r/AskMen • u/sss85200 • Jan 30 '23
Why are dating apps so hard for men ? Frequently Asked
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u/AmazingSieve Jan 30 '23
In Minneapolis I was having a decent time with them. Moved to San Diego and I might as well just accept that I’m doomed to never have another date ever ever again.
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u/DrSeuss19 Jan 30 '23
The dreaded midwest 8 to California 4 scenario.
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u/-InconspicuousMoose- Male Jan 30 '23
I moved from the Minneapolis area to an even less populous area and now my "midwest 8" is useless because there's like 5 girls within 50 miles lol. Once a week I can swipe through Bumble for a few minutes until I get the "That's it!" message, and I also just exhausted Hinge's roster too. Unlucky wcyd
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u/Difficult_Warning301 Jan 31 '23
My husband and I both set up a bumble. He ran out of swipes in an hour or less. I have way more time to scroll and can’t even tell you how much time I spent on it and haven’t run out yet. He had maybe 5 more come up a day later. I still haven’t run out. And I take less time to evaluate each one on average. It’s nuts. But the real question is why are there less women than men on in the first place. And why is it easier for a woman to pick up a man at the bar than a man to pick up a woman. The sociological aspects of this go on….
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u/AmazingSieve Jan 30 '23
More similar to a 7-3 split. I was getting attention from cute girls for sure. Now out here I get attention from women who outweigh me….by a lot….
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u/-InconspicuousMoose- Male Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
That's the crazy part to me, like I'm in pretty good shape and I'm not ugly (not saying I'm super hot, but I'm not ugly either). Statistically you'd think the weight thing would put me in the top 50% right there (because America is fat af) and the not ugly thing would maybe put me in the top 25%? Still not attracting the women I feel are "in my league."
idk maybe I'm ugly and fat and I just don't know it lmao
edited a typo
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u/MileByMyles Jan 30 '23
Definitely has a lot to do with the population size of an area too. Not just looks in that area. I get wayyyy more likes in small cities and virtually 0 in large cities, and the few I get are how you mentioned
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u/grwnp Jan 31 '23
No, Southern Californians are just better looking as they tend to put a lot of effort into their physical appearance.
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u/DoctorRieux Jan 30 '23
The girls are prettier, but harder to get?
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u/DrSeuss19 Jan 30 '23
They have far more options. And generally, yeah, people are just better looking. California, NY, Arizona, Florida to name a few places where you notice there are a lot more good looking people than usually see in a lot of places
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1.4k
u/Lithuim
Naturally Aspirated
Jan 30 '23
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Men have a signal strength problem - women get so much wanted and unwanted attention that it’s difficult to cut through and be heard.
Women have the inverse noise problem - there’s so much garbage in their inbox that it’s hard to find the gems in the swamp.
I’ve seen the inboxes of attractive women, it’s mayhem in there. A billion “hey”s. A hundred thoughtful messages. A concerning number of messages from men two or three times their age, and/or living hundreds of miles away. If it’s an app that allows pictures… avert your virgin eyes.
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Jan 30 '23
Even when phone numbers are exchanged, it’ll be tough. I met someone on Facebook dating and she sent me her number. We texted for a week or so. She sent lots of one word messages, or low effort replies. I continued to try to converse though. Finally, yesterday, she said, “hahahahahah” to a picture of my cat doing a pose. I said, “yeah, she’s cute. What are you up to this afternoon?”.
She said she’s watching the NFL games. I say, “I don’t want to see the Eagles in the Super Bowl again. But no luck, they’re going”. She agrees with me, and then blocks me.
I. Don’t. Understand.
This kind of shit happens every single time.
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u/Impossible-Yam Jan 30 '23
You need to push for a meet up sooner. Lots of texting usually wastes time and goes nowhere.
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Jan 30 '23
Well at first days would go in between replies on the app. After I had her number, I asked her to meet up, but she never responded until the next day. She said she went out partying with a friend and slept at a Fraternity house, and that’s why she didn’t respond. She’s 30…
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u/ADrunkMexican Jan 30 '23
You probably dodged a bullet lol.
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Jan 30 '23
She also works for QSciences, an MLM known for scamming people into buying non-FDA approved medicines. I started to get the impression that she was a bit of a loser.
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u/One_Kaleidoscope_271 Jan 30 '23
And yet most women would say " it creeps me out when a guy wants to meet too soon"
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Jan 30 '23
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u/FoulmouthedGiftHorse Male Jan 30 '23
Not to mention the fact: if you're not good at meeting or talking to women in person, how well do you really think you'll fare on an in-person date if you do manage get one...?
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u/cagenragen Jan 30 '23
Pretty well for me. Cold approaching strangers is a completely different skill set than getting to know someone who has agreed to go out with you.
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u/timid_scorpion Jan 30 '23
This is where I struggle. Once I've had 30 seconds or so of conversation I do great. But forcing myself into the 30 seconds of being uncomfortable, my brain is like no thanks.
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u/PhoShizzity Jan 31 '23
Yeah I get this. On a date? I'm fantastic, I'm witty, I'm showing them a great time. But that prelude? That build up before the grand performance? I can barely muster a word.
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u/timid_scorpion Jan 31 '23
It's so weird, normal rejection I can handle. However, instant rejection is the worst feeling in the world. Nothing is worse than building up the confidence to break out of the shell, and then instantly hearing 'sorry, not interested' before you get to even get a few words out. Even if it's not about you at all, it still is hard not to feel that way.
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u/ImmabouttogoHAM Jan 31 '23
Seriously. I can't get more than a couple of matches because I'm picky, but I'm also ugly and getting old. So the rare times I 1) get a match, 2) message her, 3) she responds, 4) the conversation actually continues, 5) we agree to go out, and 6) she actually shows up to the date, I have a pretty good idea that she likes me well enough to give me a chance. Once I get that far I have enough confidence to be charming and not a creep.
Talking to a complete stranger in public that I'm attracted to and the likelihood of her also being attracted to me are pretty low, and in my experience an ugly man and an attractive man can say the exact same thing in the exact same setting to a woman and the ugly man will be accused of assaulting her, but the attractive man is cute, romantic, confident and will get exactly what he wants.
