>> If you're a great-looking guy and you can't start or hold a good conversation, you can still get laid on the basis of looks. But if you don't look good, you don't get those grace points
https://i.imgur.com/HO430mM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4WPshhw.jpg
This has been done many, many times. The keyword is "chadfishing"
If it helps to know, a lot of us share screenshots of our conversations with our friends and get advice about what to say, how to start a conversation (or, I'll admit, to laugh about the ridiculous ones - consider this as us sharing risk-knowledge). Maybe get some advice if you're not sure how to go about it at first.
Which is impossible for everyone. Only a small percentage of people can have "really interesting" photos. If everyone suddenly got photos that today are really interesting the photos would become mundane.
>All you need is the swipe-right then use your confidence and humour to get a date.
Which is another problem. A lot of men lack confidence and humor.
I think you've hit on the path to success in online dating. My pictures from the traveling I did in my early 20s set me apart. If I didn't have those? I probably would have been lost in a sea of averageness.
True, but this isn't the problem we have yet. So start getting more interesting/funny/hot pictures. Once they all become mundane, people will start to look for other things (maybe even normcore pictures)
> A lot of men lack confidence and humor
I agree on this, and it sucks. Low self-esteem does a lot of harm, and yet is so easy to fix because "fake it till you make it" literally solves the problem. Not being funny is also easy to solve by just watching and imitating funny videos, and learning about popular things so you can make jokes about them. But if you have low self-esteem and are told you aren't funny, it probably seems like becoming funny is an impossible feat, and unattainable. Definitely sucks.
Sure, it's relatively easy to be in the top 80% of men. But the point, which I don't think I made clear enough, is that there's always going to be a bottom 20%. Evening out everyone in one area just means that some other area is going to be the differentiating factor. More realistically, if the 20% improve their game in one area the 80% are just going to one up them.
>I agree on this, and it sucks. Low self-esteem does a lot of harm, and yet is so easy to fix because "fake it till you make it" literally solves the problem.
IMHO the people that say fake it till you make it are the ones that have above average inherent natural ability regardless of what skill "it" refers to. Someone lacking in confidence and small talk type skills isn't likely to naturally get better. Like any skill, the best way to improve is directed practice and repetition.
How are the 80% going to one up them? One thing about dating apps for straight people is that you don't know what your competitors are doing. If the 20% up their game, most of the 80% won't know how. Also, remember that there is a 20% for women as well. I know that standards for men are crazy high on dating apps, but I also know some of the 20% women. They usually don't end up with the 80% men, and they often end up with men who are AWFUL (not just in terms of looks). 20% men can date 20% women.
> Someone lacking in confidence and small talk type skills isn't likely to naturally get better
I agree that small talk takes some work (just like becoming funny), but confidence is truly something you fake until you make. If you act confident, people will think you're confident. Then you pick up on people thinking you're confident, and that makes you feel even more confident. If you don't act confident, people won't think you're confident, and that will be one more thing holding you back from being confident.
I'm am not naturally confident. I've had my fair share of self esteem issues and have doubted myself on many other fronts. Fake it till you make it is terrible advice for a lot of things, and you also shouldn't always fake confidence (sometimes it's good to let it all out), but if you start faking it (especially with people you don't already know), you will make it.
EDIT: By this I mean, how much unattractiveness can actually be compensated for by being more interesting. Specially since you can't do that much with photos.
Good question - IDK! Based on what I've heard and seen (I have a lot of close friends who are women my age), there are a lot who talk about wanting someone super attractive, but all of them have also dated people who are noticeably less attractive than they are. So I'd guess the answer is somewhere between "a lot" and "a good amount". I'm sure if someone's absolutely hideous it will be a lot harder, but outside of the bottom ~10% of males, being good at conversing can make up for a lot.
> Specially since you can't do that much with photos.
As someone who isn't very attractive, I disagree. Photos can be a chance to make someone laugh or show them you have a (not-boring) personality. You can show people that you travel or do something adventurous, show people you like cute animals or are affectionate, show people a party pic so they see your wild side, etc. You just show them the attributes you want them to see, and make them want to be with you based on what they see.
>You just show them the attributes you want them to see, and make them want to be with you based on what they see.
That makes a lot of sense. It's not one scale from uninteresting to interesting, but rather showing what makes you you, and prioritizing which.
These "creepy" guys would likely be totally fine in an informal, real-world situation. They would be all right in the workplace, sports club, college study group or by coming along a group of friends, being introduced in person. They can hold conversations, but are subject to the imbalanced dating mechanics as discussed exhaustively in this thread. (This doesn't excuse some of the weaker shit that some guys seem to try though.)
Fortunately there are niches in society where regular guys are in high demand by attractive women, and observing that is fascinating. Has there just been a war and all the decent guys died? Ah no, were are just here.
1. Forced puns about the girl's name.
2. Long, extremely high-effort descriptions of hypothetical scenarios to establish how "unique" the suitor is.
3. Awkward double-entendres and transitions to a sexual topic.
It just strikes me what a weird filter this is for who gets to have sex, and how nice it is to meet people in real-life.
I think one of the saddest things, if true, are the reports that younger generations are more likely to view any real-world approaches as inappropriate as the online alternative has now been designated the official channel for meeting people.
Those curious messages in your inbox are not just as your personal trouble (why don't more suitable mates show up?) but also as a symptom of a changing society that sees growing individualism, stratification, weird one-way relationships with social media and much more... and that all of this produces many losers that no one gives a shit about.
As someone who has also struggled, I can tell you the biggest thing (once you've both swiped right, and before you've actually gone on a date) is conversation. Because they've swiped right, they already accepted however you looked in your tinder pics. Now you just need them to actually like the conversation you have with them.
