[HN Gopher] Fake Men on Hinge
___________________________________________________________________
Fake Men on Hinge
Author : acqbu
Score : 82 points
Date : 2022-10-03 13:37 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| pmarreck wrote:
| Here's what a lot of terrible dating, both on- and offline, has
| taught me:
|
| The things that make a person "intoxicating" as a significant
| ingredient in LTR material, are completely irrational and not
| captured by any dating app: Things like how a person moves; their
| posture; how their voice sounds; their smells and, perhaps,
| tastes; their interaction manner; the fluency of their
| expressiveness; their emotional and physical openness; how their
| hands feel on your body; how much respect they garner or give (to
| themselves, to you and others), etc. etc.
|
| The rational stuff? Sure, these sites will let you get a bead on
| those at least, such as general intelligence, values, general
| static attractiveness/smile/etc., politics, tastes etc. But I
| believe they overvalue these things, and while we are
| collectively some quite proud intellectual beings who wish to
| base all of our decisionmaking on things at intellectual and
| rational levels, evidence shows that the body wants to have its
| say as well, and a quite powerful one at that, due to things like
| MHC comparisons being very important for creating healthy
| offspring: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5006172/,
| https://www.splice-bio.com/can-you-smell-sexual-attraction/ etc.
| Basically, the keys to the vagaries of the process of
| reproduction have _only barely_ been given to us; the whole thing
| is still largely biologically-driven, and biology requires
| physical presence to work!
|
| The second problem with online dating is that it shifts the power
| dynamic too far away from men and too much into the hands of
| women. Whereas in a pre-online-dating context, a woman might
| have, say, 2 to 10 (or more) "suitors" or interested men, in an
| online dating context, the most desirable women now have 100 or
| 1000 or more to sift through (and even the middlingly-desirable
| ones likely have a hundred or more), and can select the best
| possible ones (at least on the basis of rational reasons, see
| above) and then let the MHC game play itself out among those.
| Meanwhile, a regular man on these sites who previous to online
| dating might have had a shot with the desirable women in his
| extended circle of acquaintances or coworkers etc. thanks to
| boons such as the "proximity leads to sexual attraction" effect
| https://www.neuroscience.org.uk/proximity-mere-exposure-effe...,
| have now been stripped of that edge, since those same women in
| their circles can now simply go online-date and benefit from a
| significantly larger pool of eligible men to choose from, and
| because those men themselves now have to send, say, 1000
| _sincere_ and _time-consuming_ messages in order to perhaps get 2
| or 3 responses. (And women complain that most of their messages
| from guys online are either too simple or too formulaic or "low-
| effort"... this is why!)
|
| On the bright side, perhaps it's high time for men to sincerely
| step up their game!
|
| I'm going to tell my (still a toddler) son to skip online dating
| because it's a losing game for him, to get himself out there
| physically in front of women by being present physically at
| things out in the world, to ask them to dance or otherwise
| physically interact playfully in order to let the MHC/scent thing
| do its thing, and to de-emphasize "rational" reasons to choose
| someone. I'm also going to tell him that that, plus enduring
| mutual respect (thanks to the work the Gottman Institute did on
| uncovering the importance of this), and basically little else,
| are the ingredients of a good LTR:
| https://firstthings.org/4-reasons-why-respect-matters-in-mar...
|
| So, back to the article, I'm not terribly upset that some women
| on Hinge now have to do more work to weed out bots in addition to
| "terrible men", because they were already (HUGELY) benefiting
| from online dating to begin with.
| ivank wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-EtdC4zQso 'Forced to Scam:
| Cambodia's Cyber Slaves'
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Only semi-related but I find Tinder to be the most fascinating of
| the current bunch of online dating platforms. It has suffered
| some kind of reverse of the normal effect of online social
| platforms: while any normal online platform (dating, gaming,
| social, etc.) quickly becomes all about sex, Tinder started out
| as a hookup platform and somehow moved to a relationship-seeking
| platform. That isn't to say that hookups no longer happen via
| Tinder, but it seems to me based on personal experience and
| reading discussions of other people's that the platform is now
| largely used for finding long term partnerships. This has led to
| creation of apps like Pure, focused solely on hookups (which from
| what I gather never got the massive popularity needed to make it
| usable), and Feeld (much friendlier towards alternative
| relationships and desires).
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Are you sure this observation is not just a side-effect of you,
| your peers, and your romantic interests getting older? I kind
| of suspect that the 18-25 crowd on Tinder is still mostly
| looking to hook up.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I am not just basing this on my own interests, though
| admittedly I am not conducting a full on rigorous research
| project.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Anecdotally, that does not match my experience at all. When I
| relented and got a Tinder account I was immediately inundated
| with dozens of likes. I was instantly skeptical because Tinder
| kept bombarding me with prompts to buy their premium service at
| a discount. And, truth be told, having consistently received
| such a low number of matches on other platforms, I was
| suspicious about being so suddenly popular.
|
| Lo and behold, every single one of the matches/messages I
| received were nothing more than advertisements for their
| OnlyFans or an invitation to follow one their social media
| profiles. I've also found that most of the profiles shown to me
| are either low effort, or belong to women that are thousands of
| miles away - despite me disabling the worldwide setting. As a
| result my overall impression is that Tinder is the worst when
| it comes to non-genuine accounts. By genuine I don't just mean
| real humans, I mean people who are actually using the site
| sincerely.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I should have been more clear. I don't mean that Tinder isn't
| a huge platform for only fans et al ads. What I mean is that
| the genuine users started initially using the platform for
| one night stands/hookups but the focus of the genuine users
| has quickly shifted towards LTRs. I have not seen other
| platforms do this. Lots of other platforms go in the opposite
| direction where they start out with LTR culture only to add
| hookups as a major focus.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| FWIW I've come across a ton of fake Chinese accounts (in the
| appearance of the woman in the photos). It got to the point that
| I just didnt swipe on women who appeared Chinese. like 19/20
| times they'd just try and get me off app to WhatsApp in the first
| few messages, and then the thread would go dead.
|
| I can't help but think it's a form of social engineering where
| they're creating a drag net of data like "This phone number is on
| Hinge, and responds to warranty texts, and their IG suggests
| they've lived in <places>" ... I'm not sure to what end but I'm
| wary.
|
| > Paulbot was never removed from Hinge, because he preemptively
| deleted his account. I've canceled my subscription.
|
| This simply could be the aim here. Nefarious actors win by
| eroding trust, or competitors.
| durnygbur wrote:
| Have the same in a location where there are no Chinese or any
| other eastern Asian women on the streets.
