I still remember when bumble had to change their entire premise and business model because as it turns out women are worse at starting conversations than men lmao.
I wholeheartedly believe that the Internet and smart phones have been the biggest double edge swords in human history. We have the entire globes collected knowledge at our fingertips with the ability to connect with any other person on the planet instantly and it has caused the largest shift in loneliness and depression ever.
Humans simply are not wired for social media and the Internet. Seeing every single person you know posting themselves beautiful and dressed up doing the coolest things 24/7 will make anyone feel ugly and like they aren’t doing anything with their lives. It takes real focused effort to remember that people (generally) only post when they are doing something special and what you don’t see are the days or weeks between posts that show they live the same boring life you live.
I’m ranting for no reason. I think when we lost in person social gatherings as the primary method of meeting new people is when society kicked that concrete block off the cliff. Right now we are just waiting for the rope to snap taught and drag us all into the abyss.
In my experience the bot and scam scripts have become refined enough to seem exactly like a pretty disengaged or disenchanted user, or someone not confident in what they’re doing. It’s led to some awkward moments when I suddenly send “BOT CHECK”
There is a whole universe of possibilities between “hey” and a conversation so good it is otherworldly.
Most of these apps, the user has a profile. If they’re not fucking it up, the profile has topics to talk about.
“Hey! Your profile says you love the mets. Do you go to a lot of games? I used to go with my pop, but he just watches the game on TV now” isn’t stellar but it’s significantly better.
If the other person responds with “Nah [end of communication]” then they’re doing a bad job. I’d see that all the time and it drove me crazy.
How am I ignoring that conversation is two way? I specifically mentioned it’s a bad job when one person engages and the other half-asses it with one word responses.
I don’t see what small talk being off-putting has to do with anything. I don’t know if I even consider talking about your interests small talk, but okay. How else do you expect it to work?
You don’t understand small talk if you think it has no functional purpose. Small talk has several purposes.
One, it sends a bunch of signals. I see you. You see me. Neither of us are threats. We have a shared language.
Two, it’s how you find deeper topics to talk about. “What did you get up to this weekend?” “Oh, hung out with my friend. We saw a band I like - All Dogs - do a surprise anniversary show. You do anything big?”
Three, it lets people choose their level of engagement. “Cool, sounds fun. I stayed in, watched some TV” signals minimal interest vs “All dogs? Never heard of them but I love live music. What’s their genre?” signals interest, and now you can a little deeper on music.
If you just plunge directly into deep stuff that’s like skipping foreplay and lube. It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable.
I would expect something else then one word if you select the Dating platform where the big difference is that you have to write first as a women. It seems odd to me.
But probably tinder or the other dating platforms are just (as) shitty and it didn’t have any deeper thought about joining bumble.
A couple times I asked people directly if that opener worked for them.
One of them said, “I used to write more thoughtful first messages, but I didn’t get good results so I don’t bother anymore.” I told her that writing a bad opener is likely turning away whole classes of people, likely the more thoughtful and interesting ones, but she didn’t care. I said we weren’t a good match and moved on.
Another one said, “But you responded so it worked!”. Her profile was also largely blank. I said yeah, but it didn’t make me want to date you. It was a bad first impression that made me think you’re a half-asser. Rude, I know. The conversation ended shortly after.
I think communication is a skill that requires practice and feedback. Writing messages on dating apps is a more specialized form of that skill. I have years of practice now (sad, but here we are). A 30 year old woman downloading bumble for the first time, asked to write first messages? That’s kind of like putting someone on the baseball field who’s never played before. They probably know most of the rules intellectually, and in other parts of life they’ve done all the little pieces like throwing, running, and catching, but doing it all together at the right time? Not likely to go well at first.
Humans simply are not wired for social media and the Internet. Seeing every single person you know posting themselves beautiful and dressed up doing the coolest things 24/7 will make anyone feel ugly and like they aren’t doing anything with their lives. It takes real focused effort to remember that people (generally) only post when they are doing something special and what you don’t see are the days or weeks between posts that show they live the same boring life you live.
I’ve never seen a friend post on social media about something and then felt sad. I’ve instead thought “That looks awesome! Good for them! I can’t wait to do something like that too, I’m inspired!”
I think when we lost in person social gatherings as the primary method of meeting new people
This is something only chronically online people say. Most people form almost all of their relationships offline. This is still extremely true of platonic relationships. Online dating has increased in popularity, but mostly this is among people with niche tastes or in remote locations, where finding a match is more difficult due to the rarity of finding potential partners in real life. Tons of people still date primarily via their social circle or community gatherings, and most people use a mix of all their options.
