Are Dating Apps really that bad right now

[CornbreadFed]

I haven't been on the apps in over 2 years, so I haven't experienced any of the BS recently. However, I was getting lucky off the apps from the beginning stages of Tinder and basically lived off the apps until 2 years ago. I found it hard to believe that men could suffer on the apps because I had success, and I even saw normie men have success of it. Most of the men that couldn't get laid off apps were just over-entitled incels that were either lying on the internet to gain attention or just suffered from self-sabotage. The other cases were guys that simply aged out of their dating prime times in the apps and thought that dating would always be like they were in their twenties. Sorry, your average stable minded 18–27-year-old girl is not going to be interested in some 30 plus guy that has nothing to bring to the table other than his penis. Aside from all this, are the dating apps literally unusable or just full of more men with victim mindsets?

 

[jamesfromhouston]

I haven't been on the apps in over 2 years, so I haven't experienced any of the BS recently. However, I was getting lucky off the apps from the beginning stages of Tinder and basically lived off the apps until 2 years ago. I found it hard to believe that men could suffer on the apps because I had success, and I even saw normie men have success of it. Most of the men that couldn't get laid off apps were just over-entitled incels that were either lying on the internet to gain attention or just suffered from self-sabotage. The other cases were guys that simply aged out of their dating prime times in the apps and thought that dating would always be like they were in their twenties. Sorry, your average stable minded 18–27-year-old girl is not going to be interested in some 30 plus guy that has nothing to bring to the table other than his penis. Aside from all this, are the dating apps literally unusable or just full of more men with victim mindsets?

As someone who has used all the dating apps over the past 10 years, the short answer is: yes.

The long but concise answer, yes because:
- app women are becoming more entitled year on year (perhaps the abundance + critical mass of bp men and simps on dating app)
- it's hard to screen the looks of app women nowadays because photo filter tech has improved so much
- the amount of catfishes, fake accounts, gold diggers, time wasters have increased
- app women are much more jaded now because of all the f-ckboys, players and just general fem culture nowadays
- in addition to being jaded, when you meet them, app women seem and feel so ran through
- *a recent trend I've noticed with app women is the formation of social media groups where they screenshot and share profiles and "tea" about each guy, which plays into the entitlement but may also lead to "man hating" for those of us who are successful on dating apps

(The above has just been my direct experience + fyi I've even paid for premium services over the years).

I've been getting much less matches and/or matches that stop replying or just ghost in recent years. I still get lays from dating apps occasionally but the results have DEFINITELY decreased over the years despite the objective increase in my own SMV (health, looks, job, finance, etc).

Edit: I should add I noticed that a lot of women have also gone off dating apps, especially attractive ones, even the women are getting tired of dating apps.

 

[Bingo-Player]

Too many stereotypes and cliches have been established and both sexes are starting to tire of it

Hyper critical women with impossible standards and men who want to make as little effort as possible to get laid

They're quickly becoming something thats embarrassing to be on and I think give it a few more years and an attitude of

" I wouldn't be seen dead on them " may very well start to become mainstream

once we get too that point its game over for the apps in the traditional sense anyway , I think a lot will need to quickly pivot their business models into speed dating or singles events

Its already starting to happen in some areas

 

[parabellum]

Last week I saw a flyer about a singles mixer in the gym front desk, of all places. It’s a good omen, related to what is said above by Bingo. That, and the fact that for a woman that is reasonably attractive, the time spend in filtering among the hundreds of men in an app actually takes a toll in terms of time and effort. I’ve even seen attractive women delegate their app jobs to less attractive female friends.

 

[BPH]

As someone who has used all the dating apps over the past 10 years, the short answer is: yes.

The long but concise answer, yes because:
- app women are becoming more entitled year on year (perhaps the abundance + critical mass of bp men and simps on dating app)
- it's hard to screen the looks of app women nowadays because photo filter tech has improved so much
- the amount of catfishes, fake accounts, gold diggers, time wasters have increased
- app women are much more jaded now because of all the f-ckboys, players and just general fem culture nowadays
- in addition to being jaded, when you meet them, app women seem and feel so ran through
- *a recent trend I've noticed with app women is the formation of social media groups where they screenshot and share profiles and "tea" about each guy, which plays into the entitlement but may also lead to "man hating" for those of us who are successful on dating apps

(The above has just been my direct experience + fyi I've even paid for premium services over the years).

I've been getting much less matches and/or matches that stop replying or just ghost in recent years. I still get lays from dating apps occasionally but the results have DEFINITELY decreased over the years despite the objective increase in my own SMV (health, looks, job, finance, etc).

Edit: I should add I noticed that a lot of women have also gone off dating apps, especially attractive ones, even the women are getting tired of dating apps.

This pretty much hits the nail on the head.

Tinder was a big deal starting my sophomore year in college, and people understood that it was "the hookup app", and were ok with that.

