3 ms·

Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps dont suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have th

by johnfn 1y ago

Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps dont suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? (A sad fact is that dating will just suck for some % of the population. Is it possible that if there were no apps the same % would be saying how IRL dating sucks?) I know many people in stable LTRs or married who met through dating apps. But I don’t think you typically find these people participating in discourse about dating apps. If anything they’ve probably moved on to complaining why wedding planners and baby books or whatever suck.

Gigachad 1y ago
The fact is that younger generations are increasingly more single and finding it harder and harder to date. If dating apps are primarily to blame could be up for debate but something about the modern world is clearly not working.
- vladms 1y ago
  I mean, we’re already six years past COVID—something that placed a heavy mental burden even on older generations. I can only imagine how much worse it was for younger people. I’d argue we’ll need another 20 years before most of the effects fade. Even before then, I don’t think dating apps were the only issue—it was more the general lack of human interaction, with everything shifting online. Being in a relationship is nothing like just "chatting" or being "connected." I’m not complaining, but during my teenage and young adult years, I feel like I had less-than-ideal real-life experiences, which shaped my social skills and expectations. Talking to people in their 30s now, I get the sense they’re only experience this much later in life.
  - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    > I mean, we’re already six years past COVID—something that placed a heavy mental burden The only new factor that COVID brought in concerning dating is that it separated society into two groups which in German are disrespectfully called "Coronazis" (those who defended the restrictions of civil rights because of COVID-19) and "Covidioten" (those who did not believe in the COVID-19 fearmongering and the government measures). Both of these groups realized that they are not compatible with the other group on a human level and are thus no suitable dating matches. This actually lead to the inception of a new dating site for those who are skeptical of official COVID-19 narrative or feel attracted to people who share personality traits of such people: https://www.conscious-love.com https://www.conscious-love.com
    - eastbound 1y ago
      > The only new factor that COVID brought in No it also brought kids who missed one year of socialization, positive social experiences, mingling. Just one year? It changed habits forever in favour of remote classes, in which schoolm don’t play their role in giving a cohesive experience for students.
      - whynotmakealt 1y ago
        As a kid in final days of high school. This is so true. I was talking to this about this to my mum just a few days ago and she said that no it didn't impact, but I was so shocked because honestly I feel like its just not even the kids but everyone which got impacted but I genuinely feel like that there was this sense of loneliness in covid I am not sure but before covid everyone was friends with everybody else kind of things, I was in 6th grade and I would honestly consider it one of the best periods of my life, I remember how one of my friends had prepared covid as a general knowledge fact for an exam and he spoke it in class and we didn't think much of it untill it started spreading and then our 7th class became purely online due to lockdowns etc. I do feel like that there is a lost year or more and that has impacted people in a lot of ways. Personally, the one thing I noticed was the fact that a lot of the times, we felt like being watched by others and what not to a bigger degree. Like, I remember just talking to girls as friends when I was in 6th grade, It wasn't that much of a big deal but later in covid and even after covid, when the school re-opened. I found that girls used to sit seperately and we boys used to sit seperately in completely seperate rows, not even on the same rows or the same benches. Before covid this wasn't the case and we were sort of forced by our teachers to sit whether with boys or girls randomly and there were some good interactions that I deeply miss. I am not sure if this is just something that naturally tansitions from 6th to 7th grade thing or something, We boys and girls used to talk but there was clearly this disconnect of 1 year between us, boys used to talk so frequently in boys group and girls in the girls but whenever a girl talked to us, it was most likely in public chats and I mean, you could never just small talk to somebody, I think I loved small talks so I used to create personal groups with my homies just chatting but the mere act of adding a girl to talk personally online felt really making a big deal I guess. I personally noticed so many smaller things which I have felt as if have somewhat radicalized both girls and boys even in small mannerisms. There became a us vs them mentality at a younger age which really got radical in 9th grade for sure.
- atmavatar 1y ago
  A big part is that it is now socially unacceptable to ask someone out at what were some of the places most likely to produce couples in the past. For example, it used to be that something like 30-40% of relationships started in the workplace.
  - BeFlatXIII 1y ago
    How soon until your (true) point is used to spin RTO propaganda?
    - throwaway2037 1y ago
      The "Me Too" movement fucked all of that. RTO won't help.
Animats 1y ago
> Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps don't suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? Yes. The reality is well known. PlentyOfFish used to publish statistics. About 10% of dating app users are "date bacon" and find matches they like. Everyone else is a dissatisfied loser. The losers provide the repeat business and the profits, just like the gambling industry. What women want is > 6' tall, over $100K a year, reasonably good looking, and reasonably young compared to the woman. This is about 1% of the US male population. But a much higher fraction of dating service profiles. Two good-looking women I know have shown me their side of a dating app. Each had over 1000 matches, but the ones they met did not live up to their resume. (Fun fact: the organization of ex Navy SEALS says that there are at least 10x as many people claiming to be ex-SEALS as actually exist. There aren't that many of those guys. Only a few thousand. But on dating apps...)
- contrarian1234 1y ago
  I thought the Navy Seal thing was to impress other men. Does it have sex appeal? Probably depends on your social circle.. but I'd think being ex-military as highly unattractive (more violent than the average person, and highly likely to have trauma)
  - bell-cot 1y ago
    I'd assume that those guys (falsely claiming to have been Seals) were poor judges of what women find appealing. Or too wrapped up in their own machismo to particularly care.
  - JackSlateur 1y ago
    Are not (some) women attracted to bad boys ?
  - Der_Einzige 1y ago
    Not to mention jody!!!
- CuriouslyC 1y ago
CuriouslyC 1y ago
Dating apps 100% suck. I'm a good looking guy and I put the effort into getting great pictures and optimizing my profile to the point I was able to get dates 5+ nights a week and date 2-3 new women a week, and while it was validating, the quality of dates was significantly worse than what I used to get from just approaching women in places like bookstores, after yoga classes, etc when that wasn't as culturally abnormal. Ironically I met my wife while I was on a date with another woman. We had a much better organic connection, and she was way hotter than almost all the girls on the apps.
- adaml_623 1y ago
  This anecdote does not really feel like an argument that dating apps suck. Sounds like you were using them wrong somehow
  - rTX5CMRXIfFG 1y ago
    I mean, that’s not really an informed skepticism is it? Respectfully, you’d have an idea of what the commenter means if you’re attractive. In my own experience I quite agree. When you have more than a hundred matches, it just sucks, because the fact that you have that many matches means you’ve cast your net too wide. You swiped right solely on the basis of looks but the good dates are good because other factors like personality and similarity in interests and sense of humor turn out to actually matter. Those are things best gauged via face-to-face interaction.
- throwaway2037 1y ago
  > I was able to get dates 5+ nights a week and date 2-3 new women a week For the record, you are probably well into the top 20% of attractive men on the apps. You should know that your experience is very much unlike the average man. The average normie on dating apps (5/10 in looks) gets, quite literally, zero matches, or matches only from scammers/bots/OnlyFans. There are numerous long-form YouTube videos on the topic with first hand experience. > the quality of dates was significantly worse than what I used to get from just approaching women in places like This is an interesting comment. Can you share one or two specific things that come to mind? I can offer one from my personal experience: When you approach someone in public (get their number, etc.), then later meet them for lunch/drinks/dinner, their enthusiasm and effort is much higher than people I meet on the apps.

