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If I didn't like what I saw, I was quick to swipe left. No thought other than, nope, not what I think I like. Hair, eyes, skin color, height, weight all became your stats in a world where I had never used statistics to make my choice of who I might be interested in. Yes, all those things did and do continue to play a part of who I am interested in, but online they became all I saw, and I left little room to be more open-minded than had I been meeting these gentlemen in person.
Sometimes you just don't know you're best angles, and sometimes you do, which is why I always say buyer beware when it comes to what you think you're getting online. While none of these apps call themselves games, it doesn't take much effort to realize that that is exactly what they are.
Video games, if you will, where you become the player, and everyone else is the game. They say don't hate the player, hate the game, and that is exactly what ended up happening for me. I hated the game and playing only made me like myself less and less. Going off the idea that these things are a game with rules, I quickly found myself changing who I was to best "win" at the game. I was holding myself back, I was playing up certain parts of myself, and playing down other characteristics, all so I could be more "desirable.
I became who I thought I was supposed to be, not who I was. I acted more way casual, and less emotional than I really am. I put only the best pictures of myself out there, but not what I look like when I wake up in the morning. I filtered myself in basically every way, and took what makes me uniquely special out of the equation, so I could be more "marketable.
It's dishonest, dull and way too technical for something that shouldn't be so systematic.
While I didn't realize this till months later, I was simply unhappy with my life. I was using the idea of dating as an escape from my own life because well, it's an easy distraction, and even easier the more venues, or apps, you have to keep the hunt alive. I don't think this is necessarily true for everyone facilitating these tools, but I do think it's way more common than many people realize.
It's another numbing device in the avoidance of ourselves. Focusing your attention on others as a way to not look in the mirror, and find what is truly wrong, hurting or uncomfortable at this moment in our own lives. It's really easy to think that when you find someone a lot of your issues will just subside or disappear, but the truth is until you start to work on you, you'll never be happy, coupled up or single.
One of the hardest things to do is look in the mirror and be honest with yourself because there usually is a lot of sadness, confusion and disappointment. However, when you finally admit this to yourself, you take the first step to changing all of that. Thinking about who I could meet, having numerous conversations with multiple people and trying to keep up with all of it was exhausting. Call me old-fahsioned, but I think there is something beyond romantic about meeting someone, one person, and courting each other. Finding out about each other, focusing on just him and seeing where it could go.
Having Larry, Moe and Curly in the wings just kept me unnecessarily anxious, unfocused and a part of the three stooges. As I chatted, met and repeated each of these steps with guy after guy, and there even was one named, Guy, I found myself constantly sitting across the table from someone, who wasn't on my page. Maybe it was the guys I was swiping right to, the app I was choosing to facilitate or any other number of reasons, but it seemed like most of these men didn't actually want a relationship.
They wanted someone to have dinner, a conversation or sex with, but not actually a relationship.
There's a starter for you! I was using the idea of dating as an escape from my own life because well, it's an easy distraction, and even easier the more venues, or apps, you have to keep the hunt alive. I have dated many women I found "attractive". Women have all the power. Yeah, I got a bunch of "hey sexy! I'm not sure why, but I'm guessing it has something to do with how I wrote my profile, as well as the pictures I chose to show. Consider what we've done so far.
Winning meant different things to different people, but it never felt like there was two winners at the end of it all, and in my opinion, there is no point in taking part in anything where you don't have two winners. I truly believe it's either two winners, or two losers and the later played out far too frequently in this unwinnable game. In the end we all have the right to do, act and say as we please, but as I had swam through the never ending pool of virtual daters, I found myself tired, numb and even more bored than when I had started.
I didn't like the shallow conversations I was having to have over and over again. I didn't like the lack of emotion that was fostered through staring at my screen for hours, and I didn't like that I felt bad day after day about not finding what I had been searching for. After being off all dating apps for about a year, I can honestly say I am more at peace with my life, my love life and myself. I have met some great guys in real life, "organically," if you will, who have showed me that there are some great ones still out there, and you don't need to be staring at your screen to find them.
Frankly, you need to be doing the opposite. Look up, look around you, look all over. There are great, funny, interesting individuals all over the place: The key is to just get over yourself, and say hi. We let so many people walk right past us, sit down next to us, and stare at us, but never take a leap of faith and say hi because we don't have a buffer.
