This is really a monumental societal change.
3rd spaces are nearly completely destroyed, and online seems to be the main option for ppl now.
Wonder who were the people who met online in the 80s. Like nasa engineers?
This is the real question
I’m going to start dating again sometime soon, so this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot.
I hate that if I go on an app and make a contact, the ostensible purpose will be to date. When that’s the purpose, at some point an evaluation will have to be made. Either that purpose is met or it isn’t. You could have a conversation about being friends or considering your options, but I’m sure starting that conversation feels awkward and hurtful. It would feel like downgrading them from the original intent behind meeting.
Not starting that conversation could be delaying the dreams of two people though, so there would be a time crunch to make a decision before I might be ready. It feels like this will inevitably end up with throwing aside people who could be great to have as friends.
A connection shouldn’t be a decision, it should be something that happens. I’d rather just hang out with someone with the expectation that we’re hoping to be friends, and if there is a connection we’ll see it in each other sooner or later. Unfortunately for me, striking up conversations with single women to be friends with while having the thought of going further in the back of my mind might as well be the definition of creeper behavior.
Here is some friendly advice from someone who online dated since the beginning (and I mean starting using online personal ads with eloquent long-form stories on Craigslist of all places, which would look like AI with more personality wrote it given how long): don’t do it.
You are aware of the basics with the toxic pattern of online dating. The other elements are more insidious. But all of that aside, the biggest problem is nobody really says who they are and nobody really understands what they want.
The only real option is to live in a way that makes you happy, with no expectation of anyone joining you. In the course of ACTION, you may meet someone taking the same action, and that is a bond that cannot easily be forged online.
If you want a real connection, live in a real way. Do the things you dreamed of but never dared. Take risks living the way YOU want, not the way you’ve been taught. The closer you come to living how you truly want, the closer you will come to Someone living the same way. You can never meet them as long as you live someone else’s life.
When you give so much thought and attention to dating, you will find others giving so much thought and attention to dating. That is a consuming identity. Consider what it means.
- emotional states tied to someone else
- mind always on feeling good based on finding the right person
- calibrated to “the search”
- believes in a companionship as the saving grace, the thing missing
- my person isn’t making me feel good, so I need to find a person that does, good thing I can passively browse online, no harm in that…
…and so on. Online dating as it is now is an addiction and a disease. You might be able to have (bad) sex on it, and you might be able to learn more about yourself and random people you’d never otherwise cross paths with, but for the most part, it is nearly impossible to meet an ideal match.
The top 10% of men “get” the top 50% of women online. The top 50% of women all compete over (and mostly share) the top 10%, thinking they deserve more. The curve is exponential so the numbers at the 1% are insane. And what does “top” even mean?
People look enviously at the “top”. But they shouldn’t. Sure, they’re banging “hot people” all the time along with spreading their hot diseases, but that is where the depth of connection ends. Many of them evolve into SNAGs (spiritual new age guys) for this reason. They are trapped in a cycle of being on top, never exploring other options because they are receiving everything society has deemed as the purpose of it. Yet inside, they rot away, more alone than anyone. There was a person in them once. A child with dreams. Now there is a dark empty void that keeps growing.
Anyway, this hellish online landscape doesn’t have to be this way. If the systems were designed right and culture evolved, it could be extremely possible and downright prudent to find healthy connections. It would operate passively and automatically and we would organically encounter amazing matches. But right now, online dating is captured by greedy corporate interests and is a toxic wasteland to keep you addicted and longing, desperate, and hungry.
This is true for man or woman. Men are turned into ravenous & desperate worms that gyrate at the slightest possibility. Women are turned into tyrant queens believing they are laced in gold with infinite options, yet all the options are diseased maggots living as a shadow of their being. Both create a desperately alone populace longing for something more, and they don’t even know what that “more” is.
It’s the real you dude. Go take a hike, hug a tree, focus on hobbies, and stop chasing broken dreams. Real people aren’t drawn to longing. They’re drawn to living.
The reason I’m inclined to turn to online dating is because the real me is someone whose dream life would be spending most of his days sitting around with a good friend playing with cats. It’s not like I have no solo interests at all, they’re just not ones that can invite a connection by doing them in public. Sometimes I read math, I have papers on the arXiv on category theory and categorical homotopy theory, but I’m out of academia right now so that’s not a way to connect with real people.
