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A confounding issue is the apps themselves have gotten worse over time. Like, old okcupid you could search. You could type in like “final fantasy” or “the Mets” and find people who liked those things enough to put them on their profile.
Now you’re limited to whatever the app decides to give you. Well, the app doesn’t want you to leave so that incentive doesn’t line up.
A lot of the more popular ones, okcupid included, all got bought up by Match Group and almost immediately started trending anti-consumer in their updates or removal of features. They want you paying, they don’t give a shit about success.
100%. Match group should be broken up.
It’s an especially insidious type of monopoly to me because it deals with relationships, they can manipulate millions of people, affecting the creation of their families and kids.
Surprised that the religious right haven’t put them in their sites.
Close, they actively fight success. Legally obligated to, even. It’s their fiduciary responsibility to keep you using the app.
So capitalism is incompatible with dating apps. Who woulda thunk?
That’s not really how that works.
I’d love for you to be right. Please elaborate.
You don’t have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit, or anything like that. You have a responsibility to act in accordance to company rules and guidelines, and to act in the company’s interest, not your own.
There is no requirement to burn to company down to maximize short-term profits, like some people think. That’s usually at the expense of long-term profits anyway, so it could be better for profits to do something better for the customer.
You’re only required to act “ethically” and keep the company’s interests above your own.
If the company has a goal to make more money every year, then you can justify a lot of actions in that pursuit. And once they have a monopoly you kinda don’t have many options, so they can push more.
Saying they have a responsibility to keep you on the app may sound silly, but app user churn is most likely measured and has some goal around it. And if a goal is set around that churn then they very much have an obligation to keep you on there as long as possible.
There’s the alternative of trying to obtain more users, or also to retain users by being a better service (although it has to appeal to a different demographic than those trying to leave for this though).
They have a pretty universally bad name now, so obtaining new users only gets harder, and a lot of people leave even without finding a long term match because the service is shit. They can optimize for these factors without burning the place down.
They have no requirement to grow year over year either. That has nothing to do with fiduciary responsibility. It just keeps stock value growing. Prioritizing long term health at the expense of short term gains is perfectly fine a legal.
Fetlife is like that too. “Find people with the same interests as you!”… select an interest: 120K people! Okay, let me filter by location? No. Filter by age? No. Filter by sex? Guess what, also No. So instead you have to hand scroll through all the entries. I don’t want to spend a lot of time connecting with someone with a common interest if they’re on the other side of the world.
OkCupid used to actually work rather well at finding compatible people who were actually honest about what they were looking for.
Then it got bigger, got acquired, and the matching model of the whole industry was intentionally modified to be more monetizable, and to keep giving matches that are close, but not close enough to be truely long term compatible.
You aren’t using the app/website anymore if it works and gets you a successful long term match.
You are using the app for a longer time if you keep getting close but just missing the mark.
…
Do people not think their dating app is tracking… how many matches and text exchanges they have?
How much time elapses between you matching, chatting, leaving… and then going back to swiping?
And then multidimensional matrix comparing that to every other definable variable about you?
Including whether or not you say you’re looking for something long term, or serious… but you actually keep cycling through people?
These algos, these things… they know exactly to what extent you lie to yourself and others, and they weaponize that to keep people in a sort of optimal (for the app, not you), constant disappointment loop.
…
Everything digital is now way beyond ‘if its free, you are the product’.
The model is now entirely attention, addiction based, and manipulating your emotions in as close to real time as possible is absolutely integral to all this.
People forget that over a decade ago, Zuckerberg said his dream was to be able to predict with high accuracy what any given Facebook user would post next.
Nearly a decade ago, Netflix CEO or some such stated ‘our primary competitor is sleep’.
People largely do not realize the extent to which these corpo fucks have been running highly precise and targeted manipulation of every aspect of human behavior… all to drive goddamn ad revenue and market share, ie, entrench themselves as institutions the modern world is no longer imaginable without.
I’m just confused as to how there isn’t a dating app that is better.
short answer:
Dating Apps/Sites are basically social media sites, they only really work via the network effect, by being so huge that they necessitate significant financial investment.
…
long answer:
A dating app is only broadly, mass appeal successful if it can scale to have a wide selection of people, users, ideally, in as many places as possible.
This requires a large amount of servers.
