This is really a monumental societal change.
3rd spaces are nearly completely destroyed, and online seems to be the main option for ppl now.
Wonder who were the people who met online in the 80s. Like a nasa engineer and a astronaut?
This is the real question
Yes, absolutely. But also: I wonder how much of the online stat is stuff like people who met in online communities/groups compared to, say, dating sites and apps.
Because I could absolutely see a large portion of that line being people who met after joining a local meetup group for a shared interest like tabletop games, hiking, sports, etc.
It used to be that the dating pool was very limited in the way that making friends and dating in school is, where the odds are good that the thing you and your friends have most in common is your age and the distance that you live from each other. It wasn’t until college that I really met a diverse group of people who all shared a common interest in what they were passionate about. Nowadays I can go online, find people nearby who share a hobby of mine (or even meet people through an online hobby first and then physically meet years later), and maybe find lifelong friends or partners through that rather than somebody my friend happens to know or somebody I work with.
Needing an app through a business to find love is fucking depressing.
Why is it a blue whale?
Well, I heard a big goal of every app these days is to get whales… Maybe this is what they meant? O.o (/jk)
Nobody finding love in brothels anymore :'(
Alabama folk don’t even need to leave their home to find a life partner!
I’m going to start dating again sometime soon, so this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot.
I hate that if I go on an app and make a contact, the ostensible purpose will be to date. When that’s the purpose, at some point an evaluation will have to be made. Either that purpose is met or it isn’t. You could have a conversation about being friends or considering your options, but I’m sure starting that conversation feels awkward and hurtful. It would feel like downgrading them from the original intent behind meeting.
Not starting that conversation could be delaying the dreams of two people though, so there would be a time crunch to make a decision before I might be ready. It feels like this will inevitably end up with throwing aside people who could be great to have as friends.
A connection shouldn’t be a decision, it should be something that happens. I’d rather just hang out with someone with the expectation that we’re hoping to be friends, and if there is a connection we’ll see it in each other sooner or later. Unfortunately for me, striking up conversations with single women to be friends with while having the thought of going further in the back of my mind might as well be the definition of creeper behavior.
Here is some friendly advice from someone who online dated since the beginning (and I mean starting using online personal ads with eloquent long-form stories on Craigslist of all places, which would look like AI with more personality wrote it given how long): don’t do it.
You are aware of the basics with the toxic pattern of online dating. The other elements are more insidious. But all of that aside, the biggest problem is nobody really says who they are and nobody really understands what they want.
The only real option is to live in a way that makes you happy, with no expectation of anyone joining you. In the course of ACTION, you may meet someone taking the same action, and that is a bond that cannot easily be forged online.
If you want a real connection, live in a real way. Do the things you dreamed of but never dared. Take risks living the way YOU want, not the way you’ve been taught. The closer you come to living how you truly want, the closer you will come to Someone living the same way. You can never meet them as long as you live someone else’s life.
When you give so much thought and attention to dating, you will find others giving so much thought and attention to dating. That is a consuming identity. Consider what it means.
- emotional states tied to someone else
- mind always on feeling good based on finding the right person
- calibrated to “the search”
- believes in a companionship as the saving grace, the thing missing
- my person isn’t making me feel good, so I need to find a person that does, good thing I can passively browse online, no harm in that…
…and so on. Online dating as it is now is an addiction and a disease. You might be able to have (bad) sex on it, and you might be able to learn more about yourself and random people you’d never otherwise cross paths with, but for the most part, it is nearly impossible to meet an ideal match.
The top 10% of men “get” the top 50% of women online. The top 50% of women all compete over (and mostly share) the top 10%, thinking they deserve more. The curve is exponential so the numbers at the 1% are insane. And what does “top” even mean?
People look enviously at the “top”. But they shouldn’t. Sure, they’re banging “hot people” all the time along with spreading their hot diseases, but that is where the depth of connection ends. Many of them evolve into SNAGs (spiritual new age guys) for this reason. They are trapped in a cycle of being on top, never exploring other options because they are receiving everything society has deemed as the purpose of it. Yet inside, they rot away, more alone than anyone. There was a person in them once. A child with dreams. Now there is a dark empty void that keeps growing.
Anyway, this hellish online landscape doesn’t have to be this way. If the systems were designed right and culture evolved, it could be extremely possible and downright prudent to find healthy connections. It would operate passively and automatically and we would organically encounter amazing matches. But right now, online dating is captured by greedy corporate interests and is a toxic wasteland to keep you addicted and longing, desperate, and hungry.
This is true for man or woman. Men are turned into ravenous & desperate worms that gyrate at the slightest possibility. Women are turned into tyrant queens believing they are laced in gold with infinite options, yet all the options are diseased maggots living as a shadow of their being. Both create a desperately alone populace longing for something more, and they don’t even know what that “more” is.
