32m here and ive been on dating apps for over 10 years and think they’ve gotten worse since the whole swiping algorithm. I always do max swipes daily on fb dating, tinder, and bumble with minimum to no success. Tinder being the worst of the three. Ik irl is better, I just am not good at it with social anxiety and overthinking. Anybody find what works on these apps if you’re an average looking man?
You basically need to buy premium. It sucks and is predatory but it makes a huge difference. I would drop $20 on boosts Thursday afternoon and end up getting a date for Friday/Saturday maybe 2/3 of the time. About 75% of my matches came from paying for buffs.
Data shows that something like 80% of guys on dating apps don’t get any attention from women. I don’t remember the exact figure. But dating apps are a tough demoralizing place for most men. I’d say branch out in your hobbies and focus on self improvement and hopefully you’ll bump into the right person with some shared interest.
Are you going to therapy for your social anxiety and over thinking? Cuz even if you got a match on the apps, you’re still going to face those issues when you actually meet up.
One thing I’ve seen reported in recent times is that men hardly show up to singles events and speed dating type things anymore. But that might be a lot of pressure for your social anxiety if you showed up somewhere and you were the only guy in a room of women.
be hot
- Be rich
- Don’t be poor
I think that’s the only legit cheat code
It’s not that simple.
- Be attractive.
- Don’t be unattractive.
2a. You gain half a point attractiveness bonus for every $200k you have in the bank.
Tell us more about your current usage. What are you doing and where is it failing?
Some of the other posts already hit the highlights. Have a variety of well lit photos. Your profile should be short, but with some unique-ish hooks for people to talk about (eg: “reading ‘such and such’ for my book club!” - several things for someone to ask about there).
When you do match with people, don’t send generic messages. Don’t just send “hey”. Go read https://nohello.net/en/ for a post about that in other contexts.
After you’ve had one or two successful exchanges, clear any deal breakers you might have (eg: “really enjoying this conversation but wanted to make sure you saw on my profile I have a toddler. Are you okay with that?”). If that succeeds, ask them out.
Don’t provide too many choices. People get overwhelmed easily. “I’d love to talk more about (whatever we we were talking about). Do you want to go on a date? I like (local bar), but (other bar) in your neighborhood looks fun, too!”. Two choices. They’ll probably pick one.
More specific advice may be available if you tell us more about your specific experience
Just haven’t gotten any matches although I got back on the apps like a month or so ago
What part of the world are you in?
In my experience, tinder is pretty bad. I don’t use facebook so I can’t vouch for that one, but I assume it’s also bad. I never got a single match on Bumble.
Hinge, I got pretty good results on. Even though they’re all owned by the same Match Group, hinge seemed to work better. I could get about a date a week on hinge, as an average guy.
I think it worked better for me because you can send a note when you see someone you like, so if you can write complete sentences you’re already a cut above the average guy.
I’m in the northeast of USA. I paid for hinge before but only got a couple matches. It’s the most expensive one but offers the most I’d say
I never paid for it out of stubbornness.
Are you writing good messages to potential matches?
On hinge? They weren’t creepy or anything
That’s good but there’s a lot of room between creepy and effective
sexy horny gay dudes are always ready to show you what a real sexual revolution looks like.
Remember when conservatives used to say it was a choice? If it was a choice, I would have lost my virginity a lot sooner.
Same here. I’m like a classic bear IRL and I get attention. My luck with women is nowhere close.
- Don’t be a misogynistic piece of incel shit
- ???
- Profit!
Posted this 2 years ago and dug it up for you!
Here to offer hope and advice to anyone that’s given up. I’m a 52-yo American male and have knocked it out the park with dating apps. In the 4-years since my wife left, thank god, I’ve had 15-20 dates and 5 steady gf’s for a bit. Getting married 11/24 if y’all want to come!
Pro tips:
- Post a variety of pics. Nothing controversial like guns, dead animals, any other women your age. Or your fucking truck/motorcycle/sports car. If your Confederate flag bed sheets are really important to filter people, go ahead I guess. If the person you’re looking at does not have a wide range of pics, red flag. Women are great at glamour shots. Take the worst pic of the bunch and assume that’s what they look like IRL. Worst case, you’re pleasantly surprised. (Happened to me many times!)
- Don’t be too judgmental. All you’re aiming for is a first date, see how it goes. What’s it cost a man? Dinner for two? Better yet, I dated a woman who said neither party should pay anything on the first date. If you don’t click, no one’s out anything. Go to a park, thrift storing, antique mall, whatever floats your boat. It costs nothing to walk around, talk and gauge each other’s interests and mutual attraction.
- Sorry, but this bit can be expensive. Sign up for half-a-dozen sites. If you’re fishing, it’s best to bait 6 poles vs. one, right? Try the free options of course, see how it goes, but spread yourself around as much as possible. You never know. And that bears repeating. You never know what will happen. More on that shortly.
