Current Events > Dating apps are trash

(+) Yeah! (+)

Why even make a profile if you are never going to respond to anyone? Every person I message does this.

Just because theyre not responding to you doesnt mean theyre not responding

The_Wheelman1 posted...

Why even make a profile if you are never going to respond to anyone? Every person I message does this.

Without meaning to sound horrible, you are the common factor here.

MICHALECOLE posted...

Just because theyre not responding to you doesnt mean theyre not responding

Glob posted...

Without meaning to sound horrible, you are the common factor here.

Belittling people having difficulty dating is not the way to go

deoxxys posted...

Belittling people having difficulty dating is not the way to go

Im not looking to belittle. Im trying to get him to understand that the app is not the issue. This is good news, because if the app was the issue, you wouldnt be able to do anything about it.

Have you tried being a hot chick?

I was on the phone with my cousin for 2 hours tonight and we were actually talking about how awful dating apps are for men

The truth is pretty much every woman on dating apps have dozens of choices and many men they have matched with hitting them up in DMs. If women aren't responding it's just because you weren't chosen. They took a look at their options and maybe chose one or a few guys to dedicate talking to. Because realistically, If you go to a buffet you're not going to eat every single food just because it's available, You're going to pick your favorites or whatever looks the tastiest.

Glob posted...

Im not looking to belittle. Im trying to get him to understand that the app is not the issue. This is good news, because if the app was the issue, you wouldnt be able to do anything about it.

Gender ratios on the apps are generally 70% men to 30% women. A lot of guys really can't do anything about it.

I got the best results on Facebook Dating

Hoodroar posted...

Gender ratios on the apps are generally 70% men to 30% women. A lot of guys really can't do anything about it.

Sure they can. They can make themselves more appealing.

Of course, I understand that only works to a certain point, but if youre getting no response from anybody, you're doing something wrong.

The last time I was on a dating app was the first time I ever used one. I'd heard all these horror stories about how awful they are for men. It just wasn't true. There was an abundance of women who were happy to chat and quite a few were up for going on dates. I turned down quite a lot once I had a few good options lined up. That will just be what the girls are doing too.

dating apps exist for the sole purpose of harvesting your data to sell to marketing firms

FL81 posted...

dating apps exist for the sole purpose of harvesting your data to sell to marketing firms

as if they dont get all of that from social media

Glob posted...

Im not looking to belittle. Im trying to get him to understand that the app is not the issue. This is good news, because if the app was the issue, you wouldnt be able to do anything about it.

I think he issue here is with so little information you have no idea what they're like and judging that they're the problem without any information. Far too often when men express dating difficulties with apps, people online seem to jump to the conclusion it must be their fault when in reality dating for men in apps is like a lottery.

MICHALECOLE posted...

as if they dont get all of that from social media

well obviously the same is true of social media

this is why my only point of contact with cyberspace is dying video game message boards that are relics from the '90s

deoxxys posted...

I think he issue here is with so little information you have no idea what they're like and judging that they're the problem without any information. Far too often when men express dating difficulties with apps, people online seem to jump to the conclusion it must be their fault when in reality dating for men in apps is like a lottery.

The information we have is that nobody will even talk to him. Thats a sign that hes doing something wrong. Note that Im not saying it means theres something wrong with him, but something wrong with his profile or approach. Something that can probably be fixed.

I dont believe its like a lottery, unless you live in the middle of nowhere.

You were just given information that men outnumber women by more than double. The ratio alone should mathematically tell you that even when you're attempting to be your best self that chances of success are low.

I mean that's great you personally had success the one time you used a dating app but that's not your general experience for most men.

deoxxys posted...

You were just given information that men outnumber women by more than double. The ratio alone should mathematically tell you that even when you're attempting to be your best self that chances of success are low.

I mean that's great you personally had success the one time you used a dating app but that's not your general experience for most men.

But were talking about success here. Getting a woman to acknowledge your existence is a far cry from romantic success. I struck out with some of the ones I talked to. Thats just how human interaction works.

The numbers might not be to your advantage, but its not like you only get one shot. There are a lot of women on dating apps. There are also other apps to try.

I just think that the lottery analogy isnt right. That implies you have literally no way to influence the outcome, which is simply not true.

Id say its more like shooting baskets in basketball. Some people can do it fairly easily. Some need a few a shots and others need a lot and possibly somebody to give them some pointers. But everybody gets better at it if they keep practising with a reflective mindset.

You say it's wrong to belittle, and I agree. That wasn't my intention. But it's also wrong to enable and encourage defeatist attitudes and that's how your comments come across to me.

I don't feel any insecurity over this knowing I'm one of probably 40 people messaging them a week (if they're hot) it's almost nothing against you, it's not like your 5 pics and bio sum you up as a person

Actually going on a date and not impressing them enough for a second, now that stings

It's not so much defeatist as it is realist.