A large amount of servers requires a large amount of money.
A large amount of money requires investors.
Investors require as much profit as possible.
…
A conventional dating site/app, as we think of the big ones today… its a social media platform.
Just with a different, more constrained feature set, a different UI… but roughly similar levels of network infrastructure and overhead.
…
You could actually make a reasonable argument for running a non profit, or … some kind of collectively owned and operated dating service that is restricted to say a city or small region, or maybe a neighborhood in a larger city.
(Indeed, many of the older ones kind of began this way, pitched more like a … a club that you join and pay membership dues for, thats how they were marketed in the late 90s / early 00s… though these of course were largely actually privately owned, but the marketing angle was that of ‘exclusive community’)
The technicals of exactly how to do that, legally and financially, might end up being impractical though… and if the government is directly involved, well… 10, 20 years ago I would say thats a rather serious privacy problem, but at least in the US right now, I am sure Tinder will sell your info to a data broker who sells it to the FBI if they want to investigate you, so… yeah.
The other obvious problem is that the best dating app is the one you use the least… so… some kind of unconventional payment structure would have to be figured out, to counteract this massive and glaring incentive conflict between app and user.
Maybe high upfront fixed costs to the user, but if you don’t find a good match after a year, 75% gets refunded to you?
Not sure. Could be legal nightmare.
…
Other than that, privately owned and operated dating communities can work fairly well without huge server overhead… if they are precisely targeted at a pretty specific kind of people, be it a religion, or a bdsm community, or a specific ethnicity, who knows… those can at least theoretically work at a larger geographic scale, because that kind of scale doesn’t also massively ramp up user count.
But there’s nothing stopping them from being bought out if they get too big.
…
Bonus!
Job application / recruiting sites are also basically dating apps/sites.
Its just person vs job instead of person vs person.
Broadly, guys on dating sites have been flooding women with match requests for years now, women have been overwhelmed by the volume and believe they can be very picky.
Now replace ‘guys’ with ‘job seekers’, ‘match requests’ with ‘applications’ and ‘women’ with ‘companies’.
Both scenarios result in wasteful amounts of energy going into ‘match-making’, which is horrendously inefficient.
Wow, that’s an incredibly insightful answer. I suppose I never considered the scale of it. Most are fairly bare bones, but you are right, there are so many users and repeat users that it would scale very poorly.
You’re also right on the social media part of it. There kindof needs to be secondary engagement thing to attract and support the community.
Always felt that dating apps were a little too ?accesible? That is to say that they are exceedingly easily flooded by no or low effort profiles, abandoned and duplicate profiles. Especially by desperate men who are completely undiscerning and undereducated (consent, sex, sexuality, etc…).
I feel like there should be engagement/social/education tiers that grant more access to more features. Like literally give points if you can pass tests on consent, relationships, kink, whatever. Get social points from good engagement and behavior. These don’t show your profile more or less, but like if the medium has NSFW features, forums, criteria/location filtering it gives access to them based on community trust and such. Maybe offer a paid shortcut, but have that declared on their profile somehow.
Could be nice. But I’d also probably have the swiping style app be accessory to a more traditional forum.
I feel like there should be engagement/social/education tiers that grant more access to more features. Like literally give points if you can pass tests on consent, relationships, kink, whatever. Get social points from good engagement and behavior. These don’t show your profile more or less, but like if the medium has NSFW features, forums, criteria/location filtering it gives access to them based on community trust and such. Maybe offer a paid shortcut, but have that declared on their profile somehow.
I like this line of thinking.
I more or less used to use OkCupid in this way… it has so many questions you can answer that basicsally, if you have your own set of hard red flags… just look through their answers to questions.
…
You could theorerically do a paid shortcut for some things, but not others.
…
With my gamer brain, the first thing that comes to mind is pay to win games:
You can design a game such that… you can reasonably progress through the game, get good items, level up reasonably quickly… without having to spend any more real world money.
Warframe is arguably a good example of this.
You can just play a fleshed out and enjoyable game and progress at a reasonable rate without spending any real world money, everything in the game is obtainable without more money if you’re good at the game… but if you just have cash to burn, you csn just outright buy some high level gear, basically, to say, join up with some friends who’ve been playing for a long time, without playing for 50 or 100 hours to be on their level.