I'm pretty good at conversing in real life, but initially found it weird that I'd struggle to write out a message when there was so much more time to respond. There were even times when I thought to myself "man, if I could just meet up with her in real life this would go so much smoother", and I occasionally even tried (and always failed) to speed up the small talk and get to the dating part. But after a good 2 days, I realized I was treating texting differently than real life conversations because I was giving myself too much time to respond. So I stopped doing that, started treating texting more like real, face to face discussion, and did very well (again, all despite my looks). I'm not a woman telling men "It's easy to date us, you just suck." I'm a man who has been in your shoes, and is telling you how to step up your game (without saying outlandish things like "get plastic surgery" or "completely change your personality").
- When you were writing good messages, were things very conversational and informal?
- Did you ever get reviews from women about how you were good at conversing? It also counts if they told you how the other guys they talked on dating apps were mostly awful at talking
- Would you are cognizant of messaging social norms (e.g. you know when to omit punctuation, shorten words, keep your messages short, avoid "double-texting", space out the time between texts, etc) and were good at following them during your online dating?
- Were you in the age range that the article talks about?
Putting effort into a messaging is definitely important, but there are a lot of small and strange details that make large differences in how those messages come off and how much people enjoy them. I'm not trying to bash you, just wondering if you're actually great at these conversations, in the age range I'm in, and yet still not getting good results.
> That's why you see men writing a bunch of generic low effort messages to women: because it is ultimately a more successful strategy.
If you're very attractive, yes. But if you're aren't very attractive and you're sending bad messages, how is that more successful than sending good messages? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. By "low effort messages" do you mean "bad messages" or do you mean "fluid messages without overthinking or too much detail"
They switched from TCP to UDP because speed/reach is more efficient (in their mind) than deliverability/customisation
What else would they be?
> Did you ever get reviews from women about how you were good at conversing?
No, but women rarely respond at all so I'm not exactly surprised by that. Even the women I eventually went on dates with never mentioned it.
> Would you are cognizant of messaging social norms
I would say I actively detest messaging social norms. I write legible full English sentences just like you see here because I'm an adult. I specifically ruled out women who obviously felt differently.
> If you're very attractive, yes.
If anything I would say that being very attractive is the only circumstance under which you can reliably get results without spamming low-effort messages.
> But if you're aren't very attractive and you're sending bad messages, how is that more successful than sending good messages?
Numbers. What my experience taught me was that message content was basically unimportant, what mattered was reaching out to as many potentials as possible in the hopes of a few being receptive.
It was a strategy I detested. Combined with the general tediousness and awfulness of the online dating experience I decided I'd rather not date than engage in it.
By "low-effort" I mean messages that are basically form letters one can apply to anyone so you don't have to put any thought into crafting them for the person you're trying to talk to.
> No, but women rarely respond at all so I'm not exactly surprised by that
Really? See, that's very weird to me, because I rarely saw women not respond at all. They've swiped right on you, so they've already accepted your pictures and bio, they're willing to be with you if you have a good conversation. If they weren't, why would they swipe right? Tinder, for example, limits the number of right swipes you're allowed to give over some period of time. So that right swipe truly means that all you need to do is have a good conversation with them. Again, I'm really not trying to bash you, and I personally enjoy having this debate with you on HN. But being good at a HN debate is very different from being good at a dating app conversation. I suspect that there was a problem with the conversations (despite the effort and best intentions - conversing well can be hard, especially for my/our generation). But I am sorry that you went through the pain of not getting replies most of the time - that definitely sucks.
>> Would you are cognizant of messaging social norms
// Wow, seeing that I wrote this makes me feel like such an idiot!
> I would say I actively detest messaging social norms. I write legible full English sentences just like you see here because I'm an adult. I specifically ruled out women who obviously felt differently.
Ok, perhaps this could be a big factor in why we had very different results. Unless we're surrounded by very, very, very different sets of people (or we're in very different age ranges), you're specifically ruling out most candidates. In my experience, even the people who write complete sentences in their bios will often follow messaging social norms once you start messaging with them. For a lot of people, following those social norms is required for the messages to feel casual. If I matched with someone and they used complete sentences with proper punctuation in 100% of our messages (e.g. sending "Hey." or something that looked like it could be in a letter), I would instantly feel like I'm in a more formal setting and cross them off the list of potential dates, and the most we'd become is friends. And I know people with much stricter rules about messaging social norms than me, such as feeling like things are too formal if there aren't enough emojis/memes/GIFs.
I'm not trying to convince you to change, and I respect your passion for detesting messaging social norms. But I do believe your messaging style could be a significant factor in why putting effort into conversation yields you no results. I'd be curious to see if the same happens with other people who also don't follow these norms. Thanks for all your responses!
> you're specifically ruling out most candidates.
Yes, because the reality is I just can't stand emoji-laden text communication or single letter representations of words. Many of the women I messaged had said something similar in their profiles. If someone is going to be bothered by that then it was never going to work anyway.
If you're not after a relationship but to get laid, then that might be a good strategy. Yes you'll get much fewer positive responses but but the false positive rate should be way lower.
Why not replace your headshot with a dick pic, in that case?
If you're a great-looking guy and you can't start or hold a good conversation, you can still get laid on the basis of looks. But if you don't look good, you don't get those grace points. I've seen guys (who look much better than I do) fail at getting laid on dating apps after LOADS of attempts, and despite being their friend, I must say the messages they've shown me are AWFUL. Not just "this isn't that great", but "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???". When I was single (despite my looks), I found it really easy to get dates and get laid using dating apps, because I could actually hold conversations. And I know others just like me, who've gotten similar results.