Certainly one way to deal with ghosting though - I can understand the reason behind it, but it's incredibly inconsiderate and harmful behaviour. On the other hand I've taken to double checking plans with people 24 and ~2 hours before they were scheduled, which sometimes helps people not forget about plans they agreed to a while back.

Short-term, probably yeah. But long-term, if they want to get a reputation like what parent describes ("I met my wife on platform X") then they better optimize for good dates rather than "unfortunate" ones.

Of course, Tinder is synonymous to dating for some, which is the weird part.

I can't imagine there's a data scientist alive who could devise an algorithm that accurately, reliably predicts "kind of a good match but not really", given only some limited inputs (basic info + photos).

I reckon from the company's perspective that positive word of mouth from people who like the app is a much better focus point.

Fair enough about word of mouth though, relationship durations are probably linearly correlated to the number of endorsements given by each customer - at some point in a relationship you end up with a rehearsed "so how did you two meet?"!

Then Match Group bought them out and mostly gutted that system and turned it into another swiper :/

There's still eharmony, but I think that's just for white Christian boomers mainly.

Seems doable, frankly.

One approach would be to make the problem easier, just preferentially match people with a partner who is known to have short relationships and no/few awful reviews, based on history on the site.

The anti-Tinder, till-death-do-us-part market exists, and is likely somehow under-served. It's just a bit harder to market for, and the matching is much harder to implement than Tinder's.

Online dating is problematic in many ways and very hard for men especially. I think women see men who use those apps as of lesser value anyway.

Therefore I think the best advice for men is to understand how women signal interest in real life. Some people pick it up intuitively but many people today have to learn it. Undercover Sex Signals by Leil Lowndes is a good book to start. Don't use online dating!

In my view nothing more than badly written psychobabble which probably does more harm than good.

Overall, a lot of guys don't take a moment to look more deeply into the overall picture of what is going on, but instead think everything is innate and/or are instead getting sucked into a game where they will constantly lose. Life is way too short for that. The argument more guys need to be making, is about what's helping them to get the most out of life and get results.

This is not a real thing. In fact once you go above 2-3 back and forth messages your chances of actually going on a date start to go down.

It's just a very efficient, very selective filter. And it should filter out the majority of potential matches :(

1) The so-called "dangerous ones", can be those that will play female games, because they may have designated a woman as a target or are abnormally obsessed due to bad psychological issues.

Normal males, even more so for higher status males, are likely not to have the patience to put up with nonsense or silliness.

2) Some guys are experts at online dating and playing along with female style games, while others are not.

The filter that various women are creating, is guys that will say or type what they think women want to hear. So instead of a genuine interaction, it's lots of con games.

3) Stringing guys along does not nor has ever proven to lead to successful long term relationships.

One of the major flaws in this common female thinking, is that by initially frustrating the guy, it will make them "prove" themselves to her. Some women even take it to extremes, to weeks and months.

However, this abusive behavior towards guys can become a filter, which leads to her encountering guys that simply want to "climb the mountain" for revenge. After getting sex or the relationship, its all the more sweet for them to break that woman's heart (who they may have designated a game player) by suddenly going ghost on her or treating her badly after they have "accomplished the mission".

Overall, better to treat people as you wish to be treated and to be genuine in the interaction. Playing games, often leads to encountering those that like playing games too or possibly worse.

> One of the major flaws in this common female thinking, is that by initially frustrating the guy, it will make them "prove" themselves to her. Some women even take it to extremes, to weeks and months. However, this abusive behavior towards guys can become a filter, which leads to her encountering guys that simply want to "climb the mountain" for revenge. After getting sex or the relationship, its all the more sweet for them to break that woman's heart (who they may have designated a game player) by suddenly going ghost on her or treating her badly after they have "accomplished the mission".

Is just gross.

Very likely you don't even know what "red-pill" actually is, nor who is or isn't. Gross rejection of reality and hiding a lack of life experience behind throwing out labels, is the true nonsense.

