Online dating is fascinating in how bad it is. It's like 80% the fault of capitalism, and 20% users just doing a bad job and making it worse. People write messages no deeper than "lol" and "nm hbu" and then wonder why they don't have any interesting conversations like on the tv
this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Because of the meta. If you show too much enthusiasm too fast, it comes off as a red flag. Thus the low energy game of conversational investment chicken.
That's kind of fascinating. and sad. It sounds kind of self-defeating- If the other person is reasonably well adjusted, they're going to take feigned disinterest as just regular disinterest, and move on. (Or think that the other person can't hold a conversation, and move on.)
Maybe this creates a self-selection effect where the people who are afraid of being enthusiastic eventually meet each other? That would probably be best for everyone.
This is primarily an issue for guys, typically girls have way more matches. If your match happened to hit it off with someone else first, or they only check when they're drunk, or you just got lost in the sea, after a few times putting in effort and getting ghosted, you start to be a bit more frugal.
On the other side, you're used to being flooded with messages, so you never really have to put in much effort until things do start to get interesting.
after a few times putting in effort and getting ghosted, you start to be a bit more frugal.
I see why that would happen but it seems like a self destructive strategy. The other person wasn't there for all your other attempts. This is your first interaction with them. If you half-ass it, all they see is you're doing a bad job at conversation. You only get one first impression with someone.
Right, but after enough failures the defeat becomes demoralizing. I'm not saying it isn't self-destructive, but human nature frequently is.
Yeah, can't disagree with that.
When I give people dating app advice, I tell them if they don't have the emotional resources to full-ass it, delete the app. Half-assing it is likely going to make things worse.
But humans aren't rational creatures.
If you're actually trying to date, then enthusiasm being a red flag is itself a red flag. If you're just trying to hook up then yeah, follow "the meta".
The opposite worked for me, but both of us were feeling like we'd try one more time then take a break. This was on OkCupid before they got bought out by Match.
I wonder if this is the app, or the age group? As a late 30s guy on Hinge, I don't have a ton of trouble finding at least a few people to have a decent chat with every week, and it's led to a decent number of dates and even a few long term relationships.
It's been almost a year since I've tried online dating. I can't imagine what the catfishes are like now that they have easy access to generative AI.
I would tell you, but in those 2 months I got exactly 1 like, and it was from a dude trolling with woman in the profile instead of man, possibly a friend of the dude doing the troll.
It’s terrifying
So I had a couple of married women tell me what was wrong
"You need anyone but whoever took those photos to take those photos. And no selfies."
So now I have to find people that can take pictures and leave the house. Modern dating standards really are unrealistic.
There's this guy, his name is Nathan. I think he could help you. He graduated from business school with really good grades.
I feel personally attacked
Yeah—what the heck. Might as well tell people how fat and ugly I am while they're at 'cause this does me no favors.
16 years man I barely even ever get bots liking my profile, going to make it 17 years though
I managed to find love through online dating, but it's true that you need to put a lot of time and effort into making an interesting and informative profile, sorting through all the low-effort users to find the people who are actually invested, and crafting engaging and personalized opening messages for the people among them who you happen to find attractive. There's a big incentive to just spam everyone with "hey," but all that does is put more money in the company's pockets from months of no hits.