Matched and Deleted

https://www.dikshaupadhyay.com/p/matched-and-deleted

by rgbimbochamp • 1 year ago

70 57 1 year ago

nine_k2• 1 year ago

Money quotes:

They understand that people don’t make decisions based on features or specifications, alone. They make decisions based on how something makes them feel.
Despite innovative products, countless tech startups remain bland and interchangeable in the public eye. The reason? They focus on what they do, not why they do it. Tech companies pour resources into engineering and user acquisition, but treat branding as an afterthought – maybe a logo here, a quirky Twitter (now X) voice there. Technical solutions solve functional problems but they’re not equipped to make people care.
Facts tell, but stories sell.

A bunch of good examples.

For the standard objections that some people pick things not because of feelings but because they have a problem to solve: why do these people want to solve that problem?

valenterry• 1 year ago

why do these people want to solve that problem?

Answer, because it's a problem. It's by definition. Oxford: "a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome"

nine_k2• 1 year ago

Fine; why is that a problem for them? Why aren't they ignoring it? Etc, until you find a motivation that's not directly reducible to the technical challenge for which you're offering a solution.

Legend2440• 1 year ago

This article claims that only 5% of hinge users find a long-term partner on the app:

The stats are bleak. Industry-wide, only about 10% of users find a long-term partner. Hinge? Roughly 5%.

However, this is not what their linked source says:

Tinder is also the most successful matchmaker, with 29.6% of respondents engaged or married to a partner from the app. Bumble and Hinge trail behind at 12.9% and 5%, respectively.

5% of survey respondents were engaged or married to someone from hinge. This reflects the relative popularity of the different apps, not your odds of finding love on them.

a3w• 1 year ago

P(A|B) = [P(A)*P(B|A)]/P(B), all the rest is commentary.

fragmede• 1 year ago

more commonly known as Bayes’ theorem.

kragen• 1 year ago

The author's name, "Diksha", means initiation into a system of knowledge or insight. Your comment shows, ironically, that you have a crucial insight that the author lacks; the real diksha here is conveyed by reading your comment.

mettamage7• 1 year ago

The stats are bleak. Industry-wide, only about 10% of users find a long-term partner. Hinge? Roughly 5%. That’s worse than your odds at a Vegas table (a good 35%-50%). But still, people flock to it. Why?

I know I fall into a unique-ish category, but let me tell why about 1% of men flock to it. Because they have the skill in dating but online is easiest. Before online dating my potential to match with an attractive woman was once per week. With online dating: 25 per week.

I'm at best an average looking guy. Having a cleft lip and being skinny doesn't help.

But with dating I've honed my hacker mindset. Like computers, human social systems are systems to be curious about. There are ways to influence it that helps you get to where you want to go.

Before dating apps, my favorite way to find dates was to compliment people on the street around 1 PM (lunch break while working remotely). Anyone I saw that I had a genuine compliment for, I'd give it. Men, women, dog (who's a good boy? :D), cat (hey cat, I respect you, please be kind :') ), didn't matter. 50% of people thank you and immediately move on. The other 50%, I'd just see where the vibe would go. Most of the time nothing would happen. Occasionally, I'd land a date or find a friend. The idea here simply is: it's a numbers game of finding people that you jive with.

The reason it needed to be also social is because when I tried to make it solely romantic, I became too needy and had too much of a taker's mindset. When I made it more social, I always had more of a giver's mindset (regardless of whether I was attracted to someone or not). I've experimented quite a bit to land on this way of getting dates.

I tried online dating for a few times, and it didn't work out as I got 0 to 3 matches per month. But then, like dating in real life, I decided to put on my hacker mindset. Over the course of a few months, I slowly saw my matches increase. The principles I found that worked are:

1. You need to be in front of as many people as possible

2. You need to be as high on the stack of cards as possible (so the other person doesn't have swiping fatigue)

3. You need to look as hot as you possible can

I optimized towards that. Fun fact about #3: the way you look in pictures doesn't even need to correspond that much to real life, not really. If you think I'm wrong, go and test it! Hackers test, so do scientists. Having a testing mindset has been invaluable when it comes to dating. What also helped is a really big motivation to "get this handled". I don't know why my motivation has been this big but it was. I've met people that look and act similar to how I am but aren't as motivated and they're not really getting anywhere (one of them is a very close friend of mine).

