You must log in or register to comment.
I’ve been curious if a government-run dating app could do better - if its goal is to achieve genuine engagement, not cycles of frustration that boost subscription rates.
This is one of many subjects where capitalist concern ruins the product (and that’s not even something I say as often as others on Lenny)
Honestly, 90% of the need for dating apps would vanish if people had more free time away from work and well-kept public spaces for entertainment that didn’t expect you to purchase anything.
So rather than a government-run dating app, how about a government-sanctioned 4 day work week and well kept public parks?
But who makes the profit in your silly goose scenario? Somebody has to be making money or it’s a terrible idea!
Might not be a great idea, tbh.
I run a social club for gay men, and we’ve talked about coming up with an app that’s run by a non-profit, with social workers on the board, that’s designed to actually connect people, not keep them glued to the app. Friendship, dates, activity partners, whatever.
I don’t know why no one has come up with the non-profit model here but if I can get enough steam, we’re doing it.
But even non-profits need to pay for operationing costs like salary and cloud fees. Where would you get the funding for that?
The app doesn’t need to be free, and the revenue stream won’t dry up if it actually works because people break up, and there are so many fucking people that even in a zero sum scenario it would take forever to reach saturation.
I can’t wait for TRUMPDate. Make America Date Again. Can’t go wrong.
Enter the colour of your skin:
Whoops, no matches for you!
Ha!
As a middle aged man you think its great for us? You think all the hot, sane, independent women in their 30s and 40s are strugging for options? If you’re on there theres a 80% chance that you’re no catch either.
Last time my dude showed me a bunch of profiles it was easily 50% “applications to be a stepdad” and 25% women with a checklist (6 foot tall, good living, own house, etc.) Like 6 foot tall athletic lawyers who own their own home are having trouble meeting women.
You think all the hot, sane, independent women in their 30s and 40s are strugging for options?
You’d be surprised… My wife is in a professional dance company full of single ladies ranging in age from 20s to late 30’s. Most of them are on the struggle bus when it comes to finding a decent partner who isn’t a lazy bum or a rampant misogynist.
Tbh most of the dudes in long term relationships with the dancers are just regular everyday dudes. Imo the bar is pretty low nowadays considering that like 1/3 of dudes have been brain poisoned by Joe Rogan/Jordan Peterson.
The bar isn’t low. Not being a lazy bum or misogonyst is the bare minimum (as it should be). The real bar is multiple bars in form of a 110 meters hurdles. You have to jump over all of them. Everything below that and the other person will feel as if they are settling.
Married dude here who has a lot of single dude friends. 1/3 is accurate.
And if it’s not Rogan, it’s some other right-adjacent influencer. It’s fucking weird too. They’re regular dudes, helping old ladies on the street and supporting a neighbor. Then suddenly, they crack and share how terrible women are.
Then you got women who are on the other side, complaining about how terrible men are.
I don’t understand it.
Social media is raising expectations to unrealistic levels. As if Hollywood wasn’t bad enough for past generations.
A confounding issue is the apps themselves have gotten worse over time. Like, old okcupid you could search. You could type in like “final fantasy” or “the Mets” and find people who liked those things enough to put them on their profile.
Now you’re limited to whatever the app decides to give you. Well, the app doesn’t want you to leave so that incentive doesn’t line up.
A lot of the more popular ones, okcupid included, all got bought up by Match Group and almost immediately started trending anti-consumer in their updates or removal of features. They want you paying, they don’t give a shit about success.
100%. Match group should be broken up.
It’s an especially insidious type of monopoly to me because it deals with relationships, they can manipulate millions of people, affecting the creation of their families and kids.
Surprised that the religious right haven’t put them in their sites.
Close, they actively fight success. Legally obligated to, even. It’s their fiduciary responsibility to keep you using the app.
So capitalism is incompatible with dating apps. Who woulda thunk?
That’s not really how that works.
I’d love for you to be right. Please elaborate.
You also had decent profiles where you could write more texts about you. That could give you an idea of who that person is. There is a difference between “Tea or Coffee? - Tea.” and “Tea or Coffee? - I like green teas but also some black teas like assam. I sometimes bake scones to eat with the tea.” A lit of modern apps don’t even give you the option to show your personality more.
