Careful. It's only one small inference to women being valuable, and a socio-biological explanation of why so many groups tended to protect women and the consequence for the power balance.
Just for the trigger happy: I'm not saying we should lock our women behind the kitchen counter in a modern society, but that roles are much, much older than that, and may have an evolutionary reason.
I speak only ever about men. I am one, I can comment. I look around at us and I call it like I see it.
edit: Not that I don't have thoughts about other genders, and gender in general. In genderal. I even sometimes find it politic to share them. But I will never hesitate to point out men being men. Particularly my fellow whities.
The comment hints at the fact that a group can easily loose a large number of their males, because it doesn't have to hinder procreation. Losing women is much harder to recover. Being special or interesting doesn't come into the equation.
Ah yes, nothing more beautiful than a man impregnating a woman and then divorcing her to do the same thing again with another woman and another woman...
> "...the effect decreased the higher a countries measure of gender equality. This effect seemed to be due to men being viewed less negatively the more egalitarian a country was rather than women being viewed more positively."
Agreed. But isnt feminism about equality?
Look, the inequality on Dating Apps is natural - it is a result of biologic difference between genders and their behavior. Certainly nothing wrong with that - you dont correct these.
The others - like salaries, (which are of course also subjects to these differences) they want to correct them. Why? Because it benefits them - to have their cake and to eat it.
i don't really care, but it's interesting to me that you seem to be more willing to go to bat for the person who feels as though they are owed attention from women.
You seem to misread almost every statement, which makes me believe you do care. Perhaps associations, misconceptions or emotional negativity get in the way.
The true question is why are salaries (amongst many other things) subject to the gender. And from what I read above your comment, people do want to correct it in the dating apps too.
If I had truly misplaced anger over my self, would that make my argument less valid? Can you really say - well this person's point of view is invalid, because he is, indeed, acting in some sort of anger without knowing anything really about me?
Honestly, I am not angry with myself. And back to the discussion - will that make you listen? :)
I dont want to correct dating apps at all. I said its natural. But I want you to acknowledge, that the difference in behavior is because of gender. And that difference shows in other areas (like willing to take risks - to change jobs for better salary). And to make the conlusion - that if we agree it doesnt make sense to fix dating then it is truly stupid idea to try to artifically "fix" inequalities in the salaries. Because they are natural - an effect of gender behavior differences.
Another way to look at it is that the dating asymmetry comes from risk asymmetry. The big risks are pregnancy, violence, and slut-shaming, and those fall far more on females than males.
- Pregnancy is a solved problem in humane technological societies.
- Violence by men against women could be ameliorated significantly by teaching boys better and prosecuting sex crime better.
- Slut-shaming is just jealous recidivist authoritarianism.
Knuckle-dragging conservatives on power trips are the issue.
Your average redpilled incel would get more of the sex they desperately crave, if they (and society at large) stopped making sexual friendliness such an unappealing strategy for women.
That said, to suggest that it's feminists' duty to give men more pussy is a rebarbative position to find yourself in, so... maybe time to rethink?
At the very least, have the honesty to weigh the negative of not getting your ding-a-ling wet against the negative of possibly being dumped in a ditch with bruises on your neck.
The risk a woman takes on by going on coffee date in a public space is minimal. Instead, women should be (and usually are) on the alert for indicators that guys don't respect boundaries or get pushy/aggressive when they are told no.
When statistics on violence against women get misrepresented that doesn't do anybody a favor. Only people who have an accurate picture about where the real dangers are can make good decisions.
"Another way to look at it is that the dating asymmetry comes from risk asymmetry."
That sounds plausible, but I don't think that actual data from dating apps indicate that women really choose their dates by their perceived safeness. It seems that they do prefer younger, hotter and richer dates, which does not necessarily correlate with low risk. "Being very obviously harmless" does not seem to be a good male mating strategy on Tinder et al.
(I am not really inclined to fight a culture war right now, but data is valuable. And I fully understand that people in general are attracted towards better looking peers.)
