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    Not really true, but is true that it’s highly random and takes a large sample in my experience to actually find someone. In my experience, all the event types mentioned are largely attended by single people looking for dates. Even the language exchange groups, which have a highly specific and functional intent, tend to be single oriented. On the flipside, if platform attempted to enforce maintaining 50/50 balance of user base that’s single or not single and explicit forbids users mentioning dating unless they are above a predefined “friend score” — it would remove a lot of people that are not interested in relationship attributes.
- orthoxerox 4y ago
  I remember someone writing an article about becoming a couchsurfing host to have one-night stands. By the end of the first summer the dude - learned how to reliably tell if his guest was willing to sleep with her hosts before inviting her - came up with a rehearsed tour of the city, complete with a spontaneous romantic lunch in a hidden gem of a cafe (with a reliable poker-face waiter) - ironed out the kinks in the "from the front door to the bedroom" follow-up routine
  - O__________O 4y ago
    Also relatively easy to spot hosts like this if you know how — though platform oddly doesn’t actively ban users doing this. Honestly, I don’t think a lot of users understand how potentially dangerous some online services are or for that matter, how to manage or recognize risks; not to mention platforms generally hide their risks, since it impacts user engagement.

jack_pp 4y ago

> The process of finding a partner—and the struggle it frequently entails—is an omnipresent feature of the American cultural landscape Ah, yes, only Americans try to reproduce.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
0x264 4y ago
It's a completely factual statement, and relevant in the context of the article. It doesn't claim that the same cannot be observed, or doesn't happen, somewhere else.
vinay427 4y ago
There are cultures in the world that are very dissimilar to the broader cultural landscape in the US. There are still many, for example, in which arranged or other family or community-oriented marriages take place, and these tend to not have as significant a focus on finding oneself a partner.

durnygbur 4y ago

I wonder how many college educated persons work in or for tobacco companies... or at least somewhere in their supply chain...

slig 4y ago

I'd love to read an updated version of the infamous OkCupid blog.

nivenkos 4y ago
They were bought out and turned into another version of Tinder, Badoo, etc. - there is no commercial incentive to release it.
bongoman37 4y ago
[dead]
O__________O 4y ago
Thing with OkCupid is people refuse to actually practice the science of relationships. For example, they repeatedly were able to show blind dates produce better results, but the user base refused to participate in blind dates. At the point you’re cherry picking and reading dating science as entertainment or to back one off patterns that meet your desired outcome, that’s opposite of what the authors intended.
- favaq 4y ago
  >the user base refused to participate in blind dates And I can see why. Higher chances of a good result, but also higher chances of getting a fat woman or something like that.
  - Majestic121 4y ago
    It's a date, not a lifetime commitment. And who knows, maybe the fat woman is worth knowing?
    - favaq 4y ago
      If it's only a date, you want someone attractive to have sex with. I don't see the difference.

popcalc 4y ago

Disclaimer: published by the American Enterprise Institute, a centre-right think tank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

mshake2 4y ago
>a center-right think tank Well-poisoning[0]. If there are flaws with the surveys, criticize that. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
- alexpetralia 4y ago
  No, I think if there is a clear bias from the source, you can also acknowledge that _and_ evaluate the piece itself. The source in this case has a clear conservative bias. https://www.aei.org/policy-areas/poverty-studies/ https://www.aei.org/policy-areas/poverty-studies/
  - mshake2 4y ago
    You haven't argued that it isn't well-poisoning, just that you believe the well-poisoning is justified.
- popcalc 4y ago
  A poisoned-well "argument" has the following form: 1. Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented by another. (e.g. "Before you listen to my opponent, may I remind you that he has been in jail") 2. Therefore, the claims made by person A will be false. I didn't make any assumptions on the veracity of their data or claims. Think tanks are politically motivated groups whose work entirely revolves around shifting the public's and decision makers opinions. I don't think it hurts to add a disclaimer.
  - mshake2 4y ago
    Do you post on liberal sources "Disclaimer: this comes from a liberal source" too? If you're not doing it uniformly, regardless of bias, then yes, you are poisoning the well.

majikaja 4y ago

Aren't there traditional matchmaking agencies for people looking for serious relationships in the USA?

soco 4y ago
I know somebody who made a small fortune by matchmaking her own brides catalogue. Like, not just organizing the get-togethers and technicalities, but actually working to know both sides and, well, match them on the person level. So by my 1-sized sample I would say human touch can still beat algorithms.

Archelaos 4y ago

The results of the survey this article is based on seems to be nonsense. The numbers for women and men in each category should more or less match, unless there were a huge difference in same-sex or one-to-many relationsships or in the absolute numbers of male vs female, which seems implausible.

projektfu 4y ago
There could be differences in definition between two groups, such as who considers themselves to be in a committed relationship. However, I agree that it appears they have some sampling problems. Also, the methodology is not apparent aside from sample size and I couldn't find it anywhere.
giantg2 4y ago
I saw that top for the number of single men vs single women, especially considering that women account for 51% of the population. I wonder if there was selection bias, or even if there could be some participants lying due to embarrassment of being single. Although your same-sex and multi relationship thing could be worth looking into. I don't know the numbers, but anecdotally I know way more lesbian women than gay men. And it's a trope that couple look for unicorns (indicating demand).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nextweek2 4y ago
> The numbers for women and men in each category should more or less match Not quite, the survey focuses on 18-29 age group. It’s not covered in the article but women have a preference for slightly older men. The women answering in the 27+ age could have corresponding men outside the sample group of men.

