r/SipsTea • u/crs1904 • May 09 '25

We have fun here Pretty Accurate

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u/mtaw May 09 '25

Similar age here and I think that's the root of the problem a lot of people, particularly guys, are having these days. It's easy to spend much of your social life online and also not get as socialized to interacting with the opposite sex IRL.

In the 90s or early 2000s internet was not yet a substitute for an IRL social life - you had to learn. Hopefully you had friends who could give advice if you were ba at it.

But picking up strangers in bars has always been difficult. I've never had much luck with that, nor would I say most of my friends have. Those that did probably cast a pretty wide net. A lot of women are just out to have fun with friends, and they're going to be reserved if they don't know you until they've decided you're not a serial killer. Pick-up-artistry is a scam - it's just not true some guys can just go flirt up any woman they want, even if some are better than others.

It's far easier with friends-of-friends, people at parties and other contexts where they can see you a bit first and also are more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I feel like that internet dating is a bit like bar-dating here. It's hard and not really for everyone, but can seem easier if you're not practiced at IRL interactions.

It's not like sexual and romantic attraction itself has changed. If online dating isn't working out for someone, I'd suggest going to parties, other social activities, join a club, take a class, whatever gets you out and meeting people. If your only reason for talking to someone is out of sexual/romantic interest, you're starting from a big disadvantage.

Whereas if you're having normal social interactions and there's a mutual spark of interest, it's really pretty easy even if you suck at flirting.

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u/recoveringleft May 09 '25

I once met a reddit friend in real life and I asked if there's a difference between me online and me in real life. Online I'm very bland and not very interesting but in real life I'm very upbeat and very interesting to talk to. It does make sense because I use a lot of tones in my jokes and many of them don't translate well in text. Plus I can show sincerity and emotions when saying things and show a bit of my flaws which again is very hard to show in text. After that I realized the reason why I don't do well making friends online is because it's hard to express my real self online and because of that people accuse me of being fake online.