HOW DATING NOW WORKS IN THE MODERN WORLD

Here is what millions of people said about their experience with on-line dating:

I mean a Six is handsome if we’re using the scale properly, no? Imo, a 7 is good looking, an 8 is hot, a 9 is a unicorn and probably should be a model, and a 10 is a model which makes everyone, to include the same sex, stupid and mesmerized when around them.

I once read dating apps described as dangling attractive women in front of desperate men like raw meat, with the intent of getting the men to buy features off the app to improve their chances. If you aren't an attractive woman or a man spending money, the app doesn't care that you exist. It's truly dehumanizing to all parties.

These apps are just cesspools of unrealistic expectations.

Those apps are also just a losing game

People who are ready for a relationship won’t stay long, so it will slowly fill up with people who are not relationship material

So just statistically speaking, the people you find on these apps are most likely not something you’re looking for long term

Dating apps are digital bars in purgatory. Women get free drinks(attention), and guys lose money and self-esteem.

if it wouldnt be fake. the first thing she would notice. how most dating apps are basically using the women for advertisement. and the men to pay for their app.

you sign up as a woman: free access to every function mostly. you are getting served matches on a silver platter basically. and the first 14 guys that pay for vip access write you before you have uploaded a picture.

as a guy: you get a limited amount of swipes. messages, sometimes have to pay to write first. cant see likes. sometimes even matches. ads everywhere, and after 2 weeks of swiping you have 3 matches, 2 only fans ad accounts. and the third is a guy from Mumbai on a fake account

No idea how people afford dating apps.

Made a profile, got some likes and messages and it wanted $20 a week just to see them I un-installed that shit immediately I'm not gonna pay money to take a chance to be told no lmao

They're systematically designed to make men feel low about themselves as they have to pay for everything while women get unlimited free access.

Want something even more difficult? Dating those women. I cant stand it, impressive how they are so full of themselves. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to live with these women. Ive been there, but she was older and another generation. Good luck to the young men. Im on my 30s and its been 4 years that i don't date anymore.

Can't believe I had to scroll past 9,000 "wOmEn aRe tHe DeViL" posts to find this. This is the actual problem. Dating apps are very different from real social interaction, and they have a financial incentive to keeping you on the app. They also just allow for all kinds of delusional expectations, and allow people to filter by "standards" that nobody uses in real life, because there's no way IRL to just make sure that every man you encounter is at least 6' or whatever.

Dating people IRL you will find that you're attracted to/into all sorts of people and things that might violate your theoretical "standards," but in an app, you can filter all of these people out.

And to be clear it's not just a "women" thing. Grindr and most of the other gay "dating" apps are a nightmare too. Not in the same way (it's very easy to get matches) but in that they create an absurd and demeaning sort of culture that makes everyone feel bad about themselves and that doesn't exist IRL.

Women now want every guy to be so rich that he can end their financial suffering and take care of them forever, while they are free to take half of what he owns and jump on another dick when they feel like it.

Yea it's not uncommon to try dating apps for MONTHS without getting a date, ghosted constantly or just not even responded to at all. The ironic thing is that in person things might go way better but i think having infinite options online gives a paradox of choice dilemma where people feel like never committing when so many more options. I think this problem is part of the reason, besides capitalist alienation, why young men are so vulnerable to the appeal of right wing authoritarianism - many authoritarian movements throughout history being driven by similar dynamics of lonely young men

These dating apps are designed to make the company money, not to find you a relationship.

If you win the game you're no longer going to be playing the game. These companies know that so the apps are designed in a way to keep you single and desperate.

And that's why I got the fuck off dating apps.

You're swiping based on limited knowledge of a person. You have what.... 250 word limit to try to understand who they are and then 8 pictures of them? And those pictures matter to women... A lot!

So many women's profile:

Gym pic: you must be an asshole swipe left.

Fishing/hunting: you're a fucking murderer, swipe left

Shirt off: Asshole and too into themselves. Swipe left.