Forget about the buffer, forget about your pride, forget about everything because when you see someone in real life, and they give you butterflies, you need to honor that feeling and fly with them. Dating isn't a game, there shouldn't be rules, and the longer you stay a player the longer you just get stuck playing a video game.
Dont be a disrespectful creep, because not only will you not get anywhere yourself, but you will ruin it for all the nice guys. Give some of them a chance. The ones who arent being disrespectful dont deserve to be brushed off just because "eh, Ill get more like them anyway. Dont complain about how all guys are the same when you only go after certain types of guys and ignore ones that are possibly different. They dont want someone to treat them like a sex object and make creepy remarks about their bodies. Also learn to take no for an answer. If shes not into it let it go, dont harass her.
I agree with what the AW in the interview said. Most of the guys who messaged me were older men posing as men in their twenties. I got messaged a lot by guys who just were interested in hooking up, a decent number of which had fetishes, some of which were kind of terrifying.
I went on 20 dates all of which ended in flames. One guy talked about his ex the whole time and then told me he planned to take me to his family reunion for the second date to meet his family. Another told me he was talking me to dinner, drove me to his place and then demanded I clean his apartment if I wanted a ride home. Another completely lied on his profile and I thought he was just another nice college student.
He was 35, jobless, living in his car because his ex threw him out and he was hoping he could crash with me in exchange for sex. The only successful date I went on was with a nice guy pretty far on the spectrum. Unfortunately we didn't match very well in real life and now are just friends. I'm incredibly introverted person so I have to say, I'm still pretty traumatized from the experience.
I messaged guys and only responded to messages that seemed to be from "nice" guys. I am not huge on looks, I could care less about colors or height or things. I really based my selection off of the profiles the guy's wrote. I don't care a ton about education level, I honestly was looking for a nice guy to sit down and talk to but got nothing more than a horror show. I work with all men so I am very sympathetic to the nice guys out there who get the short end of the stick.
It just takes a very thick skin, a lot of courage and energy for us ladies to put ourselves out there like that, same as you. A lot of nice girls aren't cut out for it, so try to be patient and understanding. It's obvious we speak different languages. Men, we need to stop being afraid of rejection. I'm happily single, but not for lack of options.
If I see a pretty woman, I say hi. If she's into me, great. If not, her loss.
If you work on being the man you want to become, you don't have to worry about some girl sifting through profiles to find you. Geek or no geek dating: But this is my humble opinion after dating and trying for years. It's time to wake up and grow up i guess; maybe they would date real women for a change, or it will be pumping a soullessclone or avatar pretty soon. The elites are already on to it for 50 to 70 years Saying that men destroy the planet and all it's citizens provides a pretty good explanation of why you're finding what you find when you look for men.
You used a 19 year old girl for this survey? She can't even qualify for half the profile questions AND she was online for 1 week? I think the legitimate women are online because of busy work schedules and lifestyles and they don't hang out anywhere much My reason too.. The rest of the "flakes" yep , met three flakes in 2months online have insecurity issues , are demanding to the point that they should probably start adopting cats for the future they will eventually be that older woman with a bunch of cats , sad but So WHY would a woman resort to online dating if real life meetings and dating was working for her?
Cause they were NOT working for her!! They were extremely unsuccessful in the real world so the last resort is get tons of attention online and live in that fantasy romance which will prob never happen.. Hi - No, actually at the time of this interview she was in her mid's and already married. She was talking about her past experiences with the service. The author says that men are mistaken when they think that women pick through messages and discard them all without answering.
Then the author interviews a women who describes how and why she picked through messages and discarded them all without answering. Are men also mistaken to assume that women aren't putting any serious effort into finding someone via online dating while guys are laboring over carefully crafting personalized messages for months? Because the interviewed woman quit after one week and sent no messages.
I was crushed when my boyfriend of three years left to be with another woman. I cried and sobbed every day, until it got so bad that I reached out to the Internet for help. I wasted so much time and effort trying to get him back until I hit on the real thing. And that is Dr Mack. He was different from all the rest Thanks Dr Mack from the depths of my soul!