I've often wondered if/how education of young men relates to violence against women. I've no experience with the conductors of this activity, at least AFAIK, and I find it hard to believe that it's an issue that could be impacted by schooling. My school life featured no direct education about this topic, but I came from a high-trust small community, so maybe I'm missing the bigger picture. Do men just see women as less human, leading to this violence?
Are there reputable sources for this connection, or is it a folk myth? Given the heat of the topic, I don't trust myself to find such a source without going down rabbit holes.
My app doesn't let me edit comments, but I think you need to hear this: use of the word "natural" is a strong indicator of intellectual dishonesty.
Crunchy people recoil in horror from a listing of ingredients by chemical name, until you tell them it's the constituents of an apple.
Social backsliders like to harken back to some mythical golden age, ignoring that a million years ago we were savannah apes with a society you wouldn't recognise, and ignoring that sexual freedom / matriarchy / homosexuality / transsexuality are found in nature.
The very fact you use the word "natural" in a discussion about a smartphone app ought to be a hint to you.
So you are disagreeing with one word I used, but not the concept/idea?
Would rephrasing it without the word you are afraid of help you?
I can do it for you. :)
There are different interpretations on equality, and I would say that the inequality in dating markets are a result of the markets as opposed to "nature."
Marriage used to be a familial tool for economics and politics, but it has shifted to being for "love." Did "nature" change or is it culture? However, "love" is ambiguous but some of its reasons seem to have roots in the old ways, such as money, power, or prestige. A person can be good looking and charming, but they need to be capable of providing for their partner. It would be rational for women to select for the best fit, and the imbalance of salaries could influence the imbalance in the dating market.
Men are applying and women are hiring. Half the candidates are lying on their resumes. Many candidates are spamming their resumes indiscriminately. If you've ever had to hire someone for a position that attracts hundreds of candidates (i.e. software engineer with decent pay), you'll encounter the same dynamic. I hate being in that role. I have to reject 199 people and accept 1. Often, there are dozens of qualified candidates. You interview half a dozen, and then you tell 5 out of 6 perfectly qualified people you interviewed they didn't get the job. You feel like a horrible person the whole time. I've discussed this with my wife (we met on Bumble) and she confirmed the scenarios are very similar.
It's often better to be in the hiring position than in the applying position. But it's awful for everyone involved.
The way to avoid this mess when applying for jobs is to build up a network and lean on it for new positions. I wonder if dating may have a similar alternative approach.
> The way to avoid this mess when applying for jobs is to build up a network and lean on it for new positions. I wonder if dating may have a similar alternative approach.
The analogue would be court colleagues/coworkers. But today it may be considered harassment.
I like this metaphor on a few levels; from an employer's perspective, a family is the same as a second job and so naturally they prefer unattached employees.
Or don't. Here's a TL;DR: It's a relatively small effect where men tend to go for women more attractive than they are, and women tend to go for men who have higher status and earnings than they do.
Certain circles like to misrepresent it as responsible for why so many men remain single, but in reality people tend to match with those close to them in social status and earnings, with just a bit of the bias remaining unexplained by wage inequality.
Not quite sure what's trying to be accomplished by giving an odd definition/description of hypergamy. Even wikipedia contains[1], "the overall practice of women marrying up...". Here's also some articles (by female authors) that explains what's usually going on in regards to hypergamy[2][3].
Attempting to date someone who is more attractive, is much more about opinion and is relative, so is harder to quantify. Where it's much clearer how much money is actually in someone's or their family's bank account, net worth, or who makes more money.
"Matching" is very dependent upon culture. But HN is a non-random smattering of people from all over the globe-across very many cultures. Of course there are going to be very important differences. Considering how deep within a culture "matching" is, it probably can't be discussed by random elements from so many cultures without becoming heated.
We all love to pander to the idea that the internet is some great thing and capable of solving all social ails. Maybe it can't? Or, maybe the internet can't until all the various cultures agree to some fundamental tenets in order to interact respectfully across cultures.