by johnfn 1y ago

Gigachad 1y ago

The fact is that younger generations are increasingly more single and finding it harder and harder to date. If dating apps are primarily to blame could be up for debate but something about the modern world is clearly not working.

vladms 1y ago
I mean, we’re already six years past COVID—something that placed a heavy mental burden even on older generations. I can only imagine how much worse it was for younger people. I’d argue we’ll need another 20 years before most of the effects fade. Even before then, I don’t think dating apps were the only issue—it was more the general lack of human interaction, with everything shifting online. Being in a relationship is nothing like just "chatting" or being "connected." I’m not complaining, but during my teenage and young adult years, I feel like I had less-than-ideal real-life experiences, which shaped my social skills and expectations. Talking to people in their 30s now, I get the sense they’re only experience this much later in life.
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  > I mean, we’re already six years past COVID—something that placed a heavy mental burden The only new factor that COVID brought in concerning dating is that it separated society into two groups which in German are disrespectfully called "Coronazis" (those who defended the restrictions of civil rights because of COVID-19) and "Covidioten" (those who did not believe in the COVID-19 fearmongering and the government measures). Both of these groups realized that they are not compatible with the other group on a human level and are thus no suitable dating matches. This actually lead to the inception of a new dating site for those who are skeptical of official COVID-19 narrative or feel attracted to people who share personality traits of such people: https://www.conscious-love.com https://www.conscious-love.com
  - eastbound 1y ago
    > The only new factor that COVID brought in No it also brought kids who missed one year of socialization, positive social experiences, mingling. Just one year? It changed habits forever in favour of remote classes, in which schoolm don’t play their role in giving a cohesive experience for students.
    - whynotmakealt 1y ago
      As a kid in final days of high school. This is so true. I was talking to this about this to my mum just a few days ago and she said that no it didn't impact, but I was so shocked because honestly I feel like its just not even the kids but everyone which got impacted but I genuinely feel like that there was this sense of loneliness in covid I am not sure but before covid everyone was friends with everybody else kind of things, I was in 6th grade and I would honestly consider it one of the best periods of my life, I remember how one of my friends had prepared covid as a general knowledge fact for an exam and he spoke it in class and we didn't think much of it untill it started spreading and then our 7th class became purely online due to lockdowns etc. I do feel like that there is a lost year or more and that has impacted people in a lot of ways. Personally, the one thing I noticed was the fact that a lot of the times, we felt like being watched by others and what not to a bigger degree. Like, I remember just talking to girls as friends when I was in 6th grade, It wasn't that much of a big deal but later in covid and even after covid, when the school re-opened. I found that girls used to sit seperately and we boys used to sit seperately in completely seperate rows, not even on the same rows or the same benches. Before covid this wasn't the case and we were sort of forced by our teachers to sit whether with boys or girls randomly and there were some good interactions that I deeply miss. I am not sure if this is just something that naturally tansitions from 6th to 7th grade thing or something, We boys and girls used to talk but there was clearly this disconnect of 1 year between us, boys used to talk so frequently in boys group and girls in the girls but whenever a girl talked to us, it was most likely in public chats and I mean, you could never just small talk to somebody, I think I loved small talks so I used to create personal groups with my homies just chatting but the mere act of adding a girl to talk personally online felt really making a big deal I guess. I personally noticed so many smaller things which I have felt as if have somewhat radicalized both girls and boys even in small mannerisms. There became a us vs them mentality at a younger age which really got radical in 9th grade for sure.
atmavatar 1y ago
A big part is that it is now socially unacceptable to ask someone out at what were some of the places most likely to produce couples in the past. For example, it used to be that something like 30-40% of relationships started in the workplace.
- BeFlatXIII 1y ago
  How soon until your (true) point is used to spin RTO propaganda?
  - throwaway2037 1y ago
    The "Me Too" movement fucked all of that. RTO won't help.

