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Never pay for online dating (2010)

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Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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If you've already graduated university, aren't part of a religious community, and don't want to do the bar/club scene, what does that leave? Friends of friends, or family introductions? Activity groups like sports/dance? Your workplace, or the gym? Neighbours? Most of these are extremely hit and miss, and a lot of people have no interest in being hit on while trying to do their job or work out. Dating sites/apps abso…

I'm pretty much in that position and still don't use the apps. It's like saying there's nothing to eat and settling for grass. For average males they'll provide a fleeting moment of hope only to utterly destroy self confidence after a few weeks. Better off not using them at all.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old content - that it still being discussed and would still be generating pageviews.

Entirely possible they don't care for the page views. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending it, I think it's a shame that interesting content like that gets pulled down but it's usually for boring corporate reasons (don't want to maintain the blog any more, they don't benefit from the pageviews) than conspiratorial Orwellian reasons.

I don't think it's a orwellian conspiracy, they make money running a dating website and took down some old blogs that suggested online dating is really pretty rigged not in your favor for guys (their paying customers). You don't need some men in the shadows to explain why they took that down

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#293
post #12

OkCupid was bought by Match Group (who run almost all online dating sites, including Match, eHarmony, and Tinder) in 2011 and took down this post not long after. EDIT: the purchase was Feb 2011 [1] and the post was removed sometime between Jan 2011 [2] and Mar 2011 [3]. The rest of the blog was still up at the time [4]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2011/02/03/133456140/The-Last-Word-In-Bu... [2] https://web.archive.org/we…

So there's still a void for a dating service to be filled?

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some level, a dating network needs to make recommendations. In Plato's Republic , he proposed his vision for a utopian city-state. Essentially, citizens would be ranked into castes: bronze/iron for laborers and artisans, silver for soldiers, gold for leaders. When people came of age in this utopia, they would be paired off through what they would be told is a random lottery. In reality, however, the city's leaders…

You people take it to far. I am not talking about some dystopian government that forces marriages to create some kind of super-citizen. I just want the incentive of making profit removed and provide a decent service that does what it promises. If that service can only be provided at a loss (which seems to be the case) then let the state do it. Nobody would force anyone to use it.

Sure, but it's a slippery slope, and there are other ways to reduce the profit motive, like grant/donation-based non-profits or public benefit corporations.

Well-intentioned government mandates have a nasty habit of being used coercively when authoritarian-minded administrations get their turn at the helm.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#295

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It wasn't by those names, sure. But the "Forever alone" meme definitely was. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/forever-alone And the citation date: 2010. Or better yet, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/involuntary-celibacy... cites that: "On August 12th, 2005, the American television network G4TV released a satirical commercial for the online role-playing game World of Warcraft in which a woman introduces the gam…

The 'Forever alone' meme was originally a jab at oneself for having few partners; it didn't imply anything about one's mindset or opinion on others, nor an opinion on society as a whole. It was also used mostly in an ironic sense. I'm saying that the meme has nothing to do with the 'incel' movement, unless you want to throw in every online expression of loneliness as incel stuff. Some namesakes remain, for example Re…

iirc the term incel was actually coined as part of a support group for folks that struggled to date; I have a vague memory of an interview with the lady who's credited with it's Genesis, and how she was shocked at where it ended up.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#296
post #12

OkCupid was bought by Match Group (who run almost all online dating sites, including Match, eHarmony, and Tinder) in 2011 and took down this post not long after. EDIT: the purchase was Feb 2011 [1] and the post was removed sometime between Jan 2011 [2] and Mar 2011 [3]. The rest of the blog was still up at the time [4]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2011/02/03/133456140/The-Last-Word-In-Bu... [2] https://web.archive.org/we…

More Orwellian still, they edited articles that contained data inconvenient to the politically correct narrative and elite ideology. Edit: Here's an example. “I’m bisexual.” REALITY: 80% of self-identified bisexuals are only interested in one gender. People who describe themselves as bisexual overwhelmingly message either one sex or the other, not both as you might expect. https://web.archive.org/web/20170307114207/h…

Bi isn’t an all or nothing thing. Men are well known to enter same sex relationships when in restricted environments long term such as sailing ships or prison, but not everyone is that flexible.

Women do the same with a lesser known example being elderly women swapping because of the shrinking dating pool.

So, self identifying as bi shouldn’t be taken as having zero gender preferences nor should we assume peoples preferences are static through time. People may be in a committed relationship and seek partners of the a different gender etc.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#297

They also had an amazing blog post about how dating profiles came down to ~85% how attractive you are (both men and women). Most people look at 3-4 images and pass, this probably was the inspiration for Tinder. One example of this was personality score, which they ended up removing. "In short, according to our users, “looks” and “personality” were the same thing". In this example it was just a profile picture with no…

The inspiration for Tinder was Grindr, an app for gay men. Gotta hand it to gay men, they're pretty honest about what they're looking for.

Honest to who, others or themselves?

I think most dishonesty in dating is just lack of self awareness.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#298
Counter-point: always pay for online dating (as a guy). (Everything that follows is anecdotal.) I used Tinder off and on for years. When I was active I’d swipe for 10-30 mns a day and I think I estimated I could get through 100 right-swipes (“Yes, I want to match”) per day. Even with that I would only end up with 1 or 2 matches a week. Which predictably when you include the chances of them being a bot, of them not responding, or not being serious about going out on dates meant I was basically going on at most 1 date a month with Tinder.

At this point, I had refused to pay for a subscription because it felt cringe/sad as a reasonably attractive guy who doesn’t have terrible luck dating in real life. At some point I got over my dumb ego and paid for the highest tier subscription—cause, hey, why not? I kid you not the number of matches I got went up 10x. I would swipe on someone and match within 30 mns vs 1 week 1 month later. I had multiple dates a week, more dates than I’d ever had in my life. And eventually met my current girlfriend.

My point: the game is clearly rigged. Nothing about me changed. My behavior using the app, my physical appearance, my bio were all the same. As soon as I gave them my money Tinder flipped a switch and my profile which was likely barely being placed in front of women was now pushed front and center.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree I have bit of biased view here. I do find it very unnatural to go to blind date with person I barely know. Compared to something lets say bar, it's less unnatural because you both just happened to be there, maybe you both came with some other friends and just happened to start talking to each other. To be honest, I've had better experiences meeting people through non dating online communities than from d…

> non dating online communities How does the geographical aspect work? Are you mobile enough that you don't mind meeting a person that's a flight away? Or is it primarily online communities that are already geo-bound, like discords/reddits for particular cities?

In my case, there were both cases. Meeting people far away, but also locally. Sometimes we would gather somewhere as a group.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#300
post #147
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their articles were really interesting too; its sad Match took all of them down. One of the ones I distinctly remember was about the right profile pictures. Its been years, but I clearly remember for men it was something along the lines of "full body, outdoor picture, while shirtless looking away from the camera"

Photofeeler did a post about trying replicate some of this and apparently some of okcupid's results were probably pretty questionable: https://blog.photofeeler.com/okcupid-is-wrong-about-smiling-...

Nice! I hadn't read this counter argument. I would say I still think their articles gave an interesting look into how humans behaved online, however skewed it may be. Clickbait is well known now and I do recall they were one of the first to talk about the "MySpace angle" photos not being considered good (again, potentially skewed for views).
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