The Dating Pool Dropouts by Olivia Reingold

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One could write a book (I'm sure someone has) about how social media, COVID, the smartphone, and texting instead of phoning have significantly impacted the social skills of young and not so young people.

Among other things, it is easier to both reject and handle rejection over texts rather than the phone or face to face.

^ I think the opposite can be true for autistic folk.

Due to anxiety, some autistic folk have little choice but to make text their main method of communicating and if they did not have that option, they would socialize less and social skills would likely deteriorate.

I don't care if you have anxiety. If you cannot talk to people your life is going to suck. Even if you engage in online dating, eventually you will have to meet (unless you are some person who has had an "online girlfriend or boyfriend" for months or years who you "date" over the internet but not in real life). Then what?

^

My partner and I met by chance in real life by striking up a conversation in the waiting room of our osteopath. I would never do online dating so I guess that's the only way it could happen for me. We spend time together in real life (of course) but regardless I still prefer talking to him in writing / text for some of the heavy topics so I can keep my words straight. I don't process verbal language or emotions in real time. I prefer text-based with all other people for the same reason.

Back to your question about "then what" - My answer is that we do what works best for us, which is sometimes talking irl, sometimes taking breaks, sometimes talking online, and dealing with each other's anxiety as it happens.

He was just confirmed not to be ND, but of course I am. I'm just reminding people that not all relationships with an ND person mean it's the man who is ND. Sometimes it's the woman.

I retired from dating 2 months ago. At this age, it's even worse than when I was 19. And my dating resume lists 36 years of monogamous relationship experience with no divorces, zero arrests, 3 background checks passed, zero STDs, 3 children and one grandchild raised, home ownership, clean driving record, 45 years steady employment, and a butt that has been called sexy.

^ It IS time to retire.

Online dating can be rough.

I'm in a strange position because the algorithm doesn't really work on my side. You see, there are straight women who put their profile as 'men and women' but then explain that they're looking for a guy to hook up with and women to befriend. Then there's straight men who are either unintentionally being shown to me by error or they've set their gender as custom then written in 'straight man' and 'have my profile shown to all'.

So, about one in every three profiles is someone who is in the wrong place. Which means I get to see my fair share of heterosexual men and women with laughable standards.

I can definitely understand someone being put off dating as a concept after spending some time on the apps. They are pretty dire. However, occasionally you meet someone who is actually decent.

But not necessarily equal in “pairing”. We are not swans.

I am gonna tell you a secret that is known in the manosphere: There’s a lot of guys out there with more than one girlfriend/fwb/date having sex with..etc. And online dating is making it easier for certain attractive/charming guys to hoard more… flings.

I guess it’s even way more common than women with multiple boyfriends/fwb/sex partner of any sort. There’s way more male sluts than female sluts.

I knew few guys who could easily have multiple girlfriends; and to my surprise, their ladies knew it.
One of my oldest friend is one of those, he got divorced few years ago and been “fooling around” ever since, having multiple …. flings, to their knowledge too. I know that because he showed me some of their replies, the pics they share, they are aware of him… etc. Oh dear. I guess he is currently doing it with 3 women. Well, that’s their life, I won’t judge.

Ps. And oh, he’s Christian before you assume it’s a poly-Muslim thing.

Maybe some his flings are “fooling around” too, you never know, but that still it doesn’t have to be a perfect “distribution” of companionship.

Plus there’s bit less women than men who identify as completely heterosexual, look it up.

So accounting for that, the math may make sense.

I’m a swan. Actually, I’m a crow. Caw caw…Sometimes I like to imagine that I’m a swan, though. You know how it is.

If I were human, I would not identify as heterosexual. I’m an extreme demisexual who does not care about gender.

As a bird or human, I’m monogamous or I would be if I was in a relationship.

I’ve not known anyone who was sleeping with multiple people concurrently. I always wanted my ex to cheat on me but he never would. as*hole.

In general, I agree though. Women are more likely to practice monogamy than men are.

https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/2018/06/05/co ... -monogamy/

It’s possible that some women weren’t honest due to different societal expectations regarding gender and sexuality. Still, I think there’s probably a difference.

Swans, crows, some songbirds and surprisingly gray wolves (hence why they don’t have alphas, unlike chimps) are truly monogamous for life.

A crow won’t mate with another unless their mate dies.

Our cousin apes? Not much… they are more “slut-gamous” lol.

Serial monogamy is not the same as the monogamy practiced by these monogamous animals, it is simply not possible for humans because we fail at relationships a lot, we are too complicated for that.

And because on dating sites, like Okcupid, women find 80% of men unattractive, while men are more bell-curve when it comes to evaluating the other sex’s attractiveness:





… then that enables attractive men to be… poly or worse, unfaithful players, they do it because they simply can.

So before saying “but there are as much men as women out the-“ … just look at the above graph and give it a thought.

Okcupid was a very popular dating site back then, so the sample is huge.

Perhaps the minority of women who use apps are more appearance-driven. Most women don’t use apps, so it’s not representative of women as a whole.

I think most men are okay-looking. I don’t usually find people especially attractive unless I like who they are.

But you are also not representative of women as a whole too, you said it yourself, you are extremely demisexual.

No offense, but statistically speaking, I am sure that people on dating sites are more representative of the general population than Aspie people with rare views on sexuality.

Last edited by The_Face_of_Boo on 30 Sep 2023, 2:37 am, edited 2 times in total.

That’s true, but my overall point is that those numbers say nothing about women as a whole.

The minority of women who use apps may be more appearance-driven.

If fewer women are using an app than men, men might be less choosy.

And are you sure that the younger generation women (teens and 20s, even up to mid 30s) don’t use Tinder a lot? They are not as minority as you make it sound.

Tinder, unlike all the previous dating apps, is the only dating app that made it to the masses, for both men and women; think of like Facebook compared to MySpace for example; or whatsapp compared to irc.

Back in the day, dating apps were very niche spaces, Tinder is not for the nerdy/geeky/introvert people, it succeeded to reach all the masses.

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tinder-statistics/

Tinder has 75 millions users; so 25% is still a LOT of women.