Online dating thread

quick update

so this woman i matched with and exchanged numbers with - when i engage she would be super active and texting back a lot - we seem to gel well and often have fairly lengthy and deep conversations the few times we spoke

she mentioned that she thought i'd lost interest and she'd never hear from me again because i went a few days without texting and was kind of annoyed because i'm the one she likes talking to the most right now and the times we speak she just insta ghosts the other guys to focus on me

i asked why she didn't just text me then and she showed me her phone notifications were just constant dms on tinder from guys and she says with all that attention - it kind of conditions you to think the guy isn't into you if he's not actively pursuing

this was not an overly attractive woman, her profile was all pictures of flowers with one face shot that's only the face so big red flag there (we've since exchanged instas and she's not obese or nothing and better than you'd expect from a single face shot profile but also not like someone you would notice at a bar and say "damn i need to get her number"

she's 34, has kids, sketchy profile that at best makes her an average woman if not obese

i only swiped right because there's not much out here and the flowers hinted she could be interesting (they were artistic and self taken, usually the 1 face pic plus random stuff are things like memes or even blank pics)

she is inundated with dms and matches with most guys she swipes right on are matches

like i know about the imbalance, but this is crazy how someone who smack dab in the middle of the bell curve still gets so much attention and adoration

she's still pretty chill though so we'll probably meet in person soon enough despite the distance - her brother is also a fishing guide

Tough gig for women in the middle of the bell curve. She is obviously only ever going to date to the right, but in her seemingly endless options very few of those guys are going to want her for anything other than short-term.

Think it's easier for hot women, as they have far fewer men on the right of them on the bell curve so they can take more time filtering them.

I remember reading how a woman who was like a 6? or 7? iirc who was mentioned in this thread how hard it was for her to get a successful relationship out of online dating, despite all the "attention" she was garnering.

My take was always that the cohort most likely to get snapped up is the ‘7 female’ bracket, the relatively non crazy cute girl-next-door types.

Reason being they can date up and the hotter guys they are dating are more likely to want to commit, mostly as mitigation against the 8-9 girls on their own level often being insane.

To this end I’ve always found that there is a relative lack of representation of this band on apps, with an abundance of 6s and below getting messed around and then quite a few 8+ who have impossible standards

On the other hand, the hottest guys can just play around as long as their looks last, so there’s that.

There are just 1s and 0s, it’s binary. Thinking of it any other way is a mistake that can and likely will cost you.

arkansas women i skipped the match phase with and went straight to instagram dms is not from arkansas but is spanish

really surprised by how much in common we have, we're both world travelers and were often at the same places at the same time - like she was in macau during my poker days, she was in morocco when i was there, she's from zaragosa, i've been there and my brother lived there for a year

it's kind of crazy to the point that she keeps joking about how we are meant to be

but during the macau talk she was talking about working at one of the casinos and asked what she did (finally had a good outlet to ask it) and she confirmed she was a dancer there and that's how she supports herself now, will strip and travel

this is a major turn off in theory but i'm honestly not really put off by it

it isn't really that much different from what i do, gamble and travel, and if i could have found a way to make a good living shaking my ass my stage then perhaps i would have been doing that myself

the big thing is she's doing it to fund a lifestyle that's incredibly similar to my own and it's not at all has this sleazy type of vibe you would normally think of when you think of strippers, like most of her instagram photos are artistic type of shots, pictures of interesting things and museums she visited etc

will definitely stay in touch with her and try to meetup next time we're in the same country (she spends most of her time in sweden and spain and those are two places i plan on visiting/returning to anyway

also, she is the one initiating conversations with me, which is a surprise because this is definitely a woman who probably gets flooded with dms constantly - but... she also probably thinks i'm rich, it's very difficult to see my instagram of traveling all over the world and not think i'm very wealthy

also hard agree on middle bell curve being difficult for finding real relationships - i'm not ruling anything out per se, but would absolutely need to be blown away by this person in order to convert any short term thing into long term

i'll happily engage in short term with her but i would put bigger odds on Cuba winning the world cup than I ended up in a long term relationship with her - i've made this pretty clear indirectly by pointing out i'm gone after a month so feel like my bases are covered but do agree fully that if she were looking for a longer term thing then she's going to continually get distracted by guys who're only going to be around for the short term thing

I have heard anecdotally that dating apps are seasonal.