| [deleted]
| yawnxyz wrote:
| How do you start building bots like this, that can interact with
| people so convincingly? From the sign in / sign up process to the
| profile generation to the conversations?
| 3qz wrote:
| It's honestly fascinating to me that women think bots are so
| interesting that they deserve an article like this. I feel like
| almost all men match with more bots than real women. We live in
| entirely different worlds.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Not only bots, but scam artists in general: people abusing the
| platform for soliciting themselves, advertising their OnlyFans,
| or (this has actually happened to me) people giving out their
| (fake? but convincing) social security card photos, presumably
| to get the receiver to reciprocate. This is on a dating app.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| I was kind of disappointed that the author was contacted by the
| scammer and then after exchanging no real information, decided
| to wrap up the investigation. I understand she might have
| concerns for her personal safety (giving a VOIP number instead
| of her real one might have been prudent) but I thought this
| story was going to go much deeper. The author didn't really
| find out much of anything, and mostly just relayed a personal
| anecdote.
| pcbro141 wrote:
| The raw male perspective on modern dating is rarely featured in
| mainstream media. The only place to get men's perspective on
| modern dating is basically 'red pill' type of content, which is
| unfortunate. Most journalists are women, and quite frankly in
| most of their dating columns they don't seem too interested in
| understanding male perspectives on the frustrations of modern
| dating (unless it's to bash extremist incel/red pill types). I
| can't recall reading many mainstream media dating articles
| sympathetic to men's frustrations with modern dating, you can
| find plenty sympathetic to women's frustrations though.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Ironically, this video focusing on "incels" has a pretty good
| understanding of the male online dating experience (starting
| around 17:00): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0
|
| I agree that the various "red pill" subcultures have done a
| terrific job of sucking the air out of the room RE
| conversations about men's dating experience. It's a hard
| conversation to have with any amount of nuance in 2022.
| bradlys wrote:
| If you think it's redpillers who ruined the conversation
| around men's sexual experiences - that shows just how well
| the mainstream media is at influencing you.
|
| Redpill was a niche subculture no one knew about (and
| mostly still doesn't) - just like incels. It was the
| mainstream media who made RP, incels, and general lack of
| sexual experiences for men to be the next 9/11.
|
| It's hard to have a conversation about it because _women
| don't fucking care._ You know why? It's not _their_ problem
| and it never affects them directly. It also means often
| that the solution involves _women changing_ and _that's
| sexist, sweaty._
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| What men are sold are "Best date ideas for a special woman",
| "Top 10 things you can say to make her knees melt", "The
| perfect gemstone for your perfect woman".
| majormajor wrote:
| None of the men I talk to in real life have the experiences I
| see men complaining about online. The women I meet in real
| life, on the other hand, have stories that match the ones I
| read about online.
|
| The male complainers just naturally have more to gripe about
| than the "meh, it's fine" crowd who usually can't be bothered
| (or aren't believed in the crowd of complaints).
| pcbro141 wrote:
| Well I guess that settles it. All the tens of millions of
| men having issues with dating don't exist in real life
| since you haven't personally met them.
| majormajor wrote:
| You just want me to take your "tens of millions" number
| on faith?
|
| Claiming that it's at the same quantitative level as,
| say, monthly listeners of Beyonce on Spotify, or many
| other things that _it 's easy to find real-life claims
| of_ without support is a lot to ask of folks. Tens of
| millions having a hard time dating or tens of millions
| convinced women are the enemy and are treating them
| unfairly?
|
| Cause from the outside, it just looks like there are a
| bunch of people - who over-estimate the universalness of
| their experience - who have decided somehow that _other
| struggling men_ are the expert on women 's behavior re:
| dating and jumped to entirely wrong conclusions. This
| probably isn't just their fault; the last fifteen years
| of social media tech have really accelerated the ability
| of people to take advantage of self-reinforcing bubbles
| to push toxic views.
|
| Dating is hard, it's always been hard for most people,
| but there wasn't always such an easy way to find others
| telling you it's actually everyone else being out to get
| you. Like this zero-sum-game gem from elsewhere in the
| thread: "It's hard to have a conversation about it
| because women don't fucking care. You know why? It's not
| their problem and it never affects them directly. It also
| means often that the solution involves women changing and
| that's sexist, sweaty." - _They 're the ones doing it
| wrong_ - very deep, very insightful, how much deep
| introspection and reflection did it take them to jump to
| that conclusion? But hey, I'm not a woman, so you're
| gonna have to come up with a new reason I'm skeptical.
|
| I guess I'm just lucky that when I was a late-20s virgin
| the "foreveralone" convo was more ironic and less
| violent, so I just focused on _my own_ social skills.
|
| And then there are quick downvotes and lazy dismissals so
| no wonder the non-angry men don't bother to engage that
| often.
| Bakary wrote:
| The takeaway here is that there is a middle ground
| between the 'blackpill' mindset we often hear about
| online and the reality. The reality is grim, but not
| grimdark.
| pcbro141 wrote:
| I agree, but
|
| _None of the men I talk to in real life have the
| experiences I see men complaining about online_
|
| This is dismissing all the complaints of men. Not all the
| complaints men have are baseless. This dismissive mindset
| of declaring every complaint men have as black
| pill/extremist/incel is probably why young men are
| gravitating to more extreme 'red pill' characters like
| Andrew Tate by the tens of millions. This is what happens
| when you dismiss any chance for nuanced and balanced
| conversations where both sides grievances are heard.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _None of the men I talk to in real life have the
| experiences I see men complaining about online._
|
| Same. Just from talking to the women in my life it's clear
| that women experience way more unwanted harassment via
| online dating apps than I did personally (I met my wife
| this way), or any men I know did.
|
| Yes, it's harder to men to get attention on dating apps
| than it is for women. Yes, men on dating apps are targeted
| by OnlyFans sex workers. If those issues seem
| insurmountable to you, then my recommendation is to touch
| grass and go meet people in RealLife(tm).
| pessimizer wrote:
| > women experience way more unwanted harassment via
| online dating apps
|
| That's because many men have figured out that volume
| works, and spam everybody. If one answers their spam with
| annoyance, they're totally amused by sending a really
| aggressive, rude reply, because you are 0.1% of the
| "'sup?" messages they sent out that day and don't matter
| to them. They're irritated that you bothered to reply at
| all.
|
| Ever trick a phone scammer into talking to you for a long
| time? When he realizes that you've wasted his time, his
| reaction is exactly like the 'sup? guys.