I absolutely love talking to people and forming connections, but just with one other person at a time, otherwise I get behind the conversation and go into deep introversion. I like getting to listen to someone tell their stories and talk about themselves. One of my favorite activities is reading books out loud with a friend. I don’t know how to go out into the real world and just do that with one other person. Online I can, and have made some wonderful connections. It’s just that dating apps specifically look like a nightmare.
If I were really into hiking or whatever I would be all about living that out. Unfortunately, the person I am is someone who would be doing activities as a means to socialize, rather than the other way around. Doing those things would very much not be the real me. It’s not easy to live a solitary life for an extended period and not dream about more, and those dreams start to feel like an ulterior motive if I’m seeking out new connections.
I don’t think at all about what “top” should mean in a dating pool, it hadn’t even crossed my mind, so I’m not sure why you’re bringing that up. I don’t care about whether I find someone in a top percentile of anything, I just want to find someone who is empathetic and who I connect with.
Needing an app through a business to find love is fucking depressing.
Why is it a blue whale?
I think this is actually good in that the online space lets us have access to more options and let folks find partners that are well suited to their idiosyncracies
What’s bad about it I think is the fact that capitalists are involved extracting value. But essentially we have inserted control and intentionality into a process that previously was more or less random. The wisdom really did used to be, just wait for it, it will happen when you least expect it. Well, not for everyone!
I think this is actually good in that the online space lets us have access to more options and let folks find partners that are well suited to their idiosyncracies
0 > 0?
Did you live pre-internet?
It was way worse in my experience.
I dated only without internet ; online hookups is just so… not me
i had one LTR before online dating and none since. it’s a desolate wasteland out here
Feel kinda lucky to have met my partner IRL now. It’s horribly depressing how reliant on online communities we’ve become, and how social gathering spaces abd third places are eroding.
right… I can’t meet anyone for the life of me and be damned if I give a rats ass about even attempting to meet someone online. it’s a ceaspool of distrust, lies and fake garbage online. not a good way to meet anyone tbh…
Hopefully third spaces make a strong comeback, which would be far easier in socialism.
I just want somewhere that I can put my personal wall down again. that won’t happen on the internet where I won’t ever know the recipient in a trustworthy way.
That’s fair! I’ve found organizing work to be a good way to connect with people IRL, maybe do something similar? A hobbyist group, maybe?
I think I should volunteer… I’m only happy when doing for others. I always disregard myself and when there’s no others, I suffer.
thank you.
That sounds great for you! There are a lot of cool orgs or charities that would love to have more help!
There’s a few star trek episodes where they deal with characters who become addicted to either holodecks/holosuites, or games, but I guess it being a space-socialist-utopia of sorts, they give people enough 3rd spaces and community gatherings, so that its rare to find people who completely retreat from real life, and usually a sign of some mental affliction or trauma.
At least right now, I don’t see the US recovering from this… 3rd spaces might pop up here and there, but they’ll be increasingly rare, and against the trend of overall social isolation.
When I was in college, the local indie tea/coffee shop was really nice. But then staryucks moved in a block or so over and they tanked. The nearest indie coffee shop recently was about 30? miles away and run by immigrants. There’s no public transit, so I have no idea if they’re still open, but I suspect not, since our local population is all but non-existent, now.
Damn… its gotta be rough living that far out.
I’ve been looking at nearish rentals, closer to civilization, today. I’m not kidding when I say the least expensive is a $1200 loft with ladder entry, bed space only, within a 60 mi. radius. So the rough is equal, but applied differently
Yea, this isn’t something I can see getting fixed under capitalism. I still hope that as imperialism crumbles and the treats slow down the US empire will have a revolution, but that’s not in the immediate future it seems.
Mfw people start romance in revo.
On a positive note, after my last (patriarchal adhering) ex and I split up, several of my sisters around me started splitting up with their own. With the exception of one, we’re still single. It’s just not worth the bangmaid therapist and other abusive, exploitative crap that goes with.
Happy things are looking better for y’all!
the bangmaid therapist
The what?
Sex, maid, therapist. Mankeeping.
An additional hot take: online communities create weaker links than in-person communities. hear me out please
Not because the connections themselves are less strong, but because they don’t tie to any other connection. If I met someone in real life, chances are high they are going to meet my family and create connections with them too. On the other hand, if I met someone online, they would most likely not meet my partner and definitely not meet my broader family. What in real life could be a merging of social groups, and therefore a strengthening of everyone’s social nets becomes online the creation of a single link, that is therefore that much easier to break off.
Fediverse Tinder where?