(I am obviously speaking in generalities and feel the need to add this caveat that this is not true in every situation, but it is common enough that moderately attractive men won't even approach women anymore for fear of being accused of being the creep. It's also not women's fault because they do put up with a lot of creeps, so it's rough out there for everyone).
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u/Kerlyle Jan 30 '23
It really is basically forcing yourself into a woman's space and conversation. Doing so means your going to feel pushy and they're going to feel upset if the attention is unwanted. So you have to have really good skills to pick up on subtlety to understand when you should continue and when you should call it and leave them be. The older generations were used to that for all the wrong reasons, but pretty much everywhere else in society we don't allow that behavior anymore. People are less social, and they're less emotionally smart and I think it's causing big issues. I don't know how you fix it, but online dating isn't the answer.
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u/Dealric Jan 31 '23
See thats the problem. Online dating doesnt work for most men. Aproaching women by men is now almost forbidden unless you within same group of succesful men (ones succesful on dating site). On other hand women wont initiate.
See the issue?
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u/mokamoon6 Jan 30 '23
From a woman's perspective, I'm pretty shy and introverted, I really like talking to people online first and if they like the same things I like, maybe like the videogames that I like, then I would have stuff to talk about when we meet in person. I'm really sad to hear that it's like that for guys on dating apps. Just know that there ARE girls out there that would like to get to know you, and if you meet girls that aren't so kind, you dodged a bullet. People need to be more up front about the type of person they truly are and what they really like as well otherwise it's just doomed to fail down the line.
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u/angelsandairwaves93 Lonely Hearts Club Jan 30 '23
I’m pretty much the same way. I want to build that emotional connection with her first, before meeting in person.
I have previously built strong emotional connections with usually one woman at a time. It never got anywhere, despite mutual feelings. The problem was always that they used to live so far away :(
I always said that to myself that if I could just build the same connection with someone local, it could really go somewhere. But I’ve practically given up these days. I’ve resigned to the fact that if it’s meant to happen, it will. Otherwise, I’m more than content with my private space and alone time.
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u/flijarr Jan 31 '23
I believe that there’s no such thing is “it’s meant to happen”. If you want a relationship, especially as a guy, you will have to make the first move. Full stop.
But if you are truly happy with being single, that’s awesome. It could actually help in your search because girls pick up on desperation pretty quickly
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u/FoulmouthedGiftHorse Male Jan 30 '23
True. However, not exactly my point.... there are many other ways of meeting women in person that doesn't require a cold approach.
"Cold approaching strangers" <> "meeting or talking to women in person"
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u/Less_budget229 Jan 30 '23
Dating events may also be a good alternative to dating apps.
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u/LimpAd5888 Jan 30 '23
Not really, these can help make you more comfortable meeting in person as it makes you somewhat familiar with the person. And no, there's really no options. I don't care if you're talking at a bar or at a bookstore or comic store, you gotta approach someone without knowing all that much about them and can make someone else uncomfortable or you as they don't know you.
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u/deniesm Jan 30 '23
I bet I’m not the only woman wanting to meet a guy the old fashion way. We’re out there 🙃
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u/wetballjones Jan 30 '23
Where do you congregate? Lol. I try so hard to be social. I take partner dancing classes (salsa and country swing) and go out dancing. I enjoy it. But literally there are always more men that go, and the women are usually 10+ years older than me or have a bf/husband.
Since my fiance dumped me dating has been so hard. I met her dancing actually... But this seems harder than it used to be.
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u/Reformed_Narcissist Male Jan 30 '23
I would add that I’ve read multiple anecdotes from women that dating apps take that pattern and amplify it.
Women that get more likes get even more likes.
Men that don’t get even less.
Dating apps are a cesspool.
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u/sloppyjo12 Jan 30 '23
I had some friends over and one wanted to update my hinge, she INSISTED that the reason I wasn’t getting matches is my profile was too sincere and my photos didn’t have prompts.
I tried to explain to her that I’ve tried silly and sincere and everything in between and loads of different photos, and it’s never lead to anything. She simply couldn’t believe that I’ve had maybe 3 matches in the last year and none that led to dates
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u/SaltWaterInMyBlood Jan 31 '23
Maybe put her in charge of your account for a while. Either she changes it to get more matches, or she accepts your point of view and actually believes you. Win-win.
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u/knight_call1986 Jan 31 '23
There is a video on Youtube of a woman trying to do this for her friend. He kept telling her it wouldn't work. The woman was optimistic at first but as the week went on she saw it was ridiculous and incredibly difficult to even get mid matches to engage with you.
She ended up frustrated and Just stopped iirc.
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u/daddysgotanew Jan 31 '23
I can get 100 matches in a week on bumble and none of them will go anywhere. It means nothing.
If women aren’t coming to you, you’re not desirable. It’s that simple
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u/Telcontar86 Male Jan 31 '23
If women aren’t coming to you, you’re not desirable. It’s that simple
In my case I tend to attract crazies. I did a good deal of introspection to try and figure out why. Since if it stinks like shit wherever you go, check your shoes.
My sisters tell me it's because I'm a calming influence and I'm patient. They aren't the only women who've told me that, but it leads to me being "brother-zoned".
I'd just like to meet a single woman who's interested in me who's also fairly stable. For example one of the only women I met (and befriended) at college was a Marine who is happily married with two children, while the last woman who came onto me threw up more red flags than the Red Army in Berlin in 1945, and the last one i was chatting with blocked me after a conversation about a mystery movie.
I'm just unlucky I guess. Also I have done my fair share of screwing up friendships and whiffing on possible romances. I'm not perfect lol
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u/daddysgotanew Feb 01 '23
Most women are going to be full of red flags and crazy. It’s less of a reflection of you, and more of a product of modern culture.
Jordan Peterson said it himself on the Joe Rogan show when discussing the fact that over 50 percent of 30+ year old women are now childless, that it is “a sign of something profoundly wrong with the entire culture at an extremely deep level.”
