I dunno, man. "The endless parade of attractive men that I can have sex with whenever I want is giving me unrealistic expectations for who I can actually get a relationship with" seems like an entirely self-inflicted problem to me. The ball is in your court, you can just realize what's going on and adjust your expectations accordingly. Your biggest obstacle is the overwhelmingly strong cultural messages encouraging you to blame men for not meeting your overinflated standards. Meanwhile if I, a person who is actually looking for an actual relationship on this hellhole app, can't get a date because I can't compete with all of the fuckboys, I have no control over this short of becoming a fuckboy myself, and if I complain about it I get called an incel.
There really is no question that this is a fundamentally asymmetrical problem.
My brilliant and groundbreaking conclusion is that women who want relationships should go the fuck outside just like men should. The apps can go back to being just for the people who only want to get laid, and the niche/kinky people for whom they actually seem to work.
My other brilliant a groundbreaking conclusion is that apps bring out the worst in people, including women, and I don't disagree with you about the "standards" of women while they're using them, but it's apparent to me that if people get off of the apps and try to be real humans in meatspace again, they will meet others who share their goals a lot more easily than they will by swiping through static photos of each other.
There was a brief but glorious era when dating apps enabled antisocial homebodies to meet other antisocial homebodies without having to go out and do things that, by definition as an antisocial homebody, you hate doing. Now granted, there is a certain amount of charm to bonding with somebody over how much you hate the thing you are both currently doing, and being relieved that meeting each other means you no longer have to do that thing anymore, but I would still rather take peak Okcupid.
I don't really think that's functionally different from the broad declaration to "go outside." The idea is that you meet people in the real world through real-life circumstances, whether that be at a party or from someone who knows you both intentionally introducing you.
But women were the ones who demonise even saying hello to strangers outside these days. I know, because I've heard a number of zoomers, and maybe now the coming of age older alphas who say exactly that. They unironically demonise, even call it creepy, for people to cold approach even respectfully.
Well, what do you expect? Where else are people giving eachother a chance to meet one another? The stats also show since at least the early 2010s, meeting through apps is not only by far the most frequent way people choose to date, but it also vastly trumps all other former ways of meeting people, so those ways are in decline as well.
Ive personally dated via the club scene, speed dating, social circles, extra curricula activities etc. All those except speed dating aren't forms of formal meetups with people, but because of that it was far more challenging just to get even ONE date from those events. I'd say those dates were more successful relationships too on average, but point stands, it is increasingly hard just to even get one date outside of dating apps/speed dating. Women in speed dating are just as picky, and often delusional in their standards as well. Once again, as set up, its the women that ultimately choose the men, and thus the men that move around the tables, not the other way around.
Your conclusion implodes because men looking for meaningful relationships are an equivalent minority to women only looking for casual sex. The problem is symmetrical. Lirpa is right.
This doesnt at all prove that men and women have equal challenges on these apps. Like again, with men expected to pursue women and not the other way around, despite being in this 4th or nth wave feminist world, women are also much more likely to find a relationship easier on the more 'relationship friendly apps' than men on average.
I agree that women have the most control here, but I imagine it will be quite difficult to find the good guys from the thousands of matches. The pictures and text won't help much with that, so what are they supposed to go by?
''You wanted to fuck me, I wanted you to love me.'' I don't think you should take this at face value. In fact I think it's a lie. Stella is a far left socialist and not the trad kind, her whole ideology would dismantle relationships, and the family.
Women's revealed preference is that they don't want relationships and they've even made political efforts to facilitate that. This is just a blame shift to save face.
I know a lot of self-described socialists, and the majority of them are either happily married with kids, or actively want that for themselves. I think it would be just as unfair to say that their right-wing counterparts all necessarily personally hate gay people because their ideology doesn't want to give gay people the same civic rights as straight people/traditional couples. I don't really think Stella being a socialist negates what she says at all. People will deviate from the stated goals of their preferred ideology's most ancient founders pretty often.
