Smart move, Gen Z. Those apps are all scams designed to maximize engagement and extract your money from you. They give you a bad mix of early false hope and eventual despair.
Love, Gen X.
this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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Hi, Gen X. Some of us can tell that basically every app nowadays is like that, but sadly, there are still others who don't. But we're trying to stay clear of these scams and people like tate and musk.
Love, Gen Z
I met my wife through PoF, but this is exactly how Id describe dating apps. They are so designed to keep you checking the app constantly, pay for premium features and feel awful about yourself. In my situation it really was the only way I could meet anyone (was in my rotations of grad school, working 12 hour days), but the apps were like measurably depressing me
Glad it worked out for you guys in the end. There has to be a better way. I usually tell folks to get involved with mixed groups that are activity-based. There's all kinds of volunteer groups, athletics clubs, and hobby groups out there. Go where the people are, the group activity is a great ice breaker, and then hope to find someone in the group (or network with it to find someone). It's much better than praying to the app gods through the phone, IMO.
The biggest thing to ne is it can be misguided to join those types of groups when your in a position to be looking for a partner. In general, its great to be involved in activity/hobby groups, and if you find your partner there thats wonderful. But if you are joining just to find a partner, thats where things can get really disappointing and youre not exactly there for the right reason. At the time I was involved in more than enough hobby and activity groups, and didnt need to join more only for to be 'just there to meet women'. That is the element (in theory) thats good about dating apps. Im there to meet potential partners. Im not pretending to be interested in pottery just to meet a cute girl. Im on the app with a goal of meeting a partner, and want to talk to people who also want to meet a partner. Obviously people and app devs use dating apps for other purposes. But when you are busy with work, school, and have enough hobbies and activities, having something thats very straightforward about wanting to find a partner was a lot more direct way to find someone.
I understand what you're saying, and I agree. However, most people should be able to find at least one group activity where they are truly interested in the activity; be it volunteering, sports, or hobbies. If not, they may have deeper problems than being single that need to be addressed first. Communal activities and socializing are at the very core of human nature.
This might be a dumb question... but uh... what are the alternatives in the modern US?
How do people meet nowadays? Like there are no 3rd places left, I dont want to pay to be in some overmonitized club or some shit. I am long out of school. Meeting people seems next to impossible nowadays.
I grew up learning you meet people at church. Too bad I'm an atheist.
FWIW, there are atheist groups that serve similar functions. A friend of mine grew up going to the local "Secular Circle" every Sunday, because her parents wanted her to have the social benefits of church without any of the religious stuff, and she talks about how she intends to bring her kids there.
It’s basically being patient until you happen to bump into a good match.
(Cough)
Are you inviting me to church?
Most people meet partners through mutual friends and at work.
Unless you already have shit loads of friends this is not viable. And dating at work has almost gotten impossible with the risk of harassment.
Young people are fucked.
Find local groups. Two notable ones for me are that I found a discord for my city for people looking for friends (which means stuff like regular board game events and the likes) and the kink community (ie, fetlife) regularly does similar (you don't treat that one as a dating site, but rather a way to find real life events where you meet people).
There's probably various other ways to find real life meetups that aren't for the explicit purpose of meeting people to date, but will find em anyway. Casual sports leagues, hobby oriented groups, co-workers, etc.
I blame enshittification. I met good people on Craigslist and then (after a soul searching break) met my wife on OK Cupid.
The alternative might be activity groups, but I've also seen reports that Gen Z folk are having less sex generally, not like it's too much trouble to find partners but aren't very driven to look. So it may be a correlative, not causal relationship.
As a Xennial I wish I'd figured that out at their age. Fuck the people trying to monetize loneliness.
I'm just old enough to have missed dating apps and I often think about how grateful I am for that. My wife and I met the old fashioned way, on the forums for a mid-tier web comic.
Oohhhh I really want to guess which comic that was.
I know the Sam and Fuzzy forums were very lively but I'd rank that in a higher tier.
QC might qualify these days but my past self thought it was the best so I'll rule that out out of respect for younger me.
LFG was kinda like a lesser Nuclear Power but I've got no sense of their forums. The timeline's off there too, given the ballpark I'm assuming from your comment.
Dragon Tails was solid upper middle, also had a very healthy community forum.
Bob and George was definitely lower tier but in a fun way.
What was the one with the pink cat? Ahhh, Something Positive. I remember thinking that was great, but I don't really remember anything else about it.
Going further back, into possibly pre-burning-boards territory, there's what... El Goonish Shive and Unlike Minerva. I'm not sure how well-known Unlike Minerva was, but apparently EGS is still going strong.
Around there was College Roomies from Hell which opened me up to the whole Keenspot family, and there are a lot of directions that can go.
Ruling out XKCD since even if you don't like it, you have to acknowledge how widely loved or at least known it is. Probably same with Penny Arcade.
Aaaah, the list on the Shortpacked landing page is full of nostalgia.
I won't accept Mac Hall as being classified as anything less than top tier.
I think I'm gonna have to go with Real Life. Nice, comfortable, consistent. Cozy. Not universally known but a good solid regular webcomic. Has (oh, had) forums, fits the arbitrary timeline I have in my head.
Whaaaa, Mae Dean has certainly gone through some changes since I checked in last!
I might change my answer as I continue down memory lane here.
I wish I remember what it was.
Unless my wife is reading this. Then, haha jk! I totally remember....
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I just wish there was a alternative for us introverts. Being a younger millennial(zillenial??? Idek), it's rough finding people. Esp being audhd and moving right before the pandemic and just not being able to predict people and catch their interest sigh
Market dip blame {insert the youngest generation}
Green z are the new millennials, it seems
We are the next generations of generations.
Meh, I've had some good experiences using dating apps but only after grinding for months and wading through mountains of OF spam and unresponsive matches.
It sounds odd to say it, but before apps, when they were websites, these services were a lot more unique.
As apps, since match group owns them all, they all eventually degrade into Tindr but worse somehow.
The swiping for hot or not fundamentally is superficial and suited to hooking up. So why is it added to dozens of services claiming to make deeper connections?
The way I view it (despite personally exclusively using apps for hooking up) is that the swipe is the first filter, the bare minimum. Yes, it's superficial, but people are at least in part superficial. If you're not physically attracted to the person, it's not likely to work out.
You swipe hot on all the people who meet the threshold of being attractive to you, then you go through your matches' profiles to find out who is likely to have a compatible personality, then you chat and go out to find out who actually had a compatible personality. The superficial swiping is only the first step.
People who get deep connections, engaged, married, etc, stop using dating apps.
Short term dysfunctional hookups are more profitable for these companies.
The CEO of grindr once admitted he opposed gay marriage.
I agree. Tinder (and it's predecessor Grindr) were clearly all about "hooking up" with attractive people. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But if you're using this service hoping for more, you're going to have a bad time.
Similar to how Snapchat was clearly designed to send nudes but evolved into something else entirely.