Now there's a lot of entitlement because every right swipe for a woman is a match, while dudes are right-swiping everybody hoping for a match.

A lot of the women I swipe on nowadays are bots, fake accounts, or just not attractive - even in population hubs like New York when I visited my brother on my birthday I didn't have a whole lot of girls that I thought were good-looking on there. I bought Tinder Gold for that weekend and could see who was swiping on me and not a single girl was attractive...not one.

Now we have the 4B movement popping up so it's likely to get even worse for a little while. I'd heard somebody say that Instagram is the best dating app, and I'd agree with that statement. The problem there is that people are more concerned with APPEARING fun, interesting, and wealthy than actually being any of those things - a testament to the fact that it is now a legitimate business to sell time in a stationary jet taking pictures as if you're a "baller" traveling the world private.

Personally, I'm annoyed at how disingenuous it all is.

 

[AmsterdamAssassin]

Personally, I'm annoyed at how disingenuous it all is.

Why? You didn't see this coming?

 

[BPH]

Why? You didn't see this coming?

I'm not surprised, but that doesn't mean I can't still be disappointed by it.

 

[AmsterdamAssassin]

I'm not surprised, but that doesn't mean I can't still be disappointed by it.

If you want to save on disappointments, learn to live without expectations.

 

[BPH]

If you want to save on disappointments, learn to live without expectations.

Oh, I've preached time and time again that when it comes to dating apps, have no expectations and occasionally be pleasantly surprised. I've been pleasantly surprised plenty of times. Doesn't mean I suggest investing time, money, and effort into it compared to in-person.

 

[AmsterdamAssassin]

Oh, I've preached time and time again that when it comes to dating apps, have no expectations and occasionally be pleasantly surprised. I've been pleasantly surprised plenty of times. Doesn't mean I suggest investing time, money, and effort into it compared to in-person.

In my opinion, skewed as it is, dating apps should only be used as a supplement, not as the main method to find women. However, I was raised before the internet, when 'dating apps' were 'classified ads' in the newspaper and were only used by the desperate.

The current dependence on dating apps, especially (as it seems) in the US, is a deplorable development that increases social isolation and dependency on tech-based mating methods. Just like 'social media' isn't social at all, dating apps rarely bring sustainable relationships.

And most women I consider attractive are not interested in dating through apps anyway. Like me, they consider it a last resort for the desperate and the lonely, who get financially abused by the dating app companies giving them hope in return for expensive subscriptions.

 

[Doctor Doom]

Yes.

OLD is ran by AI, scammers, single moms and simp-seekers. The market is flooded with simps. It’s a sausage fest.

 

[SW15]

I've preached time and time again that when it comes to dating apps, have no expectations and occasionally be pleasantly surprised.

That's difficult for a lot of men to have zero expectations. Dating apps are a major effort for men and men want to get a reward for the effort.

Most men need to pay for apps to get the unlimited swipes in order to get a few matches. Realize that most men have a match percentage on less than 1% of their right swipes, so most men will need to swipe on large numbers of women to get positive traction in their dating lives. Also, plenty of those matches never amount to even a first date, let alone short term sex or an extended relationships. Most app arranged first dates are "one date, no sex, no second date" interactions.

Men are paying for dating apps with both actual money and time, so it is difficult to not have expectations.

Additionally, it's important to consider that men are often starting to use dating apps because their real world efforts are failing. They aren't meeting women at school, through their social connections, at the gym, in their co-ed sports leagues, or in nightlife venues, or any other real life venue.

Apps are hyper efficient for the Top 5-10% of men, but a waste of time for the rest.

Most men will also experience negative self-esteem by wasting time and money on swipe apps. The man below swiped 16,000 times on Tinder, got 3 first dates. Those 3 first dates were all "one date, no sex, no second date" interactions.

It’s a sausage fest.

It is. Tinder is 76% male and Bumble/Hinge are around 65% male. Odds are bad.

The market is flooded with simps.

Simps are created by endless rejections.

Men who can't date conventionally from either real world or tech-based methods become OnlyFans pay pigs.

 

[AmsterdamAssassin]

That's difficult for a lot of men to have zero expectations.

Well, maybe it's time to learn to overcome outcome expectations.

Dating apps are a major effort for men and men want to get a reward for the effort.

Effort? EFFORT? Dude, the main reason dating apps are/were so incredibly popular is their CONVENIENCE in finding dates. All you had to do was get some pictures and post a semi-truthful profile and you got matches without having to leave your home, go to an event and charm a woman in real life. Dating apps are literally the most effortless way to find a date.

I commend you for supporting these whiners, but please don't act like dating apps require an effort that men should be rewarded for. If someone depends that much on dating apps, they should get out of the house and experience the real world for a change.