Where are you getting the "revealed preferences" part about how women don't actually want relationships? I'm curious because I've honestly never seen anything indicating that at all, unless you're referring to women "dropping out" of dating (like men are claiming to do, as well).
There's several types of far leftist. The more communist aligned one who are traditional and want traditional marriage even going so far as to say it's proletarian. My grandmother was of this type, and the modern liberal far left socialist created by industrialists seeking to create the working woman who would be cheap labour.
Revealed preference is an economics term. It means that the preferences of consumers can be revealed by their actual purchasing habits, rather than what they might say or theorizing that we might make.
Revealed preference is that if they actually wanted relationships they would be in them. They would choose them and collectively bargain marriage from these men or something. But the opposite is true.
I feel like that's too broad to call it a "revealed preference" in the current climate, though. Both women and men complain endlessly about the current state of dating, and I think that accounts for why many have stopped trying. I don't think is reveals that women prefer "hooking up" instead of relationships, but rather that that's what they're doing because it's the only thing seemingly available to them.
But the women are the driving force for the conditions in the sexual marketplace, even ultimately the relationship marketplace. If women stopped engaging in these apps and ‘ladies nights’ then the conditions would change, and not vice versa, because it’s men that pursue the women.
That’s what @Crown9Φ means by ‘revealed preference,’ because it sure as shit isn’t men controlling the ‘supply.’ i.e if men stopped using apps, or didn’t go to clubs with ladies nights, far less women are going to care
I love this piece! I have grown tired of trying to explain to men that no matter how confusing they find it, women do not consider it a win to have access to sex with people who don’t and will never love them. Thanks for taking the time to write it!
Thank you! It's really something how we often feel like we're competing with each other when we aren't even playing the same game half the time, and no one realizes it.
There’s definitely some truth to that, but women’s behavior doesn’t always reflect it. The frustration men have is women now seem to try and sleep with a high status guy and convince him to love her rather than get with someone who is not insanely high status. I’ve even heard people use the term “alpha widowed.” That repeated behavior and men’s status being lowered to accommodate women working has changed the game. The solution to me is to not treat dating as a “dating market” but instead have families screen for similar values, but that would require a religious approach to dating
I dated & got married in the pre app ages, so other than "I think i would have done poorly on them" and "Lirpa's avoid them advice sounds great" (more in follow up comment) my take is all second hand, but aren't their SOME apps that do compatibility questionnaires?
An ex & friend of mine met her 2d & almost certainly final husband (past the decade mark now) using one of those. She did date a string of misfire using it first, or, maybe like 2 or 3 okay, 2 good but not getting married, 1 scary stalker who seemed great until it he got mad about her prioritizing her kids & quickly spiralled into scariness, and about a dozen more more stories ranging from kinda sad to hilarious, but I didn't get the idea this was looks based at all.
Granted I suggested this same site to a divorced male coworker in his 50s wanting a relationship and he got nothing but a string of girls in their 20s who he was sure were just wanting him for money (we both thought weird coz even tho we're doing very well for blue collar work its not nearly that kind of good AT ALL -we're in socal, everything is expensive! - i guess they have an income question?) & even tho he said he was looking for a serious long-term relationship so I dunno.
Shameless plug: One of the companies I’m contracted to has a dating app tied to in person events.
As in, you attend a Mingle or Speed Dating, and your ticket gives you access to the profiles of who attended the event, and you can connect after. It seems to be the ideal formula to baby step off apps completely: https://www.jigsaw.co/
(My boyfriend and I however, met on Tinder; he was actually my first Tinder date ever. I’d been very against dating apps. Go figure 🤷🏻♀️)
Re the "go outside" advice - i remember saying to my wife one time "maybe i should have more sympathy for the incel types because I don't see me doing well on modern dating apps either" & she said "surely people still meet outside of those?" & looked it up and I guess slightly over half of all relationships now still don't start with apps?