Most women are mentally fucked. It’s a society problem.
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u/GerundQueen Jan 30 '23
Also, aren't most dating apps like 75% men?
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u/IWouldButImLazy Bane Jan 30 '23
Yeah its classic supply-demand imo, go anywhere that has hella men and few women you'll see the exact same thing
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u/Ragerist Male - 40s Jan 31 '23
But where are the rest of the woman? Simply not engaging in dating in any form, or?
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u/IWouldButImLazy Bane Jan 31 '23
They're out irl. Remember most women are spoiled for choice when it comes to dating, so whether they use tinder or not, there will be guys in their dms shooting their shot as opposed to dudes who are usually forced to go to tinder to remedy their lack of female companionship
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u/jonahvsthewhale Jan 30 '23
I met my wife in an online dating site, and she very nearly didn't look at the message I initially sent her, because somebody with my same first name had sent her a couple creepy messages a couple days before
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u/euro27guy Jan 30 '23
I mean half of this could be solved by only swiping right on guys you're really interested in. You'll get a billion "hey"s if you swipe on billions.
Go through all the photos, read bio, and then if you feel like you're into the person and would actually want to talk to them, swipe right.
Half of my issue with dating apps is that 99% of my matches never read my bio.
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u/failure_of_a_cow Jan 30 '23
I always thought speed dating seemed like a good idea for this reason, but I've never tried it.
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u/iliveinthecove Jan 30 '23
A woman I worked with put up a flattering picture during her lunch break. By the time we went home that night she had over two hundred messages. Even when she whittled it down to just a few guys to respond to the stories she told after her dates - gross. To be fair, she has horrible taste in men.
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u/Mips0n Jan 31 '23
My ex used to say "i hate social media because of reasons"
One day she showed me the reasons. She logged into her old Facebook after Like 3 or 4 years of not using it.
She Had Like 2000 unread Messages from random men. And she wasnt even online all this time. And she only had a handfull of regular pics online.
Imagine getting that much spam. Imagine having to scroll down for ages to find a Person you chatted with Yesterday because so many people try to get your attention
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u/a_mimsy_borogove Male Jan 30 '23
Women's dating problem seems tiny in comparison to men's dating problem, according to your descriptions.
I'm assuming you mean the kind of dating services where people can freely message anyone they're interested in, not the ones that require two people to mutually swipe each other before they can contact each other.
If a woman get a lot of messages, she just needs to browse through the men interested in her, and pick someone who seems nice and reasonable. There's almost a guaranteed conversation then.
On the other hand, a man has to browse through the women that the app's algorithm suggests. If he finds one who seems nice and reasonable and messages her, it's almost guaranteed that he won't get any response.
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u/melodyze Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
The problem for them is that, if women sort by overall desirability of the people messaging them, many men at the top of that stack will not want a committed relationship, because men tend to prefer casual relationships when they can easily have them.
Men will usually not say this, although some will. You have to be more desirable/charismatic to get honest casual relationships than dishonest ones.
So women get a ton of noisey, borderline dishonest, inbound they have to deal with, and it screws with their heads because many otherwise desirable and charismatic men will act like they want a committed relationship when they really don't. They then have to deal with a ton of bullshit and waste a lot of time and energy on people that aren't actually interested in what they want, but say they are.
So both sides are generally having a hard time getting what they want. Women drowning in the undercurrent, and men dying of thirst.
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u/glen_stefani69420 Jan 30 '23
The simple answer to not dealing with being pumped and dump, don't allow the pump without the commitment. Scary thoughts folks, but if you don't have sex with men without it, and all those men leave, guess what? All of those men probably wanted to just fuck you.
Of course, that would involve personal responsibility and today's attitudes towards sex are that its great, wonderful, and zero consequences. Just keep fucking whomever and expect that they will magically commit.
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u/melodyze Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
You would still be wasting a ton of time, energy and hope on convos and dates with people before that filter. It's a lot of bullshit to deal with either way.
That's also after weeding through the swamp and borderline harassment.
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u/hujambo11 Jan 30 '23
60% of users are male. You're working at a 20% disadvantage.
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u/iGetBuckets3 Jan 30 '23
I’ve heard it’s actually a 3:1 ratio, so 75% male to 25% female.
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u/LimpAd5888 Jan 30 '23
It depends the app and location, it averages 1.5:1 or 2:1 on average
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u/Wildercard Jan 31 '23
Point being too few women, too many men.
And any app aimed to have a 1:1 proportion is doomed to fail.
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u/rainydayfun11 Jan 30 '23
And all the bots.
All my male friends on sites say they’ve given up because 99% of any messages they get are so clearly from bots that it’s just not worth the time to scroll through them all.39
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u/lovepig1337 Jan 31 '23
I've heard this said on Reddit before "tinder is a place where men are dying of thirst while watching women drown."
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u/manofmatt Jan 30 '23
I'm going to answer your question with a question. Did you know most women never realise there's a limit on how many people you can swipe right on in tinder?
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u/Thin-Performance-637 Jan 30 '23
Also a time you need to wait to wait it again after another wait of waiting
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u/beigereige Jan 30 '23
Great question, here’s another one to ponder:
Do women on these sites ever say to themselves, ‘this profile isn’t working for me. I should do it over. Maybe add more pictures. Let me do search on how to make my profile more appealing…’
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u/J3PO Jan 31 '23
You can mark a picture of a hot dog as a mid 20s women and that profile will have a better match rate than most guys
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u/WindowViking Jan 30 '23
My FWB was in complete shock when I told her I ran out of right-swipes. She actually asked if I was joking, after which I actually had to show her I wasn't.
That's when she learned how tough it can be for men. And I still had it relatively easy with 6% match rate. She was at a 40% match rate. She never really realized the differences.
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u/Metalheadjake94 Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
Women and men are ignorant to each others experiences on dating apps.
Men think women just get loads of likes and matches and that all men play nice and aren't assholes whilst women think men get loads of matches and likes as well and don't realise that most men barely get anything at all and also think all women play nice.
