• FourteenEyes [he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    I deleted Bumble again last week. Don't think I'll try any of these things again. I should have listened to the people who told me it was a bad idea to make a dating profile. It was devastating to the confidence I'd built up before putting myself out there, and I still feel unlovable and socially undesirable despite people giving me compliments on my looks and my voice and my sense of humor all the time. It makes me cry every day.

    • Yurt_Owl
      ·
      5 months ago

      As someone who experienced pre and post tinder style online dating the matching "algorithm" is intended to make you feel awful in order to drive you to pay stupid sums for their crappy subs, boosts or whatever crap they have now.

      I can guarantee you are cool and good. The pre tinder era of online dating I met so many cool people and was chatting to multiple people a month and post the swipe nonsense it all dried up, years of nothing. The cool people i used to see vanished and I was instead matched with people I'd probably never talk to irl or what feel like bot accounts.

      Try not to let these sites change how you see yourself. Easier said than done I know but they don't reflect who you are and never will.

      • charly4994 [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        5 months ago

        I had a similar experience back when OkCupid was not the tinder model, chatted up quite a few people, it never really got too far because I just didn't pick up on anvil sized hints, but now with modern dating apps, I've basically accepted that I'll be alone because wading into them is just psychological torture.

        • SoylentSnake [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          5 months ago

          I've basically accepted that I'll be alone because wading into them is just psychological torture.

          don't buy into the idea that they're the only way to meet people and give up on love, my good sweet comrade. yes it's getting harder to find other avenues, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. and considering how many women seem to just opt out of the apps (what with the gender ratio being so skewed on the str8 side), i gotta think people are finding other ways to find love. (unless...more and more people are just giving up on love... sadness-abysmal)

          • Lerios [hy/hym]
            ·
            edit-2
            5 months ago

            unless...more and more people are just giving up on love... sadness-abysmal

            i hate to break it to you comrade, but as a zoomer, yeah. i went through 4 years of college and in that time i knew literally two (2) people who ever got into a relationship. now i'm graduated and i don't know a single person with a partner. the only person i know who has any romantic contact at all is a gay male friend who goes on grinder hook ups.

            dating apps have always been too much hassle for me, but honestly i wouldn't have the slightest fucking clue where to even start with the idea of meeting girls irl.

            • SoylentSnake [he/him, they/them]
              ·
              5 months ago

              that is fucking deeply upsetting to ur millennial (and semi-recently single) comrade but fuck, if thats how it be thats how it be. but jesus christ that fucking sucks this world just keeps getting worse.

    • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
      ·
      5 months ago

      It's been years since I used dating apps/websites and they were already aggressively depressing, I cannot imagine how awful they are now

      • FourteenEyes [he/him]
        ·
        5 months ago

        My experience: got some matches, got one date that canceled on me and said she was going to try dating closer (fine, sad but at least she was polite enough to give me closure), zoom date with one girl that just sorta fizzled out, got talked up by another girl who was all "ooh it's your birthday next week let me put it in my calendar let's meet on monday" and then ghosted me, took a break for a minute after that, was chatting with another girl who suddenly ghosted me, got a date with another girl who stood me up the first time and then arranged to meet for drinks later on and ditched me after an hour and ghosted me after saying "I don't ghost people" to reassure me after she broke contact for a bit, got texted out of the blue by the previous girl who ghosted me saying she felt bad and wanted to try again, we chatted for like a day and she ghosted me again.

        I don't really have any way to meet people. I have very few friends and zero romantic prospects. I'm so lonely I think about death on a regular basis, because I can't really stand this much longer. I'm so alone in every way that's important.

        • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
          ·
          5 months ago

          I'm sorry to hear that. I feel pretty similar to you, isolated because I'm not a particularly social person to begin with and once I started working remote I've just become a hermit, the social "muscle" has just gotten more and more atrophied. Sometimes it feels funny to be both a leftist and what I'm sure is an extremely typical example of an American "male" who never talks about his feelings and has no close emotional relationships.

          • FourteenEyes [he/him]
            ·
            5 months ago

            It's free and convenient and a good way to get a vibe check going on while maintaining total safety

            tbh it was fine

    • SoylentSnake [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      im pretty much with you. if youve followed my posts at all, this past year i became single for basically the first time in my adult life. and while i went into the apps knowing its not really a meritocracy, i was still shocked at how awful and dehumanizing (and just plain bad at serving their intended function if you're straight masc) the apps are. i redownloaded them after a month off them, but really have just been seeing them as a game to play while i take a shit this time around and am expecting zero success. sucks though, because idk where else you can meet people nowadays - but at the same time the apps barely even seem to work, so it feels like somethings gotta give...

      • Hohsia [he/him]
        ·
        5 months ago

        I’ve thought for the longest time that there needs to be a grassroots dating app or something

        But we very quickly arise at the root of the problem which is capitalism 🥰

    • Rojo27 [he/him]
      ·
      5 months ago

      In the process of doing the same with the apps I have. Already getting notifications to get back on or else my profile will be hidden!boohoo I used to be able to have a few conversations on dating apps/sites although they never amounted to much, but now its just boost this and upgrade that or bot accounts that drive up your likes to make you think that maybe there is still hope. In the end I've spent an obscene amount of money just to make myself feel like shit. I still second guess myself now even as I've been talking to someone at work who has shown an interest in me.

    • GeorgeZBush [he/him]
      ·
      5 months ago

      People were not meant to be rejected dozens of times per day. Fuck apps.

