Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 202 posts

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#101

Post by CuriouslyC »

Animats wrote: post #78
johnfn wrote: post #38

Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps dont suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? (A sad fact is that dating will just suck for some % of the population. Is it possible that if there were no apps the same % would be saying how IRL dating sucks?) I know many people in stable LTRs or married who met through dating…

> Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps don't suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? Yes. The reality is well known. PlentyOfFish used to publish statistics. About 10% of dating app users are "date bacon" and find matches they like. Everyone else is a dissatisfied loser. The losers provide the repeat business and…

Bro, women don't care about reasonably young, the vast majority of women want older men, the daddy and silver fox memes are real. For younger women, the preferred age gap is smaller, but the older the woman gets, the larger the age window above her gets. A lot of women in their early 30s are thirsting after men in their mid-late 40s with resources and their shit together.

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#102

Post by andy_ppp »

Alain de Botton claims (probably with only anecdotal evidence) that we tend to find love in people who remind us of the template our parents gave us… so this is an explanation why certain individuals end up attracted to loving terrible people. How would you hope to possibly convey this?

Also social proof is such a big deal for women, I think being in public your date can pick up on all sorts of qualities like self worth and confidence that are extremely difficult to convey on dating apps…

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#103

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

HPsquared wrote: post #45
tern wrote: post #26

A major factor in my world: the coolest people don't use dating apps because they find the experience awful and they have no problem meeting people in real life The spicier version: dating apps select for personality disorders, and as such, being on a dating app in the first place is a negative signal For what it's worth, I think this has always been true of the web in general (forums, chat, social media, comments se…

It's even more stark if you weight it by sampling online content rather than a sample of people online (who are mostly lurkers). Certain types of people tend to post a LOT, so a random sample of online content will be biased towards the "high posting frequency" type of person, who is probably not a normal average type of person.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18881827

"Most of what you read on the Internet is written by insane people"

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#105

Post by CuriouslyC »

plastic3169 wrote: post #82
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #7

From the article: > (…) pictures also give lots of information about important non-superficial things, like your personality, values, social class, and lifestyle. This is the one thing that puzzles me most about dating apps: where do all these pictures come from? People seem to have pictures of them doing all kinds of activities. When I’m out with friends doing whatever, no one is taking pictures. Even if they did, i…

> This is the one thing that puzzles me most about dating apps: where do all these pictures come from? People actually curate the profile and copywrite the text. It’s not real authentic life documented by accident. Once you put your profile there for others to judge you soon figure out that it needs to be manufactured. That’s when you start asking for others to snap a photo while your out doing the thing you maybe wo…

This. People are taking trips just to collect dating/social profile pictures, it's insane how manufactured successful profiles are.

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#106

Post by KolibriFly »

zug_zug wrote: post #11

I think it's actually very simple... the paradox of choice. You introduce somebody to your attractive single friend there's a real chance they hit it off and form a relationship. You introduce them to 100 attractive friends, one makes more money, one has a more stable job, one is flirtier, etc then it's both exhausting and none of them seem like a great opportunity. I think there are certain basic psychological facts…

The paradox of choice feels like one of those concepts that sounds trivial until you live it. Dating apps amplify it to an absurd degree

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#107

Post by adaml_623 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #20
10000truths wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is often parroted, but the reasoning is flawed. The vast majority of the platform's growth will come from new users, who are entering the dating scene. If they fail to capture that audience (say, by having a reputation of not performing as advertised), then no amount of upsells or string-alongs of existing users will sustain them, as their user base will only ever decrease, and investors will see that and withdr…

Everything about this is wrong. 1) The platforms aren't growing that impressively. Most of their users have been on the platform for a while, were previous users, etc. 2) It doesn't matter how good the app is, you need a network effect. New users are going to go to where the potential dates are. 3) Marketing does wonders. An app can suck and have great marketing. It will get users over an app that actually works and…

"If the apps can keep you getting dates, not partners, they can keep you on the app and happy."

I know this sounds judgemental but I'm not convinced the people going on lots of dates are "Happy" even if they're being successful in dating and hookups.

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#108

Post by KolibriFly »

nkrisc wrote: post #34
zug_zug wrote: post #11

I think it's actually very simple... the paradox of choice. You introduce somebody to your attractive single friend there's a real chance they hit it off and form a relationship. You introduce them to 100 attractive friends, one makes more money, one has a more stable job, one is flirtier, etc then it's both exhausting and none of them seem like a great opportunity. I think there are certain basic psychological facts…

Commonly called “analysis paralysis”. For most people, I believe, once you have more than a small number of options it’s basically impossible (or feels so) to analyze and compare all options to make what seems like a rational and logical decision. So some people will just get frustrated and pick one arbitrarily, or give up and pick none. A small number of people will make a spreadsheet and devote way too much time to…

It's wild how the brain taps out after like 5–7 options, but dating apps hand you an infinite scroll of possibilities and say "good luck"

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#109

Post by KolibriFly »

gassi wrote: post #2

I think the author missed an important factor: misaligned incentives. Dating apps make money when users spend time (and money) on the platform. Users who find a partner tend to leave the platform, so dating companies are incentivized to prevent that from happening. Those companies then have more opportunities to up-sell those users on premium features, which they're more likely to purchase due to repeated failure and…

I'm not sure it's purely malicious. It might just be the result of optimizing for engagement metrics

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#110

Post by adaml_623 »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #100
johnfn wrote: post #38

Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps dont suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? (A sad fact is that dating will just suck for some % of the population. Is it possible that if there were no apps the same % would be saying how IRL dating sucks?) I know many people in stable LTRs or married who met through dating…

Dating apps 100% suck. I'm a good looking guy and I put the effort into getting great pictures and optimizing my profile to the point I was able to get dates 5+ nights a week and date 2-3 new women a week, and while it was validating, the quality of dates was significantly worse than what I used to get from just approaching women in places like bookstores, after yoga classes, etc when that wasn't as culturally abnorm…

This anecdote does not really feel like an argument that dating apps suck. Sounds like you were using them wrong somehow
Post reply on HN