…
But you can also make it just an absolutely hellish slog to progress through the game, such that you finally get tired of grinding and have that ‘fuck it!’ moment, and just pay to progress… and then you at first find those payments are rather cheap actually… but if you keep playing, the actual money costs ramp up faster and faster, alongside your time devoted to the game, so now you’ve got sunk cost and your brain sunk cost fallacy’s you into just still playing and spending.
This is pretty much how WarThunder is designed.
…
But uh yeah, ramble ramble… I like your basic framework here, but again the problem with monetization is thag is has to be reasonable and apparent to everyone, your idea of badges that show everyone this is I think good.
I am just very worried that if this whole app is privately owned… it will inevitably enshittify and subvert itseld to being an evil money draining skinner box as it attracts more investors or gets new owners or goes public or whatever.
…
EDIT:
oh right
Wow, that’s an incredibly insightful answer.
Thank you! =D
I just got so sick of using the apps and their crappy interface. I can never remember if left is good, or right is good. Who designed that was a good idea?
The interface literally tells you as you do it which is which…
You also had decent profiles where you could write more texts about you. That could give you an idea of who that person is. There is a difference between “Tea or Coffee? - Tea.” and “Tea or Coffee? - I like green teas but also some black teas like assam. I sometimes bake scones to eat with the tea.” A lit of modern apps don’t even give you the option to show your personality more.
I met my husband on Plenty of Fish 7/8 years ago. This baffles me, they don’t let you type your own content to show your personality? How are you supposed to get a feel for someone then?
Fuck me that’s bad, last I used it was in 2019, and even then it wasn’t fantastic.
They are making a mentally ill frankenspecies.
I’ve been curious if a government-run dating app could do better - if its goal is to achieve genuine engagement, not cycles of frustration that boost subscription rates.
This is one of many subjects where capitalist concern ruins the product (and that’s not even something I say as often as others on Lenny)
Dating is hard for everyone in one way or another, and, speaking as one, several ways for those who look pretty dead average but have trouble socializing and really only go between home and work. I don’t even feel like I’m that picky; no cigarettes, no kids, yes empathy, and a complementary flavor of weird/neurodivergence.
It’s hard for weirdos to find other weirdos because all weirdos have some level of social anxiety. Ask me how I know.
How do you know?
Make a lemmy community for dating.
I wouldn’t want to meet other Lemmy users in person, let alone date them.
Being a Lemmy person isn’t a great point of connection but it would be nice to see how they interact with other users in other Lemmy communities.
Hot! 🔥🔥 Check your dms!
The last DM I got was Nicole, sadly.
l mean, yea, weird, but not that weird.
I would, but you’d be too anxious to respond! (yes whoosh, I get it)
Your weirdo will appear.
Survivorship bias.
:(
I am putting it out there for him. It’s all circumstance and luck.
I read this first as “it’s all circumcision and luck”. lmao
Free circumcison for the first guy to date! 🥳
Sounds like the basis for a musical number.
Sometimes the no kids thing, can be a huge red flag, a lot of the incel / women hating types put no kids. There’s a lot of them out there and they’re really extreme, you might be limiting your dating pool by wanting someone who doesn’t have kids but then if you’re into never having kids, that’s a different thing, entirely.
first thing I tell my gf’s is I dont is don’t want kids. one was of agreement and now we have been together 10 years and got all sorts of money to spend to travel and pursue expensive dreams. Plus what if I had a ugly child I’d have to hug it? (just kidding)
It’s not necessarily a billboard I put up stating that I don’t want kids. I made the decision long ago, partially based on my upbringing and now the current world situation, to never have children, so I checked the boxes saying I don’t have, and don’t want, children. That’s it.
I never wanted to have kids, so that makes me an incel? We’ve lost the plot here, that’s fucking crazy, only women are allowed to be childfree now? And also I have heard if a guy likes children it’s also a red flag? So I’m either a child molester or an incel? I’ll take incel I guess, interesting “would you rather.”
I think you might just be wrong on this one, it’s entirely possible that men too don’t feel like bringing a kid into *gestures vaguely at everything.*
Pokemon Go will probably net you 2 of those at least.
I am forklift certified. I do not need this.