So back to #3: I basically became good at Photoshop and photography. I'd take pictures and edit pictures in such a way that it'd be the best picture I take in my life. My justification for editing: if it stays within the range of how women "edit their face" with make-up, then this is digital make-up for men. So it was nothing too crazy. But it definitely helped. And just like the female instagram models have all these tricks to look more attractive, I learned from them and figured out my own tricks. Are you skinny? A blazer is your best friend as it will make your shoulders look much larger. And so on. I never got called out on this as I stayed within the range of "make-up editing" and I'd show up on dates with a blazer as well. Humans are vein like that and after decades of not leaning into it, I decided to lean into it.

I'm married nowadays :) It took me 30 online dates in my thirties to find her. And countless of IRL dates and failed relationships that I have happened in my twenties. Oh, and therapy and self-therapy (the self-therapy being exposure to social situations that I'd have anxiety from).

Anyway, I hope this helps. I sometimes write about dating on this site as I know there's a group out here that still have as much difficulty as I did when I was younger. Feel free to search on my comments. It should have enough info on how to get out of it. I used to help people who emailed me but I don't have the bandwidth at the moment.

dash2• 1 year ago

You should write a substack! "How to date and get married" is a lot less toxic than the nonsense that the Andrew Tates/PUAs of this world are selling.

mettamage7• 1 year ago

That's fair enough. I'll consider it.

The irony here is that part of what I've learned is because of PUAs. Not Andrew Tate though, his advice is criminally toxic. And a lot of advice is metaphorical dirt to the point that it really does feel like one is mining for nuggets of gold of wisdom. Being sceptical but open really helped. Back then (2004), I had nowhere else to look. PUAs taught me the concept of playfulness really well, including the advice that taking improv classes help with that as well.

It was really hard to understand, given my specific blend of neurodivergence, but once I understood how a big part of my personality is inherently playful (always has been), a lot of my dating issues were fixed. Not all though, but I think unearthing my own inner playful self, which was there behind all the layers, has helped me tremendously. Thoroughly understanding and digging up my own playfulness has been one of the best investments in my life.

I also learned a lot thanks to Tal Ben-Shahar's positive psychology class in 2006. In an indirect way, I owe my HN username to that class as metta is loving-kindness meditation and meditation super charged my life (and dating life).

Noumenon72• 1 year ago

Do you mean you have a surgically repaired cleft lip that gives you a slight sneer, or are you telling us you have an up-to-the-nostril cleft lip and covering it up with Photoshop worked for you?

mettamage7• 1 year ago

Respectfully, I don’t want to talk about the topic of my cleft lip. It hurts to talk about it.

It’s hard enough bringing it up. I bring it up to give evidence to the fact that I am not a stereotypical good looking guy. Because I am not.

loriverkutya• 1 year ago

Not sure from what time is your experience is from, if it’s pre Covid, I would say it’s outdated. Dating apps in the last few years turned into hyper optimised tunnels to get money out of their users while keeping them in the app with algorithms surgically portioning interactions aimed to keep their users swiping.

mettamage7• 1 year ago

About 2 years ago. Most principles I used are more than 10 years old. Certain other things were found by experimentation between 2.5 and 2 years ago

chilmers• 1 year ago

I think the accepted truth that dating apps like Hinge are terrible for finding long-term partners ignores the fact that most people are not really trying to use them to find a long-term partner. They might say they wanted to find a long-term partner, but that doesn't correspond to their use of the app. They aren't using them in any kind of dedicated or organized way. They just load them up when they're bored and waste a bit of time aimlessly swiping, messaging the odd match and going on the occasional date.

It's a bit like if I say I want to write a novel, but all I do is sporadically open up Google Docs and write for 30 minutes before losing inspiration and doing something else. If I never write a book, is that Google Docs fault, or mine? Despite their flaws, I think modern dating apps actually provide a pretty good toolset for finding a long-term partner. But like any tool, your results will depend mostly on your skill and dedication in putting it to use.

clan4• 1 year ago

But I prefer my tools to come with proper instructions on the box.

The reason the "tool" works for you is that you are willing to game the system. Everything can be a hammer.

Those really looking for a casual hookup rarely are honest about it. The pond might shrink if they are (maliciously or not). This then requires a much more guarded and hard approach for those seriously looking for longterm relationships.

There is a signal value in what tool you use. Even though they might all look like a hammer to you.

People are accepting invitations on Facebook. But around here it is commonly known to only mean either an intention of attending (or just showing support even). Again Facebook the tool is not to blame. Hence I do not use that tool. No fault of the tool in itself.

