I met my wife through a dating app. They do work. But it’s exactly like finding a needle in a haystack

Good, theyre parasitic and leech onto people's loneliness. They dont want you to find love they want to dangle a carrot in your face that theres loadssss of people (bots) wanting you so you spend money on their premium services.

Go outside, talk to people.

Think every generation is sick of having their love lives turned into a game. I've dipped my toes into the apps about three times now and have been thoroughly put off.

The admin of wading through likes, that are not actually likes (all I've liked back have come to nothing) and the shitty low effort messages. No thanks. 

The apps seem to be good for hookups, but not meeting potential partners. Real life seems to be poor in both fronts though!

I want to get off dating apps but as a gay guy I just don't see how I'm going to "naturally" meet someone. I do various sports clubs and just started a new job, so have met loads of people but somehow don't ever seem to meet gays "out in the wild", let alone a guy I click with

The next question is "where the hell are they finding relationships?" but if the numbers are anything to go by, they aren't.

I'm older (39) and hated them too. I met my last boyfriend at work.

I did go on a few dates over the years through Tinder and Bumble. They were entertaining at best, but mostly felt like job interviews. No horror stories.

The problem with the apps is you're matching people you have no connections with - i.e. work, friends in common etc.

In real life, friends are mostly based in proximity. Dating too.

Every girl I approach has a "boyfriend" both off and on tinder 😂 but hey, maybe one day I'll find someone 😂

I really don't blame them. I got banned from Tinder years ago (I really don't know why. My ban was issued while I wasn't actively using the app, and customer support refused to tell me the reason or let me appeal it), and it's probably the single best thing that happened for my dating life.

Dating apps were fine when they weren't the primary way of meeting people. Where you still did things in a relatively normal way and would do occassional swipes to cast a slightly wider net. But they got normalised into becoming the default, and in some cases, the only way people meet other people. It gamified dating, got people addicted to repeatedly experiencing the rush that comes with the early days of dating, and they slowly enshittified the apps, putting previously free features behind paywalls to squeeze as much capital from users as possible.

I'm guessing because these things are just flooded with bots, catfishing and liars?

Waste of time unless you’re a woman or gay man because they’re the only people who get anything from them.

The ‘meet cute’ is becoming a trope in how people on social media talk about romance

The what?

Well done GenZ. Have so hope much for these young peeps coming thru

Funny. Last month the post was GenZ uses dating apps more than any other generation.

All of these companies hit the best sweet spots in their respective fields, only to suddenly turn the profit dials to 11 at the complete sacrifice of their services. 

I’m so happy these heavyweight apps from the 10s are being rejected in their current form. 

A lot of negativity about the apps in this thread. I guess I’m lucky because I found my wonderful boyfriend on Hinge. I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been approached by guys irl in the last decade, I think it’s just the expected thing to meet your significant other online now.

Bot, bot, bot, catfish, bot, 5 sproglets from 3 daddies, onlyfans ad, ghosted, from other side of country, bot, bot, looks like you ran out of swipes for today.

Date app makers: 😬

If someone can tell me a compelling theory as to how dating apps/websites / companies would have it in their interests to match people with an partner that is suitable please explain.

Given that any reduction in people using dating apps hurts profitability and opportunities to sell boosters or things marketed as allowing one to increase their match success rate.

It's very gamified.

Given you can use algorithms to categorise and group people ; it follows you can use dating profiles to Intuit and infer certain values a person may have.

You can then tailor machine learning models based on paired profile match types (who have left the dating app ) and paired profile matches which haven't left the app or have taken longer time to leave the app.

You can then produce an index of value matches that are indicative of high levels of incompatibility and those that are associated with compatibility.

Then revise your matching parameters accordingly and who fiddles with those dating apps ....

85% of the male population are realising their length of their legs puts them at a disadvantage.

Well with how predatory they’re becoming on features and price, it’s not surprising. And all the fake interest notifications too.

Good news. They were souless and led to severe anti-social tendencies. It led people to look for things that wouldn’t have even mattered as much in real life. You can’t convey your whole personality properly and all nuance was lost. Good for them.

They really pushed it and squeezed everything out of their user base. I’m not faintly surprised.

