I am very relationship-minded, but after having a couple of very long-term relationships that began online, I am seeking some damn serendipity for the next relationship. The thought of women swiping (either direction) in response to some fleeting half-glimpse mostly based on how well I could choose photos that overstate my attractiveness is seriously a distressing idea.

The shift in the way people perceive online dating stresses me out. In general it makes me feel that I would not be considered or evaluated in serendipitous real-life encounters, because everyone has filed away "dating" to be "that thing I screen for on Tinder." People you meet in random circumstances, and who might strike up a conversation about going on a date, are now universally panned, perhaps because there is a risk factor with meeting a stranger that way that feels mitigated on a platform like Tinder. But whatever it is, it means that non-empty, substantive, 3-D interactions out in the real world are heavily discounted compared to what I really feel are hollow, checkout-line-candy-bar low-substance representations of our selves (e.g. Tinder profile, OKCupid profile) ...

I'm very secure with being alone, so I think my only realistic hope is that later on, maybe when I am 35 or maybe when I am 40, some single women in the age range I am seeking will stop viewing it this way, and someone they happen to meet when they are out doing something will again be evaluated as a possible partner. I've more or less resigned myself to being alone and missing out on sexual opportunities between now and then. I don't consent to being evaluated the Tinder way ... and I'm just gonna go ahead and keep on not consenting to that.

I can only speak about the male perspective on this ... but I imagine the same would be true for females, except that it seems likely that a higher proportion of male Tinder users are seeking casual sex. As a result, something like Tinder is well-suited to women who either do want casual sex, or who want to screen against people seeking only that. It doesn't seem to offer reciprocal utility for a male in my situation.

I think I'd feel less stressed if everyone was just using Tinder for casual sex.

It's probably just torschlusspanik anyway O_o ...

What an awesome word! TIL that it's German for 'gate-shut-panic', [1] or 'fear that time is running out' apparently. Literally the feeling that medieval peasants had when the castle gates were closing for an upcoming onslaught by enemies.

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Torschlusspanik

Also, consider how scripted and industrialized the quest for "serendipity" actually was - for most people, it amounted to an otherwise boring trawl through bars often devoid of anyone attractive to you.

I go to quiet cafés when I want to think or relax, and mentally I'm not in the headspace of evaluating mates. I guess I'd be open to a woman who made the first move in that situation, but I don't expect it. Even when I go to concerts, it's generally (shock) to listen to music, and I try my best to tune out the existence of the crowd.

The point of serendipity is that it happens when you're not trying to make it happen. By definition, if something is industrialized and scripted, it's not serendipitous. Trawling bars or going to a party with explicit goals to evaluate potential mates is totally the opposite of what I'm talking about, and things like Tinder, while reducing some up front costs (you don't have to physically go anywhere, you don't risk in-person rejection, etc.), are like hyper mega on-steroids version of trawling with explicit mate evaluation goals.

I'm not sure I agree about the macho comment either. In my experience, trying to win the affection of intellectual women, humor is by far the most critical thing.

Here's a DFW quote that has meant a lot to me regarding my modern understanding of the personal importance of serendipity:

"Both destiny's kisses and its dope-slaps illustrate an individual person's basic personal powerlessness over the really meaningful events in his life: i.e. almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of Psst that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer."

Haha, this reminds me of a concert I went to in Manhattan a couple of years ago, for a German metal band from the 80s. It was a pretty small venue, the total crowd was less than 500 (I think the fire marshall's sign said max capacity of 450), and as you might expect for a German metal band, the crowd was overwhelmingly male. So I stood near the back (since I like to do that, I'm not into mosh pits) and saw two women come in together. Unlike the men who were obviously all there to actually see the band, and who were using their phones to take pictures of... the band, these two women took selfies of themselves with the band in the background, then promptly went over to the bar to troll for men. None of the men seemed too interested in them...

Seems reasonable. I'm all about being as committed to my personal life as my work and I make those dating apps WORK for me. I am talking 1-2 dates a week when I'm in search mode.

But I met my current SO after I went climbing with my friend and he invited his housemate along. Within a day I knew I was at least somewhat interested, but there was another man partially in my friend group I was interested in. Within three weeks the other man had done something that killed my interest and the climbing man had consistently impressed me.

So I made a move. Tada, two years later we're living together and happy as clams.

There's something to be said for the pre-filter of friends that I find can't be matched yet with online algorithms.

I find your wording very cute: "the climbing man had consistently impressed me" -- I'm imagining some kind of Tarzan character who happened to be out with you when all sorts of freak occurrences happened that were perfectly suited for climbing: getting a cat out of a tree, getting a ball back for some children, getting back into an apartment when you've locked yourself out.

