“We’re searching for a life that allows us to prioritize ourselves, our careers, our bank accounts and the idea of a perfect true love all at once. And if we do the math on that, it probably won’t add up” – just so good and well observed as always thank you!
I am in my late 50s and am an on and off Bumble user. I tried it a couple of years ago after a long dry patch and separation, at urging of a younger friend who sold me on the woman makes the first move concept. It was my first experience with an app. I suspect algorithm favors new users. I had a lot more interactions on it then. But still found it frustrating when chats would fade out rather quickly, and was ambivalent about dating anyway. Now it seems every match goes no where.
My only other experience is with Facebook Dating, which is interesting because you can see 2nd degrees of connection and check out people off the app. But also provided me with my first catfishing attempt experience!
I had one single match off of Bumble. And it was the most intense, mind-breaking, soul-shattering, beautiful and dearly held romance that I've ever had.
So I will not be going back. But I'll give them props for that, quite the experience.
The dating scene was a lot more fun and a lot less complicated in the 1970’s and 1980’s when everyone just wanted to have fun ! Meeting guys was easy, falling in love was fun, it was after that you would find out about their backgrounds, jobs, potential for the future and it was what it was. Love came first. You didn’t abandon your lover because they might not accumulate enough wealth!! C’mon!! My recommendation to all you younger men and women is to stop trying to figure out every little detail about each other before you decide to even meet because you will surely find one little factor to derail yourselves before you even get on board. 😉
Few intelligent men want an “ambitious” girlfriend who is married to a corporation first and will have little time or energy for them after servicing a corporation all week long. It’s a disaster. Better to find a sweet, affectionate peasant girl who hasn’t had her mind turned into a weapon. A lifetime of happiness awaits a man there.
The basic problem of modern love are dating apps, and the dynamic they create. It’s kind of tiring to repeat, but women are far more picky than men, and even men are picky on apps, and so everyone is shooting for people above their own value.
Women and men also peak in value at far different ages. Women are most attractive in their 20s and 30s, men are most attractive in their 30s and 40s. If you argue this point, you’re a moron—and everyone should remember that no one is going to socially re-engineer hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary biology by arguing on the internet.
The final problem is that people don’t know how to be social, and many are adopting antisocial behavior.
Bumble is what you find everyehere: Same old same old. If there are any worthwhile men there,they cleverly disguise themselves as clueless, boring willing-to-settlers. Having given many a chance to prove themselves otherwise, for many, many years, I've learned that WYSIWYG. They're always as mediocre as advertised.
So was Silver Singles, and now eharmony. Men never learn. The scammers write the best profiles.
My wife is an avid Love Island consumer (started years before the last season of Love Island US blew up and gained a big following into this season). It's intended to be binged and watched actively. I think quite a lot of people are watching an hour of something every night, and these women like watching Love Island. As a matter of fact, UK and US are on at the same time, so they're watching both. The "active" piece of this is audience participation; you can vote for who gets to stay, who gets to go, who gets to recourse, etc.
I would caution anyone from drawing any conclusions about cultural trends from Love Island. It is first and foremost a game show. They are participating for money first and for social media clout second. Some of them want a career in reality TV, so they're here to make a name for themselves. Some are already on TV, so they're there to bring in the viewers and may be getting paid per contract. Some are there just because they want to win, and you can tell who is doing that based on their actions in the villa. None of the coupling or dating is "real" in the sense that they're really trying to find love. Their choices are driven by what they think audiences want so that they can avoid getting kicked off and maximize their chances of being the couple that wins.
The issue with Bumble is that it relies on 1 gender to make the move, and it's the gender with hundreds of years of programming to not do so. I used it for a while when it was relatively new, I got a decent number of matches from it, and I watched almost all of those matches time out in complete helplessness as the app didn't permit me to do anything about them.
In painting women as the sole victim of the creeping evil of dating apps it was able to sell a feminist ideal, but it's not exactly a winning business strategy to intentionally limit activity for half the user base.
True women don’t need men like they once did because of increased economic freedom but the math now favours married couples. Go back a generation or so and a single guy could keep all his earnings to himself until he got married of course and many women had to live with parents or get by on service industry jobs until they found a man to support them. Back then they had a career path to be a stay at home wife with a promotion to stay at home mother, that career path is now pretty much gone for the (few?) that want it.
Going back a few more generations and men and women pretty much had to marry to survive. You needed a second person and a few kids to run a farm and collectively survive. There were other options but they weren’t great.
Anyway back to women don’t need men for money, true but both men and women are financially more secure when they can share resources.
“We’re searching for a life that allows us to prioritize ourselves, our careers, our bank accounts and the idea of a perfect true love all at once. And if we do the math on that, it probably won’t add up” – just so good and well observed as always thank you!
