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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3357 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 6, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Does anyone have any good links to blogs or posts about how to use dating apps optimally? I figure someone has this stuff figured out

Respond to women in variable ratio intervals, and only in a way that increases their engagement.

Gwern has done the public service of archiving the old OKCupid data blog. Still the best resource online for how people actually use online dating, deleted for its honesty. You'll have to adapt that to swipe apps, of course, but a lot of food for thought.

The cursor blinked on an empty screen.

Question:

How do you have so many photos of yourself? I have three photos a year taken of me. Are you taking loads of photos? Did you take a weekend photo shoot?

Ask nicely or bribe a friend who has a decent phone or camera. Unless you want to pay for a professional photographer.

(Girls have it so easy. Women be taking photos of each other.)

He tapped his foot faster with every passing second.

Contrarian take: if your goal is to actually find a soul mate and not just a number of short flings, don't do this. Be yourself, aggressively. DO mention your less conventional hobbies like anime on your profile, unapologetically. Be creative and unique and weird, in a way that turns off almost everyone EXCEPT for that rare person who actually likes who you are.

I did this for several years, and 90%+ of the women I messaged ignored me completely. I barely got any responses, and the conversations I did have usually didn't lead anywhere since I was a weird goofball. And then a girl who had D&D listed in her bio responded positively to my D&D inspired pickup line and we dated for several years before eventually getting married. And now we stay at home playing board games and playing with cats instead of having to do stupid things like go hiking or eating at restaurants the way I would if I had managed to convince a normal girl to date me.

Your advice is excellent for maximizing engagement. But you will spend a lot of time dating a lot of average people who like average things if you take it too far. Obviously some of your advice is just general good advice for emphasizing your positive traits that you already have and doesn't run into this issue. But I think being authentic in a negative way (by normie standards) is actually useful to help filter out the normies and find someone else who shares your quirks.

I think this debate might be a question of satisficers vs optimisers/maximisers.

This is further complicated by the dual dating strategy of satisficing for short term while simultaneously maximising for long term (and maintaining the facade of not committing to either while remaining open to both).

This is still further complicated by dating questionnaires that focus on trivia and are trivially gameable. "Do you think it's okay to cheat on dating questionnaires? Yes/No". Hmmmmm... nnno. Wow, so match percentage.

D&D isn't weird anymore. I see tons of women's profiles mention D&D, and my photo of me at my weekly bar game with mixed genders gets me absolutely nowhere.

She locked the door and exhaled slowly.

I still would avoid obvious icky hobbies on a dating profile. Anime has a very strong association with porn, child porn, and childishness. Video games tend to send immature and irresponsible signals. If you have a weird hobby that’s fairly active, creative, or social, fine. But the goal here is to get a woman to want to take a chance on you. It’s like searching for a job in a sense — anything that would make a woman hesitant to hit the “buy” button is probably not a good idea. One in a thousand find a gamer girl. But at the cost quite often of having hundreds of women see anime and gaming in the bio and deciding to not engage.

One in a thousand find a gamer girl. But at the cost quite often of having hundreds of women see anime and gaming in the bio and deciding to not engage.

This is the point. It's not that for each random woman who sees your profile you roll a random die and there's a 99% chance you lose her interest. It's that for each woman when she was born and grew up life rolled a random die and there's a 99% chance that she became the kind of person who would lose interest in a man who likes anime and video games. If you want to date a woman who hates anime and videogames then I suppose you might consider scaring her off to be a bad thing, but if you want to find that gamer girl then the normie woman is an obstacle. A waste of your time. Instead of spending hours, days, years of your life sending messages and spending time with women who would have been scared off by videogames and anime but you kept by playing it cool, you could instead scare them all off and then the only people left are the gamer girls.

You don't have time to date 1000 women. If you're some super hot gigachad I suppose you could if you go on a brand new date every day for three years without breaks or repeats. But realistically, that's way too many. But if you scare 99% of them off (and not randomly, you're scaring the worst 99% off) you DO have time to message and date the remaining 10 until you find the perfect one in a thousand.

But if you don’t get any hits or very few because your “about me” is full of anime and gaming, im assuming that this is a major part of your life, much like I’d assume that someone who mentions golf on their profile has golf as a major part of their life, and probably will spend most weekends on the course. Someone who’s into gaming enough to mention it on a dating profile is likely going to game at least 25 hours a week, and maybe more. If I’m looking for a person I might want to marry, I don’t see that in a guy who spends most of his free time with a controller in his hands. And I do like gaming, I just don’t want my life to consist of trying to squeeze in all the other stuff around the hobbies of gaming and anime.

Again, these are correct signals that I am sending intentionally. This IS a major part of my life. I DO spend at least 25 hours a week on anime and games. If you are looking to do "all the other stuff" that isn't gaming and anime and squeeze it around then you're not my 1 in 1000 and I don't want to marry you. That just sounds like a recipe for constant conflict and strife. While some amount of compromise is important in a relationship, and you should sometimes do things the other person wants to do for their sake, the less it's necessary because you both want the same things, the better. If one person expects to go out and do things all the time and the other wants to stay home all the time then at any point in time only one of them is getting their way. So if anyone sees this and realizes that I'm not the right person for them because I'm literally not the right person for them then good, we can both save some time and try to find someone more compatible. In practice, this did turn into me getting very few hits for precisely that reason. Most women saw my profile, made this assumption about me (correctly), they thought this was a negative trait, and then they didn't want to talk to me. Mission accomplished.

Because one did want to talk to me. Instead of dating and/or marrying someone like that, I found someone with whom I get to keep doing videogames and anime and my wife will do them with me. Well, she doesn't care for anime that much, but we play lots of games together. Sometimes we're just sitting next to each other playing completely separate games and she'll giggle as the monsters die and it's adorable. And sometimes she'll want to go somewhere and do something and I'll suck it up and go because it's not very often, because she's mostly like me and genuinely wants to be at home most of the time.

