It could be argued that the underlying motivation for nearly everything single men do is to have the most mating opportunities. The job I do, the clothing I wear, the car I drive, the time I spend in the gym, the clean food I buy at the supermarket, the money I spend at bars on weekends, is to making myself as attractive as possible to women and to give myself the highest likelihood of mating with an attractive woman.Men pay for sex in every instance of sex. They either pay directly or indirectly. We're evaluating how direct a man is with his payment for sex.
You're correct that this forum needs to be pickup and seduction focused. Social skills and indirect payment seductions of women are difficult skills to gain. A guy who pays directly has a high cost per bang. It's always going to be high. Guys who pay indirectly are more likely to achieve a lower cost per bang if they can get a good grasp on social skills and charisma.
$30-40 on bad dates adds up, yes -- but I easily spend 3x that with my boys out at bars and restaurants on weekends. It falls under my entertainment spending. I'm a bachelor with no kids, so I don't have high life overhead. I can splurge a bit more on myself. If I'm going on 1 date per week, and some of those dates go nowhere, it's not a big deal.
I never did Tinder. I was big on OKCupid. I had a lot of good photos, including a shirtless photo I took after lifting where I looked swole. Yeah, that probably immediately disqualified me with a lot of women. But women who agreed to meet me had pretty high interest level. I'd say 3 out of 4 dates resulted in some form of sexual activity, often that night. I was getting pretty consistent with OKC.
The dates that sucked, I don't know. Maybe my game was off, she wasn't feeling me, whatever. You're not going to bang every woman on earth. Yes, that was money down the drain but it's part of dating, you pay to play, and never something I took careful measures to avoid. Spending money on a hooker is a bigger waste of money.