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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”

#111

Post by deanCommie »

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.

You're falling into a common misconception of assuming you can tell the likelyhood of a person having an STD by the rest of their attributes.

Fact is, I see very little correlation. Intelligent, well-paid, well-groomed, well-cultured men who bitch and moan and complain about having to use condoms only wondering if the girl is on birth control.

I don't think you can vet someone for STDs ahead of time. You can only practice safe sex and hope for the best.

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

#112

Post by storgendibal »

enraged_camel wrote: post #30
Zikes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men face the same value issues as well, that door definitely swings both ways.

Yep, I have several attractive female friends who keep multiple guys round as "options." The guys of course don't realize they're being led on and they believe they have a real shot at something more meaningful. Sex and sexuality are ultimately about power. People who have high sexual value can totally let that power get to their heads and start taking advantage of others. This isn't gender-specific, but simply the w…

This. There is another double-standard at play that is often ignored. Women are just as capable (and willing) as men at keeping options, having backups, and upgrading to something better. A number of my female friends are constantly complaining about not being able to meet a guy who wants a relationship, and then continue to spend most of their dating energy on Tinder, while also keeping open several options constantly.

This article is super one-sided and makes it sound like all these women in New York have no choice but to be on Tinder. Can't have it both ways.

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

#113

Post by bambax »

mycroft-holmes wrote: post #51
pavlov wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Anyone who doesn't want to feel like a commodity product that gets evaluated in two seconds should not be on Tinder. But I find it strange that the women are apparently such willing participants. If they don't want to get dick pics from the "fuckboys" (as the article calls them), why are they hanging out online with these people?

People like to complain even when they create their own problems.

"God laughs at people who complain about consequences, the cause of which they cherish" - Bossuet (circ. 1680).

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

#114

Post by Balgair »

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…

Reminds me of one of the best scenes about the Iraq war from Hurt Locker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgbNQU3cYo

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

#115

Post by deanCommie »

nosuchthing wrote: post #64
GuiA wrote: post #16

For the most part, I find that most online social media just degrades human interaction. Twitter encourages short shallow quips, Facebook shows me my friends arguing angrily and pointlessly over random articles, dating apps encourage some of the behaviors described in the article. Heck, even HN encourages a certain kind of attitude that I don't find that great, all in all. I know that it's not black or white, and tha…

I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I'd never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterward I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up a woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, "Are you still doing typing?" Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say,"Okay, I…

I hate this quote. Who's mind is it trying to change? People who already enjoy random frivolous human interaction are already filling their days with it, the same way he is. And people who dread useless chores like this and feel they get more pleasure and enjoyment out of the rest of their life are certainly not going to suddenly try his way.

Are there people who are optimizing their workflow while secretly pining for a less efficient more personal approach to buying envelopes that could read this and see the light?

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

#116

Post by patio11 »

There's a useful word from behavioral economics called "revealed preferences." Briefly, it means that if you're given the opportunity to choose between X and Y, and you say "Wow I really want X" but choose Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, and Y... then your preference is actually for Y.

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

#118

Post by hkmurakami »

hedgew wrote: post #39

It's a problem of overvaluation. Men are less selective about who they have casual sex with, so the most attractive men consistently and constantly meet up with women they'd never actually date. For the few men it works great. For most women it works well for a while, but ends in disappointment. For the vast majority of men, the deal is the worst; they are considered unsuitable because women can do better (in 10 minu…

One of the most compelling theories of why there are so many young single men in Japan was exactly this.

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

#119

Post by storgendibal »

Yhippa wrote: post #11
pavlov wrote: post #3

But others lament the way the extreme casualness of sex in the age of Tinder leaves many women feeling de-valued. “It’s rare for a woman of our generation to meet a man who treats her like a priority instead of an option,” wrote Erica Gordon on the Gen Y Web site Elite Daily, in 2014. If a woman doesn't want to feel like an option, shouldn't she stay far away from Tinder? It's not like there isn't a million other way…

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.

I actually think that it's bad for all but the best looking men as well. In a bar, music festival, coffee shop, etc, men could use a combination of looks, grooming, and personality to attract a woman. On Tinder, it boils down completely to looks, and that too, a 2-3 second evaluation. This has two implications:

1) In terms of physical attributes, women have more options "outside their league", but those options are not interested in a relationship.

2) The men at the top of the physical attributes ladder normally have a slight-to-moderate advantage. Historically, men not at the top of this ladder could still use personality, wit, etc. to attract a mate.

With Tinder, this advantage is hugely magnified because men not at the top of the ladder don't even get an option to use other aspects of what they bring to the table before they are swiped left.

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

#120

Post by d23 »

davnicwil wrote: post #88
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 exper…

> 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.

Same. Most of the people I've talked to that use it experience a typical "funnel": a bunch of available people, a smaller pool that you're interested in, a smaller pool that's also interested in you, and finally a few dates that go from there. Not an orgyastic meat-market where all your wildest sex dreams come true.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is a piece crafted by a PR team hired by Tinder.

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