It ultimately comes down to how wide a net you're willing to case. Yes, if you're looking for someone who shares interests that 99% of women find unattractive (but not so unattractive as to be dealbreakers), and you aren't willing to date someone who doesn't share these interests, then just put it out there as a filter. If, however, like most people, you don't expect the person you're dating to like 100% of everything you like, then it's not worth scaring anyone off. Remember, these women have options, and the last thing you want to do is give them a reason to hit the dump button before making an attempt to get to know you. I've learned from my own habits that it doesn't take much to set this off. Not that it's necessarily anything negative, but that the profile provides so little information that I wouldn't even know where to start. You have to give me something to work with if you want me to start a conversation with you. If 99% of women aren't into anime or video games, and it isn't something that otherwise makes you look attractive, then even if it's ultimately neutral it's not doing much. And beyond the truly negative stereotypes, it signals that you're the kind of guy who sits around the house all day and doesn't get out much.

There's a difference between someone sharing all of your interests, and someone who is willing to tolerate all of your interests. Even if they don't share the same hobbies, you don't want to date someone who fundamentally is unwilling to accept a part of you. If someone is going to be scared off by me liking anime, I want to scare them off instantly, not 5 dates later when they find out. Now, granted, there is some middle ground where some people might be willing to accept anime in someone who they already know is sane and not a pedophile but would screen it off on a stranger, but that still indicates some level of judgemental that I personally would rather filter out too.

And beyond the truly negative stereotypes, it signals that you're the kind of guy who sits around the house all day and doesn't get out much.

Yes, this. This is who I am, this is who I deliberately signaled that I am. The kind of person I filtered for is someone who not only doesn't have a problem with this, but sees it as a positive. The woman who I eventually found and married is the kind of woman who sits around the house all day and doesn't get out much. We have literally never gone out on a restaurant date just the two of us, because neither of us enjoys that environment and only go in a group when socially pressured by friends and family. When given the choice, we usually stay home and play games, where we both want to be.

Positives and negatives are subjective and high variance. And ultimately are scored from the single unique perspective of the person you end up with. They are not averaged. Your value as a romantic partner is not the average value ascribed to you by women collectively, but the value from the perception of the one person you actually end up with. So if you have niche interests and traits with high variance, where rather than everyone slightly disliking them, some people strongly dislike them and other rarer people strongly like them, then you want to filter for and find the people who like them, and then they become positive traits.

I understand what you're saying, and I'm happy for you, but GP was giving generalized advice. Like I said, most people aren't that selective. I can't imagine giving someone dating advice that consists of "list all your fringe interests that won't impress women at best and turn them off at worst and plug away for years with little success in the hopes of attracting your one true love". It's not what most people are looking for. And while I understand not wanting to get too involved before finding out it's a dealbreaker, it's not like you're going to keep it a secret. Like I said in my post, when you're online dating, you are your profile, and you're going to be your profile until she meets you in person. The profile is to get your foot in the door; after you actually meet, you're a real person, and discussing hobbies and interests is fair game for a first date, and you can tell her whatever you want on that front. And if you think that one date is too much of an investment to be worth the risk, then online dating just isn't for you, period.

I can't imagine giving someone dating advice that consists of "list all your fringe interests that won't impress women at best and turn them off at worst and plug away for years with little success in the hopes of attracting your one true love".

Nobody is giving that advice. They are saying "if you like something, it's fine to put it in your profile", because they believe (correctly imo) that those who are put off by that are people you don't want to date anyway. There's no need to obsessively list everything which might be a red flag for someone somewhere, the point is to just be yourself and not worry about those who don't like that.

Yes, this. This is who I am, this is who I deliberately signaled that I am. The kind of person I filtered for is someone who not only doesn't have a problem with this, but sees it as a positive. The woman who I eventually found and married is the kind of woman who sits around the house all day and doesn't get out much. We have literally never gone out on a restaurant date just the two of us, because neither of us enjoys that environment and only go in a group when socially pressured by friends and family.

I thought my girlfriend and I were the most introverted couple out there, but we like going to restaurants and visiting scenic sites. Though I admit, there's a lot of "watch youtube on the couch."

It's interesting that a lot of dating advice is "be attractive" "be extraverted", and introverts have a hard time dating. I wonder at times how introverted women are meeting men. Perhaps the answer is "they aren't"; I have a theory that introverted women make up a majority of the "women going their own way" and not dating. I don't know that I've ever dated, or seriously considered dating, or asked out, a woman I would consider extraverted, and I wonder at times whether this contributed to my limited success back when I was on the market.

Which is weird because you would think that online dating would be the perfect environment for introverts. I never was able to work up the courage to ask out a girl in real life. I could never quite tell when it would be creepy and unwelcome and when it would be fine, so I always erred on the side of caution. But online dating everyone is there explicitly for the purpose of meeting people and can ghost you the instant they feel uncomfortable, so I didn't have to worry about that and could just be honest about being attracted to people. And can do it from the comfort of my home and not have to go outside and meet people in real life and do public social stuff with lots of people when I'm trying to have a one on one conversation.

Maybe the issue is that most of the shy introverted women get scared off by the tons of attention and unsolicited dick pics from creepy guys even online, and then the shy introverted men are left in a sea of women who have thick enough skins to stay anyway.

Yes, if you're looking for someone who shares interests that 99% of women find unattractive (but not so unattractive as to be dealbreakers), and you aren't willing to date someone who doesn't share these interests, then just put it out there as a filter.

I think that's true, and there's also another filter aspect to consider. If you don't care whether a partner shares your interest in X, but you require them to be ok with your interest in X, then you should also put it as a filter. Doing so avoids wasting your time on a relationship that wasn't going to work out anyway as soon as the girl says "I think anime is icky, stop watching it" and you refuse to give it up.

