@momsquad My understanding, from my kids and their friends is that unless 2 people have defined the relationship, DTR in shorthand, dating others is fair game these days and there are no expectations otherwise.
Isn’t he in Seattle, @Marilyn ? He would fit right in with my D’s friend group. They tried to go to a bar once for karaoke but it wasn’t open yet. CC meets Bagel, Seattle edition.
My oldest got on Tinder for six months specifically to get better at conversing with young women. It worked very well and he has tried to convince S2 to do it.
Thanks, @momsquad, I’ve been “suggesting” online dating to him for a while since it’s doubtful he’ll ever meet anyone another way.
Looks isn’t just looks. You can often tell a lot from the look, how comfortable they are with themselves, etc. Of course, it can also be misleading.
Thanks @doschicos, I need to learn a whole new set of acronyms- though after hearing about the site “DTF” nothing should shock me anymore…
@momsquad, I remember talking to my D this summer about exactly that - when it is ok or not ok to be dating a couple different people? I told her she would know when it was time to make a decision - when she would start to feel an awkwardness due to feeling more strongly - a definite more strongly - about one over the other. And she did. It was a little sad and awkward for her to tell #1 - “time to move on” - but once she did it was like a weight was off and she felt much more free to enjoy and FEEL the relationship with #2.
@runnersmom Sorry if I offended you. It wasn’t pointed at you. I didn’t like their business approach. It seemed they were praying on people’s unhealthy worship of prestige and exclusivity. Signing up for it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the consumer of course.
Did you know the same parent company owns tinder, match.com okcupid and plenty of fish, among others?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_(company)
I’ve been on and off several dating sites over the last 8 years or so. First shock was how many ladies had been married 3-4 times by the age of 40. Next is how hard it is to meet an honest person. A lot of ladies use the dating sites for free meals. Even in this day and age the man is expected to pay for everything. I looked on several sites today for the first time in 6 months and the majority of ladies are the same ones from before. A lot of these ladies have been on these sites as long as me. Makes it hard to meet anyone if it’s the same ladies year after year.
Online dating is a skill. Like any other skill, you start out clueless and improve with practice.
S has met the woman he’s been dating for nearly a year now online. I’m not sure which website, but they are very cute together and seem quite comfortable with one another. I don’t think they would have met any other way, as their circles don’t overlap much (she’s in marketing and he’s in engineering).
So far, I don’t think D has had the energy to deal with dating. She has lots of friends, including 3 males who share the house with her. It will be interesting to see if she does any online dating and what results she has from it. She lives in LA, so that’s a major metro area and there should be lots of folks within a pretty close distance. S lives in DC/Arlington, so that’s another major metro area, and I believe there are lots of young folks there.
One key difference is the size of the active userbase. An online dating website/app may be designed well and great in theory, but if it has few active matches you find desirable, it’s generally not worth the effort. In my area, the 3 websites with the largest active userbases are POF, OK Cupid, and Match.com. Another key division is whether it is a pay subscription site, free site, or somewhere in between. Of the 3 above, POF and OK Cupid are close enough to free to function without a subscription. Match.com is not. Being free is not always a good thing. Some believe that there is a higher quality of matches on certain pay sites and/or persons who put more time in to their profile. Another key division is how they filter matches. Some sites filter matches and only send you a few at a time, such as eHarmony and CoffeMeetsBagel. Others have some kind of optional filters, such as sorting by match % on OKC or POF only allowing persons who meet certain criteria to contact you, such as age and distance range. Some have more creative filtering methods, such as Bumble having women initiate conversations. Some mostly fill out profile based on Facebook and/or select matches based on Facebook friends. Some emphasize quickly swiping thorough many members based on appearance and quickly meeting without long conversations beforehand, such as Tinder or Grinder. Such sites tend to have a larger portion of users looking for “hookups”. Others tend to have more marriage focused persons, such as eHarmony or AnastasiaDate. Some emphasize special groups, such as JDate or AshleyMadison. Some cater to very small specialized groups, such as AmishDating or SeaCaptainDate. Sites also have different levels of privacy, and in some cases very unbalanced male/female ratios.
As I mentioned earlier, I had the most success with eHarmony. I didn’t have much success with OKC, in spite of the larger userbase in my area. In my case, I suspect this related to a variety of factors. One was the style of messaging I mentioned with long messages and spending time getting to know someone lending itself more to the eHarmony members. Another was the more limited number of active matches, resulting in a smaller degree of competition. Another was the more long term relationship focused userbase was more likely to be interested in my profile, which comes across as a a better option for a long term relationship with having life together and such. Another was me doing better with answering the specific EH profile questions than other sites that had a more open ended profile.
“in some cases very unbalanced male/female ratios.”
In my extremely brief peek into OKC, it seemed to be very lopsided.
If you overanalyze, you’ll probably never leap. Then the results are zip.
This isn’t arranged marriage. It’s casual meeting. By minimally filtering, you get better odds (even in theory)than the old jokey advice to meet men in the produce aisle. Or joining a Meet Up and hoping one of those guys or gals is free and that your interests align one iota.
I actually think Meet Up groups (which are usually organized around an activity or interest) are a good way to meet people, men and women. I’ve had a positive experience with the two that I’ve joined (but I’m not trying to meet The One).
This New Yorker magazine cover made me think of this thread. Happy Valentine’s Day and may your loved ones find their soul mates in the coming year!
If you go in blind with minimal filtering and no strategy or analysis, online dating is likely be an unpleasant experience, with a lot of wasted time.
For example, in my area, it’s common for very attractive younger women on OK Cupid to get hundreds of messages per day. It would be impractical for them to participate on the website without some kind of filtering. It’s common for this group to try to filter by updating their profile to include statements like "don’t message me unless… ", but this generally doesn’t work well. Modifying pictures to target specific groups would work better. However, I’d expect the more common filtering method is more skimming through the messages and seeing who catches their eye based on pictures, location, and match %; maybe messaging them and skipping the others.
Similarly men who don’t have any kind of analysis or filtering and instead send a message to the woman that catches their eye, who is getting hundreds of other messages per day, are unlikely to have any kind of success. This leads to men applying more filtering about who they send messages to, as well as employing various other strategies. For example, one common strategy (not one I use) is cut and pasting the same intro to a large women and see who replies back, sort of like how some students apply to a large number of colleges when faced with a low acceptance rate, except with online dating there is no guarantee the other party will read the message.
As mentioned earlier, I avoid this scenario by favoring dating sites that only send a few matches at a time (matches that in theory are supposed to have in increased chance of compatibility). With a few matches at a time, filtering is far more simple, and there is a often a much greater chance of reply. Women are not inundated with hundreds or replies per day, and both genders are likely to spend more time on the few matches that they do receive, reading through the profile and thinking about whether they’d like to meet this person.
@Data10 - which sites only send a few matches at a time? I used Match and got almost 10 a day, many of which were “100%” match because we both liked dining out! I kid you not.
Coffee Meets Bagel sends 1 per day and The League also limits the number sent.
Is there any kind of sophistication and/or machine learning in the matching algorithms? Or do people match based on living not too far from one another, being about the right sex and age, and liking puppies and eating out?
It seems like many of these sites would have ungodly amounts of data about what matches were successful – not necessarily in terms of marriage, but in terms of multiple meetings – and it would be sad if their data weren’t being mined in some way. Also, I wonder/worry that dating-app couples could be too matchy-matchy, while couples who met via paleolithic methods are often not matchy-matchy at all, at least not in superficial ways.