| CharlesW wrote:
| I can't tell what your point is. You say "volume works",
| but reading on it sure doesn't appear to.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I'm not making a point about volume working. Volume
| works, there's no reason to expand on it. If you spam
| people, you'll get results. If you spam people with a
| badly spelled inarticulate message that generates no
| expectations, the replies you get will largely be exactly
| what you're looking for, although half of them will be
| indignant people who you can quickly call ugly or tell to
| fuck off.
|
| I learned that volume works watching my drummer in my old
| band. He simply aggressively and tactlessly hit on every
| pretty girl who got anywhere near him. One out of 20 were
| down. If you're good-looking it might be more like one
| out of 10, if you're ugly it might be more like one out
| of 40. But volume works.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Ask yourself how many women approach and how many women
| expect to be approached. Now do the same for men.
|
| Here's a bonus: ask men how many women turned 'crazy'
| after the first night of sex, and do the same for women.
|
| It's almost as if the different sexes have different
| expectations and modus operandi.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Ask yourself how many women approach and how many
| women expect to be approached. Now do the same for men._
|
| 93% of women prefer to be asked out on a date, while 16%
| of men prefer to be asked out. So if you're a man who
| won't ask women out, you're going to miss out on
| potential dates with a lot of women. No judgment -- that
| may not be a bad strategy if you're the type of man who
| needs their partner to "wear the pants", so to speak.
|
| > _Here 's a bonus: ask men how many women turned 'crazy'
| after the first night of sex, and do the same for women._
|
| 1 in 7 women have been injured by an intimate partner,
| compared to 1 in 25 men.1 1 in 10 women have been raped
| by an intimate partner, with no comparable data available
| for men because it's so rare.1 Dating is far risker for
| women.
|
| 1 https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_report
| 2010-...
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| I love how when it's women it's rarely reported, when
| it's men the "reported" drops off and it just becomes
| rare.
|
| Lets not even get started on the number of female
| teachers that have sex with students and walk away with
| no charges, or very light charges.
|
| both sexes have their own challenges, this dismissal of
| one set of challenges does nothing to further the
| conversation.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I love how when it 's women it's rarely reported, when
| it's men the "reported" drops off and it just becomes
| rare._
|
| Yes, now you're getting it: Dating and physical intimacy
| is an order of magnitude less dangerous for men, in
| contrast to the parent commenter's implication (and incel
| talking point) that I was specifically addressing.
|
| Is it any less of an individual tragedy for the men who
| are affected? Of course not.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| How can we blame men in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... GO!
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Yeah, there's this desperate push by feminists to have this
| "we're just like men with the exact same problems!" narrative.
| Meanwhile, reality.
|
| Women have problems in online dating too, even equal in
| severity and scope. Just not the _exact_ same problems.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Yeah, there's this desperate push by feminists to have
| this "we're just like men with the exact same problems!"
| narrative._
|
| Show me what in the article says (or implies) that women are
| "just like men" or "have the exact same problems".
| yellow_lead wrote:
| This particular woman was interested, I doubt most would be.
| This article wasn't interesting at all, she didn't even find
| out anything about the scam. I don't see why it was written.
| Newsflash there are scammers on the internet.
| erulabs wrote:
| I really enjoyed the writing style and tone.
|
| > Liwei is convinced that "Christianity." That's it, that's the
| sentence: "I'm convinced that Christianity."
|
| AI really hits peak ironic humor quite well. I would be _shocked_
| if there isn 't a real person somewhere with that exact profile
| string as a gag, even if this AI generated it regurgitation
| style.
|
| > "Fuck, you," was all he could say. Paul did not sound German,
| and he was probably not in Pacifica. Rattled, I hung up and
| blocked Paulbot. I had tried to peek inside dating app scams, and
| reach the people who feel compelled to run them, and I had
| failed. Or maybe I had succeeded, if success meant confirming
| that humans are still scamming other humans, from a world away,
| by exploiting the false closeness we experience through screens.
|
| Just top notch writing - I'm not sure I can put my finger on why.
| Great writing, interesting topic, no absurd over the top title or
| implications, and funny? Lauren Goode has a new fan :)
| itake wrote:
| I had a different feeling... The author didn't try very hard to
| gather more information about the group after they gave up
| immediately when the person refused to answer explicit direct
| incriminating questions.
|
| This would be much more interesting if they went down the
| rabbit hole. They could have matched with multiple fake
| accounts, seen if it was AI or a human, seen if the accounts
| take you to the same website or if its a bunch of different
| groups operating.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| Oh no! Fake men! Whatever will those women do now they get the
| same experience as men? Fake accounts, of either sex, are there
| to keep you paying although sometimes they are outside scammers.
| graedus wrote:
| https://archive.ph/EOVNX
| jonatron wrote:
| The autocomplete for googling "hinge only" is "hinge only showing
| fat" and "hinge only showing ugly". There's pages and pages of
| people saying they get shown nothing but the least attractive
| people on hinge, which would cause real people to just delete it.
| gs17 wrote:
| My Hinge feed (when I used it) seemed to be sorted in
| increasing attractiveness order. Maybe showing people you're
| more likely to have a chance with (assuming everyone is willing
| to date someone "more attractive" than themself, which might be
| a big assumption) is considered more likely to create matches?
|
| Bumble seemed to do something resembling the opposite which
| felt slightly more pointless.
| nelsondev wrote:
| I'm guessing they have a low Elo score, and are matching with
| other low Elo scores. I believe best thing to do is delete the
| account and create a new one to reset your score.
| moffkalast wrote:
| They need to study their chess theory more.
| itake wrote:
| I find that filtering by language drastically improved the
| quality of matches. Choosing people that speak non-english
| languages, reduces overweight native talent.
| bradlys wrote:
| 100% this. Your experience on hinge will be terrible
| generally unless A) lucky or B) very good looking.
|
| I've gotten lucky with the ELO score once on Hinge out of the
| dozen times I created accounts on it. I was shown attractive
| women and got matched even to a few (which went nowhere of
| course). But most times I got shown fat and ugly people. I
| know I'm not good looking but sometimes I see the people on
| these apps and I think, "man, some people really get it way
| worse than I do..." And that's who it shows to me
| overwhelmingly.
|
| Meanwhile it'll lock all the attractive women behind paid
| features.
|
| It's a bad app. I think a few years ago before it was bought
| up it had some potential but since Match integrated all their
| practices into Hinge - it's a bad app.
| heyheyhey wrote:
| Hinge has a weird bucketing technique where it'll show you 30
| straight unattractive profiles one day then 30 straight mega-
| attractive profiles the next day. No idea why they do that.
