Ask HN: Is there any way to fix online dating?

I think it might be worth specifying what you feel needs to be fixed exactly. I can think of many problems with both online and offline dating, but I guess you have something specific in mind?

I met my boyfriend of 4 years through an app, and in general it was a pretty smooth process in my admittedly limited experience.

> my boyfriend

Would it be safe to assume you are either a woman, or a gay man?

I am in my late 30s, of average attractiveness, and below-average suaveness. If I open Grindr in a large city and create a profile with one of my cuter selfies, I get so many messages I literally would not be able to reply to all of them.

From what I've pieced together, that is not what would happen to the heterosexual version of me. Many men on dating sites will never be initially messaged by a woman. Various sources where dating apps have made their data public in aggregate, suggest women are about 80% less likely to send the first message than men are. So they have to always initiate. And then most women they send a message to never reply.

That must be incredibly demoralizing.

You can't really fix online dating because you can't really change human nature. Men want what they want and women want what they want and nothing changes that.

You can of course meet somebody decent online with enough persistence, especially in a big city with a constant pool of new people, but the way things work online is bad for almost everybody except the very best looking men, who are able to use these apps to easily sleep with a constant pool of new women.

The best advice is to probably go hang out where women you want to meet hang out. Meet people in real life.

Go to bookstores. Do some volunteer work. Play in a coed sports league. Go to church.

I think the problem is going from completely anonymous to a date. You could be putting yourself in a really vulnerable position with a rando. There's really no proof this person is not a psychopath, to put it bluntly.

In social groups, there's at least some social proof of this other person is likely safe. You know them by reputation. You may even be introduced to them or someone vouched for them.

IMO, for this reason, things like meetup groups, or other IRL social groups, with some level of group norms, where relationships can develop organically (into friendships, or whatever), with really no expectation of dating are probably the most appropriate. I met my wife in a local hiking group. It was its own social circle, and we went on trips together. Some people dated. Some people became friends, etc...

So, I guess, no there's no way to fix online dating :) unless you can solve the underlying social proof problem that develops more organically IRL settings.