I want to propose a different hypothesis - men and women lie differently. Men are more likely to say they got no matches on a dating site and complain whereas women are more likely to keep quiet of they get few to no matches and exaggerate the number they do get.
Maybe men are more likely to blame the site or algorithm whereas women are more likely to blame themselves.
Maybe ratios of unsuccessful attempts are roughly evenly distributed and the difference can be explained solely by the fact that men must ask and make the first move in most cultures whereas women don't have to.
I met guys who talk about their successful conquests on these apps and I get the feeling that a lot of that is just guys exaggerating or lying to impress others
I can say this I got a lot of dates in dating apps and I'm short and not very hot. My strategy was just ask for dates and play the numbers game - accept nos and just keep asking. I wasn't getting a lot of dates before I tried this strategy. I know another guy similarly situated who successfully used the same strategy.
Maybe it's not about the apps themselves but about how they are used and who uses them - eg. Shy guys who are nervous about asking girls on dates for example
> Men are more likely to say they got no matches on a dating site and complain
Does not really align with the fact that men tend to brag about their experience (hence: every single match is mentioned to friends)
> women are more likely to keep quiet of they get few to no matches and exaggerate the number they do get.
But they don't keep quiet, they complain about the quality of the men on display. And the ones who are successful usually don't mention it openly, to avoid negative connotations about promiscuity and such.
> Maybe men are more likely to blame the site or algorithm
In my experience, men tend to compain about the women (namely their behavior to be too picky). As apparent in this discussion as a whole.
> women are more likely to blame themselves
As mentioned, they're likely to blame the choice ("the grapes are sour"), or, if they get any matches, the quality of their dates.
> men must ask and make the first move in most cultures whereas women don't have to.
It's the same on Bumble.
This chokes out competition, and users end up with several apps with some gimmick, but at their core they're designed to keep most users locked into actively dating, either to make the app seem popular, or to squeeze money out of them.
https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinb...
The data about matches wasn't from a poll, it's from the data that companies released, had extracted through GDPR requests, or in one case an engineer doing a study: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-state-of-our-uni...
Frankly, there's a lot of misandry in the form of "men don't try enough to improve themselves" in this thread alongside a slue of Handmaids Tale-esque incel misogyny. People need to take a step back and really think about their pet theories.
My theory removes blame from the genders. It's the apps and their form of gamification. These apps, if you are any form of a minority on them, requires that you pay to be seen and less men have less disposable income to throw $200-$300 at dating while also paying for the cost of dating, so they're using the standard experience of the app.
Note none of this theory requires rating men or women or trying to come up with implicit biases or trying to shade someone with the equivalent of "get good". All of that is incredibly toxic. Most of them time when a system fails, it's the system that is to blame. In this case the system is the app.
There's no Tinder-specific data, but it's been very well reported that the rate of matches between men and women on older dating sites was drastic, at least 1:2. So I don't think it's really a "lie" when men say they get no dates. I'm sure with the Tinder age that gap has only widened.
You also need to keep in mind that people complain in different places. You're likely not going to find a woman complaining about lack of matches on Hacker News, for example.
>Maybe ratios of unsuccessful attempts are roughly evenly distributed and the difference can be explained solely by the fact that men must ask and make the first move in most cultures whereas women don't have to.
It's possible, but I hear this is even a problem on sites where the woman is expected to make the first move. There's just some element of pickiness men lack compared to women. Be it due to quantity of choice or the bar to meet or whatnot.
From the women I talked to about this, they were not that picky at first. They become picky as soon as they notice that every swipe they do results in a match, and all those matches pressure to meet up soon. When they've become picky, they match only with guys that have no real intention to meet. Presumably because those are the ones who are flooded with matches as well.
I don't know about solid research. The last time I was looking up research about this was around 15 years ago, when I was actually planning to publish a paper about the finding above.
I had some data about a series of speed-dating events. Men gave double the amount of +'s (if both give a +, then it is a match) as compared to women, and the distributions were what I claim above. Then there was the OkCupid article and some research on dating apps and speed-dating events. I don't remember research mentioning the different distributions although it was obvious from the graphs on the research papers.
I think there is some taboo around this subject, for example the OkCupid article mentioned was pulled off. I don't know why it is taboo. Perhaps it hints too much about differences between sexes?
They also rest on concepts of resource scarcity, which is an artificial construct in the context of post birth control sex.
Artificial scarcity rarely lasts long in markets, it can only be propped up by industry collusion.
The 50's model of "precious chastity" sexual relations just doesn't apply to current interpersonal dynamics.
The risk factors that drove that model are very different today and have freed both women and men in different ways.
Men don't discuss their sexual prowess in "polite society" either. It's not the 90's anymore.
Or I'm misunderstanding yours - where did I say anything about men discussing sexual prowess?
If you read the linked research paper, I think you'll understand the point I was making better.