It’s the real you dude. Go take a hike, hug a tree, focus on hobbies, and stop chasing broken dreams. Real people aren’t drawn to longing. They’re drawn to living.
The reason I’m inclined to turn to online dating is because the real me is someone whose dream life would be spending most of his days sitting around with a good friend playing with cats. It’s not like I have no solo interests at all, they’re just not ones that can form a connection by doing them in public. Sometimes I read math, I have papers on the arXiv on category theory and categorical homotopy theory, but I’m out of academia right now so that’s not a way to connect with real people.
I absolutely love talking to people and forming connections, but just with one other person at a time, otherwise I get behind the conversation and go into deep introversion. I like getting to listen to someone tell their stories and talk about themselves. One of my favorite activities is reading books out loud with a friend. I don’t know how to go out into the real world and just do that with one other person. Online I can, and have made some wonderful connections. It’s just that dating apps specifically look like a nightmare.
If I were really into hiking or whatever I would be all about living that out. Unfortunately, the person I am is someone who would be doing activities as a means to socialize, rather than the other way around. Doing those things would very much not be the real me. It’s not easy to live a solitary life for an extended period and not dream about more, and those dreams start to feel like an ulterior motive if I’m seeking out new connections.
I don’t think at all about what “top” should mean in a dating pool, it hadn’t even crossed my mind, so I’m not sure why you’re bringing that up. I don’t care about whether I find someone in a top percentile of anything, I just want to find someone who is empathetic and who I connect with.
I brought up the top percentile to further illustrate how broken the mindset and mechanics of online dating are.
I hear you. All the things you said are possible by taking a hike. That’s why I suggested taking it. We all come from nature, and we are all connected to it. It is an easy hobby to have. You pick a beautiful place, and you walk in it. It is important to do it alone or with friends you have no romantic interest in. It has countless mental health and physical fitness benefits, so it serves functional purposes in addition.
I don’t know how to explain this without sounding crazy. The Earth is alive and conscious. The Earth is most definitely a “she” and she is a higher order intelligence than us. She is the first mother on this planet. None of this matters because the logic holds whether or not you believe me.
Nature is capable of replacing the longing for human companionship. It is full and it is complete. It provides the thing that feels like it’s missing in every relationship I’ve had. When you connect with her, you connect with something much larger than any one person can bring.
But what’s more, she is connected to everyone. In other words…Earth is the ultimate matchmaker. It is a strange contradiction. You spend time with nature, and that time becomes a pure pursuit where you eventually do it because you love the Earth. Then, and I absolutely promise this with certainty, the Earth will connect you with people that you’ve been looking for.
Among those connections is a special person you will want to meet.
Perfekt graph to display a shit society
Only goes to 2020. I think that after 2020, the online dating scene has seen a pretty sizeable decline.
I assumed the same thing and searched for a updated version of the study. I found this video showing the results up to 2024, contradicting this assumption.
Thats good news, but now I go to find newer stats.
No… no newer stats.
I mean, we met online but not on a dating site.
First long term relationship, brother of my friend who came down here from up north. Had kids, never married, at midlife he got radicalized and hella racist and abusive, we split dramatically after 21 years, (not all his fault, I also did regrettable things in response to what was going on).
Second round met online, had a date, hooked up for awhile, really got on well. He’d had a string of 2 year relationships (from “good on paper” matches from eHarmony) so I said after 2 years we can live together. Our kids all got along, his parents liked me after awhile, he wanted to get married, I said you can ask after we’ve lived together 2 years. We are happy a dozen years in.
I don’t think it matters how you meet but it DOES hurt to think of people as a commodity, all that swiping and trying to maximize compatibility. People are people not clothing or toys.
Yeah that does bother me about the graph. It’s the digital age, you can’t just lump one value to “online” and expect it to be a representation that makes any sense, did they meet on a dating app? As gamers? Facebook friends? I met my fiancee on deviantart after she liked one of my photos and messaged me to tell me so.
Society is online now, third spaces are still a thing but they’re in a different form. This data is presented in a way to make you feel bad about the globalization of the Internet
all that swiping and trying to maximize compatibility. People are people not clothing or toys.
Exactly, all these apps need the user to be self absorbed. “Who’s YOUR right fit? Who is YOUR type? Who fits YOUR personal fantasy narrative?”
Love is about two people giving themselves toward each other, not obsessing over their “ROI” in some transactional economic thinking. But that simply doesn’t compute to a CEO and natural human friendship doesn’t return 4x to investors every quarter, so it’s gotta go, right?
