Swiping people left and right: the Tinder/hook-up culture discussion

tinder and all the swipey apps are a horrible hell that i have now experienced and can confirm the hellish nature of, and celebrate being free from

embargo on discussing my romantic affairs lifted today by sheer coincidence (as i met tt and we had a nice chat about it lol) - but i've now met someone on a really nerdy old-school dating site and it's all going well and maybe she can be my current love interest let's see. get off the swipey apps ilx

i think on average i hate more things about okcupid than tinder tbh

okcupid has become a swipey app, and a very very bad one yes

They're mostly owned by the same conglomerate anyway.

Dating services in general

The creepiest conglomerate is those people who run the porn sites, mindgeek.

There are some real dystopian corps out there

i was talking with somebody who’s on this thing and asked him how on earth he ever matches with anybody in a city as big as new york where there are literally thousands and thousands of users and he says he literally just likes every single profile to increase his chances of something happening lmao

yup, known strategy, kinda gross

i hate it

The average man matches around 0.6 % of the time, the whole thing is designed this way. Tinder is only making money if you are out there swiping all the time.

my partner and i broke up in july, it was sad but it was like amicable and i understood why it needed to happen, thus there wasn't the usual need to torture myself about it for months, thus i got back on the tinder saddle a little earlier than i normally would and i just started dating someone really nice and it's great :D

yayyyy!

nice :)

I got out of a 10-year relationship back in August and was just starting to feel comfortable with the idea of reengaging socially/romantically when Omicron hit and shut down the more organic avenues of shows/bars/karaoke/etc. So now I've signed up for this app since I feel out of options and seasonal depression is amplifying the loneliness. I wasn't getting any matches the first couple days but the likes were starting to pile up so I bit the bullet and got a month of Gold just to see if any of them seemed like a good match. So far all the women in my age group in Oakland swiping right on me are either too normie for my tastes or worse, burners. I know there's the (probably true) stereotype that men don't read bios but do women? I don't right swipe on women that say they're looking for LTR in their bios (or that don't have bios) and am explicit in mine that I'm not looking for anything serious but a lot of women who've liked me seem to be looking for a soulmate.
That said, reading through this thread it's been really encouraging to hear accounts of how it's worked for some folks in both short-term and long-term ways and that despite the algorithm being lame it still boils down to people trying to connect with people.

I'm also in the Bay Area and I've had better luck with Bumble and Hinge, fwiw.

just to stay up to speed and because i like the idea of human video games, i'd like to download and try out one of these without the intent of following up in any way but i feel like that's an extremely difficult impulse to explain to my partner

using Tinder will make you extremely glad you're not dating, maybe if you explain it that way

lukas otm. Turns out all I had to do to my bio for the algorithm to start working better was add:
"ACAB" -Mark Twain

i met the woman i'll likely marry on tinder when i had no bio and did not give a shit about meeting anyone. anything can happen

as much as I dumped on it I did meet my current (and I’d wager lifelong) partner on there three years ago

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/caleb-from-west-elm-meme

team west elm caleb tbh

okay I have a question - if two people go on a date and neither one texts afterwards, that's not ghosting, right? ghosting is when one person texts and the other person just never replies? asking for me.

in a mutual ghosting the date never happened and is elevated to the status of hermetic mystery

if you had no prior relationship and no specific plan for post-date texting was agreed upon before the date ended, then it feels like good etiquette doesn't require you to text, only to respond. but that is from an old guy who has never used dating apps, so take it fwiw

The Buzzfeed comments are something…

i would say that if no one responds that's more of a wight than a ghost

and if they are made of rotting flesh it's more of a ghoul situation

Glad they nailed this one-of-a-kind monster.

got his ass

hell have a book deal soon I’m sure

The plan? create a Hinge profile that specficially targets women who make viral TikTok's about dating in order to increase West Elm furniture sales pic.twitter.com/L1GjxTIyul

— Jason (@jasonosia) January 22, 2022

Couldn't find the original version of this story, it seems it's been deleted:

oh no pic.twitter.com/9Vl3UrImvQ

— leon (@leyawn) January 21, 2022

I have to admit that inspired me to try Hinge, not for the sordid reasons you might assume, but for much more noble reasons having nothing to do with goblin fetishes etc.

Hinge claims to use some expert "compatibility" algorithm based on myriad complex factors. But based on the experience on setting up a basic profile there it seems like this "compatibility" essentially boils down to: sexual orientation, age, race, education, and political alignment.

