They got a lot worse over the years, and they’re exist to extract money, not to provide a service to its users.
To train with the sword, first master sweeping. When you have mastered sweeping, you must master the way of drawing water. Once you have learned how to draw water, you must split wood. Once you have split wood, you must learn the arts of finding the fine herbs in the forest, the arts of writing, the arts of paper making, and poetry writing. You must become familiar with the awl and the pen in equal measure. When you have mastered all these things you must master building a house. Once your house is built, you have no further need for a sword, since it is an ugly piece of metal and its adherents idiots.
— Meti’s Sword Manual, Meti from the comic Kill Six Billion Demons
This, but for dating.
Meetup.com and similar, go to as many hobbies and clubs and events as possible, but only pick things you genuinely care about
Passion about interests is incredibly sexy, almost as sexy as having fun doing things you like without explicitly looking for a relationship.
Date me now, is the most unsexy though, cause it’s ignoring the person, instead treating them as an abstract goal to reach
This is useless advice people love to parrot. The reality is people go to hobbies to do hobbies, not to find partners. You’ll be the creep in the corner and o ly be disappointed aging.
It is true that it is easier to meet partners at these activities than, like, sitting on your couch scrolling through TikTok on your phone.
But that’s because the people who are into meeting up to do things want to do the things themselves. It’s very easy to see through the people who are interested in the thing only as a stepping stone towards something else, versus the people who are actually there to enjoy the thing.
If you can’t show up to a meetup and have a great time despite there not being any available/single people you find attractive, you’re gonna be the kind of dud that isn’t attractive even when a potential partner shows up.
People should pursue hobbies and interests. It is fulfilling in itself, and makes you more attractive to others and puts you in contact with more people to have more opportunities to meet partners. But you gotta be the type of person to want to do it anyway, even if there is zero prospect of meeting a partner.
I mean the reality is that the best way to find a relationship is to aim for the ground and miss
As in aim for just making friends, and improving your own mental health, and you’re own social life, and accidentally getting a relationship by just finding people who you like hanging out with that like you as well.
It also ignores the gender imbalance of a lot of hobbies. You know how many women I’ve met at the RC field? Two. The wives of two pilots who just come to hang out and enjoy the weather lol
Did you read anything beyond the first sentence?
It looks like not
If you are in one of the supported locations, I can recommend Breeze. Via Breeze you can’t chat after matching. Instead you get a date planner in front of you. You pay for actual dates, meaning the app wants you to go on dates, since that is what gives them money. Cancelling dates is penalized via badges on your profile, and less priority in the algorithm. Hence, swiping right is a serious action, even more so than a message on the more serious sites. You also get a limited amount of profiles per day (around 5 to 10 or so), so you don’t get lost in swiping sessions. And yes, you do get dates with people who you really don’t click with. But the hour or two spend having a drink are still less of a waste of energy than chatting for 2 weeks to come to the same conclusion.
I feel like if you’re not going to use an app, you should focus on real life. Join meetups. Join a local sports team. Posting on a forum isn’t going to be more effective than that.
lots of people have active social lives and still find zero dating opportunities. usually because the people they would find attractive, are not involved in those social activities.
I’ve never met an attractive woman in any meetup, sports even, hobby, or volunteering thing I have ever done. I met lots of them via dating apps though, and those women think my meetups, sports, hobbies, and volunteering are stupid and unattractive.
hell, back when i was active on reddit years ago, i regularly random PMs from women who were interested in me there.
IRL I get absolutely nothing except the occasional random weirdo woman who approaches me at a bar and starts telling me what stupid jerk I am for reading books or having a cat and then acts butthurt I don’t want to bang her after she has ‘bantered’ with me.
And I’m not alone in that. Most of my single male friends and my single female friends, are living in totally different universes and they have zero interest in each other. Most of them either don’t date at all, or are perpetually chasing the wrong people who treat them like crap, or are hung up on some ex from years ago.
I’ve never met an attractive woman in any meetup, sports even, hobby, or volunteering thing I have ever done.
This sounds extremely implausible. Those activities should have a wide, fairly random, selection of attractiveness. Sports might favor people more physically fit, which is positively correlated with common ideas of attractiveness.
Maybe you’re using some non-standard or idiosyncratic standard of attractive?
I get absolutely nothing except the occasional random weirdo woman who approaches me at a bar and starts telling me what stupid jerk I am for reading books or having a cat
On the other hand, maybe you live in hell?
The attractive people involved are already coupled.
physical fitness has nothing to do with attractiveness. lots of unattractive people are super fit, and lots of attractive people are unfit.