Based on my observations and conversations with girlfriends who use dating apps, women rate men based on height first, and everything else (including social status) second.
I got friend zoned more than I wish to admit. I started dating my now wife at 36 and I’m now 49.
I wasn’t unattractive - I was in peak physical shape by any metric as a part time fitness instructor, runner, muscular, 10% body fat. I was outgoing, decently successful financially etc.
But I am short.
It got better after my divorce At 32. Maturity - maybe? The nature of competition changed - probably? I was single, no kids, intelligent, still in above average shape. But I would have still failed miserably on dating apps I think. I met my now wife at work and the women I dated before then were mostly through teaching classes at gyms.
They were more willing to let their guard down with me as an instructor than just some random dude trying to hit on them at the gym
My 5' 2" wife freely admits I would have never passed her height filters (we met at a bar).
It's sad - for my age group, I'm roughly average (slightly below) height at 5' 8".
Most women I've talked to (my wife included) set their height filters at 5' 11" or above.
When you take weight into account, they're all looking at the same 15-20% of guys - and then complain that all the guys they meet online are jerks.
I wish the online platforms would include population demographics in those filters - I don't think most people understand how many potential partners they're missing out on by setting filters that they don't really care about.
This is not the average for men in certain socioeconomic classes/age groups/ethnicities. For a non malnutritioned young man, 5ft8in or 172cm is probably going to be on the lower end depending on ethnicity.
This is not to make any judgment on which heights woman should or should not be “filtering”.
1. Knowing this, don't guys just lie about their height in their profile?
2. Are most women really able to look at a guy in-person and know that he's 5'10 vs. 6'0? Or is it mostly abstract and only becomes an issue because height is explicitly listed in online profiles?
I also started dating my now wife at 35 and she was a single mother of a then 9 and 14 year holding her own and we met at work. She was looking for something different than women in their 20s.
My only two long term relationships (and marriages) were with short women. I have never gone after taller women and I only had any type of romantic chemistry with one person that was taller than I was. We were in the same friend group at the gym I taught at and she was going through a divorce. By the time things finalized and the opportunity made itself available, I was dating my now wife.
But was that romantic or rebound?
You can only lie to some extent, though. hard to pass off 5'8 as 6'.
It's wild how people's real-world preferences can be completely different than their more superficial online ones (I'm not excluding myself from this, or is this aimed at any gender/group in general).
From men:
> The apps are algorithmic doom barrels
> I’m fated to end up alone
> he has tried Bumble, Match, Badoo and Facebook dating, but in nearly three years has only met one person, with whom he had six dates before the relationship ended
> The vast majority of matches have resulted in no dialogue, most of the rest there was a bit of to and fro before being ghosted
From women:
> I meet so many men,” she says enthusiastically
> So I’ve given myself the challenge of flirting with one person every day, which has been a lot of fun
> I was getting a torrent of likes – and I absolutely hated it
> I’m simply looking for an interesting or creative person, and that’s one thing you can’t spot easily on an app, but then I’d get too many matches, which was really overwhelming
> I’d get a lot of comments about being a wheelchair user
Hell even disabled women seem to have absolutely no issue getting matches. Maybe the buffet of men they get to fastidiously sort through isn't well stocked enough for them? Well la di da, welcome to reality.
There's a reason for this, how we raise girls is tailored to making good girlfriend/wife material. You don't see the incredible amount of effort that is spent over a lifetime to this end because we're used to it.
Once you see the dynamic you can't unsee it. It even happens with bisexual women where the joke is, "I'm attracted to like 10 men and every woman."
For better and worse boys don't get this treatment. If you spent 10,000 hours under the weight of intense social and societal pressure to mold yourself into someone that you think of as attractive because your social status depends on it, where the idea of what's attractive that has been planted into your brain since birth lines up with what women find desirable in a partner i'd bet you'd be a catch too.
There's a huge impedance mismatch that is set up to hurt men which is that being the kind of guy that women find attractive hurts your social status among men. Pretty boy is used as an insult but you will find no shortage of women throwing themselves at them.
No, you're mistaking pressure to conform for pressure to be attractive. Women are constantly pressured not to stray too far away from society's defaults, and they're judged much more strictly for non-conformism than men are.
But the things which mainstream society encourages for women in the name of conformity have a huge overlap with what men consider attractive anyway (a quick example which comes to mind is the pressure to stay thin). Whereas men still gain social status by being attractive, but are given much more leeway to deviate in their lifestyles.
> ...being the kind of guy that women find attractive hurts your social status among men. Pretty boy is used as an insult but you will find no shortage of women throwing themselves at them.
No, being attractive is still a boost for a man's social status. Being tall, or rich, or strong won't get you insulted at all. "Pretty boy" is an exception, but I could compare it to "bimbo" for women.
Creating a neutral dating app with proper moderation (against harassment and fake/spam accounts) and without the profit incentive would be a great entry point for that organization to study relationships in general.
