Hinge, a dating app founded by Harvard Business School, has been criticized for its lack of visibility of education levels. The app, which is popular among recent college grads, is classy and intuitive. However, users have reported issues with the app’s ability to switch between hidden and visible profiles.
Hinge’s tagline “designed to be deleted” tracks its popularity among this demographic. The app initially aimed at a younger demographic than Match.com or Jdate, but it has since evolved to cater to more educated users. Coffeely, a popular dating site, has over 1 million users, most of whom are well-educated individuals with Bachelor or Master’s degrees.
One key issue across dating apps is the slog of self-presentation, or “impression management”. Hinge often shows attractive people in the main feed, which may be partly to impress a new user. Online dating sites cater to college students and recent graduates, offering a chance to meet new people.
A key problem across dating apps is the slog of self-presentation, or “impression management”, according to digital media sociologist Rachel Katz. Hinge starts off by showing a good number of attractive people in the main feed, which is assumed to impress a new user.
Hinge analyzed user data and found that where you go to school can affect your chances of scoring likes. Different education levels and intellectual perspectives can make or break a relationship right from the start. Most online dating apps and sites have prepopulated areas that disclose your type of degree, such as high school, bachelor’s degree, or master’s degree.
Some users have speculated that the algorithm is broken, as dating apps like Hinge and Tinder filter out women with certain jobs and degrees.
📹 Why Don’t Women Reply On Tinder / Hinge?
It’s so frustrating when you’re swiping on an online dating app, and you finally get a match, you send her a message, and she …
Why does Hinge ask for so much information?
The company collects personal data to help users develop meaningful connections. To access this data, users must provide basic profile details and desired meeting types. California residents can refer to the California Privacy Statement, while Washington and Nevada residents can refer to the Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy. The company aims to make the privacy policy clear and engaging, serving as a digital wingmate to guide users through the ins and outs of data collection, its usage, and its purpose. The company encourages users to dive into the world of personal data together.
Is Bumble or Hinge better?
Hinge is recommended for those seeking a unique online dating experience, particularly those interested in serious relationships. Bumble is recommended for those willing to pay a premium subscription for access to all features. Tom Horton, a resident health expert for CBS Essentials, has extensive experience in topics like chronic conditions, health-care devices, and diet options. He lives in upstate New York and draws inspiration from local bookstores, long hikes, and his cat Sammy.
Does Hinge not have a bio?
Hinge does not have a traditional bio section, but your entire profile is your response to three prompts, with 150 characters per answer. You can choose from 60+ prompts to choose from. To create a comprehensive bio, answer the prompts to show your likes, dislikes, sense of humor, and great story. Hinge does not allow swiping, but allows you to interact with one aspect of someone’s profile, like or comment on a photo or one prompt per profile. This allows you to showcase your unique personality and interests.
Why does Hinge not show everyone?
The text focuses on the strategies for finding a long-term partner on dating apps, primarily using Hinge as a reference point. The algorithm and ranking are based on the assumption that the application collects data to maximize engagement and willingness-to-pay, and ranks people based on how often they get swiped on by others. Users are not shown matches only when both parties like each other, but they send likes to people they are interested in and then are either accepted or not.
To find a long-term partner, users must define their commitment in terms of endgame and time. The frequency of dates is one variable in the swipe ratio, which is how many likes one should be sending daily against the number of profiles they view in total, measured against a match to date conversion rate. To get enough matches to turn into dates, users should only swipe as much as they get enough matches to turn into dates.
An individual user’s ranking would benefit from receiving as many likes as possible while disliking as many others as possible. Dating apps assess the engagement of profiles and show higher-ranked profiles to people who aren’t engaging. Sending too many likes without getting enough in return will result in your profile not being shown to as many people as a higher-ranked person.
Why Tinder is better than Hinge?
Hinge and Tinder are dating apps designed for deeper connections and serious relationships, with Hinge focusing on long-term relationships and claiming to be “designed to be deleted”. Hinge’s unique algorithm has led to nearly 35 of its relationships turning into marriages, while Tinder caters to women under 30, Bumble works for strong, independent ladies, and Hinge is ideal for those seeking something serious. Each app has its own benefits for daters, with Hinge being more suitable for serious relationships and Tinder for casual to long-term relationships.
Does Hinge have an incognito mode?
In order to enable private mode on your profile, it is necessary to navigate to the settings menu, click on the visibility option, select the profile viewing option, and then select the private mode option.
Does Hinge rank attractiveness?
Hinge, a dating app, is not judging users based on their looks, but instead creates an individualized “taste profile” by tracking who they like and who likes them back. The app uses a variation of the Gale-Shapley algorithm, a Nobel-prize-winning formula designed in 1962 to solve the “stable marriage problem”. The algorithm iterates through participants’ choices until a match is found, allowing the app to create long-lasting matches in situations where money cannot play a role.
Hinge combines the formula with machine learning to pair people with partners they are most likely to prefer based on their liking history. Hinge founder Justin McLeod acknowledges that matchmaking and dating are “very hard”, but insists that they are getting people out on great dates.
Is Hinge or Bumble better?
Hinge is recommended for those seeking a unique online dating experience, particularly those interested in serious relationships. Bumble is recommended for those willing to pay a premium subscription for access to all features. Tom Horton, a resident health expert for CBS Essentials, has extensive experience in topics like chronic conditions, health-care devices, and diet options. He lives in upstate New York and draws inspiration from local bookstores, long hikes, and his cat Sammy.
Are there fake profiles on Hinge?
Those engaged in fraudulent activities on Hinge often create profiles that are visually appealing and include models, with bios that are implausible. Their objective is to appear as the ideal match for as many users as possible. A typical Hinge user, Alex, discovered a profile with remarkable photographs and an implausible biography, which he deemed to be unfeasible. As Alex initiated communication with the individual who appeared to be an ideal match, he encountered a series of unusual occurrences, suggesting that the situation was not as it seemed.
What is the male to female ratio on Hinge?