I met my husband on Plenty of Fish 7/8 years ago. This baffles me, they don’t let you type your own content to show your personality? How are you supposed to get a feel for someone then?
OkCupid used to actually work rather well at finding compatible people who were actually honest about what they were looking for.
Then it got bigger, got acquired, and the matching model of the whole industry was intentionally modified to be more monetizable, and to keep giving matches that are close, but not close enough to be truely long term compatible.
You aren’t using the app/website anymore if it works and gets you a successful long term match.
You are using the app for a longer time if you keep getting close but just missing the mark.
…
Do people not think their dating app is tracking… how many matches and text exchanges they have?
How much time elapses between you matching, chatting, leaving… and then going back to swiping?
And then multidimensional matrix comparing that to every other definable variable about you?
Including whether or not you say you’re looking for something long term, or serious… but you actually keep cycling through people?
These algos, these things… they know exactly to what extent you lie to yourself and others, and they weaponize that to keep people in a sort of optimal (for the app, not you), constant disappointment loop.
…
Everything digital is now way beyond ‘if its free, you are the product’.
The model is now entirely attention, addiction based, and manipulating your emotions in as close to real time as possible is absolutely integral to all this.
People forget that over a decade ago, Zuckerberg said his dream was to be able to predict with high accuracy what any given Facebook user would post next.
Nearly a decade ago, Netflix CEO or some such stated ‘our primary competitor is sleep’.
People largely do not realize the extent to which these corpo fucks have been running highly precise and targeted manipulation of every aspect of human behavior… all to drive goddamn ad revenue and market share, ie, entrench themselves as institutions the modern world is no longer imaginable without.
I’m just confused as to how there isn’t a dating app that is better.
short answer:
Dating Apps/Sites are basically social media sites, they only really work via the network effect, by being so huge that they necessitate significant financial investment.
…
long answer:
A dating app is only broadly, mass appeal successful if it can scale to have a wide selection of people, users, ideally, in as many places as possible.
This requires a large amount of servers.
A large amount of servers requires a large amount of money.
A large amount of money requires investors.
Investors require as much profit as possible.
…
A conventional dating site/app, as we think of the big ones today… its a social media platform.
Just with a different, more constrained feature set, a different UI… but roughly similar levels of network infrastructure and overhead.
…
You could actually make a reasonable argument for running a non profit, or … some kind of collectively owned and operated dating service that is restricted to say a city or small region, or maybe a neighborhood in a larger city.
(Indeed, many of the older ones kind of began this way, pitched more like a … a club that you join and pay membership dues for, thats how they were marketed in the late 90s / early 00s… though these of course were largely actually privately owned, but the marketing angle was that of ‘exclusive community’)
The technicals of exactly how to do that, legally and financially, might end up being impractical though… and if the government is directly involved, well… 10, 20 years ago I would say thats a rather serious privacy problem, but at least in the US right now, I am sure Tinder will sell your info to a data broker who sells it to the FBI if they want to investigate you, so… yeah.
The other obvious problem is that the best dating app is the one you use the least… so… some kind of unconventional payment structure would have to be figured out, to counteract this massive and glaring incentive conflict between app and user.
Maybe high upfront fixed costs to the user, but if you don’t find a good match after a year, 75% gets refunded to you?
Not sure. Could be legal nightmare.
…
Other than that, privately owned and operated dating communities can work fairly well without huge server overhead… if they are precisely targeted at a pretty specific kind of people, be it a religion, or a bdsm community, or a specific ethnicity, who knows… those can at least theoretically work at a larger geographic scale, because that kind of scale doesn’t also massively ramp up user count.
But there’s nothing stopping them from being bought out if they get too big.
…
Bonus!
Job application / recruiting sites are also basically dating apps/sites.
Its just person vs job instead of person vs person.
Broadly, guys on dating sites have been flooding women with match requests for years now, women have been overwhelmed by the volume and believe they can be very picky.
Now replace ‘guys’ with ‘job seekers’, ‘match requests’ with ‘applications’ and ‘women’ with ‘companies’.