      • FourteenEyes [he/him]
        ·
        5 months ago

        Luckily I have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and my feelings get hurt when my coworker returns my greetings in a colder tone than to her friend and getting rejected for friendship or a date feels like being stabbed in the heart, so it all works out joker-dancing

  • Yurt_Owl
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    Tinder ruined everything. They worked perfectly when you could see and talk to anyone on the site directly. But I guess that was too successful of a model to make money from.

    I'm actually tempted to make my own maybe open source dating site that works somewhat similar to the old style but without the absurdly discriminatory filters based on immutable characteristics cos that was SUPER cringe.

    • GaveUp [she/her]
      ·
      5 months ago

      They worked perfectly when you could see and talk to anyone on the site directly

      This is literally Grindr

    • lilypad [she/her]
      ·
      5 months ago

      Hear me out, a distributed dating app, so that everything happens without needing a server.

      Assume 1gb of free storage per device, distribute gzipped text-only profiles such that any given profile is constantly "on the network" (i.e. distributed via someone elses device if youre no longer connected, idk like distribute to 20 random devices, and then redistribute if the number of active devices drops below 5?), but have images hosted from your device so theyre only available if your device is currently connected. Have everyone set a "home location point" to avoid distributing via a device thats across an ocean or something.

      Basically, by using the app you're contributing processing power to run the network. Idk ive never done or looked at anything like that before, but it sounded cool in my head. Plus text only profiles take so little space, you could store a lot of them in 1gb, especially if theyre like gzipped tarballs or something similar.

      Messages could be peer to peer. If someone messages you or likes you or matches with you, it forwards that info to your device or stores it on one or more devices in order to forward it once youre back on the network.

      Goal is to remove any profit motive from the app, so users instead of paying money pay with device processing power.

      Ok random thought over now. Ive never done distributed systems before so its probably a pipe dream or something impractical.

      • Yurt_Owl
        ·
        5 months ago

        3ds street pass but its a dating app

      • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        5 months ago

        I definitely would torrent a movie, a car and a boyfriend. \s

        While I don't like your solution, it seems to be directed at a similar reason as to why fediverse communities are generally nicer (I also don't think federated dating apps are a good solution), because the communities are hosted willingly by people who are part of the community.

        Even if somebody has to shoulder the costs, and the website is driven by donations, it's hard to scale that into something profitable, and the community comes out better from that. I remember reading that craigslist started as a local email list. Maybe the solution for dating apps would be to make them hyperlocal systems rather than generic multinational hyper-individualistic one-size-fits-all solution.

        (In my experience, it's also rather cringe seeing apps like tinder trying to use gringo marketing techniques over here)

        • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]
          ·
          5 months ago

          Hell yeah peoples dating site. You have to read a line of theory to log in. Extreme moderation so if you send an unsolicited dick pick or are a chud you get instantly banned.

          • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
            ·
            5 months ago

            The USSR literally had events for single young people to encourage them to bone down and have kids so yeah, this isn't without precedent

              • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
                ·
                5 months ago

                It was some article I read years ago, I'll try and dig it up.

                Also there's a Soviet Czech movie where they show an event like this, but again I'm blanking on the name.

      • GaveUp [she/her]
        ·
        5 months ago

        Yea I think this idea fails for anybody with non incredible connection speeds or phones

  • RenownedBalloonThief@lemmy.ml
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    I'm currently in a relationship with someone I met on Bumble which I used for about two weeks, so it's not all bad.

    Pro-tip: if you do pay for premium, make a Google Play account with the address set to any Filipino library, and pay with your normal PayPal account. Regional pricing makes it cost like $4/month.

    • MagicPterodactyl@lemmy.ml
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      My experience was about the same on bumble. Within a few days I was able to set up a few dates one of which turned into a long term relationship. But maybe it's gotten a lot worse in the 3 years since then.

      Edit: to be clear I didn't pay for any sort of premium thing and want to make sure it's clear I'm not promoting people pay money for that service.

  • 240p [he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    You basically have to brute force dating apps just to get to the conversation stage - that's what I did with Tinder, Bumble, Grindr etc. Exhaust your "likes" for the day and if you get a match see how the convo goes. Granted this isn't ideal the cooldown time is so annoying and you might find yourself matched with someone you're not instantly into, but imo attraction to a person is so much more than a few pictures and a bio so I'll always try to find out more about the person to see if we click. It's hard out there though regardless, somehow through pure dumb luck I found my girlfriend on Grindr of all places and haven't looked back - the odds must be astronomical...

    • SoylentSnake [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      pure dumb luck I found my girlfriend on Grindr of all places and haven't looked back

      have they expanded into being het trans/enby-inclusive? i never tried grindr because i assumed it was still just the gay hookup app

      • 240p [he/him]
        ·
        5 months ago

        Yeah there's a good range of ways to describe your gender identity on it including non binary terms. It is still very hook up oriented (be prepared for unsolicited dick pics) but you can at least use tags to make it very clear what you're looking for, be it a more serious romantic relationship or even just looking for friends to chat with.

        • SoylentSnake [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          5 months ago

          hm very interesting...im masc enby but am regrettably het so i feel like still not the target audience on grindr unless it's changed a crazy amnt. (if i were bi i'd prob pull infinitely more on the apps ngl ngl)

  • Dr_Gabriel_Aby [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    I genuinely feel so bad for everyone that has ever had to use a dating app to meet people. I got very very lucky meeting my partner when I did (2010). It seems absolutely terrifying and something that would make me develop an anxiety issue. I could not wait on texts like that.