 

[CornbreadFed]

Effort? EFFORT? Dude, the main reason dating apps are/were so incredibly popular is their CONVENIENCE in finding dates. All you had to do was get some pictures and post a semi-truthful profile and you got matches without having to leave your home, go to an event and charm a woman in real life. Dating apps are literally the most effortless way to find a date.

Gotta agree with Captain Cat Pirate over here lol. I could literally set up dates while working out, in the sauna, on the toilet lol, watching netflix, and etc. Any other method requires much more effort and presentation to pull off.

 

[SW15]

I could literally set up dates while working out, in the sauna, on the toilet lol, watching netflix, and etc. Any other method requires much more effort and presentation to pull off.

Dating apps are hyper efficient for a small percentage of men. It's possible that you are part of that small percentage.

For many men (and not even the top tier men), there is an illusion of efficiency in apps. It's easy to believe in this efficiency in using tech-based date arranging methods. Many men are sitting at home in their underwear/comfortable clothing and doing the swiping/messaging. Doing this starts to look really good if you do something like go to the mall, 1-2 grocery stores, or outdoors for 1-3 hours and don't arrange any dates.

There is an appeal in the idea of sitting at home and arranging dates. This trend emerged in the 2010s prior to the pandemic but pandemic lockdowns bolstered this. 1980s-1990s born people have been more tech dependent and not that excited about doing real world things.

 

[AmsterdamAssassin]

Dating apps are hyper efficient for a small percentage of men. It's possible that you are part of that small percentage.

For many men (and not even the top tier men), there is an illusion of efficiency in apps. It's easy to believe in this efficiency in using tech-based date arranging methods.

You were speaking about effort, not efficiency. And yes, there is an illusion of efficiency. "Look, I'm going to take a dump anyway, might as well use that time efficiently by checking profiles on Tinder." No mention here of whose profiles you are perusing, since everybody pretends to be something they're not, plus most of the women aren't the people you'd really want to date.
The time people spend swiping and posting on social media could be spent way more efficiently, but that would require actual effort.

As to a reward for all that swiping, most men experience a cheap dopamine rush equal to reaching a new level in a computer game, so, hey, there's your 'reward'.

On this forum, the main goal shouldn't be to encourage guys to use dating apps. The reason the 'dating marketplace' is in such a bad state is because low-effort 'efficiency' seekers ended up massively embracing the dating apps to the detriment of learning how to interact with women. This forum aims to help men with dating and interacting with women. Not how to 'beat the algorithm' and 'game the app' into finding dates. Threads like these should move to Reddit.

Fcuk dating apps. Go out and talk with people. Learn how to be really social, not the social of 'social media'.

 

[SW15]

You were speaking about effort, not efficiency.

Even when a man is sitting at home in his underwear swiping, that's still an effort. The time commitment required to get matches/dates while doing nothing at home is often immense.

In some ways, it can feel better than going to a nightlife venue and coming home empty handed and pissed. That last sentence resonates with a lot of men. It can feel better than an extended daygame session on a weekend afternoon. Both of those require getting dressed, grooming, and transportation to the venue.

Dating apps can destroy men's self-esteem when they realize that thousands of swipes resulted in nothing.

 

[GoodMan32]

Yeah, dating apps are bad right now.

In 2012, I got some dates from OkCupid. I got first date sex from a site called DateHookup in 2012. Then in 2013, I got an 8 month girlfriend on POF.

On the other hand, I downloaded Feeld and FetLife (per my therapist's urging) this past summer. No luck (The most I got on either of those apps was a woman offering to come over for fetish play. No sex, no date. She was going to let me watch her pee if I let her sit on my stomach while she masturbated. Alas, the plans fell through because I'm at work at the times when she's available)

Additionally, I've set up accounts on Bumble at points from 2016-2024. I had some broads reach out to me...but it never went anywhere.

 

[SW15]

Then in 2013, I got an 8 month girlfriend on POF.

POF in 2009-2013 was a challenging environment. The fact that you were able to initially seduce a woman from POF and retain her for 8 months is an achievement, especially considering the totality of all your issues.

I've set up accounts on Bumble at points from 2016-2024. I had some broads reach out to me...but it never went anywhere.

That's a typical male experience on Bumble from 2016-2024. It was likely easier to get dates on Bumble in 2016-2018 than 2022-2024 but Bumble was even very competitive in 2016-2018. So many men were having the "one date, no sex, no second date" issue on Bumble in 2016-2018.

 

[AmsterdamAssassin]

Even when a man is sitting at home in his underwear swiping, that's still an effort. The time commitment required to get matches/dates while doing nothing at home is often immense.

Swiping on your phone while taking a dump is not an effort. And it deludes people that it's efficient, but actually it's a huge time suck with a lousy ROI. So why are we still discussing dating apps as a viable option for dating? Because people prefer to get rejected over an app instead of having to face rejection in person.

Maybe some people here, on this board, should get rid of their dating apps and their 'social media' and start behaving like normal social beings. Maybe they'd get an actual date.