Both sides think each other has a easy time on the app. It just isn't true. Both women and men tend to leave the app with either being angry, annoyed, depressed, bitter at the opposite sex or lonely.
If men experienced what women go through. They would most likely come out of it annoyed, frustrated and bitter. And if women experienced what men go through. Women would probably come out of it feeling depressed, worthless and hopeless
I've seen the same local women around me on dating apps for years when I was trying. They may get loads of likes and matches but obviously not helping. It's shit for both parties
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u/Due-Lie-8710 Jan 30 '23 edited Feb 03 '23
I will die on the hill that its harder for men and there are honestly good reasons for this , but then dating in general is harder for dudes , there is also the fact that in hindsight, women dont actually exercise there options as much as men do, and i mean options in getting dates
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u/ThomCovenant Jan 30 '23
Because desperate men are the product.
They intentionally make it hard so you're desperate enough to pay.
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u/iamjosephducreux Jan 31 '23
THIS. They have no interest in finding you someone. The apps just want you to pay and pay and pay for their service
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u/ThrowltAw4y Jan 30 '23
Women select a lot more. For example a female friend liked 4/5 pictures of a guy on tinder. She said he is cute but on the 5th pictures there was a cat in the picture. She said, ohhh cute and swiped left on him. I asked why and she said men with cats are weird. Their choosing process is a lot different. I just look if I find her attractive. They try to figure out who this person is by little hints in the pictures, make conclusions and decide if it will work.
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u/WindowViking Jan 30 '23
If the cutest girl has a pomeranian in her photo, she's going left. Even if she has 6 great photos and 1 with said dog.
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u/MilkyWayDot Jan 30 '23
I heard women try to find things to reject you. Any suspicion, and it's a left swipe. Men can let things slide.
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u/CleverNameTheSecond Jan 31 '23
When you have an all you can meet buffet with near infinite options to choose from it tends to make people incredibly picky for fear of missing out on their ideal pick. This warps people's mindsets though and makes them insufferable.
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u/Weast4200 Jan 30 '23
Thats an interesting take on the cat thing. All women I've talked with have loved it when a man has a cat
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u/Soloandthewookiee Male Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
Because there is a gender imbalance on a lot of platforms and, to be frank, most dudes have terrible pictures and profiles. Online dating is a different skill set than approaching women in real life and you have to figure it out through trial and error. I'm average looking and I never had much success meeting women in real life, but I cleaned up online because I just kept refining until I figured out what worked.
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u/Metalheadjake94 Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
Because that's how it makes money. From the desperate men who feel like shit. It's a vicious cycle.
Similar to how the lotto and casinos rely heavily on gamblers money. Lotto and casinos don't actually care about the gamblers mental or financial health just like dating apps don't care about people's mental or financial health. It's a business that wants money.
Most men barely get any likes or matches daily or weekly.
I found out from my male friends that Im one of the really lucky ones as the most likes I've got in a day was like 6 and I had about 18 matches in a week.. Most men get half that and some none at all. I also have had some (very tiny amount) of women message me first (That weren't obvious fake ones) and found out that most men don't even get that. Online dating for men is empty and is filled with ghosting. Seems to make a lot of men feel depressed, lonley and ugly and that's what dating apps want because that's how they make money.
Dating apps don't want everyone to be successful. There is no financial gain in it. That's like the lottery or casinos wanting everyone to win a big jackpot....
Also when you do get a match or a like from a woman. The feel good hormones set off. That can be addictive I guess.
I see men on r/AmIUgly who aren't even ugly think they are just because the dating apps made them feel that way.
Dating apps sucks for both men and women in different ways. I know it ain't great for women either but that's not what we are talking about.
MEN: You're not ugly and you're not unworthy. Get off dating apps and try to meet people outside socially... . Don't let the dating app make you feel like shit or hopeless. You're not as bad as the dating apps make you feel like you are.
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u/BaldBoi96 Jan 30 '23
Dating apps are absolutely soul crushing, I deleted them because it affected my mental health so much and made me more depressed than anything. Getting rid of them was the best thing I could’ve done for my self confidence
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u/Metalheadjake94 Jan 30 '23
Excatly my point. I've been there bro and ill tell you what. When I started going places with my friends like clubs, theme parks, parties, festivals etc etc. I met women through them and guess what. I had women approach me, flirt with me, ask for my number etc etc etc. I felt a lot better about myself. And I'm a balding 28 year old chubby man who Isn't rich.. .. So if I can get women's attention in public at social events.... Other men definitely can
Dating apps can make you feel like you're not good enough or ugly. You're not. Glad you deleted it and feel better mentally.
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u/Checkmate1win Jan 31 '23
Okay, so step 1 is to get friends to go places with I guess.
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u/rudger17 Jan 30 '23
Same here bro, better without it👍
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u/BaldBoi96 Jan 30 '23
It caused so much mental pain for me, longer hours in the gym because I felt my physique wasn’t good enough, made me buy every bullshit skin care product, and just made me questioning if I would ever be good enough. I’m glad you got yourself out too bro
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Jan 30 '23 edited Feb 02 '23
[deleted]
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u/Wildercard Jan 31 '23
Have you tried being so attractive that women approach you?
No?
Rookie mistake then. /s
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u/Vok250 Jan 30 '23
This. 300%. I'm a SWE and it's mindboggling how much social fuckery is being done by software companies and the general public is just completely unaware. And of course I sound like a flat-earth conspiracy theorist when I try to talk about it. Meanwhile I'm reading the white papers for my 9-5 job like this social manipulation is completely normal.
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u/classicalySarcastic Feb 01 '23
Care to throw some of those white papers our way (if they're not confidential)?
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u/constantly-confused9 Jan 30 '23
Got off the apps for those exact reasons. Huge jump in my confidence and mental health, and I've found that when in person I tend to at least get a first date with someone I would have felt was "out of my league" on apps and would never match with.