The male to female ratio on Hinge is approximately 2:1, with men outnumbering women. This gender balance is crucial for finding matches and building relationships on the app. To find this information, users can use data, studies, and insights from the Hinge demographic study. The article will cover topics such as the gender balance of the user base, how to find more men than girls, and how to navigate the app if there are more men than girls.
📹 Why Men Get So Few Matches on Dating Apps
The 3D animations of this video were made in collaboration with @maydelisar ABOUT THIS VIDEO: Full sources, music, source …
Just deleted my Hinge account last week. Was getting over 50% initial response rate on matches, but was constantly getting ghosted or unmatched within a few messages. I’ve gotten well over 100 matches in the past 4 or so months, but have only managed to go on one date. (and my profile has hardly changed since pre pandemic when I was actually getting dates) I’ve been getting the sense that nowadays, EVERY single message I send has to be perfectly crafted, both interesting and playful. Because any time I get lazy and respond too quickly (aka engaging in normal conversation) results in a big, fat ghosting. Just feels like walking on eggshells with online dating, where one normal message, not even a BAD message, will result in a game over with that match
Probably less than 10% of girls reply to my opener on Tinder, and that’s with me not opening too sexual, not having turnoff photos, having a cheeky but normal bio, etc. To get a 50% reply rate is unheard of for me. I’m at my wits end with dating apps. Been using them for years and slept with over 90 girls from them, but from 2022 onwards I started to notice I wasn’t getting any traction at all.
And then there are guys who think being unmatched is better because it “doesn’t leave them hanging”! They go on subreddits and tell women that that’s what they SHOULD do to be MORE courteous! People who ghost or don’t even reply are much better than people who UNMATCH or BLOCK you, because they don’t do it as a ~courtesy~, it’s because they find you SO repulsive that they want you as far away from them as possible. They couldn’t believe they ever swiped right on you. They WANT it to be known DIRECTLY to you too that they find you DISGUSTING. You are easily DISPOSABLE, they won’t even consider you a backup plan.
7. Because they can. There are no repercussions for not responding, so she will not respond. If she feels some pressure to respond – be it fear of missing out or something else – then she will respond. Yes, it’s basically the same “standing out” effect as you talked, but this point of view is helpful for me – visualize which woman would have incentive to reply instead of ghosting, and target this type of women (using your niching strategy). And this point of view is also liberating – a lot. It’s her who didn’t have the urge to write something in response, it’s not that I’m bad and worthless.
As a bisexual woman, thank you for this article on both sides 😂. Definitely agree with everything you say based on my experience receiving matches from men. I still can’t work out why the same profile that works well with men doesn’t work with women because I have the same problem with 95% women not replying after we match. I wish a queer woman would do a queer version of this article.
I might be suffering from the distance thing but I always try to pick something from the bio that I can connect with and talk to someone about. My annoyance is that there will be matches and women have to make the first move on Bumble and they say nothing. Or I have a decent opening line and they might say something but don’t follow up at all. Women need to get better at communicating just as much as men. The good ones are out there and they’ll intentionally back off with 0 effort to know the person they swiped and matched with.
i think the biggest problem is that women have to deal with too many matches and messages, and they feel overwhelmed. In person, these “boring” first responses are just fine. So unless she is already super interested in you (she got a laugh from your profile, not necessarily that you are super hot), 5% chance you’ll make it past 2 messages. If she doesn’t get many matches herself, then her response rate is higher. I have a humorous profile, and I get comments about that. Even so, few chats last past 2 messages. The bar is set way higher than IRL.
As a woman who started using Hinge a few months ago, I agree with most things in the article, but definitely not the point that women are only glancing at the profile photos & prompts, and just matching. Maybe it’s not the majority (I have no idea), but for me, there are a few things I’ll check on the profile before matching, bc why match with someone only to not talk to them, or have majorly incompatible areas from the get-go? For example, I’d look at – distance, yes – if they smoke even “sometimes/socially” (dealbreaker) – whether or not they want kids (if it’s a no, then I get that I can’t change someone) And definitely it’s a quick no to the “wanky” photos hahaha. But to each their own!
it seems this is becoming the new modern trend, i don’t think it was always like this, because i’m sure it wasn’t like this hundreds of years ago or centuries ago, but its the new modern thing for guys, men, to seek help from dating coaches or pick up artists on how to meet and attract women, successfully interact with them, because i read this statement from someone who used to be a dating coach, but not anymore, the statement was: “Do you think over a 100 years ago, centuries ago, generations ago, guys, men, needed a dating coach for help in order to meet and attract women? Oh Hell No, this need for assistance and help has only emerged very recently”
The funny thing is, if you say “Fuck it, I’m going to confront the chick on it and say something like ‘Oh great, another person matching for no reason.’ or ‘Why do people act like this?'” women will automatically turn it around on you like you’re in the wrong or have some kind of mental problem. Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right! Humans TOTALLY think that long periods of silence indicate someone is really really interested in you! Crazy me! Women don’t seem to understand that if they want to date someone, it’s not a good idea to give the vibe that you are completely uninterested, and yet you chose to match, and then choose to respond back to me holding you accountable as ME being in the wrong. It’s just fucking amazing. God forbid men do this to women on apps though, then the sisterhood comes out, complain about men together and support one another. Women can NEVER accept responsibility for themselves; they are the most self-absorbed group of people in the dating world.
none of this points describe the true nature of their acts. Its very simple, they are talking to several dudes at the same time and the fact that she changed rythm and speed means that she is willing to give her attention to the other Dude which unconsiously, she is already choosing to be the correct one. Simple as that
Haven’t watched this yet. Here are reasons I don’t reply. When I’m in a horny or lonely mood I’ll match with someone only to later realise I’m not interested. I like their face but after we match I read their bio and find that: we may not be after the same thing, we have no matching interests, something feels off, something seems like a red flag ect. When we begin speaking they sound like a dick. They begin a conversation, “Hey Gorgous”, they call me the wrong name (how?), they offer dick pics, they are immediately sexual, they get funny with me for not replying to them fast enough (come the fuck on), they seem domineering or aggressive. I stop replying if, I meet someone else in real life and I delete the app, I just had a bad experience on the app and don’t want to continue being on it, I’ve decided to date the opposite sex (bisexual), or a list of other reasons. People need to not take it personally, I don’t if someone doesn’t reply to me. People you don’t know don’t owe you anything at all.
