They always do for me. (I am not on the romantic market any more, so just regular interactions with strangers…!)
anyway, there’s a HUGE difference.
1st, there’s no default «so, how are you going to dazzle me?» attitude IRL.
2nd, you always instantly see is there any interest.
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I’m a recently single midlife cishet man. I have looked at some apps (tinder, buble, hinge) I hate them. For the reasons here:
And all the millions of other reasons, but the thing I hate most is that they restrict you to geographically close. Surely the chances of finding someone special locally, your age, your interests, is vanishingly small compared to finding someone globally…and this is the internet after all. I get with hook-up apps why being physically proximate matters, but why for “looking for love” type apps?
I’d travel a long way for actual love.
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Trojan studio
I once had a Bumble account.
My bio was something simple and honest with a little room for mystery.
“Artist /Musician/Animator, looking to go on exciting dates and meet new people.”
Never got any interest.
After a few months of seeing EVERY profile, and starting to realize a lot of archetypes, and commonalities, I decided to change my bio to something funny but ridiculous.
“Looking for one night stands, no entrepreneurs, no skydivers, no religion.”
That’s when I started getting lots of hits. 
I also got asked to be a moderator on OKCupid.
WOW, that was wild.
Basically you log into your moderator account and vote on fake profiles or people breaking the rules.
Very eye opening to say the least.
Anyways, I met my wife on a dating site, however after our first date she only wanted to be friends and had someone else she was working on.
After years of getting her ganj, she finally changed her mind.
This was long after I gave up on dating sites and figured my chances may be better just meeting people in the wild at places I liked to go.
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i’d like to hear more about this. but you’re probs bound by some data protection. and moral compass?
i assume you had access to entire message threads to discover rule breakers? that must’ve been hilarious/depressing
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It seemed to be mainly about new profiles.
You couldn’t see private messages, you would just log in and scroll flagged profiles.
You could only see the profile page and that’s it.
They would generally be something really over the top violence inspired, or something really hateful, or just a profile with a fake pic, or no pic.
Then you would vote on whether or not it fit into certain rules.
The cumulative voting would get a profile taken down or left up
Holy shit, I feel this.
Especially when you see the actual moment of disconnect when they stop caring.
I’ve been fooled when they say “they like music.” Then I go “what kind?”
Then they say “All kinds…”
I say “Just name one song…”
Then the fumble and mention a random band.
Then I launch into a tirade on how “they produce their music and what interviews they were in that talked about a specific synth they use and what gear I use that recreates that same style of music and blah blah blah… hey, where you going?”
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I hate it. The companies profit off of making you feel unwanted by shuffling your profile further down in the algorithm unless you pay for premium membership/boosts etc. I would go weeks on tinder without getting any matches, then paid for a boost on a 99 cent promo and wound up getting a ton of matches that day. It’s complete BS. I’ve given up on it at this point because there are so many other things I would rather burn my money on than dating apps (and dating itself).
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You gotta meet people in person. Otherwise you’re adding a whole obnoxious pseudo-social layer to the mix. Where people are free to mess with you, flake out, and otherwise be fake and disingenuous.
Still happens in person too, but it’s MUCH easier to read a person’s vibe face to face. Plus you’re already there. And see each other, not just optimal contrived photos.
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Lol, a lot of my brain these days is engaged in trying to step back in time and look into patterns of who I surrounded myself with, what dorky interests set my brain alight and brought me and who I ended up dating.
A little more complicated than “in your twenties you dated someone for years you met at a Weird Al concert and spent the night hanging out with, then got along with all their goth and they might be giants-listening friends, of course you’re Autistic without needing a pathological diagnosis”.
But often just little bits here and there like the abstract question “what is neurotypical?” and I don’t want to think overbroadly about people with no real interest in art and existentialism or questioning any precepts for existence, perhaps it’s just easier to find that patterns that you can identify with and not get too reductive about the people who are more shruggy about life.