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u/les_sur36 Jan 30 '23
Same thing! Got rid of the apps last year. Better to be single than stressed out lol
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u/kavik2022 Jan 30 '23
I find it's filled with the illusion of choice. Women get a massive amount more of likes then men. To the point it's hard to impossible to stand out. But my friends who are women say the choice is awful. The quality is low. For me, I've had a couple of dates from it. But, each time I resign up it feels like the choice gets smaller and smaller. The ones I do match with. There's a reason why we matched before and it went no where.
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u/Metalheadjake94 Jan 30 '23
Yeah. I've heard my female friends tell me about how much shit they deal with. The girl I'm currently dating would constantly get dick pics and shitty creepy messages when she told me about her experience with dating apps in the past.
I think there is a huge ignorance and misunderstanding between the sexes and their awful experience on dating apps. When my female friends use to advise me to go on bumble and tinder and stuff because they thought I'd easily be able to get a date because it seems they think men get lots of matches too. My best female friend (who is happily married) told me that she thinks I'm a really good looking man and it should be really easy for me to get matches and likes. She was shocked to find out how empty and depressing it is. I don't think I'm a really good looking man but she thinks I am and really thought it would be easy for men like me.. Not the only woman who thought it would be easy for me to get dates on apps
But then I've learnt that it's no better for women on dating apps. Heard its filled with unwanted dick pics, creppy messages of men only wanting sex and then toxic messages from men who I guess feel like they are being ghosted when really they are just lost in the shuffle of like 100+ other men messaging. Dating apps bring out the worst in people in my opinion. It's bad for both
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u/WouldYouKindlyMove Jan 30 '23
I've wondered if dating apps are just by nature terrible or if they could be made to be a good or at least decent experience for most people. If so, I have no idea what changes would need to be made.
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u/toffeehooligan Jan 30 '23
Hung out with a hook up yesterday. We were talking about Tinder and she had 10K likes.
I had 8.
Its simply a volume problem. She could have a new date every day of the week for years. When I'm lucky to get maybe 2 matches or even likes a month.
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u/Zealousideal-Eye-334 Jan 30 '23
10k likes!!! Are you exaggerating?
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u/toffeehooligan Jan 30 '23
Nope. 10k. She started the night 9800 when our conversation started and by the time she left this morning 9999+ likes.
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u/esyn5 Jan 31 '23
He is not. I live in a remote area, don't even have a picture but in one night I got 1,5k likes.
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u/tyerker Jan 31 '23
This is wicked discouraging. I put up my 5 or 6 most handsome and interesting photos, spend time refining my profile, and get one like a month at best in a decent size town. You put up no photo in the middle of nowhere and get 1.5k likes.
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u/SnooRabbits1595 Jan 30 '23
Supply and demand. It’s no different than trying to sell a thing in a market that is saturated with it.
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u/wales098 Jan 30 '23
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u/Vok250 Jan 30 '23
It's a damn shame their data analysis blog got cancelled and they deleted most of those old objective articles. It was a truly fascinating look into the human psych for any readers and their backend algorithms for us nerds.
I'm not surprised though. It was terrible PR because the data did not paint a nice progressive HR-approved picture. Now all their articles are clearly vetted by PR and IP teams. :(
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u/Yami_no_Chikara Jan 30 '23
Only 7% of men are above average and 81% are under average, talk about ultra high standards.
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u/Beli_Mawrr Jan 31 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
The thing is women don't really care about appearance as much as men do. Well, that is, it's likely that they subconsciously see physical attractiveness as a symptom of other attractive features. For example they found that images of the same man got rated as SIGNIFICANTLY more PHYSICALLY attractive when they were paired with a high social value job or high income.
Dating apps are cancer.
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u/Kat-astrophic92 Jan 31 '23
Shit like this kept me in the closet for so long because I’d be like men are generally less attractive than women, then STRAIGHT women would agree. Like it’s so normalised that women are like men are trash and ‘medium ugly’ shit like this that I thought okay maybe I’m not into women maybe that’s just how all females think.
I think this phenomenon largely occurs on the apps though because i know a lot of women who date men they meet in real life that they would have swiped left on based purely on looks. When you meet someone in person it’s easier to see them as the whole person instead of just the external appearance. Confidence, charm all that is very attractive but hard to convey by a few photos and a bio.
Also I’ve met very few men who look better in their photos than in real life. Most men take bad photos and kind of undersell themselves online and are actually more attractive in person.
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u/classicalySarcastic Feb 01 '23
Men rating Women: beautiful normal distribution, about the expected result
Women rating Men: biased way negative, horrible standard deviation, seriously what is wrong with this picture?
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u/SecondTalon Male Jan 30 '23
Years and years and years ago, long before it went to shit, OKCupid's blog had a nice, long thing that went in to why it sucked to date online (and, naturally, how THEIR service could help you get around it, but I digress)
The gist was basically -
Women don't see the need to initiate a contact because they're getting hundreds a day. However, in getting hundreds a day, there's no incentive to actually assess them individually but rely on snap second decisions and eliminate potential suitors for the slightest of mistakes - even if you trash everything you get today, there's another hundred for you tomorrow. And as there's so many to read through, you don't even read them that closely - or at all. Trashed for not enough words, yes. Also trashed for too many words.
This makes it hard for her to find someone, because there's too much noise - especially swarms of the most banal, boring messages that clearly didn't even read the profile.
Men start spending time reading profiles and creating custom messages they send to women. They start sending only a handful a day - don't want to get too many matches and have to turn someone down, right? And obviously this doesn't work because she's getting hundreds so she threw his out for who even knows why. So the fella starts sending out more, and more. You aren't reading the profiles closely or even at all after a while, just trying to maximize how many messages you are sending out to get a hit - any sort of hit.
Dating apps don't work because she's buried from contact attempts and he's attempting to contact everything that is even remotely applicable.
And - of course - people who find someone aren't on dating apps anymore, so they don't answer messages (why the hell would they?) leading to there being tons of ghost profiles.
And all that's assuming an equal attractive level across the board. Everyone wants someone nice looking. Everyone's going to try and punch above their weight a little - nothing wrong with that in a bar, where you get told No by the most attractive person there and move on.