Tinder, Bumble, Boo... I've tried them all and many of the women on there are sooooooo superficial. If you don't meet some super specific criteria, swipe left.

It's also a double standard because almost every woman has gym pics, bikini pics, and shots of their ass or tits... Yet I'm happy I lost 45lbs and took a gym selfie and I'M the asshole.

So glad I'm married now. I urge everyone to get off those apps and go meet real people.

The root cause is social media. Everyone wants something better because comparison is the theft of joy. Combine that with the competitive nature of modern dating, and you will never find a relationship.

As a man, the dating apps are a waste of time, even as a conventionally attractive, successful man. This is because being single and being in a similar age range are bad criteria for dating someone.

Dating apps were the best between the years 2012-2017 they started to decline when Match Group bought okcupid and tinder and completely reworked the algorithms to make it harder to match people and added micro transactions.

Everyone is expecting that their partner is going to be a smoking hot model who makes six figures and has zero problems. I dont know if its social media or movies or what but that is delusional. Most people are average looking, make an average salary and have lots of problems. Once this is finally understood, dating will be much easier

For me it was the blatant rudeness these women would NEVER exhibit in real life. I'd make a joke and after days of no response get "Was that meant to be funny?" I'd match with a woman who wouldn't respond and then hit me up with somd mean stuff about why she's not interested. It made me feel like women were doing this as a power game with no intention of dating. So, so grateful not to be in the dating pool anymore.

This is the princess fallacy. When you're told you're special from childhood and society doesn't contradict it through those early years, plus movies reinforcing it, adding in boys doing literally anything to impress girls... Well, you get this mess. It happens to boys too, although mostly white ones. Boys that are told they're special and not raised to accept the consequences of their own actions generally grow up to be raging narcissists and/or incels. ♂️ It's a very complex problem and I'm quite sure this is a gross oversimplification but you get my gist. American society in general just sucks. Note: I'm American.

On a serious note, I’m a decently attractive single woman. Every time I try the apps I am bombarded so quickly that I feel too overwhelmed to continue, then I delete it. There’s so many “hey! Look at me!!!” from every direction, and if I don’t pay $40/month or whatever, I have to spend so much time sifting through like it’s a part-time job. It’s not worth it and is likely why most women (yes, even the “2s and 3s”) get fed up and ghost the app. It’s not that they think they’re better—they’re just overstimulated.

We've been saying this for at least a decade now and women never want to believe us. It's always our own fault. We must not be good enough, or doing something wrong.

But the reality is that the "80% of women go for the top 10% of men" thing isn't just a made up statistic.

I am so, so glad I'm not using dating apps today.

I used them semi-regularly in the late 90's (Match.com and similar), and then again in the early 2000's. I'm a solid 6-7, but in practice a small number of women consider me an 8-9, and most consider me a 4-5. But I never had trouble getting matches, making dates, and a surprising number of girls enthusiastically had sex within the first 1-3 dates. But back then, there wasn't any "swipe right" nonsense, and people would actually read profiles. So there was a bias for people who could actually write well, and who took the time to actually think about their profile. Now, the emphasis on photos and instant decisions feels like it's broken the process.

I'm a guy who presents well and, based on what I hear from others experiences, I get a lot more interest from women on the apps than most men do. I probably match with 3-4 women per week. And it's still wildly frustrating. The women demand to constantly be entertained. If every message doesn't have the exact right amount of playfulness, flirtiness, and tone, they'll stop responding. Respond too quickly and she'll get "the ick" and stop responding. Take too long to respond and she'll lose interest and move on to someone else. Some women want to go on a date right away while some want to chat for a couple weeks...and you have to try to guess which type of woman she is based on the two sentences most of them bother filling their bio out with. Is she someone I'd get along with? Well, one prompt says she's into "tacos and margs" and the other one is "two truths and a lie" and I have no idea which one is the lie. When I do end up going on a date, 4 out of 5 times she ends up being incredibly boring with nothing to say.

The top comments here are on-point; the dating apps are a cesspool where the few good ones get snatched up while the losers and non-serious candidates accumulate.