It's anime, a perfectly mainstream form of entertainment. Some women may find it off-putting, yes, but it's not like having kids, or smoking, or religion, or that kind of thing that you should tell someone up front. Most women probably wouldn't care if they found out, it's just not something that adds to your attractiveness. Worst case scenario, you can bring it up on the first date, or when you're texting back and forth. The point is just that it's not something that you want to waste valuable profile real estate on, to increase your chances of getting a foot in the door.

I just don't think that there's a loss here. Profile space is not scarce, so if you're worried that someone will find it a dealbteaker then put it in. It's better to go on zero dates than on one date which goes nowhere.

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Exactly, until they have had a chance to actually interact meaningfully with you, women are going to be maximally uncharitable with anything you say on your profile. Because they can afford to, as "men willing to message them on apps" are not a scarce ressource at all for them. So if you mention anything about anime in your profile, especially if it's one with limited real estate (I don't know how Hinge works specifically), then they will assume that this means anime is a massive part of your identity, so their mental image of you will shift to that of a neckbeard weeb with waifu bodypillows..

It's the same as with the politics we were discussing in this thread too. Until there's a bit of time/emotional investment from her part, you want to avoid giving her any reason to reject you; because as far as she knows, somewhere in her inbox is a message from her perfect 10, 6'3, 8" cock, liberal surgeon/prince who shares all the same interests as her, so why would she waste any time trying to understand what kind of human being someone with any yellow flags at all is like?

Once she's met you, or had some meaninful communication with you that humanises you, that changes, of course.

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I still would avoid obvious icky hobbies on a dating profile. Anime has a very strong association with porn, child porn, and childishness.

This take is so heavily out of date I'm wondering if it was frozen in about 2011 and just recently thawed out and revived.

Anime fans aren't relegated to 4chan these days.

One of the most popular series on Netflix in 2022 was an anime series tied into the Cyberpunk:2077 universe.

Netflix has been producing a TON of original anime series themselves. They literally revived a series from 2001 to help fill out their roster.

Which should tell you they're finding viewership for this stuff, and not just among loli enthusiasts.

Now, you might be correct as to how the older generations view anime, but there's probably a similar number of female weebs as male weebs about in the younger gens. Now, if you're looking for someone who is NOT a weeb, then yeah, maybe exclude it.

Even if that take is outdated, liking anime and video games isn't something that women are going to find attractive. It's neutral at best, and you don't want to waste your limited real estate conveying information that isn't going to move the needle in your favor. A lot of guys make profiles that seem tailored toward impressing other guys, but girls do the same thing as well. I guess the female equivalent would be mentioning that they like reality TV. What guy is going to find a girl more attractive after learning that she's really into Real Housewives? It isn't something most guys are going to look forward to watching together, it doesn't make her seem more interesting, and it may give the impression that she's kind of stupid.

Even if that take is outdated, liking anime and video games isn't something that women are going to find attractive.

As stated by @MathWizard up there, if you want someone with similar interests to you, you gotta put it out there somehow.

And as per usual, if you're hot, you could straight up say you're into lolicon and hentai and you'd still get likes.

So are you optimizing for hookups, or something resembling a soulmate?

In the grand scheme, its probably not changing your odds much in aggregate, but somewhat increasing the chances of finding someone who likes what you like.

You don't have to have the same interests as your soulmate. You have to get along and cooperate on tasks and share values.

The happiest couples are ones who know when they bore each other to tears, not ones who never have to worry about it. Because the latter are imaginary.

You'd like to find one that doesn't find your interests repugnant, though.

And again, why optimize to compete for the same limited pool of women that every other guy is now optimizing for.

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It's not about hookups vs. soulmate. It's about whether or not you expect a soulmate to have certain interests. If the answer is yes, you only want to be with someone who likes anime as much as you do and is attracted to guys who like anime, then I agree that you would have to put it out there. But that's not the way it is with most things or people. Just look at how much attention to sports men pay vs. women. Or woodworking. Or hunting. Or any number of other hobbies or interests. You can't expect your romantic partner to have 100% of the same interests you do, and most married couple I know aren't like that, right down to my parents. So yes, it's possible that you can be really into anime and have a girl who knows nothing about it and rolls her eyes at the idea of it and still have a successful relationship.

Indeed, once you clear the dozen other hurdles and expectations she'll have too.

I'm just pointing out that if you optimize for the 'wrong' thing, you could end up in a local maxima that gets you more likes in general, but actually filters out the women you'd really be happy to have.

And hey, if you get one and have to 'settle' a bit, its not so bad.

But if EVERYONE is optimizing for the same set of things, and the pool of women is fixed, you're really just creating a zero sum game that means you can get nothing at all despite (because of?) giving up on the things you really like.

I repeat, the pool of women is mostly fixed, so why do you want to optimize for the same thing every other guy is optimizing for?

It's been a while since I've been on the dating market (10 years, yikes), but +1 to women love pets. My first profile pic on okcupid back in the day was a photo of me and my puppy the day I got her. It definitely helped me drum up interest that I don't think I would've gotten otherwise.

Use good photos of yourself. Digging any deeper than that will make you go insane. Most people here are reasonably-high decouplers, but it hits differently when it’s your appearance and your social status and your geneline at stake.

What @Rov_Scam said, but with one pointer: as noted by someone else offering similar advice back when we were on Reddit, it's important to learn the dating app "meta" in the city in which you reside. In some cities Tinder is the "hookup" app and Hinge is the "serious relationship" app; in other cities, Tinder is the hookup and serious relationship app, and Hinge is unheard of. On a first pass my assumption is that Tinder is the hookup app and Hinge and Bumble are the serious relationship apps, but this may vary a lot from place to place. I met my girlfriend via Tinder, and I know at least three married couples who met via Tinder.

