‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps
‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps
For a decade, apps have dominated dating. But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people – or reverting to old ones
‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps::For a decade, apps have dominated dating. But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people – or reverting to old ones
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I did online dating for many years. I used match, eharmony, tinder, pof, okcupid.
I fully understand the 'soul destroying' comment. For me it was a lot of work for little return. I started off being selective. Messaging one person at a time so I didn't end up getting two responses and having to put someone off or turn one of them down. That was naive it turned out as I got very few replies. So I started messaging multiple people at once. I always tried to personalise things but my effort varied with how optimistic I was feeling about online dating.
Ultimately I think I got responses about 10% of the time. From them, 10% turned into a date, from those maybe 50% would get to a second date.
So overall it every hundred messages I'd write , 1 would end up in a date. I went on quite a lot of dates over the years, but I had to devote so much time to getting them it was, soul destroying.
I never thought i was unattractive, but online dating made me question if I really was. I never thought I was an ass, but online dating made me question if I really was. I would sometimes have very long conversations before meeting to find there was no chemistry in person. Sometimes I would like them when we meet and they would ghost me. Sometimes they liked me and I didn't like them, but I always tried to be honourable and tell them, not ghost them since I didn't like it happening to me.
I am male in case my experience doesn't make it obvious. I often spoke to some of the women I got on better with about how online dating was for them and their experience was pretty awful for different reasons. Generally they were bombarded by messages and a good number of them were obscene. Guys trying to hook up rather than date. To manage their inbox was a real challenge and they probably missed out on good matches because of the noise.
My overall impression of the whole thing is that it generally sucks regardless of whether you are the one doing most of the messaging or whether you are receiving messages. I also think it makes it more like shopping than dating, dehumanising people. Do I want the 8K 42 inch TV or the 4K inch TV? Actually, can I even afford it?
All that said in the end it worked for me. Over 6 years since I last logged in and I think it was a bit of an addiction, or perhaps desperation born of loneliness.i also have a daughter now and there were times I thought that was never going to happen.
So for me online dating was years of frustration, difficulty and upset, but in the end I'm glad I did it but it took a long time.
It's very superficial and any of the girls who are remotely attractive get tons of messages, plus they have to be on edge for anything out of the ordinary.
The one thing I'll conceed to Pim Tool about online dating is that it can easily funnel all women to the top value men. That said, the most desirable men are going to exclude the unattractive women. Based on observing other people dating online, it seems like younger girls who are unattractive are aware that they can get older dudes who are probably desperate.