Also tho for guys going this route keep in mind the following (and i had a pretty fun time of it despite not being a lot of the things you are supposed to be in order to be socially successful, so maybe if you're not doing well can get something out of this)(my only advice to girls would be let guys you're attracted to know you like them some of us often can't tell):
1. Even in ancient, pre combustible engine times when I grew up, less conventionally attractive or popular girls from 9th grade onwards could get sex easier than less conventionally attractive or popular guys. Life will probably always work this way. Accept it & move on.
2. There have always been other guys giving the "girls like you better if you're a jerk advice." They have always especially loved to give this advice to other guys hitting dry spells or who are sad coz they just struck out. True of some girls, especially for short term. I tried this. Yes, IF you do it right, you can get dates this way. But you & the dates will probably be miserable (at least i was bored to death on those dates and not liking myself; stopped doing this within a month, in my defense, I was very young). I strongly suspect the guys giving this advice to other guys are miserable.
3. People put way too much time trying to figure out "what is the statistically most likely thing for the most people to like." We are not all the same. We do not all want the same things. Figure out who you want to be & try being the best version of that. This will attract people who like you, not a fake image of you. You will be happier with yourself, & probably attract more of the kind of people you will be most comfortable with And possibly more people overall.
4. Don't get hung up on stupid status games. If you like someone go for it.
5. Have friends of the opposite sex. I cannot tell you how many ways this will help you, from getting a better understanding of women's perspective to occasionally getting good advice to other girls seeing you hanging out with these girls & automatically assuming you are not a serial killer & might be fun for them to hang out with.
I'm still in a pre-app relationship, and will likely eventually end it by dying. I do have friends my age who've had some experience with the apps. Older men, in small town Montana. There's a Willie Sutton character to the thing: once you've exhausted your networks -- and we're all basically 2 or 3 degrees of separation from each other anyway -- you need a way to jump into other communities. You gotta go where the women are.
It's another kind of fringe situation where the apps are serving a useful purpose.
Alex DatePsych has often talked about the "promiscuous 10%," the set of the population that is sociosexually inclined to casual sex. And when men imagine some sort of fuckfest "hookup culture," they think it's the entire female population participating and being funneled to chads. When really it appears to be a set of people who are dispositionally inclined to do so, doing so. Of course, the argument can be made that basically all men are "dispositionally inclined" to have casual sex, per your point. But woman are not, so the willing 10% of women gatekeep and, who'd have thought, end up picking the most physically attractive men where possible.
If a genie offered two fuckbuddies of equal facial attractiveness, one who is 5'5" (or even just an average 5'9") vs 6'3", most women would probably pick the 6'3". This doesn't seem odd or "wrong," most guys would probably do similar if it was A cup girlfriend vs DD. Some traits are just naturally valued and those people will bubble to the top without it being some dastardly plot. The 5'5" and the A cup are not "doomed" either, they just won't have as much (or potentially any) luck when key physical attractiveness metrics are the ONLY metrics. Maybe we shouldn't have made these meat-market Hot-or-Not apps, but as with everything, blame the tech lords.
Lots of women are just there to idly browse, promote Instagram, promote OnlyFans. All of this is very annoying, but as you said, to be expected when the nature of the app does not appeal to the average woman. People are probably right tho when they say that the positive response women get on these apps IS likely distorting their perception of their own SMV.
But guys who bang on the "they're taking ALL the women" really just want some nominally justifiable cause to rally around without admitting a.) envy and b.) personal failure. Life ain't fair and hot guys fuck the most, duh. It's not that they're wrong that these apps are exacerbating that inequality, it's just that like what the fuck are you going to do about it, man? Shit's not going away and if you want to mald then have fun malding. Go the fuck outside, you're not going to get me tooed in 2025 unless you can't comport yourself. That's fearful neuroticism talking, and unless you're really hideous and/or catastrophically autistic (it happens and sucks, again life ain't fair) you will get something.
I think the hideous and catastrophically autistic (I lol'd at that phrasing) just might be some of the folks for whom the more niche apps might be a benefit rather than a negative.
