Your experience with online dating

The Emperor's Lounge
#1

Alright so I’m gonna open this up for discussion and hopefully it doesn’t devolve into something awful lol. So any of you in the know about the dating stuff online the 4 most popular right now are probably OKcupid, Tinder, hinge, and Bumble. Okcupid, Tinder, and Hinge are now owned by match group who tend to make their money psychologically manipulating people. Okcupid has a lawsuit I believe where they sent fake likes to get users to subscribe to their A list service. Mostly these sites are now pay to play. You’re pushed down in the pile, matches are intentionally hidden from you/take longer to come across, and not to mention the incredibly thirsty guys that blow up women’s match queues so they might not even bother initiating given their choices.

So tell me. Am I wrong? I’ve heard really good looking guys having trouble nowadays. And let’s be honest on something like tinder that’s all that really matters. I leave them on my phone and casually swipe through on the off chance I meet someone. Of course disclaimer, my pics probably suck and I don’t exactly know how attractive I am. I alternate between I’m pretty good looking and not all that attractive, so there’s that. I could definitely put more work into my profile, but there’s only so much I can do.

But wrapping all this up. What’s your experience been like lately? Do you pay extra for the services just to get matches? Which one has given you quality women who actually follow through vs one word responses or use you as an ego boost? Give me your thoughts.

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#2

I can’t even understand how you can take an app as superficial as swiping left or right on photos based on nothing but those photos and call it a dating app. And given how many courses there are on how to manipulate your photos and the service, the best “players” are just as into psychological manipulation as the service.

I got somebody’s phone today to repair for them (I’m gonna have to disappoint them, it always turns off that fast). The phone has 4 dating apps on it.

I also really don’t like the idea that many dating apps and sites favor women. Maybe they do it to attract more women, or maybe men have a higher tendency to misbehave. I don’t know.

Frankly, I would prefer things like a night of speed-dating or singles-trips. Of course, after having been isolated for so long, the approach anxiety has probably returned with a vengeance.

Online dating has a much lower threshold. Making it easier, but also causing lots of bad experiences. Like women being flooded with messages from men and just giving up.

I hear people have a lot of success using sites that contain chatrooms where they just talk away about anything. At some point people switch to private chats or meet up and before you know it…

An old colleague of mine was complaining that all the women wanted a no-commitment sexual relationship while he was looking for a relationship. I had to excuse myself to keep my head from hitting the desk.

It’s a good question though. How many people have been engaging in online dating during the past few months and how many have instead taken the opportunity to work on themselves instead, knowing their evenings are not spent in noisy bars, waiting for food in restaurants or in the cinema’s queue.

I also wonder if this whole episode will shift the dating scene even more towards the online environment.

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#3

Could you elaborate on the singles-trips. Is it a cruise?

#4

I have never had any success using either tinder or bumble see. To be fair with applications like this the woman chooses based on looks. As oppose to meeting her organically where you shower her with your words, energy and vibe. The women i did match with on tinder were very old and ones I would ever ever talk to on the street. They tended to be the older women who have already reached their “sell by date”. Now I don’t mean to be rude or anything, however once she has hit her 30s her sexual market value plummets dramatically so she has less choice.

I know few guys in their 20s who are jacked as they regulars at the gym they seem to do well on apps like tinder and bumble bee.

The younger women from what I heard an ex colleague of mine she was in her twenties and use to get at least 100 matches a day on tinder, she wasn’t exceptionally hot either.

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#5

One of the most annoying things about taking a vacation whenever I like is the fact that almost every package offered assumes 2 people and makes you pay extra if you’re alone. Sometimes I just want to go somewhere without having to coordinate schedules.

Anyway, to answer your question. There are travel agencies that organize singles vacations, where they take a group of singles on, well, a vacation. Things like going sailing or hiking or biking, staying in a bunch of cabins but having meals together. You know, stuff where you are socializing for a while, having the opportunity to get to know one another.

Not as cheap as the average trip, but it’s more like how I would like to meet people.

Unfortunately it does sometimes suffer from what I consider a serious flaw in the dating industry (although I understand why they do it): age discrimination.

Somewhat similar to what blackadder mentions, many dating services hook people up based on age range. Say you want to date a nice 28/29 year old woman and you just turned 36. No problem, right? Wrong! The dating service has the age range 25-35. Since you are now 36, you now only get to hook up with 35-45 year olds.

It’s hypocritical. There is no age restriction to being a “dirty old man”, might as well let the woman choose for herself which level of maturity she likes without locking in an age range.

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#6

Some people do well with dating apps I personally would keep well away from them. I think such apps promote narcissism. No wonder this generation is so screwed up.

@Fractal_Explorer apologies if I am sounding negative I just had to share my brutally honest opinions about dating apps.

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#7

The unfortunate thing is that people live inside their digital devices nowadays. The majority of couples I meet have met at work, during college or some other place where they were “forcibly” placed together. I rarely meet couples that just met randomly. People don’t socialize with strangers anymore unless circumstances make it so.

