I appreciate my experiences are wildly different from a straight person's, but I would be very careful in advertising 'real world dating' as just easier. Often I've seen guys (straight and gay) who struggle with dating do so because their mental health is not in the right state (desperation is not sexy gents). People should focus on sorting that first (exercise, sleep, eating properly etc) before going out on the dating scene.
What I would say people should be careful about with apps is to always consider that the motivations of the business do not necessarily align with yours. Tinder wants you to engage with the app as much as possible to drive revenue, they don't want you find the love of your life because then the revenue stream stops. I see it like alcohol though, a little bit of alcohol is a great social lubricant, too much ends in misery.
As another bi guy, dating apps have been a godsend for the LGBT community (though they've cannibalized other valuable parts of the culture, like gay and lesbian bars). It's exactly what I think most straight men imagine dating apps to be before their naivette is crushed: you hop on, exchange a couple messages with someone, and then meet up. It's pretty pleasant, and there's no sense that you have to hold onto someone forever on the basis that if you don't, it'll be months or years before you meet another person even vaguely interested. Different people have more or less success, but very few people have no success, and it's never a painful experience requiring dozens of hours of emotional labor to even meet with someone.
The contrast in experience on them versus heterosexual apps is shocking. Apps are kind of ideally suited for a relatively homogeneous population of gay men, but the bifurcated population that uses heterosexual dating apps leads to pretty bad outcomes. Particularly for men, but for women as well.
It’s a shit show for most any straight man. Dating is something you’ll have to relegate to the old real world as a straight man. Too many straight men on dating apps. The apps know how to drain men of their money.
Better to try real life methods - even though they are incredibly difficult and resoundingly terrible overall too. The most difficult part could just be getting in front of someone you find attractive - dating apps make it relatively easy to find the attractive ones even if they put them behind a paywall.
The issue with dating apps is that they optimize on entirely the wrong factors.
What matters in a relationship is trust, safety, reliability, shared goals and vision, etc. Yes, some level of physical attraction is useful and necessary, sex is important, but it doesn't make sense to optimize 90% on that trait. The only way to figure this stuff out is to meet as soon as possible and "clock" the other person.
Not only that, but the target market of dating apps are overwhelmingly biased towards short-term hedonism anyway.
Tinder are currently running a marketing campaign that is entirely focused on queer dating (not LGB, more like the rainbow gender stuff), which is both a tiny fraction of the market, and also unlikely to be something that will actually result in life-long relationships. It seems bizarre for them to focus so heavily on this group until you realise that, as others have posted, people who aren't ready to settle down are the most profitable group.
There are other dating apps outside of Tinder and Bumble. I am married, so I don't use them personally, but my friends use/used Tinder/Bumble for more casual dating/hook ups. When they were looking for something a little more serious they would use something like OK Cupid to provide matches based on similar interests.
Either way, I don't see how online dating will ever not suck. I have no clue how it is in gay communities, but I do not see straight people's problems ever being different: i.e. Women having to deal with the ocean of terrible men, and Men having the problem of trying to stand out in that ocean (and in some of my male friends cases, not being so picky).
I mean -- I've had multiple medium-to-long term, fulfilling relationships that started on dating apps. They do work sometimes.
Yeah, it's a shitty environment, and it's very much a numbers game (especially for hetero guys), but again -- you're coming from an extremely judgmental place.
Oh, I agree entirely. My only qualm is that in terms of online dating, people have essentially no choice but to submit themselves to systems where the inner workings are either not known or poorly designed. Yet, it's what everyone uses, and to abstain is to drastically reduce one's exposure.
The way Tinder seems to work for example, the broader an appeal you have, the higher your score. That can really suck for LGBTQ people depending on what gender they're looking for matches with.
An openly bisexual male for example, will be met with a huge score penalty due to all the left swipes from women that he isn't concerned with in the first place. Most could be vastly less attractive, or in some geographies even bigoted. The women he is looking for however, have a lower chance of seeing him because of the score hit. It's perverse incentivization all around.