Beyond the 10% that are dispositionally inclined though another cohort will partake as that 10% sets the price. If those 10% high on sociosexuality put out and as you stated most men are in that category as well, there’ll be a cohort of women who will be pressured to partake in casual sex as the entry price to meet men. So in total it’s some share of the population greater than 10% that plays the game. If you’ve used dating apps in a mid or large city, those numbers who partake become very evident by lived experience.
Hmm, I think the complaints and the analysis of the complaints overlooks the fact that there are plenty of people who actually do just fine on the apps and have relationships - and that the outside also really sucks for dating, let's not be too nostalgic.
I've dated around in NYC, Chicago, and SF - and, while there is a big casual component to the apps, I've never dropped someone I was really interested in. About half of my relationships come from the apps and I don't think I'm casual-sexing down to people I wouldn't theoretically date.
It's great to go outside, but a ton of relationships globally come from the apps, most sex happens in relationships online and in person and (if memory serves) bars, house parties, and churches also suck for dating.
Nothing in your article supports your claim. You readily admit that: 1) Dating apps are designed to appeal to women, 2) Dating apps are almost exclusively run by women, and perhaps the most important of all, 3) Women successfully match and initiate casual sex. These 3 facts all point to the same conclusion: women choose these outcomes.
As horrific as the idea might be of a women asking for casual sex and getting it, you seem far more terrified of the idea that women shouldn't have casual sex, and instead form meaningful relationships before engaging in acts of intimacy, so I don't really understand what the article is trying to say.
It seems to me that you and women at large are unhappy about current circumstances. Well, do something about it! It really ought to be obvious where the problem lies when the male complaint is that they DON'T get casual sex.
Thanks for admitting you're just as pathetic as I thought you were. I'll know better than to assume even pseuds act in good faith on Substack, and simply block your ilk going forward.
While women don't seem thrilled with how the apps work, many are content. Men using them will run into a litany of women who use them as a way to find drug dealers.
weed is a thing you sleep with dudes for now? Come on, I thought we were talking about the good old fashioned exchange of currency for a gram or something. It's legal, ffs!
They don't really make anyone happy, which may be why they're declining.
People said nice things about OKCupid before 2015 or so, which really did seem to be a kinky/geeky/queer matching app--there's your couple with the hat and the funky skirt.
> Men enthusiastically do the causal sex with little care if it goes further — with many not wanting it to go further at all.
I think here you should mean men who are successful enough in dating apps to be picked by women are likely to have casual sex without caring much about if it goes further because such men are like average women who are on dating apps, they have a lot of options available for them to pick from.
What's interesting is why women are so sex averse compared to men when the standard picture is that men and women suppose to be into each other with equal and opposite attraction/interests. I'd imagine that doesn't make most guys feel that great to be getting into a long term relationship when things are not equal for the person itself and the reason they may stick around ends up being because of fear because they might not get much chances with women with equal opposite interest if she exists or because some woman is better than no woman. Hence the complaints from women about guys waitting forever to propose.
Hinge improved the game by removing the algo as the main sorting mechanism. The next great improvement would be to limit the number of matches one can hold at a time to force users to be pickier and spend more time with the matches they end up making.
Won't happen though. The dopamine hit of getting consistent matches is too great (for women & successful men) and it would destroy their primary revenue model of frustrating most men into paying for more "advantageous features."
Ah, yes, I forgot we're in the timeline where we must pretend that only one group is negatively affected by any given thing. My bad!
I dunno, man. "The endless parade of attractive men that I can have sex with whenever I want is giving me unrealistic expectations for who I can actually get a relationship with" seems like an entirely self-inflicted problem to me. The ball is in your court, you can just realize what's going on and adjust your expectations accordingly. Your biggest obstacle is the overwhelmingly strong cultural messages encouraging you to blame men for not meeting your overinflated standards. Meanwhile if I, a person who is actually looking for an actual relationship on this hellhole app, can't get a date because I can't compete with all of the fuckboys, I have no control over this short of becoming a fuckboy myself, and if I complain about it I get called an incel.