Possibly, the commercial incentives of these apps have them deliberately optimizing for short-term matches. Or it may be the case that the apps are doing as best as they can manage and the problem is simply very difficult to solve. If the former is the case, then removing or regulating the commercial incentive might help.
If anything, Tinder is the precise opposite of a dating app.
Of course, this has little to do with dating apps.
As incellish as that sounds, I am 50 and I have been happily married for 13 years and before that unhappily married for four from the time I was 28-32. But my dating life mostly sucked in my 20s as a five foot 4 decently successful guy, in great shape as a part time fitness instructor, outgoing, and with a modicum of social skills.
A guy who is not financially successful and who is tall has a much better chance in the dating or at least the hookup pool than a short person who is financially successful.
Realistically, if I were forced into that I would kill my husband or myself. I would rather be in jail or dead than be subjected to institutionalized human trafficking and domestic slavery. That's the difference. You're trying to draw an equivalence between a mountain and mole hill in magnitude by saying that what they have in common is that they're backed by the force of law.
So I see a lot of similarities, yet one is generally accepted, and the other... not so much. Even though most of the world is heading towards population collapse, and surely the moral obligation you speak of also applies when it comes to ensuring society survives in the first place.
"the government death squads and taxes are both taking something by force that's not consented to -- life, and percentage of your income" -- like holy hell dude.
I don't even know where to begin to bridge the experience gap of someone who thinks that government sponsored human trafficking (because that's what forced marriage is), rape, and forced impregnation is comparable to taxes.
Give me the choice between working a menial dead end job until I die or the hell you're describing for only 1 year and I'll have my resume polished before you can finish the sentence.
For the rest, your total lack of empathy ("only women can suffer"), twisting of my words ("death squads", really?), and your willingness to kill your husband (irrational, but there you go) means I won't be responding to you in the future.
I'm not saying only women can suffer, I'm saying you literally can't grasp how much of a hell the world you're imagining with forced marriage is. And of course I'd kill my husband, in your world he's my government appointed rapist whose babies I will be forced to have. What other option do I have? Right now today that would be more than enough to qualify for self defense. You apparently think this is fine and the pregnancy is "just" 9 months of your civic duty while me and every other woman will say is the furthest thing from fine possible. You're arguing that "death squads" is too hyperbolic but I'd rather take the firing squad. Men would suffer in your hell too but you don't see any of the downsides I guess.
People are perfectly happy to say that in all sorts of places including this very forum.
But is the problem that men who are looking for 10s are twos? I’m in no way considering myself more than a 5.
I’m a social person by nature, I like to try different things and I’ve really spent my adult life working on my emotional intelligence. I was in more or less great physical shape throughout my 20s and 30s and even after being married for 12 years I make it my mission to stay in shape the best I physically can as does my wife - at 49 and 47.
A contextually appropriate mirrored version of the statement I responded to would be something along the lines of "or women could accept that they don't have a right to a romantic relationship with a rich, hot, committed and deferential movie star". Would you consider that no worse than the "enforced monogamy" claim?
And it applies even to your metaphor. Man or woman, if you explicitly say "no blacks" you are going to be eviscerated. Even if older OkCupid profiles did in fact show that african americans, both male and female, had fewer matches there.
> Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
Evo-psych explanations break down when you look at actual couples, I think. I recall a study where people ranked each other with 1-9, and they found that the stated preference was similar to what you describe, with women prefering the higher ranked men, and vice-versa but with the men having wider spread preferences. But when they looked at actual couples it was far more random with "9"s paired with "5"s and so on. (I can't find a link but maybe someone else finds it?) In reality, common interests and similar social milieus are probably the most important factors.
are these general couples or couples that met online? There is definitely a whole different dynamic to meeting someone physically and how that body language and actual time to converse changes their perception (not swipe and try to woo them with a text message).
You're not even getting 5 seconds on a dating app if you don't have the right looks or right pitch. I always had an idea for one of those trashy Blind Date reality shows with a premise of "would you swipe right on your SO/Spouse?". because we're never getting organic data for that.
I have learned a lot about this in the zoo with my daughter. Adults become extremely uncomfortable and want to go away when the children find the human-like behavior of apes funny. To me it seems that our animal nature is too much for most people to psychologically accept.
That is why I completely avoid that discussion in general and here in particular.
Dating app popularity can be easily observed and we don't need to go into that discussion at all.
Can you provide an example? I don't disagree, I just don't know if you're talking about bullying or what.
If you spend some time watching our closest ancestors, you start to see that they have lot of common gestures with humans. It is difficult to thoroughly explain this using just words.
It directly follows that on these platforms, the attractiveness of men is much less evenly distributed than the attractiveness of women, but there is "rich get richer" or Matthew effect which skews the popularity of most men.
This point is almost never mentioned in such analysis. But that is the basis of the different experience average men and average women have on current dating market.