So I think that the lament is not that dating apps are misused. People are "free" to do that. But what should the people who want a (for the lack of a better term) "real dating" app do?

Some thrive in this new world. But I would claim that we get more and more lonely while hiding behind our screens.

The extroverts had an easier time even before the apps. With the apps they thrive. The introverts just got an even harder time navigating this.

Dating apps are pure hell for those who "want to write the book". I do not blame the tool but I do see a real world issue.

uselesswords• 1 year ago

What you’re describing is just human nature. I also wish for a world where everyone was honest with their intentions. It’s not realistic. You might as well just complain about humanity as a whole, unless you have a better idea, or can fix humanity, dating apps do a decent job.

throwanem2• 1 year ago

Has it occurred to you that tools are created by people for reasons, which absolutely may be judged both for intentional malice and insufficiently forestalled harmful consequence?

bossyTeacher3• 1 year ago

This is so true. For many people it is just a nice validation boost. You don't need to do anything apart from the initial set-up. Likes and matches will start trickling on their own and you don't have to compromise on anything. Any requests for meeting up or video chat or similar can be ignored or the person can be deleted. There is nothing like this in the real world.

martinsnow• 1 year ago

Are respondents truthful in interviews? I found my wife using a dating application. It was very easy, I just had to widen the geography I was searching.

mettamage7• 1 year ago

Same here, I was lucky being a digital nomad, hopping about in western Europe. There also needs to be a willingness to have a long distance relationship though.

MrMcCall5• 1 year ago

Galactic search enabled ;-)

fireburning5• 1 year ago

lol for some of us i doubt multi galatic multi dimensional searches would yield nothing

ozzyphantom4• 1 year ago

After finding my partner on Hinge (following years of dating apps, setups, and in-person approaches), I've reflected on this journey. Despite the countless disappointing dates, the 3-year struggle ultimately proved worthwhile.

However, I'm troubled by how profit motives distort online dating. The business model incentivizes engagement over meaningful connections, creating a system where genuine relationships feel like marketing bait for swipe addiction.

Hinge worked best for me and several friends, but I suspect its designers know how to better facilitate connections—improvements they avoid implementing because they would hurt revenue.

This has sparked my interest in creating an open-source, non-profit dating platform—one designed to address loneliness without answering to shareholders who prioritize metrics over human well-being.

I’m not sure that I’ll ever go through with it but I think it would be a worthwhile project to consider.

nathanaldensr• 1 year ago

I appreciate your empathetic need to help, but the answer is not more tech, no matter how that tech is funded. It's less tech. As a species we have to return to more local life where we grow up knowing those around us, including the opposite sex, and pair off that way. Humans did not evolve to live in gigantic cities of millions of people and be able to select mates from the entire dating app population (I include Facebook and Instagram in that). The way our instincts want to select mates works best in local groups, like how we lived as a species thousands of years ago.

MrMcCall5• 1 year ago

Yeah, having a community of people that love each other and can learn about one person's relative over here who might be a good match for another person's relative over there is a nice way to facilitate such networking.

Of course, those kinds of situations depend on the goodness of those doing the matchmaking, i.e. there must be no money changing hands (to coerce anyone), and the happiness of the potential couple must be the primary goal.

Getting one's selfish motives out of any interaction is a root problem in the human world, especially in many old-world cultures where women's rights don't count for shit. The sooner those old cultures are reformed, the better.

Girl Power!

kayodelycaon• 1 year ago

As a species we have to return to more local life where we grow up knowing those around us

This only works if the local people accept you. I know many LGBT people who aren’t accepted by those around them. Personally, I left everyone I grew up around because I couldn’t find friends or work.

ozzyphantom4• 1 year ago

I don’t completely disagree with you but I don’t think that’s very realistic to be honest.

Plus, in my experience, I felt very similarly in that I wanted to meet someone in “real life”. That felt important to me, to have some kind of story about how the relationship began that wasn’t “we met on Hinge”.

But after meeting that person, after so much trying and heartbreak and struggle, I realized how much I don’t care at all how we met. Just that I’m so happy to have them in my life.

Meeting in person is awesome, but having a companion who feels like your person isn’t diminished because you met on a dating app in my opinion and experience.

hijp• 1 year ago

I think it's a fantastic idea! Having met 90% of my girlfriends through dating apps, I've watched them all gradually morph into Tinder clones with dark patterns and steep monthly fees ($20-$50). It's terrifying to think you might never meet your future spouse because you accidentally swiped left on a touchscreen.