I’ve noticed something funny on tinder in probably the last few months … Basically lately every single girl you match with will just immediately unmatch when you say hi or not reply at all I know this is common but I used to have much success with the app up to about 3 months ago (thousands of matches) now it just seems the number of matches I get is completely throttled down to basically 1-2 a day and the ones I do match just unmatch straight away. I’m platinum and use boosts regularly. Advice?
I totally disagree! I normally don’t have a hard time meeting chick’s on a random here and there outside Silicon Valley. Date sites have gone through an evolution, where at this point, the woman has experienced so many repetitive messages that it no longer matters zero substance regardless what you say. For most women dating sites, Are strictly for ego And reassurance to maintain ( their fragile confidence. Not all, but many) They have become extremely picky, knowing at any point that could have any guy, even a basic average, looking women. due to the attention that men have given them through a time. Imagine the rules were reversed and we were getting that amount of attention by nature, we will have the same behavior. We be extremely just as narrow with who we decide to chat with. It is unnatural for you to message Somebody that you have never met & you have no idea who they are and try to impress them with words. It is no different than approaching somebody in the street/ coffee shop/ mall. You simply say hello, You don’t run into somebody and right off the bat express poems. Solution Boycott all women by mass from dating sites for 1 week. Watch how many messages you’ll get!
Woman get the exact same Problem of having a match with is never responding to text messages. I don’t get it. You tell that guys don’t get as much matches as woman? Why are you guys never responding than? I only give a like wenn i see myself spending time with the guy. Having matches wo never respond is a big disappointment
Hi Damien, what about the new looking for feature on tinder? What I usually do when the conversation goes there is to say that I am not looking for a long term relationship but I’m open to it with tje right person, which is the truth. This often goes well also with women who prefer ltrs but are open to casual (most women I’ve met), if the vibe is ok. However I’m sure they would have swiped left had they read it on the looking for feature. Should we leave the feature blank? What do u think?
I get alot of matches and aloooooot of No-replies. Does anyone else lash out? I’m to the point where I just start roasting after I get ignored. Funny they always reply immediately with some excuse about a wedding or notifications or some other bs. I don’t make sex comments at all either. Im around an 8 and even 4s think they’re hot these days
At least 2 hours I am from any matches, frustrating as all hell, this happens just about every time. Very elderly population where I life on the south coast NSW, single woman down here there are a few but they’re in very high demand and most of them are not my type, more educated people in the cities also.
It’s not as simple as you try to put things in your article, dude. Things have changed, and it’s not always about your profile when they don’t reply, and you need to update your online dating knowledge, I’m sorry to say! These days, most of the chicks you match with don’t even bother replying to your messages, ‘cause they’re either only there for the attention, like to play stupid games, or suffer the paradox of choice, because they have way too many dudes matching with them. Problem is, instead of unmatching you, they prefer to just ignore and ghost you. These days you can be very happy to match with somebody who is able to hold a conversation without giving you breadcrumbs or abandoning the convo in the middle of it. Depending on the location, more and more chicks on Tinder are socially f*cked up and broken, no matter how hot they seem to be, and it has absolutely nothing to do with you or your profile.
uk man here. To be honest I don’t blame women not replying if I was on dating apps. To be honest perfectly honest I am the perfect poster man that pretty much all women would love to hate. I am 54, middle class and worked hard all my life to achieve some security, not a millionaire but I do ok, not exactly much going for me in the looks department though I go to the gym, I work all the hours and come home where I enjoy a walk with my dog, a visit to my Mum on Saturdays, the odd whisky on a Saturday afternoon, a potter in the garden and an afternoon snooze, bit of a tidy up on a Sunday in the house then ready again for Monday morning . I am about as crappy as it gets.
Corrections and remarks: – I forgot to mention that I ran the simulation 1000 times for every scenario – 05:02: “Attractiveness is subjective”. A lot of comments argued that attractiveness is NOT subjective, otherwise we wouldn’t have such a high inequality in likes for different users. My response to that is that attractiveness is partially subjective. A person that I consider to be attractive might not be attractive to you and vice-versa. Therefore, attractiveness has at least some level of subjectiveness. – 05:50: There’s a mistake in the formula of the right chart. It should be f(x) = 14% – 06:12: The chosen functions were power functions and NOT polynomial functions, as mentioned in the footnote
I’m 29 and went out with a 42 year old woman about half a year ago. She expressed frustration that she had only been on tinder for a week and had over 5,000 likes. She even opened the app on her phone and showed me. 5,000 men to choose from, in just a week. For a middle aged woman with kids Mind-Boggling.
Even before perusal this article, I had the differences clear: A friend and I made our profiles the same day, at the same time, she almost immediately got enough matches to even start using some of the chats as “meme chats” (non-serious conversations), while it took me one whole day to get a single match (and that match ignored me, btw). As the days passed, she had felt so overwhelmed by matches, that she started to think about deleting the app, while in the same time, I only managed to get 3 matches, and all of those 3 ignored me.
I’m 52 now. I got divorced at 40 and tried dating apps for a few occasions afterwards. It was the most weird and unnatural type of “interactions” I had in my life. Ghosting was a default. I then decided to go out, subscribed to real people networking events and happenings, and eventually met a lot of different people the traditional way. Some became close friends. Rather by coincidence I met my second wife after two years with this group of people through a common friend. We acquainted traditionally, dated slowly and stayed together. We are very happily married since 7 years now. My best move in life.
