Millenial here. Never used online dating. Never used arranged marriages. Never used newspapers.
Dated a bunch. Just met and befriended a lot of people through shared areas of interest. Indoor soccer mixed league / gardening group / dog park / dog events at a local shop.
I also wasn’t creepy and bothered people with trying to get a relationship from these events. Just a chatty comical person. And with regular attendance - bumped into similar people over time and eventually did more personal shit with them and felt out why.
Online dating sort of (to me) turns the act of dating into a hobby or even a profession? and then people land these relationships where they expect something out of the other person. “You need a perfect resume with good line spacing and indentation, if you want connection!”
When I just pursued my hobbies and enjoyment areas and bumped into people who mutually enjoyed those things and would just talk about those things. Like at most seek connection to the things you love and do them with people you like. And then build on those connections. That’s what people really want when they log into profiles.
Note I don’t have any social media other than Lemmy. Haha.
I didn’t say dating doesn’t work. I also dated a bunch from my regular circle but eventually decided to switch to Tinder because I didn’t want intimate relations ruining my friends groups. Or at the very least I didn’t want to be the whose intimate relations would ruin friendships. That was my reason to go to Tinder.
And with my experience on Tinder what I did say was that Tinder is not some creepy or stupid way to go about dating. You don’t need to turn it into some kind a hobby or a profession. You don’t need to start a relationship (in it’s most general meaning) with some kind of expectations of intimacy or whatever. You don’t need a perfectly made profile. Those are the assumptions people have when they don’t understand Tinder. It’s a tool to meet people outside of your regular circle. You’re building this tool and the followup date to be bigger than it needs to be and of course it’s going to look creepy and stupid, you’re making it creepy and stupid. Here’s how I used Tinder.
I put minimum effort into swiping. I didn’t spend any time analyzing some images or bios or anything like that, if there was anything that remotely piqued my interest I would swipe right. If there was a match then texting was pretty much a vibe check, because at that point there was still nothing tangible and thus also no reason to put in a lot of effort. If they’re cool I would offer to go out, have a coffee or a walk in the park or anything neutral that still gives us the space to have a chat and figure out who we’re really meeting. A meeting is still not a commitment so I didn’t treat is as such. If they ghosted they ghosted and I’d just do something else. When we actually met I didn’t treat them like some kind of a checklist of my expectations for them. In fact I had no expectations for them. I had am idea of who I’m looking for but I’d also have to match who they’re looking for to actually have a match between us, so no reason to expect anything at that point. And the date would be just chatting and learning who they are and I made a lot of friends that way because there wasn’t anything romantic there but they were cool people.
I don’t think there’s anything particularly creepy or stupid about that. The first part seems creepy but that’s just how the tool works. If someone gave you a list of random 100 people and told you to figure out how who you’d want to meet you’d probably do the exact same thing because going in-depth with 100 people before you’ve even met them is creepy as nobody would (nor should) put in that much effort.
Yeah I will say I was lucky in my mid twenties in what was available to access around me / my town. I’m now 35 and other than a dog shop that has events where I meet a bunch of people with dogs - I don’t have a lot of the same overlaps but am happily married so it wasn’t the goal on where to settle (more what school do we want etc.)
I’m just outside of the NYC area and so can find some weird unique thing with a quick train ride attached.
If you play sports and enjoy training 5k-10k-half marathon groups are a great add to meet like minded people that may have a more favorable split haha. Doesn’t hurt to get the cardio up. But again I would ask - what other interests do you have that are unexplored - that could be interesting to chase. It will be super uncomfortable to take a stab at it. But it’s a win if you do it. A win win if you meet folks while doing it.
Millenial here. Never used online dating. Never used arranged marriages. Never used newspapers.
Dated a bunch. Just met and befriended a lot of people through shared areas of interest. Indoor soccer mixed league / gardening group / dog park / dog events at a local shop.
I also wasn’t creepy and bothered people with trying to get a relationship from these events. Just a chatty comical person. And with regular attendance - bumped into similar people over time and eventually did more personal shit with them and felt out why.
Online dating sort of (to me) turns the act of dating into a hobby or even a profession? and then people land these relationships where they expect something out of the other person. “You need a perfect resume with good line spacing and indentation, if you want connection!”
When I just pursued my hobbies and enjoyment areas and bumped into people who mutually enjoyed those things and would just talk about those things. Like at most seek connection to the things you love and do them with people you like. And then build on those connections. That’s what people really want when they log into profiles.
Note I don’t have any social media other than Lemmy. Haha.
I didn’t say dating doesn’t work. I also dated a bunch from my regular circle but eventually decided to switch to Tinder because I didn’t want intimate relations ruining my friends groups. Or at the very least I didn’t want to be the whose intimate relations would ruin friendships. That was my reason to go to Tinder.
And with my experience on Tinder what I did say was that Tinder is not some creepy or stupid way to go about dating. You don’t need to turn it into some kind a hobby or a profession. You don’t need to start a relationship (in it’s most general meaning) with some kind of expectations of intimacy or whatever. You don’t need a perfectly made profile. Those are the assumptions people have when they don’t understand Tinder. It’s a tool to meet people outside of your regular circle. You’re building this tool and the followup date to be bigger than it needs to be and of course it’s going to look creepy and stupid, you’re making it creepy and stupid. Here’s how I used Tinder.
I put minimum effort into swiping. I didn’t spend any time analyzing some images or bios or anything like that, if there was anything that remotely piqued my interest I would swipe right. If there was a match then texting was pretty much a vibe check, because at that point there was still nothing tangible and thus also no reason to put in a lot of effort. If they’re cool I would offer to go out, have a coffee or a walk in the park or anything neutral that still gives us the space to have a chat and figure out who we’re really meeting. A meeting is still not a commitment so I didn’t treat is as such. If they ghosted they ghosted and I’d just do something else. When we actually met I didn’t treat them like some kind of a checklist of my expectations for them. In fact I had no expectations for them. I had am idea of who I’m looking for but I’d also have to match who they’re looking for to actually have a match between us, so no reason to expect anything at that point. And the date would be just chatting and learning who they are and I made a lot of friends that way because there wasn’t anything romantic there but they were cool people.
I don’t think there’s anything particularly creepy or stupid about that. The first part seems creepy but that’s just how the tool works. If someone gave you a list of random 100 people and told you to figure out how who you’d want to meet you’d probably do the exact same thing because going in-depth with 100 people before you’ve even met them is creepy as nobody would (nor should) put in that much effort.
The problem I have, is both my work and hobbies/sports are very male dominated, so there’s just not that many opportunities to meet someone.
Yeah I will say I was lucky in my mid twenties in what was available to access around me / my town. I’m now 35 and other than a dog shop that has events where I meet a bunch of people with dogs - I don’t have a lot of the same overlaps but am happily married so it wasn’t the goal on where to settle (more what school do we want etc.)
I’m just outside of the NYC area and so can find some weird unique thing with a quick train ride attached.
If you play sports and enjoy training 5k-10k-half marathon groups are a great add to meet like minded people that may have a more favorable split haha. Doesn’t hurt to get the cardio up. But again I would ask - what other interests do you have that are unexplored - that could be interesting to chase. It will be super uncomfortable to take a stab at it. But it’s a win if you do it. A win win if you meet folks while doing it.