And so we’re pretty much forced to use dating services.

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#8

That’s the shittiest part. Now it’s just become a thing, but it’s gone off the rails and just ruins the experience. But as far a swiping goes, yeah it’s a little superficial. But everyone kind of does it in real life too. You kind of check out the room or crowd and see who interests you. Tinder kinda doesn’t know what the fuck it is anymore though. And now Instagram influencers flood the thing and Snapchat bots or cam girls.

In any case, glad to know it’s not just me. You bring this up a lot of other places and get accused of being an incel or something.

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#9

I’ve actually had a fair bit of experience with this, although I’ll admit not post-Emperor. My TLDR advice would be that you’re more likely to meet someone interest and of relationship quality through other online channels that are not aimed at dating.

Now I’ll be honest here, I have/had undiagnosed Aspergers since an early age as well as social anxiety disorder, arising from my early environment and upbringing (also prior to Emperor at least a “nice guy”) and so the idea of walking up to a woman in a bar who I don’t know and just starting a conversation or dealing with the social intricacies of bars and clubs fills me with not just the freeze response, but almost disgust (a reaction Emperor is only beginning to touch on now and break down to a level where I could take action if I was looking to meet someone), and its also been my experience both online and off that you will meet more genuine people in situations which are not specifically geared to lonely singles lookin’ for love.

I met my first long term eight year relationship through my first online hook-up as a mutual friend on a journalling website. Before meeting her, I met plenty of potentials I could have hooked up with who I had a great time flirting with in online messages on Tribe, back when that was a fairly new start-up. That eight year relationship? We corresponded on Yahoo Messenger at the time for a full 5 months before she finally flew out to see me, although it escalated to camming fairly early on. They lived in another country, and after meeting up we were virtually joined at the hip from the moment of meeting her at the airport. But I didn’t meet her from swiping left or right on a stupid app - OkCupid was in existence at that time (2006) and I had used it, but correctly intuited at the time that it was “like a fortune cookie, hollow, full of lies, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth”.

You don’t create trust by using a dating app, and if you use those you’ll have to do a lot of extra legwork to meet anyone who is not emotionally damaged. When you use common interests, such as IRC channels in the day, journaling websites (not trite social media sites like FaceBook or Instagram), forums even (Tribe was one big set of forums/discussions), you build a common connection from the very beginning and people are not meeting you in a dating mindset because hooking up is not the primary goal, having scintillating conversations is, and often deep conversations that can touch them on a soul level.

If we’re honest with ourselves, online dating websites are like the meat markets or bar and club scene of the online world, and people come to these sites with all sorts of preconceptions and judgements or agendas that prevent genuine human interaction from occurring. You want to look for the options where people are more likely to drop their masks, this would be the equivalent in the real world of art galleries, museums, sports clubs or common interest groups (writers group for example), that way flirting and conversation can happen in a more natural manner without either party thinking the other is trying to pick them up.

The few positive experiences I had on a dating site were not any of the above websites, it was another common interest topic (SpiritualSingles), and there was plenty of chemistry and escalation to camming, then she introduced me to a friend of hers (she was poly) who I ended up getting sans clothes online before the same happened with her. But, both of these women were emotionally damaged and would have required a lot of work to become empowered, relationship material. One was living in a homeless shelter at the time, the other was living with her parents. That should have raised red flags from the start, but at the time it didn’t. One of the two of them ended up in a mental institution twice during the time I knew her, and even threatened to send somebody to kill me during a period of mental instability.

My advice: if you’re going to meet someone online, pick a non obvious channel not geared towards desperate people and get to know people slowly while participating in a hobby. All four of the women I ended up meeting and hooking up with from online I was not originally trying to form a sexual connection with, it just occurred due to natural chemistry in the course of ordinary interactions, and thats something people lose sight of in this world of pick up artists and swipe right throwaway culture: come from a place of genuineness and if you are going to use one of those sites, make sure you have a sub like PCC so you can spot the B.S. a mile away.

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#10

Instagram is hands down the best online dating “app”. You can find a good girl on tinder but it’s been out for a while.

Also you have a limiting belief about females. You make it all about the looks. Do looks matter? Fuck yes. But if you’re not confident, it wouldn’t matter if you’re good looking. You would still get dumped soon after.

Get good photos on instagram. Learn from this guy’s photos https://www.instagram.com/cobratate/

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#11

I also really don’t like the idea that many dating apps and sites favor women. Maybe they do it to attract more women, or maybe men have a higher tendency to misbehave. I don’t know.

These apps favor women because attention and validation are the core weaknesses of women. It’s literal exploitation of the weakness of women, it’s disgusting. Watch how girls are glued to their social media all day. Just like how releasing your stress is a core weakness for men which is exploited through porn.