Building a relationship should be out of interest in the other soul, and finding that person isn’t what these algorithms promote. They turn dating into just another job hunt with metrics to meet, a “market” of desirability, bullshit interviews, performative fakery, marketing, and ego.
I also met my partner online, but ~20 years ago on World of Warcraft LOL. Younger people ask me for dating advice and I’m like “Stay off those stupid apps and just go meet people who might like what you like and see what happens!”
Would be interesting to see how these compare to the number of people who’s given up on meeting an SO and/or doesn’t have the time/energy to.
I’ve met a disturbing number of young people who haven’t given up on dating per se, but make zero apparent effort in it.
I mean like, never talk about anything but work or family.
I’ve def met a few people like this. They have a few terrible dates on these sites, and it just stresses them out too much to even try again. Its really sad.
10 years of online dating, 6 dates out of it. As a well below average guy I just gave up
“a well below average guy” i think stuff like this is just made up, i dont believe in ratings and i dont think others should either tbh
I also believe in a classless society.
Idk comparisons are a thing that can be done and I’m objectively worse than most people in most categories (looks, intelligence, earning potential, education, interests, etc…) so I consider myself “well below average” especially since choosing a person to potentially date does involve comparing them to your other “options.”
since choosing a person to potentially date does involve comparing them to your other “options.”
i mean if you choose a partner like you would choose a car, then i guess it is like this
or actually even then it is not like this, like there is nothing objective for most categories.
like you list interests as below average, what is this even supposed to mean lmao or intelligence like how would you even know that and for earning potential, there are like a lot more poor people than rich, beeing poor is the normal one lol
even for education, like people can still know dtuff even if they dont go to university… Or know nothing if they went
what i am saying is this sounds more like you just beeing unhappy with yourself if anything. Or if you are happy, then you are probably just not a good match anyway for someone that is like looking for a car.
(Not OP)
I do get both your standpoints, its all subjective of course, so you can’t really be below average in interests or something like that, but you can definitely be below average in terms of commonalities with other people.I don’t know OP so I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or is indeed just unhappy with himself. But if your hobby is watching VR MyLittlePony porn you’re going to have a tougher time than if your hobby is cooking.
Same for weight, if you’re 200kg it’s going to be harder, especially on dating apps.
Money and intelligence I’m not so sure about, that probably matters less than he might think
Are you actually a below average guy, or do you just have below average pictures?
Good “candid”/fun/funny photos are huge for dating apps.
idk about him but there has been roughly one photo taken of me in the last decade and it’s on my ID
Pro gamer move: don’t use your license photo for online dating. Unless it’s really funny then maybe.
Yeah honestly it sucks getting into it, but it’s a lot easier when you can recruit someone for help.
literally don’t know anybody in town, haven’t seen anyone else wear a mask in two years.
I’m below average in most ways not just as far as attraction goes, but yeah my photos are never that great because I’m not attractive at all. I have had candid ones and funny ones, but I never got much traction. I live in an overpopulated area so this buffet table is brimming with options. I’m just that odd pizza at the Chinese buffet where you wonder why it’s being served lol
i’m sort of like this and i don’t see it as sad.
i was “married” (in quotes because it was illegal for me to be married at the time) and both internal and external stressors taught me that i got less significantly fulfillment out of the efforts & sacrifices necessary to maintain that long term relationship than i do now that i’ve been single for the last decade+; so i stopped stressing myself with the belief that i need to be partnered.
it’s definitely sad if you get more out of being partnered than single, but i suspect that it’s not true of a significantly large number of people and that most are just taught to believe that they should be partnered and that, in turn, causes people to lament lacking partnership out of ignorance that they don’t really need it.
🤚
Fuck the commodification of human relationships. I wish people wouldn’t support that
This is the most upsetting graph ive seen in many years… and this is why so many people are single. Its the reason I am single. I absolutely abhor “online dating”. The couple times I did try it it was regrettable, and I dont want to do that again. Lord, help me find a suitable wife.
Yeah those apps are predatory. Good call.
I’m praying for you there, friend. This is really sad seeing what’s happening to human relationships. It’s very INhuman.
The best thing you can do is be your best, genuine self, and go engage in what’s left that other people do together. Meetups, volunteering, interests, hobbies, social book clubs, whatever.
Don’t think about “dating” like “trying to score a wife.” Be your very best self and find a person with a mutual interest in being very best friends forever with you, and then see if romance can bloom from there.
An innocent shared coffee laughing about favorite movies is WAY less pressure than some formal “date” where two strangers dance around awkwardly feeling each other out for “flags” and sidestepping “deal breakers”.
That’s my 2¢ anyway. I hope you find genuine connection. :)
Love it! Thanks for helping me be positive :).
