Update 2: At least Apple was kind enough to refund my money. I’m glad I learned my lesson the easy way. No more dating apps ever again for me!
Update: Thanks all for your overwhelming support. I really needed these words of comfort. Besides this, I live a very lonely isolated life and it's difficult to meet new people. Regardless of being very active, working out a lot and doing a lot of social activities. I will try to reply everything, but I have definitely read everything!
I’m 33M and last night I downloaded Tinder again after deleting it for the 100th time. In a few hours I got 16 likes, but not a match. So I decided to go ahead and pay for one week to see these matches. Literally all of them were fake accounts. Not a single one of these 16 were real.
I broke down in tears, because my dating life hasn’t really been good. As a POC it’s even more difficult. Then, as the idiot I am, I went ahead and spent money just to find out all of it is just a scam. I don’t know how to deal with this anymore. Meeting in real life is basically non existent in this day and age.
I’m just so over with life itself. My self esteem is completely down the gutter. I wish there was an easy and painless escape out of this life.
These apps are designed to literally put you in this position, they erode your self esteem intentionally so that you spend money on their platform.
So first of all, none of this is a reflection of you as a person; it's a malevolent act by a corporation that you're victim of.
My advice is to find someone through mutual interest, personally my goal this year was to get healthier so I've picked up a few activities to keep me fit; rock-climbing gym, community gardening/permaculture, boxing and archery.
I've met some lovely people through these activities, and bonding over a mutual interest gives you time to weigh up whether a romantic interest would work or not. There's also the potential to be set up/hit it off with a friend of theirs if they think you're a catch.
Thank you, those are some really encouraging words!
I think I will focus more time on my hobbies. I need to cultivate my own personality and lifestyle with these hobbies, without the expectation of anything coming out of it. You've given me good ideas, thanks so much!