Based on friends who have all gotten long-term relationships from the apps, combined with my own experience, here's what I can tell you:

  1. Use Hinge, and nothing else. The quality of people on there is much better and the other apps are garbage.
  2. Use good photos; don't just pick the six most recent photos with you in them. The first one should be a good picture that shows what you actually look like. One picture should be of you in a group, so they can see that you actually have friends, but more than one creates confusion as to who you actually are. It also shouldn't be one of you and your ex, and ideally shouldn't include anyone better looking than you are. This also shouldn't be your first picture, and should be somewhere down in the order so the only people who will see it will be those intrigued enough to scroll down that far. At least a few pictures should be purpose-shot. You don't have to hire a photographer, but a friend who knows how to work a real camera with a long lens will help. Don't include too many pictures where you're wearing a hat or sunglasses as this makes it hard for to see what you look like. Some of the pictures should be "action shots" of you engaging in hobbies so they can see that you're interesting rather than read about it. Make sure you're smiling and showing your teeth. A lot of guys tend to smirk or look overly serious, and women don't like that. Women also don't care about cars so shots of you posing in front of your Mustang or WRX just make you look like a douche. The only exception would be if you own a Lambo or something and want to attract women who are after your money. Don't include pictures of you with deer you shot or fish you caught. No pictures of you shirtless or flexing. Selfies are bad. Bathroom selfies are worse. Bathroom selfies of you flexing are worst. You can include a Linkedin style professional photo if you have one, but I'd save this for last.
  3. Fill out the profile completely or almost completely. The purpose is to make you look like an attractive, well-rounded person. Include your job (unless you're a doctor, which will get you more matches but from women looking for guys with money), especially if you have a good professional job. If you're working as a bartender but graduated from college, it's okay to just list the college. It's also okay to just list the job if you're paranoid about them being able to figure out who you are (which can be surprisingly easy). It's fine not to list your religion if you don't want to, but your politics are liberal. Most young women in urban areas simply won't date Trump supporters, and if you say you're moderate or other or nothing they'll just think you're a conservative who doesn't want to admit it. Your height is an inch taller than you actually are, unless you're like 6'5" or something. Unless you're obviously black or East Asian your race is white. It's fine to omit one or two of these but if you omit too many the profile looks incomplete and it makes you look either uninteresting or like you have something to hide.
  4. If you have children, say you have children. If you don't, say you don't. Omitting this does you no good and can fuck things up. Women who aren't open to dating guys with kids won't risk it on guys who they don't know that about if they have other options. If you do have kids and they find out later it might be a dealbreaker. As far as intentions, be specific with those as well; if you want kids say you want kids, if you don't say you don't, and if you're open to the idea but not committed one way or the other say that. "Not sure yet" may be an option if you're under 30, but in general you'd just be turning people off since a girl who wants kids isn't going to be happy if the guy decides he doesn't want them after she's been dating him for two years. You're looking for a long-term relationship; if you're looking for a hookup you shouldn't be on Hinge. Saying "life partner" may be fine but could come across as a bit intense. Saying "figuring out my dating goals" makes you look confused and indecisive; I always assume people who write this are dipping their toe in the water after a divorce and will probably be flaky. Saying "long, open to short" or the reverse makes it look like you're either taking what you can get or are looking for a hookup but don't want to admit it.
  5. Select your prompts carefully, and include as much information as possible. I don't have a list of prompts at my fingertips, but you should be able to discern which ones actually say something about you and which ones don't. You only get three of these so use them wisely; saying that you order the loaded french fries for the table doesn't add anything to the discussion. On the other hand, saying what you do on a typical Sunday communicates what you like to do when you're not working or running errands, and saying what you could do together communicates what you have to offer in a relationship. Avoid one-word answers and non-answers, which are things that apply to pretty much everybody. So, you like tacos, travel, and music? Great, so does everybody else. Give her a reason to date you over the masses with generic responses. Even if she doesn't like all the things you like, it will at least make you seem interesting.
  6. Avoid using negative prompts. The last thing you want to do is give someone a reason not to match with you. If something is a serious dealbreaker, Hinge has a match note feature where it will come up when you match and give them the option to back out. I've only seen this once, and it was just a generic thing about actually being serious about starting a long-term relationship. But unless something is a serious no-go I wouldn't bother; you only get three prompts, so use them wisely. Also, and this probably goes without saying, but there are a bunch of prompts that mention therapy that shouldn't be used by anybody.
  7. The general theme of this list so far is that your profile will make or break your success. Six photos and three prompts are the only information the person on the other end is going to have when deciding to make a match. This is valuable real estate and you don't want to waste any of it. I've talked to a lot of female friends about this, and they're pretty unanimous and unequivocal about their complaints. It's been said over and over again about how women have it much easier on these apps then men, and while that's true to an extent, women have their own frustrations. Sure, a woman may be flooded with likes, but a large percentage of those are going to be from guys who have half-assed profiles that don't give them any usable information and another large percentage is going to be from guys who put some effort into making profiles that seem designed to appeal to other guys (though women are equally guilty of both of these). If you're not supermodel hot, seeing one of these profiles will make her hit the dump button without a second thought, and if you are supermodel hot she'll think about it and come to the conclusion that you're a fuck boy looking to score.
  8. No that we've gotten through the profile, you have to actually use the app. First, you won't get many likes, and the ones you do get will be from women you probably aren't interested in dating. Hinge isn't a swiping app like Tinder where you have to randomly match with someone. You send out likes to profiles you're interested in and the other person can choose to match or reject. Like in real life, men have to take all (or at least most) of the initiative—men match by sending out likes, women match by reviewing incoming likes. The only women who normally send out likes are the ones who aren't receiving a sufficient number of quality likes themselves. The rest are either women who happen to really like your profile or women who just got on the app and haven't yet realized they don't have to send likes out. The likes women send out are generally to men who are supermodel hot. This has created an interesting dynamic where men rarely get any incoming likes and don't match with the ones they do get, while women may send out a bunch of likes but rarely get matches from those.
  9. When you send out a like, Hinge gives you the option of including a message along with it. You should always do this. Remember, women are getting a lot of incoming likes, and most of these won't have messages. You're going to have to start a conversation eventually, so you might as well do it now, and it will at least give the woman a reason to check out the profile rather than just hit the dump button. And these messages should be well thought out and have something to do with the profile, preferably one of the prompts. This shows that you actually read the profile and are taking an interest rather than just clicking on a pretty face. And sending messages like "Cute" does nothing to start the conversation and doesn't demonstrate anything—if you didn't think she was cute you probably wouldn't have reached out in the first place. Some guys online have said that this does nothing but make them waste time thinking of something to say to someone who probably won't respond, and that they get comparable results by not saying anything and only putting in effort if there's actually a match, but this seems lazy to me. Again, most guys won't say anything, and you need to do whatever you can to make yourself stand out.
  10. When you actually get a match, respond promptly, and try to follow up your response with a question to keep the conversation going. Remember, women have an easier time getting matches, and you don't want to give them any reason not to respond. Don't be afraid to go back to the profile to get more source material, but also don't be afraid to get into things that aren't covered by the profile. Put some effort into this and don't slip into idle small talk; "How was your day?" isn't going to elicit any useful information for you and isn't going to communicate anything to them. Don't communicate during the work day unless you want them to think that you don't work very hard. Weekends are trickier; remember, you're trying to give the impression that you lead a busy, interesting life, and messaging on Saturday night or a beautiful Sunday afternoon doesn't give that impression. That being said, if it's a miserable day or they message you first, don't be afraid to respond on a weekend, and don't wait all weekend to respond to a message you got after work on Friday. Pick your shots.