This is something only chronically online people say. Most people form almost all of their relationships offline. This is still extremely true of platonic relationships.
Where are you meeting these people, magic real life wizard?
Of the 5 I currently have in my roster, 2 came from online, 2 were friends of friends, 1 I introduced myself to at a rock climbing crag.
I also seek out partners at my job, at the climbing gym, at various meetups like for acroyoga or fire spinning or pickup ultimate Frisbee, at social bars or concerts or festivals, or just when I’m walking around in the park near my house. Importantly, I’m not just going up to every attractive woman I see and saying “nice tits, wanna bang?” - even though this is my truth in my heart of hearts. Instead what I do is show up, have fun, meet people, joke around, and just be a normal person. But then if someone is cute, I’ll do a little eyebrow wiggle or some shit during a break in the conversation, and if she eyebrow wiggles back, I escalate - like by tickling the back of her elbow or telling her that she’s, like, literally the worst why am I even talking to her. And then at the end of the night I say “hey, I think you’re cute - wanna hang out alone sometime and maybe do some smoochin’?” And then she says yes or no, I give her a high five either way, and I’m on my merry way.
Edit: I’ll point out that the number of partners I have from online is mostly because I have a good profile, so getting matches is pretty easy for me. Most people don’t have as high of a sex drive as me, and so won’t want to put in the effort. Going through social networks (real life social networks) or social hobbies is far more likely to net you compatible partners, since the choices you make in these arenas are likely to attract people with similar values and dispositions.
if you are presenting yourself to the world at large would you not want to showcase your best self?
“no let me show myself in my skivvies talking to my therapist!” doesn’t seem like a lure for attracting a partner. just my two cents. And I am of the opinion that online dating is awkward, but that is about it.
I still remember when bumble had to change their entire premise and business model because as it turns out women are worse at starting conversations than men lmao.
I wholeheartedly believe that the Internet and smart phones have been the biggest double edge swords in human history. We have the entire globes collected knowledge at our fingertips with the ability to connect with any other person on the planet instantly and it has caused the largest shift in loneliness and depression ever.
Humans simply are not wired for social media and the Internet. Seeing every single person you know posting themselves beautiful and dressed up doing the coolest things 24/7 will make anyone feel ugly and like they aren’t doing anything with their lives. It takes real focused effort to remember that people (generally) only post when they are doing something special and what you don’t see are the days or weeks between posts that show they live the same boring life you live.
I’m ranting for no reason. I think when we lost in person social gatherings as the primary method of meeting new people is when society kicked that concrete block off the cliff. Right now we are just waiting for the rope to snap taught and drag us all into the abyss.
Every starting conversation on Bumble was like:
“Hey”
In my experience the bot and scam scripts have become refined enough to seem exactly like a pretty disengaged or disenchanted user, or someone not confident in what they’re doing. It’s led to some awkward moments when I suddenly send “BOT CHECK”
If that happend, it triggered me so hard. Its like the insanest thing ever. Why are you even on bumble then.
Why are you expecting conversations to be otherworldly?
How many conversations in real life with people you like start with something akin to “hey”? I’m gunna bet most but I suppose I could be wrong.
From what I saw, it wasn’t just “hey”. Hey was the yellow flag.
It was all the one word responses. To everything. It was the job of the guy to be entertaining on the app to barely any response.
That takes its toll on men, especially when there were women who used it as a source of free entertainment.
There is a whole universe of possibilities between “hey” and a conversation so good it is otherworldly.
Most of these apps, the user has a profile. If they’re not fucking it up, the profile has topics to talk about.
“Hey! Your profile says you love the mets. Do you go to a lot of games? I used to go with my pop, but he just watches the game on TV now” isn’t stellar but it’s significantly better.
If the other person responds with “Nah [end of communication]” then they’re doing a bad job. I’d see that all the time and it drove me crazy.
You both seem to ignore the fact that conversation is two way and that conversations from nothing ie. Small talk is extremely off-putting.
How am I ignoring that conversation is two way? I specifically mentioned it’s a bad job when one person engages and the other half-asses it with one word responses.
I don’t see what small talk being off-putting has to do with anything. I don’t know if I even consider talking about your interests small talk, but okay. How else do you expect it to work?
We just agreed that isn’t half assing it, it’s a normal introduction.