I have several friends with ideas like yours, and they can’t or couldn’t figure out why they struggle with women so much, but they also reject any notion that it might be because of how they think about women and how that might manifest in their actions.

This "conversation is over", look in the mirror, then fume and fuss with the person that you see there.

This "conversation is over". If feeling the need to continue, look in the mirror, then fuss and fume with the person that you see there.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

1) The so-called "dangerous ones", can be those that will play games, because they may have designated a target or are abnormally obsessed due to bad psychological issues.

Normal people, even more so for those of higher status, are likely not to have the patience to put up with detected nonsense or silliness.

2) Some are experts at online dating and playing along with such games, while others are not.

The filter that is created, are those that will say or type what the other wants to hear. So instead of a genuine interaction, it's lots of con games.

3) Stringing people along does not nor has ever proven to lead to successful long term relationships.

One of the major flaws in such thinking, is that by initially frustrating others, it will make them "prove" themselves. Some even taking it to extremes, to weeks and months.

However, this abusive behavior can become a filter, which leads to encountering those that will simply want to "climb the mountain" for revenge. After obtaining the relationship, its all the more sweet for them to break that person's heart (who initiated the game playing) by suddenly going ghost or bad treatment after having "accomplished the mission".

Overall, better to treat people as you wish to be treated and to be genuine in the interaction. Playing games, often leads to encountering those that like playing games too or possibly worse.

That's fascinating, as somebody who loves this period and thinks of it as a requirement to find out my compatibility with somebody before we go on an actual date. If you're not up to scratch on the initial few days of chatting then I have no interest in taking it further. And I appreciate that many people aren't interested in this, but then it just means the two of us aren't compatible, and that's fine.

Pre-first-date would normally be a short bit of time in a club or pub when I first met them, before organising a more personal follow-up. There was no 'just a friend' period.

Pretty much everyone else including me dated people we knew before at least as acquittances. And those relationships are the ones that ended up being long term and with kids.

Sure talking about politics and similar things took some time, we started with the more physical side, but I had a good tendency to choose interesting people so even when it didn't last for any significant amount of time it was still fun, and still worthwhile.

I generally find people easy to talk to in person. All my romantic partners have been people I've met in real life. It's much easier to gauge their reactions, read their body language, etc. Waiting for a response on a chat fills me with anxiety.

Once I've met someone in real life, text chatting becomes much easier.

I've always just talked on the phone. I know a lot of younger people are afraid of phone conversations too, but I'm fortunate to be of an older generation for whom it's not a big deal.

I guess you could also try a Zoom date.

I think it has something to do with the absolutely abysmal audio quality of today's phones, which makes it a lot harder for some of us to process speech and hear the more subtle vocal communications.

Also when I moved to another city was a great way to get out of the apartment since I knew nobody there.

Going solo is counterproductive if your goal is meeting new people.

I believe the days messaging are a waste of time as I have no clue if a spark is there in person before I see you in the flesh. And very quickly, short time for physical attraction, and within 2-3 minutes for interaction, I can tell if there is the potential for something growing. None of that happens in messaging beyond very basic filtering of basic comms.

Messaging back and forth really doesn't mean much for me. I spend relationships with a person in the flesh, and message not very often, so initial contact on dating websites beyond a few basic messages back and forth are essentially just more dancing around before we get to the brass tax of whether there is any chance at all of attraction.

But that's me and how it worked for me and my partner. Everyone's different of course.

"brass tacks"[1], not "brass tax".

[1] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brass%20tacks

Yup, saved it jaunty, you've still got it.

Chatting is quick, convenient, low risk, and low-effort.

I personally prefer to talk on the phone to chatting over text, because it's much faster and you can tell all sorts of things about a person by the way they talk that you can't over mere text.

If you unilaterally decide it’s an unworthy stage of the process, that’s likely to be very self limiting and signals quite a bit about this person’s ability to “eat their vegetables of life.”