Animats 1y ago

> Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps don't suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? Yes. The reality is well known. PlentyOfFish used to publish statistics. About 10% of dating app users are "date bacon" and find matches they like. Everyone else is a dissatisfied loser. The losers provide the repeat business and the profits, just like the gambling industry. What women want is > 6' tall, over $100K a year, reasonably good looking, and reasonably young compared to the woman. This is about 1% of the US male population. But a much higher fraction of dating service profiles. Two good-looking women I know have shown me their side of a dating app. Each had over 1000 matches, but the ones they met did not live up to their resume. (Fun fact: the organization of ex Navy SEALS says that there are at least 10x as many people claiming to be ex-SEALS as actually exist. There aren't that many of those guys. Only a few thousand. But on dating apps...)

contrarian1234 1y ago
I thought the Navy Seal thing was to impress other men. Does it have sex appeal? Probably depends on your social circle.. but I'd think being ex-military as highly unattractive (more violent than the average person, and highly likely to have trauma)
- bell-cot 1y ago
  I'd assume that those guys (falsely claiming to have been Seals) were poor judges of what women find appealing. Or too wrapped up in their own machismo to particularly care.
- JackSlateur 1y ago
  Are not (some) women attracted to bad boys ?
- Der_Einzige 1y ago
  Not to mention jody!!!
CuriouslyC 1y ago

CuriouslyC 1y ago

Dating apps 100% suck. I'm a good looking guy and I put the effort into getting great pictures and optimizing my profile to the point I was able to get dates 5+ nights a week and date 2-3 new women a week, and while it was validating, the quality of dates was significantly worse than what I used to get from just approaching women in places like bookstores, after yoga classes, etc when that wasn't as culturally abnormal. Ironically I met my wife while I was on a date with another woman. We had a much better organic connection, and she was way hotter than almost all the girls on the apps.

adaml_623 1y ago
This anecdote does not really feel like an argument that dating apps suck. Sounds like you were using them wrong somehow
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 1y ago
  I mean, that’s not really an informed skepticism is it? Respectfully, you’d have an idea of what the commenter means if you’re attractive. In my own experience I quite agree. When you have more than a hundred matches, it just sucks, because the fact that you have that many matches means you’ve cast your net too wide. You swiped right solely on the basis of looks but the good dates are good because other factors like personality and similarity in interests and sense of humor turn out to actually matter. Those are things best gauged via face-to-face interaction.
throwaway2037 1y ago
> I was able to get dates 5+ nights a week and date 2-3 new women a week For the record, you are probably well into the top 20% of attractive men on the apps. You should know that your experience is very much unlike the average man. The average normie on dating apps (5/10 in looks) gets, quite literally, zero matches, or matches only from scammers/bots/OnlyFans. There are numerous long-form YouTube videos on the topic with first hand experience. > the quality of dates was significantly worse than what I used to get from just approaching women in places like This is an interesting comment. Can you share one or two specific things that come to mind? I can offer one from my personal experience: When you approach someone in public (get their number, etc.), then later meet them for lunch/drinks/dinner, their enthusiasm and effort is much higher than people I meet on the apps.