If you don't mind me asking, what exactly did the other guy to do kill your interest?

Most of the participants were men doing the exact same thing. Most of the remaining participants were married couples. Perhaps young, single women are aware of when they might be walking into an ogling trap?

The main thing I learned (apart from novice swing dancing) was that joining up in social groups for the explicit purpose (or even partial purpose) of evaluating potential mates is inefficient.

There is another aspect of this that I legitimately want to ask questions about: what do you do if all of your interests are male-dominated, and you're seeking a female partner with characteristics anti-correlated to those types of interests?

I'm not just talking about preferring some male-dominated things, and needing to try new things. I'm talking about already having tried lots and lots of things and learning that, after years of reflection, the only things you actually enjoy just so happen to be male-dominated. (Basically, I'm saying the excuse of "try something new" is not applicable in this case).

For me personally, one of my greatest recreational hobbies is to play very complicated, strategic board games. I love playing immersive games that take many hours to play and require fairly intensive level of thought and focus. I grew up playing competitive chess, and I have always just had a really deep seated fondness for this type of game, even from a very young age. I love the idea of having a partner who likes it as much as I do, but after years of going to board game meet-up groups, university game clubs, and playing with my extended network of friends, I have not ever met a female who enjoys these games anywhere close to the level that I do.

In terms of athletics, I mostly like to do long distance running and weight lifting, both because I tune everything out and have "introvert time" -- definitely something I don't want to share with a partner. I also love to play squash which is unfortunately a very male-dominated sport.

I love hiking and camping -- but what is so funny is that you can take an activity like hiking and just add one tiny variation to it to turn it into geocaching, and now suddenly it is a male-dominated "nerd" hobby with a very negative connotation when dating.

Hiking == good, rugged, self-reliant, healthy

Geocaching == dork, lame, anti-social, takes too long

Sigh, it's all about status.

I also enjoy recreational software development, which again is heavily male-dominated. Even the interests I have that skew on the more popular side of things, like Premier League football or certain obscure corners American humor, tend to be male-centric (e.g. how disappointing that the subreddit about Earwolf's Hollywood Handbook is so male-dominated!).

Yet I consider myself extremely willing to try new things. My interest in feminist literature was piqued once after reading a Slate Star Codex post, and I went off the deep end reading every highly regarded piece of feminist literature I could for months. I have gone through long patches of life when I am pseudo-religiously focused on yoga and meditation. Animals are a hugely important part of my life, particularly cats. I mentioned taking a dance class.

I'm not going to win awards for being the world's most well-rounded guy, but I try hard to challenge my perspective and explore new things. And even still, the God's honest truth about who I really am inside is that I just so happen to be most passionate about a bunch of hobbies that happen to be male-dominated.

Probably the singular interest I have that is widely shared with women is that I love cooking and spend a lot of time perfecting recipes and cooking unusual things. But I am vegan and a lot of that has been motivated by my desire to never sacrifice the tastiness or desirability of my food just because I am vegan -- and so even this makes people uncomfortable.

The uncomfortable truth as I have grown older and become more comfortable about understanding who I really am is that I just simply don't share hobby interests with very many women. I would prefer to meet and share relationship experiences with more women, but I have adjusted to accept that dating life for me means long periods of being single punctuated by opportunities to date those extremely rare women who happen to be interested in or at least curious and tolerant of my interests and personality. They have been amazing women ... but it's still not the ideal.

I think I understand your dilemma with male-dominated hobbies. Most of the things I do are male-dominated as well. I met my girlfriend in high school, and for a long time it annoyed me that she showed little interest in my stuff. Until at some point I realised that it's not necessary to like all the same things. It doesn't matter that we are different in many regards; over the years we've still found a lot of things we both like, and deep down we seem to have a similar world view despite being superficially completely different.

So maybe you should stop looking for women that are similar to you, and accept that your future partner will not care about the majority of your interests. At least in my experience that's really okay; as long as you have respect for another.

I wrote my reply based on the claim that I should join some social groups or something to heighten the chances of randomly meeting someone new.

If you assume that is the way to do it, then the dilemma is (a) it's not very efficient because most people doing the activity aren't really a good match and are just trying to do the activity, and (b) all the activities that actually make me happy are male-dominated and even anti-correlated with popular depictions (depictions that are borne out in the data too, e.g. when OKCupid posts their data) of what women want in a man.