I still remember when bumble had to change their entire premise and business model because as it turns out women are worse at starting conversations than men lmao.
I wholeheartedly believe that the Internet and smart phones have been the biggest double edge swords in human history. We have the entire globes collected knowledge at our fingertips with the ability to connect with any other person on the planet instantly and it has caused the largest shift in loneliness and depression ever.
Humans simply are not wired for social media and the Internet. Seeing every single person you know posting themselves beautiful and dressed up doing the coolest things 24/7 will make anyone feel ugly and like they aren’t doing anything with their lives. It takes real focused effort to remember that people (generally) only post when they are doing something special and what you don’t see are the days or weeks between posts that show they live the same boring life you live.
I’m ranting for no reason. I think when we lost in person social gatherings as the primary method of meeting new people is when society kicked that concrete block off the cliff. Right now we are just waiting for the rope to snap taught and drag us all into the abyss.
This was eloquently written and I enjoyed reading your insights. I found your closing metaphor particularly apt!
Every starting conversation on Bumble was like:
“Hey”
If that happend, it triggered me so hard. Its like the insanest thing ever. Why are you even on bumble then.
Why are you expecting conversations to be otherworldly?
How many conversations in real life with people you like start with something akin to “hey”? I’m gunna bet most but I suppose I could be wrong.
From what I saw, it wasn’t just “hey”. Hey was the yellow flag.
It was all the one word responses. To everything. It was the job of the guy to be entertaining on the app to barely any response.
That takes its toll on men, especially when there were women who used it as a source of free entertainment.
There is a whole universe of possibilities between “hey” and a conversation so good it is otherworldly.
Most of these apps, the user has a profile. If they’re not fucking it up, the profile has topics to talk about.
“Hey! Your profile says you love the mets. Do you go to a lot of games? I used to go with my pop, but he just watches the game on TV now” isn’t stellar but it’s significantly better.
If the other person responds with “Nah [end of communication]” then they’re doing a bad job. I’d see that all the time and it drove me crazy.
You both seem to ignore the fact that conversation is two way and that conversations from nothing ie. Small talk is extremely off-putting.
How am I ignoring that conversation is two way? I specifically mentioned it’s a bad job when one person engages and the other half-asses it with one word responses.
I don’t see what small talk being off-putting has to do with anything. I don’t know if I even consider talking about your interests small talk, but okay. How else do you expect it to work?
I would expect something else then one word if you select the Dating platform where the big difference is that you have to write first as a women. It seems odd to me.
But probably tinder or the other dating platforms are just (as) shitty and it didn’t have any deeper thought about joining bumble.
A couple times I asked people directly if that opener worked for them.
One of them said, “I used to write more thoughtful first messages, but I didn’t get good results so I don’t bother anymore.” I told her that writing a bad opener is likely turning away whole classes of people, likely the more thoughtful and interesting ones, but she didn’t care. I said we weren’t a good match and moved on.
Another one said, “But you responded so it worked!”. Her profile was also largely blank. I said yeah, but it didn’t make me want to date you. It was a bad first impression that made me think you’re a half-asser. Rude, I know. The conversation ended shortly after.
I think communication is a skill that requires practice and feedback. Writing messages on dating apps is a more specialized form of that skill. I have years of practice now (sad, but here we are). A 30 year old woman downloading bumble for the first time, asked to write first messages? That’s kind of like putting someone on the baseball field who’s never played before. They probably know most of the rules intellectually, and in other parts of life they’ve done all the little pieces like throwing, running, and catching, but doing it all together at the right time? Not likely to go well at first.
In my experience the bot and scam scripts have become refined enough to seem exactly like a pretty disengaged or disenchanted user, or someone not confident in what they’re doing. It’s led to some awkward moments when I suddenly send “BOT CHECK”
Taut*
Humans simply are not wired for social media and the Internet. Seeing every single person you know posting themselves beautiful and dressed up doing the coolest things 24/7 will make anyone feel ugly and like they aren’t doing anything with their lives. It takes real focused effort to remember that people (generally) only post when they are doing something special and what you don’t see are the days or weeks between posts that show they live the same boring life you live.
I’ve never seen a friend post on social media about something and then felt sad. I’ve instead thought “That looks awesome! Good for them! I can’t wait to do something like that too, I’m inspired!”