Believe me I know the reality of using dating apps, I used them for a decade on and off. You can't just "Plus Ultra" your way through a dating app. I did stuff like weekly workouts, dieting, updating my wardrobe, accessorizing, improving my image by dying my hair/ getting it cut and watching videos on social/dating etiquette. I did everything to become a better bachelor.

I had a handful of success, but the amount I had to lower my standards to was astounding where I would still end up going out with girls who were 25-80lbs heavier than me, and even those were hard to come by, kind of like winning the lottery.

So then I see guys who are trying to vent about their difficulty using dating apps and then come the inevitable comments that always seem to blame them even if there isn't a lot of information presented.

If he's discouraged from using dating apps that's not all that bad he'll probably have better success at a bar or a social event.

But even if dating apps suck for men, you're right self-improvement should always be strove for no matter what the walk of life is.

deoxxys posted...

It's not so much defeatist as it is realist.

Believe me I know the reality of using dating apps, I used them for a decade on and off. You can't just "Plus Ultra" your way through a dating app. I did stuff like weekly workouts, dieting, updating my wardrobe, accessorizing, improving my image by dying my hair/ getting it cut and watching videos on social/dating etiquette. I did everything to become a better bachelor.

I had a handful of success, but the amount I had to lower my standards to was astounding where I would still end up going out with girls who were 25-80lbs heavier than me, and even those were hard to come by, kind of like winning the lottery.

So then I see guys who are trying to vent about their difficulty using dating apps and then come the inevitable comments that always seem to blame them even if there isn't a lot of information presented.

If he's discouraged from using dating apps that's not all that bad he'll probably have better success at a bar or a social event.

But even if dating apps suck for men, you're right self-improvement should always be strove for no matter what the walk of life is.

Ill readily admit that my own experience of them is very limited. But surely you can understand why I find hard to believe that theyre as inhospitable as you claim? Its not like I got lucky and had one desirable girl agree to a date. I was literally turning them away, and Im not ripped these days or anything like that and in terms of my face I would say Im about average looking.

I'm still gonna use tinder

Glob posted...

Ill readily admit that my own experience of them is very limited. But surely you can understand why I find hard to believe that theyre as inhospitable as you claim? Its not like I got lucky and had one desirable girl agree to a date. I was literally turning them away, and Im not ripped these days or anything like that and in terms of my face I would say Im about average looking.

I don't know man there's something about you that draws them to you then. You're not like 6'2 or something are you?? Maybe you just got lucky. I would love for you to give it another shot and see if you have the rizz you say you do.

I still think dating apps are highly inhospitable for both men and women. I've already said it's difficult for men to match/get responses/meetup through the app, as for women it's pissy dudes who get rejected and call them bitch/etc.

deoxxys posted...

I don't know man there's something about you that draws them to you then. You're not like 6'2 or something are you?? Maybe you just got lucky. I would love for you to give it another shot and see if you have the rizz you say you do.

I still think dating apps are highly inhospitable for both men and women. I've already said it's difficult for men to match/get responses/meetup through the app, as for women it's pissy dudes who get rejected and call them bitch/etc.

Im 63. But thats freakishly tall where I live. The average man is about 55.

Glob posted...

Im 63. But thats freakishly tall where I live. The average man is about 55.

Mystery solved. I assumed you had to be tall as soon as you said you actually had to turn women down on the apps.

The way dating apps work is that while many men get little to no matches, a few men get a relative ton of matches. These men tend to have traits that make them stand out them way beyond the average man, like being 6'3 or listing a 6 figure income.

There are height filters on the apps, and a lot of women turn them up to 6'0 just to limit the flood of messages men send them. That alone gives you a big leg up in visibility.

A 5'9 guy or god forbid shorter can never get the response you did unless he's a celebrity.

Hoodroar posted...

Mystery solved. I assumed you had to be tall as soon as you said you actually had to turn women down on the apps.

The way dating apps work is that while many men get little to no matches, a few men get a relative ton of matches. These men tend to have traits that make them stand out them way beyond the average man, like being 6'3 or listing a 6 figure income.

There are height filters on the apps, and a lot of women turn them up to 6'0 just to limit the flood of messages men send them. That alone gives you a big leg up in visibility.

A 5'9 guy or god forbid shorter can never get the response you did unless he's a celebrity.

As I said, 59 would considered tall here.

I didnt my state my income on my profile, but yes, six figures. Nobody asked on the app though.

Glob, your experience alone doesn't nullify it being like a lottery. It just is, with some being luckier than others.

I met my first two partners off of dating apps. First was POF and second was OKCupid. I don't think there's anything about me that stands out and I always feel like I'm boring in my bios so I really think I just got extremely lucky to find a partner two separate times on two different apps. It doesn't change the fact that more often than not, dating apps are very frustrating and can be triggering to some people. People ignoring or even worse, dropping you mid conversation isn't easy for everyone to cope with.