If you disregard the suggestion of needing to use social hobbies as a means for finding a date, then I agree with you, and finding people who are different from me has been the primary way in which I have had previous relationships.

it's just too much work, for not enough payoff, and i'm also too picky about my mates. i found that the women i attracted really didn't add much into my life, nor did the actual companionship. i found it to be much like a 2nd job to maintain a relationship and the expectations that go along with it. i already have a job, i don't need a second one. maybe that's my problem, but it is what it is.

i plan on retiring somewhere cheap and warm in my 40s or early 50s and not really bothering with mortgage or family or anything.

personally i think a lot of guys are like this, they just don't talk about it because the social expectation of career/family/mortgage is too strong.

Although relationships are very difficult, I think it's probably beneficial for me to have a wife since she keeps me from entirely isolating myself from all human contact and also creates "excuses" for me to experience things I otherwise wouldn't (like, let's go to this play or that ballgame, where just me I'd never just go myself). Plus we can be there for each as we get older.

I applaud you though for being able to see through social pressure and figure out what you want in life. I think you're right about people not talking about it.

"Because you've never used them before..."

No, this isn't true at all for females (I have no idea about males, I don't look at men's profiles). Women who are 30+ on Tinder are NOT looking for casual sex. source: looking through probably thousands of women's profiles in the 30-45 age range.

I'm really getting sick of these meme about Tinder being for hook-ups. It's only the 18-25 crowd that's like that. Stop generalizing the entire adult population based on what college kids are doing.

If you like having lots of women around, this same concept works outside of apps, in the physical world.

Yes, it is distressing if you aren't interested in doing that. People eventually want the luxury of not being judged this way while having the emotional attachment to someone.

I don't have the experience of being a man on Tinder, but I can tell you from my experience that most men don't market themselves well. My approach is for guys to show what makes them unique, via text and pictures.

As for the arguments above, 1) about how girls say they don't like muscle selfies, and then do like them, or 2) about how girls don't like guys with dogs--honestly, its each to their own. I think its better to display things that are reflective of your personality than to show pictures designed to impress girls. So if you and your dog are inseparable, show that--they girls who like cats will find someone else, and you'll find your dog-lover.

> I don't have the experience of being a man on Tinder

I think this is the fatal flaw. I'd value the advice of a man who looks like me who has managed to be successful on Tinder 100x over any woman's. He has faced the same challenges as I, you have not. It's the same as talking to a white person about racism, or trying to discuss gender privilege with a man. The privileged can speculate on the difficulties of the less privileged, but has never felt them. The gulf in life experience has an enormous effect on quality of advice.

Women in their thirties circulate these articles around their friend groups via email, and they are met with scared-face emojis and nervous laughter. There are more of us, which puts the odds in men's favor. We are not the privileged.

So, being that there are more eligible women than there are men (and not just us 30-somethings, there are more younger women out there too) doesn't it make sense for a man to try to find the best partner for him from all these options? Studies have shown that shared values and personal goals forge the best relationships. So why would men, who have the advantage of choice, go out with just anyone? Why not try to connect with the best match for you? Someone you think is attractive and shares your enthusiasm? Being transparent allows for more authentic connections.

I'm not just talking about relationships. If you're looking for something casual, I think your profile should reflect that. Then you meet someone who isn't looking for a relationship right now. I think this is more ethical than getting your foot in the door with a woman who is looking for a relationship, then leaving her broken-hearted when you move on three months later.

There is lots of information out there about how guys are successful on Tinder. From what I've seen most of it seems to be from the PUA perspective, which relies on chipping away at a woman's self esteem, and games. That brings a different result than the approach I take.

this made me laugh out loud.

for any men reading this -- do NOT listen to a woman, no matter how logical her advice may sound, when it comes to dating advice. just don't.

This is absolutely incorrect. Actual numbers are irrelevant, what's important is experiences. Talk to actual women using online sites and find out their experiences. My ex-wife, just after we decided to break up (but before actually being divorced) got on OKC and was absolutely bombed with messages from men. She had a bunch of dates, no bad experiences at all, but basically got overwhelmed with all the attention and shut it down for a while. (Then she ended up meeting someone through a friend and they're a couple now.) Men just don't have this experience, unless maybe they're over 60 or something. Ask any man if he gets a lot of action on online sites. They don't, unless they're a very rare minority who's very successful for some reason. The frequent complaint on OKC is that they write a bunch of long, thoughtful messages and get no responses.

You're looking at the absolute numbers of women and men, but that assumes that they participate in online dating in equal numbers. I think that's a completely flawed assumption. Men have long been more likely to participate in online dating, and women have long been far more wary of it. Also, I think a lot of women simply avoid dating altogether in their 30s because they have kids.

Finally, you're flat wrong about women in urban areas. It's well known that single women outnumber single men in east coast cities (esp. DC and NYC), whereas the reverse is true in west coast cities (esp. SF/SV and Seattle). Men and women don't work in the same industries in equal proportions, and certain industries are concentrated in certain places (e.g. tech in SV, fashion in NYC).