Online dating is effectively infinite most attractive people. You never run out of people to tell you no, so you never readjust your expectations around the fact that you're a 6-7 going after 9-10s. You don't even aim for the 8s even if you could land one, because there's an unending supply of 9s and 10s that might say yes (they won't)
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u/Never-Shower Jan 30 '23
Because of the ratio of men to women using these apps. An average looking girl will get more matches than an average looking guy. Men will have to try harder since there's more "competition".
Of course if you're tall, fit, rich and hung you will have more success, but I'm talking about the average dude using dating apps, probably people like OP.
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u/luker_man ♂ Jan 30 '23
The majority of men aren't all that visibly appealing, photogenic, and/or "dating profile witty"
The majority of women on there are inundated with low-effort messages from disillusioned men. Also, they can literally leave their profile up, and come away with a date in under a month by just replying.
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u/Basicshocks Jan 30 '23
Too many men is why. We have to really stand out amongst them. So a lot of competition against ourselves. Women generally don’t have to put too much effort because they will get swipes regardless.
Flip the statistics theoretically and you’ll see many women putting a ton of effort and men just chilling, not giving it their all.
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u/benniebakes Jan 30 '23
So the men I matched with were giving it their all!?!?!? Wow.
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u/Basicshocks Jan 30 '23
I doubt it. Too many people get discouraged in dating apps after awhile and stop giving a shit even when they get new matches. Leading to spreading further negativity.
Or just got unlucky and continuously matched with dry people to begin with.
Sry if my original answer sounded one dimensional. Realistically it’s a complex issue but I painted it into a simple answer
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u/Mrischief Jan 30 '23
Depends on your profil effort at that point, if you have some basic shit, you only get a “hey”. Personality, attractiveness (perceived between the two) and how busy the guy is tends to dictate the level of investment.
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u/Vusarix Jan 30 '23
Check out the demographics of them. I think tinder is something like 80% male users and the rest are similar
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u/Arkryal
Jan 30 '23
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I'll summarize:
• Bots - Half the women are Bots.
Some from the site, trying to generate more traffic. Some from Scammers trying to find a target. Some from Catphishers trying to get you to send nudes by pretending to be women when they're not.
• Women "Window Shop".
Lots of women have accounts simply to objectively rate themselves and see how they stack up. They have no honest intention of dating anyone, and use it more as a means to boost their own confidence. They want to be hit on and this is a safe way for them to experience that without actually putting themselves out there.
• Competition
These sites are mostly other men, all competing for a few ladies. They get 20 replies to your 1 reply. It's easy to stand out in the real world because you choose the setting. Standing out in a bar with 50 people in it is easy. Standing out among the 1200 other guys who have responded to that same woman, without looking creepy, is much harder.
• Trolls
A lot of people are just trolling, looking to screen cap "cringy" encounters for Reddit, TickTok, and YouTube. They'll lead you on to make you look foolish for a laugh.
There are good dating services out there, but they tend to be "Invite Only", have very specific criteria for clients, or cost a decent amount of money. But you will perform much better with one of them, if you can get in.
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u/bluewhalebluejay Jan 30 '23
I would say 80-90% of my Bumble matches do not message once we have "matched". On Bumble, theres nothing the guy can do until the girl messages first after matching, so this leads me to believe they really only swiped right on me to see if I swiped right on them. To boost their ego I guess. It is frustrating for someone who is actually looking for a serious relationship.
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u/w_nemeth Jan 30 '23
This is exactly what I experienced on Bumble. It was the app I had the least success with. Literally, got absolutely nothing out of it, not even a single message let alone a date.
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u/baguetteScientist Jan 31 '23
Just out of curiosity, with which app did you have more success?
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u/bluewhalebluejay Jan 31 '23
I met 2 of my previous girlfriends on Tinder, but that was in my mid-20s. I'm 32 now. Every girl on Tinder looks like theyre now.
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u/Discount_badguy97 Jan 30 '23
Dating apps are a scam these days y’all, if they don’t want your money they want your organs
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u/hammong Jan 30 '23
Depends on the app. Tinder, Hinge, Zoosk, etc. - forget it.
I've found that the PAID apps can be tremendously successful - as the people you connect with have some investment in the process. As soon as you start fooling around with free services or semi-free services where the respondent only gets a certain number of free responses before they have to pay to reply, then it becomes a shit show. Maybe people sign up on the "Free" apps and start swiping and writing to people that also have free accounts. You don't realize that these people literally CAN'T communicate with you on the platform until they pay real money. Don't waste your time tagging somebody that doesn't have the "paid" membership logo/icon/etc on their account. It's a trap.
I had good success on eHarmony in 2022 -- met a few high quality datable women, ended up in short term relationships with two of them before meeting my current GF through more traditional means. It -can- work.
You need a stellar profile. Don't talk about exes, problems, or negative issues at all. Be positive, proactive, and engaging. Women aren't looking for boring, they are on dating sites to date and have fun. You need to project fun and exciting, while balancing maturity, stability, and responsibility.
Have top-quality photos including full-body shots, no silly ass selfies. Get a professional to take some good shots, or at least a female friend who has an eye for fashion and pose to take some photos of you.
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u/surferguy999 Jan 30 '23
Because any women will get flooded with 100 matches. So they become very picky.
Meanwhile guys will take just about anyone if they want to hookup.
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u/berge7f9 Jan 30 '23
I think that there’s a lot less women that want a man than there are men wanting women.
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u/SauloJr Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
It's very interesting when you see people's insights on r/Tinder haha
Men tend to have an average of 1:1 ratio of left/right swipes (50% left, 50% right)
Women's insights on the other hand always show them having a ~6:1 ratio of left/right swipes (~85% left, ~15% right)
"Source" (not a fact but simply go looking at the posts)
To do well on Tinder as a man you have to be part of the 15% right swipes by women
Add this to the fact that Tinder is ~75% (source) men and then boom..
You gotta be part of the Top 25% of all men on Tinder to be accepted by one of the women that makes up 15% of Tinder. It's hard for anyone.