O__________O 4y ago

I have done dating startups few times, even went on 1+ dates a day for six months and on each actively tried to understand how people date; in my experience, people are highly random, rarely reach anywhere near a significant sample, and tend to focus of characteristics of an individual instead of characteristics related to relationships. If I was to do another social platform that supports dating, it would be one that’s friendly first, dating second. Reason being that in my experience people don’t understand that they wrongly focus on attributes of individual when looking for a relationship instead of looking at the individual’s relationship attributes. Individuals attributes are things like: attractiveness, age, hobbies, finances, religion, race, profession, etc. Relationship attributes are things like: communication, engagement, supportiveness, helpfulness, honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, empathy, compassion, availability, reliability, consistency, mindfulness, openness, receptiveness, contribution, etc. The relationship attributes apply platonic and non-platonic relationships — but are much better predictors of non-platonic relationship success long term than the individual attributes.

safety1st 4y ago
I'll take the hardest pass ever on a "dating startup" that tells me I shouldn't care about the attractiveness, age, or finances of a potential partner.
- O__________O 4y ago
  It’s not that they don’t matter, but that they’re significantly less important than if a person is actually has strong relationship attributes — all of which are measurable via platonic relationships. Most dating platforms as is are extremely hostile to their customers actually finding real relationships, since as soon as they do, by definition, they’re no longer customers; for a friend’s first platform, they would not be the case.
  - safety1st 4y ago
    They're not less important, they're table stakes. Is there wiggle room, sure. Maybe sometimes people are capable of being a little more flexible on these things than they realize. But for example, I think this is true of just about everyone: there's an age range that they're willing to date within, and outside of that range, everyone is a hard pass. I wouldn't date someone who was twice my age, no matter how great their personality was, it's an absolute no. Similarly if we use BMI as a proxy for attractiveness. This one may be a little more controversial but I suspect just about everyone has a BMI range they are comfortable with, and if someone is far enough outside of that range, there is no chance, no matter what anyone says, that you are going to date them. I agree that most dating platforms are hostile to their customers but I think the issues there run much deeper. They all have incentives to _keep you engaged with their platform for as long as possible_, that is how they make the most money. They don't make money by finding you a partner. They are really just social media that can charge a monthly membership fee.

giantg2 4y ago

"One 19-year-old women says that she’s looking for mutual respect in a relationship and someone who approaches issues with an open mind." And probably a dozen other things. Self reporting is very hard for this type of thing. Theynshould probably have surveyed ex-partners and prior dates to get both sides of the story. In my experience, most of the time when a woman says she wants you to have an open mind, it means she wants you to agree with her because her mind is already made up. Respectful disagreement is unfathomable because it could invalidate or compete with her position.

O__________O 4y ago
As a counter point, having gone on 100s of dates and met 10s of thousands of people in real life, in my experience people that mention open mindedness as a desirable attribute tend to mean it, at least as it relates to those who do not mention it.
- soco 4y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong but pretty much everybody will list the very same desirable traits like open mindedness, humor... and you can go on.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    No, vast amounts of people that see being open minded as a negative predictor of a desirable attribute. If I had to guess, your sampling is biased. For example, someone dating in a rural region would have much less success sharing that they’re open minded, since it’s not a cultural norm.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Sure, the subset of people mentioning any trait is more likely to want that trait than the subset who doesn't mention it. But that doesn't mean the individual is accurately self evaluating what they want, especially when it comes to intangible things like open-mindedness. I assume preferenced on physical/tangible traits are more consistent between stated preference and reality.

hungryforcodes 4y ago

Americans (younger ones anyways), simply don't seem to know how to date to put it bluntly. I've been on Tinder in the US and to a lesser extent Canada, and everyone is hyper demanding and -- particularly women lately -- demand that the other person "proves" this or that (how cool they are, or how worthy of being paid attention to, etc). For hookups Tinder isn't bad, but for relationships it should be avoided at all costs, especially if you are somewhat docile. :P Badoo and OKCupid are somehwhat better. In other countries (Europe and Asia say), people date more normally - or as you would expect. "You seem nice, want to meet for coffee?" / "Sure."

jacooper 4y ago

For me the most interesting thing was that generally Republican men and women are measurably more satisfied then their Democratic counterparts. Is it because Republicans generally value family values and staying in stable relationships more? Also another interesting thing is Gen Z relying on Friendships rather than online dating to find their partners. I think we have a generation fed up with algorithms and how shallow online partner selection can be.

the_only_law 4y ago
> I think we have a generation fed up with algorithms and how shallow online partner selection can be. Not to mention the apps fuck with people, creating fake “matches” and downranking them to try to goad desperate people into paying them money.

bitwize 4y ago

Dating is bullshit, online dating is bullshit squared. It's like this game where you have to carefully scrutinize the other person while hiding your own flaws and not letting on that you are carefully scrutinizing them. It's stressful in the way job interviews are stressful. I only got married because I knew my wife really well -- for decades beforehand -- and so our relationship benefits from a sort of Lindy effect.