No, they deliberately get in the way of you matching with the most compatible people unless you pay for "premium" features that used to be core functionality

If only we had places where people could commune with each other without paying money

It's a miserable experience. After years of trying I only ever managed to meet up with one person I thought I had in-person chemistry with. At the end of the date she gave me her number unprompted. Then she unmatched me and I never saw or heard from her again

I'll be frank as a person that has been on dating websites before they were apps... people often go on them for small validation and then realize they have no time to meet others when they have to prep for work. It's gotten worse after covid lockdowns.

I'm on Grindr and Feeld mostly and Hinge sometimes. I'm mostly looking for casual sex buddies and not relationships.

I'm not gonna say the "it's not you it's me" line nor its inverse. Because the honest answer is: it's not us, it's capitalism.

I've had to cancel so many times on people because I sometimes get home too tired to move after work. And have had people cancel as well. Nobody admits that fatigue but it's understood.

And keep in mind I'm queer, bi, relatively attractive and literally looking to hand out blowjobs. Sometimes people are too tired to even get their dicks sucked

So don't think you're doing things completely wrong. The hellscape makes it hard to meet new people.

Dating apps don't want people to form relationships for the same reason pharmaceutical companies don't want to cure diseases. They just want a temporary, hopefully addictive, treatment for loneliness not a remedy

People use dating apps with the expectation it'll just find the perfect person of their dreams. In reality it matches strangers with no connection outside of vague attraction.

Relationships just aren't built that way they're done through shared experiences.

Anyway i quite literally ended up pseudo automating the dating apps at one point and if a meetup wasn't agreed within x messages I'd move on. Then I gave up and ended up dating someone i knew irl for like 8 years.

Most people i know with successful relationships weree matchmade by friend groups or met playing an mmo or some other common interest.

Dating apps are good for femme comrades but not so good for male-presenting ones. The sex ratio is something like 9:1 so unless you're in the top 10%, most people won't consider you an option. Plus, since it's all online you can't use things like personality and charm to make up for the deficit of looks.

What this means practically for male-presenting folks is that you either wait until it naturally occurs in your daily life, a bad idea that relies on luck, or actively seek it out. The problem is that seeking out partners in real life you're inevitably going to make people uncomfortable, get denied, and fuck some things up. If you're socially awkward or ND, that means you will most likely end up as the topic of someone's "creepy guy" story.

My personal advice? Make friends, volunteer, get involved with activities and hope you find someone in your travels. But remember, the vast majority of dating follows a conservative view of humanity. Fair or not, equal or not, if you're male-presenting you are expected to initiate and prove your worth. Until that changes, a lot of conservative dating advice is still the most effective way to meet women. Obviously drop the dehumanizing bullshit and sexism though.

I've had pretty good success just trying to be as open and honest as possible. Like, I just put in my profile that I'm a communist, on disability, ND, like everything about me.

When we match, I info dump about something to them, them to me, then we go out .

The secret, for me, at least is to just date other queer ND people.

I just wish a) people would hit on me and I would know it (there is this person who I am attracted to who keeps complimenting my outfits but especially my dresses and yesterday did some incidental body contact over the duration of an activity we were doing as a group of friends, I am choosing to interpret this as me reading into things because it feels ambiguous and I'd prefer to have a friend than risk losing a friend for the possibility of some other sort of relationship) or b) that I'd be able to distinguish between internalized homophobia and transphobia telling me not to be predatory in situations where it is genuinely okay and/or welcome to express interest in people and when it genuinely wouldn't be appropriate to express interest in people.

I'm currently seriously dating someone right now but I miss seeing new folks, and I miss having sex with people that I care about but am not in a romantic relationship with.

For a long time I just wished that there was a medium for me to meet new people that I could sleep around with, but at this point I'm kinda accepting that at this stage of my life that isnt my problem, my problem is that I'm too burnt out to fix the internalized stuff, and because of the fluid nature of social expectations and my autistic ass just knowing the appropriate rules seems unreasonable outside of gay bars and dungeon parties, none of which take covid seriously.

Alternatively people could stop projecting predatory shit onto transfemmes and I could worry more about coming across as awkward and worry less about being beaten up or socially ostracized for being read as creepy. Or pigs could fly.

I wish there was flagging for "be overt as possible if you are flirting with me"

I found my life partner on a dating app, and before that used dating apps to successfully hook up with people.

So take it from me, someone who had the best possible customer experience: they are designed to make you feel desperate and want to use their paid features. That is the only function they are designed to fulfill, every other aspect of them serves that function. If you are having no success with them, please, please don't despair: there is nothing wrong with you.

So, what do you do? Well...