Both scenarios result in wasteful amounts of energy going into ‘match-making’, which is horrendously inefficient.
I just got so sick of using the apps and their crappy interface. I can never remember if left is good, or right is good. Who designed that was a good idea?
The interface literally tells you as you do it which is which…
Fetlife is like that too. “Find people with the same interests as you!”… select an interest: 120K people! Okay, let me filter by location? No. Filter by age? No. Filter by sex? Guess what, also No. So instead you have to hand scroll through all the entries. I don’t want to spend a lot of time connecting with someone with a common interest if they’re on the other side of the world.
Fuck me that’s bad, last I used it was in 2019, and even then it wasn’t fantastic.
They are making a mentally ill frankenspecies.
How do young people meet new people these days? I met my husband while at work. Became official via Facebook status.
Here’s the great part; you don’t! (I am American and only going outside for vital activities anymore)
Talking to aomeone might get you mugged
Same. And you can’t meet women (according to women) at any of those vital places. The general consensus seems to be don’t ask them out at the store, the gym, a restaurant, whether they’re working there or customers, any hobbies where they just want to be able to live their lifr without being hit on etc. To add, the only things I actually do still leave the house for? Walking on trails where they’d rather run into a bear than a guy on his way to a secluded spot near the creek with a joint and a book, so that seems like a bad way to meet people too now, and where I may have once talked to fellow trail walkers now I just keep to myself there too. I could still go to a bar, but like, I don’t want to, and the last few women I met were pretty bad alcoholics whereas I just drink a little bit sometimes. And even if a woman did approach me at one of those vital places or on the trail, I wouldn’t act on the hints because I’m absolutely positive they’re just being nice and they’re not into me, without them directly stating their intent using clear language.
It’s great!
I got out of the game right before tinder became a thing. I’m just as lost as you
Increasingly, they aren’t.
“that’s the neat part! they don’t!”
I’m so glad I’ve never had to date officially. My first two girlfriends I met at school the latter of which I was in a relationship after school, which was good. My current partner is, strangely, also related to the school I’ve been to as we’ve met via a common acquaintance. Getting to know each other happened mostly via texts and then through meetings - unofficial dates, I guess - and the rest is history.
I can’t imagine the stress of using these dating platforms constantly. Putting yourself out the over and over again, meeting all kinds of people for a shred of possible companionship. Must be so exhausting. Don’t even wanna think about what the experience must be for women* and female-presenting people
I still remember when bumble had to change their entire premise and business model because as it turns out women are worse at starting conversations than men lmao.
I wholeheartedly believe that the Internet and smart phones have been the biggest double edge swords in human history. We have the entire globes collected knowledge at our fingertips with the ability to connect with any other person on the planet instantly and it has caused the largest shift in loneliness and depression ever.
Humans simply are not wired for social media and the Internet. Seeing every single person you know posting themselves beautiful and dressed up doing the coolest things 24/7 will make anyone feel ugly and like they aren’t doing anything with their lives. It takes real focused effort to remember that people (generally) only post when they are doing something special and what you don’t see are the days or weeks between posts that show they live the same boring life you live.
I’m ranting for no reason. I think when we lost in person social gatherings as the primary method of meeting new people is when society kicked that concrete block off the cliff. Right now we are just waiting for the rope to snap taught and drag us all into the abyss.
Every starting conversation on Bumble was like:
“Hey”
In my experience the bot and scam scripts have become refined enough to seem exactly like a pretty disengaged or disenchanted user, or someone not confident in what they’re doing. It’s led to some awkward moments when I suddenly send “BOT CHECK”
If that happend, it triggered me so hard. Its like the insanest thing ever. Why are you even on bumble then.
Why are you expecting conversations to be otherworldly?
How many conversations in real life with people you like start with something akin to “hey”? I’m gunna bet most but I suppose I could be wrong.
From what I saw, it wasn’t just “hey”. Hey was the yellow flag.
It was all the one word responses. To everything. It was the job of the guy to be entertaining on the app to barely any response.
That takes its toll on men, especially when there were women who used it as a source of free entertainment.
Taut*
This was eloquently written and I enjoyed reading your insights. I found your closing metaphor particularly apt!
