Young people aren't on dating apps. New survey of college and graduate students nationwide says 79% of respondents don't use any dating apps even as infrequently as once a month.
Am I the only one here who's had relatively okayish experiences with dating apps. Im not exactly a either.
the most toxic relationship in my life was with someone I meet through college so idk if traditional dating is really what everyone makes it out to be.
im older and have been in a committed relationship for over 15 years so im not an authority here or anything but every relationship ive ever had came from a friendship first
i think people are starting to understand that love isnt always some magic "struck by lightning" thing but rather something that blooms from healthy relationships with all kinds of people
if you are sociable and chill you can befriend people and sometimes one of those friendships just levels up, or they set you up with someone because you are cool, or you do that for them this is how it has been done in so many cultures for all of human history if it aint broke dont fix it
im older and have been in a committed relationship for over 15 years so im not an authority here or anything but every relationship ive ever had came from a friendship first
i think people are starting to understand that love isnt always some magic "struck by lightning" thing but rather something that blooms from healthy relationships with all kinds of people
if you are sociable and chill you can befriend people and sometimes one of those friendships just levels up, or they set you up with someone because you are cool, or you do that for them this is how it has been done in so many cultures for all of human history if it aint broke dont fix it
A lot of contemporary people fixate on a deep memetic fear of "the friend zone" which simultaneously makes them dislike the idea of being friends with people they might theoretically want to have sex with and poisons the friendship in advance by embedding that assumption for where it must go.
i was in a longterm relationship that started as a friendship, i confessed my feelings and got "friendzoned" i guess, but then i just chilled and stayed friends and didnt obsess or follow around the person like a pathetic puppy dog and continued to make more friends
eventually she grew feelings for me and we had an awesome young relationship that lasted for years we both lost our v-cards to each other and i wouldnt trade it despite it ending bitterly (long story)
either way, if she never developed feelings for me that would have been okay, too. we were friends. i wasn't just hanging around to fuck her.
in my mostly male and male-presenting friend group, it seems to be split 50/50 in terms of who's had an okay time on them and who finds them to be a barren hellscape, and it doesn't really seem to correspond 1:1 with conventional attractiveness either. I think my friends who got on them before they became even further enshittified tend to have a higher opinion of them. FWIW I became single this year after almost 9 years in a relationship and I'm firmly in the hellscape camp.
(Also don't let one bad experience scare you off IRL connection, I really do think it's something special when it works out)
ive had positive experience with dating apps! it was a fun and easy way to flirt and meet people and im grateful for the experience. i learned a lot about myself and im better off for it.
I met my wife on a dating site before it was bought several times over and enshittified each time. I lucked out by way of timing where the techbros didn't yet refine and perfect the process of making the site retain users as its priority over actually helping people find other people.
Dating sites were actually pretty decent before tinder set ablaze to them all. I had a lot of success when i could just message anyone on the site and the second it became tinder it just stopped working.
Some of the most annoying takes I saw on Hexbear about that were "actually because people complained about online dating when it started, online dating is exactly as good and bad as it has always been dae le ancients complained about dae le youths"
It is worse and it sucks for those that use it now.
I imagine the scope of it makes things worse as well. Like when there are only a few compatible people in your area you'd just go fuck it and go on a few dates. When there are hundreds of dating "resumes" to sift through there's probably all sorts of emergent behaviour that's tough to account for. Hell, just the genetal idea of it gives me anxiety.
The ones trying to do more traditional compatibility dating still have that aspect and it feels even more insane. There's one that targets more careerist types and I have a feeling everyone on there is just Patrick Bateman.