One reason I stopped using tinder is I had several dates cancel just as I was walking out the door to meet them. Happened 5 or 6 times. It was as if the reality of actually meeting was too much for them and they were treating tinder like a article game and that’s as far as they would go. The time waste was huge. At least they texted to cancel. Another one that happened, not often but it’s a whopper. Getting blatantly used to get a free meal. Those 2 things did it for me
I spent around 4 years in my mid-to-late 20s on every dating app I could find, and in all that time I got exactly 1 date. I would go for weeks at a time without any matches or responses; it felt like I was screaming into an empty abyss. And like most men, it absolutely damaged my self-image, and was one of the factors that lead me into a deep depression in my late 20s. My mental health has gotten considerably better since I’ve sworn off online dating as a whole, and I find a certain amount of solace in hearing and reading that others have had similar experiences.
My dating experience has been as such. -The date was an awkward disaster. -The girl tried to scam me before meeting. -I was talking to a bot. -The girl was a liar. -Or the usual, the girl ghosted me. I was only ever able to hit it off with one girl, and even though we do love each other and have so much chemistry there are so many problems that a long-term serious relationship just doesn’t seem possible at the moment.
This goes in line with an experiment I did yesterday on tinder. I wanted to see what other man generally put in their profiles so I set up a fake account of a woman, with a picture of a landscape of my city and no bio, just a fake name and age, and interest in “something casual”. In an hour this profile had about 50 likes, that’s crazy!
This has accurately summed up my own experience with dating apps, my brother and I have discussed this endlessly with frustration. I had no problems dating as a teen, had a few healthy relationships and typically had a “normal” level of engagement. I even met my last two girlfriends on dating sites in the early days of them, but as time went on I’ve gotten less matches, less conversations started and less actual dates until I gave up a couple years ago. It’s almost ironic, I feel that I have more to offer in a relationship than ever before between numerous hobbies, a successful career that’s growing and lots of free time, I just want to experience someone else’s passions too and share my own. For lack of a better explanation as my assets have increased my prospects have decreased. It’s backwards from what I saw my parents and their friends enjoyed during their time. I’ve learned to be happy being single, it’s not the life I always wanted but you make of it what you can.
I haven’t been active on dating apps since 2019. Even though I’ve done a lot to improve myself in that time, it’s hard to go back when I know that I’m at such a disadvantage. I used them on and off for like 5 years, and never actually met up with anyone. I barely had any fruitful conversations. A stark contrast from what I’ve experienced in the real world. 😂
Also, think about it from an app developer standpoint. If you find someone on a dating and start a long term relationship, the app loses two customers forever. The incentives for the devs are to design the apps in such a way as to keep you hooked, and let you win small amounts (few likes, maybe a match), but to never let you hit the jackpot like in a casino.
I did this once as a bet with some of my female friends who had a very distorted view of dating apps for the obvious reason shown in your study. I did not “play the numbers” but only swiped on women I genuinely was interested in. I fared better than average but still shocked my femaie friends with the experience men have. I generally think men are a lot better off not engaging in dating apps unless they are extremely attractive AND very rich… however men like this don’t need dating apps. The industry really seems to prey on the loneliness of men in general and makes money off of boosting profiles based on that loneliness.
Id say the biggest problem and as of why there is such a high different amount of users of the opposite gender is because dating apps rarely have single men as their ad (unless it’s a gay dating ap) and dating apps almost allways advertise single women as their ad terefore attracting more men that actual women to the app. Ive seen 5 different dating adds with a picture of an attractive single woman back to back and so far i haven’t really seen any dating apps that actually advertise both men and women together. Therefore creating an imbalance on the user gender count.
Honestly, I’ve started asking women out in person since I finally found the confidence and self esteem to do so and man it’s been so much easier and less mind boggling than dating apps Edit: damn this got more attention than I thought it would lol but my dudes I’ve just started to be more social and put myself places where I’m able to meet new ppl. Doesn’t have to be the club or whatever, say you go to the dog park and there’s a cute girl there and you strike up a convo and things seem to be flowing well that’s when you follow it up with a question like would you want to go get coffee sometime? Second edit: just to be fair I get told no thank you I’m not interested way more than I hear yes but you gotta try and understand your not gonna be everyone’s type and that’s okay it’s not a knock on you
Another key, fundamental issue with your beautifully explained theory is that inevitably men who do end up on a date are, on average, (much) more “attractive” and “desirable” than the women they are dating, simply because of the numbers (the larger pool of men and the higher selectivity of women implies that). This creates a very frustrating situation for women too, who end up essentially shooting out of their league (horrible way of describing this process, I am aware), which can often lead to one-night stands (camouflaged as potential long-term relationships by the small share of desirable men, who are not deeply interested but enough to have casual sex). This skews women’s perception of men’s attitude towards dating, which is why you often hear women saying “men only want to have sex, don’t want to commit, etc.”, so it is not helping women either, but men definitely have it tougher.
Just to describe my experiences with dating apps: I started using them pretty much right when I graduated from high school (8 years ago). Turned 18 in March of 2015 and graduated in June/July of that year. Since then I’ve used about 7 different dating apps. Let’s see if I can remember all of them. -Tinder -Hot or Not -Bumble -Plenty of Fish -Match -OK Cupid -Facebook’s new dating section 8 years. 7 apps. Swiping on thousands upon thousands of profiles. Guess how many women I’ve met with in real life through those apps. One. These apps are horrible for men’s self-image and self-esteem.
As a man this does reflect my experiences with Tinder. I talked to an attractive female friend who had also tried a dating app and she had a similar experience to this article. What is interesting is that she told me that she wasn’t even flattered: she felt that she doesn’t matter at all, because the men are only interested in her because she is a woman and they have a physical need towards her. I’m inclined to feel less bitter after this knowing that the opposite side doesn’t feel very empowered with this situation either.
