At what step do you struggle the most?
Meeting people, especially since I really dislike the idea of making someone uncomfortable or putting them is such a position. If I’m out in public I do not want to ask out someone who’s working a service job and I rarely talk to people otherwise. So unless there’s a good setting for natural talking to happen it feels rude/unwanted as they just want to do their thing in public.
Myself, I’m my own cockblocker 😅
I’d say I have 3 problems:
- I have zero game, can’t read signals, don’t know how to appear interesting, all that stuff
- Despite being 32, I still don’t know what I want, my sexuality is very fluid, so one day I may be super attracted to a girl, and 3 days later I may not care enough to even text her
- I don’t put myself out enough, I don’t want to use dating apps but I also don’t want to visit places where I get in contact with a lot of people because I get anxious
Just not very interesting. Most people just don’t show much interest in me beyond work buddy status, and work is pretty much the entirety of my social life. Down-side of moving to a new area. Making friends as an adult is hard, dating doubly so when there’s no one to introduce you to new people.
But historically the hardest part for me is expressing anything that can’t be back-pedalled into “just meant as a friend, buddy.” The second you cross that line, nothing will ever be the same for better or for worse. I hate committing to that change. Just feels like I’m ruining things irreparably every time. I’ll toe that line all day, crossing is just a bitch.
My marriage. ^/s
Spouses can be such cock blocks smh.
Predatory lesbian brainworms, I have forced myself to set the benchmark of “if someone repeatedly compliments your appearance they will probably be flattered even if they don’t reciprocate” and that has helped.
I really struggled to parse your comment but it started making more and more sense. I guess part of my issue was the concept of my appearance being complimented multiple times by non-partners is pretty alien to my own experience, hehe
Generally the comments I get are when I put in effort to my appearance. Putting together a nice outfit, accessorizing, doing something with my hair, putting on a good perfume for the vibe, that sort of thing.
It gives me confidence and a mixture of that + demonstrating thought/intentionality is what I think is what is hot to folks. At least that is my perspective on it when admiring other femmes. I feel like it is something anyone can do in their own way?
I get that men might be afraid of like, being called gay for putting effort into their appearance, but honestly just not having a thin skin is an attractive feature in someone.
I have Asperger’s, so it’s a big struggle for me in general.
A few days ago, I spent £89.99 on a three month subscription to Hinge X. This is something I’ve been contemplating for a while because I’m a 32-year-old virgin, have been single for the past two years (my previous ex basically led me on and used me for my money in what I can best describe as a 2.5 year on/off intimacy-free relationship), and I thought that in desperate enough to actually pay for a dating app.
Lo and behold, after sending well over a hundred likes with written prompts which I put genuine thought into, no new matches. And I’ve been keeping a mostly intricate log of this shit because if you’re blowing the equivalent of 3 WoW subscriptions on a rejection simulator, you may as well keep tabs on whether it works.
I’m about 80% convinced that I either overwhelmingly give women the ick, or Hinge is a scam.
My social life is only a bit better. Work is quite solitary for me, and I mainly hang out with a friend group on Thursday evenings and weekends that do pub karaoke.
You might be weird af, but all these apps are scrams bro. Don’t let them destroy your self esteem. Their business is not to get you laid, it’s to get you to pay, and you already did.
A couple of years ago i would say that a month of tinder gold or whatever isn’t the worst idea ever. Right now it totally is. It still probably maybe helps, but it’s just not worth the money. You can swipe more and get seen more and that might still be true, but your subscription doesn’t change the fact that the women you like get thousands of likes and you just go under or are lucky as fuck. If i were you i would shoot my shot at karaoke, and just do dating apps on the side.
And for the love of god keep your money in your pockets. If someone likes you, you literally never have to spend money on them (you can and maybe should, but you are not an atm.) If someone insists that you have to pay for shit because you are the man, just hoof it, it’s never ever worth it.
A couple of years ago i would say that a month of tinder gold or whatever isn’t the worst idea ever. Right now it totally is. It still probably maybe helps, but it’s just not worth the money. You can swipe more and get seen more and that might still be true, but your subscription doesn’t change the fact that the women you like get thousands of likes and you just go under or are lucky as fuck
I think it’s more like the online dating space has been enshittified by one company buying out most of its competition and then jacking up prices. Hinge are owned by Match Group, who also own Match.com, Tinder, POF, Okcupid, The League and a few others. All of these are now overglorified Tinder clones that adopted the same ‘swipe left/right to match’ formula.
Also I suspect there may be some kind of shadowban on my account. Apparently this is a thing frequently mentioned on /r/SwipeHelper, /r/HingeApp and /r/OnlineDating, and the only way people have gotten past it is fully deleting their accounts, waiting a few months and then registering afresh. If that is the case and my profile is being obfuscated for whatever reason (maybe because I recently reactivated it after going dormant), then that would make Hinge X blatant false advertising.
If i were you i would shoot my shot at karaoke, and just do dating apps on the side
I mean… I would, but I don’t really approach women that I find attractive (mainly fear of rejection, or worse, or I know for a fact that they’re not single), and the only attention I seem to get is from gay guys and the occasional lady old enough to be my grandma. As I’m not into either, it can make me uncomfortable at times.
The main group chat I’m in mainly consists of middle-aged men and women. I’m also friends with two DJs who host evenings at various pubs which I often attend. Some of our regulars either already are professional singers, or have the talent to be.
