This is really a monumental societal change.
3rd spaces are nearly completely destroyed, and online seems to be the main option for ppl now.
Would be interesting to see how these compare to the number of people who's given up on meeting an SO and/or doesn't have the time/energy to.
I've def met a few people like this. They have a few terrible dates on these sites, and it just stresses them out too much to even try again. Its really sad.
10 years of online dating, 6 dates out of it. As a well below average guy I just gave up
Are you actually a below average guy, or do you just have below average pictures?
Good "candid"/fun/funny photos are huge for dating apps.
I'm below average in most ways not just as far as attraction goes, but yeah my photos are never that great because I'm not attractive at all. I have had candid ones and funny ones, but I never got much traction. I live in an overpopulated area so this buffet table is brimming with options. I'm just that odd pizza at the Chinese buffet where you wonder why it's being served lol
"a well below average guy" i think stuff like this is just made up, i dont believe in ratings and i dont think others should either tbh
I also believe in a classless society.
Idk comparisons are a thing that can be done and I'm objectively worse than most people in most categories (looks, intelligence, earning potential, education, interests, etc...) so I consider myself "well below average" especially since choosing a person to potentially date does involve comparing them to your other "options."
since choosing a person to potentially date does involve comparing them to your other “options.”
i mean if you choose a partner like you would choose a car, then i guess it is like this
or actually even then it is not like this, like there is nothing objective for most categories.
like you list interests as below average, what is this even supposed to mean lmao or intelligence like how would you even know that and for earning potential, there are like a lot more poor people than rich, beeing poor is the normal one lol
even for education, like people can still know dtuff even if they dont go to university.. Or know nothing if they went
what i am saying is this sounds more like you just beeing unhappy with yourself if anything. Or if you are happy, then you are probably just not a good match anyway for someone that is like looking for a car.
🤚
Feel kinda lucky to have met my partner IRL now (though obviously that doesn't make my relationship any better than those that meet online). It's horribly depressing how reliant on online communities we've become, and how social gathering spaces and third places are eroding.
An additional hot take: online communities create weaker links than in-person communities. hear me out please
Not because the connections themselves are less strong, but because they don’t tie to any other connection. If I met someone in real life, chances are high they are going to meet my family and create connections with them too. On the other hand, if I met someone online, they would most likely not meet my partner and definitely not meet my broader family. What in real life could be a merging of social groups, and therefore a strengthening of everyone’s social nets becomes online the creation of a single link, that is therefore that much easier to break off.
There's a few star trek episodes where they deal with characters who become addicted to either holodecks/holosuites, or games, but I guess it being a space-socialist-utopia of sorts, they give people enough 3rd spaces and community gatherings, so that its rare to find people who completely retreat from real life, and usually a sign of some mental affliction or trauma.
At least right now, I don't see the US recovering from this... 3rd spaces might pop up here and there, but they'll be increasingly rare, and against the trend of overall social isolation.
Yea, this isn't something I can see getting fixed under capitalism. I still hope that as imperialism crumbles and the treats slow down the US empire will have a revolution, but that's not in the immediate future it seems.
Mfw people start romance in revo.
On a positive note, after my last (patriarchal adhering) ex and I split up, several of my sisters around me started splitting up with their own. With the exception of one, we're still single. It's just not worth the bangmaid therapist and other abusive, exploitative crap that goes with.
Happy things are looking better for y'all!
When I was in college, the local indie tea/coffee shop was really nice. But then staryucks moved in a block or so over and they tanked. The nearest indie coffee shop recently was about 30? miles away and run by immigrants. There's no public transit, so I have no idea if they're still open, but I suspect not, since our local population is all but non-existent, now.
Fediverse Tinder where?
"my instance defederated from the baddies"
-a future sentence to be uttered
NSFW
8=====>
Sir, this is a Christian server.
Remove this filth immediately.