There really is no question that this is a fundamentally asymmetrical problem.
My brilliant and groundbreaking conclusion is that women who want relationships should go the fuck outside just like men should. The apps can go back to being just for the people who only want to get laid, and the niche/kinky people for whom they actually seem to work.
My other brilliant a groundbreaking conclusion is that apps bring out the worst in people, including women, and I don't disagree with you about the "standards" of women while they're using them, but it's apparent to me that if people get off of the apps and try to be real humans in meatspace again, they will meet others who share their goals a lot more easily than they will by swiping through static photos of each other.
There was a brief but glorious era when dating apps enabled antisocial homebodies to meet other antisocial homebodies without having to go out and do things that, by definition as an antisocial homebody, you hate doing. Now granted, there is a certain amount of charm to bonding with somebody over how much you hate the thing you are both currently doing, and being relieved that meeting each other means you no longer have to do that thing anymore, but I would still rather take peak Okcupid.
RIP peak OKCupid.
“Going outside” is fake boomer cope. They should actually be set up by family and friends that is much better
I don't really think that's functionally different from the broad declaration to "go outside." The idea is that you meet people in the real world through real-life circumstances, whether that be at a party or from someone who knows you both intentionally introducing you.
But women were the ones who demonise even saying hello to strangers outside these days. I know, because I've heard a number of zoomers, and maybe now the coming of age older alphas who say exactly that. They unironically demonise, even call it creepy, for people to cold approach even respectfully.
Well, what do you expect? Where else are people giving eachother a chance to meet one another? The stats also show since at least the early 2010s, meeting through apps is not only by far the most frequent way people choose to date, but it also vastly trumps all other former ways of meeting people, so those ways are in decline as well.
Ive personally dated via the club scene, speed dating, social circles, extra curricula activities etc. All those except speed dating aren't forms of formal meetups with people, but because of that it was far more challenging just to get even ONE date from those events. I'd say those dates were more successful relationships too on average, but point stands, it is increasingly hard just to even get one date outside of dating apps/speed dating. Women in speed dating are just as picky, and often delusional in their standards as well. Once again, as set up, its the women that ultimately choose the men, and thus the men that move around the tables, not the other way around.
Your conclusion implodes because men looking for meaningful relationships are an equivalent minority to women only looking for casual sex. The problem is symmetrical. Lirpa is right.
Question: The women minority who do want casual sex easily get it on Tinder, men who want meaningful relationships do not. How is that symmetrical?
They use a different app. Some men who use dating apps achieve meaningful relationships. If not with that app, then another one.
OnlyFans, maybe?
Operative word: SOME
This doesnt at all prove that men and women have equal challenges on these apps. Like again, with men expected to pursue women and not the other way around, despite being in this 4th or nth wave feminist world, women are also much more likely to find a relationship easier on the more 'relationship friendly apps' than men on average.
I agree that women have the most control here, but I imagine it will be quite difficult to find the good guys from the thousands of matches. The pictures and text won't help much with that, so what are they supposed to go by?
''You wanted to fuck me, I wanted you to love me.'' I don't think you should take this at face value. In fact I think it's a lie. Stella is a far left socialist and not the trad kind, her whole ideology would dismantle relationships, and the family.
Women's revealed preference is that they don't want relationships and they've even made political efforts to facilitate that. This is just a blame shift to save face.
I know a lot of self-described socialists, and the majority of them are either happily married with kids, or actively want that for themselves. I think it would be just as unfair to say that their right-wing counterparts all necessarily personally hate gay people because their ideology doesn't want to give gay people the same civic rights as straight people/traditional couples. I don't really think Stella being a socialist negates what she says at all. People will deviate from the stated goals of their preferred ideology's most ancient founders pretty often.
Where are you getting the "revealed preferences" part about how women don't actually want relationships? I'm curious because I've honestly never seen anything indicating that at all, unless you're referring to women "dropping out" of dating (like men are claiming to do, as well).