I live in a city full of wealthy entitled people, who think they are superior to others by birthright and what college they went to, and who won’t talk to you if you don’t work for a fortune 500 company.
The attractive people involved are already coupled.
It is also extremely implausible that this is 100% true. Unless you were going to events that select for couples, you’re going to find a mix of relationship states.
physical fitness has nothing to do with attractiveness. lots of unattractive people are super fit, and lots of attractive people are unfit.
People generally find healthiness attractive. Fitness is correlated with healthiness, and this somewhat correlated with attractiveness. Tastes differ. But generally, people are not going to find “can’t run up the stairs without wheezing” more attractive than “can run”
I live in a city full of wealthy entitled people, who think they are superior to others by birthright and what college they went to, and who won’t talk to you if you don’t work for a fortune 500 company.
Very few cities are so homogeneous. Don’t dox yourself but what do you feel comfortable sharing about what city this is? I find it extremely unlikely that the entire city is full of people who only talk to fortune 500 people. Do all the wait staff and service workers exist in silence and depart the city at dusk?
Sounds like you’re putting up barriers blocking your own success, mostly.
yeah, clearly a random stranger on the internet knows more about my own life and my own life experiences than I do.
The wait and service staff live 2 hours away. My dog walker has a 1.5 hr commute from the rural part of the state. It’s the same story in any major USA coastal city. The central neighborhoods all have median incomes in the 150K+ range for single people, and couple shave incomes well over 250K. Homes cost well over a million dollars, and the average rent for a 1bed apartment is 3200/mo. Only rich people can afford to live here.
I make 150K a year, own a modest condo, and I am considered ‘poor’ because the expected income for a desirable man is 300-500K a year.
yeah, clearly a random stranger on the internet knows more about my own life and my own life experiences than I do.
You sound absolutely delusional, so, yeah maybe.
It’s the same story in any major USA coastal city.
I don’t know what city you’re in, but the median income in NYC is like $85k and there is a wide range of people here.
I make 150K a year, own a modest condo, and I am considered ‘poor’ because the expected income for a desirable man is 300-500K a year.
Don’t try to date the kind of person who expects $400k/year? In all my years of dating I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with that expectation, and that’s probably for the best.
You sound like some yokel that has never lived in a major city and has no clue what they are talking about. Cities are not homogeneous, your neighborhood is what defines where you live. You can walk two blocks and be in a area that’s poor and impoverished, or two blocks the other way and houses are all 50 million bucks. I live where the houses are 3 million.
there are no other kinds of people to date where I live. I am not going to drive 3-4 hours roundtrip so I can date people like my dog walker, who is too young and too dumb for me to date anyway. so i just date nobody, and i get hit on every now and then and she throws a shitfit because I don’t vacation in Bali yearly.
Yikes where hell state you live in where 150k a year is considered poor? You have a dog walker. No offense but you sound richy to me.
Self-created incel-hell it sounds like…
Read this and most of your other posts after this. If you’re in San Francisco (i dont know but what youre describing sounds very much like it), I can only share my experience in the bay area, your posts just sound very pessimistic.
Yeah, some of my friends have run into people like that but humans tend to be very dynamic in that everyone is different. If you find a girl who expects that level of finances, unlikely to be a great partner anyways. There are people everywhere. You even said yourself your friends are single and I would imagine they wouldn’t be your friends unless they had some qualities you like about them too. People are out there! Wishing you the best on your journey
people who i don’t want to date are out there, yes. people who I do want to date, don’t exist in this city anymore.
they did 10 years ago.
Do it like I did to find my wife:
- Have an instructor with a popular blog.
- Have her take a picture that makes you look like a young Meatloaf.
- Start your own offshoot blog.
- Post a lewd xkcd comic and ask for a participant for reenactment.
- Meet the participant.
- Mary the participant.
- Profit
Only works for Mary?
Damn, accidentally doxxed my wife.
What was the xkcd comic?
Did it work?
We lacked the loud neighbour.
You mean just through a web page instead of mobile apps?
Ain’t that just Craigslist?
they mean okcupid, match.com, plentyoffish, etc. or the more niche geek dating websites maybe.
all the dating websites that started in the 2000s and got supplanted by Tinder and Bumble over decade ago.
My partner and I met on okcupid about 6 years ago, it used to be the best for actual dating but then they got rid of all the good features
I met mad cool people on plenty of fish, the last one being my husband
sniffies.com works, no account needed
Went there, saw way too many websites’ scripts trying to run and closed the page. Don’t let your browser get STIs.