| cm42 wrote:
| The author discovered bot armies on dating/social sites in much
| the same way Columbus discovered America.
|
| Anyway, congrats, I guess. https://xkcd.com/1053/
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| As a man, online dating is already a miserable experience. But
| I've been told Hinge is one of the better apps out there. One of
| the first things I've noticed about using it is how exploitative
| and money grubbing the company is. The premium version doesn't
| seem to appreciably change anything about how often your profile
| shows up. No, to do that they want you to pay for a "Boost" which
| lasts for a mere hour, and costs $11.99. You can buy 5 and get a
| measly discount where they only cost $9.99 apiece. If you are
| already someone who does not get frequent matches, this is a
| terrible deal and the duration is insultingly low.
|
| Never mind the practice of "Roses" in which the only way to
| message some women is to buy a like that costs $3.33 each. Again,
| in bulk you can get that down to $1.49 apiece. But what is so
| scummy about it is that they seem to have an algorithm that
| detects the most beautiful of women and locks messaging them
| behind the need to send roses.
|
| Not to go on too much of a rant, but I really loathe how this
| company approaches it's customer base. This article showed me
| that they aren't just horrible to men.
| microtherion wrote:
| Apparently it gets better for men if you manage to live to an
| advanced age: A college buddy recently told us that his widowed
| father is absolutely inundated with Tinder matches, because in
| his age range (70s-80s), the gender ratio is increasingly
| skewed female.
|
| Not that this helps you much right now, I suppose...
| IgorPartola wrote:
| See I think fees for stuff like this aren't a bad thing because
| it makes it harder for spam and BS to get through. The problem
| is that the company has to be really truly good about their
| matching algorithm to make it work. Here is the issue:
|
| Say the company charged $1 per first contact you make with a
| person. They can then show you people most likely to respond to
| help you get your conversation going ASAP and give you the
| highest value for your money. Or they could instead keep giving
| you poor matches so that you keep paying over and over. As far
| as they are concerned, the minute you fully engage with
| someone, assuming you are monogamous, you will not be a client
| for them for 6-18 months or whatever the length of an average
| relationship is in your demographic. But as long as your
| matches are mediocre (enough engagement to keep you going but
| not enough for you to get off the app), they can keep making
| money.
|
| This is where hookup apps could do a lot better than lifetime
| partner apps: a hookup app will have repeat business with this
| pricing model and will actually do better in terms of
| expectations but a LTR app will lose you soon as you find a
| suitable candidate.
|
| The alternative is 100% free apps which mean that bots have a
| zero cost to be bots and so you can run as many of them as you
| want. It is a problem of the commons in a way: soon as a
| certain percentage of bots spoils your interactions with the
| app you have no reason to come back.
|
| Small rant: Bumble IIRC shows you most popular people in your
| area if you are on the free tier. These are almost guaranteed
| to not match with you and might not even be online having been
| overwhelmed by the attention. But if you pay, they'll first
| show you people who have actually liked you, you know the ones
| recently online and ones you can swipe right on to start
| talking. This is the wrong incentive though makes them money in
| the short term.
| quest88 wrote:
| I'm going to refute that it's a miserable experience because
| you're a man. As a decent looking man in a stable career I had
| a great time on hinge. I had many simultaneous conversations,
| and many dates that I had to cancel after finding someone I
| wanted to be exclusive with. We've now been together almost a
| year and I was in the app for less than a month.
|
| This experience was highly location subjective though. I had
| many great matches in the bay area.
|
| YMMV
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"I'm going to refute that it's a miserable experience
| because you're a man."
|
| I think you have given a counter-example rather than a
| refutation. I don't deny that some men have great success on
| dating apps, but that experience is not evenly distributed.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Your solo anecdote does not weight up against the hordes of
| counterexamples.
|
| Additionally, age plays a huge factor. None of the comments
| have mentioned age so far.
| standardUser wrote:
| The continued popularity and financial success of dating
| apps implies it is working to some degree for some amount
| of users. I'm not sure what the age issue is regarding men.
| As a man in my early 40s I still get occasional matches
| with women in their 20's. Age is a far bigger issue for
| women.
| CodeSgt wrote:
| They mean that age is an issue in that many women
| actually _prefer_ older men. So all else being equal you
| still may have an advantage compared to a man in his
| early 20 's
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| That's the point. Age flips the script given the guy gave
| half a hoot about his body and career.
|
| >implies it is working to some degree for some amount of
| users
|
| And gambling works for some amount of users, but we both
| understand casinos would die out if users were making a
| net profit on average. Meaning there's more to this.
|
| For anyone feeling inclined to say "but winning isn't the
| only thing about a casino!", yes, exactly.
| standardUser wrote:
| Right but we _all_ know _tons_ of people in relationships
| that started on dating apps. Most of us don 't know
| anyone who got rich gambling.
| extasia wrote:
| Been there and it kills your confidence. Online dating is truly
| fucked for men.
|
| Checkout Gerbert Johnson on YT, he has a channel with some
| funny content on it that isn't absurd redpill nonsense.
| abhaynayar wrote:
| Thanks for the channel, just binged it a bit -- really cool!
| durnygbur wrote:
| Can confirm. Source: had shaky confidence which now is
| killed.
| kodah wrote:
| Most online dating apps are owned by the same company, Match
| Group. There's also Bumble but Bumble put predation on
| steroids, imo, and gave it a very homely facade. I would get
| few matches on any stock experience, which on each service
| encourages you to pay. Paying has no guarantee of success, or a
| refund when faced with absolute failure, so if you spend money
| on superlikes (or whatever feature) if it doesn't work or some
| person is having a wine night and uses that opportunity to make
| fun of you there's no getting that money back. Once you follow
| the incentivized spending plan the app is somewhat useful but
| more gimmicky than anything.
|
| The problem is that men have been griping in public and private
| about this for years but they're continually shrugged off or
| made fun of for doing so. _Some_ gripes are obviously unhinged,
| but I don 't think there's even a shred of empathy for this
| problem even without those unhinged folks. This business model
| is absolutely normalized.
| bel_marinaio wrote:
| Hinge is a steaming pile of horse shit. If any match complains
| about you they will ban you for life (Guilty without any
| investigation) and refuse to tell you the reason. Good luck
| with your appeal.
|
| Before any SJW replies that I must be some troll here is the
| proof "Revenge reporting" is real. Revenge reporting happens to
| men too.
|
| https://www.stylist.co.uk/relationships/dating-love/dating-a...
| electrondood wrote:
| A rose is the same as buying a drink. All it communicates is "I
| don't think I have anything else going for me, so I spent money
| to get you to notice me."
