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I am a late 20s/early 30s American man of South Asian descent, living and working in NYC. Several months ago my account was banned from the dating app Hinge. This has made a lot of people[citation needed] very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
I can only speculate as to who got me banned and why. Suffice it to say, I don't think that I deserve this treatment, but the point is moot: as far as I know, there is no appeals process nor any other recourse available to me or anyone else in this situation.
Hinge was by far the best dating app that I had ever used in terms of the number and quality of matches of the type that I'm looking for (mid-late 20s highly-educated Asian-American women looking for a serious relationship/marriage), as well as the conversion rate from match to texting to date. Since my account was banned, I have been forced to use Coffee Meets Bagel, which has resulted in far fewer matches, conversations that go nowhere, and almost zero dates.
What should I do now?
Here is a smattering of ideas that I have considered:
Meet People IRL
Frankly this approach seems dead in the water in this day and age. The only reliable way to meet people in person anymore has been, in my experience, through academia. I had decent dating success in graduate school, though I think that might be more a statement about me/the social settings that I thrive and in: I know from experience that one thing a lot of women find attractive in men is being passionate about something, and passionately holding forth -- or better yet, leading a discussion -- about something. As a TA, I had plenty of opportunities to do just that.
Perhaps I could go for another master's degree, part time. It's even conceivable that my employer would pay for it, if I seIl it right. But that seems like a major investment of time and effort for very questionable benefit.
Use Different Apps
I'm open to recommendations for other dating apps that would be a good fit for someone with my demographics, type and relationship goals (vide supra).
As mentioned previously, I've found CMB to be pretty terrible. I suspect that I may be blacklisted from all Match Group apps (Tinder, Bumble, etc.) due to the Hinge ban, but I could give them a try. However, my limited experience with them has been that they are far worse than Hinge.
I've heard about The League and created a profile but have not put much effort into using it. I could be convinced to spend more time on it if someone can vouch for it.
There's a newfangled app called Saturday that the kids these days are using, but it seems to cater to a slightly younger clientele (early 20s-ish, primarily), and it's really not a dating-centric app; my read is that it's more for meetups/making friends.
Any other apps that I could use?
Circumvent the Ban
I'm reasonably tech-savvy I've done a bit of research on how to do a "hard reset". It sounds like in order to even have a fighting chance of pulling this off, I'd have to:
I am willing to put in the time, effort, and money to make all of these things happen. My biggest concern is with item 6: I don't have that many good profile pics beyond the ones I put on my old profile. I've been playing around with some models for generating photos based on Stable Diffusion and I've managed to generate some fairly realistic pics of me, so that may be an option if worst comes to worst. Or I could hire a professional photographer to take some more photos of me.
As for item 7, it's been several months now so I think the odds are pretty slim that that person -- whoever she is -- sees me again, remembers me, and hates me enough to report me again after all this time.
Unfortunately, I was stupid enough to do the "recommended" facial verification on my old profile. I have no idea what kind of technology they use for that, nor how long they store the data for banned accounts, but that alone might mean I'm SOL. I wouldn't do it again if I made a new account, unless forced to, in which case I guess I could grow out my facial hair first to try and look different, or get a friend to scan his face instead.
Something Else Entirely
??? I'm open to any and all suggestions. Thanks for your time!
You're in NYC, the options are practically endless. (from fellow late 20s south Asian male who used to be in NYC). Climbing and mixed-gender sports are the easiest places to get started. If you were socially well adjusted enough to get laid in school and be a TA, then you'll be alright.
Bumble is not owned by the match group
Also, yes. Circumvent the ban. If you can't afford a new dual sim phone, then you can't afford to date in NYC. Use your middle name or change the spelling. The wifi thing sounds like a good idea. Similarly, if you don't have enough new photos, then you need to be going out more. Dating apps won't help here. See, even if you get dates, you need to be interesting enough to hold their attention. If your life is boring enough that you can't come up with good photos for hinge within 3 months, then you would have gotten ghost with or without the ban.
What's the worst they can do ? Ban you again ?
The extent to which a man will go to stay inside.
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