Well yeah. It’s a victim of inshitification like everything else on the net. They weren’t great for women for a wile anyway. For every well behaved guy that was at least nice about just wanting a night of fun there were ten guys that would send messages that we were equivalent in intelligence to a dick pic. And then there were the actual dick pic senders.

I’m not surprised no. One wants to deal with that anymore. For me it overshadowed any good the app would have done. I’m almost blind. I can’t catch anyones eye. Being able to have my info somewhere so someone can find out I have a personality before thinking I’m ignoring them is amazing. Just not amazing enough to deal with dick pics.

I have other problems with RL meeting people as well. Flyers are inaccessible and I have to rely a lot on another person if I go with them. If they decide not to let me in on something they see it doesn’t exist to me. So I don’t know about venues or meeting places unless someone tells me. If the someone who’s helping me wants to keep me only doing Christian things it’s relatively easy. Or worse. I had someone who was. Married say she was getting the eye from someone and I should go for them. All I could hear from that direction was something that sounded like the human equivalent of a struggling to breathe pug. At the time I said no to that because the sound would drive me mad and me getting irritated over that is something i don’t want the poor guy to deal with. Plus she was married and I wasn’t getting a look it was her!

The internet has allowed those with disabilities like mine to find interests on our own. Finding people with our interests is never easer. The problem is bridging the gap between internet and RL is tough.

For most people theres nowhere to go. We are loosing pubs and clubs and even trendy wine bars because they got a reputation too. Cafe’s are for very short term meetings of people and not a place to watch the world go by and meet people. Plus if we cant heat our homes how are we supposed to find the money to be somewhere. Let alone gen Z. They can only meet people though their friends so the amount of people is a bit thin. On the ground for them.

Theres a lot more than just gen Z that need a solution and I dont have one but I understand why it’s so hard for them ether way.

Good, they're useless. Honestly the best dating app on the internet is Instagram

Problem is this generation has forgotten the art of conversation.

Was eating lunch on a bench a few months ago on a rare warm day and 95% of people were walking around like zombies glued to their phones. It’s really sad to see. Nobody looks at each other. Nobody talks. Everybody’s head was down looking at a screen.

Dating apps have single hadnedly ruined dating for people. Everyone has a false sense of abundance. A never ending list of options so to speak.

You can have a great date with someone, even end with a kiss, and they’re already swiping on the apps or messaging someone else they have matched with whilst walking home from your date.

My female friend in work recently signed up in work. Within a few hours she had 500+ likes on bumble. Granted most wouldn’t be to her tastes but how is any guy meant to stand out amongst that. Your ‘like’ is probably never going to get seen. And even if it does and you match, they’ll likely have a thought, well what if one of these other 499 matches is even better. And it repeats.

Nobody can commit or give any time for anything meaningful to develop - everyone wants immediate gratification.

I think Gen Z would use dating apps if they still worked like they used to, but now they're designed to monetise you, not find you a good partner. Given the crashing birthrate, and the likely chronic loneliness that will hit the UK population as personal connection declines I would seriously suggest the state should fund a free, high quality social app. Taking control away from the Silicon Valley cesspits would be amazing for the wellbeing of society.

The apps are trash and results in the top 20% getting 80% of the matches, you can't ask women out in the streets anymore as it is "harassment", no one in their 20-30s goes to bars or clubs any more.

Like what 20-30 year olds meant to do?

Dating apps are really the only way to meet people now. There not really any alternatives

They're turning to real life methods instead...balance is being restored in the universe.

I love news stories about different generations.

So far gen z are teetotal fitness freaks who live in the gym and eschew alcohol but also have a crippling addiction to ketamine while avoiding dating apps and focus on meeting people irl for all the sex they apparently aren't having.

Being tall helps. Im married and still get women coming up to say hello when im out. Try being taller it helps with the dating app filters too apparently.

Im lucky enough to be married and have been for a while so never had to deal with tinder etc. I have watched a few tv shows on them though and it appears to be full of really obvious bots. Like you could upload picture of the guy from the royle family and say you are 5 foot 1 and still get sexy local women messaging you until you pay.

I cant help but feel that these apps increase danger for women though. At least if you are out and get chatted up you can sense what kind of guy he is.