Humans simply are not wired for social media and the Internet. Seeing every single person you know posting themselves beautiful and dressed up doing the coolest things 24/7 will make anyone feel ugly and like they aren’t doing anything with their lives. It takes real focused effort to remember that people (generally) only post when they are doing something special and what you don’t see are the days or weeks between posts that show they live the same boring life you live.
I’ve never seen a friend post on social media about something and then felt sad. I’ve instead thought “That looks awesome! Good for them! I can’t wait to do something like that too, I’m inspired!”
I think when we lost in person social gatherings as the primary method of meeting new people
This is something only chronically online people say. Most people form almost all of their relationships offline. This is still extremely true of platonic relationships. Online dating has increased in popularity, but mostly this is among people with niche tastes or in remote locations, where finding a match is more difficult due to the rarity of finding potential partners in real life. Tons of people still date primarily via their social circle or community gatherings, and most people use a mix of all their options.
This is something only chronically online people say. Most people form almost all of their relationships offline. This is still extremely true of platonic relationships.
Where are you meeting these people, magic real life wizard?
Of the 5 I currently have in my roster, 2 came from online, 2 were friends of friends, 1 I introduced myself to at a rock climbing crag.
I also seek out partners at my job, at the climbing gym, at various meetups like for acroyoga or fire spinning or pickup ultimate Frisbee, at social bars or concerts or festivals, or just when I’m walking around in the park near my house. Importantly, I’m not just going up to every attractive woman I see and saying “nice tits, wanna bang?” - even though this is my truth in my heart of hearts. Instead what I do is show up, have fun, meet people, joke around, and just be a normal person. But then if someone is cute, I’ll do a little eyebrow wiggle or some shit during a break in the conversation, and if she eyebrow wiggles back, I escalate - like by tickling the back of her elbow or telling her that she’s, like, literally the worst why am I even talking to her. And then at the end of the night I say “hey, I think you’re cute - wanna hang out alone sometime and maybe do some smoochin’?” And then she says yes or no, I give her a high five either way, and I’m on my merry way.
Edit: I’ll point out that the number of partners I have from online is mostly because I have a good profile, so getting matches is pretty easy for me. Most people don’t have as high of a sex drive as me, and so won’t want to put in the effort. Going through social networks (real life social networks) or social hobbies is far more likely to net you compatible partners, since the choices you make in these arenas are likely to attract people with similar values and dispositions.
Given who runs “online”, that’s kind of worrying.
who runs
With these knees? I’m known to promenade gingerly online.
Dating is hard for everyone in one way or another, and, speaking as one, several ways for those who look pretty dead average but have trouble socializing and really only go between home and work. I don’t even feel like I’m that picky; no cigarettes, no kids, yes empathy, and a complementary flavor of weird/neurodivergence.
It’s hard for weirdos to find other weirdos because all weirdos have some level of social anxiety. Ask me how I know.
How do you know?
I would, but you’d be too anxious to respond! (yes whoosh, I get it)
Make a lemmy community for dating.
I wouldn’t want to meet other Lemmy users in person, let alone date them.
Being a Lemmy person isn’t a great point of connection but it would be nice to see how they interact with other users in other Lemmy communities.
l mean, yea, weird, but not that weird.
Pokemon Go will probably net you 2 of those at least.
Your weirdo will appear.
Survivorship bias.
:(
I am putting it out there for him. It’s all circumstance and luck.
I read this first as “it’s all circumcision and luck”. lmao
Free circumcison for the first guy to date! 🥳
Sounds like the basis for a musical number.
Sometimes the no kids thing, can be a huge red flag, a lot of the incel / women hating types put no kids. There’s a lot of them out there and they’re really extreme, you might be limiting your dating pool by wanting someone who doesn’t have kids but then if you’re into never having kids, that’s a different thing, entirely.
first thing I tell my gf’s is I dont is don’t want kids. one was of agreement and now we have been together 10 years and got all sorts of money to spend to travel and pursue expensive dreams. Plus what if I had a ugly child I’d have to hug it? (just kidding)
It’s not necessarily a billboard I put up stating that I don’t want kids. I made the decision long ago, partially based on my upbringing and now the current world situation, to never have children, so I checked the boxes saying I don’t have, and don’t want, children. That’s it.