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| Modern dating apps are pretty much all terrible, they basically
| completely commodify the experience of love and turn
| relationships into a purely aesthetics based thing. It's pretty
| terrible because I think most people don't actively have any
| way to meet single people their age, so people pretend apps are
| somehow a band aid for a deeply atomized society. Unless you're
| in a foreign country or a tourist, the advice I've heard
| repeated over and over is trying to meet others through organic
| social connections (ultimate frisbee, D&D, work, class) so that
| there exist some social fabric to base a relationship upon.
|
| (Pretty good, slightly cringey, video on how apps use the
| language of capitalism https://youtube.com/watch?v=-bcKRd_lfAg
| )
| RichardCNormos wrote:
| > most people don't actively have any way to meet single
| people their age
|
| This is absolutely true. The best we've got right now is bars
| & clubs, and in those environments, there's no preselection
| for the type of person you'd want a meaningful relationship
| with.
|
| Case in point: I met my wife at church. Going in the door, it
| was predetermined that we would share a common set of values.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > It's pretty terrible because I think most people don't
| actively have any way to meet single people their age
|
| This is probably my biggest problem. I can go out, and women
| will even approach me and flirt, at least until they realize
| they have some years on me...
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| This is a self-resolving problem, as long as you don't age
| badly.
| throwaway515 wrote:
| _> I think most people don 't actively have any way to meet
| single people their age, so people pretend apps are somehow a
| band aid for a deeply atomized society_
|
| Looking back, I wasted my most dateable years doing exactly
| this. I thought if I just stayed on the apps a little longer,
| put up with the dopamine-drip machine bullshit just a little
| more, I'd meet someone.
|
| I wasn't even relying _entirely_ on them - I attended a
| church, volunteered at a soup kitchen, and other things where
| you 're supposed to be able to meet people, but I wonder if
| maybe I would have emphasized them more (seeking out more
| volunteer opportunities, etc) without the gambler's promise
| of the dating apps panning out "any day now."
| dkarl wrote:
| > they basically completely commodify the experience of love
| and turn relationships into a purely aesthetics based thing
|
| I think this is the right thing to do. Apps work great for a
| quick check of "does this person look cute and interesting."
|
| They suck for everything else. I think it's great that apps
| like Tinder have given up on the pretense of helping people
| present their true deep selves, find compatible people, and
| figure out if there's a connection before they even meet. I
| know it seems more enlightened to deemphasize looks and
| concentrate on inner qualities, your personality and values
| and dreams, but over decades of painful experience we've
| learned that that stuff just doesn't convey accurately
| online. People invest huge amounts of energy creating
| profiles, answering quizzes, and trying to understand other
| people through _their_ profiles and through online
| conversations, and the result are always disappointing.
|
| By now I think we understand that failure well enough that
| when a company promises to do it well, we should call it a
| scam. It might work for a few people, but they're very rare
| and very lucky. Apps should be honest and stick to what
| they're really good at, which is helping people who mutually
| pass the superficial visual check find each other, on a scale
| they could never accomplish IRL, and facilitating them
| getting face to face so they can find out if they actually
| like each other.
|
| Tinder does a perfect job of this. Just a few pics and a tiny
| profile. Put vital info in the profile (kids? open to what
| kind of relationship?) and some polarizing context in the
| pics (signals of political and cultural preferences, whatever
| feels important to you.) If someone wants to chat for more
| than a week without meeting you in person, unmatch them,
| because they're probably a bot or somebody just doing it to
| kill time. (Unless they say hey, let's put this on ice for a
| bit, I just met someone and if it doesn't work out I'd like
| to meet you next. That's valid.)
|
| Paying to increase the attention you get is a scam, too, of
| course, and I won't defend any app doing it. It basically
| turns the app into a strip club where the women work for free
| and it's even easier for the men to delude themselves into
| thinking they'll get something out of it. Really if you
| aren't getting hits then all you can do is work on your
| profile or cast or wider net, or take a break for a month
| while you wait for new people to become active.
| bel_marinaio wrote:
| >If you aren't getting hits then all you can do is work on
| your profile
|
| Working on yourself > working on your profile. Hit the gym,
| lose a few pounds, maybe find a better barber, etc
| dkarl wrote:
| I don't know, I've seen a lot of bad profiles, and I've
| helped people fix their (really bad) profiles. It's not a
| super hard problem, but I don't think people recognize it
| as something that they need to think about. It seems that
| by default people are extremely asymmetrical in how they
| perceive profiles, picking up a ton of nuance in other
| people's profiles that they are blind to in their own.
| They have to spend some time reflecting on how they infer
| information from other people's profiles, and reading
| what people online say about dating profiles, in order to
| understand how other people see theirs so they can turn
| it into a better reflection of themselves.
| nradov wrote:
| You're giving terrible advice. If I had relied only on
| organic social connections I would have never met my wife. We
| didn't share any of the same activities, worked in different
| industries, and attended different schools.
|
| There's no need to restrict yourself to one approach. People
| can do both.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| I don't know if my advice is terrible, probably more below
| average or situational. I do personally believe dating apps
| are causing a ton of psychological harm to the current
| generation, but I don't discount the successes.
|
| But the immortal words of Mary Schmidt should always stay
| with us in terms of dating "Your choices are half chance.
| So are everybody else's."
| hizxy wrote:
| Well you certainly know a lot about their business practices...
| pcbro141 wrote:
| Same thing with Tinder and their multiple tiers, multiple types
| of boosts, multiple types of Super Likes. All these dating apps
| exploit desperate men.
|
| The truth is if you're not already getting a decent amount of
| likes on the standard tier, there's no point paying for 10
| boosts like that will change your attractiveness.
| electrondood wrote:
| Tinder gives me the exact same dirty feeling as visiting the
| strip in Las Vegas. It's like sex gambling, but for body CVs.
| gs17 wrote:
| IIRC I sent one of my free roses to my current girlfriend. She
| wasn't one of my standouts but I wanted to get her attention
| and it worked. With how many normal likes she showed me she had
| in her inbox, there's no way we would have even chatted if I
| hadn't jumped the queue.
|
| The "Standouts" feature still felt like a total scam to me
| though. "Here's a bunch of women we think are out of your
| league, pay us and we'll let them know you exist".
| slimginz wrote:
| Hinge is owned by Match Group. Along with also owning Match.com
| they also own Tinder, OkCupid, PlentyOfFish, Black People Meet,
| Our Time, and about 20 more services. AFAIK the only "big"
| dating app that they don't own is Bumble. It's honestly insane
| how much of a monopoly Match Group has on the modern dating
| scene.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| To make things worse, Match.com translates profiles from one
| "platform" to another. So that interesting person you see on,
| say, PlentyOfFish never posted their profile to POF - they
| originally only wrote an OKCupid profile. If you bother to
| read the "terms of use" then you'll find they can do this.
|
| Many times when it looks like someone else is interested in
| you, the appearance is made that they can only be reached by
| subscribing for money, it turns out that the person is not
| there, never was there and had abandoned the other platform
| due to lack of interest.
|
| And paying for the service never makes it easier to get dates
| either.
| durnygbur wrote:
| > Hinge is owned by Match Group [...] AFAIK the only "big"
| dating app that they don't own is Bumble.
|
| Bumble/Badoo have some Russian connotations... so the choice
| is between cancer or syphilis. Within the last 10 years we
| voluntarily have delegated our mating preselection to them...
| and "in real world" is even worse...
