5 ms·

Originally responding to a flagged comment that stated you were weak for not talking to people in person: You’re not wrong, but the in-person dating pool is sm

Originally responding to a flagged comment that stated you were weak for not talking to people in person: You’re not wrong, but the in-person dating pool is small and the stakes are high. I am very recently divorced, dating single for the first time in nearly 25 years after finding my wife stole $300K from the family and had been carrying on an affair for 18 months while I thought our finances and love were at an all time high. Dating apps at 45 are a literal fucking cesspool. Like any online community, there are norms and nuances which are incredibly difficult to come up to speed on and, frankly, are miserable to navigate. That said, finding those who are open to in-person dating interactions is almost impossible these days. We’re missing The Third Place and folks have been trained to use apps to date and thus are unlikely to engage in person. That said, I was super fortunate to find a beautiful single woman in my apartment building who was not only receptive but has been a really great friend and person to “date” in the traditional sense as I knew it 25 years ago. But, I was incredibly fortunate and I’m not sure it’ll work long term; putting me right back into the dating apps potentially. Where not wanting to parent additional kids (my own or someone else’s), eventual marriage, or even something super serious or super casual is attractive to me. I am not in a place where sex after 1 to 3 dates is something I desire. Nor am I interested in having super deep emotional conversations or thoughts about some sort of future together before I meet someone. That said, to poo poo dating apps is a Luddite view of the world. They do work and people are using them. We have regressed as a social society in the last 25 years and these apps offer a wide dating pool for people to explore without The Third Place or the uncomfortable experience of navigating these waters in person and potentially the offensive and negative experiences in-person interactions can create. Best of luck to everyone out there. I hope you find what you’re looking for and the pains and anxiety that come from either method.