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#12

What I meant is (for example) that there are many cases of dating businesses, both online and offline, where women can become a member for free, while men have to pay. That disgusts me.

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#13

I have plenty of limiting beliefs about females man lol. Let’s not get started on that.

But I meant looks were important on Tinder only and swipe culture type apps. It’s how you get your foot in the door. If your looks aren’t there you can’t send a message, approach her, nothing. That’s literally the only barrier on those types of apps nothing else matters.

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#14

Lets just say you don’t want to look for your future wife on there lol. It’s very easy to hook up everyday using it but that’s never been my thing, I get hit up at least once a day on there and friend zone them all, you can easily make 100+ new connections every month and that’s pretty cool, usually not the most high value people but when you get into their circles you might meet some like minded people there.

It’s mostly about looks which is far from how things are in real life so you gotta remember that, your social status, charisma, how loose and fun you are is what draws people to you in real interactions.

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#15

they do seem like a completely shallow waste of time to me now. I used to get urges to socialize with girls, and get an opportunity to talk to them through some dating sites since thats my only real option these days. always ended up just deleting it out of disappointment thinking the reason I never get a message back or a decent convo going is because if the girls half decent looking she’s probably already getting blown up with messages. If thats the modern human equivalent of whichever male bird has the most attractive colors and dance moves gets to mate,
no thanks, theres gotta be a better way

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#16

@DarkPhilosopher - yup. The “age gap” definitely sucks. An older woman wanting to bed a younger man is a MILF or Cougar. But a more mature man attracted to young women is a “dirty old man”

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#17

Before stating my online dating experiences, I have to add that am in the same line of thought of Rollo Tomassi who shows us that in order to get laid more often, one needs an alpha mindset. He has even specified that it is possible to go from beta to alpha (on some of his youtube videos).

Why I am mentioning this is because most of the time, we go into dating with our eyes closed and hoping that luck works in our favor. Sure there is a degree of luck, but we can rig the game to our favor.

Tinder is mostly looks, I agree. Here photographs and looking as fit as possible is important. But one can put some level of status and game with pics too. Like dressing up well and showing that you are a speaker at a convention or having one pic which shows you with a group of friends which includes women. Also, having a degree of wit in our About Me section will also boost game and a sense of humor during messaging will also work in our favor. Not to forget keeping an alpha, non-needy but sexual vibe will help close the deal.

I don’t have much success with Instagram dating but it is definitely more a status game. And the higher the “hearts” and comments from women on your pics, the higher your status and more women will DM you. DMs will surely require the same level of game and alpha mindset.

The reason why I can guess how Instagram works this way is because I have a fair level of success on Facebook without even trying. On FB, if you have a bit of flair with writing, you can post status messages that involve wit and humor, which will help with likes and hence status. Your comments on other women’s (or even men’s) posts that demonstrate high value (again humor and intelligence), will also raise your value. Women will definitely inbox you and tell you that they love your posts and it’s upto you how to take that convo forward based on how attractive you find her. I have had the rare privelege of getting women who straight up inbox me to tell me that they find me attractive.

In terms of Instagram vs Facebook, Instagram is more of a looks game even though you can advertise your looks on Facebook. But if you can demonstrate leadership in a field (for example as a model or thought leader on a topic), you can raise your value regardless of Instagram or Facebook. Which is also definitely true for both online and offline game.

In short, work on your Looks, Money, Status and Game. No matter whether you are dating or not.

Money shouldn’t be overlooked. It does help with your Looks, Status, Game but definitely don’t throw it around just to get laid else you will get gold-diggers in your life (when daring, use low cost dating occasions like going for coffee. No dinner dates). Use money to raise your value. I for once need to work more on money but having less money in my life has definitely help me learn how to date without relying on it. Which taught me that money can be used to improve myself rather than be the only thing that women look for when dating men.

Hope this rant helps someone.

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#18

I have to add that in terms of short term dating vs long term dating, the concept of alpha mindset is the same. We might wrongly assume that those who we have long chats with on any topic are our soulmates or long-term partners but the women will just think of us platonic friends. Long chats with women who we already have had sex with is another matter though. They have the potential to be long term relationships.

Again, regardless of the type of relationship you are looking for, always think of yourself first, keep your frame and don’t agree with her just for the sake of agreeing. That’s being alpha.

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#19

Nah nah nah, if you have SWAG. Then it doesn’t matter if you have average looks.

You can’t control your face but you can control your body, your picture’s environment and clothes.

Get a decent swaggy looking car and stand infront of it while looking left or right as if you staring into the abyss looking sick as hell, example: https://prnt.sc/sm685n

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#20

I read somewhere that 0.5% of guys get dates on tinder with the young hot girls so maybe your idea of getting swag photos standing near expensive cars might get us all into the 0.5 % :sunglasses: . Its too much work to be honest prefer to meet young hot girls in real life rather then old women online who have missed the boat.

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