Thoughts on Dating Apps
Trying to meet someone can be difficult. After my marriage of 23 years ended, I tried jumping back into dating by trying out a few different apps. These are my thoughts on dating, the internet, and Oxford commas.
I was looking for something more than just a one-night stand (although a few of those wouldn’t be bad). I was also not looking to get remarried. I was looking for a few dates with the possibility of a relationship if things went well (i.e., if we both agreed that neither of us was serial killers. I have a low threshold for things going well sometimes).
I started first by eliminating sites based on some of my research and word of mouth.
Eharmony: Nope. This is touted as a place for Christians to meet. I’m an atheist.
Match.com: Nope. Seems to be only people looking for marriage or long term monogamous relationships. I’m Not looking for a permanent commitment yet.
The two that I ended up registering for were Tinder, and OKCupid. Later, I added Bumble too.
Tinder has a reputation for hookups. But, after looking at a few hundred profiles, it seemed that this was only about 1/3rd of the profiles. Another 1/3rd were looking for a short-term or long-term relationships, and approximately 1/3rd seemed to be prostitutes (I’m assuming that since they put their Venmo information in their profile, they’re expecting some financial compensation for their “companionship”).
OkCupid has an extensive list of questions, the ability to comment on your answers, and a pretty accurate matching algorithm (provided the other person bothers to answer the questions). Most of the profiles on there seemed to be people looking for short to long term relationships. This one seemed to be closest to what I was looking for. It took weeks to fill out a profile on OkCupid that I was happy with. I answered over 800 questions and added comments to hundreds. It is quite an investment in time but, when someone else takes the time to do the same, the matches can be pretty amazing.
Bumble was in between the other two. Like Tinder, Bumble uses a profile picture, but also allows you to write a description of yourself and fill out some cursory information (height, religion, what you’re looking for, etc.). The profiles on Bumble are pretty superficial so it leaves a lot to be discovered in chatting and when you meet someone. I found more opportunities to go on first dates with Bumble but few of them made it to second dates.
On Bumble, women have to initiate the conversation, and there is a time limit for this. From the time you both like each other, she has 24 hours to message you. If she doesn’t, the match expires forever.
I texted with some women from Tinder but never found anyone that I wanted to meet in person.
All three platforms offer free accounts and paid subscriptions. I didn’t have any luck meeting anyone with a free account on any of them. There just isn’t enough information to match up.
With the free accounts, you can’t see who likes you. You have no idea unless you happen to like them as well. Finding someone to connect with is hard enough. So I was left with two choices to figure out who I matched with.
- Pay up and buy the premium account. This would let me see the person who liked me without having to like them back first
- Lower my standards and start liking damn near everyone. Sooner or later I’m bound to run across the person who liked me, and then the platform would allow us to communicate.
Initially, I chose to go with option #2. After about a month, I decided my time was actually worth something so I paid the ante and bought paid subscriptions on ok Cupid and Bumble. Since I was only looking for hook ups on Tinder, and I’d had the least amount of success with it, I just left that one as a free account. To date, I’ve never met anyone in person from Tinder.
I went through a few dozen profiles, clicked “Like” on a few and slowly sank into despondency when my “Likes” went unrequited. I decided it was me and that somehow my lack of self confidence was visible to everyone on the internet. I resigned myself to a lonely, celibate life of self-loathing and started googling monasteries, then I remembered that they don’t accept atheists, so even they would reject me. Fuck.
I learned to plan for a lot of rejection. From doing a little digging into response rates, it seems that a rate of 1%-3% is average. Absolute top profiles (I guess the Christian Grey type) may get as high as 5%.
The first reason for this seems to be that most of the profiles out there are ghosts. People create an account and then, for whatever reason, just abandon it.
Maybe they decided they weren’t ready to date. I did that the first month after I signed up with Ok Cupid. I filled out a profile, answered a bunch of questions, selected a few likes and waited. Then, someone sent me a message. In that moment, it sunk in that I would have to engage in a conversation and possibly meet someone new in person. I screamed like a little girl, deleted the app, curled up in a ball, and hid under the covers until my dog became concerned and went searching for me. A friendly, wet nose coaxed me out of my hiding spot. My therapist said perhaps that was a sign that I wasn’t quite ready to start dating yet.
For the next two months, I let my account sit there while I practiced talking to my dog. She appreciated all the extra attention and helped me work through some of my recently uncovered anxiety. This also meant that any likes or messages went unacknowledged as I made polite conversation with my pup. It wasn’t a personal rejection of the women who viewed my profile. I wasn’t ignoring just them, I was ignoring everyone. It occurred to me that other people on dating apps might be talking to their dogs as well. It made me feel a little less rejected when a message of mine went unanswered. I figured somewhere a furry companion was getting a little extra love instead; I was okay with that. Also, it’s worth noting that not every woman takes it as a compliment when told she is a “good girl” so if you do practice with your dog, keep it conversational.
Second, sometimes the dating app thing actually works. People meet, connect, and start dating. They stop checking their account. They may delete the app from their phone, but they rarely take the time to go back and close the account. Likes and messages go unanswered, possibly for months, before an algorithm marks it as inactive. To the messenger, it feels like rejection. It is, but it’s not personal. I think this is what discourages so many people.
For me, it helped to think of dating apps as a time and money saver. I didn’t use it to meet people, I used it to eliminate people. Every swipe left was one evening and about $40.00 saved. The app’s job was to remove the fat part of the bell curve; that’s why I paid for the subscription.
A swipe right meant I was willing to commit at least 30 minutes to read the person’s full profile and to send them a message. Swiping right is an exception, not the norm. I’m looking for an atheist woman, within 10 years of my age, who likes English humor, thinks Oxford commas are sexy and has a strong opinion about green bananas. I want to date the anomalies.
With this mindset, I didn’t feel bad when it took me 15, 20, or more messages to get one response. By reframing, it wasn’t nearly as painful as thinking “I’ve swiped right hundreds of times and no one wants even to chat. What’s wrong with me?”
I developed my own algorithm for swiping and learned to stick to it. The few times I violated my own rules, ended up in unpleasant first and only dates at various fast food chains; I count those among my control group to show that my rules worked for me.
Rules for swiping. Swipe left if:
- There are no smiling pictures anywhere in her profile. I don’t want to date some who’s only expression is a duck-face.
- She is posing with a bottle of vodka (not holding a drink, holding the entire fucking bottle).
- She is so jaded and bitter that the only things she says in her profile are reasons why you should NOT contact her. Obviously she needs more practice time with her dog.
- There is a fundamental incompatability. Take her at her word. Be honest about my preferences. If she says she’s vegan (I love tri-tip), don’t swipe right just because she has nice boobs.
- There are rampant grammar and spelling errors in her profile. Everyone makes mistakes but if she doesn’t know “your” from “you’re,” it’s not going to work out. This will bother me no matter how nice her boobs are.
- She is not an atheist or agnostic. I don’t want to argue about the existence of a being that is ok with cancer, tsunamis, genocide, and famine but gets very upset if I touch my genitals. (since not everyone puts this on their profile, nice boobs, in lieu of a stated preference, are ok).
The rules and the attitude worked for me. I’m currently dating a beautiful, intelligent (much smarter than me) woman that I met on OkCupid. I have not closed the account, but I’m not checking it. My apologies to anyone who messaged me in the past few months. I don’t know if this will turn into a long-term relationship or not but, the dating app has done its job.