Another perspective: would you interview someone who just sends, “I don’t do well with résumés or phone screenings. Let’s jump to the interview.” ?

Edit: to more directly answer your question, if both parties prefer that then by all means! But that’s not exactly what this thread is about.

Hypothesis: this behavior is correlated with how many messages you receive, so very attractive men with a photographer buddy likely have the same approach.

If you have 10 suitors at a time, it makes sense to filter them using days of texting. Much less time investment than going on a date with each of them.

When you have 1 or 2 matches a month, the texting game is a bigger waste of time.

I'm not sure if such events still exist in this pandemic era, though, when people are afraid to meet face to face.

I guess there’s an obvious selection bias in the people I’m actually meeting, but that general fear seems to have dramatically dropped off by spring 2022 or so.

That's very strange to me - a date takes up so much time that I always want to go on a date only after I have some reason to think I'll like the guy I'm talking to.

Why would I get dressed, find a nice place, get there, and risk enduring a boring time with a stranger who I may have absolutely nothing in common with?

Also, for me, working out what to say on a dating app to someone I don’t know is a lot of effort. It might easily take me an hour to think of an appropriate reply. A date is actually less time wasted than 2-3 days of texting for me.

I like to say that anyone can be funny/clever/considerate/thoughtful/etc when you have 30 seconds or longer to come up with a reply. In messaging that’s normal but that kind of latency just doesn’t happen in conversation. Real time conversation in dating and meeting someone is much, much closer to the “real” person than texting via an app. Chatting in app is often closer to their social media persona (if that applies) or some other affectation.

Just showing up to a 30 min date (even if it takes a couple of hours all in) actually saves a lot of time and effort.

I can’t imagine texting/chatting with someone for days at a time only to meet up with them and realize they’re vastly different.

Don't get me wrong, I do think in-person conversation is much much better than chatting. If I happen to meet someone that I like while I'm already outside, I'd much rather talk then exchange numbers and chat, of course. But going on blind dates is really not doing it for me.

Do note that I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong, not at all! I'm just exploring this significant difference in outlook, it's interesting to me how differently people can feel about a subject. It also gives me some insight into other's behavior on dating apps that before I'd just seen as sort of rude or rushed, so I think this is an actually useful conversation.

Anyway, texting with a stranger is really hard. A good portion of the time (especially for men, from women) you’ll get things like “I’m bored, entertain me”. Maybe a good way to filter people out, but annoying.

I’d also much rather just block off some time on a schedule to actually meet someone than have them interrupt my life at any moment, react when I don’t respond in X time, etc. Generally it all seems very low effort and sporadic. If you get “going” in a text conversation you can easily spend more time than you would actually meeting them.

Again, maybe these are ways to filter incompatibility but extended and prolonged texting just seems like a waste of time - especially as it often leads absolutely nowhere.

Sorry to keep harping on this, but why can't people just talk on the phone?

It has all the real-time advantages you're talking about in your critique of texting, but doesn't require a trip anywhere, any expenses, or the risk of meeting in person with someone you might be able to screen out via a simple phone call.

This was not my experience at all. 1-3 days of chatting would destroy any chance of ever meeting someone for me. Having a nice intro chat immediately followed up by a question to meet or exchange numbers within the first 10 messages worked significantly better than trying to have meaningful chats over tinder. I find that the first excitement of a match very quickly tapers of, so either you build on that initial momentum to transition into a date, or interest will fade quickly. Because let's face it, you'll both match other people in the mean time, and then those new matches become more exciting than coming up with new small-talk when the first few messages have become stale.

Getting to know a person works better face to face, so I'd rather be quick to move to that stage, and be more selective about who I think I might want to spend a first-date hour with. (My go-to was to grab a beer at a bar and then see if there's enough interest to spend the rest of the evening together walking through the city).

Okay, finally a place I can ask this. I hope you and others can explain. Why would exchanging numbers (or Snap accounts, etc.) with someone be a goal? You already have a way to communicate! I understand moving to in-person dating, but not to another way to text.