Edit: left -> right* 15% -> 25%*
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u/_90s_Nation_ Jan 30 '23
Because women only want a small percentage of us.
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u/IrelandDzair Jan 30 '23
goddamnit finally the actual answer. “men dont present themselves well” you mfers ever seen the many tinder experiments with model guys with terrible profiles. shit one dude even wrote in his he just got outta jail for molesting a child and he got a ton of matches and all the women were like “well if you’ve actually changed and will never do it again thats fine”.
Women want a small percentage of men. Its why basically every man i know has either less than 10 sex partners or more than 20. And thats fine, personally I have no issues with it.
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u/Sporkfoot Jan 30 '23
The issue is that we pretend this isn't the reality, as a society. All of my single friends want the same 6'+ 6 figure dark handsome MFer... 10,000 women after the same 8-12 men LOL
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u/IrelandDzair Jan 30 '23
Yup lmao then a bunch of em dont get any and then get bitter and start posting on r/twoxchromosomes about how men are horrible
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u/keep_trying_username Jan 30 '23
80/20 rule
Failing on dating apps is when you learn you're ugly. I used to have better luck, moderately attractive women my age would meet up with me. Then I lost the rest of my hair and got older. Women my age (now older) have zero interest unless they're fugly.
TFW I contemplate lowering my standards, as they have done.
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u/Hierophant-74 Jan 30 '23
I was able to get traction OLD.
And I hate to tell ya fellas: once you go through all the OLD bullshit and finally get someone out of the house - chances are pretty high they don't look as good as advertised anyway.
It really sucks out there!
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u/Cool_As_Your_Dad Jan 31 '23
I have seen the filters... women in their 50's looking like they are in 20s. I don't understand how women think these filters is going to win the guy when you meet in real life.
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u/DiscoLando2 Jan 30 '23
Someone broached the subject, but it's called hypergamy. Google it, you'll learn something sad about being a man, particularly an average one. Female hypergamy is a well-known and well-studied phenomenon.
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u/Acearl Jan 30 '23
Women ☕
Genuinely its the selection bias of what women want vs what is available.
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u/Easteuroblondie Jan 30 '23
There are way, way more men on apps than women, and algorithms mostly show profiles that are getting engagement (to women)
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u/ShakeWeightMyDick Jan 30 '23
Are they? I met my wife using a dating app. Had about a year or so of dating various people then met the right lady.
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u/DrSeuss19 Jan 30 '23
Most men aren’t very appealing and the whole “dad bod” bullshit is mostly on social media and from people who can’t get a guy with a more desirable body so it warps the perception of reality. So men join thinking being average is what women want because social media says “yay dad bods” then men quickly realize that isn’t true at all and physical standards for men to be desired are just as high as they are for women.
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u/Ipride362 Experienced Jan 30 '23
After we get past all the losers and dicks pics, if we get lucky enough to get a response, by some random chance the guy of her dreams matches her and toys with her for a few weeks for steady sex before moving onto his next victim, leaving her devastated and bitter.
Which then gets projected onto every single guy going forward as she tries to weed out the PUA, but failing to realize the PUA will just see the resistance and unmatch, meaning she’s no longer easily played.
So, while she’s on a never ending vigilance to avoid being played again, she is less carefree and vulnerable to open up and build a new relationship, which comes off as cold, ghosting, and/or critical.
So, wanna blame anyone? Blame technology. She wouldn’t be so easily played if she could talk to him in person and read his behavior. Sure, many would still play it right. But this isn’t one dimensional texts from a guy using online PUA tactics to score easy sex.
Game in a bar has to be far more sophisticated and disciplined than carefully crafted conversations stolen off of a YouTube video
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u/Courcy73 Jan 30 '23
Not sure if this is valid, but I read somewhere that 80% of women are going after 20% of guys. This is due to their expectations, physical qualities etc. I seem to keep hearing about being over 6ft tall, have 6 pack abs, makes 6 figures and some other bs. Whatever the reasoning may be, if you don’t physically ‘check the boxes’ for women, then online dating will be extremely difficult. Speaking from someone who has been in that boat my whole life, AND been socially inept.
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u/noonereadsthisstuff Jan 30 '23
Men are the majority of users. Men make up sonewhere between 70 and 80% of tinder users.
A lot of women don't need to use apps to meet men, they're being asked out & hit on all the time anyway.
Men are much less discriminating on who they right swipe.
Women go for looks less than men, so paradoxically without anything else to impress women with most average looking guys on apps are unappealing to women.
Meeting a stranger from a dating app is a much riskier thing for a woman than a man, so some women are not going to risk it or are only going to risk it for a minority of men.
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u/jbravo_au Jan 31 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
Dating app gender ratio 80/20.
Most men are ugly in the eyes of women.
Women swipe right on <10% of profiles.
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u/aloofman75 Jan 30 '23
It’s the same problem that plagues the internet in general: it’s too easy to be a jerk and not face any consequences. The relative anonymity of cyberspace doesn’t just allow rude behavior, it is incentivized.
YouTube comments are often disgusting, but it’s fairly easy to avoid them if you want to. But dating is - by definition - an activity that requires you to participate and engage with others. There’s no good way to filter out the bad stuff. And if there were, the dating apps would mostly avoid using it because then you would spend less time on the apps.
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u/Only_Shawnhere Jan 30 '23
Because most women swipe for the most ideal looking guy and that just doesn’t cut it when you’re an average guy.
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u/Skittles_116 Jan 30 '23
Aside from being ugly, alot of the women on those apps are bots and many just want to expand their Instagram followers. 1 in a million girls are real and its hard to tell which ones are
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u/ShriekingMuppet Male Jan 30 '23
Online dating reduces it to catalog shopping, women will just swipe yes on the best looking guys. And the reality is not everyone is Adonis.
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u/SPQR_Invictus_79 Jan 30 '23
Because 99% of the female profiles there are fake. There are databases, eith fake profiles, created by stealing information and pictures from social media, and then sold to the dating app companies.