I never wanted to have kids, so that makes me an incel? We’ve lost the plot here, that’s fucking crazy, only women are allowed to be childfree now? And also I have heard if a guy likes children it’s also a red flag? So I’m either a child molester or an incel? I’ll take incel I guess, interesting “would you rather.”
I think you might just be wrong on this one, it’s entirely possible that men too don’t feel like bringing a kid into *gestures vaguely at everything.*
I saw a girl on tiktok say something similar about how after a shit day at work she will look at hinge and be even further upset about the people who have liked her on hinge, as though this is all she deserves in life.
It sounds extremely depressing out there these days.
That sounds very entitled of her. She can choose whom to like back. And if she isn’t happy with the options she has, she can go swipe on her own.
Let’s be honest, most men that use dating apps are those looking for hookups. So if you’re a woman looking for tge same then go ahead but you’re not gonna find a long term partner there unless if you’re one of the lucky few
I don’t know a lot of people that use dating apps but in my anecdotal experience all the male friends I know that use them are actually looking for a good long-term relationship. But you’re probably right that they are a minority.
None of the men I know that are using the apps are looking for hookups. There are many such men, but there are lots of people looking for other stuff as well.
most men then
What do you possibly base this on, the idea that men only care about sex and can’t want relationships?
i never said any of that
Didn’t answer what you’re basing it on though.
if you use these apps as a woman you’d know
Same with my male friends. I also met my wife on an app. This might be more of a you experience thing.
Same with my guy friends as well. I met my wife on a dating app, and a couple of my friends did as well.
I also met my wife on an app.
ok so you’re one of those lucky few
In my 50s and I don’t bother anymore. It’s just not worth the hassle. In my 30s I would have had to send out 100 messages to get 1 date. It’s so much worse in my 50s.
If I ended up single again at my age, I don’t think I would try again. Not due to difficulty, but just apathy. Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt. I’m my own human now, doing my own stuff.
It would definitely suck to be single again, and I’d mourn what I lost, but there’s more to life
Yeah same. For one thing the odds - what am I, Roy Sullivan? - but real talk, I only had lightning strike that time by not dating, having a multi-year dry spell in my twenties, and only pursuing someone I knew was special and spending ages talking to them. If that’s going to ever happen again, it won’t be because I forced anything.
wow, that’s a relevant user name if ever saw one lmao.
keep going, i heard hospice dates are going up in the last few years /s
I’m just in my 40s and single. Everyone I’d be in to is shacked up or dead at this point.
I’m always surprised to hear people unimpressed with others on dating apps. A couple of my friends have shared their “feeds” and I was struck by how many good-looking people are out there. But they would swipe away from just the smallest turn-offs becoming deal breakers. Like if I saw these people in real life, I would think of them as average looking at worst, many being remarkably attractive. This is in the 20s to mid 30s range like the tweet. I definitely understand deciding you’re incompatible based on politics or religion or culture but most of the time it would be for minor quirks. It felt like they were spoiled for choice in my eyes.
But then again, they’re in serious long term relationships with conventionally attractive and supportive partners now so maybe being picky pays off. At the time, their reluctance to settle was a very frustrating experience for them.
There’s definitely a lot of people who overestimate what they bring to a relationship, and I think women are more prone to it than men because they’re typically the ones being pursued.
Reluctant to settle, spoiled for choice, great ways of describing the situation.
the apparently-bottomless firehose of faces that makes you desensitized, the anonymous dismissal of them makes you callous.
The apps are just another dopamine slot machine, so the companies don’t care and in fact would rather keep people in their app.
‘Look at all these people that think I’m pretty, who I could have if I wanted to.’’
It’s the mirror from Snow White, but it lies better the more you pay it, the more time you spend staring at it.
Skinner box.
Wire the rat up to stimulate its pleasure receptors if it pushes button.
Rat will push button untill it dies of dehydration.