I think when we lost in person social gatherings as the primary method of meeting new people
This is something only chronically online people say. Most people form almost all of their relationships offline. This is still extremely true of platonic relationships. Online dating has increased in popularity, but mostly this is among people with niche tastes or in remote locations, where finding a match is more difficult due to the rarity of finding potential partners in real life. Tons of people still date primarily via their social circle or community gatherings, and most people use a mix of all their options.
Given who runs “online”, that’s kind of worrying.
who runs
With these knees? I’m known to promenade gingerly online.
This is something only chronically online people say. Most people form almost all of their relationships offline. This is still extremely true of platonic relationships.
Where are you meeting these people, magic real life wizard?
Of the 5 I currently have in my roster, 2 came from online, 2 were friends of friends, 1 I introduced myself to at a rock climbing crag.
I also seek out partners at my job, at the climbing gym, at various meetups like for acroyoga or fire spinning or pickup ultimate Frisbee, at social bars or concerts or festivals, or just when I’m walking around in the park near my house. Importantly, I’m not just going up to every attractive woman I see and saying “nice tits, wanna bang?” - even though this is my truth in my heart of hearts. Instead what I do is show up, have fun, meet people, joke around, and just be a normal person. But then if someone is cute, I’ll do a little eyebrow wiggle or some shit during a break in the conversation, and if she eyebrow wiggles back, I escalate - like by tickling the back of her elbow or telling her that she’s, like, literally the worst why am I even talking to her. And then at the end of the night I say “hey, I think you’re cute - wanna hang out alone sometime and maybe do some smoochin’?” And then she says yes or no, I give her a high five either way, and I’m on my merry way.
Edit: I’ll point out that the number of partners I have from online is mostly because I have a good profile, so getting matches is pretty easy for me. Most people don’t have as high of a sex drive as me, and so won’t want to put in the effort. Going through social networks (real life social networks) or social hobbies is far more likely to net you compatible partners, since the choices you make in these arenas are likely to attract people with similar values and dispositions.
Well, that was a lot more than I bargained for. Also, gross.
if you are presenting yourself to the world at large would you not want to showcase your best self?
“no let me show myself in my skivvies talking to my therapist!” doesn’t seem like a lure for attracting a partner. just my two cents. And I am of the opinion that online dating is awkward, but that is about it.
im curious now. what does it look like? what are the typical options?
it cant be as bad as a 29 year old dude on tinder, no way.
i do agree that they are intent on making that shitty app ever shittier yeah.
A lot of women use the phrase “all the good ones are taken” but the reverse can also be true as well. Where all the good women are also taken. So most dating apps are full of the people who can’t keep a relationship, cheat, aren’t investing into something, or are the “leftovers.” I have a ton of female friend and what I saw on the dating apps when we were 25 was horrendous. As you get into your late 20s and early 30s you start seeing a lot of divorcees and single parents who then don’t have time and therefore don’t invest. Or do “invest” but now aren’t worth it because their kids should be more important.
America is a different universe lmao. Most people aren’t even married once in their late 20s in Denmark.
Statistically neither are people in the US. However most by that age have been in long term relationships.
Yeah, when some friends started getting married in our 30s I thought they were being impulsive. We’re a bit young to be getting married aren’t we?
I’m in my 30s and all the single women I know in my range are somewhere near the asexual end of the spectrum or have kids. There’s nothing wrong with those things but those they would not work for me in a romantic relationship.
I’ve given up entirely on relationships at this point. Anyone who is willing to date a trans guy is “poly” and I am absolutely done with that shit.
Hookups suck but it’s a distraction from how shit the world is.
We need to normalize blaming monogamy for shitty monogamists the way people blame non-monogamy for shitty non-monogamists.
Non-monogamy is the logical extension of unlearning person-ownership, which is objectively good.
Non-monogamy is the logical extension of unlearning person-ownership
Like, that’s definitely coffee-house sex philosophy truthiness. But it ignores the desire for someone(s) to come home to and rely on. A relationship is more than just getting off. And monogamy (or committed poly, if that’s your vibe) is about building a friendship with the loved one and a community with their social circle.
You don’t own your partner any more than you own your parents or your siblings or your closest friends. You just want to be near them regularly, because you love them. And when there’s only so many hours in the day, you dedicate yourself to these people because you want a relationship that’s deep rather than a series of flings that can only ever be shallow.