Yeah, there's rightly a lot of concern over the power of the big social media monopolies and dating apps don't seem to get the same level of scrutiny.
Ultimately you decide who you want to date, but in scenarios where most people meet through apps, those apps have a lot of influence over who meets who. Nobody knows how the matching algorithms work, all we see is the effects and a mountain of anecdotal evidence that some men are having a difficult time finding partners.
As a gay man, meeting other men online is the only way I can. :-(
There don’t seem to be many appropriate dating spaces for the LGBTQ+ community in the physical world... maybe it’s just a fact of being in your mid twenties during a time of great change, but I wish there were spaces that didn’t necessitate drinking, where you could meet people in this arena.
Overall, online dating makes me quite sad. It’s very easy to judge and dismiss someone online based on a few lines of text and some photographs.
That’s probably why I’m still single. Nobody’s interested in my profile or photos. It’s hard to stand out in such a competitive arena; I’d prefer to get to know people in the flesh.
I know this doesn’t apply to most, but as a gay person, I think apps are probably the easiest way to find someone since you can’t just hang around places and try to meet people.
For someone only interested in social chatting, if it's true that regular dating apps are unpleasant for men, there's always the option of gay dating apps. You do have to be tolerant of some amount of un-requested nudity, but otherwise it is a good option for just finding chat partners.
I think the quality of your experience with dating apps for any given dating app will depend on 1) where you live (are you in an area with a high or low LGBT population density) 2) who you are looking for (very hard to find people if you are, for example, a trans or non-binary person looking for other trans or non-binary friends) and 3) how much time you invest (it can take hours just to get conversations started, and more time before you get to actually meet people). This applies whether you are looking for friends or something else.
The truth is that dating apps are pure trash preying on the most basic human emotions. Go out, meet people in real life, it's not hard and it's way more rewarding. They don't even hide it anymore, they're hookup apps, not dating apps. Their whole business model is milking people looking for hookups, as soon as you settle down you're not a customer.
If your dating experience is endlessly swiping on tinder and going to dates every 3 days (which is what I'm witnessing in my circles) no wonder you never settle, the grass is always greener on the next swipe.
Many are saying probably there’s nothing wrong which can’t be farther from the reality of these apps.
There’s plenty wrong with dating apps. Each of these apps are designed to be toxic. As in the company puts an effort to make the experience toxic and sluggish. You have to spend hours uselessly. You have to get frustrated.
Limits are usually designed in such a way that it hurts one sidedly.
In in person dating at least to some extent you could expect “you take a step, I take a step”, but on dating apps you’ve to do everything - especially in the beginning and this pressure is almost entirely on one gender.
Usually you’ve one shot and that too for a fraction of a minute of just few seconds to pitch your deck.
You have to be a funny person, a stoic, a wise person, playful, mature, all probably in one message; while coming across as athletic, well groomed but not full of yourself, maybe homely, and down to earth as well in your pictures. You’ve to take the initiatives and also develop a radar to read minds.
This is more gender specific than usual: if you’re lucky enough to meet people you are supposed to be a feminist who believes in equality but also a chivalrous person who opens doors and shit.
Then you get some response and it is so limited that you try to trudge along with whatever you get but sooner or later realising “fuck, all this effort for such low quality interactions?” and then the disappointment and rut sets it with a fatigue where you don’t want to do it anymore but you keep doing it anymore.
They do nothing for spam, harassment pretty much. Quality and veracity of profiles is deliberately left unchecked to increase the volume.
Tricking and messing with users with dark patterns (in some cases even fake profiles).
Among things listed ghosting is the only one I consider something that has remained almost same from the non-dating app dating (and tbh it just needs to be dealt with in one way - that there’s nothing worth doing anything there). Everything else is either new with this trend or much worse.
