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[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 293 points 6 months ago

“We’re seeing a greater need for authentic human connections”

I’m going to take a wild guess and wager that this is about increasing engagement by increasing the amount of opening moves that are created on the platform.

Dating sites profit by increasing engagement with the platform, not by getting you an “authentic connection” that gets you off the platform and into a healthy relationship.

There’s a reason people are going analog again. They know these sites are just a thirst trap.

[-] Icaria@lemmy.world 142 points 6 months ago

Calling it a thirst trap is too innocent. These dating app companies are scum-sucking vampires designed to make most people feel lonely and desperate enough to give them money in perpetuity. People just handed one of the most important and intimate aspects of their lives over to US tech bros, pressured everyone else to do the same, and two whole generations are not just having less sex than their parents, but half of them have never had a long-term relationship as they're approaching 30.

[-] Trashboat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 53 points 6 months ago

Hah I didn’t even need a dating app for that

[-] Siegfried@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

Yeah, fckng amateurs

[-] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

At least you are the master of your own destiny

[-] Hootz@lemmy.ca 18 points 6 months ago

Why can't we go back to meeting people on BBS and forums. Shit I met my partner in 2009 on a forum. It was organic and real, no apps, no algorithms just good ol' fashion php with a dash of flame war.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 17 points 6 months ago

Or just... talk to people IRL? I met my wife at my apartment complex, and plenty more meet their SOs at a local social event or whatever. Go to meetups for stuff you're interested in and talk to people. I trust that way more than dating apps that pair you with strangers given a short bio...

Yeah, talking to people sucks, I get it. I'm quite introverted and need to relax after putting myself out there. When I met my wife, we texted for 2-3 days before I had enough social energy to ask her out on a date, even though I was quite interested in her. She's a little introverted as well, so we're a good match.

Text is way easier for me, but in-person is way more effective. Most of my friends met their SOs in person at some kind of meetup, whether a DND night, tech meetup, or a dance (not a club, that's way too loud). Online worked for my brother, but I just don't see nearly as much success as with in-person meetups, at least among my friends.

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 16 points 6 months ago

People especially women hate meeting people in public. It's either "inappropriate," or there's music louder than a war playing. There is no in between.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 13 points 6 months ago

I'm talking about pretty "safe" settings, like:

  • game night with mutual friends - your and their friends will help keep things on the level
  • co-ed sports (again, with mutual friends)
  • community events, such as at a local library or whatever
  • meetups for interests - often hosted at some local business that does something related to the thing (I'm a dev, so I go to local Rust, Go, Python, and JS meetups on occasion)

In other words, places where people are "forced" to interact doing something that interests them, while around other people that could come to your aid if someone is being creepy. The goal shouldn't be to find a SO (that attracts the wrong type), but to interact with people that share an interest. You should be looking to make friends, and if that blossoms into something more, I guess that's cool too. Don't go into it looking for an SO, go into it looking to engage about something you enjoy.

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

anything with mutual friends

I don't have any of those, they all knocked each other up in their 20's, their personalities died and now they're all underpaid zombies with diaper bags and minivans who never text, and in car-centric America there is no mechanism for meeting more.

co-ed sports

Illegal in the South for the same reasons that you can't buy beer on Sunday morning.

Community events such as at a local library or whatever

My town hosts regular community events and distributes a list of upcoming ones every month as part of a newsletter included with our water bills. 100% of them are for ages 6-12 or 65+; About the only event I'm aware of that might allow normal no adjective adults to attend is the occasional First Friday event, which plays music you could hear from geostationary orbit. I mean seriously the music will rattle my windows about as hard as a freight train and the stage gets set up 4 blocks further away than the tracks. Should I call OSHA or something?

Meetups for interests

All of my interests are some combination of near total sausage fests, have no support/community in my area, or any support for them died during the pandemic.

often hosted at some local business

Buy shit! Buy shit buy shit buy shit!

[-] Entropywins@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

I mean, if all you see are obstacles, that's all you'll ever encounter, friend... you can be a victim of circumstance or adapt and overcome.

[-] Icaria@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

I don't agree with everything the guy above you said, but my circumstances are very similar to his.

I have friends, but they don't know anyone they can introduce me to.

Sports are off the table due to both health problems and a lack of interest (do you really want group activities to be full of disinterested guys just there to chat up chicks?), never mind that they're all heavily male-dominated around here.

Local councils put on events, but they are either for children, for mothers, or for seniors.

Everything has been turned into a product to be sold to you, almost every event costs money, and when you do pony up the events are somewhere between borderline scams and actual scams.

...

This is a recurring issue with this subject. Someone offers advice, someone points out why that advice isn't very applicable, and the first person makes no attempt to "adapt and overcome" themselves and either a) offer better advice, or b) admit that they don't have any better suggestions.

[-] Entropywins@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Hell is where we are...heaven is what we make of it

[-] Icaria@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Very 'inspirational', but as useless as your previous reply.