There's several types of far leftist. The more communist aligned one who are traditional and want traditional marriage even going so far as to say it's proletarian. My grandmother was of this type, and the modern liberal far left socialist created by industrialists seeking to create the working woman who would be cheap labour.
Revealed preference is an economics term. It means that the preferences of consumers can be revealed by their actual purchasing habits, rather than what they might say or theorizing that we might make.
Revealed preference is that if they actually wanted relationships they would be in them. They would choose them and collectively bargain marriage from these men or something. But the opposite is true.
I feel like that's too broad to call it a "revealed preference" in the current climate, though. Both women and men complain endlessly about the current state of dating, and I think that accounts for why many have stopped trying. I don't think is reveals that women prefer "hooking up" instead of relationships, but rather that that's what they're doing because it's the only thing seemingly available to them.
But the women are the driving force for the conditions in the sexual marketplace, even ultimately the relationship marketplace. If women stopped engaging in these apps and ‘ladies nights’ then the conditions would change, and not vice versa, because it’s men that pursue the women.
That’s what @Crown9Φ means by ‘revealed preference,’ because it sure as shit isn’t men controlling the ‘supply.’ i.e if men stopped using apps, or didn’t go to clubs with ladies nights, far less women are going to care
I love this piece! I have grown tired of trying to explain to men that no matter how confusing they find it, women do not consider it a win to have access to sex with people who don’t and will never love them. Thanks for taking the time to write it!
Thank you! It's really something how we often feel like we're competing with each other when we aren't even playing the same game half the time, and no one realizes it.
There’s definitely some truth to that, but women’s behavior doesn’t always reflect it. The frustration men have is women now seem to try and sleep with a high status guy and convince him to love her rather than get with someone who is not insanely high status. I’ve even heard people use the term “alpha widowed.” That repeated behavior and men’s status being lowered to accommodate women working has changed the game. The solution to me is to not treat dating as a “dating market” but instead have families screen for similar values, but that would require a religious approach to dating
Revealed preferences might say otherwise.
I dated & got married in the pre app ages, so other than "I think i would have done poorly on them" and "Lirpa's avoid them advice sounds great" (more in follow up comment) my take is all second hand, but aren't their SOME apps that do compatibility questionnaires?
An ex & friend of mine met her 2d & almost certainly final husband (past the decade mark now) using one of those. She did date a string of misfire using it first, or, maybe like 2 or 3 okay, 2 good but not getting married, 1 scary stalker who seemed great until it he got mad about her prioritizing her kids & quickly spiralled into scariness, and about a dozen more more stories ranging from kinda sad to hilarious, but I didn't get the idea this was looks based at all.
Granted I suggested this same site to a divorced male coworker in his 50s wanting a relationship and he got nothing but a string of girls in their 20s who he was sure were just wanting him for money (we both thought weird coz even tho we're doing very well for blue collar work its not nearly that kind of good AT ALL -we're in socal, everything is expensive! - i guess they have an income question?) & even tho he said he was looking for a serious long-term relationship so I dunno.
Shameless plug: One of the companies I’m contracted to has a dating app tied to in person events.
As in, you attend a Mingle or Speed Dating, and your ticket gives you access to the profiles of who attended the event, and you can connect after. It seems to be the ideal formula to baby step off apps completely: https://www.jigsaw.co/
(My boyfriend and I however, met on Tinder; he was actually my first Tinder date ever. I’d been very against dating apps. Go figure 🤷🏻♀️)
Re the "go outside" advice - i remember saying to my wife one time "maybe i should have more sympathy for the incel types because I don't see me doing well on modern dating apps either" & she said "surely people still meet outside of those?" & looked it up and I guess slightly over half of all relationships now still don't start with apps?
Also tho for guys going this route keep in mind the following (and i had a pretty fun time of it despite not being a lot of the things you are supposed to be in order to be socially successful, so maybe if you're not doing well can get something out of this)(my only advice to girls would be let guys you're attracted to know you like them some of us often can't tell):
1. Even in ancient, pre combustible engine times when I grew up, less conventionally attractive or popular girls from 9th grade onwards could get sex easier than less conventionally attractive or popular guys. Life will probably always work this way. Accept it & move on.
