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Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

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Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#81

Post by jff »

michaelchisari wrote: post #65
Yhippa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been thinking about why Tinder seems like a bad deal for my lady friends. It seems that women used to hold the power in online dating but for whatever reason Tinder has turned into a site that reduces the cost (time investment and biological risk) to sleep with strangers. It seems that as that's picked up the new norm is a "race to the bottom" for women who want traditional relationships.

women used to hold the power in online dating Anyone who has ever seen a pretty woman's okcupid inbox can attest that being dog-piled by hundreds of desperate men is an odd definition of "power". Tinder at least requires a mutual match.

All those men want to talk to her. She decides if she wants to reply to them or just ignore them. I would find it odd to claim the men were holding the power in this situation.

The neat thing about Tinder is that nobody has to assess those first-contact messages, they just swipe people they think they'd be interested in and if they both like each other, they can talk. I've never used it but I'd say it's probably equalized a lot of things--men no longer spend all their time carefully composing introductory messages only to be ignored, women don't (necessarily) have to sort through hundreds of "wanna fuk?" messages to find the decent ones.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#82

Post by jrdnmadrid »

This article bothers me for several reasons, mostly given the interviews are all based in NY and are a focal point of the article. As a 24-yr old coming from outside Portland, OR, I don't see this trend much at all with my coworkers or friends. Most have used it once or twice, but not as serious as they make it out to believe. A lot of my friends are in committed relationships or are looking for them. Maybe I am an outlier, but I think outside SF, LA or NY, these dating apps aren't as prevalent as they seem.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#83

Post by [deleted] »

Yhippa wrote: post #45
bradford wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that Tinder reduces the "time investment and biological risk" of [sex]. I'm not a Tinder user, how does it reduce the biological risk? wouldn't the risk of an STD be just as great, if not greater, than the status quo?

Just a theory of mine. I feel that the odds would be greater going to a bar and doing the usual pick up routine vs vetting them ahead of time.

[deleted]

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#84

Post by Kenji »

walterbell wrote: post #61
Kenji wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that. The sense of entitlement is incredible. who treats her like a priority instead of an option Well I'm sorry but that's what humans are, options on legs. Be it on a job application or in dating. There's fierce competition, you gotta be good or at least better than your competition. This is the normal state of being, and nobody, not even girls (and especially not guys), is above it. If you want real, emot…

> that's what humans are, options on legs Saved for future robot-training dataset, thanks.

Hehe, I guess you just blew my cover. I-I can solve captchas though! Don't shut me down!

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#85

Post by ThrustVectoring »

The big issue with Tinder (and a lot of other dating apps) is that they have a really shitty incentive structure for revealing your matching preferences.

For Tinder specifically, you can't reveal your preferences, save by "is this better than nothing" and how much effort you put into initial messages. Compare this to a ranking + deferred acceptance system, where you can match every guy and every girl such that there's no alternate pairing that both the guy and the girl would both prefer.

The end result is a lot of wasted effort and low signal-to-noise. The alternative is something that looks a lot like ranking a bunch of potential matches, and magically getting the best coffee or dinner date you can each night. Much more efficient.

Unfortunately, efficient marketplaces don't automatically out-compete thick ones. It's why I haven't done anything about the problem - the difficult part of Tinder's success to reproduce isn't the app or the matching algorithms or the UI, but rather convincing enough people to participate on their platform.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#86

Post by michaelchisari »

jff wrote: post #81
michaelchisari wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

women used to hold the power in online dating Anyone who has ever seen a pretty woman's okcupid inbox can attest that being dog-piled by hundreds of desperate men is an odd definition of "power". Tinder at least requires a mutual match.

All those men want to talk to her. She decides if she wants to reply to them or just ignore them. I would find it odd to claim the men were holding the power in this situation. The neat thing about Tinder is that nobody has to assess those first-contact messages, they just swipe people they think they'd be interested in and if they both like each other, they can talk. I've never used it but I'd say it's probably equa…

I would find it odd to claim the men were holding the power in this situation

It's the stable marriage problem. There's higher risk initiating, but higher reward. Being in a receptive position means you're unable to even try for your highest preferred choice. You have to wait to see if that person chooses you.

It's not a clear cut power dynamic of one over the other, though.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#87

Post by curiousjorge »

pmcpinto wrote: post #70

"...the game is out there, and it's either play or get played..." - Omar, The Wire Nowadays, if a single guy doesn't use Tinder and other apps, it's missing a huge pool of single girls available to meet for a drink (or other things). It's never been so easy to meet new people, so guys don't value so much the girls they met like before, but it's the same for girls. If the pool of single girls it's huge, imagine the po…

I think people who aren't using Tinder aren't missing out much at all based on what you described. It sort of feels like a pool for people that just want large quantities of cheap commodity, and if you are into that then it totally makes sense.

Fortunately, there still exists descent people with desires to be with high quality people. I think it would be quite tragic if someone with decency caved in to societal pressure and joined Tinder, looking for that special snowflake and becoming heart broken when they realize what they've become.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#88

Post by davnicwil »

psycr wrote: post #55

Does anyone else have a feeling of total alienation from the people and behaviours described in this article? I certainly do.

Yes, thank you! I've read a lot of the comments on here and you're the only one who's (seemingly) raised the question of whether what's written in this article is actually accurate in any general sense.

To me, it feels very sensational, exaggerated and very selective in its use of interviewees and their quotes to describe a specific type of online dating experience, and then projects that as if it's the average experience. It isn't.

I've used online dating, and a lot of my friends have and do - including tinder. Obviously you come across a few odd situations and people, just as you do in 'real life' but I have never come close to experiencing anything like what's described in this piece.

It paints an utterly depressing scene which just doesn't match up with my experience of online dating at all. For people who've never used Tinder, it's basically nothing like this, and it's not just my own experience or the way I use it - I've never seen any of my friends use it like the people in this article describe.

It's basically just another way to get chatting with people. I'm not saying people like the people in this article don't exist, but they're rare, and if you want nothing to do with people like this, all you have to do is not engage with them in the first place. If you do engage with them, then know that the consequences will probably be as depressing as this article makes out they will be.

The broad conclusions the people in this article draw about 'the online dating world' are simply not true for most people - they're only true for those who subject themselves to it. If that's not what you want, just don't, and you'll be fine. Problem solved.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#90

Post by davidcelis »

jrdnmadrid wrote: post #82

This article bothers me for several reasons, mostly given the interviews are all based in NY and are a focal point of the article. As a 24-yr old coming from outside Portland, OR, I don't see this trend much at all with my coworkers or friends. Most have used it once or twice, but not as serious as they make it out to believe. A lot of my friends are in committed relationships or are looking for them. Maybe I am an o…

I'm also in Portland, OR and have used OkCupid/Hinge/Tinder/etc. Thousands of people here use these apps. They're in no way limited to SF/LA/NYC for heavy use.
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