A starting point could be something like "agree to disagree" or agreement to non-interact on contrasting topics.
At risk of making myself look like a loser, I'll share my experience.
I have tried dating apps and occasionally get matches but it never really turns into anything. When you realise the girl on the other side has an abundance of men blowing up her phone with first messages, you realise it's hopeless.
The usual advice is to date through your network of friends instead, but I'm a very solitary individual. I haven't got a network, I left school early. I tried building one, only to be shown disinterest. I don't have any opportunities to associate with other young people, I don't use social media, and I'm working all the time at a bank (not exactly an environment to fraternise in.)
I understand the bitterness of incels, but in my opinion, it's misplaced. Us men would be just as picky if we had so much choice. I think the damage social media, dating apps, and COVID have done to the social fabric is beyond comprehension.
I'm only 22 but have essentially given up. In a way, I can just move on with my life and accept what I can't change.
In fact, the most frustrating part about it all is probably the vague "bro-advice" about "putting yourself out there." What does that even mean? I'm not a shut-in. I go to bars and nightclubs, I travel. Doesn't mean people want welcome some random dude into their circle.
My experience and conclusions are very similar but different. I’m part of an increasingly forgotten subgeneration that graduated college and entered professional life in the Great Recession, amongst additional adversities. That makes me around 20 years your senior. I spent something like 4.5 years unemployed and seemingly unemployable. Now, I make a good six figure wage and my one and only goal is to never again experience anything like that. Doing that is all I could dream of for my life.
And I agree in many ways-men would be as picky. No one owes anyone anything like intimacy. Stuff is frustrating and leads to the incel misplacent of their frustrations. Etc.
Life and the universe have a very uncanny way of being especially cruel. So be kind to each other.
It's not hopeless. In fact, online dating is the most common path to finding a partner.
That said, you have to set yourself apart somehow. Different for every individual, and it takes a serious amount of effort. But it's not impossible, and it's not hopeless, and it's not pointless, and I sympathize and understand why you currently feel that it is.
>In fact, online dating is the most common path to finding a partner.
Yeah, and those people are on uppermost part of the attractiveness scale.
If you're average or below, you're going to be spending a LOT of time and effort on an app just for a single date. Do you really want to be spending hours of your day rolling the dice to play a fundamentally rigged game? Even the algorithms of these apps have bias. If your profile isn't well received, it will simply be pushed to the bottom of the card stack, or never even be shown.
You need every edge you can get. Great pictures, great bio, funny/interesting/engaging chat. Be in shape. Plan cool dates. Most guys who don't get anywhere with the apps have to 10x their effort. Maybe that feels unfair to you. But it's not unfair.
Dating is extremely hard for people with disabilities or disfigurements. If that's you, I'm sorry. But if you're a regular guy in his 20s your dating pool is stupendously huge and the only thing holding you back is your attitude.
I can think of two (2) married couples off of the top of my head who met through either Match.com or Tinder. And at least two more who met, dated for a while (1+ years), and split.
I wouldn't describe any of of them as ugly, but most weren't on the "uppermost part of the attractiveness scale"
I honestly think if online is your bet you should probably just pay an expert to setup an excellent profile. The amount of time you waste figuring out how to do it correctly you would be better off paying 5k or whatever to start correctly.
I have to agree with the sentiment that men attempting to only or overuse online dating are doing themselves a disservice. They need to develop the confidence and skill to approach women and have natural conversations.
Men are severely limiting themselves and distorting their reality, because lots of online sites are wasting their time and money. The ratio of women in many sites are low, lots of disguised prostitution, lots of pranksters wasting people's time, paid geeks (other men) to just string customers along, etc...
If it doesn't make you uncomfortable, I'd like to know, how much siblings/cousins have you?