The dating scene is shit because it's all been transferred to apps where no one has to actually interact with anyone, they just treat it like they're trying to buy a car. But much more than that, the dating scene is shit because people are shit. Trying to find someone amidst a sea of fragile, hysterical narcissists, entitled children in adult bodies, would be soul-crushing.

Sad but unfortunately so freakin true! Being a dude on dating apps is a fucking minefield. Especially when you are one of a minority of dudes who actually want to find something lasting and not just fuck anything that moves…. You legit get tarred with the same brush as all the twats in an instant. Even when we write original opening messages for each different person we try to connect with. Yet somehow it’s always the messed up guys who always end up with the gals then they all bitch they just want a normal guy but they never give the normal guys a chance

I had an old friend I used to talk to all the time and at one point I was going through a dry spell of pretty much everything. Sex, dates, conversations, matches. I was talking to her about it and she said “it’s so easy though. Go to a bar and start talking to a girl. You’ll get her to come back to your place. You must be doing something wrong” and she blamed me. I didn’t get like really pissed but I was upset like you’re an attractive girl, it’s SOOOO different as an average male. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Her response was “nah you’re just doing it wrong”. Like girls really have no idea what it’s like on the other side. They’re drowning while we’re dying of thirst.

This is one of those things where game theory comes into play (which I'm not an expert at, so take this with a grain of salt).

Personally, I hate the whole "1-10" scale of judging people, but it works for this example so lets roll with it. Also, lets make the following assumptions:

Guys are trying to maximize matches with people at or above their number—compatibility happens later.

Women are maximizing matches that meet a broad all-around criteria—attractiveness plus overall fit—so they swipe more selectively.

Nobody really knows their own “score.” You infer it based on who’s swiping right on you.

Everyone has a cap on how many matches/chats they can reasonably maintain. As that fills up, selectivity increases.

Because you don’t know your score, every swipe and match is a signal. The "players" are constantly updating their self-perception based on feedback. That’s generally referred to as "asymmetric information".

Guys tend to adopt a "broadcast strategy": swipe on anyone who seems even remotely promising, hoping to hit your number. As a result they generate cheap signals. Everyone comes off as equally eager, which crowds the system and drowns out genuine interest.

Meanwhile, women are often playing a "screening" strategy, prioritizing quality over quantity. Their feed gets flooded, and to manage both time and mental load, they swipe more conservatively.

So what emerges is a strategic mismatch:

Men keep casting wider nets, both because it feels like the only way to maximize matches and because the feedback on match rate causes them to lower their self-perception of "value".

Women, overwhelmed by volume and low-effort signals, tighten filters more, reinforcing the need for men to swipe even more. They also, due to the signals they receive, raise their self-percepton of "value".

This feedback loop explains why the online dating landscape feels so skewed. Men get frustrated and chase more indiscriminately, women get overloaded and tighten their criteria to the "perfect match" and no one ends up finding what they're actually looking for.

Oh - it's also in a dating app's best interest to perpetuate rather than short circuit this cycle, because it keeps users using the app.

"What kind of delusion has entered women's heads?" -> the same kind that's entered a lot of men's. You get a lot of feedback as a woman, that's true, but 95% of it is absolute horseshit like - famously - death threats, invites for sex parties and kink, men thrice your age, and so on. I was 20 and there wasn't a week without a 50-60 year old asking to meet me or someone going apeshit over a polite no, threatening to shoot or rape me.

Dating as a woman is a vastly different experience than dating for men for sure, but it's hardly any more rewarding. I feel sorry for normal people having to deal with all this shit.

Today's generation of men is more afraid of being accused of harassment than they want to reach out to girls, girls have started using apps for easy sex and have lost track of how much expectations they have to have in order to have a relationship based on something self-declared in the profile and which could all be a lie. I think that people, out of laziness, transferred to the algorithm the emotional responsibility that was previously mandatory in the real world. They forgot that you only get to know people through the experience of being together. They accelerated contact, sex, socializing too much.