Put that in my server. ;-)
Curious which app though bc most of them just hit you with a wall of sorority girls. Like seriously I sat there on Hinge for an hour swiping left and it still had more. Bumble didn't do that it immediately figured out who I like and I got a few dates off it, didn't put a coin in the machine either. Still going out with someone I met off there. I didn't even bother with these apps for years because they're horrible but yeah that's what worked for me. I forget which one of the apps isn't owned by Match but the main ones are doing social experiments on people now or something.
They literally use an ELO system, by the way. Which is crazy. So if you swipe right on someone you are "challenging them" and you lose when they don't want you, lowering your ELO score 💀. I don't need to explain what they think a chess victory is in their ELO system. They're US tech companies which means they get bored living in a money pit and do social darwinism for fun.
Met my wife 15 years ago on eHarmony. It was the only online service I know of that didn’t “just hit you with a wall of sorority girls”…
I have no idea if it’s at all like it was back then, but at the time it asked you a bunch of very detailed questions, and would lead you through an entire process of learning about potential matches before actually letting you communicate freely with them.
Only goes to 2020. I think that after 2020, the online dating scene has seen a pretty sizeable decline.
I assumed the same thing and searched for a updated version of the study. I found this video showing the results up to 2024, contradicting this assumption.
Wonder who were the people who met online in the 80s. Like a nasa engineer and a astronaut?
This is the real question
I wonder how much is just a definitional conversion of 'through friends' to 'online' because friends are now online as well.
Married the person I met online. We are basically inseperable.
Grade school?
I can't remember the stats, but a significant amount of people never make it more than a few miles away from where they grew up. That would mean, especially in rural areas where a large geographic area is concentrated into a single school, you likely have been near or around your eventual partner, and if you're close in age you probably were aware of each other.
It's something crazy like 25% of Americans will die within a mile of the house that they grew up in, and more than 50% will never leave the state they live in.
People had cooties back then. What gives?
Yes, absolutely. But also: I wonder how much of the online stat is stuff like people who met in online communities/groups compared to, say, dating sites and apps.
Because I could absolutely see a large portion of that line being people who met after joining a local meetup group for a shared interest like tabletop games, hiking, sports, etc.
It used to be that the dating pool was very limited in the way that making friends and dating in school is, where the odds are good that the thing you and your friends have most in common is your age and the distance that you live from each other. It wasn't until college that I really met a diverse group of people who all shared a common interest in what they were passionate about. Nowadays I can go online, find people nearby who share a hobby of mine (or even meet people through an online hobby first and then physically meet years later), and maybe find lifelong friends or partners through that rather than somebody my friend happens to know or somebody I work with.
I predict that we'll see a lot of people giving up on human relationship altogether with the advent of horny AI chatbots.
Looks like a whale, mouth on the left
Neighbors is an interesting metric. Holding steady and now beating collage.
If neighbors means "near the parents home", then it makes sense. Many go to colleges in different cities, then don't stay, and lose touch with their college social circles, but the families near your parents home keep a consistent connection.
Perfekt graph to display a shit society
I mean, we met online but not on a dating site.
First long term relationship, brother of my friend who came down here from up north. Had kids, never married, at midlife he got radicalized and hella racist and abusive, we split dramatically after 21 years, (not all his fault, I also did regrettable things in response to what was going on).
Second round met online, had a date, hooked up for awhile, really got on well. He'd had a string of 2 year relationships (from "good on paper" matches from eHarmony) so I said after 2 years we can live together. Our kids all got along, his parents liked me after awhile, he wanted to get married, I said you can ask after we've lived together 2 years. We are happy a dozen years in.
I don't think it matters how you meet but it DOES hurt to think of people as a commodity, all that swiping and trying to maximize compatibility. People are people not clothing or toys.
Yeah that does bother me about the graph. It's the digital age, you can't just lump one value to "online" and expect it to be a representation that makes any sense, did they meet on a dating app? As gamers? Facebook friends? I met my fiancee on deviantart after she liked one of my photos and messaged me to tell me so.