I am in my late 50s and am an on and off Bumble user. I tried it a couple of years ago after a long dry patch and separation, at urging of a younger friend who sold me on the woman makes the first move concept. It was my first experience with an app. I suspect algorithm favors new users. I had a lot more interactions on it then. But still found it frustrating when chats would fade out rather quickly, and was ambivalent about dating anyway. Now it seems every match goes no where.
My only other experience is with Facebook Dating, which is interesting because you can see 2nd degrees of connection and check out people off the app. But also provided me with my first catfishing attempt experience!
It's a wild world out there!
Funny, because one of the analogies I make for why I quit dating apps is that it’s become an unsolvable math problem. And a market of lemons. https://getbettersoon.substack.com/p/people-arent-products-turning-of
Keep in mind that what humans say they want and what they actually want are not always the same.
I had one single match off of Bumble. And it was the most intense, mind-breaking, soul-shattering, beautiful and dearly held romance that I've ever had.
So I will not be going back. But I'll give them props for that, quite the experience.
The dating scene was a lot more fun and a lot less complicated in the 1970’s and 1980’s when everyone just wanted to have fun ! Meeting guys was easy, falling in love was fun, it was after that you would find out about their backgrounds, jobs, potential for the future and it was what it was. Love came first. You didn’t abandon your lover because they might not accumulate enough wealth!! C’mon!! My recommendation to all you younger men and women is to stop trying to figure out every little detail about each other before you decide to even meet because you will surely find one little factor to derail yourselves before you even get on board. 😉
Few intelligent men want an “ambitious” girlfriend who is married to a corporation first and will have little time or energy for them after servicing a corporation all week long. It’s a disaster. Better to find a sweet, affectionate peasant girl who hasn’t had her mind turned into a weapon. A lifetime of happiness awaits a man there.
The basic problem of modern love are dating apps, and the dynamic they create. It’s kind of tiring to repeat, but women are far more picky than men, and even men are picky on apps, and so everyone is shooting for people above their own value.
Women and men also peak in value at far different ages. Women are most attractive in their 20s and 30s, men are most attractive in their 30s and 40s. If you argue this point, you’re a moron—and everyone should remember that no one is going to socially re-engineer hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary biology by arguing on the internet.
The final problem is that people don’t know how to be social, and many are adopting antisocial behavior.
Silver lining: if you don’t do this stupid shit, it’s very easy to win. https://getbettersoon.substack.com/p/pickiness-how-men-and-women-miss
"I respect reality television as a medium" - you don't have to!
Bumble is what you find everyehere: Same old same old. If there are any worthwhile men there,they cleverly disguise themselves as clueless, boring willing-to-settlers. Having given many a chance to prove themselves otherwise, for many, many years, I've learned that WYSIWYG. They're always as mediocre as advertised.
So was Silver Singles, and now eharmony. Men never learn. The scammers write the best profiles.
My wife is an avid Love Island consumer (started years before the last season of Love Island US blew up and gained a big following into this season). It's intended to be binged and watched actively. I think quite a lot of people are watching an hour of something every night, and these women like watching Love Island. As a matter of fact, UK and US are on at the same time, so they're watching both. The "active" piece of this is audience participation; you can vote for who gets to stay, who gets to go, who gets to recourse, etc.
I would caution anyone from drawing any conclusions about cultural trends from Love Island. It is first and foremost a game show. They are participating for money first and for social media clout second. Some of them want a career in reality TV, so they're here to make a name for themselves. Some are already on TV, so they're there to bring in the viewers and may be getting paid per contract. Some are there just because they want to win, and you can tell who is doing that based on their actions in the villa. None of the coupling or dating is "real" in the sense that they're really trying to find love. Their choices are driven by what they think audiences want so that they can avoid getting kicked off and maximize their chances of being the couple that wins.
The issue with Bumble is that it relies on 1 gender to make the move, and it's the gender with hundreds of years of programming to not do so. I used it for a while when it was relatively new, I got a decent number of matches from it, and I watched almost all of those matches time out in complete helplessness as the app didn't permit me to do anything about them.
In painting women as the sole victim of the creeping evil of dating apps it was able to sell a feminist ideal, but it's not exactly a winning business strategy to intentionally limit activity for half the user base.
Bumble being one of the few apps not owned by Match is also worth noting, too. Hinge, Tinder, OKCupid, et. al. have the same parent corp.
Guys, if you kiss lot of princesses you might find on who likes frogs.
True women don’t need men like they once did because of increased economic freedom but the math now favours married couples. Go back a generation or so and a single guy could keep all his earnings to himself until he got married of course and many women had to live with parents or get by on service industry jobs until they found a man to support them. Back then they had a career path to be a stay at home wife with a promotion to stay at home mother, that career path is now pretty much gone for the (few?) that want it.
Going back a few more generations and men and women pretty much had to marry to survive. You needed a second person and a few kids to run a farm and collectively survive. There were other options but they weren’t great.
Anyway back to women don’t need men for money, true but both men and women are financially more secure when they can share resources.
Apps are too gameified by female users. Apparently holding a fish in photos is no good? 🤷♂️