All my best spaces are small, a little grimy, and filled with queerdos.
Which makes it sketchier in pandemic times when friends who work at the venues and bars mention regular Covid outbreaks from guests.
Prior to pandemic it was a lot easier if not to find BFFs or romance, just be around people I didn’t have to mask my piercingly nerdy shit around or really hold back. Otherwise i might get someone blinking in confusion and me needing to retreat into dreaded small talk.
Subculture rules, freak flags 4eva.
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Sounds like all my best spaces and venues.
However Covid decimated these scenes around here.
I became a full time hermit
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Can I borrow this for my dating profile?
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Yeah, boostered but definitely still concerns about an immunocompromised relative and that it’s still causing effects on folks from even some reports here.
I still venture out now and then, but masked and with good ventilation, mostly outdoors and less sweaty dance joints where people are butt to butt and you can smell how many in the room are rolling off their gourds.
Beergardens are basically the best, I can bring a sketchpad or a groovebox and get some passive socialization in.
Oh that’s a banger 
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I’ve had mixed luck with it over the years. The pandemic made it difficult to date at all for me.
I was and still being active on different sites/apps but with very mixed results… I’m soon 46y old … and i did not find someone … I love real interaction, a real face and all that stuff but my experience nowadays is quite different from back in the days when i was around 20 tumbling from one pub to another
First of all women seem to be more carefully nowadays when searching for someone … i always feel that I’m no more than a fulfillment-checklist with or without certain features
Apps:
Bumble: i got some contacts but actually never meet anyone … the first sentences are the most important ones … so no luck at all
Tinder: actually i like it, I don’t take too seriously, more with a grain of salt
- some of this ladies are fake
- others are prostitutes searching for customers i found out painfully
- most of the pictures sharing very common features at last in my country: i found pictures from ladies on a bike, during hiking, on top of a mountain, at a lovely sea, in the woods, in a gym, in a city in Italy, Spain, Greek, with dogs/cats
- I’ve being asked what my actual income is!! - when i answered the communication stopped
- and other stupid things like not showing the real age
the advantage of Tinder is in my opinion during traveling - the algorithm lists you nearby the top of profiles when being online at different places. when i was in Thailand my LIKES skyrocketed but just did one date only to find out that she needed someone who take care of here - with money - although I’ve defined on my profile that I just wanted to meet someone for dinner and having a conversation about the country and it’s culture but not for a relationship, sex or anything else than declared - btw Thai women are looking amazing, even when they around 50
my other experiences with dating-sites are somewhat mixed as well. I tested them varying from basic hookup-sites, to kinky-stuff like bdsm and so forth, to serious dating-sites with experiences starting from funny to wired to an aggressive feminist approach
all taken together my experience is 50/50 - maybe my expectations are still too high, I don’t know but my motivation to finding someone degraded slowly to an all-time low
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I experienced this with Bumble. Swiftly deleted this app.
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I’m liking Hinge and Feeld for making new contacts. Had a bunch of dates. Haven’t had anything substantial come out of them yet though.
Also tried Breeze which is cool bc the business model is not based on data hoarding and you go straight from match to a live date, no messaging, but the public on it around here is so boringly mainstream. Not my type.
My overall dating app gripe: many ladies show their considerably younger selves in profile photo’s…
That really sucks (even if it’s the healthy right choice). Commiserations. Go easy on yourself.
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Wishing you well @ghostbuddy - I’m in the same situation, new to single life and worried about money and it is similarly daunting. Trying to decide whether to list my Machinedrum on here to raise some funds atm. Recently separated after 11 years together and the pain is still overwhelming. I’ll always love my husband but sometimes love just isn’t enough for things to work out. It’s interesting looking through this thread, dating apps weren’t really a thing when we met. I’m not the party animal I was in my mid 20s and aware that if I’d like to meet someone new, in the fullness of time, when I’m ready, I’m probably going to have to try apps, but the thought of it fills me with dread.
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