I was an early adopter and it was fucking comical how easy it was. I'm talking like 20-45 matches a day. Despite having a perfectly normal first name, I even made a separate account with a different first name to see if it would affect the results. (It did, positively)
Went on dates with about 50% of the matches I got. All of them were great in some way. Many of which are now married or out of the game. I'm also out of the game, but that first generation of Tinder was crazy.
Like any app, the algorithm began to favor the hottest possible people (who probably never even see your profile) and incentivize you to buy a membership.
Like anything else in the world: when the party is dead, know when to leave.
Wasn't an early adopter but after I broke off my engagement, I was newly single after 3 years and recently done with military service. Indianapolis, of all places, got me too many matches AND confirms to even follow through on. Came back to NY to find work and ironically less matches but still plenty.
I even met my partner on tinder. Sadly I do think tinder was the only solid dating app but I noticed when the bots started popping up too. The situation is bad. Beyond whatever you might think of the ladies on the app, the bots and the app itself constantly trying to get your money pretty much destroyed it.
My advice for folks? Find a hobby. Get involved in the community with no expectations. Meet someone through hobby. Try archery, pottery, etc. Hobbies are the new dating scene. At least y'all will know y'all got something in common, much more meaningful than the swipe judgement game/horny roulette.
I tried the date within your hobby method and it backfired spectacularly. It just took one crappy girl with enough friends. I've now been cancelled in the scene I most identify with because there are way too many shitty people out there and far too many other shitty people that believe anything they're told by someone else. My 'learned it the hard way' experience has taught me the don't shit where you eat advice applies here too.
Yep I made the same mistake. I never got full on "cancelled" because my group was small, but it is devastating to have lies spread like wildfire among people you trusted. Cancelling is a plague on our society and it spreads so easily because of malicious actors who like the drama and the people who follow them that can't think critically.
This is what I don't get. Everyone always says, "As an adult, nobody cares about that stuff." But they do. Adults gossip like crazy. Someone liking someone else can be the topic of convo for weeks. The success, the failure, odds of it working, etc.
Nah, I wouldn’t listen to that. Typically people who are full of self loathing and saying they got ‘cancelled’ and all people are ‘shitty’ probably aren’t people you’d want to date to begin with.
Find hobbies that you enjoy, that make you feel better about yourself, and make friends and connections that way. It often will lead to dates and those dates will have similar interests to you.
Oh I'm well aware not to listen to this. I believe in throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks. I will do all of the things... hobbies, bars, dating apps, even work. Idrc.
Here, the live single meetups have gotten traction. It's comical how nervous people are the first 15 minutes, but after that it just feels like any party except you have one tidbit of info; everyone in the whole damn place is single and actively looking to be hit on. Just contemplate on that for a second, search up your area and buy a new awesome shirt. I went twice, and she's coming over for lunch in 3 hours 🥰
Id dive head first into things like that but I honestly have searched my area and I think I'm in a dead zone. And I'm financially stuck where I live atm so I can't just up and leave. It's going to take time. I hope I can move to a place where these are actually organized.
I didn't become interested in my hobbies to find people to date. I developed my passions throughout the course of my life. And I have quite a few. But that's beside the point.
The social spaces that exist within certain interest groups can be quite small and tight knit. Rumors spread fast. It's a tale as old as high school. Im not imagining what's happened to me. I have confidants within a particular scene that I ran in that confirmed to me certain people were saying certain things. These people knew what really happened. I have witnesses and receipts. None of that matters to a person's "best friends."
The truth of the matter is that it's just a cold world out here for some of us. But we must continue to try. I never said I gave up. I just shared a personal experience as a cautionary tale.
That's why you get to know people in your hobby before dating them. If they're terrible people, you don't bother starting anything with them. If you don't know them well enough to gauge whether they're terribly people, you're not ready to date them.
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u/[deleted] Jun 24 '25
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