Ive been very unstressed about find a wife my whole life, but I am 41 now and I think I need to put a little pressure on myself. :)
Maybe by thinking of women as people and not wives? Hooking up & hanging out with people until one sticks has been the only way for me. Though to be fair the only two really good jobs I’ve had were temp to perm too.
Approach it like fun, see what happens.
Maybe by thinking of women as people and not wives?
Lol omg… this is priceless. Hypersensitivity is what this is. Somehow you have assumed “wife” to be offensive?
You have to be a young guy trying to white night this crap like this. I blame the public school system…
Sorry…
I am a woman, a mom, a wife, and certainly not young. But you can’t just go around trying to immediately wife people. You have to meet as individuals and see how it goes, and it’s husband and wife, not “find me a wife” or “find me a husband”. You can’t know that until you know the person as a person.
(And by all means, continue blaming factors other than yourself, when the only one you actually have some control over is yourself.)
Im sorry, I didn’t mean to be a rude ass hat. First, who hurt you? You’re making a whole mess load of assumptions. Im not blaming any other factors, again, I just haven’t felt any pressure to get married really, so far. Im not “immediately trying to wife” anyone… save your lecture for someone that might need it, and stop assuming crap.
It was just the “send me a suitable wife” comment, and your post history, my sincere apologies if somehow I have misconstrued all of that.
Feel kinda lucky to have met my partner IRL now (though obviously that doesn’t make my relationship any better than those that meet online). It’s horribly depressing how reliant on online communities we’ve become, and how social gathering spaces and third places are eroding.
There’s a few star trek episodes where they deal with characters who become addicted to either holodecks/holosuites, or games, but I guess it being a space-socialist-utopia of sorts, they give people enough 3rd spaces and community gatherings, so that its rare to find people who completely retreat from real life, and usually a sign of some mental affliction or trauma.
At least right now, I don’t see the US recovering from this… 3rd spaces might pop up here and there, but they’ll be increasingly rare, and against the trend of overall social isolation.
Yea, this isn’t something I can see getting fixed under capitalism. I still hope that as imperialism crumbles and the treats slow down the US empire will have a revolution, but that’s not in the immediate future it seems.
Mfw people start romance in revo.
On a positive note, after my last (patriarchal adhering) ex and I split up, several of my sisters around me started splitting up with their own. With the exception of one, we’re still single. It’s just not worth the bangmaid therapist and other abusive, exploitative crap that goes with.
the bangmaid therapist
The what?
Sex, maid, therapist. Mankeeping.
Happy things are looking better for y’all!
When I was in college, the local indie tea/coffee shop was really nice. But then staryucks moved in a block or so over and they tanked. The nearest indie coffee shop recently was about 30? miles away and run by immigrants. There’s no public transit, so I have no idea if they’re still open, but I suspect not, since our local population is all but non-existent, now.
Damn… its gotta be rough living that far out.
I’ve been looking at nearish rentals, closer to civilization, today. I’m not kidding when I say the least expensive is a $1200 loft with ladder entry, bed space only, within a 60 mi. radius. So the rough is equal, but applied differently
An additional hot take: online communities create weaker links than in-person communities. hear me out please
Not because the connections themselves are less strong, but because they don’t tie to any other connection. If I met someone in real life, chances are high they are going to meet my family and create connections with them too. On the other hand, if I met someone online, they would most likely not meet my partner and definitely not meet my broader family. What in real life could be a merging of social groups, and therefore a strengthening of everyone’s social nets becomes online the creation of a single link, that is therefore that much easier to break off.
right… I can’t meet anyone for the life of me and be damned if I give a rats ass about even attempting to meet someone online. it’s a ceaspool of distrust, lies and fake garbage online. not a good way to meet anyone tbh…
Hopefully third spaces make a strong comeback, which would be far easier in socialism.
I just want somewhere that I can put my personal wall down again. that won’t happen on the internet where I won’t ever know the recipient in a trustworthy way.
That’s fair! I’ve found organizing work to be a good way to connect with people IRL, maybe do something similar? A hobbyist group, maybe?
I think I should volunteer… I’m only happy when doing for others. I always disregard myself and when there’s no others, I suffer.
thank you.
That sounds great for you! There are a lot of cool orgs or charities that would love to have more help!
Grade school?
I can’t remember the stats, but a significant amount of people never make it more than a few miles away from where they grew up. That would mean, especially in rural areas where a large geographic area is concentrated into a single school, you likely have been near or around your eventual partner, and if you’re close in age you probably were aware of each other.
It’s something crazy like 25% of Americans will die within a mile of the house that they grew up in, and more than 50% will never leave the state they live in.
People had cooties back then. What gives?
