Hello friends, if you'll allow me, I would like to rant for a moment about the state of dating in an urban setting.

I don't want to immediately say things were better decades ago, but as someone who is monogamous, vanilla, just wants a steady partner, it feels impossible to date with the current apps. I am in hobby groups, I'm on Bumble, Hinge etc., I meet new people. Yet I can't seem to find anyone. I'm despairing friends, I'm despairing.

I feel like I'm picking people off an algorithm. The room for surprise and delight has been cut off. Now there is only space for cold hard data. Lots of pretty people with good education and it's so hard to see them as people and not just another part of an ever growing list. Another dot in the scatter plot.

People who are in LTRs, how'd you find your partner? What keeps you together?

Other single folk, how are you finding dating to be in your current locale? What things have brought success or failure in your mind? How do you define success or failure?