This honestly helped with my view of self worth. It’s been over a year since trying a dating app and I’ve moved on from that, but the memory of those feelings still hangs and I could never quite grasp or comprehend what was going on and why I was having the experience that I did. This helped bring everything into the big picture that I failed to see before. I wish I could have seen your article before I ever got started, I might have even stuck with it and gone for the long run. This is a great article and I hope it can help some other poor guy from having the same experience that I did, either by using the system, or avoiding it completely, either way.
One major factor I experienced was living in a medium-sized city, with a smaller town nearby. I had 2 men from the same town literally beg me to date, where they were willing to drive 2 hours, round trip, to date me and I’m not conventionally attractive. I feel terrible for those guys because the odds are even more unfair towards them.
When I was curious about the imbalance phenomenon in dating websites, I analyzed hundreds of profiles and discovered that most of the female profiles were fake – duplicated language with only slight revisions, profile pictures plagiarized from elsewhere on the web, etc. This was the case on three popular dating websites I studied (though this was over a decade ago). I concluded that the sites were padding their female profile numbers because otherwise they wouldn’t have enough female profiles to keep the male customers interested with enough material to look through. That may still be the case – a high number of fake female profiles for padding, which would skew the match results even more severely.
So I clicked on this article thinking it was a 200k+ views article, with the excellent thumbnail, attractive title and honestly excellent amount of clickbait. Color me suprised to see the article having a few hundred of views with an incredible quality of animations, voiceover and topic coverage. As a (future) data fellow I say bravo! Easy to understand and an interesting take. Deserving of a comment, to help improve your outreach. Cheers and keep up the excellent work
This was my experience with tinder. I’m a man and I called it depression simulator. I match a week or a fortnight. Friends always want to see your profile so they can make it better in their eyes. Seeing female friends get it and immediately drown in matches. I remember at one point they had tinder gold which just flatly let you see who liked you so you could skip swiping through and was devastated to find there was only one. It also made being ghosted or talking to women who had no intention of going out far worse. Having said that, I did eventually find my current partner of 4.5years on there.
I’ve never had problems with girls, I’m quite attractive (around 7-7.5/10), I’m tall (6’2″), and I have a decent job (QA engineer). I signed up, uploaded some good photos, really put effort into my profile description, and liked and/or messaged 45 girls about 5-8/10, (I used the Boo dating app). Not a single one liked or messaged back. I started to think something was wrong, because that can’t be true. At least a few should have shown SOME interest, but no, zero. I went looking for the problem and found it, thanks for the article.😢
Your analysis is quite accurate. In my recent experience using Bumble (first time trying out online dating apps), where I was active for more than 3-4 months improving my profile each day in that period of time, I hardly had 2 likes and no matches. And I always thought that I was better than other men who liked any girl that they saw, that I will not swipe right on any random girl and only the ones that I found interesting enough or were of my type. But, after having no luck for some time I started rethinking on my type preferences and started liking anyone out of desperation, thinking that will atleast get me any matches. But no luck again. And being a data person, I knew that it is the statistics thing and also there’s only so much you could tell about yourself from your profile for the other person to decide whether they want to date you or not. Anyway, its a good scam business playing out on people’s desperation to find a way out of loneliness. Good luck!
Culture is an important factor. For example, Turkish girls are beautiful but their egos are very high. A man who tries to talk to a Turkish girl is very likely to be rejected or even mistreated. When i used Tinder in Turkey, i didnt get any matches in 48 hours and probably wont for a long time. However, when i set my location to one of the Eastern European countries, i got 4 matches in 8 hours. It was incredible. They are more beautiful than Turkish girls, more modest and dont mistreat. This is the effect of culture
One experience as a woman on dating apps is that while I’ll get a lot of matches, very few of those matches are actually interested in engaging in conversation and the ones that are are often extremely pushy and invasive. I think this factors in with the fact that men are far more likely to swipe right. Where rejecting is the default for women, accepting matches is the default for a lot of men. That means that a lot of the matches we do get are from men who aren’t actually all that interested and mostly just swiped right to optimise their chances of matching with someone
I’ve only used dating apps a few times, and only met a couple of women. I ended up pushing myself to go out with women I wasn’t actually attracted to. I had convinced myself that these were the only women that will bother giving me attention, so I should try and make it work no matter what. It didn’t last very long. There’s nothing wrong with them, it’s just that a relationship simply can’t work without attraction. I pulled away as politely and respectfully as I could – the least I could do is tell them how I feel and why I wished to stop talking. I haven’t used any of these apps in years now. The experience just wasn’t great and I think for a lot of guys it just isn’t worth our time.
Another important point to consider is the different gender ratios between: 1) Active profiles, not just total profiles. There is evidence that women are more likely to stop using apps then men, leading to an overestimating of active female users. 2) Age groups. Middle aged people actually have more women on dating apps than men. When you isolate only users in their 20s/30s, the ratios become even more skewed. Doing the math on this a while ago, I found that the number of active, young male profiles to active, young female profiles was 10:1 🤡 Moral of the story, go outside if you want to meet people.
It’s really rather depressing. I’m probably a slightly above average male in terms of taking care of myself and career. I finally found a long term partner that is great but it took a remarkable amount of rejection. I didn’t have too much trouble getting a first date on the apps but rejection after the first date was pretty remarkable. Dating advice from friends was no use at all. “Women want a man that takes charge.” “Don’t come on too strong .” “Just be your sweet self.” “Women don’t want a man that is too nice.” “Don’t come off desperate.” “Tell her how much you like her.” “Hold the door for her.” “Don’t hold the door for her.” There is all kinds of terrible social conditioning happening out there. My best advice is to just be yourself and don’t contribute to the toxicity in our culture. Know that people being messed up and having weird ideas about what they are looking for doesn’t have anything to do with you. When it comes to settling with someone, be careful because the only thing worse than being alone is wishing you were alone.