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Within the last 10 years we voluntarily have delegated
| our mating preselection to them.
|
| I think this might be true for a subset of people, but I've
| personally had zero luck with online dating and have met
| all my partners IRL. It _is_ interesting to consider if the
| FTC will ever take action on Match Group 's near monopoly
| here.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| In the real world is scarier. I seriously doubt it's worse,
| unless you live in a small town with no choices.
|
| Dating apps lower the barrier to entry. This is actually a
| bad thing for men, because it floods the dating market with
| competition from men who would otherwise be too offputting
| or antisocial or meek. There is currently no way for women
| to filter out these men via software (they would if they
| could).
|
| Just like in business, it's easier to stay in business if
| there is a barrier to entry.
| [deleted]
| FiatLuxDave wrote:
| Match is known for buying out their competition.
|
| So does anyone know if there is a startup accelerator
| specializing in making dating apps for selling to Match?
|
| Something like: "Here's a list of features that users love,
| and here's a bunch of marketing techniques for making your
| userbase grow fast. Don't worry about monetization, Match is
| going to buy you out anyways. We're just going to keep on
| repeating doing this until Match runs out of money or
| everyone we know is rich."
| bruceb wrote:
| Online dating also enables men to say hi to women you may never
| have been able to if you just waited on organic situations.
| Some men are just not great at initiating conversation.
|
| In some areas it is going to be more difficult and those areas
| probably are over represented on HN. SF/Bay Area, Seattle,
| Bangalore etc. The dating apps can't change the male to female
| ratio.
| durnygbur wrote:
| Not really, a man is brutally paywalled to interact or even
| to bubble up. The asynchronicity can be noted when some
| women's bios write "just write to me", as women simply swipe
| right and after almost guaranteed match can send a message...
| dkarl wrote:
| > a man is brutally paywalled to interact
|
| Does paying actually get you anywhere? Do you meet people
| you wouldn't have met without paying? I know they make it
| seem like it's going to help, but I have my doubts about
| whether it does. I think if you ignore the misleading
| marketing and go by results, paying for a basic
| subscription gives you the full benefit of the app.
| muttled wrote:
| I've done a couple of the premium subscriptions just to
| see if they're worth it. My experience was that you got
| to see people who had liked you but that the app just
| hadn't shown you yet, but other than that it didn't lead
| to any increase in dates. It doesn't show you any more
| often to people so although it allows you to swipe an
| unlimited amount of times, you might as well be screaming
| into a void. Just building up a larger list of people
| you've said "yes" to who will never see your profile. The
| "boost" functionality might get you an extra match or
| two, but with most conversations going nowhere the ROI is
| terrible.
| pphysch wrote:
| The ugly truth is that this is how the core dating game works.
|
| Men desire a beautiful woman. Women desire a wealthy man.
|
| Women are able to signal their appearance by uploading
| pictures. Men are able to (more credibly) signal their wealth
| through otherwise pointless IAPs.
|
| I'm not saying Hinge's system is perfect or good or even worth
| anyone's time, but it is a more honest portrayal of "the game"
| than putting both sexes on equal footing.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Buying internet gold on a dating site isn't a sign of
| dominance, sadly. It's a sign of weakness.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Women desire _more_ than a wealthy man. They also
| preferentially select for "masculinity"[1]. So while a rose /
| perks signal wealth, At least anecdotally women also seem to
| have a bit of a resentment/disdain for using apps at all.
| They want a man with the "balls" (so to speak) to approach
| her, talk to her, not be afraid of rejection, have options
| but choose her[2].
|
| So long as you can express enough of these signals, wealth
| beyond her income level won't be a deal breaker.
|
| [1]: please just forgive this term as a stand in for the
| personality traits that express in people with sufficient
| testosterone and success as defined by the society.
|
| [2]: this point is just common sense across all genders...
| having options but choosing one is a form of backing for a
| compliment. Choosing her out of a pool of no one else is not
| flattery, it's desperation.
| pphysch wrote:
| And men also desire more than just a beautiful woman. But
| these are the single best indicators, evolutionarily
| speaking.
|
| Wealth historically indicates hard work or power, which in
| turn indicate masculine traits.
|
| Beauty historically indicates good health (childbearing)
| and self-care, which in turn indicate feminine traits.
|
| These indicators can definitely be gamed, but they define
| the game for a reason.
| standardUser wrote:
| That's a lot of words and odd formatting just to say that
| "women dig confidence". But it is of course very true!
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| a lot of the words were in attempts to prevent HN
| downvotes and/or cancellation from the mobs that exist in
| my various circles.
| bsuvc wrote:
| > [1]: please just forgive this term as a stand in for the
| personality traits that express in people with sufficient
| testosterone and success as defined by the society
|
| What a world we live in, where people have to apologize for
| using the correct word to describe something.
| standardUser wrote:
| I'm in my 40's and have dated a lot and been in many
| relationships and I have never experienced the "women desire
| a wealthy man" myth that you state as fact.
| pphysch wrote:
| What do you think is a better trait, and how do you signal
| it over the Internet?
| klyrs wrote:
| Speaking as a woman on the internet: emotional
| intelligence and maturity. You signal that by genuinely
| having those traits and being yourself.
| [deleted]
| standardUser wrote:
| In my (fairly extensive) experience, most women do desire
| a man who can take care of himself and contribute
| financially to a partnership. Though that doesn't explain
| the many, many examples I have seen of relationships
| where a responsible and employed woman takes care of an
| unemployed/semi-employed man-child.
| sosborn wrote:
| Most women I know will talk for days about the many
| creepy and misogynistic messages they receive daily on
| these platforms. All they really desire is a normal
| conversation with someone that doesn't creep them out.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| There is more than one perspective to every story.
| klyrs wrote:
| A man calls me a bitch for not being enthralled by a dick
| pic he sent after saying "what's up" and nothing else.
| What's his perspective and why should I care?