I have the hypothesis shifting demographics made it harder for people to leverage their inner social circle to bootstrap relationships. Say, if the world averaged 3 children/couple, across 2 generations that means each grandchildren will have on average two siblings and six cousins. That is a solid baseline of socialization, through their extended family people would know more people. With 2 children/couple those numbers would fall to 1 and 2, and with 1 child/couple, to 0 and 0.
People can compensate with other socialization sources, like school, but we and people we know there tend to move and drift away from each other. On the other hand, our relatives tend to stick in our lives, for better and worse.
I solved this problem with one year of lifting weights and dancing lessons. About 2hr/day 6day/week time commitment. It is not quick or easy, but it is simple and very effective.
When you have muscle, girls on the bus will come sit next to you and chat you up. They forgive you if you speak inelegantly. When you can dance your body language and posture will make people feel at ease. It was a strange experience for me as a nerd. Apps are a waste of time.
Nope, there are no simple solutions. I have a friend who goes to gym and salsa lessons and still struggling.
I'd say looks wise, face beauty is more important than body, and your social skills/charisma and more importantly your social status dominates everything.
You have to fish in the right pool for your skills and abilities. The generic advice is to just become a better product, which Is all fine and a good starting point but it’s also very hard and slow going. You are also probably never going to overcome genetics to a level where you can go anywhere and get any girl.
You have to supplement by optimizing other factors. Change where you look based on your strengths, do things you dont really care for because there are opportunities to meet women. Go to gyms tailored to women instead of men. A bunch of little optimization that when coupled with 100s of attempts and 1000s of hours will yield positive results. That’s what hard work looks like, and what you have to do to overcome lack of natural talent.
What worked for me was shaking things up greatly. I joined the Peace Corps, was forced to socialize with fellow volunteers, learn a new language, then daily interact with my new local colleagues, living in radically different surroundings. The combination pushed me out of my shell, gave me new confidence, helped me date attractive and interesting women, and led to a rewarding career and family life.
Human attraction has so many dimensions, but online dating reduces them all to a bunch of photoshopped pictures in one fell swoop.
I am an average guy (not ugly, but not handsome either, though I was fairly tall for the standards of my country in the 1990s), and most of my 'scores' could be traced towards an ability to make people laugh. Not everyone, of course, but "they say" that I have a dry sense of humor that is refreshing.
Someone else "scores" on kindness, cute goofiness, elegance, ability to play the guitar, nice smell, the ability to listen, inner energy or peace etc.
Nevertheless, you need real world conversations and events to deploy such "weapons". And in the world of 2023, where online apps tend to push out everything else, all those dimensions of attraction just go away.
No wonder that the dating market is becoming "skewed" by such development.
What does yourself out there mean? Basically that you have to work it like a job. You need to go out when to don’t feel like it, go do activities that maybe aren’t super interesting but have the right demographic. You also you have to sell yourself. It’s like working a sales position, you need to be starting conversations with strangers even though it feels weird, you need to be asking for numbers and following up dating is just another form of work. Read, do research, improve your product and try again, and again and again x1000.
Also lower your standards in the beginning. if you are 22 and never been in a relationship you need to start somewhere and that would be with less beautiful women. Then if you keep practicing and building up skills you can date more attractive women.
Good analysis and video. If the analysis is revised I would ask that the numbers include variations based on profiles that include the man holding a puppy or being next to a dog based on an old discussion from ages ago on another site and some anecdotal data from a small sample of testing we did as a matter of affecting the attractiveness score. I realize it's a shallow attribute but most dating apps are shallow.
One of my friends, as a broke college student, worked for a 'sugardaddy' site. Her job was to manage the inboxes of all the fake profiles (and the site had a dedicated UI for her and others, that all the profiles were tagged internally, and their inboxes were amalgamated and she'd work through messages).
Her remit was to respond to the messages, and she could choose, but some should be "thanks no thanks", some non-commital, some curious. But essentially she was to have between 1 and 5 interactions with each user before one way or another, fading away. Losing interest, some incompatibility, or just ghosting.