The thing that compounds how bad dating apps are, is that once you get out of college (as a man at least), you have to go out of your way to be social, to events, find classes/groups with women if you want an even half-decent chance of “putting yourself out there.” And even then, you actually still have to be proactive in terms of approaching women within those spaces, because chances are, unless you’re decently good looking you’re going to have to make the first move. For someone who is a natural introvert and keeps to themselves most of the time, this is incredibly difficult, hence I feel like dating apps are my only realistic options, after experiencing rejection in-person and feeling out-of-place in social scenarios.
This is brilliant. Thank you! I hope men who are disappointed with their performance (for lack of a better word) on dating apps will watch this and feel better knowing the odds are not in their favor in any way. Even being statistically more generous with their likes puts men at a disadvantage in some cases! Some apps are actually coded to show the profiles of users who like indiscriminately to fewer other users.
I was on a dating app, I found this girl and instantly felt like she was a great match based on her profile. We matched and started talking. For about a week I was texting this girl and was trying to setup a date. Later that week, my little sister tells me I’ve been catfish and one of my old hs friends was behind the profile. I come to find out it was true. This happened a few weeks after my crush got a boyfriend. I’ve never been so emotional distressed in my life.
I wish this article came out 3 years ago when I was still using Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble all at the same time. perusal my objectively attractive male friends get 40-50 likes per day versus my 1 a week was infuriating. I knew the apps were rigged but I didn’t know to what degree. This article is very useful for people who struggle with the issue of self worth. My self worth was tied to those apps and with every passing day it fell lower and lower. I am now happily married (someone I met on Hinge actually), but even still learning about this math makes me feel better about myself in hindsight.
Takeaway from this: 1.)Woman have made the dating apps broken due to low female numbers & playing hard to get. 2.) Men are too easy to pick up online & get treated as such (basically telling her indirectly you don’t have options or are a low baller) 3.) Don’t waste your time as a man on dating apps, get some game,clothes & money and go find them IRL 💯 (be prepared to make some mistakes) And on a personal note I haven’t seen many online dating couples last (least at a national level), so I think that’s taking the p1ss saying dating apps work.
Looks realistic to me. I had a response rate of about 10% per exchange, meaning that extremely few contacts ever got to more than 2 or 3 exchanges, resulting in ca. one date per year. And being male, of course my profile was complete and carefully curated, whereas I had trouble finding women with even so much as a profile picture. Needless to say, I have long given up this game. People keep talking about the negative impact of social media, but I have yet to see anyone warning of the toxicity of dating platforms and their catastrophic consequences on their users’ self esteem.
I was at my peak using Tinder when it launched. I think the landscape was different in the beginning because I got a lot of matches. At the time, Tinder was great. I was meeting women, and for the first time, I was rejecting girls rather than trying to make a relationship work that wasn’t ideal for me. I met one girl, and it was wild; we were finishing each other’s sentences, and that’s the girl I married. I feel bad for the guys of today. I wish everyone had an experience like I had that was looking for a genuine relationship
This is bad for the “top 10%” guys as well btw. I was on Hinge for a while and I had 100s if not 1000s of likes and I’ve been on maybe 50 or so dates with different girls I matched with. Out of those 50 there was maybe only 1 or 2 I had any interest in pursuing further than a couple of dates. The issue is that the quality of women is absolutely awful. And to make it worse they all have an ego so even if they’re average they believe they deserve an exceptional man. And they will make an issue out of the smallest thing because they believe that they are the prize. What I’ve noticed among exceptional attractive and successful men is that they end up dating down massively and accepting some average girl so just they aren’t single. The most attractive women stay single because you would have to be God to impress them. I refuse to date down to far below my level. People will judge me for that but it’s just my personal choice. I’d rather be alone.
What a comforting article. I just started using tinder about 2 weeks ago and my confidence went down the drain, especially this weekend. I don’t even think I’m ugly, I get approached at least once a night when I go to the club. Yet on tinder I’m sitting with a cool 5 likes (it was at 3 like 5 months ago when I quit so pretty much 2 likes in the 2 weeks). I hope as many men as possible see this article before they assume they are unwanted.
I used the internet for dating back in the old days of 2000-2010 when you had to put essays along with your pic and be witty. I would meet about 3-6 women in a few weeks in person that I liked and would pick two that I would take seriously and start seeing. All of them said my essays caught their attention. In the swipe world of today, I would lose badly.
I like about this, that it is surprisingly precise with very few assumptions. It doesn’t address toxic behaviour, regional differences, communication strategies etc.. still it creates a good theory why dating apps leaves most users frustrated (on both sides actually), and gives a hint what might be improved.
This is an extremely important article for our current day and age. I personally have past experiences of feeling insecure and a lack of confidence when it came to receiving so few matches on dating apps. I know I’m not “unattractive” and I have a lot of good qualities, so it was discouraging to think “Well I guess I’ll never find anyone” since dating app likes/matches are so skewed. I think this article is so important right now because it gives great believable data to show why this is happening, and that it is not the fault of most of the men who may feel down or insecure about this. This discrepancy was created not only by the design of the app itself, but how things have developed in our society. This data allows both men and women to know that we do not need to measure our self-worth and romantic success based on what we receive with dating apps, as it is very clear that these online dating apps do not reflect reality. It’s time for us to think of an alternative. Ironically, probably going back to trying to meet people in person, lol. Which would probably be better if there were no dating apps and people learned how to respectfully and confidently accomplish meeting and building positive relationships with people in person and around their community. That, or the highly unlikely creation of a different kind of dating app which takes into account these discrepancies, as well as not being profit driven.
Thank you for this article. In 2020, I joined Tinder and quickly realised that I get hardly any matches. The number was so surprisingly low I decided to do some stats and put it into Excel. Although I deleted this file a while ago, I still remember some numbers – a summary of being 1,5 years on Tinder: Profiles seen: around 12,500 Women profiles liked: around 5,500 Likes I received: 200 Matches: 45 Women I met in person: 4 Relationships: 0 Back then, I was really convinced I’m just a guy with an extreme bad luck. After reading the comments, I see it’s more about a sad reality we live in. Again, thank you for this article.
