Online dating is a load of sh1t!

Ubbquittious

I promise Mr. Fegilien has not taken over my account or my brain but it is indeed a pile of sh1t. I'm not looking for anyone at the minute and I'm kind of half seeing someone so not too pushed but just reflecting on my own experience.

The simple reason for it is that you are at a huge disadvantage compared to meeting someone in real life. If you talk to a girlie for 2 minutes or even 1 minute in real life you have done more than you could potentially do online in 2 or 3 weeks. Real-life first impressions are what count the most. You could have a fantastic chat with someone online only for them to abruptly vanish or to take one look at you on a first date and decide you're not for them.

I've lost count of the number of girls who were happy to chat away online but always hesitant to meet (covid made this much worse) and these would turn the whole thing into an enormous time sink if I let it. I have had a few good experiences down through the years but I've had to wade through many bad ones to get to them.

Passenger

Men need to stop wasting their time with that nonsense. Online dating is inherently geared to benefit women. IIRC the male to female ratio on Tinder is 15:1.

Sonics2k

Fun fact, Tinder also charges you more for certain services based on your age, gender and location.

Literally tested this with a girl I work with in her 20's and I believe it was €6.99 for Tinder Gold, but for myself in my mid-30's it'd cost about €17 for the same thing.

Online dating isn't bad, it's just the market is horribly broken.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709046#Comment_117709046

Actually, it's inefficient for both men and women. For both, the proportion of swipes that turn into actual dates is miniscule; the investment of time required to get one date is massive, compared to more traditional methods. Both sexes tend to swipe on people who would be judged significantly hotter than they themselves would be judged, which means the rate of favourable matching swipes is low - the hotties that you are interested in are interested in people hotter than you. Plus, the women have to wade through truckloads of unsolicited dick pics.

So, why has it become so dominant? I think the answer, or part of it, is because it is safe. I don't mean safe as in, you're not going to go out with someone you barely know only to find that they rape you/accuse you of rape/hit you over the head and dismember you with a blunt hacksaw. I mean safe as in emotionally safe; you can explore at least the initial stages of a connection with somebody without investing, showing or risking too much; you can decide how much to show and how much not to show; you can withdraw easily at any time; etc. Embarrassment-free flirting; turns out we quite like it.

We like it so much that it is becoming our only option. Other avenues are closing off. In the past, if you flirted with someone in a bar, say, when this wasn't particularly welcome, you would be regarded as annoying or, if you didn't pick up the "bugger off!" cues, a bit insensitive. Now, you are more likely to be seen as a bit creepy. Which means that people are more cautious about flirting in bars; it's harder to do than it used to be.

There is one payoff to the investment of time and the relatively slow pace of progress involved in dating apps; if you do get to form a relationship through a dating app, statistically, it will last longer than a relationship formed in a more traditional fashion.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709245#Comment_117709245

Purely anecdotal but I've found online dating to be really good, to the extent that I've got rid of the dating apps as I'm now in a relationship as a result of using them. My experience has been that you need to be proactive. Be the person to start the conversation, be the person to ask for a date. If it doesn't happen, move on and try again. Match.com is a decent site for more middle aged people and has a good gender balance. You need to get the paid version for it to be useful. IMHO you really don't want to get into protracted text conversations, always better to meet up. The different dating apps have very different audiences based on age, intent and other demographics. Tinder does cater more for the younger crew for example.

Which ones have you tried that lead you to your conclusions above?

El Gato De Negocios

As a younger man I had a pretty good hit rate with online dating. Now this is about a decade ago so predated Tinder and the like. Met my wife of now 6 years on POF. I'm a decidedly average looking bloke, not an ogre but far from a head turner however I could hold a conversation and and made and effort with my profile and the pictures I had up.

Lessons I learned.

If someone doesn't reply to your first message don't send a second.

If someone doesn't reply to you after exchanging a few messages they aren't interested.

Have clear pictures of you only, not with a bunch of mates, not your car, dog or anything else.

Don't send one line "hey how are you messages"

Don't be negative in your profile eg "I probably won't get any replies" or similar.

It's a bit of a crap shoot but can yield results if you take it for what it is.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740330#Comment_117740330

I haven't tried any of them; I've been married since before internet dating was a thing. The views expressed in my post weren't an account of my own experience, but an overview of points that emerged from social research into dating.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740943#Comment_117740943

Was very much the same until being widowed last year P. I'd question the applicability of studies that aren't focused on the demographic you're representing. One of the reasons I tried dating apps is having family and friends who've had good experiences on them. One nephew met his now wife on tinder, niece in a long term relationship from same and another friend also married quite a while now from one of the earlier apps. They certainly require that you put the work in and have a thick enough hide to handle a good amount of rejection but that aside can work well. Personally I enjoyed the company of all the women I met but went on a fair few dates before meeting the person I really clicked with. Dating apps do give you a large pool of like minded people looking for romance that you'd struggle to find elsewhere.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741000#Comment_117741000

Yes, I agree. Also, when you meet via a dating app, you've both openly acknowledged that you are looking to form a relationship, which clears away some of the uncertainty that might attend a meeting in other circumstances. On the other hand, it must make rejection a bit more difficult to deal with, because a rejection inevitably means "I am looking for someone; just not you".

I agree, of course, that people at our time of life are very far from being the median user of dating apps. You're quite right that there are apps that seek to cater to the, um, more mature lady or gentleman, and if they aren't studied separately they'll be drowned out by all the data from and about Tinder users.