2. There have always been other guys giving the "girls like you better if you're a jerk advice." They have always especially loved to give this advice to other guys hitting dry spells or who are sad coz they just struck out. True of some girls, especially for short term. I tried this. Yes, IF you do it right, you can get dates this way. But you & the dates will probably be miserable (at least i was bored to death on those dates and not liking myself; stopped doing this within a month, in my defense, I was very young). I strongly suspect the guys giving this advice to other guys are miserable.
3. People put way too much time trying to figure out "what is the statistically most likely thing for the most people to like." We are not all the same. We do not all want the same things. Figure out who you want to be & try being the best version of that. This will attract people who like you, not a fake image of you. You will be happier with yourself, & probably attract more of the kind of people you will be most comfortable with And possibly more people overall.
4. Don't get hung up on stupid status games. If you like someone go for it.
5. Have friends of the opposite sex. I cannot tell you how many ways this will help you, from getting a better understanding of women's perspective to occasionally getting good advice to other girls seeing you hanging out with these girls & automatically assuming you are not a serial killer & might be fun for them to hang out with.
I'm still in a pre-app relationship, and will likely eventually end it by dying. I do have friends my age who've had some experience with the apps. Older men, in small town Montana. There's a Willie Sutton character to the thing: once you've exhausted your networks -- and we're all basically 2 or 3 degrees of separation from each other anyway -- you need a way to jump into other communities. You gotta go where the women are.
It's another kind of fringe situation where the apps are serving a useful purpose.
Alex DatePsych has often talked about the "promiscuous 10%," the set of the population that is sociosexually inclined to casual sex. And when men imagine some sort of fuckfest "hookup culture," they think it's the entire female population participating and being funneled to chads. When really it appears to be a set of people who are dispositionally inclined to do so, doing so. Of course, the argument can be made that basically all men are "dispositionally inclined" to have casual sex, per your point. But woman are not, so the willing 10% of women gatekeep and, who'd have thought, end up picking the most physically attractive men where possible.
If a genie offered two fuckbuddies of equal facial attractiveness, one who is 5'5" (or even just an average 5'9") vs 6'3", most women would probably pick the 6'3". This doesn't seem odd or "wrong," most guys would probably do similar if it was A cup girlfriend vs DD. Some traits are just naturally valued and those people will bubble to the top without it being some dastardly plot. The 5'5" and the A cup are not "doomed" either, they just won't have as much (or potentially any) luck when key physical attractiveness metrics are the ONLY metrics. Maybe we shouldn't have made these meat-market Hot-or-Not apps, but as with everything, blame the tech lords.
Lots of women are just there to idly browse, promote Instagram, promote OnlyFans. All of this is very annoying, but as you said, to be expected when the nature of the app does not appeal to the average woman. People are probably right tho when they say that the positive response women get on these apps IS likely distorting their perception of their own SMV.
But guys who bang on the "they're taking ALL the women" really just want some nominally justifiable cause to rally around without admitting a.) envy and b.) personal failure. Life ain't fair and hot guys fuck the most, duh. It's not that they're wrong that these apps are exacerbating that inequality, it's just that like what the fuck are you going to do about it, man? Shit's not going away and if you want to mald then have fun malding. Go the fuck outside, you're not going to get me tooed in 2025 unless you can't comport yourself. That's fearful neuroticism talking, and unless you're really hideous and/or catastrophically autistic (it happens and sucks, again life ain't fair) you will get something.
I think the hideous and catastrophically autistic (I lol'd at that phrasing) just might be some of the folks for whom the more niche apps might be a benefit rather than a negative.
I'm with you in blaming the tech lords.