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| "Why should I, as victim of this extreme example,
| primarily vested in myself, care about the other
| perspective?"
|
| You shouldn't.
|
| But as a third party, I will absolutely be skeptical of
| all the women who "meet creepy men on the daily" and
| continue to be passive and use those services.
|
| As for the original point. It wouldn't be the first time
| a woman covered herself by calling the other creepy over
| something minor. It's not exactly an unknown thing for
| humans to cover their own flaws and misjudgments by
| blaming the other party, man or woman.
| standardUser wrote:
| My prognosis from a million miles away is that you are in
| dire need of in-depth discussions with many different
| women about their dating experiences and experiences with
| men in general. You seem to not understand the landscape
| at all.
| klyrs wrote:
| That's not an extreme example. That's an extremely common
| experience that most women I know have had. Daily? No,
| but frequently, and I'm not terribly attractive. The more
| conventionally attractive friends of mine get way more
| attention and way more unsolicited dick pics.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > Never mind the practice of "Roses" in which the only way to
| message some women is to buy a like that costs $3.33 each.
| Again, in bulk you can get that down to $1.49 apiece. But what
| is so scummy about it is that they seem to have an algorithm
| that detects the most beautiful of women and locks messaging
| them behind the need to send roses.
|
| Actually this is even far more anti-pattern than that. The fact
| the recipient knows you sent a rose signals a few things to
| (presumably) her:
|
| 1. You had to pay to get access to her, your ELO/Algorithm
| score is low enough that they app thinks your beneath her
|
| 2. You're not getting enough dates / matches that you're
| desperate enough that you're now paying money for what others
| get for free
| serjester wrote:
| How would structure your dating app to be different?
| Presumably you'd have expenses.
|
| Maybe you could make it open source? But sounds like you're
| gonna have a hard time staying ahead of abuse. Not to mention
| attracting enough people for the app to be useful is gonna be
| difficult if you're not spending money on marketing.
|
| Maybe you could have a monthly fee? But then who's gonna use
| it? And there's already plenty of established sites like
| that.
|
| Well maybe you could have a virtual equivalent of buying
| someone a drink? Ah yes, we end up back on roses. Is it
| perfect? No. But doesn't sound like any option is.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Honestly, as terrible as these features are for these male
| users, I feel that they are barely scratching the surface
| of what can be profitably done to monetize the
| thirst/desperation of lonely, unattractive men. I don't
| know what these new terrible features could be, but it
| really feels like very little has been tried. There are
| probably much, much darker patterns that these dating sites
| can use. I mean, we're talking about one of the most
| powerful bodily urges that exists, plus an increasingly
| desperate customer base with seemingly no way to satisfy
| it. Surely this path goes deeper into the woods.
| pavlov wrote:
| Sounds like sending this kind of rose to a woman who already
| gets lots of attention is futile for the reasons you list.
| But it might actually be an effective gesture towards a woman
| who's not in the top 50% of the site because it signals that
| you're not a player who's simply messaging all the below-
| average women, and that your score is probably aligned with
| hers.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > not in the top 50% of the site
|
| You will get presented this match for free and message her
| without a rose.
|
| I suppose you could send a rose voluntarily to someone who
| you presume does not get roses in an attempt to exploit the
| fact they dont get roses... which is slightly condescending
| xD .
| pavlov wrote:
| Sending gifts to not-very-attractive women is a time-
| tested mating strategy for the slightly lazy male
| contingent.
| bel_marinaio wrote:
| "gifting" women you barely know is a terrible strategy.
| This is the best way to land yourself a gold digger or
| some other undesirable. It signals to her that you are
| beneath her and are trying to buy her affection.
|
| On one first date a woman I had been talking to for a
| week texted me late at night. I told her to show up at my
| house and for her to bring a bottle of red wine. The next
| morning she is telling me a recent dating story. A guy
| took her out for a fancy meal. He spent $120 on her and
| then he got pissed after the meal when she wouldn't kiss
| him.
|
| I have some success and plenty of failure too when it
| comes to dating. There is so much bad dating advice out
| there for men. I feel bad for the men that are in the
| dark and being taken advantage of.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I will venture a risky post to say, the gifting strategy
| is probably most endearing to women who receive little
| attention. This is a mostly mutually exclusive set with
| Gold Diggers.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| And that only works if you're the only ones sending her
| roses, which is information that female participant is
| unlikely to share. They're are probably other suitors
| sending roses as a signal of wealth to these less
| attractive women in a bid to compensate for they're own
| lack of attractiveness.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Match Group is one of the worst internet companies I know. I
| was quite surprised when I found out they own basically every
| online dating thing.
|
| I'm not sure whether... innovation in the online dating space
| would do us any good, but I'm positive that Match Group is hard
| at work to prevent it from happening.
| bombcar wrote:
| If we take dating to have an end-game of a long-time
| relationship, then it's a market segment that is always
| limited, if you're successful your customers leave.
|
| Much, much more profitable to simply drag your customers
| along forever and use every whale-milking technique ever
| designed.
| hgs3 wrote:
| > Much, much more profitable to simply drag your customers
| along forever and use every whale-milking technique ever
| designed.
|
| That's true of many industries. If a light bulb
| manufacturer invented a light bulb that lasted 100 years
| they'd go out of business. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
| bombcar wrote:
| What's interesting about that is at some point the device
| lasts longer than it is in service for.
|
| According to the internet, the "average kitchen" is
| remodeled every 10-15 years, so once your LED lights last
| longer than that, they're likely to get thrown away still
| working.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| Respectfully, I think you have the wrong wikipedia link
| for your lightbulb example [0]. Certainly for describing
| lightbulbs dying earlier than necessary to fuel
| replacement purchases.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Incandescent bulbs that last longer run cooler and thus
| are less efficient. Long life bulbs are a bad deal except
| in situations where changing them is a problem.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Even in the Bay Area, a place with notably more men than women
| and thus a much harder dating experience, I've had a good
| experience with Hinge. I'm sure it helps to be employed in tech
| (although that should apply to most people on this site).
|
| I've never given them a cent. I did put a lot of work into my
| profile - going on dozens of dates, learning from the bad
| matches how I could signal incompatibility earlier, and
| generally just going head first into the trial-by-fire of
| online dating for the first time.