But that’s the STI sharing website. your computer can have some too, as a treat
Online dating is a bit of a misnomer. It’s not dating. It allows people to optimize selection based on superficiality, and stops anyone from from getting to know anyone. It’s also high stakes because arranged meets with matches are purpose driven.
Put it down. Turn it off. Go do something you love and meet people. All sorts of people. Have fun, casually. Somewhere in there, you’ll find someone special.
(Not directed to you OP, just online daters in general)
This feels overly pessimistic, I met my current wife online and there’s zero chance we would’ve bumped into each other IRL. I know the apps have gone to shit in terms of monetization and gamification but there are still real people out there who use them.
One small problem: Almost no third places in my local area.
Pubs n Bars?
I hate alcohol.
Alcohol-free drinks have existed since the Victorian era
Choices abound. Make one, move, stretch your legs a bit?
Ya got to make your third places (great words of encouragment).
Although in my case its tabletop games… That one sorta awards negitive points.
What is your city I will find you some
You’re trying to dox me, aren’t you?
Not at all, just trying to be helpful
Not everyone lives in cities
Sure I just meant like closest city to you
A hobby is the best way to meet someone.
I met My current partner online while I was using magic to heal a dragon. Happy to tell the full story if anyone’s curious.
One small problem: even back then I wasn’t too much into MMOs, and nowadays even the online third places are being enshittified. Gone the days of monthly subscription fees, nowadays we have pay2win elements (or at least gacha waifus) instead.
Didn’t happen in a video game
Then I definitely want to know the story! Larping?
I used to be the owner of a dragon with DID. Dissociative Identity Disorder. The one where your mind splits from trauma. Xis name was Xe. Xe had a rich world in headspace, which is the imagined world where different alters can exist physically at the same time. Xe was very feral, fully a wild animal. Some part of the childhood trauma had broken off Xe’s intelligence and put it in xis human alter, Henk. Henk and I were friends.
Xe and I were close for a few months, but after a lot of drama involving an evil goat and questions of consent, our relationship became quite strained. I asked for some space from Xe, and when I came back, xis entire headspace was covered by a black corrosive fog. Only a small imagined area was safe. Protip: physical disturbances in headspace are nearly always allegories for emotional disturbances in the mind.
Fortunately, I’m a wizard, and I know how to treat DID problems. I spoke with Henk, and learned that the fog was a manifestation of Henk’s guilt for hurting Xe in the past. Henk’s guilt was choking the entire system and hurting everyone. And I knew the cure had to be an allegory for Xe’s forgiveness. But Xe wasn’t capable of talking, let alone expressing a complex idea like forgiveness. So it was time for some magic.
I shapeshifted into a dragon of the same species as Xe, stood up, and breathed fire on the fog. Xe took the cue, and joined in. Both of us flaming up the corrosive fog. Honestly, Xe was doing all the work. Xe burned back the fire, and saved everyone in the headspace.
And all this happened on Xe’s discord server. A friend of xis, a shark named Ivy, saw it all go down through text chat and roleplay. And fell in love with the cool astral adventurer who had healed its friend.
We’ve been together for over 4 years now.
Yah, you’re not walking away from that so casually. Gimme the story in 300 words or less. ;)
Edit. Never mind. I saw the post right after. Thanks for sharing.
maybe we can go back to craigslist personals
they don’t exist anymore. they were shut down because of sex trafficking laws in 2018.
I havent used them in about 13 years, but does the ‘casting the net’ approach not work anymore? How bad did they get? Like you need to pay to get their reply?
No, but most of them limit how many likes you can send, you can’t undo a swipe, and of course to find out who liked you have to get the higher tier not even just the basic one.
Oof thats farked. Enshitification really shat on everything
net still works fine. The apps have gotten worse, there is much more annoying patterns, the people have gotten much more bitter as a lot of the people on there are the leftovers. But you still find interesting people and if you’re open to actually looking at people then you can turn a biter person back into a normal person.
But yeah its pretty competitive, I feel like guys have begun to level up their game and they now dress nice, shower and take good photos so you cant get ahead just by doing the basics anymore.
I feel like guys have begun to level up their game and they now dress nice, shower and take good photos so you cant get ahead just by doing the basics anymore.
From what I’ve seen of my single friends online dating experience that hasn’t caught on yet here. Still like 60% fish pics, 25% truck pics and 5% actually decent photos
Showering isn’t a basic thing anymore?😱
Shit that makes me feel old as fuck, i hope i dont end up single again
it doesn’t exist anymore.
apps took over in the mid 2010s. dating websites only really were popular before smart phones.