Yeah it’s not about “ownership”, it’s a partnership. You can’t rely on someone that’s also trying to maintain romantic relationships with other people as well.
You can rely on someone in a non mono relationship, it’s just way more complicated and takes 1000% more time. It’s all just choices. But there’s plenty of examples of deep relationships that are also non monogamous
Did I shit on poly people at all, or did I express a preference? I don’t want a poly relationship, I want a monogamous relationship, which I think I’m reasonable to want.
It’s cool that you’re non mono, I probably am too, but people are justified to prefer to be mono regardless of your personal opinions on relationship type
Been there, didn’t work out for me. I get the ownership argument and all, long-term perspective etc., but just going non-monogamous doesn’t solve anything.
Current hot take: it’s more important that you really invest all the time, attention, effort, love they deserve into every person you want to have in your life. Personally, I can’t do that for more than one other human. I even struggle with one.
In no world will anyone convince me to share my person, to whom I don’t own.
Well, apparently you do own them, if you think they are yours to share or not share as you choose
Lol ok
I’ve given up entirely on relationships at this point
Perfect! You’ll meet your person when you least expect it. There’s a big day coming for you.
Anyone in Oklahoma want to go geocaching lol
oh honey…
Looking forward to getting back on dating apps at 38
Look, I did it at 47. Take the time to make a good profile, ask for help on pics and be an authentic you. It’s a mess out there, for those that never try.
ask for help on pics
I would like to second this point, especially if you’re not practiced at taking selfies. I’ve seen some fine looking men IRL whose profile pictures looked like potato.
It doesn’t have to be this way. People like to help, and most would be happy to see you meet someone special. Might as well ask.
Thirded. People like to think that their match will be deep enough to look past something superficial like a bad photo, but that’s not how most of us work. People see a decent photo and then check the rest.
You don’t have to be a model or movie star. Good lighting. Clothes that fit. A background that’s not, like, a dingy bathroom or your car.
I may or may not be one of these people that suck at selfies. But damn if my profile pics weren’t top amateur talent from my sister. I may not have had dating life partner success(yet), but I’ve had a good number of dates that went some distance.
I repeat for those not listening: Effort pays off.
The pics part is weird because it’s like… I’m supposed to have other people’s photos of me? I don’t have photos of me. Why would I take a photo of the same thing I see every morning like I’m just trying to say hello to the world, like I’m an actually happy, well-adjusted person who wants to update all of his friends on his day… oh, that’s, ok. I get it now. That’s why.
Yep. It takes a minute to break that mindset. Worse is remembering on trips, like on my last one I forgot to take a pic while walking the amazing vineyard.
Feels like a meat market, but the effort helps.
If they aren’t divorced they are probably crazy.
Target the divorced MILFs. That’s your best bet. This also applies if you’re a cis-het woman.
I ended up marrying a girl 17 years younger than me 🤷♂️
17 years younger than me is 23, I cannot image that amount of energy.
I have serious questions about a 23-year-old that wanted anything to do with me.
A few months back there was some post about female inmates looking for pen pals. I remember one profile describing herself as submissive and looking for a daddy. I did some research and saw she was in the slammer for diddling with a 12 year old girl. Not sure if that leaves many questions open.
They have questions too. Like what level of life insurance do you have? Are beneficiaries easy to add? And what kind of food is your favorite?
When you’re 21 and he’s 30+, the sex is the best you’ll ever have.
Maybe for you . …
You can do it!
Whats it like in general? I uninstalled after I realized I can only pull porn bots shilling Instagram. I rather just die alone.
This makes me feel glad to be old.
I saw a girl on tiktok say something similar about how after a shit day at work she will look at hinge and be even further upset about the people who have liked her on hinge, as though this is all she deserves in life.
It sounds extremely depressing out there these days.
That sounds very entitled of her. She can choose whom to like back. And if she isn’t happy with the options she has, she can go swipe on her own.
Let’s be honest, most men that use dating apps are those looking for hookups. So if you’re a woman looking for tge same then go ahead but you’re not gonna find a long term partner there unless if you’re one of the lucky few
I don’t know a lot of people that use dating apps but in my anecdotal experience all the male friends I know that use them are actually looking for a good long-term relationship. But you’re probably right that they are a minority.