Hmm, maybe it's the extreme commodification of relationships and atomization under capitalism that prevents you from getting anywhere with this garbage

Basically, yeah. We've fucked up our culture and become so socially atomized that we have way fewer third places and social mixer activities than we should have. Meeting new people IRL requires that we be in situations where we get to actually do some socializing with those new people. That's why big nerd conventions are such a classic place for new friendships and romantic relationships to start up, because it's one of the few true social mixers where we have that opportunity for relatively easy socializing with new people (and where we have some common ground to start a conversation about). But outside of that, we really do end up just sitting at home, or going to do hobby stuff with the same people we've known for years - not a conducive to meeting new romantic partners.

So the answer is kinda the usual "capitalism fucked up dating, and also it's fucking up the bandaid solution that is online dating"

Dates, I just want friends at this point. People to talk about deep issues and laugh together with. The app won't give me that either.

I'll never use a dating app

Hmm, maybe it's the extreme commodification of relationships and atomization under capitalism that prevents you from getting anywhere with this garbage

Yuuuuuup! Also: dating apps just like everything else under capitalism are not built to actually accomplish their stated function: they are there to extract surplus value. In this case: engagement and audience retention. If these apps were actually effective at helping people find meaningful lasting relationships they'd essentially be shrinking their user base.

We need to abolish apps and normalize chatting up hotties at the Dollarama.

Dont have long conversations with people on dating apps is my advice, get it to real life and x out the commodification machine asap

I seriously don’t understand how dating apps are even a thing. Do people don’t know how to make friends anymore?

If there is one thing online apps should be used for such purposes, it’s for making friends.

You have a hobby? Go and find like-minded people who share the same hobby, regardless of their genders and whether or not you’re attracted to them. Like, genuinely try to get to know someone without thinking about dating them or getting laid. You like photography? Go and find people who like the same as well - you already have at least one common interest to relate to, so don’t tell me you have nothing to talk about.

Hang out with your new friends, and because friends introduce friends to other friends, soon enough you will make more friends. Find someone you’re attracted to and they feel the same? Start hanging out more with one another. It’s that simple.

If you are introduced by a friend, then you are already one foot in the door - you’re already past the “creep” and “stranger” territory. In fact, you are already several steps ahead of someone trying to date through online dating apps. Let me ask you this: are you more likely to respond to someone who is introduced to you by a friend you trust, or some randoms who hit you up on dating apps that you know nothing about? The odds are heavily stacked in your favor.

It’s that easy. No stupid pickup artist bullshit like doing 1000 cold approaches to annoy people on the street (lol), no spending endless hours swiping on dating apps and wondering if you’re sending the perfect message or curating the most perfect profile. No, just show up to a friend’s gathering and enjoy talking to people, that’s all you need.

Seriously, I feel like the root cause of the problem is that people these days are so alienated in society that they have grown too afraid to socialize. Complaints like “no, I don’t want to talk to people who I imagine might say reactionary things that I don’t like!” are just excuses to stop oneself from interacting with real people in the real world.

If you’re too afraid to even socialize, how is dating app going to help?

Man I don't even get to the conversation stage most of the time. I get a lot of likes in tinder, but its like 99% older burlier men that I don't match with. I only really like twinks, but I guess I've been classed as the twink . It's even harder matching with women. The ratio of men:women is so severe that I feel like I'm just a part of the void. I've had more conversations on hinge, but none have lead to anything in the real world and one of us always just ends up ghosting the other and unmatching. The only caveat I have is that I've only started using apps after leaving the US, so the language barrier may be more of a challenge here idk.

I've never used a dating site and I'm not about to now. Be a boomer and get a social hobby with a wide rl community that meet up.

How are people's experiences with Hinge? I've been pretty isolated for the past three years, haven't used a dating app in four (Tinder, one good date, one meh, one terrible.) As someone else stated, I'm out of college, hardly do anything social these days, just desperate to get out and have some sort of relationship again. I've had a friend recommend it.

The pictures don't load for me, so here is general advice from a person who spent probably hundreds of hours mindlessly swiping and holding meaningless conversations:

Treat it as a lottery

As in, there is an actual possibility for a very positive outcome, but the chance is miniscule and you shouldn't realistically expect any serious outcome.

I've had several very long-lasting connections formed on dating apps, but I only went so far because I spent months swiping and going through hundreds of eventually empty conversations.

Don't treat it seriously or it will emotionally grind you down. If you actually want to find a date, don't use dating apps at all. If you want to mindlessly scroll like on social media apps and kill time, sure.

How do you meet people in hellworld if you don't drink

that doesn't work either comrade lmao, lol even