Because majority of women goes for looks and guys with money that's why

PoF has this thing where they automatically block you from contacting people you don't match well enough with. Well that screwed me one time. I got a like and a message from someone in my town (I live in a small town and there are probably less than ten women from my town on there). I go to respond and I get the "She is looking for someone different". Umm she messaged me you stupid app, so she is somewhat interested in me.

Glob posted...

As I said, 59 would considered tall here.

I didnt my state my income on my profile, but yes, six figures. Nobody asked on the app though.

If you listed your career they might be able to guess. >_>

But yeah you're just a top percentage dude. The average guy's experiences hovers closer to TC's.

I think it depends on where you are, and also what app you're using.

I live in NYC, which means that there are simply more options available than for people living just about anywhere else. I have no doubt that the experience on apps in for example, Iowa, is starkly different than mine.

I also found that, even in NYC, I could get *very* few matches on Bumble and Tinder, whereas I was reliably getting not just matches, but a few dates per month on Hinge. Hinge also made it easier, in my experience, to start a conversation once a match occurred. I met my current girlfriend on Hinge, and we've been together about 6 months.

I am 5'9", I don't feel like a male model by any sorts, and I often struggle with social anxiety. If it can work for me, I do think it can work for others, with effort.

Hoodroar posted...

If you listed your career they might be able to guess. >_>

But yeah you're just a top percentage dude. The average guy's experiences hovers closer to TC's.

I did put my profession on there but that wouldnt be a giveaway. Here, if you say youre a teacher and youre western, people just assume youre doing TEFL which doesnt pay anywhere near as well.

Do not listen to doomers or people spouting incel adjacent rhetoric. Success is possible, even though the numbers are certainly skewed. No one is putting their pay on these apps, so that's not actually an issue. I've found that often times, people don't even notice my job. It's a visuals, vibes, and humor driven arena. That's what you need to focus on. If you haven't taken 5-7 high quality, good variety pics, imagined how your profile comes off from a woman's (presumably) perspective, and worked on your canned and tailored opener skills, you're not giving yourself the best chance.

You can stand out by not being a horndog with some people and by being a respectful and funny horndog with others. You also need to remember that people not responding is not a judgment on you all the time, other people are living complete and busy lives and don't always have time to respond to each stranger that reaches out to them. They might also be looking for something different at that time. It's kind of a crapshoot out there. All you can do is put your best foot forward and avoid getting jaded like the plague because that attitude seeps out and it doesn't help.

My experiences on dating apps have been terrible. I have many strengths and good qualities but me having panic/non-social anxiety problems are basically a huge barrier I cant do anything about. At this point Im horrified to think about what kind of person would have such low self esteem that theyd be willing to put up with these issues.

For all intents and purposes Im just some mentally ill loser whos less than others.

CRON posted...

My experiences on dating apps have been terrible. I have many strengths and good qualities but me having panic/non-social anxiety problems are basically a huge barrier I cant do anything about. At this point Im horrified to think about what kind of person would have such low self esteem that theyd be willing to put up with these issues.

For all intents and purposes Im just some mentally ill loser whos less than others.

Im sorry to hear that you suffer with those issues. Surely thats a barrier at the point of entry regardless of how you go about trying to start a relationship though?

Glob posted...

Im sorry to hear that you suffer with those issues. Surely thats a barrier at the point of entry regardless of how you go about trying to start a relationship though?

It always is. I've been in situations where someone else was clearly interested and we had chemistry, but I figured it'd be pointless because the novelty of my strengths/good qualities would wear off and me being broke and constantly afraid would be the big issue. I've had some horrible things said to me after I told matches (back when I last used dating apps) I worked in retail.

I've never, ever come across a single human being that's been kind and understanding regarding my issues. To me it's a matter of thinking it's all useless and pointless if I'm just going to be defined by being anxious and broke.

I never had a problem getting matches/dates from Tinder or other dating apps. The only issue I had was finding someone with similar interests lol. I just want a gamer or someone who at least has an interest. Those seem to be rarer, but I have matched with a few. Dropped the ball with all of them by either not waiting on one long enough to become local (she lived 5 hours away but visited my city often), or just not making a move on this really cute one who was clearly interested in me because I was just getting out of a bad relationship and was less motivated. We both kinda just fell back although for her, holidays were a depressing time since she had a death of a close person. But back on topic, you just have to make yourself stand out as much as possible.