From my personal perspective this pandemic made it worse when too much audio and text started happening without meeting in person and you started building connections (sometimes breaking) without interacting with the other person physically/in person.
All this just pushes the two groups apart and slowly it spreads as the dating is moving more and more to the online world.
I think limiting the number of matches (at a time), not just daily matches can be a good start - you only get more if are done with your current matches - aye or naye, but that would look bad on the PMs’ clickstream dashboards.
Biggest drawback is - designed to be completely opaque in everything! And that too after having so much of your most personal data.
In my opinion going on a date is also too big of an investment to find out whether or not you 'match' with somebody. When you are at a party you can potentially speak to 10 (20 maybe even 30) women/men in one night, and probably find out that you do not match with 90% of them. If you are using apps like Tinder it will take you 10 nights to date 10 women/men, which is a significantly bigger time investment. Recently I was thinking about this figured out that this is probably the reason none of my friends, who actively use dating apps, have gained any significant relationships using them. This doesn't mean they are not good for anything. However people should be more aware of this and realise that though it seems easier to find meaningful relationships using these apps, it can also make it significantly harder.
Sure, but as a bisexaul dude what you speak of happens on Grindr or Tinder or OkCupid.
It's about collecting hook ups and matches that are attractive to you and meet what you seek. No matter the gay or str8 app a good majority of white people seek out attractive white people. This is an unfortunate fact!
Since I'm bi, I use Grindr for hook ups only and have relationships with women. Though most of the women on str8 apps that i want ignore me, so Im busy collecting matches on Grindr and Scruff to hook up with them when the urge hits us both. But, when I found her my focus is her and Im happily monogamous when in a str8 relationship.
Overall dating apps are a negative on our society as its all about looks and the majority judge you and if you don't fit the mold you are ignored. Better to be ignored then to have someone be mean to you though... never be mean... always ignore!!!
Why would online dating make offline dating harder? Unless you're young and in the LGB group most people find their partners offline.
I think the truth is that dating is considered optional nowadays, which makes it more competitive both offline and online. People have minimum standards and if they can't find someone that matches these standards they can always stay single.
I personally don't believe in online dating, because the business model just doesn't work for me. Most dating apps are built for singles and once you find a long term relationship you cease using the app. An online dating company can only make money off of casual dating and perpetual singles. A "real" dating app should still provide value years into a relationship, otherwise there will always be a conflict of interest.
I like this idea. I have found dating apps to really push you into a box. It's strange to say that men might like monogamy because it's so reinforced that all they want is casual sex. You can't escape this box on dating apps. In my experience, in fact, stating this on dating apps pushes women away. The format is geared towards casual hookups too. You can't just abruptly go on and on about yourself and what you want to make sure the other person is a match. You will be ghosted.
So as a result the dating apps push you to be brief, flirtatious, and a lot of people use completely canned, artificial profiles and pickup lines. This idea does seem freeing from that but I don't know how you would drive people to view the date me doc in order to find someone who likes you. Reaching a target audience is an age old problem.
I'm honestly really surprised to hear that anybody thinks there is still stigma attached to online dating. I don't know what it's like for straight people, but online dating definitely has zero stigma for gay folks. I mean, compared to Grindr -- where all criteria for meeting somebody have been reduced to "I don't want to have to walk more than a couple of blocks" -- online dating like OKCupid is staid and respectable.
I appreciate my experiences are wildly different from a straight person's, but I would be very careful in advertising 'real world dating' as just easier. Often I've seen guys (straight and gay) who struggle with dating do so because their mental health is not in the right state (desperation is not sexy gents). People should focus on sorting that first (exercise, sleep, eating properly etc) before going out on the dating scene.
What I would say people should be careful about with apps is to always consider that the motivations of the business do not necessarily align with yours. Tinder wants you to engage with the app as much as possible to drive revenue, they don't want you find the love of your life because then the revenue stream stops. I see it like alcohol though, a little bit of alcohol is a great social lubricant, too much ends in misery.
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