  11. Don't be afraid to respond promptly. You don't have to check the app every 15 minutes, but you should be logging in at least once a day, preferably not late at night. If a girl is slow to respond it can be tempting to use that as a license to stall yourself, but remember, she probably has other options, and isn't going to keep talking to a guy who doesn't seem that interested. Sometimes you'll catch her on the app at the same time as you and you'll get a real-time conversation going, but mostly you'll get one exchange per day, and sometimes you'll respond one day and she the next, and you the next, etc. Sometimes things move faster, and people get busy and don't check the app for a while. Also, give her at least 48 hours to respond, but after this don't be afraid to double text. Sometimes people are just busy and forget, or possibly you did something to make them think you weren't that interested. I wouldn't worry about this making it look like you're needy. She might not be that interested, but you have to take all the shots you can at this point. If she still doesn't respond, but hasn't unmatched, at that point I'll wait until it's been two weeks since the last communication and send another message. After two weeks the app hides the dead conversations, but if there's another message it will unhide it and get you back on the radar. Usually it's a lost cause at that point, but you never know. Some people have things come up that make them drop everything, and by the time they get back on they won't respond to your message because they think the ship has sailed. I take the view that if they haven't unmatched me or otherwise communicated that they're not interested that I'm still at least marginally in the running and it's something worth pursuing.
  12. You should aim to have about three active matches going at once. Less is fine if you aren't getting any, but any more than that is wasting your time. Trying to keep a dozen conversations going at once is going to get pretty unwieldy pretty fast; it's time-consuming, and you're inevitably going to be more interested in some of the matches than others. There are obvious exceptions. Sometimes you'll get nothing for a while and get a flood all at once. Sometimes you'll have a full plate and more will trickle in, or conversations you thought were dead will get unexpectedly revived by the other party. Think of it as a podium with a first, second, and third. Any other active matches are off the podium, and the ones that have been around longer should be closer to the top. Everyone else you may be matched with is an off-podium reserve, and may include both active, unintentional matches and dead conversations who haven't unmatched you for some reason. If something changes with one of the finalists, knock them off the podium and rearrange things accordingly. Also, once you have a full podium, you should stop sending out likes. The last thing you want is women you might be interested getting short shrift due to bad timing and dipping out due to lack of attention on your part.
  13. Don't string along those lower in the running. This can be tempting, either because you have limited time for dating you don't want to waste on them, and you don't want to be on date two with your third place before you've gotten to date one with first place, or whatever. Women aren't stupid; if a conversation goes on too long without you asking them out, they're going to get the picture and will stop wasting their time.
  14. To that effect, don't let conversations drag on with anyone for too long without asking them out. This is obviously going to depend on the frequency of messaging, but unless there are unusual circumstances, you shouldn't go more than a week, and if you're getting (and sending) prompt responses it should be a lot less than that. In-app messaging should be used to establish rapport and show interest, and that's it. It's hard to get a feel for when a good time to ask someone else is, but you'll quickly get the idea. If the topic you're discussing is played out and you're scrambling to change the subject it's a good sign. If the conversation is flowing on multiple subjects it's a good sign. If the conversation is dying and you can't think of a response, it's a good sign. Sometimes you'll ask someone out because you're excited to meet her, and other times you'll ask someone out because you're bored with the conversation and are willing to take a chance that she'll be more interesting in person. If I get an unexpected response from a months-dead conversation, I'll usually just ask her out right there because I'm not interested in wasting my time again. As for what to say, keep it simple. "It's been nice chatting and if you're interested in hanging out let me know when you're available" is as good as anything. You don't have to propose anything right away, though if you're not available certain days, let her know. Sometimes people will be good with responding but get cold feet when it comes time for action. Usually it means they were just stringing you along as a plan B. I'll usually give them longer to respond to a date request, like a week, because I don't know if they're trying to figure out a schedule or something. If they still haven't responded, they're going to keep getting weekly messages from me until they either respond or unmatch. I can understand losing interest and not responding while in the messaging phase, but if there's an offer on the table, I think they should either accept it or reject it. There's no penalty for persistence, so there's no reason not to.
  15. As for what to do, I usually prefer drinks or coffee for a first date, preferably on a weeknight. Dinner is a traditional date option, but doesn't work as well for online dates. The cost of dining out makes it expensive for something that probably isn't going anywhere, and can attract the kind of woman who just wants a free meal. More importantly, there are disadvantages due to timing, as there is no date where dinner is the appropriate length. If it's going poorly you're stuck there til the end. If it's going well you're going to have to find a bar or somewhere else to go afterward, because the 60–90 minutes a restaurant meal takes isn't really enough time. If you're at a bar or coffee shop you can linger as long as you want or beat a retreat if necessary. For what it's worth, I only went out to dinner on a first date once, and only because the girl backed me into it, and she ended up being a bitch (not to me, but you can usually tell). I also don't like "activity dates" for a first date, since they tend to be similarly expensive and don't give time to interact. The purpose of a first date should be conversation, and I don't want to spend money to not talk to someone.
  16. When you're on the date, be yourself. If you end up getting involved, she's going to meet the real you eventually, so don't waste her and your time putting on a facade. If things went well and you'd like to see her again, let her know that you had a good time and text her the next day asking her out again. If you don't want to see her again, tell her you had a good time and leave it at that. Giver her a day or so to reflect on things. A decade ago, with IRL girls I already knew, I would tell them I'd like to see them again at the end of date one, but I don't do this anymore, because it puts them on the spot. I said this to the last IRL girl I dated, who was ten years younger than me, and she seemed uncomfortable and gave a noncommittal answer which ruined the rest of my night and the next two days. Imagine how surprised I was when she agreed to a second date after I asked her out again. Which brings me to another thing—I don't know if you're familiar with the "three day rule", but if you are, forget it. It may have some applicability depending on your age, but most mature women don't expect you to play games. Give them time to reflect, but don't feel the need to drag it out. If she agrees to a second date, it's going to be because she's interested in you, not because you used proper dating technique.
  17. Don't get discouraged. It will probably take I while for you to get matches, and you're probably going to be plugging away at it for months before you get off the app. This is normal for everyone. If you aren't getting matches after a month, then you need to take a serious look at your profile and make an adjustment. Also, keep in mind that these are real people, and treat them like you'd want to be treated. Online dating is similar to the internet at large, where people use the nature of the medium as an excuse for shitty behavior they wouldn't do in the real world. Try not to be one of these people, but don't hold it against other people. People will abruptly cut off conversations, but not unmatch you. People will cancel or reschedule dates at the last minute. People will take forever to respond without an apology or explanation for the delay. People will match with you but never talk to you. You'll meet people who text really well but in person have the personality of a manilla envelope taped to a beige wall. You'll have dates that you think went awesome with someone who doesn't want to see you again. You'll have dates that you think went terribly but you'll get a second one out of nowhere.
  18. There are a lot of people online who will tell you that this is impossible if you aren't a male model with an MD. Ignore them. I have numerous friends who have met long-term partners on Hinge, and none of them are exactly Adonis. None of them ended up with women below the standard of what I'd expect, and most of them are dating (or married) above what I'd expect. Also don't believe the people who tell you that since the apps have an incentive to keep you single they're specifically designed not to work. While this theory sounds plausible, there will never be an app that works so well that a major market will run out of single customers. There are definitely some weird idiosyncrasies and glitches, but by and large, the apps do what they say they do.
  19. Don't, under any circumstances, pay for this. Some people are convinced that the apps are designed to keep people paying, and that they won't work unless you pay. As I said, they work as advertised. Paying gives you access to features that are of dubious benefit. For instance, getting unlimited likes per day may seem like a good thing (the free version limits you to around five), but the consequence of this is that you end up burning through the local dating pool before you've had time to optimize your profile. Roses are a scam; don't bother with them, even the free one you get a week. Filters may have some use, but not for what they charge. Profile boosts are pointless for men, who don't need more people seeing their profile for reasons stated above. These features are window dressing for their real purpose, which is to attract the kind of undateable whales with bad profiles who are convinced that their lack of success is due to them not paying enough money.
  20. Beyond this, I can't really give you advice. The first step is creating a profile that is likely to get you matches, and the second step is managing your matches so that you can get dates. During this period, you basically are your profile, which is why the profile is so important. After you meet, though, you transform into a real person, and so does she, and now anything I can tell you is just basic dating advice you can get anywhere else.