None of the men I know that are using the apps are looking for hookups. There are many such men, but there are lots of people looking for other stuff as well.
most men then
What do you possibly base this on, the idea that men only care about sex and can’t want relationships?
i never said any of that
Didn’t answer what you’re basing it on though.
if you use these apps as a woman you’d know
Same with my male friends. I also met my wife on an app. This might be more of a you experience thing.
I also met my wife on an app.
ok so you’re one of those lucky few
Same with my guy friends as well. I met my wife on a dating app, and a couple of my friends did as well.
Ha!
As a middle aged man you think its great for us? You think all the hot, sane, independent women in their 30s and 40s are strugging for options? If you’re on there theres a 80% chance that you’re no catch either.
Last time my dude showed me a bunch of profiles it was easily 50% “applications to be a stepdad” and 25% women with a checklist (6 foot tall, good living, own house, etc.) Like 6 foot tall athletic lawyers who own their own home are having trouble meeting women.
You think all the hot, sane, independent women in their 30s and 40s are strugging for options?
You’d be surprised… My wife is in a professional dance company full of single ladies ranging in age from 20s to late 30’s. Most of them are on the struggle bus when it comes to finding a decent partner who isn’t a lazy bum or a rampant misogynist.
Tbh most of the dudes in long term relationships with the dancers are just regular everyday dudes. Imo the bar is pretty low nowadays considering that like 1/3 of dudes have been brain poisoned by Joe Rogan/Jordan Peterson.
Honestly, some of the women I see have profiles that are basically demanding an incredible amount of labor from their potential partners.
No coffee dates, no walks. They want something planned out multiple days a week and in exchange they’ll put up with you grunting on top of them.
They want something planned out multiple days a week and in exchange they’ll put up with you grunting on top of them.
Lol, women enjoy sex as well my dude. With an opinion like that it kinda sounds like you may be stepping on your own feet there.
Married dude here who has a lot of single dude friends. 1/3 is accurate.
And if it’s not Rogan, it’s some other right-adjacent influencer. It’s fucking weird too. They’re regular dudes, helping old ladies on the street and supporting a neighbor. Then suddenly, they crack and share how terrible women are.
Then you got women who are on the other side, complaining about how terrible men are.
I don’t understand it.
I mean, when there’s less cross-interaction nowadays and everyone’s in their own bubbles prevent a challenge their preconceptions, it makes sense.
This is affecting all facets of society, politics even.
Also there’s survivor bias: there is also the fact that on these platforms, the impact of assholes in the dating pool is much greater then the good ones, because it’s the same assholes being cycle through the system, whereas the good ones have already reached the terminal state and found their partner.
And if it’s not Rogan, it’s some other right-adjacent influencer. It’s fucking weird too. They’re regular dudes, helping old ladies on the street and supporting a neighbor. Then suddenly, they crack and share how terrible women are.
Yeah… Idk what it’s all about. A lot of the girls in the company have issues with dudes who like the idea of hooking up with a dancer, then as soon as they get in a committed relationship they want them to quit because they get insanely jealous of other people watching them dance.
The younger crowd of men seem to be super possessive and simultaneously believe that girls only have sex to get things they want and at the same time are massive sluts who can’t be trusted not to cheat…
then as soon as they get in a committed relationship they want them to quit because they get insanely jealous of other people watching them dance.
I think a lot of people are really bad at managing their emotions, especially jealousy.
A friend was telling me about her friend and that friend’s boyfriend. They’d go to concerts together, and the guy would get like super raging jealous that she was dancing in the crowd. Like, grow fucking up. She’s super into you, why are you destroying this relationship? Let her fucking dance.
The bar isn’t low. Not being a lazy bum or misogonyst is the bare minimum (as it should be). The real bar is multiple bars in form of a 110 meters hurdles. You have to jump over all of them. Everything below that and the other person will feel as if they are settling.
Not being a lazy bum or misogonyst is the bare minimum (as it should be).
Idk, just judging by any post containing gender discourse on Lemmy…seems to be a pretty big hurdle for a lot of dudes.
You have to jump over all of them. Everything below that and the other person will feel as if they are settling.