Is this really what true compatibility boils down to? I always assumed it had to do with demeanor and similar sex drives but my track record doesn't really speak highly of my understanding of romantic relationships.

There was an app supposedly based around your mutual distastes and I thought that would be cool - eliminate Republicans and Harry Potter stans right off the bat. Then it was asking questions about coffee in the morning and how soft towels should be.

lol at leyawn

Feel like “ghosting” is frequently misused. Like if you go out on a date and aren’t feeling it and there were no plans made to get together in the future, not texting them ever again (if they don’t themselves reach out to you, maybe coyly expecting you to make the first move) is hardly “ghosting”. If they text you and you refuse to answer and at least let them know you aren’t interested in going further, sure, that’s valid. But the former gets lumped in sometimes. I’ve done it and have been on the receiving end, doesn’t strike me as a dick move. Don’t think anyone really wants to give or receive an awkward explanation of how they’re “not feeling it”. Message received, we barely know each other and don’t really owe each other anything.

i didn't hate dating in the pre-tinder era but i feel i would hate it if i had to start again now

It’s not great, but it’s made things a lot easier in certain respects. Like crawling bars looking for someone is a sad endeavor. And it’s rare I get the “oh, I know someone single and I think you guys would get along” matchmaking from friends anymore. I’m mid 30’s, everyone’s already kinda shacked up.

Also women are generally bombarded by dudes on these sites. Looks overwhelming to deal with. Can be hard to cut through that noise on both sides.

i've got this great picture with a tiger though

"Also women are generally bombarded by dudes on these sites. Looks overwhelming to deal with."

For real. I was comparing notes with a friend who has Tinder Gold and has just about given up on the Sisyphean task of weeding through the 3k+ likes she has. Meanwhile I've received like 7. That's why I don't mind using the super likes. At least it lets women know, "Hi, I'm interested in you specifically"

maybe this is the year I actually do this ... idk ... i kinda was ok with the old school bars and parties model (not like, ok, as in wildly successful, just like, comfortable) ... i know there are people older than me on these things, but, the one time I made a profile and then inactivated it a few hours later, I got "matched" with 4 dudes I knew, one I think I had a friend date with years ago and the chemistry was not there, two dudes I would never be interested in, and the creepy coke-addict ex-bf of a former bandmate ...

Sarah, I mean no disrespect when I say this, but based on your account of setting up the app and deleting it a few hours later, you are at high risk of making yourself miserable. I speak from experience here: all of my experiences with dating apps have been miserable up until the past 2 or 3 months.

What changed was that I started to think of myself like one of those dudes you see fishing at the seashore with a dozen poles standing up in the sand. Cast your line, then forget about it and move on to the next one, because there is nothing you can do now to make the fish come sooner. Recognize that there is a good chance the person you're angling for doesn't even have the app installed on their phone anymore. (If you're using one of the apps that tells you "so&so has been active today," pay attention to it! Those people may be worth spending a little more energy on reading their profile and crafting a personalized intro.) Work in short bursts, sending intros to a few people who seem interesting, and when you feel your standards start to lower as you try to force something to happen -- it's time to log off for the day! Turn off the app notifications, go read a book, crack a beer (N/A for me), come back later in the week and see if you've caught anything. And never ever ever worry about how long it takes someone to reply, because every halfway datable person on these apps will occasionally forget to check them for a few days.

The part after you match is a little harder to give advice about. How long to talk before planning to meet, what red flags you want to look for before agreeing to a date, at what point you decide that they're wasting your time or catfishing you -- these are personal judgments you have to make for yourself. Fortunately, they get easier with practice. You *will* have a few bad experiences; don't feel too bad, because everybody does.

I hope this advice is at all useful to you. Happy hunting!

Sincerely,
A man who has used dating apps to meet women

idk, people feel things differently but when on a date do you have a moment when you share a look or conversational moment when you're emotionally charged? shared eye contact that you both take a second to break because you're mutually enjoying it, pausing because you're a little shocked by how something your date said just clicks with your personality? the thing is, those things are what you hope for on a date, but they can be completely serendipitous and shared by people who are not currently sizing each other up. I think experiencing those is what turns some people off of online or arranged dates -- they seem natural and not part of a selection process, even if it's with someone who might not have made the cut if you'd sized each other up online

― mh, Sunday, August 7, 2016 8:20 PM (six years ago)

Not having a great couple of months, and I keep thinking about this, though the first half tells me "hang on, just keep at it, the moment will arrive" while the second half tells me "delete, then have much more romantic presence of mind throughout the day, so you can recognize and honor those moments outside of formal date scenarios."