- Keep initial communication short and sweet. Too much gets lost in text, too many misunderstandings. "Hey! Love (something in their post that you’re seriously interested in, or why else are you contacting them)! (question about something you want to know about them)? Want to (go to the park, get coffee, go thrift storing, whatever)? And then go on the damned date, and do it ASAP, before something stupid happens like a misunderstood text, other plans/dates cropping up, whatever. Just go. If I have to say, “Don’t be an ass and pressure for the date.”, you’re not ready for a relationship.
How I met my fiancé:
She hit me up on eHarmony. Gods that site sucks. Only date I ever got there. Blew her off because her pics were… not so great. She had nothing interesting to say about herself, barebones bio. 3-months later I’m revisiting and saw her “like”. “Yeah, what about this girl again?” She posted more about herself, and more attractive pics and here we are.
If you figure it out, let me know. I am also in my 30s and have never had any success with dating websites/apps. I’ve only ever had success meeting people the natural way.
Personally I wouldn’t even bother with dating apps. Date someone from work or go to a singles event. I’ve had great success with those methods.
its always attractive or not, race also matters because people are that vain; white people and attractive would get more hits, and it goes down the list least likely. do they ask income , and some ask about your “size”
Profile:
- full body pic
- face pic
- pic showing interests
- pic showing social life
- description taking about your interests and what you want to do (hiking, games, sports, clubs, whatever, open to new things, etc… Don’t be shy about nerd shit)
- be honest.
- be positive.
Behavior:
- pick one day a week.
- pick one hour on that day, preferably the later half of your most normal schedule, or around 6pm otherwise.
- swipe for no more than 15 minutes/app in that hour.
- Most important: Look at people’s profiles, be VERY picky. Swipe right ONLY on people you actually want to TALK to. If that’s 3 out if 100 it’s actually a good thing.
- do this for 3-6weeks if you’re M4F.
The goal is to train the algorithm on the types of people YOU like. If you swipe right on everything it learns nothing and will show you people, and show you to people who share much less potential interest in a date.
This limited swipe schedule is also to combat brain-rot incelification and burnout. Sucks to be alone but go touch a tree and hang out with friends. No friends? I know it sucks shit but you gotta start there. Do the stuff you like doing around other people and take pictures. Helps with the profile, softens the loneliness, and you’ll have people to confide in after a bad date.
Lastly, if you abused your account before(swiping right indiscriminately) it may be messed up. Let it sit a few weeks before trying again.
I think it’s swipe up 2x, swipe down 2x, swipe left 2x, swipe right 2x, B, A, Start
That’s just the normal cheat code. You have to fast open your calculator at the end and type 666 for goth girls.
After a long discussion with all of my co-workers comparing everyone’s experience, it would be safe to assume that they do not work effectively. They are a commercial product whose entire purpose is to make money. The algorithms are designed to keep people on the app as long as possible. They don’t work on purpose. Every single person in the discussion that met their SO on an app, were marched because some sort of fluke or exception. It only works when the pattern is broken. We were even calling people’s SOs up to hear their full stories.
My wife said the “no fuckboys” line in my profile made her laugh.
Having gone from the guy with no matches to getting good matches, in part from advice from female friends, here’s what worked for me in order of priority:
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De-red flag. Remember, men are about 5-10x as likely to commit acts of violence as women. So imagine you’re looking at your profile as a third person, assuming there’s a good chance you’re a serial killer. Make sure your jokes are clearly jokes and can’t be read as hinting at any extreme beliefs or even overall weirdness. Seriously, there’s like a 90% chance that if you haven’t done this already, you’ve got something on your profile that’s terrifying to most women. Now a common faulty cognition I see is “I should tell her what other girls don’t like about me as a warning”. No, stop. That’s not how you do it. Because girls will assume it’s 1000% worse than what you’re saying, and even worse the algorithm will nuke you if you get too many rejections. Instead, see step 4) and reject other girls who won’t be into you.
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Good pictures. Again, 1) comes into play here. No dark backgrounds. Nothing that looks like one of those pictures they show of suspects on the news. Outdoors is good. If you have pictures with people, great. If not, no sweat, just make it look good. Look up a guide on how to take a good selfie and use it.
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Keep your written answers short. No one reads them anyway, unless they’re really long and creepy. You’re not going to convince her you’re Shakespeare, she’s really just checking to make sure you don’t remind her of someone she had a terrible experience with.
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Now all that being said, the best strategy for swiping is to be the opposite of most people. Don’t just swipe on anyone who meets your attractiveness standards. Instead, swipe only on girls you’d really be excited to meet, and that you think would be excited to meet you too. Are you frugal? Don’t swipe right on the model with a Gucci bag. I know it’s hard. But you really have no chance of making it and dating her would make you miserable anyway. So swipe left and get the little boost that helps you meet a better match. I will say I’ve followed this strategy on Hinge which supposedly has a better algorithm for matching people, so I can’t guarantee it for other sites.
#4 is so true, even 15+ years after I stopped using dating sites. I went on a lot of bad dates with attractive girls until I found my wife, who I matched mostly on details than looks alone.
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