Yeah, if you actually find someone app usage will drop for at least some people, maybe even most people. The more exclusive some/many folks are the less they’ll open the app. Up to finding someone(s) that fully satisfy them for at least a while, and for that while that user may even be completely off the app. Maybe they even delete it. Certainly they won’t compulsively be using it the same way they are when they are trying to connect.
For many (not all) users, successfully finding connections is detrimental to engagement, advertising, active user stats, etc. The incentives for the company are not geared towards helping users connect, and are geared towards always having users continually trying to connect.
Any dating app that was any good at its stated aim wouldn’t be able to make enough money to survive.
By definition dating apps don’t want you to meet a partner, they want you addicted to swiping and tapping and almost finding a partner. If you hook up a few times along the way then that’s just a secondary benefit and keeps that carrot dangling in front of you.
Apps will selectively group more attractive people together to increase the like/dislike ratio. So YMMV depending on whether you’re currently in the attractive group or not.
This reminds me of the conversation I had with my co workers the other day. They basically warned don’t do to your 10th/15th year class reunion, especially if you’re in a relationship. All the girls who were used to constantly being in demand suddenly… aren’t. And they’re HORNY. And not in a very good way. In a very sad/depressing way.
Hey, can I come to your reunion?
Asking for a friend
I’m gonna tell you a secret, but you can’t share it ok?
X year reunions happen every year. Kids graduate every year.
Are you’re kidding, that’s the best time to go. Make them regret their choices, both then and now.
I don’t really see the point in them anyway, why would I care about a dick measuring contest between people I no longer know
Somehow I feel like this is wishful thinking.
Wishful thinking? It was a warning.
All the girls who were used to constantly being in demand suddenly… aren’t. And they’re HORNY. And not in a very good way. In a very sad/depressing way.
Had a friend who joked that if anyone questioned whether she was still hot, they only had to count the rings.
But to do that you’d have to cut her in half
When woman say, that men are poor quality commodities it’s funny you see?
🙄 I think you’ll be okay
This post is pointing out that few men want to date ‘older’ women while men of all ages want to date younger women.
It’s wild how discussing age and gender inequality in dating is considered misandry.
I thought it was a “all the good ones are taken” post
So on sites like these, the primary context inside of a specific thread is the thread itself, the secondary context is the post. Hope that helps.
I think its fair to say, myself included, many women want to date older men, not 20 years older, but at least a few. For me it was like 1-4 years older is good for me.
Honestly when dating, I found better results not worrying so much about age, but rather where their standing was within siblings and family.
As in, I am the eldest child, and my best relationships are with other eldest (or only) children. When I would date the youngest of a family, the dynamic was so different, and I could tell he was babied by his mom growing up, I unconsciously had less respect for him. I broke up with him when I realized it consciously. He ended up marrying a nice girl years later, I learned she’s also the youngest in her family, they match.
I’m being so unserious, and I’ve had relationships not work out with other eldest sibling people, but it’s something I noticed when I was dating. I married an eldest child, and we’re peas in a fucking pod. It probably has something to do with they way our world view forms growing up in our familial hierarchy.
I want to date older women. 🤷♂️
Married an “older” woman.
I’m a man and I need a bro to explain me
why are men attracted to younger women?
I’m interested in women my age ± like 5 years ish.
when I was a teen I was into teens, in my 20s I was into girls in their 20s…
the idea of dating a 20 years old as a 36 year old man seems gross and annoying.
Because they don’t want to date (i. e. have some kind of personal engagement), they want to play nut and bolt.
Nut and bolt? That the new Ratchet and Clank?
i get that, I also want hook-ups, but I don’t see the attraction of someone 18 years younger than me.
I mean, people in their 20s are incredibly un-chill and very not sure who they are. Dating someone like that sounds kinda awful.
I am on your team with this.
So many mid responses to this question, so here is the actual answer.
Men are raised to be more overtly sexual and have the most income (yes yes… my culture, my country, not worldwide, stfu we all know…) , because of this advertising has been focused on men while bombarding us with their image of perfect feminine beauty (which tends to be youthful qualities) to get us to focus on their products, seeing this your entire life you adopt that framework of what beauty is.
Ultimately though its because the majority of the world are NPC’s following a script.
