I've always been hesitant to try online dating because 1.) I'm a guy 2.) I look like hell 3.) the algorithm prioritizes profit.
But lately I feel like it may be easier to throw my expectations out there and cross my fingers. Seems easier than trying to speak to people in person. But then again, the human aspect sorta just disappears too and I'm now stuck in a game of numbers, and perhaps quite literally as apps line Tinder gamify their services.
Anyway, I don't have anyone I could call a close friend. Hell, I don't even have anyone to call in general lol. I'm thinking it's a bad idea to dip my toes in that crap because I have nowhere to turn when the rejections inevitably come in. Plus at least with face-to-face interactions, I can have some sort of closure (I don't really know how to articulate this part. I guess being able to read faces will give me a better chance of understanding what I did wrong vs. emotionless text on a screen).
This can't possibly be worth it. I don't know what the alternative offline is for people in our situation, but holy shit.
Oops, I'm on welfare/disability and I will never be able to date :(
I'm an ugly fat loser with mental health issues that stop be from holding jobs long term with no familial money so I'm chronically poor.
I still have dated/had and have been in like a normal healthy amount of both short and long term relationships.
Biggest advice I can give is to try to stop hating yourself, because when you feel that way that's all that shows.
Oh and don't be an emotionally abusive asshole. You'd be surprised how high that ranks you.
I will caveat all this by saying, I have never tried online dating and it seems like something the literal devil invented to torture damned souls in hell.
Bars were cool, but COVID is a thing now too. So I can imagine things are much harder than last I was out there in the single pool, like a year before the pandemic, if you want to avoid getting sick lol, but I think that's the case with any interactions.
:this:
wish I could :yes-honey-left:
Finding people irl is infinitely superior to online dating for the vast, vast majority of people.
Covid fucking sucks.
good to hear, even though I am a hermit IRL still. as far as I'm concerned this online dating shit is all a capitalist sham.
well I guess that should give me hope. I still don't know where to begin, though. How do you meet girls who don't mind that you're chronically poor / have depression/anxiety and all that?
I can guarantee that, but not any of the things most women would want, like a guy who can at least drive or has his own place.
Work on feeling comfortable with those aspects abouts yourself and improve what you can. You're generalizing the concept of "woman" way too much here and I think you're projecting your discomforts with yourself a bit onto them.
Like actual adult women don't have some check list they mark off to see if you're suitable.
Develop some interests, accept what you can't change and work on the things that you can. It's legit advice.
It is very likely that they will care about the things I mentioned, though, isn't it?
Yeah you're not listening to the rest of what I said and between you and the other person this is feeling a bit incelly.
Specifically where I mentioned normal adult women don't have some big check list they're going over
I'm getting out of the Convo, best of luck with whatever you got going on.
Where do you find these based women to date, mang?
Because all info points to stuff being pretty brutal on dating apps, and meeting ppl irl isnt easy.
You have to build yourself social circles and social networks. If you go to a local hobby event a few times in a row with a bit of confidence, and with absolutely no goal whatsoever to find someone to date (or befriend - it's really difficult but people can tell if you're desperate, so you want to be there first and foremost to genuinely enjoy the activity), you can introduce yourself pretty easily and make some acquaintances fairly quickly. From there, if you see them regularly enough, you can get to the point where they invite you along to a social gathering of some kind or you can ask if they want to grab drinks or something. Having a few solid friend groups means there are lots of people on your periphery that kind of know you well enough to trust you but not well enough that there isn't a novel spark when you get to have a conversation with them. That's where a lot of my relationships and shorter flings have come from.
Cheers brah, would you say that the relationships you built and the sex you had this way via hobby groups... how do I put it... warm? As in satisfying and you felt a genuine connection? Not to imply its unusual for that to happen. I would think the answer is affirmative because theres already the shared interest over the hobby which would imply common values and thats comfy. I would have thought that the people one meets to enjoy a hobby would be secondary to the hobby and transient but thats just my preconception.
People you meet at hobby functions will be secondary to the hobby, until they aren't. Relationships can evolve in any direction over time and turn from a meaningless acquaintance to the most important person in your life. The really important thing is you can't force that process.
Yes. I should qualify a bit here and say that one of my extended networks of friends exists because of a religiously confused summer camp with very little money, where many of us spent the summer months, every year for years, in close-knit contact, sharing workloads, meals, living spaces, emotional ups and downs, natural settings, freedom to explore queerness, etc. I doubt you'll find a biking or DnD meetup that will come anywhere close to that level of connection, so in some ways that's a bit unfair.
On the other hand, I've met some long-time roommates and fast friends through a shitty lib activist group that I was only part of for about two months before COVID took an axe to its neck. Certain sparks need to fly for sure but putting yourself out there is the most important step. If you feel like nothing ever goes anywhere, it may help to focus on some of the details of how you engage in social interaction and build from there. I got lots of tips there too but I'm also just some random person on the internet so take everything with a grain of salt of course.
See I think you're looking at what they're saying as
"Get a hobby and trawl for women"
When what they're saying is
"Get a hobby"
Probably don't go off of "info" that points at women being some sort of mystical and confusing "other" that have weird esoteric requirements to be around lol
Meeting people in real life is a social skill you have to develop, and there's no like dating tips and tricks that are going to see you through it
I remember one of my FB friends in a different city posting a couple years back that she was "accepting boyfriend applications" or even leads. Her qualifications were something like "must have a reasonable level of independence, must have a baseline of human decency, must be either employed or doing something to better the world", and that was it.
People in the comments were saying "good luck but don't get your hopes up".
well, I have 1/3 of those things
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Those people are almost always just swiping on everyone and only looking for hookups (and aren’t hot enough to pull it off). The situation is not that bad otherwise.
But yeah, if you’re on welfare/disability, or are short, or are not white (etc etc etc) you’ll have a harder time than people who are not.
If you play it like a game, you'll find the house always wins. But since it's a game involving real human emotions, there's going to be variability they can't account for. The key is to find that tiny sliver of authenticity in the capitalist muck.
Yeah, dating apps are literally only useful for two things.
Hookups, if you’re hot. In which case you use the apps as much as you want.
Or, finding the first good person you connect with and then deleting the app.
Brutal