Best of luck to you.

I wound down my Hinge account because I stumbled into a promising relationship with a girl I knew IRL, but this rings true for me. At the time I wrapped things up, I was getting enough dates with women that I was excited to meet without being overwhelmed by the volume, and had to disappoint several decent-sounding women before I deleted.

Seconding the recommendation to use positive, information-dense prompts. The poll option on your profile is particularly good for this, as it lets you put three positive aspects of yourself into a single widget.

On messaging: here are some decent templates. https://killyourinnerloser.com/tinder-guide-3/#chapter-1-templates
I like these because they push inexorably towards a date, but I had more success not following them than forcing the conversation back onto those rails. Unlike the author of that series, I was looking for an LTR, not to get laid as frequently as possible. But the permission to always move towards a date (if not directly), and to be a little bit sexual and direct, was very useful in setting my intentions on the platform.

Also, Hinge has capped the number of open conversations on a user's account. This is a good thing, as it forces both men and women to either get to the point and arrange a date, or to unmatch and move on.

On getting matched from your likes: I never could tell if Hinge used a stack or a queue for incoming matches. It might show the newest incoming likes first and then maintain a queue after that or something, I dunno. But it often happened that I would get a slow rise in matches coming in a few weeks after I started, usually around the time I began to despair. Have patience.