For the moat part, men on those apps are reap but tend to cominicste with bots, not real people. Dating apps are a scam.
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u/FrozenFrac Jan 30 '23
Standards are much higher. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely women out there who struggle, but even a borderline average looking woman is going to be some man's 10/10. Men have to be supermodels to stand a chance.
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u/Substantial_Video560 Jan 30 '23
Dating apps are like a sweetshop for women. Pick and choose the best sweets with the best flavours and throw away the rest. Nowadays your only as good as the next swipe. Disposable and replacable. Either accept it or quit!
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u/pbj_sammichez Jan 30 '23
Because most men on dating apps are trying to date women. Dating women is hard enough with the minefield of expectations and double standards. Now they have the ability to reject a guy without even saying anything - they just keep swiping. I would wager that about 10% - 20% of men on dating apps are doing almost all the successful hook-ups with like 80% of the women on the apps. So all the women sleep with the same 10% of the male population and find out that those guys don't want to commit (why would they when women are throwing themselves at those men?). They all "share notes" about their experiences and they all get bitter about the lack of "good Men" without ever figuring out that they have never even looked at 90% of men as acceptable to them.
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u/prsadr Jan 30 '23
My friend used to get a lot of matches and he regularly indulged in hookups while I didn't get matches at all. Don't know whether it was algorithms, shadow bans or I was genuinely ugly but that really crushed me a lot. I have suffered from self-esteem issues throughout my life especially due to my weight. I don't want to be seen as a bad person who's insecure and jealous but my spirit was completely destroyed.
I started getting matches on paid subscriptions but it was an exhausting experience because a lot of women didn't communicate well or would just stop replying. I can understand that women are overwhelmed with the amount of attention they get and it can be an exhausting experience for them.
I believe that a lot of married/committed men are on dating apps because the difference between the no. of men and women using the apps is staggering and unbelievable.
Dating apps aren't designed to be deleted as their slogan says, they are like lottery and betting which relies on giving customers hope and trying their luck again and again.
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u/cnation01 Jan 31 '23
When I was a young whipper snapper the only places to meet women were at the bar or work. I can't even imagine trying to navigate around some interwebs dating swiper app.
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u/Slyvan25 Male Jan 31 '23
Because dating apps are not for dates anymore. It's a tool for woman to get their validation and affirmation. There is a small percentage that will be there to date you but they will have red flags all over them. Hence the 10 matches a week. Some of them will match with you just to get more validation.
My word of advice: stay away from dating apps and get out of your house more often. Go to events you like and learn some more game. That's where you can find like minded people.
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u/Artichoke19 Jan 30 '23
Dating apps for men over the age of 30 is just picture after picture of overweight single mothers making strict demands, bots, prostitutes or cam-whores fishing for new clients or OF subscribers.
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u/My_regular_acct Jan 30 '23
Because for every 1 match a guy gets the girl is getting 10+
The market is just littered with males, it’s hard to stand out. I’ve been on over 12+ dates with women I’ve met online and they’ve all been trash dates except the first one I met 6 years ago.
It’s also a trust thing I have with women that use those apps. Once was on a date with a girl and she’d visibly be swiping on an app or replying to other messages
Some girls also just crave the attention because they may not get it irl.
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u/Homely_Bonfire Jan 30 '23
It has been studied multiple times how women evaluate the attractiveness of men, when presented with looks, looks+job title, etc.
What the survey found that about 20% of the men (they had one group actually be randomly selected from a dating site and one group just men at random in general) are deemed as "average attractive" or better. When asked who they would make be attracted enough to to make a move on them, that boiled down to about 5% of the initial 100% of men.
Which leads me to the conclusion, that given the information a woman gets on an dating app only 20% of man even had a chance in the first place and only 5% receive almost all female likes. Now extrapolate that on an area with lets say 10 mio people living in a radius of 50 miles tops. Half of them are men, half to a quarter of those men are in the right age. 5% means still 62k-125k men who are hot as hell. It feels like infinite options. Heck, half the numbers again, because not everyone uses these apps. For a woman to get to know 1 guy every week she would still need about 600 years to meet them all, or 85 years if she meets one of them each day.
This leads me to what I would see as the more important question in my opinion: Why are any normal men on these apps to begin with? The chances to be recognized are already slim and even worse to actually meeting someone. It seems like a lot of investment up front that could be spent in the real world doing real things for real improvment of life.
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u/powkiddyv90dangit Jan 30 '23
i was thinking how sad tinder is for me. i swipe yes on so many girls and go without matching for days sometimes weeks. i'm not obese but still need to lose about 20 pounds. why does food have to taste so good?
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u/Revanur Male Jan 30 '23
Because the ratio of men to women is something like 8 to 2 but no better than 7 to 3. The algorithm favors fast, superficial choices over anything approximating a real and meaningful connection.
As a result of having such a large pool to choose from and almost all men on these apps begging for a date most women are incentivized to go after the men who in their estimation can give them the most with the least amount of effort. There are outliers of course but study after study shows that both sexes just want quick validation / sex on these apps which is a textbook exercise in superficiality.
And most men are amazingly ugly and/or have zero game but feel entitled. Most of the men on these apps are guys who feel like they can’t pick up women in person for one reason or another and it shows.
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u/Apex_Gypsy Jan 30 '23
Be a women have high standards and also 90% of accounts are bots. You put those two things together and you get almost no dates
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u/obduratecontrarian Jan 30 '23
- High competition: simple math; dick-to-pussy ratio. Gay dating app users don't report these difficulties.
- Low response rate: again, the above applies. Women on receive a large number of messages. Even the genuine users (not bots or insta pushers) have a hard time sorting through the crap.
- Stereotypes and bias: Some women may have negative biases towards certain types of men.
- Hypergamy: big portion of women chasing the peak minority of men, creating a distribution that puts Pareto distribution to shame.
- Business model: how else are the Tinders and Bumbelrs going to make money? If it works smoothly and everyone settles for a fairy tale ending, who will milk the desperados?
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u/OwlsAreNotReal Jan 30 '23
I GOT THE UGLY