There's lot of evidence of dating sites doing this, such as having people working for them to string male customers along for money. It's arguably fraud. There are also many other ways to take advantage of desperate or lonely men (or "picky" women with some marketing twists), such as suggesting or advertising to customers they pay even more money for things like "boost", "VIP", "gold membership", etc... These more costlier options also give an incentive to do fraudulent things like having paid (usually female) responders fake interest in paying customers (usually male) for a set time and then go ghost or flake.
Speaking of fraudulent, so are many of the profiles and descriptions, both male and female. Profiles and descriptions often are highly distorted, with out of control female hypergamy. Everybody trying to present themselves as better than the other or elite, even when they are average or below average in reality.
80% to 85% of the women on a site looking for the top 20% to 15% of men, thus many don't really qualify nor match up for what they are looking for. Consequently, such "lower ranking" women can get taken advantage of by the top 15% who run through them (sometimes at incredible numbers) or will never commit to them, then these angry hurt women take it out on all other men that had nothing to with their past. Thus they are "full of old scars", "super extra picky" or "flaky".
For all the time and money wasted on fake and distorted profiles, it's better to invest in getting over one's fear of rejection and learn how to approach people appropriately and have natural conversations. Find free ways to meet and talk, there are plenty, if a person puts their mind and effort into it. At least don't have online dating, especially costly sites, be the only option.
64 comments
[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadJust for the trigger happy: I'm not saying we should lock our women behind the kitchen counter in a modern society, but that roles are much, much older than that, and may have an evolutionary reason.
edit: Not that I don't have thoughts about other genders, and gender in general. In genderal. I even sometimes find it politic to share them. But I will never hesitate to point out men being men. Particularly my fellow whities.
Wait no, that guy is an asshole.
> "...the effect decreased the higher a countries measure of gender equality. This effect seemed to be due to men being viewed less negatively the more egalitarian a country was rather than women being viewed more positively."
So, yes! At least some people think so.
The others - like salaries, (which are of course also subjects to these differences) they want to correct them. Why? Because it benefits them - to have their cake and to eat it.
So, misplaced anger over self?
Honestly, I am not angry with myself. And back to the discussion - will that make you listen? :)
I dont want to correct dating apps at all. I said its natural. But I want you to acknowledge, that the difference in behavior is because of gender. And that difference shows in other areas (like willing to take risks - to change jobs for better salary). And to make the conlusion - that if we agree it doesnt make sense to fix dating then it is truly stupid idea to try to artifically "fix" inequalities in the salaries. Because they are natural - an effect of gender behavior differences.
- Pregnancy is a solved problem in humane technological societies.
- Violence by men against women could be ameliorated significantly by teaching boys better and prosecuting sex crime better.
- Slut-shaming is just jealous recidivist authoritarianism.
Knuckle-dragging conservatives on power trips are the issue.
Your average redpilled incel would get more of the sex they desperately crave, if they (and society at large) stopped making sexual friendliness such an unappealing strategy for women.
That said, to suggest that it's feminists' duty to give men more pussy is a rebarbative position to find yourself in, so... maybe time to rethink?
At the very least, have the honesty to weigh the negative of not getting your ding-a-ling wet against the negative of possibly being dumped in a ditch with bruises on your neck.
Guys can be real jerks when online dating, but it's not true that women are likely to end up in a ditch because of a coffee date gone awry.
Stop being dismissive.
When statistics on violence against women get misrepresented that doesn't do anybody a favor. Only people who have an accurate picture about where the real dangers are can make good decisions.
"Another way to look at it is that the dating asymmetry comes from risk asymmetry."
That sounds plausible, but I don't think that actual data from dating apps indicate that women really choose their dates by their perceived safeness. It seems that they do prefer younger, hotter and richer dates, which does not necessarily correlate with low risk. "Being very obviously harmless" does not seem to be a good male mating strategy on Tinder et al.
(I am not really inclined to fight a culture war right now, but data is valuable. And I fully understand that people in general are attracted towards better looking peers.)
