Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by max68 1209 days ago
I completely agree with this if you're just talking about dating apps. When you give everyone the ability to look at every attractive person in their area, it changes people's perspective of what's attractive/not. Also, people are almost solely rated on how attractive they are and 100 words to describe yourself (sometimes less depending on the app), you get a situation where the attractive people get tons of matches and less attractive people get fewer even if they have more to offer than just their looks. Finally, women seem to rate attractiveness on a long tail distribution. It's a nightmare all around.

What's funny to me though is how different the IRL dating scene is. I got 1-2 matches a week (very few where I would get a response back) when I was on the apps, but through meeting friends-of-friends, casually going to a bar, meeting people at church, or other normal events, I can consistently get dates that would be out of my league on the apps just by introducing myself. I don't have stats for "epic bed partners" since that's not something I'm interested in, but I'm sure it would translate for those that are.

I find that people in my age group (early 20s) are moving from app dating to irl because apps can seem hopeless unless you really optimize which seems unauthentic. I think there's going to be a generation who will have trouble finding partners, like you said, but I feel like my generation and the folks younger than me will be alright.

Edit: I also want to point out that it's pretty bad in tech where people are constantly moving (I know a guy who moved once a year between SF, Seattle, Denver, NY, and Charlotte) to new cities all the time and can't create good, deep friendships. First, if you're dating irl, it's tough meeting people who can introduce you to single women. Second, it's hard to be a good date if you don't have friends. I don't even want to explain that, but it should be obvious.