“my instance defederated from the baddies”
-a future sentence to be uttered
NSFW
8=====>
Sir, this is a Christian server.
Remove this filth immediately.
Put that in my server. ;-)
Looks like a whale, mouth on the left
If you pay me $5 dollars you may talk to each other for 5 days! But, if you pay me $10, you may receive an additional free talk week!
Don’t you guys want to talk? So give me money! There are women in your area ready to talk!
we need to shut the internet down until we can figure out what the hell is going on
I sometimes wonder if its even possible to have any healthy online social network. We can try to build in things to make social media less addictive, and try to use less of the psychologically damaging things capitalist software companies build in… but at the end of the day an online group of friends can never sub for a real one.
Making things less addictive helps.
I also recall someone once saying that privacy isn’t about maintaining secrecy around one’s inner life, but rather the capacity to regulate or control how one shares it.
Feeling a lack of control over privacy makes lots of people cagey about opening up to others, and that’s a killer for intimacy and trust. Some of the problem is tech that doesn’t respect privacy, but the prevalence of such tech has also changed culture, and so one has to be more cautious with people who have been trained by their tools that privacy isn’t to be respected.
That is true, a combination of both I think is the best. But, under Capitalism, the IRL experience is getting progressively worse and worse so people go into the Internet to escape that hell.
Would be interesting to see how these compare to the number of people who’s given up on meeting an SO and/or doesn’t have the time/energy to.
I’ve met a disturbing number of young people who haven’t given up on dating per se, but make zero apparent effort in it.
I mean like, never talk about anything but work or family.
🤚
I’ve def met a few people like this. They have a few terrible dates on these sites, and it just stresses them out too much to even try again. Its really sad.
10 years of online dating, 6 dates out of it. As a well below average guy I just gave up
Are you actually a below average guy, or do you just have below average pictures?
Good “candid”/fun/funny photos are huge for dating apps.
I’m below average in most ways not just as far as attraction goes, but yeah my photos are never that great because I’m not attractive at all. I have had candid ones and funny ones, but I never got much traction. I live in an overpopulated area so this buffet table is brimming with options. I’m just that odd pizza at the Chinese buffet where you wonder why it’s being served lol
idk about him but there has been roughly one photo taken of me in the last decade and it’s on my ID
Pro gamer move: don’t use your license photo for online dating. Unless it’s really funny then maybe.
Yeah honestly it sucks getting into it, but it’s a lot easier when you can recruit someone for help.
literally don’t know anybody in town, haven’t seen anyone else wear a mask in two years.
“a well below average guy” i think stuff like this is just made up, i dont believe in ratings and i dont think others should either tbh
Idk comparisons are a thing that can be done and I’m objectively worse than most people in most categories (looks, intelligence, earning potential, education, interests, etc…) so I consider myself “well below average” especially since choosing a person to potentially date does involve comparing them to your other “options.”
since choosing a person to potentially date does involve comparing them to your other “options.”
i mean if you choose a partner like you would choose a car, then i guess it is like this
or actually even then it is not like this, like there is nothing objective for most categories.
like you list interests as below average, what is this even supposed to mean lmao or intelligence like how would you even know that and for earning potential, there are like a lot more poor people than rich, beeing poor is the normal one lol
even for education, like people can still know dtuff even if they dont go to university… Or know nothing if they went
what i am saying is this sounds more like you just beeing unhappy with yourself if anything. Or if you are happy, then you are probably just not a good match anyway for someone that is like looking for a car.
(Not OP)
I do get both your standpoints, its all subjective of course, so you can’t really be below average in interests or something like that, but you can definitely be below average in terms of commonalities with other people.I don’t know OP so I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or is indeed just unhappy with himself. But if your hobby is watching VR MyLittlePony porn you’re going to have a tougher time than if your hobby is cooking.
Same for weight, if you’re 200kg it’s going to be harder, especially on dating apps.
Money and intelligence I’m not so sure about, that probably matters less than he might think
I also believe in a classless society.
i’m sort of like this and i don’t see it as sad.
i was “married” (in quotes because it was illegal for me to be married at the time) and both internal and external stressors taught me that i got less significantly fulfillment out of the efforts & sacrifices necessary to maintain that long term relationship than i do now that i’ve been single for the last decade+; so i stopped stressing myself with the belief that i need to be partnered.
it’s definitely sad if you get more out of being partnered than single, but i suspect that it’s not true of a significantly large number of people and that most are just taught to believe that they should be partnered and that, in turn, causes people to lament lacking partnership out of ignorance that they don’t really need it.