Are there reputable sources for this connection, or is it a folk myth? Given the heat of the topic, I don't trust myself to find such a source without going down rabbit holes.
Crunchy people recoil in horror from a listing of ingredients by chemical name, until you tell them it's the constituents of an apple.
Social backsliders like to harken back to some mythical golden age, ignoring that a million years ago we were savannah apes with a society you wouldn't recognise, and ignoring that sexual freedom / matriarchy / homosexuality / transsexuality are found in nature.
The very fact you use the word "natural" in a discussion about a smartphone app ought to be a hint to you.
Marriage used to be a familial tool for economics and politics, but it has shifted to being for "love." Did "nature" change or is it culture? However, "love" is ambiguous but some of its reasons seem to have roots in the old ways, such as money, power, or prestige. A person can be good looking and charming, but they need to be capable of providing for their partner. It would be rational for women to select for the best fit, and the imbalance of salaries could influence the imbalance in the dating market.
It's often better to be in the hiring position than in the applying position. But it's awful for everyone involved.
The way to avoid this mess when applying for jobs is to build up a network and lean on it for new positions. I wonder if dating may have a similar alternative approach.
The analogue would be court colleagues/coworkers. But today it may be considered harassment.
Certain circles like to misrepresent it as responsible for why so many men remain single, but in reality people tend to match with those close to them in social status and earnings, with just a bit of the bias remaining unexplained by wage inequality.
Attempting to date someone who is more attractive, is much more about opinion and is relative, so is harder to quantify. Where it's much clearer how much money is actually in someone's or their family's bank account, net worth, or who makes more money.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy
[2]: https://ifstudies.org/blog/whither-hypergamy
[3]: https://www.lovepanky.com/flirting-flings/dating-game/hyperg...
"Matching" is very dependent upon culture. But HN is a non-random smattering of people from all over the globe-across very many cultures. Of course there are going to be very important differences. Considering how deep within a culture "matching" is, it probably can't be discussed by random elements from so many cultures without becoming heated.
We all love to pander to the idea that the internet is some great thing and capable of solving all social ails. Maybe it can't? Or, maybe the internet can't until all the various cultures agree to some fundamental tenets in order to interact respectfully across cultures.
A starting point could be something like "agree to disagree" or agreement to non-interact on contrasting topics.
I have tried dating apps and occasionally get matches but it never really turns into anything. When you realise the girl on the other side has an abundance of men blowing up her phone with first messages, you realise it's hopeless.
The usual advice is to date through your network of friends instead, but I'm a very solitary individual. I haven't got a network, I left school early. I tried building one, only to be shown disinterest. I don't have any opportunities to associate with other young people, I don't use social media, and I'm working all the time at a bank (not exactly an environment to fraternise in.)
I understand the bitterness of incels, but in my opinion, it's misplaced. Us men would be just as picky if we had so much choice. I think the damage social media, dating apps, and COVID have done to the social fabric is beyond comprehension.
I'm only 22 but have essentially given up. In a way, I can just move on with my life and accept what I can't change.
In fact, the most frustrating part about it all is probably the vague "bro-advice" about "putting yourself out there." What does that even mean? I'm not a shut-in. I go to bars and nightclubs, I travel. Doesn't mean people want welcome some random dude into their circle.
And I agree in many ways-men would be as picky. No one owes anyone anything like intimacy. Stuff is frustrating and leads to the incel misplacent of their frustrations. Etc.
Life and the universe have a very uncanny way of being especially cruel. So be kind to each other.
That said, you have to set yourself apart somehow. Different for every individual, and it takes a serious amount of effort. But it's not impossible, and it's not hopeless, and it's not pointless, and I sympathize and understand why you currently feel that it is.
Yeah, and those people are on uppermost part of the attractiveness scale.
If you're average or below, you're going to be spending a LOT of time and effort on an app just for a single date. Do you really want to be spending hours of your day rolling the dice to play a fundamentally rigged game? Even the algorithms of these apps have bias. If your profile isn't well received, it will simply be pushed to the bottom of the card stack, or never even be shown.