OP should also think about approaching women in real life. A lot of them complain on the apps that they only have accounts because nobody talks IRL any more.

I keep thinking that eventually I will start dating, but this list, despite being good advice, looks like a gigantic pain in the ass. Why is it like this? Will it ever not be like this? I don't want to do this shit. What if I just never did it and stayed single for the rest of my life? What if I got in a pretend gay relationship? Fuck this gay earth!

Dating apps are still optional. You can meet people through partying or general friend groups and depending on the region that is still somewhat the default. There are many cross-sex hobbies you can use as a starting point. Work has gotten quite complicated, so I wouldn't advice it, but some people still manage somehow.

But generally, women are picky & fickle and always will be. They want to see social proof that you're great, as a partner, as a worker, as a friend, as a father, and their default is rejection.

It's like this because you're in one of the rare online venues where thoroughness is rewarded, and the parent parent parent culture of LessWrong seeded ours with norms around writing massive walls of text.

Most of GP's advice is about not shooting yourself in the foot. How not to get your likes ignored. How not to have a conversation fizzle out. etc. Get to the date and enjoy spending time with women, even if they're not the women you'll end up dating long-term or marrying.

Or you could just attempt The Hock, I guess?

Or you could just attempt The Hock, I guess?

Chuckled. Anyone have updates on Skookum? I feel a lot of time has passed. If he were going to Hock it now is prime Hock time.

A question on Manifold was resolved in the negative, and thankfully not because he died in an anonymous patch of the Alaskan wilderness:

He says he's no longer actively planning any preparations, so I think I'll go ahead and resolve this NO. But he says he's still "kinda thinking" about doing it next winter, so I might make a new market then if anything ends up coming to fruition.

Thank you. Why in the world is he dead set on winter? Assuming it's not all posturing, which of course it may be.

I can only assume that his mind latched onto the most extreme "solution" to the extreme "problem" with which he diagnosed himself.

I encounter a very specific problem in the messaging stage where I'll ask someone out, they'll say yes, then ghost the day of the date. This happens more often than dates actually happen.

A few years ago, they'd cancel and reschedule repeatedly until I got the hint and stopped bothering them. Now they just ghost.

Speaking of, a few years ago, I actually got matches and occasionally received likes from women who were attractive enough. Now I live in an empty soul-crushing hell, despite having lost weight and gained muscle since then.

Depressed quibbles: How is stand-up an ick? multiple times in IRL conversations, women will out of nowhere ask me if I'm a comedian (I always say "no, I'm just like this"). I've done an open-mic set once or twice and killed it, it's something I keep on trying to get myself to do again, now apparently it's an ick? "Oh, only once? You should do it more, you're so funny." I guess I was right to not believe her.

Also, bartending? I thought the entire point of being a bartender is to get laid?

I thought bartender or stand-up was being interpreted as 'poor'. Like how sometimes people say self-employed when they mean unemployed. Or how women are plus-size, curvy, big-boned rather than fat.

I don't entirely know how to explain the behavior of certain people online, but I have my theories. I think some people have a tendency to be agreeable and avoid confrontation even if it's texting with a stranger, and if they get cold feet for whatever reason it's easier to just ignore the situation or come up with an excuse than it is to be honest. The polite thing to do here is to lie in the bed you made, go on the date, and if he asks you out again say you had a good time but aren't interested in pursuing things further. I've had cancellations before, but most of them have come a couple days before the scheduled date, which give me the opportunity to make other plans, or have been quickly rescheduled and gone off, or both. I was only ghosted once day-of, about ten minutes before I had to leave the house, and it pissed me off to no end. Basically we had been ironing out the details for several days, and when I got out of the shower to check for any messages I had a notification but when I tried to open it I had been unmatched. Apparently she thought that I'd see the message, not realizing that unmatching me prevented this. In any event, not knowing for sure what had happened, I felt compelled to go to the location anyway on the off chance that there had been some mistake or glitch and she showed up, as unlikely as that was, because in no instance will I be responsible for standing somebody up. I had already found her Facebook page through some mild "research" and was tempted to send out a message under my real name expressing my disappointment that someone 37-years-old would be so immature and have such disrespect for somebody else's time, but I wisely decided against it.

How is stand-up an ick?

I wasn't the guy who posted that, but the problem isn't so much stand-up itself as it is putting it on your profile. The issues with stand-up are two-pronged: First, the vast, vast majority of stand-up comedians are bad. Second, bad stand-up comedy fails harder and more spectacularly than other forms of public entertainment. Bad musical and theatrical performances draw polite applause. Bad comedic performances do not draw polite laughter. Laughter is a visceral experience that can't be credibly faked. Imagine dating a girl who sings badly in community musical theater and drags you to one of here shows. You may have to bite your lip but you can make it through. Now imagine she drags you to her stand-up show, and you don't find anything she says remotely funny. She's going to notice that you aren't laughing, and it's going to be especially noticeable if nobody else in the audience is laughing either. Bad stand-up comedy in cringeworthy in a way that other things done badly can't approach, and the sight of a comedian truly dying to the point that you're expecting crickets after every punchline is physically uncomfortable.

I wouldn't say there's anything particularly wrong with doing stand-up on occasion at an open mic, but putting it on your profile when you aren't doing it for a living suggests it's a more central part of your personality than it probably should be. Part of the issue with this and podcasts are that anyone can ostensibly do them without any obvious talent. By way of analogy, being in a horrible band you're totally serious about at least requires the ability to play an instrument to a passable degree. Now compare this to those people who take karaoke way too seriously. Most of these people sing passably well but wouldn't be allowed anywhere near a recording studio, yet they always pick songs nobody's heard of because they think they're going to bring down the house. One guy sang some lame Josh Groban song that sounded like "O Canada". One woman preceded her off-key caterwauling by telling everybody she was enrolled in a contest to win $10,000. No that she won the contest, that she entered the contest. Think of it like Disney. If you find out the girl you're dating likes Disney, then maybe you can deal with it; it's a popular studio. But that's different from the girl who puts a picture of her in mouse ears in front of Cinderella castle on her dating profile.

