The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Gentlemen (and ladies), it is with great pleasure to inform you that it is Wellness Wednesday, and with mild displeasure to inform you that I am once again asking for your dating/romance advice.
I previously asked for suggestions on how to deal with being banned from Hinge. Quick recap of my situation:
3.6 roentgenexactly average height for an American male, somewhat nebbish-looking due to glasses)Since my previous post, I have started going to the gym 3 times a week. I can already see some improvements in my physique. On the social side, I've started reconnecting with friends more, going to more parties, karaoke nights, etc. and I've become a "regular" at a couple of good date spots. I've been off dating apps the whole time. In the past 6 months, I met 2 prospects IRL and got 1-2 dates with each, but was rejected both times thereafter.
Honestly, I want to try meeting folks IRL for a little while longer. I've forgotten how interesting "day game" can be, since I've been using dating apps for so many years. If nothing materializes by March or so, I might go back to using apps.
To that end, there are 4 things I'm curious about:
Location, Location, Location
I lived in Manhattan for 5-10 years but moved out of the city for tax reasons around the time of the pandemic. It's still a convenient 20 minute commute to get to Lower Manhattan, but perhaps I'd be more attractive to women, or have more opportunities to meet them, if I actually lived in (a desirable neighborhood of) Manhattan.
I really don't have a great sense of how important this is; as I said, I left Manhattan around the pandemic, so it's not clear whether my relative lack of success in meeting women IRL is due to leaving the city, pandemic-era cultural shifts, becoming less attractive, or something else entirely.
Clubs
I know nothing about the nightclub scene in NYC and to be honest I don't really see the appeal of being surrounded by strangers in a dark, sweaty room where it's too loud to even have a decent conversation. But there is one aspect of clubbing that, in theory, intrigues me: a literal market where dollars can be exchanged for status and sex. To what extent is that a thing?
My career is going well enough that I would definitely be willing to spend ~$50,000 in a single night if it would guarantee me sex and/or a 50+% shot at a long-term relationship with an attractive woman who is my type (see above). My gut sense is that it can't just be as simple as spending a ton of money at a club, at least not with my average-to-below average looks. I am also aware that the kind of women who would make a good long-term partners are, shall we say, unlikely to be hanging around clubs and putting out for anyone who spends enough dough; however, I would be fine settling for hookups/casual sex with good-looking women whom I encounter in such situations while I search for a higher-quality partner elsewhere.
How much benefit in terms of sex, dates, and relationships can be purchased in the NYC club scene? And operationally, how does this work; do you just book a table/bottle service and then the employees bring girls to your table? I am totally clueless here.
Drugs and Augmentation
I cannot in good conscience write a post in a rat-adjacent community without throwing a bone to the transhumanist crowd:
Testosterone/anabolic steroids. I don't believe I have a testosterone deficiency or anything, but T or steroids could give a boost to my physique, height (slightly), and confidence. Has anyone completely turned their dating life around using these? Curious to hear about your experiences.
Laser eye surgery. As mentioned above, I wear glasses. Probably this detracts from my attractiveness somewhat, though it's hard to tell how much (FWIW, multiple women have told me [during glasses-off pillow talk] that I have beautiful eyes and eyelashes). There's also the benefit of having better vision than I currently do, and without the mild inconvenience of carrying glasses everywhere to boot.
Limb-lengthening surgery. Could make me a couple inches taller, but I'd still be under 6'. Worse, I think my friends and family would find it really weird if I did this. Honestly I am just including this one for the sake of completeness; there is very little chance that I'd actually go through with it, unless someone can convince me that the results are so life-changingly good that the expense, loss of QoL during the long recovery period, risk of complications, and mild social stigma are all worth it.
Matchmakers/Outsourcing
I am aware that soliciting a matchmaker rather contravenes my stated preference to swear off dating apps for a little while longer. Nonetheless, I am fascinated by the ads I sometimes see for so-called "elite" matchmaking services. They always set off my bullshit detector, but I suppose there is a chance that they really do work as advertised. Do quality women actually use these services? What's their success rate like?
In all honesty, though, more than a matchmaker, I would be perfectly happy to pay for a service that constructs profiles for me on all the major dating apps, takes my preferences into account, and then goes through the long grind of swiping for me so that I don't have to. Literally just an API where my photos go in, and matches with attractive women come out. How is this not a startup yet? Call it "Cyrano", slap a cool logo on it, and you'll be rolling in VC cash.
/r/SwipeHelper is great for teaching you how to get around bans, you should also immediately add every women you've gone out with/exchanged numbers with in the last few years to your block list once you get unbanned ofc
I have other advice but I have to ask if you're willing to relocate somewhere with a market more favorable to you. I also think the Asian fetish is something you should get over. One way it holds you back is that the major cities with lots of Asian women in America also have the worst sex ratios for men.
Relocation in maybe 2-3 years time is an option, so what’s your other advice?
Also, doesn’t NYC famously have a very favorable sex ratio for men, as well as plenty of Asian women?
Yes but NYC seems to be a different meta entirely, very different sorts of women congregate there and you're competing with world-class elites.
I would look into blue cities in red states, many have surprisingly good demographics for you minus the Asian fetish.
Once you are getting matches on a dating app consistently and are in a better city, I can explain the basic strategy to get laid on first/second dates. After that it's just a matter of converting one to a long-term relationship which is the easiest step. I'm not amazing at this but your success rate doesn't have to be that high for you to be rarely single and have minimal dry spells. YMMV if you're much lower SMV than me. Chances are if you're new to regular online dating you're making mistakes that someone with experience can help you avoid but it takes time to understand and fix them. You are much more financially successful but lookswise unclear. We're both South Asian and are pretty much in the "want an LTR but are fine with hookups along the way" bucket. Definitely don't shave the beard, on balance 3mm stubble will help you with women across the board even if it turns off some with peculiar preferences.
One thing that will help you going forward is taking vacations now. In the next three years no reason you can't spend a week each in, say, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, Tokyo, and two other major global cities. It gives you much more to talk about on a first date and women are much more enamored with travel than men.
Curious what this is?
Also curious what these are
The basics are to take her two different bars, one quieter where you can have a "real" conversation and beat her at pool or connect 4, then a second louder one where she's forced to lean in to hear you speak which gives you good kino opportunities. Look for some favorite media you have in common or if you have a pet and she's interested in meeting them and use that as a link to invite her home. If she says she has to leave ask her if she wants to listen to music in your car and kiss her, you'll likely seal the deal on a second date. But like I said most men who are failing are making mistakes that I can point out, it varies a lot but usually has to do with coming off too polite and like you're putting too much effort into getting her out which screams desperation and that you have too much time on your hands. To identify any other mistake would take a longer conversation.
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