|
| Things are progressing slowly for me but to be honest my
| caution is the limiting factor. More importantly there has been
| progression.
| dkarl wrote:
| I found Hinge to be heavily skewed towards well-off
| professional women looking for well-off professional men.
| (Can't speak about the men since I only looked at women.)
| Other than that the mechanics seemed pretty typical. There
| were fewer bots, sex workers, and badly done profiles than on
| Tinder, which was nice.
| Melatonic wrote:
| This is the real answer. Every guy I know who REALLY has a
| huge axe to grind with online dating will show me their
| profile and they will have low quality photos with little
| effort put in to their profile itself. If someone can't tell
| what the hell you actually look like or get a good feel for
| your real personality then why are they going to be
| interested?
|
| If anything money should be spent on improving the profile
| itself (you could hire a professional photographer to take
| some "candid" looking nice photos of yourself + go to a
| higher end hair cutter, get your clothes tailored, etc etc).
| All of these things would probably also help you in real
| life. Worst case you have some great LinkedIn photos or
| something to send your family and some great fitting clothes
| to wear to dinner with friends.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"If someone can't tell what the hell you actually look
| like or get a good feel for your real personality then why
| are they going to be interested?"
|
| You're absolutely right that most men could stand to
| improve their profiles. However in the article the writer
| mentions how the photos she saw seemed designed to fit some
| template of what is supposed to be attractive, and that she
| was a little wary of how professional they appeared, so
| this can go both ways. Overall, though, it seems far better
| to have higher quality photos even if they appear staged.
|
| One of the biggest challenges, however, is that the nature
| of these apps means that to 'get a good feel for your real
| personality' people must somehow get that across in only a
| few seconds before the person on the other end swipes on to
| another profile. With margins like that, and so little to
| work with, it is daunting and seemingly impossible to try
| and write something compelling enough to capture attention
| in a consistent way.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I don't know. For Hinge I definitely can instantly reject
| some people. But if I find them attractive I'll look
| through the whole profile and try to see if I like who
| they're presenting themselves as. They say it's a numbers
| game - and quantity is important. But the optimal
| breakdown between quantity and quality actually still
| weighs pretty heavy on quality.
|
| If I match with someone I want to be able to convey that
| this person gives me a strong vibe of compatibility. It
| makes the next steps of conversing and meeting a natural
| conclusion. I don't think you can do this if you don't
| know what you're looking for or who you are or what life
| you're trying to live. But this is all very
| straightforward if you can make it clear you're looking
| for something specific - in my case a spouse to raise
| children with. Without a goal the path is not clear.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| > I did put a lot of work into my profile - going on dozens
| of dates, learning from the bad matches how I could signal
| incompatibility earlier, and generally just going head first
| into the trial-by-fire of online dating for the first time.
|
| I think why so many guys get mad at the apps is they just
| don't have the resilience for that amount of rejection. It's
| very easy to get disheartened when you match with someone,
| talk for a few days and ask them on a date only for her to
| not be interested. It's so easy to get mad when this happens
| and just go "F this entire thing", but you have to keep
| telling yourself that it's part of the process and keep
| going.
|
| I've had a rather positive experience on Hinge but I think
| one of the main reasons is I set the expectation for myself
| that there will be alot of rejections.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Right. What I've learned is that if they aren't interested
| in having a conversation with you the day you match (back
| and forth, chatting for an hour or two) then it's not going
| to go anywhere. If they're not trying to meet up after that
| first conversation, it's not going to go anywhere. If they
| don't message back within a few hours of the first date,
| it's not going to go anywhere.
|
| Chatting for a few days before asking them out isn't wrong
| - but you can get to the same natural conclusion much
| quicker and with less pain by trying to have a good
| conversation right away and then asking them out the next
| day.
|
| As for fearing rejection - I managed that by putting myself
| in the position of being the rejector. I showed up to each
| first date looking for problems, not trying to see if
| things could work. If I didn't feel like there was
| potential I'd reject them an hour or two after the date
| ended. If you are not being as picky as they are then you
| could give off the impression that you have low standards.
| What person wants to feel like they've been picked for
| their appearance alone?
| pdntspa wrote:
| Dang, I remember when SF was reputed to be a cis man's dating
| paradise. With all the gay dudes I had heard rumors that the
| ratio was something like 3 women to 1 man.
| electrondood wrote:
| By Bay Area, do you mean SF? Because outside of that, you're
| going to exhaust your swipe supply pretty quick.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| No, peninsula. I don't swipe much. I feel more confident
| when I'm not doing all of the selling at the start. So I
| just sort through the likes.
|
| I'm not an unattractive guy, but I'm also no movie star.
| Melatonic wrote:
| They have algo that rate everything behind the scenes. OKCupid
| has lots of good articles on it.
|
| What it really comes down to though is how much effort you put
| into your profile. I do not do online dating really but all my
| female friends complain about the low quality photos of 90% of
| men and the lack of effort in their profile. They show me what
| they are dealing with and it is honestly kind of laughable. And
| the guys they do end up going for often are not even the most
| attractive.
|
| It also helps a lot if you put the effort in immediately after
| making your profile. Once the algo starts rating you low then
| it can be harder to come back from.
| xenospn wrote:
| As a man who self-admittedly gets quite a few matches every
| day, I can confidently say that the less effort you put in,
| the better the results are. Just have good photos, everything
| else is secondary.
| wollsmoth wrote:
| I'm out of the game now that I'm seeing someone. I did meet her
| online but I'm now convinced that you're much better off just
| going out in the world. I think most people still don't meet or
| look online.
| llaolleh wrote:
| After the pandemic it has shifted. I read that 40% of couples
| meet through dating apps. Wild.
|
| I believe it as that's how most of my friends met their
| partners.
| xenospn wrote:
| I believe it's more like 90%.
| wollsmoth wrote:
| 90% meeting online? I think I read that like half of
| people have even tried online dating. I've definitely met
| adults in their 30s who just have never bothered. They
| live their lives and meet people through friends or
| happenstance.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| You missed the most important anti-pattern that exists in all
| of Match's dating apps: limited swipes.
|
| The entire foundational purpose of dating apps is to make the
| numbers game tractable.
|
| By limiting the amount of swipes you can do, you limit the
| amount of people you can contact. By paywalling swipes, you
| limit the amount of people who can contact you.
|
| Somehow the only popular dating apps are the ones literally
| designed to fail.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| I think limiting them is a good idea--you have to be
| selective about who you approach rather than using a shotgun.
| However, I think there should be a left/right/maybe system.
| (Perhaps there is--I've been off the market since before apps
| were a thing.)
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