• Things that would help a ton is having a nice profile pic. A bathroom mirror selfie is a no go in most cases. You want pics of you outside and doing interesting things. Or a pic of you with your dog since girls love dogs. Also a pic of you with friends helps since it makes you look sociable.
• You want an interesting bio as well, but not a novel. Also, don't be negative in your bio. Don't say things like dating apps suck or you are giving up hope or anything like that. You want to come off as a pleasant person to be around.
• Your first message HAS to be attention grabbing. She probably gets 10s of messages a day (or even an hour) of guys just saying things like "hey" or "what's up, beautiful?" You want your first message to be unique and really stand out. I usually just reference something off of their profile that caught my interest (providing it's not Tinder and they actually have a decent bio). Bumble has shown me though that girls usually send pretty generic first messages though. But they can get away with it (or not if you don't like it lol) since we don't typically get as many first messages as they do.

Jupiter posted...

* Things that would help a ton is having a nice profile pic. A bathroom mirror selfie is a no go in most cases. You want pics of you outside and doing interesting things. Or a pic of you with your dog since girls love dogs. Also a pic of you with friends helps since it makes you look sociable.

What if you don't have friends? It's a double edged sword because in the attempt to make friends and start relationships, people want nothing to do with you if you don't have friends.

CRON posted...

What if you don't have friends? It's a double edged sword because in the attempt to make friends and start relationships, people want nothing to do with you if you don't have friends.

Theres always people looking to make friends. Less than a year ago I moved to a place where I didnt know a single person. Now I have lots of friends here. Work and hobbies are the way to go.

CRON posted...

What if you don't have friends? It's a double edged sword because in the attempt to make friends and start relationships, people want nothing to do with you if you don't have friends.

I recently joined a FB group for my city that's based on nerdy things like gaming and anime. The people in that group are very friendly and they even arrange meetups for gaming events or just social events and whatnot as well as general chatter about anime and gaming. That could be one way to make new friends.

Jupiter posted...

I recently joined a FB group for my city that's based on nerdy things like gaming and anime. The people in that group are very friendly and they even arrange meetups for gaming events or just social events and whatnot as well as general chatter about anime and gaming. That could be one way to make new friends.

This is more of a 'me' problem but I've had nothing but horrible experiences associating with people who share my geeky/nerdy hobbies. I've never not been embarrassed to be associated with geeks. Also doing so would lower my social/dating value to most people.

deoxxys posted...

I had a handful of success, but the amount I had to lower my standards to was astounding where I would still end up going out with girls who were 25-80lbs heavier than me, and even those were hard to come by, kind of like winning the lottery.

This is the main issue that the majority of men face with online dating, because

Hoodroar posted...

Gender ratios on the apps are generally 70% men to 30% women. A lot of guys really can't do anything about it.

Strictly speaking numbers, men are at an inherent disadvantage with dating apps. A 5/10 girl is automatically boosted to being an 8/10 girl, and a 7/10 guy is sunken down to 5/10 or lower. Dating apps do NOT benefit men unless a. You don't mind lowering your standards, or b. You're in the top 10-20% of guys purely on looks.

Looks mean less to women than they do men, so a guy who may not be that good looking but has top level awareness and charisma will not be as successful online as with meeting girls offline.

It's also time consuming. It's easier/will yield more results just going and talking to a woman IRL. None of that swiping and sending a million messages.

My issue with dating apps became personal.

Simply loading them up and swiping was doing a number on my anxiety and self-esteem. Feelings that I'm not good enough for anyone I see, and such.

And it shouldn't. I shouldn't be treating them like a judgment on me, but clearly this is not my road.

DoctorPiranha3 posted...

It's also time consuming. It's easier/will yield more results just going and talking to a woman IRL. None of that swiping and sending a million messages.

You're not wrong but then you run the risk of looking like an even bigger idiot if you get rejected. I'm sure this is just me being weird. How do people even do this? Do they just talk to people at bars and shit?

CyricZ posted...

My issue with dating apps became personal.

Simply loading them up and swiping was doing a number on my anxiety and self-esteem. Feelings that I'm not good enough for anyone I see, and such.

And it shouldn't. I shouldn't be treating them like a judgment on me, but clearly this is not my road.

This. After over a decade of using them and enduring that mental torture, I finally had to take a break from them that started a few months ago. Last week I thought the break had been long enough and tried using them again, and hoooooo boy was I wrong.

Glob posted...

Im 63. But thats freakishly tall where I live. The average man is about 55.

Hoodroar posted...

Mystery solved. I assumed you had to be tall as soon as you said you actually had to turn women down on the apps.

Yeah there you go, women go gaga at the thought of men who tower over them.

I got lucky and met my current girlfriend on an app, and I've gone out with a couple of others from OLD, from overall OLD is a shitty and unhealthy way to meet people. It turns meeting people and going on dates in job hunting.

Fellas, ditch the fucking apps, find some cool group hobbies and go meet people organically.

CRON posted...

You're not wrong but then you run the risk of looking like an even bigger idiot if you get rejected. I'm sure this is just me being weird. How do people even do this? Do they just talk to people at bars and shit?

Yes.