[-] Entropywins@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

To each their own...

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 months ago

Adapting and overcoming the death of society itself is not something I'm interested in doing.

[-] eskimofry@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Holy exaggeration, Batman!

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 months ago

anything with mutual friends

I don’t have any of those

Hence the goal here of expanding friend network with people who actually have time and shared interests.

Illegal in the South for the same reasons that you can’t buy beer on Sunday morning.

That's incredibly stupid... Then again, my area also restricts buying beer on Sundays.

100% of them are for ages 6-12 or 65+

Maybe try the nearest big city? Or maybe the next closest one?

local business

I mean bigger companies, companies that are looking to hire people, not sell you stuff. For example, I'm in tech, and most of the companies that host events are just looking to attract applicants in whatever their tech stack is, their target market is something entirely different (e.g. they're B2B).

I'm not talking about things like sewing classes at the local crafting store, though if you're going to buy from them anyway, I guess I don't see the harm.

And yeah, the meetups I've attended are largely male dominated (that's the nature of my interests). But that's 100% okay because the goal is to find people with share interests, not find a romantic partner. Finding a romantic partner should come naturally from making friends. Friend may introduce you to a romantic partner, or they could become one. If you're making finding romance the goal, you're going to get burned by abusive partners because they're attracted to such platforms as well.

So that's my advice. If your friends are all married and boring (I'm now one of those), make new ones. That's hard, I know, but it's a lot safer to do that than try to hook up on dating services IMO.

[-] Icaria@lemmy.world -1 points 6 months ago

Finding a romantic partner should come naturally from making friends. Friend may introduce you to a romantic partner, or they could become one.

That's a lovely idea, unfortunately a lot of us are growing old waiting for this bullshit.

[-] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

Met my first girlfriend on a forum that's name in english would be masturbation.org, she contacted me. The second one I met on my country's equivalance of Omegle. The current one I found on Instagram.

Turns out that if you put even a little effort into your first message and for the very least make sure the grammar is on point and save the dickpic for later, she may actually reply back. The bar isn't very high if you want to stand out. Seeing the kind of messages she gets almost daily really shows how pathetically low effort they are. It's clear as day that you're just one of the 50 girls he messaged today.

[-] makyo@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago

I feel like I saw somewhere that men message dozens of times more women than vice versa. I get their non-nuanced temptation but you can hardly call a system that encourages one gender to incessantly spam the other 'engagement'.

[-] Oderus@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago

I read that men have to send over 110 likes before they get a single response whereas women get 50-60 guys a day messaging them and they act really creepy like sending dick pics.

[-] radicalautonomy@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

It's absolutely true. I'm polyamorous, and various women I've dated over the years have shared their dating app situations with me. Not one of them didn't have 999+ likes and/or a dozen messages from new men on that day alone (depending upon the app).

I prefer apps like Hinge and OKCupid. They allow me to tell more about what I'm about, and I get to learn more about them as well before I attempt to reach out. I've had fairly good success with both.

[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

Hinge is the only one I use anymore. Honestly, you need to be able to say something. Just swiping doesn’t do shit. If they paywall that feature they’ll be sunk in no time. I’ll be the first to leave. But I’ve been dating someone for a little and it might turn monogamous soon. So, guess we’ll see.

[-] radicalautonomy@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

If I may, out of curiosity, you say it "might turn monogamous soon"; when you first started dating, what were each of your dating styles? Has one of you been more monogamously-minded than the other? Is one person more interested in monogamy than the other?

[-] Dkarma@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

That's the way it works in real life tho...it's not the apps fault. Women always have more options than men.

[-] Jax@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 months ago

I will never understand this take.

Logically speaking this is simply incorrect.

[-] Anamnesis@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Have you been on a dating app? The experience is extremely gender specific. Men spend their time sending out as many likes as are available, and women spend their time sorting through likes they get. This is the experience for either gender unless you're at the very high or low end of the desireability spectrum.

[-] Jax@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago

That is the way dating apps work.

[-] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 22 points 6 months ago

Isnt being approached by creeps part of the 'authentic' experience?

[-] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Not on your phone, though. That's just ambush after ambush. Statistically, IRL there a higher chance of escape in that analog.

(Hol' up. What's a double entendre that's not sexual called?)

[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 4 points 6 months ago
[-] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Yeah, I was thinking a portemonteau, but that's incorrect

[-] WldFyre@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

I don't think double entendre is necessarily sexual

[-] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

A pun, usually.

[-] kellenoffdagrid@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 6 months ago

It's wild to me that anyone would say that sentence and not immediately realize they sound like an emotionless robot. Like damn, who would've thought people have a great need for authentic human connections? Not me!

This kinda shit you hear from people so deep in the world of product marketing is sickening and really shows how disconnected from they are from both reality and the point of selling a good product: benefitting people. I guess I'm just glad to see more stories of people ditching dating apps as they continue to become more predatory and less helpful.

this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
264 points (95.2% liked)

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