I predict that we’ll see a lot of people giving up on human relationship altogether with the advent of horny AI chatbots.
I’m married and almost ready to give up on human relationships outside of my partner and mom lol. Not really, but shit’s bleak even outside of dating…
The US is a giant experiment on just how atomized a human society can get before collapsing.
I think there are many valid criticisms of online dating, I would not suggest it’s an unalloyed good thing. However, I am old enough to have plenty of experience (trying to) date when online wasn’t an option (limited only to work, through friends, and through church since I was religious when I was younger) and I have to say, I prefer having the online option - or at least I did before I married my wife, who I met online.
Relying only on non-online spaces sucked for me. I just didn’t have the confidence to approach women and ask them out. I put myself in the friend zone all the time. When I first found online dating, I found it refreshing. It lowered that barrier for me and I think probably for a lot of other more socially awkward people.
There’s probably broader social problems when online becomes the dominant form, at least under capitalism.
Sometimes I get the feeling Zoomers think dating was “easier” before apps but I really don’t think that was the case, at least for me.
Yeah, same here. I barely dated before online dating (granted I had a boyfriend for a couple years.) When I found online dating, it felt kind of magic. All of a sudden there were all these men interested in me who were actually cute/smart/funny AND into the same shit as me? It even made me realize what a bad match my ex had been and that some portion of our relationship was just out of convenience because he had actually asked me out. (The men I found myself most compatible with online weren’t generally high in confidence and didn’t ask many women out.)
Within a month of trying online dating, I found 2 fantastic men I wanted to be in a relationship with (at the same time… Womp womp.) However just within like 5 years of dating one of them, the online dating scene had already felt like it shifted it a lot. It was way more frustrating with a lot more people I wasn’t interested in and the really compatible ones fewer and further between (or maybe just harder to find.) I ended up casually dating online in earnest for several years before meeting my husband. It was still easier than meeting someone in person imo (but I’m also a woman) and I definitely understand why younger people might believe in person was better.
i think the problem isn’t online dating as such - in a healthy, post capitalist society it would probably still exist as one avenue among many - but moreso the specific structure of all these Tinder-likes which combine facets of an online catalogue, a slot machine at a casino, and a pay-to-win phone game. it’s a perfect storm of the transactional atomization of relationships under capitalism and the gross objectification encouraged by patriarchy that makes them such shitboxes of sexual harassment, lowered self esteem, and disposable, precarious relationships with others. more humane online dating would probably revert to something similar to the old school OK Cupid model.
you can still find worthwhile connections on the apps, but you’re swimming against the current trying to do so. this is coming from someone who never really found a ton of success in either traditional “cold approach” type dating spaces, or the apps. most of my relationships and situationships have emerged from organic community connections, generally have grown out of friendships to one degree or another (with an exception or two that were from the apps).
Same here during high school and college.
The issues that I remember were:- Having a great time chatting to women/girls only to find out they were in a relationship.
- Going to lively party and there’s 50 guys and 10 women of which 9 are girlfriends and the last one is surrounded.
- Going to a lively party and noticing a girl/women with an attitude of “Huh, she looks okay, I wonder what she’s like. Maybe she’s great, maybe she’s not, let’s find out.” So I approach her with “Hi my name is Folaht, what’s…?” and immediately get replied “My name is ‘Get the hell away from me RIGHT NOW!’” and then walk off with “Sheesh, I just wanted to go to know someone.” and hear from behind me “No you don’t! You just wanted to GET INTO MY PANTS, WRAGH!!”. As poor as replies can be at dating sites, it’s at least never this bad.
- Going to a lively party and noticing a girl/women with an attitude of “Huh, she looks okay, I wonder what she’s like. Maybe she’s great, maybe she’s not, let’s find out.” So I approach her with “Hi my name is Folaht, what’s…?” and then a group frat guys noticing and going “OOHHHH… WOLF WHISTLE AWOOOO!!! OW OW OW!!!”.
And these issues were not just present, they were the norm.
Every action I did to just start a conversation was “You trying score” by “getting into her pants”
and every opportunity I think I have had, I ran away from because I felt it went way too quick
and I didn’t want to say ‘yes’ to things I might later backtrack and disappoint the person with,
just because I didn’t want to hurt that person’s feelings at that time.
the sad part is, we have us oligarchs mediating it worldwide. not a good look.
well thats the one place I’ll never look lol, rip me