I stopped taking dating apps seriously after my first year or so of using them because on the odd moon mondays when I do get matches, there’s a significant likelihood that the other person just never responds back, doesn’t put much effort into the conversation, or unmatches within a few minutes. Out of probably the dozens of matches I’ve had over the 3 years I’ve used them, only one has ever resulted in a date, and even then that date went terribly because (and I wish I was making this up) she started spouting off nonsense about how the birds outside were spying on her. At this point I don’t have any hope of finding anything meaningful on them and just use them to look at the bios, and I gotta say one of my favorites was a girl who was scared of lobsters that had a picture of her reacting to her friend holding it up to her.
Im going to send this to my friend his been feeling very insecure about the fact girls are barely accepting his requests or sending him request and i explained from a female perspective those invites are over flooding and its overwhelming. Im glad you made this article. The timing of your article on my feed was perfect ✨️
I’m a bi male and I can attest that the difference in my experience with matching with men and women is mind blowing. If I match with I guy I can just say hi usually it’s a pretty good casual conversation, if I match with a female it’s about 1-4 chance they respond with more than a few words and if they do it often devolves into an interview… It’s very strange.
This article 100% shows my experience with dating apps. I basically got 20 likes or so for each time I tried to create a profile, and if I got a match out of it, it was a lucky shot, and even then most of the matches completely ignored me. On a positive side, things only need to work once. One of the very few matches ended up in a date, which ended up in a relationship and now I’ve been happily married for 6 months with the love of my life already. So even low odds can sometimes work out.
One of the wildest things I’ve ever seen was this article of guys asking girls how many tinder likes they get and the girls not being able to comprehend the question. For the girls they’re not liking a profile in hopes of matching, they’re choosing profiles to match with. They couldn’t comprehend that swiping right didn’t mean automatically matching with that person, they were so skewed they didn’t even understand the basic operation of the app.
Dating apps destroyed my confidence. From a pool of like 400 girls nobody wanted me, so why would they want me if I talk to them in person. It is a cycle that is hard to leave. These apps just strengthen your insecurities. Delete them and start looking in the real world. Looking IRL can be scary, but at least it is real.
32 year old man here. I had a handful of dates through various apps, which were mostly good, but never went any further. In the long-term, these apps trashed my self-esteem to the point that I almost gave up on dating altogether. So I deleted all of my profiles last year and I feel a lot better now and focus on speed dating. It’s nice to actually have a conversation even though I’ve had zero success so far. It’s less emotionally taxing than apps.
I love the data+storytelling of this article, simple and well-explained. Some years ago I felt kind of down because I put so much effort into my Bumble profile and got just a few likes and matches and then it turns out my profile was performing quite well compared to other male profiles, however, because I love to do research and I’m curious to understand the world we live I noticed that my profile got more like when I travel abroad, then for a university project I tested the app changing the GPS location of my device virtually and then I tracked the likes and matches over time for different locations in a spreadsheet. I think the more you learn about business dev, tech, algorithms design, and human behavior, this kind of app loses its value and can be an interesting subject to discuss ethical dilemmas. My advice for everyone: Stay curious about life & culture and get a healthy lifestyle. There are things that can’t be hidden in a good-looking profile pic.
Great vid! One thing which you didn’t take into account is their algorithm based on some sort of Elo score ranking. In short: the top most popular users (so typically the most attractive ones) will get promoted even more, whereas the average user profile will be lost down the stack. Tinder does a lot of nasty tricks to keep you hooked. Initially (first 2 days) you get a noob boost, your profile is being shown to more women = more likes = more matches. After that, your profile goes down the drain, you will get matches only every now and then. Sometimes I feel like they provide you with fake matches to give you some hope. They do all they can to make you go and pay for the premium version. Else you are doomed.
I think it also hurts that there is a segment of the population of men that are more aggressive in their pursuit of women that liked their profile. This means a woman isn’t incentivized to like a profile unless she is absolutely certain that she’s interested in going from a dating app like to a date. There’s basically no room for an in-between “feeling out” process where you communicate via the app (or some other messaging) to determine if you’re a better match than “having an online chat then going your separate ways”. No one wants the person who continues to push and push after being told “thanks but no thanks”, and women get that far more often than men. So women are incentivized to be incredibly picky, because that pushy kind of man exists at all levels of perceived attractiveness.
Same feeling. Only my female friends recommend me to use dating apps coz they thought the apps were enjoyable but every time I tried I felt frustrated. I know my friends just want to help but they didn’t know how different the treatment is on men and women in these apps. Thanks for the information in this article, it really helped me a lot.
I spent 7 years being depressed and alone, id try dating apps hoping for something to help feel a little better. It got worse and worse over time and more depressing, creating a cycle. I’m introverted and have a hard time being social in large groups, but I’m also a musician (and singer). You have to show up, show up in places you’re interested. I like music and art, so I started hosting a weekly jam at my house. The first little while was nobody, but within 2 months I met two different women… People are looking for meet ups, especially things that are different than “go to the bar” or “go to the dating app” if you want to meet anyone. I ended up finding a good community through it, even started a band and started feeling more confident. Then suddenly women are interested in you, go figure. Think of something you like to do, that you think women might have interest in as well (music is a good one) start some kind of meet up, or start showing up at meet ups in things you’re interested in.
I’m a straight male who just turned 50 last year. In my late 20s through early 30s, I was a paid member of 6 dating sites for at least 5 years straight. I put a lot of time into my profiles, contacted women, searched for matches, lowered my standards, expanded my pool by looking globally instead of just where I lived – everything I could think of. In that 5 year period of using those dating sites, I got about 5 women who responded to me and one single date. That obvioulsy had a profound impact on my emotional wellbeing, and I finally forced myself to just quit the dating sites. I’m still single but I’m much happier and healthier mentally and emotionally than I was after that experience, and I pretty much had arrived at the same conclusion as this article illustrates. In particular, because I had a lot of female friends, and several of them also used one or more of those same dating sites, and being good friends of theirs, they would share their experiences with me. I was first shocked by just how much they had to deal with – every single one of them had way more likes and emails than they could ever hope to deal with, and every single one of them would go through the “good matches” they had with me (along with a handful of the “bad” ones), and even then, at least 60-70% of even the good ones horrified me and had me worried for their safety on those sites, and those were the ones that my female friends weren’t worried about! It was a shocking experience, and one I’ve never forgotten.