Polite and informal conversation with no functional purpose.
It’s relevant because that’s all small talk bro, what you’re describing is small talk. It’s worthless and mostly annoying.
You don’t understand small talk if you think it has no functional purpose. Small talk has several purposes.
One, it sends a bunch of signals. I see you. You see me. Neither of us are threats. We have a shared language.
Two, it’s how you find deeper topics to talk about. “What did you get up to this weekend?” “Oh, hung out with my friend. We saw a band I like - All Dogs - do a surprise anniversary show. You do anything big?”
Three, it lets people choose their level of engagement. “Cool, sounds fun. I stayed in, watched some TV” signals minimal interest vs “All dogs? Never heard of them but I love live music. What’s their genre?” signals interest, and now you can a little deeper on music.
If you just plunge directly into deep stuff that’s like skipping foreplay and lube. It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable.
I would expect something else then one word if you select the Dating platform where the big difference is that you have to write first as a women. It seems odd to me.
But probably tinder or the other dating platforms are just (as) shitty and it didn’t have any deeper thought about joining bumble.
A couple times I asked people directly if that opener worked for them.
One of them said, “I used to write more thoughtful first messages, but I didn’t get good results so I don’t bother anymore.” I told her that writing a bad opener is likely turning away whole classes of people, likely the more thoughtful and interesting ones, but she didn’t care. I said we weren’t a good match and moved on.
Another one said, “But you responded so it worked!”. Her profile was also largely blank. I said yeah, but it didn’t make me want to date you. It was a bad first impression that made me think you’re a half-asser. Rude, I know. The conversation ended shortly after.
I think communication is a skill that requires practice and feedback. Writing messages on dating apps is a more specialized form of that skill. I have years of practice now (sad, but here we are). A 30 year old woman downloading bumble for the first time, asked to write first messages? That’s kind of like putting someone on the baseball field who’s never played before. They probably know most of the rules intellectually, and in other parts of life they’ve done all the little pieces like throwing, running, and catching, but doing it all together at the right time? Not likely to go well at first.
This was eloquently written and I enjoyed reading your insights. I found your closing metaphor particularly apt!
Taut*
I’ve never seen a friend post on social media about something and then felt sad. I’ve instead thought “That looks awesome! Good for them! I can’t wait to do something like that too, I’m inspired!”
This is something only chronically online people say. Most people form almost all of their relationships offline. This is still extremely true of platonic relationships. Online dating has increased in popularity, but mostly this is among people with niche tastes or in remote locations, where finding a match is more difficult due to the rarity of finding potential partners in real life. Tons of people still date primarily via their social circle or community gatherings, and most people use a mix of all their options.
Given who runs “online”, that’s kind of worrying.
With these knees? I’m known to promenade gingerly online.
Where are you meeting these people, magic real life wizard?
Of the 5 I currently have in my roster, 2 came from online, 2 were friends of friends, 1 I introduced myself to at a rock climbing crag.
I also seek out partners at my job, at the climbing gym, at various meetups like for acroyoga or fire spinning or pickup ultimate Frisbee, at social bars or concerts or festivals, or just when I’m walking around in the park near my house. Importantly, I’m not just going up to every attractive woman I see and saying “nice tits, wanna bang?” - even though this is my truth in my heart of hearts. Instead what I do is show up, have fun, meet people, joke around, and just be a normal person. But then if someone is cute, I’ll do a little eyebrow wiggle or some shit during a break in the conversation, and if she eyebrow wiggles back, I escalate - like by tickling the back of her elbow or telling her that she’s, like, literally the worst why am I even talking to her. And then at the end of the night I say “hey, I think you’re cute - wanna hang out alone sometime and maybe do some smoochin’?” And then she says yes or no, I give her a high five either way, and I’m on my merry way.
Edit: I’ll point out that the number of partners I have from online is mostly because I have a good profile, so getting matches is pretty easy for me. Most people don’t have as high of a sex drive as me, and so won’t want to put in the effort. Going through social networks (real life social networks) or social hobbies is far more likely to net you compatible partners, since the choices you make in these arenas are likely to attract people with similar values and dispositions.
Well, that was a lot more than I bargained for. Also, gross.
if you are presenting yourself to the world at large would you not want to showcase your best self?
“no let me show myself in my skivvies talking to my therapist!” doesn’t seem like a lure for attracting a partner. just my two cents. And I am of the opinion that online dating is awkward, but that is about it.