Purely physically speaking, pretty much everyone gets less attractive as they get older.
There is, of course, a maturity gap, which is a whole different problem.
I may not want kids but I still want to be called daddy
🤮
Apart from obvious attractiveness in younger adults, I’d probably chalk it up to societal norms (and maybe there’s an evolutionary component to it as well) for males’ perceived value on being the bread winner.
So dating younger is how you ensure they are dependent on you, and thus fulfill your purpose as a man.
even more gross
dating younger women to take advantage of dependence.
There’s absolutely a ton of men out there who are looking to trap a young woman into marriage. I’d say that’s the biggest risk of an big age gap relationship for a woman.
i feel like if pedophilia was legal those men would go after children
feminism! /s
Welp seeing as how garbage dating apps are due to being optimized to keep you using them instead of actually finding a longterm partner, and all being owned by about 2 or 3 different holding companies…
Might as well shoot my shot here:
36 m, opinionated autist seeking female autist within … i dunno, +/- 5 my age.
(trans fem ok, ambi gender ok, just please don’t be a fully advanced, PHD level bedroom = pigsty goblin)
For more details, see my comment history.
Brave that you’re using your Lemmy profile for your dating profile and that you’re willing to tie those comments to who who actually are in the real world.
If you can figure out who I am based on my Lemmy profile, I’ll be extremely impressed.
Yep, even giving out as much personal info as I have in my comment history.
I do not exist on any other social media sites.
Pretty sure I’ve never uploaded an image to lemmy that has any useful exif data, just download and repost memes.
I would also be impressed if even a mod or admin could geolocate me based on IP to an accuracy of better than a 100 mile radius.
Were I to theoretically find someone who wanted to move beyond messaging on lemmy… we’d be moving to signal.
Not saying its impossible, just saying I’d be impressed.
Okay MacGoober, my point was if you ever did meet anyone as a result of your post here, you’d be tying your profile to who you are IRL.
Only if the person I met decided to basically dox me.
But hey, that’s how trust works in a relationship, eh?
Gotta take that chance.
… I guess this all serves as a neat little illustration of how much I value privacy, haha.
I’d very much prefer someone similar, who isn’t attention/validation seeking on social media all the time, isn’t an ‘influencer’… isn’t really any kind of a public figure.
I’ve had too much drama in my life already thus far, and would ideally like someone who is also rather private and discreet.
Right? I’m using my real name for my BlueSky account and I end up having to delete almost every comment I make for the same reason. It’s a little paralyzing to have yourself on display like that.
It’s strange to admit that now, because I went to college in 2004 when Facebook was just getting big and literally everyone was on it. I miss those days. It’s hard to believe now with what an absolute shit show it has become, but early Facebook was wonderful. It genuinely made it easier to have a social life.
Early Facebook was cool, and then all our parents joined.
I nuked mine… a decade ago? Around when the Cambridge Analytica story broke.
Millennial here. Have recently dabbled with the apps. Honestly the guys I was shown were not objectively bad looking. Many of them were pretty attractive. But not my type at all. My interests were books and video games and nerdy sweetness…and it kept recommending me muscle gym divorced military dads. So I gave up.
What kind of nerd stuff? You like Pokemon? 3D printers? D&D?
After the third/fourth gen of Pokémon I kinda lost interest. Whenever it was they started being jet skis.
Add tower defense and sim games to the list though. DnD based games, although I’ve played tabletop from time to time, just too much of an introvert to join a random group.
Anyways, when you’re swiping in my age range there aren’t a lot of folks with these interests in my area. Maybe I’m too old and get shown whatever.
Let’s see, I’m in an entire server where people your age are playing pokemon tabletop. Ok, it’s not even funny anymore. I wanted to make a joke about how I’m single and into those things, but it really is like that.
I’d be interested in the server. Why are you making the joke? It’s okay to be single.
I think a lot of nerdy people need to just start going outside and doing stuff. Like, if you enjoy DND roll up to the local hobby store and start hanging out, even if you arent playing.
None of this is targeted directly at you, just as good a spot as any to rant… lol
I think more people would be surprised that the horror stories are the minority. At my local game story I go to a painting night once a month mostly to hang out and chat. There are a pretty even split of women/men.