My god, i have problems with my self image, and dating apps were making it way worse, but damn, this article was very helpful, I have to thank you for making it so easy to understand! And also, guys who think they’re ugly (like me :D) please, value your image and don’t let yourself be dragged by your “performance” on dating apps!
When I met my ex, I actually asked her how many like she got in a day. She told me after 4 days, she gave up swiping because she had too many likes. I was one of the lucky few she actually liked and we got married a year and a half later. She cheated and now I’m single and going through this again. Between the 3 bating apps I have, I get between 1 and 0 likes a week. I just kinda gave up on them. I’m an introvert and don’t want to actually go out.
I’ve had some experience in dating apps as a bisexual man, and something interesting I’ve noticed is that men keep being pretty generous with their likes even towards other men. Having received dozens of likes with only a few from women, I myself started to get picky, but only towards the men I saw, because I knew there was like a 70% chance that any like I give would turn out to be a match.
I have an (apparently) very attractive male friend, being an average male myself. He didnt understand why I was struggling with dating and really wanted and did help me with pictures etc, but to no avail, so he suspected I just was either picking too attractive girls or bombing it when messaging to them. So we traded phones for an hour. While he obviously couldnt get a single match with my profile, I could’ve gotten god knows how many dates in an instant. It was… amazing how the girls reacted to his profile. I didnt even had to try to be charming in the slightest. He had to delete his account shortly after because the girls Ive talked to didnt stop dming him.
This is a very interesting article. I made most of these assumptions when I tried using such apps years ago. Many women commenting are saying “just meet girls in person”. While some maybe dream of this happening with the man of their dreams, it also doesn’t work in real life. People don’t like to be approached in public. There is a lot of research on this. People tend to date within their social circles or connected social circles. The only way a man can advance his dating situation is to widen his social circles as much as possible. Join many groups and clubs and go to many social events with them. This is just like network for a job. Who you know is everything that matters. I honestly believe dating apps do much more hurt than harm.
A study from the early 1980s showed that the thing almost all men and women look for in not just dating, but life in general is looks over all. Given that 80% of men were rated as ‘below average’ by women from the OK cupid data, and that 60-75% of people on dating apps are men, AND that a primary motivator of these apps is to keep users on it as long as possible… you can easily see how the numbers are entirely stacked against men for online dating.
Been on and off dating apps for about 10 years. Been on a fairly average amount of dates but never got into a relationship from any. It’s hard for men. Really hard. But I also feel for the woman out there too. It’s so exhausting and to be fair I feel like it does effect confidence in ones self. But I try not to let that get the better of me. I like to think I’m a great guy I just feel like the luck in that aspect of life has been awful. For the men out there struggling to meet that special someone I feel you. You’re not alone. Hang in there!
Online dating was horrible, it took me a few years to actually find someone, I spent time actually deciding who I wanted to be with because I wanted to choose people based on what I liked, as in movies or games and general interests, but I found out even with that, most of the time I get ghosted, no one talks, even if they matched with me I would get nothing, and it’s not like I didn’t try, I would open up the conversation with interests in mind and I kept it normal, no talking about their or my body. But even when the conversations did go well, they would dry out. They wouldn’t seem interested only giving one-word answers so I stopped messaging them. Even when I would state my intentions as I’m on a dating app I would like to go on a date to see how things go I would again be ghosted because the most woman on these sites only use it to boost their ego and for you to like their Instagram page. Luckily I found someone in the end and we’ve been dating for a little bit now and she liked how straightforward I was as she wanted the same thing and didn’t want anyone wasting her time.
Great article! This does reflect my experience and i always thought there was something weird happening. NGL it is tough, i have struggled with my self esteem for years and dating apps really didnt help that. I even joined FB dating thinking “SURELY THIS IS THE FINAL STRAW, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING ON HERE” and basically got the same results actually mostly worse. I was always thinking that its something i said in my bio or how i look in my profile but never really knew how to make a difference to those! Anyway, great breakdown, thanks!
Easy answer, men are less selective. We created ourselves this situation by liking even an average profile. Else women, with overwhelming liked by men, have the choice to swipe. And as we get less like, we tend to like less than average profile etc. But in fact, as a male, if you got a match, then it means the woman is really attracted or interested by you.
This is spot on. I’ve used multiple dating apps/websites with free and/or premium subscriptions. They all lead to the same EXACT outcome, EXACTLY what you came up with. 0-1 matches every month. Most people did not respond even if matched(which I think were just bots because I told them to delete me from the match if you are a real person and not interested in responding. They never did.)
As a woman who has a bunch of male friends, it’s always painful to hear about their online dating experiences. Good people who just can’t catch a break because their personalities don’t translate to the format of a dating app, or they simply aren’t shown frequently enough in the algorithm 😕 But then on the flipside the woman’s experience isn’t worth trading for… Many matches means a higher likelihood of exposure to angry or perverted people. And after you’ve received verbal abuse for the 5th or 10th time just because you didn’t answer quickly enough, it becomes emotionally taxing to sort through those daily unread messages. You become skeptical of anybody who puts on a good face, because you don’t trust that there’s not a monster underneath. It’s a terrible game for both parties 🙁
As a bi woman, when I was on dating apps, it was so easy to match and talk with men. I would have several matches from men everyday and a lot of cool conversations(some not so cool, but that’s expected). I had my profile for men and women and I would hardly ever get any female matches at all. And if I did get a match they’d never respond to my messages or the conversation lasted less than a day. I’d even have dating apps just for females and it’s just so difficult to date women from an app, I still don’t understand.