From the other side of the aisle, consider receiving a dozen messages that just say “hi” and a handful that are legitimate attempts at conversation. You only have so much time in a day to respond, so which ones would you most likely respond to?
In my experience of 2+ decades of dating across the gender spectrum (much of which was initiated online), the people who message “hi” often end up being bad conversationalists. I put effort into responses, just to get back something like “lol, that’s great. wut u up to saturday?” Uh, probably looking for someone who’ll respond as if they read what I wrote before attempting to meet me in person.
Though I’m the kind of person who likes deep conversations, and I know not everyone is. I make it very clear in my profiles that we need to both feel a connection, so I expect someone who messages me to at least comment on one thing I wrote. Some people don’t bother at all, just going by pictures and spamming “hi” to whoever is attractive to them, without reading a word the person wrote.
Anyway, I think the point is that a lot of people don’t put in the effort, whether man, woman, or nonbinary. People treat dating sites like it’s a shopping website and they can just put people into their “cart,” like we’re just commodities that can be freely exchanged. If someone just says “hi” and nothing else, I assume that’s the way they see me. I see no point in responding if the entire burden of conversation is going to fall onto my shoulders.
I mean, yeah you’re probably inundated with crap and have to find the needle in the haystack. This side of the aisle is more like finding the hay in a needle stack. Both suck, but in different ways.
But when you have to like hundreds of profiles just to get a few matches, and message dozens of matches just to get a few replies, and then 80% of those replies turn out to be fake accounts trying to get you to buy crypto or follow on social media, and the other 20% are likely to ghost you for no fault of your own, it doesn’t really encourage putting maximal effort into every conversation from the first message. Especially when the likelihood of the other person putting in equal effort is slim.
Besides, someone might be good at deep conversations but bad at smalltalk. How are they supposed to initialize a conversation? I’m incapable of witty banter, but I can dive right into walls of text on various topics. Only, that’s seen as a red flag and gets immediately unmatched. So I have to tone down my personality, which basically leaves nothing left other than “hi, how are you.” Or “I see you like books, what’s a good one you’ve read recently?”
Which that last one seems to me like it would be a good one, but it still doesn’t get a response. Am I just ugly? I know I’m bad at taking selfies. Or maybe it’s impossible for me to write a description of myself without making it abundantly clear that I have no social aptitude whatsoever.
Like I said, I gave up long ago. I gave up trying to meet people in person long before that. I’ll probably die alone, and a thousand years from now there will be no one in the world who can trace their existence back to me. But at least the dating app ceos are making bank, right?
From the other side of the aisle, consider receiving a dozen messages that just say “hi” and a handful that are legitimate attempts at conversation. You only have so much time in a day to respond, so which ones would you most likely respond to?
In my experience of 2+ decades of dating across the gender spectrum (much of which was initiated online), the people who message “hi” often end up being bad conversationalists. I put effort into responses, just to get back something like “lol, that’s great. wut u up to saturday?” Uh, probably looking for someone who’ll respond as if they read what I wrote before attempting to meet me in person.
Though I’m the kind of person who likes deep conversations, and I know not everyone is. I make it very clear in my profiles that we need to both feel a connection, so I expect someone who messages me to at least comment on one thing I wrote. Some people don’t bother at all, just going by pictures and spamming “hi” to whoever is attractive to them, without reading a word the person wrote.
Anyway, I think the point is that a lot of people don’t put in the effort, whether man, woman, or nonbinary. People treat dating sites like it’s a shopping website and they can just put people into their “cart,” like we’re just commodities that can be freely exchanged. If someone just says “hi” and nothing else, I assume that’s the way they see me. I see no point in responding if the entire burden of conversation is going to fall onto my shoulders.
I mean, yeah you’re probably inundated with crap and have to find the needle in the haystack. This side of the aisle is more like finding the hay in a needle stack. Both suck, but in different ways.
But when you have to like hundreds of profiles just to get a few matches, and message dozens of matches just to get a few replies, and then 80% of those replies turn out to be fake accounts trying to get you to buy crypto or follow on social media, and the other 20% are likely to ghost you for no fault of your own, it doesn’t really encourage putting maximal effort into every conversation from the first message. Especially when the likelihood of the other person putting in equal effort is slim.
Besides, someone might be good at deep conversations but bad at smalltalk. How are they supposed to initialize a conversation? I’m incapable of witty banter, but I can dive right into walls of text on various topics. Only, that’s seen as a red flag and gets immediately unmatched. So I have to tone down my personality, which basically leaves nothing left other than “hi, how are you.” Or “I see you like books, what’s a good one you’ve read recently?”
Which that last one seems to me like it would be a good one, but it still doesn’t get a response. Am I just ugly? I know I’m bad at taking selfies. Or maybe it’s impossible for me to write a description of myself without making it abundantly clear that I have no social aptitude whatsoever.
Like I said, I gave up long ago. I gave up trying to meet people in person long before that. I’ll probably die alone, and a thousand years from now there will be no one in the world who can trace their existence back to me. But at least the dating app ceos are making bank, right?