I can confirm getting an uptick of matches and likes around the holidays and in the winter months.

its called cuffing season for a reason man.

ive been ****ing cringe the last 3 weeks with someone ive hung out with 3 times. her texting cadence has been completely different last few days as well and we all know what that means when it takes a lottt lot longer to response, use to respond 2-3 hours after me. now its hella longer. I was the one initially texting back only 1-3x a day only but that shouldn't factor

i can kind of copy and paste our texts but I think il get flamed more than anything but it just hurts since this is the first girl actually had strong feelings for since a long long time and she came onto me first. my friend who seen the last weeks textx thinks things are fine and everything seems good shes engaged still sending back long texts and whatnot but the texting cadence has complete changed( and shes just a nice person in general like that). Wish i knew what went wrong, prolly should hev done what I have done i n the past an go fwb first etc. just weird since a week ago was saying enjoyed being in bed with me and whatnot

ill prolly watch 500 days of summer and try to get involved more in some o the things since this will take a few weeks to get over. did any of you ever have type of breakups where things didn't work out and it kinda hurt you for awhile?

Keeping other dating prospects warm could be the answer. A bit over a year ago I went on a few dates with a woman from Tinder who I really liked and stopped talking to other matches, then Tinder girl broke it off with me and I felt like too much time had passed to resurrect convos with the other matches. After that I started to keep maintaining conversations with other matches even while seeing someone else. Which has paid dividends more recently when a few women I went out with fizzled out but I still had other prospects lined up. That can soften the blow when it doesn't work out with someone.

Give her a little space and try to talk to other girls.

A good general rule of thumb is to text the minimum it takes to get them on the next date.

Have other women/conversations/dates going on all the time unless you’re in a committed relationship (unless you’re a cheater) or you’re just too busy with life stuff. If you can’t have other women/conversations/dates going on, then fill your time improving yourself and your life so that you can/it doesn’t matter.

you guys are absolutely correct and its the right advice also with working out. just I don't ever feel a connection like this this ****ing often maybe first time in years so it hurts badd in the past it didn't bother me when girls have come and go(not that its been a chalk full of them)

Rickroll needs dating help. Dude who said 1.5hr drive is scary is spot on. You only need to talks to a girl for like 20seconds to get her number. The rest is a waste of your time. If you’re not going to get the number in 20secs then she’s not really attracted to you.

Best advice when feelings are hurt is to ignore them and date a bunch of other girls. Getting laid will help

Purely anecdotal and limited sample, but thought thread might find it interesting anyway.

Buddy is a former poker player, now a long-time accountant on a decent salary. Mid 30s, very short (5'4"ish) and maybe slightly above average looks.

He lived in Seattle for a couple years and used Tinder/Bumble a lot. Said it was pretty easy to get matches and it almost always went well on dates. He said he heard a LOT from his dates that the other guys in Seattle were just awkward as ****. One woman made it sound like my friend was the first guy she'd seen in about 10 dates who wasn't incredibly awkward. A lot of convos that are just like "what's your fave color? Ok, what's your fave movie?" etc etc

He said out of his last 12 dates, he got a 2nd date out of 11 of them, and first date sex close on like 6.

Then he moved to Chicago about a year ago and said it's been a lot tougher. First thing is that he feels like his height is a much bigger deal in Chicago than Seattle. Girls also tend to have a bit more of that Midwestern traditional mindset. He said in the last couple months, he's had 6 dates and only 1 of them even resulted in a 2nd date.

Make of it what you will, but I think we can conclude that certain cities, even if they tend to have more single guys than girls, isn't necessarily a bad thing if those guys are overwhelmingly tech, nerdy types. Also, sounds like it's way better to have a super progressive dating pool if you're on the shorter end as a guy.