That may just be a product of being younger. By the time you get to my age both men and women seem to be wanting to settle down and are more likely to compromise with the idea of an imperfect partnership.
That may just be a product of being younger. By the time you get to my age both men and women seem to be wanting to settle down and are more likely to compromise with the idea of an imperfect partnership.
I dealt with my share of toxic relationships. Happened in my late teens and early twenties. Late 20s and early 30s is when I and all my friends met good people we wanted sticking around and all got married.
Same
Social media is raising expectations to unrealistic levels. As if Hollywood wasn’t bad enough for past generations.
I’m always surprised to hear people unimpressed with others on dating apps. A couple of my friends have shared their “feeds” and I was struck by how many good-looking people are out there. But they would swipe away from just the smallest turn-offs becoming deal breakers. Like if I saw these people in real life, I would think of them as average looking at worst, many being remarkably attractive. This is in the 20s to mid 30s range like the tweet. I definitely understand deciding you’re incompatible based on politics or religion or culture but most of the time it would be for minor quirks. It felt like they were spoiled for choice in my eyes.
But then again, they’re in serious long term relationships with conventionally attractive and supportive partners now so maybe being picky pays off. At the time, their reluctance to settle was a very frustrating experience for them.
Reluctant to settle, spoiled for choice, great ways of describing the situation.
the apparently-bottomless firehose of faces that makes you desensitized, the anonymous dismissal of them makes you callous.
The apps are just another dopamine slot machine, so the companies don’t care and in fact would rather keep people in their app.
‘Look at all these people that think I’m pretty, who I could have if I wanted to.’’
It’s the mirror from Snow White, but it lies better the more you pay it, the more time you spend staring at it.
Skinner box.
Wire the rat up to stimulate its pleasure receptors if it pushes button.
Rat will push button untill it dies of dehydration.
Any dating app that was any good at its stated aim wouldn’t be able to make enough money to survive.
By definition dating apps don’t want you to meet a partner, they want you addicted to swiping and tapping and almost finding a partner. If you hook up a few times along the way then that’s just a secondary benefit and keeps that carrot dangling in front of you.
Yeah, if you actually find someone app usage will drop for at least some people, maybe even most people. The more exclusive some/many folks are the less they’ll open the app. Up to finding someone(s) that fully satisfy them for at least a while, and for that while that user may even be completely off the app. Maybe they even delete it. Certainly they won’t compulsively be using it the same way they are when they are trying to connect.
For many (not all) users, successfully finding connections is detrimental to engagement, advertising, active user stats, etc. The incentives for the company are not geared towards helping users connect, and are geared towards always having users continually trying to connect.
Apps will selectively group more attractive people together to increase the like/dislike ratio. So YMMV depending on whether you’re currently in the attractive group or not.
There’s definitely a lot of people who overestimate what they bring to a relationship, and I think women are more prone to it than men because they’re typically the ones being pursued.
I don’t think 29 year olds are millennial, are they? Or is this an older meme?
We’re kind of in-between generations but I think most of us have more in common with millennials than with gen z.
I know a lot of people in that age bracket and I’d say “affiliation” with those is pretty much split down the middle. Some got a job straight after school and matured into skinny jeans wearing adults while others spent some time fucking around after school and thus experienced the shift of meme culture, fashion and whatnot when they were still in their formative phase.
'96 is often cited as the cutoff year for millennial, so they’d be mixed 29/30.
29 year olds aren’t really millennial, they’re borderline I guess, but the main factor in my mind is our general shared experiences. We were walking, talking, and fully aware of the world to actually experience the turn of the millennium. We know exactly where we were and what we were doing when 9/11 occurred (at least American millennials).
Most average American 29 year olds now probably don’t remember a time with a totally shit computer, but it was some of the best on the market at the time & we were really excited. It booted so fast, just a few minutes! 😆 Did they play Reader Rabbit? How about Oregon Trail?
They didn’t really see the debut of purely digital MP3 players, or the Moto RAZR.
I sang the Reading Rainbow song to a Gen Z kid & he had no fucking clue what it was. 😂 Funny, and sad.
But those born in '96 tended to associate with us more than hard Gen Z, so idk. Definitely…borderline…
The spirit of it is there
Fully dependa on whether they remember 9/11.
The categories are arbitrary and the points don’t matter