>Women in their thirties ... There are more of us

This is flat wrong too, if you look at population figures. Men outnumber women from birth to about 30 (children are more likely to be born male). Around 30, the numbers become equal. Women don't really outnumber men until after 40 or so, because men die earlier than women usually.

>If you're looking for something casual, I think your profile should reflect that. Then you meet someone who isn't looking for a relationship right now.

You obviously don't talk to many 30+ women, and you obviously haven't swiped through thousands of women's profiles. There are zero women like that over the age of 30 on Tinder. There's a tiny number of swingers, and that's about it. Everyone else says "no hookups". (I'm not looking for something casual, I'm just pointing out the fallacy here.)

>There is lots of information out there about how guys are successful on Tinder. From what I've seen most of it seems to be from the PUA perspective, which relies on chipping away at a woman's self esteem, and games.

Yeah, and that information is being sold by people who are trying to profit off that advice; it may or may not be correct. But if it is, that really says something about women, doesn't it? Actual research (by OKC's data people I believe) has shown that women are frequently dishonest about what they want and what attracts them (and not just dishonest with men, but dishonest with themselves too). If women really were repulsed by PUA tactics, then they wouldn't work, would they?

Wait, what. What I remember from biology classes it's that it's 50/50.

that's traditionally what it's been for. The "long term relationship" crowd has literally every other dating app out there, but so many of them flooded onto Tinder to "just give it a try" that it changed things.

"but the higher quality female users sort out male users who project this image"

That comes across as kind of... snobby?

"maybe a dog or picture of you doing something you are good at (i.e. surfing, dancing)."

you'd be surprised how many other women complain about guys doing just that in photos.

No, that's what it was for, and still is for, for the 18-25 crowd. When the older crowd started using it, their interest was different.

>The "long term relationship" crowd has literally every other dating app out there, but so many of them flooded onto Tinder to "just give it a try" that it changed things.

No, it was the 25+ and especially 30+ crowd flooding onto it that changed things.

The reason they like it is because Tinder works better for both men and women. Men hate traditional dating sites because they spend all kinds of time looking through profiles, then writing messages, only to get no response. Women get overwhelmed on those sites by all the messages from men they have zero interest in. Tinder solves this problem by forcing both parties to respond affirmatively in order for communication to proceed.

>you'd be surprised how many other women complain about guys doing just that in photos.

I have no idea what you're complaining about here. I mainly look at 30-45 women, and they love pictures of men with dogs, and frequently say they'll swipe right just for a picture of a man with a dog. Sucks for me because I like cats and not dogs, but oh well. And women typically love dancing, so that's not going to repel them either. What they do complain about is shiftless selfies, selfies in the car, selfies in the bathroom, headless torsos, and pictures of the guy with a bunch of women.

That's an assumption you're presenting as if it's a fact.

> No, it was the 25+ and especially 30+ crowd flooding onto it that changed things.

Again, an assumption. I'm not wrong in what I said.

> I have no idea what you're complaining about here.

I'm not complaining about anything. What I'm saying is that for every man or woman you see complaining about things in profile photos, there's another man or woman that loves it. I've seen plenty of female profiles on Tinder complaining about pics of guys with animals.

That's one of the things about online dating, though - people are clearly having different experiences. Neither of us are wrong.

I'll take the criticism on labeling females who are looking for long term relationships as "high quality." I'm not judging anyone's motives. But I will stand by the sentiment that people are sorting for matches that meet their goals, and many women have #relationshipgoals.

The women who complain about guys doing things in their photos don't have to match with those guys. They can match with non-dancers, non-surfers.

This sounds too much like the stereotypical stuff women want and less like actual things a individual would consider worth while.

Also, regarding the shirtless selfie. It's highly effective for men who have muscles: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-4-big-myths-of-profile.... This is in line with the old male chestnut "what women say they want is not what they want," women strongly side toward only vocalizing preferences that reflect well upon them.

Like you, I've had much better luck with OkCupid, which makes it distressing that the online dating population in general seems to be shifting from OkCupid type sites to Tinder type ones.

This isn't you being ugly, this is you misapprehending the math. a couple matches after hundreds of swipes is regular average successful male mating behavior.

Having a six-pack reflects a certain kind of lifestyle and certain values. Being witty in a profile or conversation or showing pictures of you engaging in things that are meaningful to you convey a different set of values. I don't know your experience, but I do believe that showing your personality via any dating app delivers better results.

However, I don't get many responses or matches, but I think that's mostly because of my distance. I only look for women who live over an hour from me, because that's where all the desirable women live, but they don't seem to be interested in dating a man that far away. So I guess I'm stuck being single until I can relocate myself closer.