Beyond the 10% that are dispositionally inclined though another cohort will partake as that 10% sets the price. If those 10% high on sociosexuality put out and as you stated most men are in that category as well, there’ll be a cohort of women who will be pressured to partake in casual sex as the entry price to meet men. So in total it’s some share of the population greater than 10% that plays the game. If you’ve used dating apps in a mid or large city, those numbers who partake become very evident by lived experience.
Hmm, I think the complaints and the analysis of the complaints overlooks the fact that there are plenty of people who actually do just fine on the apps and have relationships - and that the outside also really sucks for dating, let's not be too nostalgic.
I've dated around in NYC, Chicago, and SF - and, while there is a big casual component to the apps, I've never dropped someone I was really interested in. About half of my relationships come from the apps and I don't think I'm casual-sexing down to people I wouldn't theoretically date.
It's great to go outside, but a ton of relationships globally come from the apps, most sex happens in relationships online and in person and (if memory serves) bars, house parties, and churches also suck for dating.
To add to your point. A large portion of women's profiles that I see picked the "long term relationship" option. That and "Monogamy."
Nothing in your article supports your claim. You readily admit that: 1) Dating apps are designed to appeal to women, 2) Dating apps are almost exclusively run by women, and perhaps the most important of all, 3) Women successfully match and initiate casual sex. These 3 facts all point to the same conclusion: women choose these outcomes.
As horrific as the idea might be of a women asking for casual sex and getting it, you seem far more terrified of the idea that women shouldn't have casual sex, and instead form meaningful relationships before engaging in acts of intimacy, so I don't really understand what the article is trying to say.
It seems to me that you and women at large are unhappy about current circumstances. Well, do something about it! It really ought to be obvious where the problem lies when the male complaint is that they DON'T get casual sex.
Respectfully, Meph, it sounds like you didn't really comprehend what I wrote, but that's okay
Oh, of course, you're just so smart and perfect that I must be too lowly to understand it - no doubt very similar to your dating life.
Yeah, you got me, lol. Very similar to my "dating life." I am very perfect and smart, thank you
Thanks for admitting you're just as pathetic as I thought you were. I'll know better than to assume even pseuds act in good faith on Substack, and simply block your ilk going forward.
Great chat, thanks. Please, proceed with the blocking so my pathetic existence does not sully your feed any longer!
While women don't seem thrilled with how the apps work, many are content. Men using them will run into a litany of women who use them as a way to find drug dealers.
Drug dealers now?!
...Man, is it that easy? I wonder if my husband would mind if I got on there to score some acid or something
Girls who are offering to sleep with a guy for weed are a dime a dozen on apps.
weed is a thing you sleep with dudes for now? Come on, I thought we were talking about the good old fashioned exchange of currency for a gram or something. It's legal, ffs!
Well said.
They don't really make anyone happy, which may be why they're declining.
People said nice things about OKCupid before 2015 or so, which really did seem to be a kinky/geeky/queer matching app--there's your couple with the hat and the funky skirt.
That couple *definitely* met on OKC 😄
> Men enthusiastically do the causal sex with little care if it goes further — with many not wanting it to go further at all.
I think here you should mean men who are successful enough in dating apps to be picked by women are likely to have casual sex without caring much about if it goes further because such men are like average women who are on dating apps, they have a lot of options available for them to pick from.
What's interesting is why women are so sex averse compared to men when the standard picture is that men and women suppose to be into each other with equal and opposite attraction/interests. I'd imagine that doesn't make most guys feel that great to be getting into a long term relationship when things are not equal for the person itself and the reason they may stick around ends up being because of fear because they might not get much chances with women with equal opposite interest if she exists or because some woman is better than no woman. Hence the complaints from women about guys waitting forever to propose.
Hinge improved the game by removing the algo as the main sorting mechanism. The next great improvement would be to limit the number of matches one can hold at a time to force users to be pickier and spend more time with the matches they end up making.
Won't happen though. The dopamine hit of getting consistent matches is too great (for women & successful men) and it would destroy their primary revenue model of frustrating most men into paying for more "advantageous features."
That does sound like a positive change. But I think you're definitely right about the unlikelihood of limiting the number of matches for that reason.