Things I learned after my first foray into dating apps over the past week:
1. Many people post pictures with their kids' faces in full view. I probably don't have to tell this community how dangerous that is.
2. I don't understand the use of heavy AI filtering on selfies. Many look like aliens with 10 inch high foreheads. Don't you plan to meet people in person? Will they recognize you?
3. There seems to be a high prevalence of septum piercings for women in their late 20s to early 30s.
1/2
@voltronic OkCupid was legit back when it came out - IDK about now.
POF was alright if you can deal with the shit interface.
Alas, most of the apps are designed to make money off you and you specifically being a male.
@MrGoat
I'm not going to say which apps I have tried, but I did consider the two you mentioned. There's a couple friends of friends who met their current spouses on PoF. The recent user reviews for both of those services are quite poor.
And yes, I can see exactly how these apps bait you. But unless we bring back speed dating, it seems like this is what society has decided we do now.
@voltronic A method you can try is to use the same message and mass message all the interests you have and go from responses etc and narrow down to a meet.
@MrGoat
If I ever get any responses I'll see how that works.
@voltronic I hear ALLA that. Truth. Here to say: YAY YOU for stepping into the river.
@LaurelGreen
Thanks. I resisted it for a long time, but it seems this is the only way to meet single people nowadays.
@voltronic @LaurelGreen
You could always start table-top gaming again. 😂
@Ulf
Surprisingly, I have played D&D exactly once in my life, at a friend's bachelor party in a yurt out in the woods.
@voltronic @LaurelGreen
That is a rich, unexpected, but overall unsurprising answer. 🤣
@voltronic it was awesome a few decades ago! Hope for the best!
@voltronic I'm still avoiding it, it's such a slog. But also, as a wfh introvert, I will likely never meet someone any other way. For what it's worth, Meetup sometimes has singles or speed dating meetups, at least in my area. Might be a consideration.
@haggardmom75
I never knew this was a thing, and it looks like they do have a bunch of events in my area. Thanks!
@voltronic That's great! Hopefully it will be a more fun thing to try, and less tedious 🙂
@haggardmom75 @voltronic I meet lots of people of almost all generations through social running groups like #parkrun and another from a local brewery on Monday nights. However, there are very few people my age (72) who run. (I was the only runner in the M70+ division at a road race last weekend.) I have yet to encounter any active single women within a reasonable age range of me.
4. Many people seem to forget that the photos they are posting are public. I've seen plenty of things that don't violate the app's ToS but would sure get a closer inspection from an HR department.
5. You can't do much of anything with the free versions of these apps. By design.
6. Spammers and bots seem to like me so far. Real people? That remains to be seen.