I used to really like OkCupid. Old school OkC reminded me of Bantr from Ted Lasso, it was more personality-driven. You'd answer hundreds of questions and see compatibility scores with people nearby. Even though that might be a questionable metric (I actually enjoy dating people different from me), it was interesting to sort by inverse and see who I was supposedly incompatible with.

What I love most about meeting through apps is how low-pressure it feels. There's no second-guessing about whether they're interested, if they're single, or worrying that you're bothering them. A dating app that actually tries to help people connect instead of sucking us dry through backtrack fees would be amazing.

I have no knowledge of the non-profit space, how would you initially fund something like that?

parsimo20102• 1 year ago

A non-profit dating platform probably means you don’t charge much- which initially seems good, but it probably also means you’ll attract a bunch of users who aren’t serious because they have nothing at risk. So the people who are seriously looking for a relationship will be lost in all the casual users. Sure, you could make people deposit a bunch of money to prove they’re serious but you’ll lose all your users.

If you can figure out how to select people seriously looking for a relationship without becoming a pay to play app then it would be popular. But so far nobody knows how to do that. Or maybe someone does know but they won’t do it because there’s no profit in it.

enduser• 1 year ago

Also likely is attracting a lot of bots and scammers and not having the resources to keep the platform focused on real people.

golly_ned• 1 year ago

Isn’t it the usual case that dating app users do not pay?

grok22• 1 year ago

You could charge a lot and only not have dark patterns :-). Nothing says you have to charge a little because you are open-source/foss.

sellmesoap• 1 year ago

Take a deposit and refund part of it when you prove you have a marriage certificate. Will you be my McBride?

ozzyphantom4• 1 year ago

Another idea I had to play a role in solving that issue (not that I’ve really thought too deeply about it yet) is, similar to how the free version of Hinge works, greatly limiting the amount of likes you can send in a day. Perhaps with greater limit for women since all data shows that men need to send many times more likes for much fewer matches. However, there is no paid tier where you get more like or anything like that, obviously. Because then it would be just like every other app.

Is it possible to root out everyone who “isn’t serious”? Definitely not, but I think there’s a lot more that can be done when you remove a profit motive.

deadbabe• 1 year ago

The odds in real life are truly not that much better, people are just willing to settle more.

But the thing is, if you’re online dating there is no reason to settle. If you wanted to settle, you’d just meet people in real life. Online dating is for you to take a chance at getting the best you can get. Sometimes it works and sometimes not. People just don’t understand this. If you’re not at the top % of the dating pool in attractiveness, stick to real life

fireburning5• 1 year ago

if you look in the mirror and scare yourself or a girl made you wear a bag over your face during sex like me just become a monk :)

thrwythrwythrwy• 1 year ago

Personally, I’ve only ever been on three dates my entire life — all of them with women I met on Hinge while I was active on it last year. None went past the first date. When my account was new, I got more matches than I could reasonably handle. But that slowly changed into a trickle, and eventually no matches for months on end. I had lots of motivation to meet someone in the beginning; now I begrudgingly feel resigned to my reality. Who knows, maybe it could’ve been a different story if I was a bit taller, went to a different school, or was a different ethnicity. But there isn’t much I can do about those things. In the meantime, I’m just trying to keep in shape and take care of myself in ways that I can.

fireburning5• 1 year ago

one human's struggle is another's riches at least you got some matches?

imagine being so revolting you didn't get any like me keep ya head up

ozzyphantom4• 1 year ago

My experience was extremely difficult and I think many people underestimate that unless you get really lucky early on, it’s a lot of work to seriously date.

To be honest I have a lot of the features that people think equal automatic success on a dating app but I would still go weeks, sometimes months without a match. Or worse, get matches but have nobody respond despite taking the time to come up with something funny or interesting to say (not just “hey”).

Something important I realized now that I’m out of it is to take breaks, sometimes long breaks, from any kind of “trying”, whether online or in-person. I took many breaks that were out of a place of being angry at myself for not being attractive or charismatic enough or whatever it was that was causing me to fail. But if I could do it over again, I’d be telling myself that I’m getting tired of this right now, and that’s okay. I’ll put it away for a few weeks or months or even years if I felt I needed that time. Then try again.

Matched and Deleted

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