circlefavshape 3y ago
> after finding my wife stole $300K from the family and had been carrying on an affair for 18 months while I thought our finances and love were at an all time high Yikes. Were there, in retrospect, signs that you missed?
- garciasn 3y ago
  Everything. Absolutely everything. When you work hard to always assume the best of the love of your life, it's almost impossible not to miss each and every sign because you dismiss them with prejudice.
  - glimshe 3y ago
    Any examples you would be comfortable sharing (ok to change the low level details of the situation)?
    - garciasn 3y ago
      I had no access to any financial account, ever. Once I gained access, after the fact, there were nearly $16K in cash advances against a credit card I didn’t even know I had. Purchased all new dresses. Purchased workout equipment (rarely, if ever used). Purchased sex toys and sex-related clothing I never saw used. 5 new credit cards in her name. Pieces of paper with divorce related info I assumed were for a friend of her’s, certainly not for us. Would leave for 4+ hours a day, many times a week, to go shopping but never came back with anything. Would leave our vacation home once a week to do laundry and get mail when she could have done it at a laundromat or had the mail held.
      - user_7832 3y ago
        I'm sorry to hear that. Wouldn't some of that be considered a crime/fraud, meaning legal recourse may be an option? Of course a lawyer would know better. (Not that it might be easy to recover the money, but the judge could have wages garnished.)
        garciasn 3y ago
        The burden is on me to prove she used it to prepare for divorce or used it on her affair. It’ll cost at least $100K and probably more to do so and it may not matter. And, no, when you’re married it’s not fraud.
miroljub 3y ago
For anyone like me, wondering what a Third Place is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
prepend 3y ago
> Dating apps at 45 are a literal fucking cesspool. Funny I’m in almost the same situation and have found dating apps really helpful. I’ve been using them for a few months and it’s like a firehose of dates. It’s surprising because they get a bad rap, but I think I could go on a date every night if I wanted to. I haven’t found a new partner and am just a few months in but have met nice people and relationships. As an introvert I like being able to better filter and identify people who are potentially compatible. I’m a man in a 10M metro area looking for long term relationships just using Hinge and avoiding hook up culture. So it’s hard to compare, but so different from 25 years ago when I was last dating.
- garciasn 3y ago
  I think the 10M metro area helps your case, many folks don't have such a wide dating pool to pull from on the apps. Also, it depends on the culture of the area that you reside within. Here, in Minneapolis, folks are tight lipped, tight knit, and keep everything close to the chest, but they continue to hold some of those dating app nuances in high regard. I'm really happy that, for you, it works. I also had a steady stream of dates, but they were folks I was not compatible with in any stretch of the imagination and the stress and anxiety that comes with juggling many different conversations, relationships, dates, etc, just isn't something I want to deal with. I want to spend my time investing in a small group of humans, not investing 1/100th of my available emotional and mental bandwidth on a variety of them, only to find myself moving on to the next one--time and time again. TL;DR: 100 first dates, sometimes multiple times in a week is just exhausting for me and I prefer a world where I can be me, without the stresses associated with playing some game I don't understand.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - atq2119 3y ago
    That's a choice you make, though, isn't it? If you get that many matches, be more selective. Everybody wins that way.
  - pcdoodle 3y ago
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>They do work and people are using them. People use them out of desperation/necessity, not because they work at actually helping you find a partner or whatever it is you're looking. They work at keeping you hooked on the platform, hoping in vain you'll eventually find someone if you stick there long enough. To quote someone else: There's this old man playing a crooked game every day and loosing his money so a youngster approaches him saying "don't you know this game is crooked old man, why are you still playing it?", to which the old man replies "I know it's crooked, but it's the only game in town". The crooked game is the dating apps. For many people, it's the only option of dating and meeting new people outside their social circles, which is why they're used even if most people hate them, not because they're good.
- dkekenflxlf 3y ago
  >> The crooked game is the dating apps. For many people, it's the only option of dating and meeting new people outside their social circles, which is why they're used even if most people hate them, not because they're good. << this!!
ravenstine 3y ago
You're not wrong, but I believe there are things people can do to find better "fishing holes" if they think outside the box. I grew up in Los Angeles and have never actually felt at home here. Should it be any surprise that my experience dating here has been poor? I'm certainly not a hottie, but I am pretty sure I'm not ugly, either. Given all the examples of male attractiveness I've seen, I think I'm a low 7 on the decile scale. Most women out here seem to only consider 5 - 7s "settle material", but most women aren't above a 7 either, so physical attractiveness doesn't universally explain struggles with dating, not that it isn't a big part of it. My hypothesis is that people underrate the difference in dating culture across cities and countries. I've been to enough cities and a few countries to realize that, actually, people aren't the same everywhere; cities all have different cultures with varying attitudes and levels of connection to reality. LA is fundamentally built on adults playing pretend for a living, so if you're a more analytically minded person, this is a poor place to be fishing for dates. A city built upon a different industry or values education may be a better place to find people you're compatible with. What I think most people don't think about is how the male-to-female ratio in a city may have an impact on the dating experience. I recently did an experiment where I used Census data to examine which cities had more males than females and which ones had the opposite, narrowing the field down to just single people (never married, divorced, or widowed) between 25 and 34, and the results were quite interesting. While it's not super common for cities ever have superficially extreme imbalances, most major cities have significantly more single men in this cohort than single women. For instance, in Los Angeles, my query over the ACS5 data from the last Census shows that Los Angeles has a male-to-female ratio of 1.18; this means that there's 18% more men than women in that city. In a major city, that's a lot of active competition. Recently, I've been considering spending time in Boston because I already like that city and think it may be a better fit for me in the long run. In contrast to Los Angeles, Boston has a male-to-female singles 25-34 ratio of 1. Although it would be nice from a man's perspective for there to be more women than men, I think there's reason to believe that, for some men, they may suffer less competition in a city like that. If you are curious, reader, the only major cities in the United States that I found to have significantly more women than men are Rochester NY, Cincinnati OH, Richmond VA, and District Of Columbia (having the lowest ratio at 0.89). There's a handful of other cities with a ratio <1, but you have to really ask yourself whether you want to spend time in Palmdale CA to find dates. I don't have the research on hand (I'll post it here if I find it), but I remember reading about how the sex ratio impacts the way that women approach dating; if they have an abundance of options, in the case of more males than females, women are likely to be more selective and use long-term dating strategy (possibly paralysis-by-analysis or playing the numbers game), whereas they are less selective and think in the shorter term when there are fewer men. This is likely true at least to some extent in the case of the reverse gender. I'm just speaking from my perspective as a guy and the knowledge I've gathered. Don't be like me and spend too many years fishing in the wrong hole. Find one with fewer rods already in it. ba dum tssshhhh

circlefavshape 3y ago

> after finding my wife stole $300K from the family and had been carrying on an affair for 18 months while I thought our finances and love were at an all time high Yikes. Were there, in retrospect, signs that you missed?

garciasn 3y ago
Everything. Absolutely everything. When you work hard to always assume the best of the love of your life, it's almost impossible not to miss each and every sign because you dismiss them with prejudice.
- glimshe 3y ago
  Any examples you would be comfortable sharing (ok to change the low level details of the situation)?
  - garciasn 3y ago
    I had no access to any financial account, ever. Once I gained access, after the fact, there were nearly $16K in cash advances against a credit card I didn’t even know I had. Purchased all new dresses. Purchased workout equipment (rarely, if ever used). Purchased sex toys and sex-related clothing I never saw used. 5 new credit cards in her name. Pieces of paper with divorce related info I assumed were for a friend of her’s, certainly not for us. Would leave for 4+ hours a day, many times a week, to go shopping but never came back with anything. Would leave our vacation home once a week to do laundry and get mail when she could have done it at a laundromat or had the mail held.
    - user_7832 3y ago
      I'm sorry to hear that. Wouldn't some of that be considered a crime/fraud, meaning legal recourse may be an option? Of course a lawyer would know better. (Not that it might be easy to recover the money, but the judge could have wages garnished.)
      - garciasn 3y ago
        The burden is on me to prove she used it to prepare for divorce or used it on her affair. It’ll cost at least $100K and probably more to do so and it may not matter. And, no, when you’re married it’s not fraud.

