Tinder, Bumble & Hinge… Oh, My!

Dating apps suck!

Well, actually, what I learned is that people suck. And, guess what? People use dating apps. Let’s unpack this…

Dating apps don’t suck, people suck.

Before I go into my experience, let’s start with women looking for men. In an informal poll of single female friends using these apps, about a third of matches result in a dick pic within the first dozen messages and another third actually go somewhere — only to result in a dick pic before the first date. So, basically, two-thirds of matches go nowhere because there are no women out there that want to see your junk at this stage in the “relationship” (as there isn’t even a relationship yet.)

Guys – no one gets a date with a dick pic. NO ONE. Listen… NO ONE!

So while women find matches, so many end so quickly. And before ever meeting in person.

Now to my experience…

I started looking for men or women. Guess what? Men sent dick pics. (Have you learned NOTHING?!?) So I limited my search to women and learned that the odds are stacked against me. Doing a little research I learned that many dating apps have ratios of 10:1 men to women, or even worse. In fact, some dating apps pad their data with fake female profiles just to keep the men interested.

But let’s focus on the few matches I made. I couldn’t get any of them to talk to me live on the phone and none of them (over about two months of sporadic use) resulted in an actual date. Now, I wasn’t trying that hard – I’ve got an amazing, sexy wife at home. Looking for a date on these apps was an experiment and finding one would just be added fun to our pleasure research.

Ultimately, though, this was not pleasure research, it was depressing research.

The results for me were several bots. (One test for bots – ask a gibberish question but get a real answer. I’d ask, “Do you like ishkabibble?” and bots would say, “I love ishkabibble!”) And at least one woman that passed the bot test but when we got to scheduling a date she asked me to open a “World Remit Account” for her. Yep, scam! Other than the bots and one (likely human) scam, I made lots of connections where there was an initial conversation and then they’d ghost.

So, let’s recap:

It’s not the apps, it’s the people. (OK – sometimes it’s the apps – you won’t meet a bot in a bar. YET.)

• Women seeking men
  • lots of connections
  • mostly dick pics
  • resulting in disappointment
• Men seeking woman
  • ghosts
  • bots
  • scams
  • resulting in disappointment

Summary: I don’t know how single people today deal with any of this. It’s not the apps, it’s the people. There’s so little desire for real conversation and meaningful connections. I hear from friends that even meet people in person, hit it off, and then get ghosted. It’s a mess.

I’m just happy I’ve got Jeannie and, for me, this is all about research and a pleasure journey – not looking for a long term mate.