You need to spend time with someone to build a relationship, but that takes a lot of effort, patience, and vulnerability, especially when you're starting from zero. But actively participating in various interest groups and other social circles is not a bad way to start.

Depends on your interests… If your interest is FPS gaming and you are a straight male it’s probably not a good spot. If you have an interest in sewing then maybe odds are you your favor. Still just common interests isn’t enough dating takes active effort like work it does not magically happen for most

You can have multiple interests. Selecting one or two that are gender balanced in your favor might be a good idea and builds character.

I think it mainly has to do with women's screening process. Women have to ignore or immediately filter out 90%+ of matches/messages online because they get so many. But if a man approaches a woman in person, they are at least going to be looked at and considered. It's a hack for getting to the front of a long queue.

In person also allows for demonstrating qualities that aren't apparent in a profile. People's vibes are often very different in person vs. online. A man approaching a woman irl signals courage and confidence in itself if done non-awkwardly, so that also gives a guy a leg up over a bunch of dating profiles that are unknown quantities.

Disclaimer: married for 9 years so this is all theoretical

It's not a hack it's a message. All of the other guys are shyly waiting in line for their "turn" you on the other hand are far more bold.

Higher effort threshold yields less competition.

The bigger problem is that you are arbitrarily limited on the amount of profiles you can swipe through each day.

Tinder promised to help me with the numbers game, then built their entire business on scarcity.

The volume in the bar is a lot higher than you would expect. On a good night I could hit 3-4 bars with 50-100 people each. Easily screen off most, and talk to say 5-10. I’m by no means attractive but I could Usually get a number and convert 1/3 or 1/4 into a date. The difference is that I didn’t have to swipe on the bulk of the candidates I rejected but also that those initially rejected still had a chance if a positive interaction happened.

Compare that to 50 per day out of a pretty poor pool and stiff competition and your odds are not looking great.

How did you screen off most? I would think it happened very similar to swiping?

You develop an eye for it eventually. Some people unavailable, some are just not interested that night, some are hostile. These things change through the night so someone that was hostile earlier might warm up or become friendly over time. The body language is Usally a good tell.

They are also other signs that hint towards compatibility such as wealth, class, education, social anxiety you get a feel for it over time. I would trust that over what you see in a profile. Not that you can’t lie on those just that it’s much harder. Plus The dark things people tell you after a drink or 2 would often be enough to get one cancelled off the internet.

Also keep in mind that a lot of people screened themselves out just by not going out. All those gals that don’t have anything money, live with their parents and go to bed at 9 or have no friends. You won’t find them at the bar but on tinder you might

Also in real life, you get way more information about the other person, than from a mostly fake profile and picture. Literally passing the smell test ...

Depends on the irl situation. Dance hall: loud music, lot's of alcohol. What's left of the information?

The ideal situation is an honest dating selection system. Only if/when it is honest, good combinations for dating emerge. There you have it: dating happens in irl.

I can speak from experience that such systems exist(ed) in electronic form.

"Depends on the irl situation."

Unless we are talking about extreme introverts, I don't think there is a setting where meeting in person is worse, than writing emails/chatting.

Dance hall: you can see how the other person dances and moves in real (and you don't have to be drunk, if you don't want to). How she talks, with whom she talks and how. And yes, how she smells, how she talks, how she acts. And if sparks seem to fly both ways, then you can also go outside for a bit to see if it was more than just the ecstasy of the moment. All of this way more direct unfiltered and unmodified information than an online exchange.

"The ideal situation is an honest dating selection system."

And traditionally this used to be the village dance. Today it is in general mixed, but if you like online dating, then I don't want to talk it out of you. Just that in my experience lots of online romances I witnessed with other persons, turned out to be mostly vaporware, not working in real life.

Yeah. They *used to* exist, but they're more work and the companies can't extract as many dollars so they were eaten and destroyed.

Dating isn’t an interview. It can be but it doesn’t have to be. The less of a formal interview it is the more you get a taste for if you like hanging out with the person.

Dating is very much an interview. It doesn’t have to be formal. Whatever that means. But there are things that we hopefully all consider “hard no’s” and is this person worth me putting time in on.