I’m booking my ticket to the Pacific North West!

(In B4 Pointless Words would have ****ed 50 girls every week in Seattle)

curious to hear pw & others thoughts on this are

recently invited a high level acquaintance to a private event in nyc that i thought would be excellent networking for him as it looks like he'll be in nyc during that time

he's not available to attend, but sends his nyc based colleague in his stead because he agrees it'll be a good spot

colleague turns out to be a moderately attractive female in her 30s who checks my main boxes of fertile, skinny, attractive, smart, & ambitious - she's not tall but i guess you can't have everything

things go well, we exchange numbers for professional reasons, we also have a lot in common both being former Beijing based journalists (different orgs but office was on the same floor of the same building), she really liked the event, we seemed to get along well, she has since texted about wanting to attend future ones and asked if she can be my guest going forward - to which i say yes

thinking is this is only awkward if i make it awkward so should proceed

current plan is next time i'm in nyc to ask her out for dinner/drinks and if she's down then kind of feel out the vibes and if they are solid then make intentions known and if she's not down that's cool

thoughts are not to make it a date outright because then that could be more awkward for her where i feel she may feel pressured to say yes but rather just a "hey let's meetup if you are free" kind of thing

but also thinking not making it a date proposal is somewhat of an ambush

i'm not concerned at all about being rejected, i always handle that super well (perhaps too well) as I'm friends with a lot of women who i first pursued romantically but weren't feeling it

main concern is this is a good network for her and i worry she'll feel coerced to go along with it in order to not screw that up for her

but i do genuinely like this woman a lot and do wish to pursue - it's probably all moot though, while i didn't see a ring, she likely has a boyfriend already

Seems like you’re overthinking it

You met, you got on well, you exchanged numbers. Just ask her out and find out

Honestly, I think it does sound like she's wanting to use you for networking purposes and not dating material.

At least as of now.

Maybe a couple of more meetings it could change but if you didn't get any thing more than business meet ups from her, she ain't interested.

Maybe she will reach out to you on a friendlier personal basis in the meantime, and if so you can float the idea of a non business dinner at that time.

So it may be possible, but seeing as you aren't completely enamored with her either, give it a little time.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

I'd play her in a game of chess. If she wins then you know she's relationship material.

Boys I’m newly separated from the wife. Only 3 weeks right now and we’re currently separating in the same home and I think it’ll be another 8 weeks before she moves out. So we’re not in dating mode yet but I did make up a tinder profile and I’ve been opening it and scrolling through the women and liking them; then turning ‘discovery’ off - lots of people in my area don’t know I’ve split from the wife yet and it’s prolly not a good look being on there so early - I live in a relatively small community (albeit only 20 miles to a city of 5m people)

Anyway….I’ve got no idea how it works - any top line tips? I think the profile I’ve put together is ok but the main questions are….

- should I subscribe or just use a free version? (I have money so it’s not a huge deal but obvs don’t need to pay if I don’t need to)
- I se to have gathered like 90 likes or Sth…but I don’t know what this means? Does this mean I can contact them? Because I’m on the free version, I can’t seem to see their profiles
- given my situation, should I go on incognito mode?

The location things baffles me. I’ve got it limited to 18km away but I seem to regularly see profiles from 20-50km. Does that mean they’re visiting the area or Sth?

And if I swiped left…will I ever see that profile again?

Plenty more questions to come - perhaps there’s a beginners link for idiots?

Guessing I will do Bumble and Hinge later on too. Also guessing that different populations have different tendencies for the different aps? Are there ones which are more hook-up vs more serious?

I’m 52 but was persuaded to say 49 to open me up to ****ing more early 40s!

****, sorry to hear that

when i first separated i had a few months of zero interest in any women and then went through a deeply slutty phase that i now look back with a bit of regret - but at the time it felt optimal

really felt pressured to "make up for lost time" and as a result i treated quite a few quality women as disposable