Dating is extremely hard for people with disabilities or disfigurements. If that's you, I'm sorry. But if you're a regular guy in his 20s your dating pool is stupendously huge and the only thing holding you back is your attitude.
I wouldn't describe any of of them as ugly, but most weren't on the "uppermost part of the attractiveness scale"
Men are severely limiting themselves and distorting their reality, because lots of online sites are wasting their time and money. The ratio of women in many sites are low, lots of disguised prostitution, lots of pranksters wasting people's time, paid geeks (other men) to just string customers along, etc...
I have the hypothesis shifting demographics made it harder for people to leverage their inner social circle to bootstrap relationships. Say, if the world averaged 3 children/couple, across 2 generations that means each grandchildren will have on average two siblings and six cousins. That is a solid baseline of socialization, through their extended family people would know more people. With 2 children/couple those numbers would fall to 1 and 2, and with 1 child/couple, to 0 and 0.
People can compensate with other socialization sources, like school, but we and people we know there tend to move and drift away from each other. On the other hand, our relatives tend to stick in our lives, for better and worse.
When you have muscle, girls on the bus will come sit next to you and chat you up. They forgive you if you speak inelegantly. When you can dance your body language and posture will make people feel at ease. It was a strange experience for me as a nerd. Apps are a waste of time.
I'd say looks wise, face beauty is more important than body, and your social skills/charisma and more importantly your social status dominates everything.
You have to supplement by optimizing other factors. Change where you look based on your strengths, do things you dont really care for because there are opportunities to meet women. Go to gyms tailored to women instead of men. A bunch of little optimization that when coupled with 100s of attempts and 1000s of hours will yield positive results. That’s what hard work looks like, and what you have to do to overcome lack of natural talent.
Human attraction has so many dimensions, but online dating reduces them all to a bunch of photoshopped pictures in one fell swoop.
I am an average guy (not ugly, but not handsome either, though I was fairly tall for the standards of my country in the 1990s), and most of my 'scores' could be traced towards an ability to make people laugh. Not everyone, of course, but "they say" that I have a dry sense of humor that is refreshing.
Someone else "scores" on kindness, cute goofiness, elegance, ability to play the guitar, nice smell, the ability to listen, inner energy or peace etc.
Nevertheless, you need real world conversations and events to deploy such "weapons". And in the world of 2023, where online apps tend to push out everything else, all those dimensions of attraction just go away.
No wonder that the dating market is becoming "skewed" by such development.
The reality of online dating for women is that all you have to do is show up.
yes, you will get a TON of messages. You'll have to sort through them. we know this.
it's an entirely opposite experience for men. online dating is still geared towards separating them from money.
I hope to never have to deal with it again, honestly. it's depressing.
Her remit was to respond to the messages, and she could choose, but some should be "thanks no thanks", some non-commital, some curious. But essentially she was to have between 1 and 5 interactions with each user before one way or another, fading away. Losing interest, some incompatibility, or just ghosting.
or was she just scamming people?
Speaking of fraudulent, so are many of the profiles and descriptions, both male and female. Profiles and descriptions often are highly distorted, with out of control female hypergamy. Everybody trying to present themselves as better than the other or elite, even when they are average or below average in reality.
80% to 85% of the women on a site looking for the top 20% to 15% of men, thus many don't really qualify nor match up for what they are looking for. Consequently, such "lower ranking" women can get taken advantage of by the top 15% who run through them (sometimes at incredible numbers) or will never commit to them, then these angry hurt women take it out on all other men that had nothing to with their past. Thus they are "full of old scars", "super extra picky" or "flaky".
For all the time and money wasted on fake and distorted profiles, it's better to invest in getting over one's fear of rejection and learn how to approach people appropriately and have natural conversations. Find free ways to meet and talk, there are plenty, if a person puts their mind and effort into it. At least don't have online dating, especially costly sites, be the only option.