I’m a 54-year-old man, recently separated from my wife of 31 years - just earlier this month. Honestly, I’m already feeling bored and lonely, so I’ve been considering trying out dating apps (I’ve never used one before). However, my sons (30 and 28) tell me it’s a waste of time and possibly even a scam, and I’ve seen similar opinions online. So I’m not sure what to think.
I used them for maybe 3/4 of a year to one year (dont know exactly) and it was the biggest time waste I have been part of. I usually spent about 1 hour per day swiping all potential partners the app suggested me. I swiped almost everything right, as long as they did not have any obvious red flags or they didnt looked like a person I could be attracted to. I had the radius set to 50km what meant, that I was getting potential partners from 2 larger Citys.
The result of this about 1 year of using the app was probably like 10 matches, maybe 2 actually good chats that resolved into me having to pull everything out of the others nose in like 3 days. That’s it. No exchanging numbers, no dates nothing. It only made me feel more lonely due to my “obvious incapabilities to attract a partner” (of course not, but that’s what it felt like). There devinetively is a chance of them working (one of my best friends found his GF on a dating app), but that’s like saying “theres a chance to win in the lottery, and it could be you who wins it”. It is not impossible for the apps to work, but for the majority of people dating apps are an absolute scam that are actively hurting you. After realising, what a time waste these apps are I just decided to give up on dating, because there is a zero percent chance of me actually being able to find a partner in real life. I never dated, I dont know how to do it and at this point I honestly do not fucking care. If by some miracle I might get the chance to get into a relationship I won’t say no, but until then I’m fine the way I currently life.
Don’t do this, if this is an input into your app’s algorithm at all it’ll assume you’re ugly and desperate and not show you to anyone. Only swipe on people you’d be at least potentially excited to meet and that could actually work out (e.g. don’t swipe right on someone who’s profile says “I want a man of god” if you’re a hardcore atheist). I shifted to this strategy on hinge and it made a noticeable difference in the number and quality of matches.
Think about it - if you only swipe right on good matches (for both of you), they’ll see you and be more likely to swipe right on you, improving your match rate. And don’t worry about how their level of attractiveness plays into this, because it’ll be weighted for that.
I devinetively had some principles. Anyone who stated that they are rightwing, believed in some form of conspiracy theories, looked like they just need someone’s money to spend, whose profile looks like whose whole personality is how they look like and people that I simply didnt thought looked attractive did not get a right swipe. This sorted out about 20% or so of the people the Algorithm showed to me. The rest got a right swipe, because they looked somewhat attractive and had no really obvious dealbreakers. They might have some things that I may not really like, but would be willing to overlook (e.g. smoking).