> I'd rather be quick to move to that stage, and be more selective about who I think I might want to spend a first-date hour with.

I think either you mistyped the funnel or I misread it. You make it sound like a first-date hour (or so) is given freely and first-date evenings are rarer. Which sounds reasonable, but also seems contradicted by the part I quoted.

Because it is the next step on the way to exclusivity.

On the dating platform you are one of potentially hundreds (or thousands) of message chains and easily overlooked. In their phonebook you are most likely not.

If you think of apps as locations, you are switching from "meeting at the bar"(dating app) to going somewhere where you both spend more time "happily" (some other app/messaging). A lot of people used to swipe like two sessions a day, but would be texting/snapchatting all day. So you are inviting that person to be more present in your days.

It signals that you are willing to take one small step towards something vs. "just chatting on tinder"

Because you can then simply talk on the phone.

Phones are not just for texts.

Inside the dating app messenger? No idea — her right sweep will mostly result in a match so you’re competing for attention with potentially a huge number of people depending upon how much that person right sweeps. (PS. I am not kidding — this could be true even for female profiles with zero pictures, zero details :D).

So it’s a way of getting filtered up.

I tried to setup a meeting within 10-15 messages and it worked, I'm in a second relationship that started from Tinder, one lasted 4 years, current one is going on for almost a year. Moving to a meeting is the most important step, noone wants to maintain tedious in-app conversations with dozens of people for a long time.

Also, be creative, ask whatever comes to your mind, even if you find it weird, all the girls I met were bombarded with either boring jokes, repetitive compliments or 'Hi's. After first few it's impossible to answer nicely or make a conversation out of those. I got best conversations out of weird questions, I asked what pierogi does she like f.e.

> Ironically, both genders are motivated by the same factor not wasting time but we do it in reverse. To overgeneralize, women think: Why waste my time meeting in person if I'm not into his personality? (Then Tinder-messaging is used to help screen for personality.) And men think: Why waste my time Tinder-messaging if I'm not going to meet her in person?

Source: https://www.glamour.com/story/tinder-guys-dont-message

I imagine it would, since tinder is mostly used for hookups vs actual dating.

Thus the same inherent flaw of non-representative profiles and pictures, to give false impressions or present a false image that can be used to trick others.

Things on peoples profile can not actually be confirmed, to include pictures and real life appearance not matching up. They can say they are a banker or a professional dancer, but are actually unemployed or have never done what they claim. So the beliefs people have, when going on the date, can still be based on deception.

The persons engaging in deception, only has to maintain the facade for a while, to hook the other person into a relationship. Not saying that such can be eliminated, because that's life, but rather no app can ever be foolproof. People, for whatever their reasons, will find flaws in it.

> ...but the the twist is that once you have a match you HAVE to go on a date. You have to enter your availability, pay 5 euro and if you don't show up on your date you get perma-banned for life.

This is a significant advantage of the app and community, which is cutting down on pranksters and time wasters. Thus would of course lead to a much higher success rate to Tinder and similar apps.

And about Tinder... Tinder of today, was much different than when it initially came out.

Many people don't realize that Tinder back then was quite Grindr-like (who they were copying), but mainly heterosexual, and heavily meet or "sexual encounter based", whichever you prefer. The culture and thinking was different. People showed up, because it could be a stealthy way to go have fun.

When Tinder tried to distance itself from the "meet up and encounters" perception and concerns, that opened the door to way more pranksters, attention seeking only, and time wasters. There was a shift in culture and who was using the app.

The Tinder of today has arguably become less focused on people meeting, but instead making Tinder as much money as possible and riding out to the last on its old reputation (of being Grindr-like), and usually at the expense of guys. Swiping left or right, by itself, is almost like any downloaded game.

2 quick nice or funny replies and then ask someone out is ideal. Women don’t like wasting time chatting long either.