Society is online now, third spaces are still a thing but they're in a different form. This data is presented in a way to make you feel bad about the globalization of the Internet
the sad part is, we have us oligarchs mediating it worldwide. not a good look.
and then they want us to reproduce 😂
well thats the one place I'll never look lol, rip me
I'm going to start dating again sometime soon, so this is something I've been thinking about a lot.
I hate that if I go on an app and make a contact, the ostensible purpose will be to date. When that's the purpose, at some point an evaluation will have to be made. Either that purpose is met or it isn't. You could have a conversation about being friends or considering your options, but I'm sure starting that conversation feels awkward and hurtful. It would feel like downgrading them from the original intent behind meeting.
Not starting that conversation could be delaying the dreams of two people though, so there would be a time crunch to make a decision before I might be ready. It feels like this will inevitably end up with throwing aside people who could be great to have as friends.
A connection shouldn't be a decision, it should be something that happens. I'd rather just hang out with someone with the expectation that we're hoping to be friends, and if there is a connection we'll see it in each other sooner or later. Unfortunately for me, striking up conversations with single women to be friends with while having the thought of going further in the back of my mind might as well be the definition of creeper behavior.
Here is some friendly advice from someone who online dated since the beginning (and I mean starting using online personal ads with eloquent long-form stories on Craigslist of all places, which would look like AI with more personality wrote it given how long): don't do it.
You are aware of the basics with the toxic pattern of online dating. The other elements are more insidious. But all of that aside, the biggest problem is nobody really says who they are and nobody really understands what they want.
The only real option is to live in a way that makes you happy, with no expectation of anyone joining you. In the course of ACTION, you may meet someone taking the same action, and that is a bond that cannot easily be forged online.
If you want a real connection, live in a real way. Do the things you dreamed of but never dared. Take risks living the way YOU want, not the way you've been taught. The closer you come to living how you truly want, the closer you will come to Someone living the same way. You can never meet them as long as you live someone else's life.
When you give so much thought and attention to dating, you will find others giving so much thought and attention to dating. That is a consuming identity. Consider what it means.
...and so on. Online dating as it is now is an addiction and a disease. You might be able to have (bad) sex on it, and you might be able to learn more about yourself and random people you'd never otherwise cross paths with, but for the most part, it is nearly impossible to meet an ideal match.
The top 10% of men "get" the top 50% of women online. The top 50% of women all compete over (and mostly share) the top 10%, thinking they deserve more. The curve is exponential so the numbers at the 1% are insane. And what does "top" even mean?
People look enviously at the "top". But they shouldn't. Sure, they're banging "hot people" all the time along with spreading their hot diseases, but that is where the depth of connection ends. Many of them evolve into SNAGs (spiritual new age guys) for this reason. They are trapped in a cycle of being on top, never exploring other options because they are receiving everything society has deemed as the purpose of it. Yet inside, they rot away, more alone than anyone. There was a person in them once. A child with dreams. Now there is a dark empty void that keeps growing.
Anyway, this hellish online landscape doesn't have to be this way. If the systems were designed right and culture evolved, it could be extremely possible and downright prudent to find healthy connections. It would operate passively and automatically and we would organically encounter amazing matches. But right now, online dating is captured by greedy corporate interests and is a toxic wasteland to keep you addicted and longing, desperate, and hungry.
This is true for man or woman. Men are turned into ravenous & desperate worms that gyrate at the slightest possibility. Women are turned into tyrant queens believing they are laced in gold with infinite options, yet all the options are diseased maggots living as a shadow of their being. Both create a desperately alone populace longing for something more, and they don't even know what that "more" is.
It's the real you dude. Go take a hike, hug a tree, focus on hobbies, and stop chasing broken dreams. Real people aren't drawn to longing. They're drawn to living.
Needing an app through a business to find love is fucking depressing.