But I think the overall message is not that dating apps don't work. They do work; they just don't work very efficiently. You have to put in a fair amount of effort and a fair amount of time to get from downloading the app to forming a viable relationship. And we have a mindset in which anything done with an app via the internet should be easy. I can book intercontinental flights, cars and hotels and organise visas in a few clicks; why should it take so long to connect with someone who will meet me for a coffee date? Hence a degree of disappointment.

The bottom line, I think, is that however disappointed you may be in the performance of the dating apps, they do work. Plus, they work well enough that they have to some extent crowded out the more traditional alternatives. So, unsatisfactory as they may be, the incentives to use them are quite strong.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741064#Comment_117741064

I agree, but amn't sure if there are any ways of forming new romantic relationships that could be described as even remotely efficient. Speed dating maybe? It has been many years since trying it, but the whole picking up girls in bars or nightclubs thing never worked for me. It was more about meeting friends of friends at house parties and other social events. Getting that bit older, I just don't seem to get invited to those kinds of parties these days, more's the pity. I've also got a small enough social circle where the larger part of them are already in relationships, so not that great either. I've tried a few meetups, which are good fun for meeting new people and could be an alternative, but also more of a slow burner.

I think the problem many people have with dating apps is they present potential matches much like a box of chocolates where you can choose who you want to meet but in reality most of those choices simply aren't available for reasons you've already outlined. What is important is that some are and it is a matter of finding them. You really only get a feel for how the whole thing works by throwing yourself into it. I have had a number of conversations on dates with the women's experience of it and it is similar enough. My eldest (22) is also using tinder at them moment and we have some fun swapping war stories.

You certainly get a lot of rejection one way and another, which can be very disappointing if you've been out on a date and had your hopes up, but I think that's as much to do with new romances in general as dating sites. You learn how to become more resilient and move on. Again, could be an age thing, but all the women I've met up with in person have been kind, sincere and great company. While the spark wasn't there, they were all so much more than their online profile and more than worth the effort of going out on a date with. Just my 2c as an old fart looking for love :)

Ekerot

I really wish OkCupid would be much more prevalent than Tinder, it's hard to kinda gauge how I would get on with someone by looking through 6 or 7 photos of them.

At least with OKC you could learn much more about them and their interests, unlike Tinder which just has a link your Spotify taste button.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117744777#Comment_117744777

I found match.com had a big enough audience that was well matched on a bunch of user selected criteria with a decent search engine. Depends very much on age though, match seems geared for 30 somethings and upwards, no idea what it is like with a younger audience. I'm surprised there aren't more and better free apps out there making their money of advertising revenue rather than subs. Most of them make you pay to work properly and many have a reputation for being very difficult to unsubscribe from. The local market seems ripe for a decent competitor or two. Maybe the owners of boards should stop píssing about with Vanilla and provide a new website people were actually interested in 😁 (Also give us back the pacman emoji...)

Funny back in my college days the most luck I had meeting girls on line was on sites that had nothing to do with dating or trying to find relationships. The one that stands out was a site called something like "open diary" or "free open diary". Though I think there is a site with a similar name now that's not the same one as I used 20 years ago.

Anyway it was just for writing an open journal of your life and reading that of others. And somehow I ended up meeting girls through that and going out with them to night clubs and so forth. I met up with more people from that site - and IRC chat rooms back in the day - than I did through any site that was more explicitly for dating and love.

It always seemed to be subjectively that the kinds of websites that put you in direct contact openly with the opposite sex - but are not doing so with the express agenda of love and romance - were always better sources of finding love and romance. But of course that is a subjective anecdotal conclusion of one and should be seen as that :-)

Pretty much all my experience of Tinder is from reading studies on it though - and anecdotes on threads like this. Never actually used it myself seeing as I am in a relationship. But I have been tempted to set up a profile as if I was single - give it my absolute best shot in terms of writing a profile and selecting photos as if I was genuinely trying to get hits - especially using some of the knowledge I have about people and relationships from other disciplines I have studied - and just see what interest my profile gleans. See if I get zero likes or a handful or numerous. Especially as visually in still photo where you do not see me active - I look like the milky bar kid turned middle aged and fell into a life of IT programming :-) So I am on the surface no stand out "catch" by any means.

Don't want to waste too much time swiping left and right to do this though. As I think in the "free" version you really only see the level of interest from others if you happen to match with someone? So I suppose I would have to pay for the package that allows you to see who has liked you specifically if I really wanted to evaluate the success of my profile without too much engagement and time.

Feisar

I used to use POF and then Tinder back in the day. Had great success but it's just another string to your bow, it works away for you without much effort so to me it was a no brainer.

I'd always meet up pretty quickly though, chatting away for hours online is a waste of time plus it creates an incorrect idea of the person.

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741064#Comment_117741064

This would in fact be the reason that online dating doesn't work for me at all, this immediate expectation of a relationship or not.

If I met a girl at a bar or through friends we might hit it off and see where it goes. There would be dates and chats etc etc but all going well things should proceed at a natural pace, and if we are compatible and on the same page then in time things become official and serious.

With online dating there is "no seeing where it goes", it seems that both people walk into the first meeting knowing that this is all about a relationship and acting accordingly. And there is no proceeding at a natural pace, it seems like in the early days there is always a big question hanging over our heads, "Is this viable long term or do we make the call on it now". "Is this person really what I want, I need to decide".

Start as you mean to go on, and I don't really want a relationship that started with having to meet a standard, as opposed to one where two people met and liked each other.