I wouldn’t exactly say I’m a good singer and when people say I’ve got a good voice, I feel like they’re either being nice, or they’re drunk and easily impressed. I’ve definitely improved compared to when I first started doing this, to the point where I don’t quite hate the sound of my own voice anymore and there are some go-to songs that I can sing somewhat well. I really do want to take professional singing lessons and improve my voice to the point where I could be like a siren. Maybe that would have been a better investment than a dating app.
Probably the best compliment I got was when I went to a Central Bristol pub for a Christmas karaoke eve. The place was packed and about half the pub was cordoned off for a pre-booked work Christmas party. I sung Poison Arrow by ABC (one of my go-to songs) and on a part of the second verse which I legitimately belted out loudly, I audibly heard one of the guys in the work crowd go “Fuck me…” in astonishment. I left that place soon after, both because they were inundated with requests, and to get away from an Aussie lady who I met previously, she was living in a homeless shelter and was spending her eves scrounging off other guys in that place.
I’m still figuring all this out but for me the biggest things were:
- Dating app stuff. What to put in your profile, what to talk about when you match with someone, how to convert a match into an actual date
- Confidence. After you hit 28 years old and still haven’t been on a single date it starts feeling more and more like there’s something wrong with you. I really had to work hard in therapy to kill that particular demon. The worst part is, you have to kill that demon or nothing will change. You can’t successfully find someone if you believe there is some legitimate problem with you that people won’t accept. And sometimes, there literally is something wrong with you that you need to correct.
- Socializing. I’m autistic so a lot of the general rules of conversation, particularly how to have the kind of conversation that makes the other person enjoy talking with you, was really hard for me. I’m still working on this one, but at least for the time being I’ve gotten over the hurdle of getting a steady girlfriend.
Whether it’s January 2 or February 1.
ISO 8601 supremacy.
I work from home and live on a sailboat, sailing up and down the west coast (south in Winter, north in Summer). Not exactly a lot of opportunities to develop or maintain social connections other than on Discord/Steam. How would I even meet anyone during the week or so I stay in a given town before shipping out? And who wants to date a guy who’s only in town for a week or two per year?
The only way I could maintain a relationship would be an LTR where she lived onboard with me, but I don’t see how I could every date someone to establish that LTR in the first place. Kind of a chicken and egg situation.
I may be one of the few guys in the 6, 6, 6 club who’s been single for years with no hope of finding a woman. And I just don’t think the changes I’d have to make to my lifestyle to make that easier would be worth it. So… I guess I’ll just die alone?
Wow, are you a developer? How’d you get started with this kind of life?
I struggle most with meeting people, and then with talking to them, and then with continuing to talk with them.
It took me 5 minutes to send this
I currently hate my body and don’t feel comfortable dating until I like it again, as dating involves finding others who like your body (and other things about you, but still)
I’m sure there are people who would want to date me in my current body as well as my future (hopefully improved) body, but I just can’t summon any confidence while I feel like this.
Obviously there’s some mental health problems I need to work on too. I’m fortunate to have decent psychiatric care at this stage in my life and am slowly progressing in that area, and trying my damnedest to ramp up body improvement efforts.
I went to the gym today, at least. :)
I feel this.
I don’t have any love for myself, let alone spare any for someone else.
What helped me with that was “there’s a fetish for everything” which ended up correct, but I fucked up later.
Proud of you for hitting the gym 💪 or as a snowman ⛄️ would say: time to turn these sticks into logs 🥢🔜 🪵
Actually finding people i guess? I meet tons of people with my shared interests but none I want to date. I am demi so maybe that’s part of it
I (w4w) don’t date any more, but my experience on dating apps was mostly:
- Women with the personality of a manilla folder
- Couples seeking unicorns
- Fully bearded cishet men posing as women
I’m quite social and comfortable talking to people, but struggled to find anyone that interested me. Though I’m in a relationship now :)
I don’t want kids so that narrows down the dating pool to something more like a dating puddle.
I generally keep to myself. Every social skill I have comes from deliberate practice.
I did manage to find a girl. What I did:
Figure out what my strengths are and in what situations I get to show them. I get compliments on having a pleasant voice. So anywhere I’ll talk some is good.
Work on mitigating your weaknesses.
Work on being a {pick one or more: fun/pleasant/useful/positive/etc} person to be around.
What I did not tell you is how long I had to do this.
Oddly enough I’ve had more people I’m interested in not want kids than do.
I haven’t dated in almost thirty years but I think what would be the worst is finding out someone is heavily conservative when you aren’t. Or discovering six months into a nice relationship that he’s a closet antivaxxer or something, basically where you find out something that really goes against your values. Thankfully many of those people are obnoxious and loud.
Agreed. I wish the quiet ones had better ways to find each other. Reminds me of a poem I’ll try to dig up.
Slightly different context, I suppose
Shel Silverstein!
Is that the author? 🤯
Yeah! Children’s poems.
TIL. Thanks for that!
OkCupid used to map those important things people don’t talk about via thousands of multiple choice questions, and you used to be able to build a search filter from the answers you’d accept. Then MatchGroup/capitalism/puritans wrecked it. I don’t know if there exists a good dating site anymore.
not under a system where they are rewarded for not working (and keeping their (paid!!!) users)
