(Some of it, I think, is Tinder et al showing me profiles that it knew perfectly well were defunct. They're hoping to attract the person back, but it's a very dark pattern.)
I did find that the vast majority of women on Bumble wrote tolerable first messages. Some were better than "hi" but nonetheless didn't say much, which I interpreted as "OK, you can go ahead and write the first message." That rarely turned out well, but at least I knew the account wasn't dead and not a bot (at least, probably not).
I met a lot of great women on both Bumble and Tinder, leading to relationships everywhere from one-night stands to decade-long romances. I don't think it's easy for either men or women, albeit in different ways. It's very easy to make the mistake that thinking that if X is hard for me then X must be the only important thing, and that leads to a lot of ill will.
Women put in high effort up front and lower effort per solicitation. Men put in lower effort up front and more effort per solicitation. Women's approach scales better, though they also bear the safety risks.
> those that feel the system is tilted against them in general don't understand that it's just them
Absolutely. Imagine if dating apps showed users their rating!
> At Tinder headquarters, I ask them if the data they’re about to show me will scar my ego. The beauty of Tinder, after all, is that rejection has been removed entirely from the process. Now, in an instant, I’d learn exactly how I ranked on Tinder. Then Solli-Nowlan revealed my score. “It’s 946,” he said. What does that mean? “It’s on the upper end of average.” It’s a vague number to process, but I knew I didn’t like hearing it. Something about “upper end of average” didn’t exactly do wonders for my ego. https://www.fastcompany.com/3054871/whats-your-tinder-score-...
On the other hand, showing your rating could be good IF coupled with actionable ways to improve it. Credit Karma but for Tinder anyone?
It's a force multiplier and the dynamics that are already present in dating in general get reinforced. So you end up with 99% of the women competing for the top 1% males and the remaining 99% males competing for nothing at all because all their advances get ignored.
It's just the result of our reproductive strategies exerting an incredible influence on our behavior, more so than we personally realize.
Dating apps are especially good at making people not have to face their shortcomings, i.e. I don't have to fix my shortcomings, because with a large enough pool there's going to be someone broken in the right way to accommodate me. Maybe that's rational, or maybe it's not, it really depends on expectations.
Counter intuitively, accepting that we're just stupid hairless apes makes me believe we're rational. We're not failing to find anything meaningful; we're not interested or looking.
Often because that inferior product manages to exploit our irrational selves either intentionally or unintentionally.
I agree for a different reason. The circus show about hiring is mostly bullshit. You could probably randomly select qualified candidates and turn out just fine.
Likewise with dating, ordering up another human like a sandwich creates a weird dynamic designed to keep you shopping — you stop paying when you meet someone.
If you paired 10 pairs of average people at random and had them doing some task that took them a couple of weeks, half would be “together” at some level by the end.
I don't think dating apps/sites favor either sex more so than dating in general does. Women, in general, don't really have to try to get solicitations. Their issue is in trying to weed through all of the solicitations to find those worth responding to. It's basically the hiring problem. But there's no Hackerrank for compatibility.
And then there's the issue that even those that feel the system is tilted against them in general don't understand that it's just them. They're not successful because they aren't as kind, nice, or desirable as they think they are. Or they keep making the same bad choices in romantic pursuits and wonder why they keep getting the same outcome.
The problem with all of these apps and gimmicks and what not and certain segments of tech in general is that it assumes that deep down, people are making rational choices. We aren't.