Point is I think this a safe spot to make friends and making friends is the only way to get into a relationship you’ll actually enjoy.
I met my girlfriend doing Star wars rp. My friend met his girl playing magic l. All my single friends have something in common. They don’t make time for their hobbies and don’t hang out with like minded people in that space.
Just a side note I’m not saying that everyone should go harass people at their FLGS or use it as a dating service, but rather, going out and hanging out with like minded people opens up a lot of options that aren’t on dating apps.
I’m pretty introverted too but when people are into whatever my hyper focus is it’s much easier to open up. Go out there! Be uncomfortable! Not a cure all but it’s something.
Most likely, this is because the nerds who know how to present themselves have already gotten nabbed by some girl. Nerds who are unable to present themselves well are relegated to the bottom of the pile, since nearly all women will swipe left on them. Jacked, divorced military dads are at least jacked, which is something many women find appealing, so they end up higher on the stack.
Yeah, I think you make a great point here. Most of my gamer friends are couples with children. Unfortunately, I have no interest in jacked dudes at all, but I think most people probably do lean into that on dating sites. I figure at this point and age if I meet someone, great. If not, I’ll be fine.
I don’t blame you. The algorithm is gonna force you to look at what people your demographic like despite whatever input you give it. At least it seems this way with how algorithms in general seem to work on social media. The amount of dick pill ads I get is way to high.
Isn’t society like that in general?
Yeah at first it is. The algorithm learns about you over time and it gets a little better with regular use. It still has a bit of a blind spot around nerd/geek culture.
Literally fuck algorithms. Anything that has one is dead to me, if at all possible.
Yes, they literally are fuck algorithms. 🤣
Not a fan of how corporations make them work myself but understanding a little about them can make things like this a little less frustrating.
I would argue that the existence of an algorithm isn’t inherently evil, they just ruin things when they’re designed to maximize profit.
Is it really in the apps interest to find your perfect partner or just ones that bring you back to the app again and again?
I’m not convinced they’re looking out for your best interests.
It may be more profitable to have regular success stories getting churned. The algo looks out for the best interests of the company’s profit. Sometimes things line up.
I wondered about that too. I certainly didn’t see any profiles to match my interests. I wondered if “my type” just didn’t use the apps at all.
It’s all conjecture. I suspect the algorithm puts it towards the bottom of the stack because there’s more money in casting a conventional net.
Looking forward to getting back on dating apps at 38
Look, I did it at 47. Take the time to make a good profile, ask for help on pics and be an authentic you. It’s a mess out there, for those that never try.
ask for help on pics
I would like to second this point, especially if you’re not practiced at taking selfies. I’ve seen some fine looking men IRL whose profile pictures looked like potato.
It doesn’t have to be this way. People like to help, and most would be happy to see you meet someone special. Might as well ask.
I may or may not be one of these people that suck at selfies. But damn if my profile pics weren’t top amateur talent from my sister. I may not have had dating life partner success(yet), but I’ve had a good number of dates that went some distance.
I repeat for those not listening: Effort pays off.
Thirded. People like to think that their match will be deep enough to look past something superficial like a bad photo, but that’s not how most of us work. People see a decent photo and then check the rest.
You don’t have to be a model or movie star. Good lighting. Clothes that fit. A background that’s not, like, a dingy bathroom or your car.
If they aren’t divorced they are probably crazy.
Target the divorced MILFs. That’s your best bet. This also applies if you’re a cis-het woman.
I ended up marrying a girl 17 years younger than me 🤷♂️
17 years younger than me is 23, I cannot image that amount of energy.
I have serious questions about a 23-year-old that wanted anything to do with me.
They have questions too. Like what level of life insurance do you have? Are beneficiaries easy to add? And what kind of food is your favorite?
When you’re 21 and he’s 30+, the sex is the best you’ll ever have.
Maybe for you . …
A few months back there was some post about female inmates looking for pen pals. I remember one profile describing herself as submissive and looking for a daddy. I did some research and saw she was in the slammer for diddling with a 12 year old girl. Not sure if that leaves many questions open.
You can do it!