miroljub 3y ago

For anyone like me, wondering what a Third Place is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

prepend 3y ago

> Dating apps at 45 are a literal fucking cesspool. Funny I’m in almost the same situation and have found dating apps really helpful. I’ve been using them for a few months and it’s like a firehose of dates. It’s surprising because they get a bad rap, but I think I could go on a date every night if I wanted to. I haven’t found a new partner and am just a few months in but have met nice people and relationships. As an introvert I like being able to better filter and identify people who are potentially compatible. I’m a man in a 10M metro area looking for long term relationships just using Hinge and avoiding hook up culture. So it’s hard to compare, but so different from 25 years ago when I was last dating.

garciasn 3y ago
I think the 10M metro area helps your case, many folks don't have such a wide dating pool to pull from on the apps. Also, it depends on the culture of the area that you reside within. Here, in Minneapolis, folks are tight lipped, tight knit, and keep everything close to the chest, but they continue to hold some of those dating app nuances in high regard. I'm really happy that, for you, it works. I also had a steady stream of dates, but they were folks I was not compatible with in any stretch of the imagination and the stress and anxiety that comes with juggling many different conversations, relationships, dates, etc, just isn't something I want to deal with. I want to spend my time investing in a small group of humans, not investing 1/100th of my available emotional and mental bandwidth on a variety of them, only to find myself moving on to the next one--time and time again. TL;DR: 100 first dates, sometimes multiple times in a week is just exhausting for me and I prefer a world where I can be me, without the stresses associated with playing some game I don't understand.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- atq2119 3y ago
  That's a choice you make, though, isn't it? If you get that many matches, be more selective. Everybody wins that way.
- pcdoodle 3y ago

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>They do work and people are using them. People use them out of desperation/necessity, not because they work at actually helping you find a partner or whatever it is you're looking. They work at keeping you hooked on the platform, hoping in vain you'll eventually find someone if you stick there long enough. To quote someone else: There's this old man playing a crooked game every day and loosing his money so a youngster approaches him saying "don't you know this game is crooked old man, why are you still playing it?", to which the old man replies "I know it's crooked, but it's the only game in town". The crooked game is the dating apps. For many people, it's the only option of dating and meeting new people outside their social circles, which is why they're used even if most people hate them, not because they're good.

dkekenflxlf 3y ago
>> The crooked game is the dating apps. For many people, it's the only option of dating and meeting new people outside their social circles, which is why they're used even if most people hate them, not because they're good. << this!!

ravenstine 3y ago

You're not wrong, but I believe there are things people can do to find better "fishing holes" if they think outside the box. I grew up in Los Angeles and have never actually felt at home here. Should it be any surprise that my experience dating here has been poor? I'm certainly not a hottie, but I am pretty sure I'm not ugly, either. Given all the examples of male attractiveness I've seen, I think I'm a low 7 on the decile scale. Most women out here seem to only consider 5 - 7s "settle material", but most women aren't above a 7 either, so physical attractiveness doesn't universally explain struggles with dating, not that it isn't a big part of it. My hypothesis is that people underrate the difference in dating culture across cities and countries. I've been to enough cities and a few countries to realize that, actually, people aren't the same everywhere; cities all have different cultures with varying attitudes and levels of connection to reality. LA is fundamentally built on adults playing pretend for a living, so if you're a more analytically minded person, this is a poor place to be fishing for dates. A city built upon a different industry or values education may be a better place to find people you're compatible with. What I think most people don't think about is how the male-to-female ratio in a city may have an impact on the dating experience. I recently did an experiment where I used Census data to examine which cities had more males than females and which ones had the opposite, narrowing the field down to just single people (never married, divorced, or widowed) between 25 and 34, and the results were quite interesting. While it's not super common for cities ever have superficially extreme imbalances, most major cities have significantly more single men in this cohort than single women. For instance, in Los Angeles, my query over the ACS5 data from the last Census shows that Los Angeles has a male-to-female ratio of 1.18; this means that there's 18% more men than women in that city. In a major city, that's a lot of active competition. Recently, I've been considering spending time in Boston because I already like that city and think it may be a better fit for me in the long run. In contrast to Los Angeles, Boston has a male-to-female singles 25-34 ratio of 1. Although it would be nice from a man's perspective for there to be more women than men, I think there's reason to believe that, for some men, they may suffer less competition in a city like that. If you are curious, reader, the only major cities in the United States that I found to have significantly more women than men are Rochester NY, Cincinnati OH, Richmond VA, and District Of Columbia (having the lowest ratio at 0.89). There's a handful of other cities with a ratio <1, but you have to really ask yourself whether you want to spend time in Palmdale CA to find dates. I don't have the research on hand (I'll post it here if I find it), but I remember reading about how the sex ratio impacts the way that women approach dating; if they have an abundance of options, in the case of more males than females, women are likely to be more selective and use long-term dating strategy (possibly paralysis-by-analysis or playing the numbers game), whereas they are less selective and think in the shorter term when there are fewer men. This is likely true at least to some extent in the case of the reverse gender. I'm just speaking from my perspective as a guy and the knowledge I've gathered. Don't be like me and spend too many years fishing in the wrong hole. Find one with fewer rods already in it. ba dum tssshhhh