Also, bartending? I thought the entire point of being a bartender is to get laid?

That was a stand-in for barista or cashier or parking lot attendant or the kind of other jobs that people with college degrees may do while they're looking for an actual career. Women with professional jobs are going to wonder what the deal is with a college-educated person working a job that decidedly doesn't require a degree. Better to explain it in person.

There's a lot of good advice in here, but I feel like misrepresenting your politics would cause more problems than it solves. If a girl is so hyper-liberal she will reject anyone who has the faintest whiff of being conservative (even to the point she will reject people who say they are moderate!), I think she's going to leave you as soon as she finds out you aren't the liberal you claimed you were. Maybe not if you're Chad Thundercock and she just can't bring herself to give up the good D, but I also doubt that such a Chad needs advice in the first place because he's swimming in women.

I think the main reason to hide your power level in this situation is that majority of women, especially in cities, are going to be at least tepidly liberal, probably just fully in line with mainstream liberalism. Liberal bubbles are extremely strong and their media dominance allows them to pretty much never have to meaningfully engage with opposing opinions; from your average city liberal's perspective, conservatives or anyone more conservative than maintstream neo-liberalism are either willingly ignorant morons or hateful.

If you can first make her realize that you are neither of those things, if you lead with the "actually a smart and caring guy" part and then reveal you're also moderate/conservative, then there's a pretty ok chance you'll burst her bubble. If you lead with the moderate/conservative, you'll likely just bounce right off.

I see what you're saying... I guess it just seems implausible to me that anyone except a diehard true believer is going to filter out even the most tepid signs of conservatism (as mentioned in the OP). And for someone like that, they aren't going to accept anyone less committed than they are. But if indeed there are otherwise moderate women who are filtering so strongly, then I agree that hiding your power level could work.

Women seem to want to use the precious space in their Hinge profiles to mention they like tacos and how much they think Black Lives Matter. I also see lots of "you better also be an anti-capitalist leftist socialist" stuff.

I'm sure IRL they manage to ignore or not notice the lack of frothing leftism in potential partners, but on Hinge they're very much into superficial ideological compliance.

I personally hate how much of peoples' personalities have been eaten by politics. I also find that the more rabidly leftist a woman is, the more likely she is to treat me like garbage.

To be clear, I wasn't trying to suggest that OP misrepresent himself, as I don't know what his politics are, but I was merely stating a fact: Politics aren't immutable, and if you want to maximize your success, you have to be some flavor of what can plausibly be described as liberal. I'd say that if you live in a mid-size metro area, 80%–85% or attractive, professional, interesting women are going to be liberal. Hell, at least half of the self-identified Christians I've seen have identified as liberal. Very few will be openly conservative, a few will be moderate, and the rest will omit the information entirely, but usually those who omit it entirely often aren't one's I'd be inclined to message otherwise.

Remember, these women have more options, and the last thing you want to do is give them a reason to hit the dump button. When there are plenty of liberal men out there, it's relatively unlikely that they're going to waste their time on someone who might have voted for Trump. And let's be honest, it's about Trump more than anything else; you can have traditionally conservative opinions out the wazoo but as long as you can genuinely say you hate Trump you'll have a fighting chance. If you want to use the apps as a conservative you can try, but you might as well wear pro wrestling t-shirts in all your pictures while you're at it.

This was hard for me to accept when I was dating, but accept it I ultimately did; it's true and you're right to point it out. I eventually resolved this for myself by leaving the apps and going back to the old-fashioned way, as I concluded through years of experience that I myself was not willing to partner up with someone with such divergent values. In the past I was occasionally able to pull liberal girls closer to the center or right, but I am much happier to finally be with an actual conservative; it is a great blessing to not constantly be hiding my power level anymore.

How did you meet?

I went to a baseball watch party at a brewery in the neighborhood, and she was there. To my surprise there was actually a roughly equal gender ratio. It was easy enough to just chat her up given the shared interest which was the premise of the event.

While I had occasional success when I was a young man with meeting true strangers in public settings ("cold approaches" as this is known), I always did much better with what I guess you might call "warm approaches" - friends of friends, interest groups, mixers, small house parties, and other settings where talking to one another is accepted and expected.

Very helpful, thanks!

Great advice list! Couldn't have said it better myself. Ultimately the overarching goal is communicating that you're a well-rounded and well-adjusted guy, everything you do on these apps should be done with that in mind and your advice goes a long way towards giving tips as to how to do so.

I don't use and never have used apps for various reasons (mostly age) but this is a very detailed post of reasonable advice, good on you taking the time.

Edit: Age and (obviously) marriage.

What are you optimizing for.

Also no, nobody has a strategy that works consistently and the dating apps themselves are very motivated to shut one down if it arose.

They're gamified to all hell so its really like asking someone for tips on roulette or slots.

This statistics-laden article is applicable to Duolicious, a free (gratis and libre) dating website recently developed by a 4channer.

Unfortunately, the only person on that app within a 100 miles of me is Dante from DMC, and the other stuff from the rec isn’t generalizable to other apps. Thanks for the suggestion tho

Interestingly, women’s reply rate is highest for bios which are only slightly negative, whereas men’s reply rate is highest for very negative bios.

Cursed stat. They complain about the men with the nasty bios and the disparaging comments yet reward that with extra attention.

Although I'd be very surprised if that was what led to actual dates and even MORE surprised if it led to relationships.

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