Is there a point in online dating? - Incels gather here

In online dating? Yes. On dating sites? No idea. Ended up meeting my current partner in a skype fangroup for a videogame and hit it off. It's a more pathetic story than saying you met on a dating site, but it felt more like a natural friendship turned relationship progression instead of a Tinder match. It's the same way that happenstance meetings and speed dating have different connotations, since one's a happy accident and the other can be sometimes seen as desperate.
 
Online dating apps are the worst place to meet someone, when your competition is a swipe away it makes you look disposable to women, they'll dump you at their first whim or when they swipe someone else.

99% of dating is looks not personality or IQ and that's something you can't change, thus rejections aren't your fault, so why get upset over something that you can't change.
 
Thing is, people refer to relationships and experiences from the mid-00s when they think of internet dating. When people were excited just to be online let alone talk with people from across the world. People went to do what they wanted, as normal people do, which in turn would make them socialize with people who share the interest. When you're balls deep in a game with a bunch of online friends, you're infinitely more likely to accept them for who they are, and even date them in case of a game like WoW with a mass mainstream appeal.

Today, you got literally nothing in common but looks. All the succesful Tinder thots just have a link to their Instagram and a mix of 2-3 copy-pasted "quirk" bios from r/Tinder, because as we all know, Reddit is a small niche community nobody else knows. Okay, you're interested in one another, you match, but you got nothing but looks and the pursuit of love to talk about. That's why people ghost and conversations fall flat. Meanwhile, imagine you're into some niche shit like Dragonlance, and you meet someone into it on Tinder; bam. You can talk for hours on end.

You need constant exposure to people to develop interest and relations, and that's just not a thing anymore. Most of these "I met my wife on x" stories talk about games or forums. Both are completely ruined in this day and age. Matchmaking, anonymous teammates, muted all-chat, forums being replaced with minimalistic tablet designed platforms like Reddit. I've seen way more posts than healthy about people meeting on Twitter because they shyly like each other's very niche tweets that are in the lower end of interactions than meme reposts. That being a favorable way to interact says a lot about how shit the social situation is online.

Tinder only gets traction because it appeals to idiots who want to ride the high of being 'the popular one' from school without developing a personality or hobbies. You know, like the rest of us did when we spent our teens talking into the deep night with strangers about nothing and everything. They want it easy; they want it given to them because society says they deserve it. I can see Tinder being a good way to passively expose yourself to people, but at the same time, much like dating, it's an endless grind. Look up any infographic and you're likely to see 5 dates to every 1000 matches.

Normal dating sites I'd almost argue are fine, because even if you just answer 5 questions to see how alike you are in percentages, it implies something. I see this in video games like FFXIV too. You can write a very short biography text for when people inspect your character, and having that -at all- implies you want to socialize and put effort into it. You can't see that on Tinder. Bios become a checklist of whether they like to party or not, simply because there's no way to tick boxes and blacklist accordingly.

I'm a firm believer that the internet is on a decline. We went from wanting to meet people from the other side of the world to wanting to meet literally anyone interested within real life reach. With Discords and subreddits and Twitter, you're overexposed to "socializing" yet get none of the benefits. Once people cut back on all this useless static, we might actually see people meet in niche areas of the internet and start dating based on interest as opposed to "pls match me I'm so lonely oh wait I have to put in effort?".
 
There have been cases where online dating has been so successful, it has even lead to marriage. But overall it's a poor choice. You're seeing a catalogue of personas, not people.

For a successful long term relationship, you need to learn the nasty side of your partner. Those flaws we all have. It's very easy to show yourself as an "idealized" version of yourself and hide things that would destroy the relationship.

Maybe your partner is hiding from you a hoarding/drug addiction or a mental illness, or an anger issue, that you simply couldn't stand, and won't notice because that will never show up in a chat while you make jokes and share emojis.

In a relationship, you get both the very best and worst a person. Those things, you can only figure out by actually meeting that person IRL.

Online can be a good starting point for some, but eventually, you need to actually meet that person IRL, if you actually want to form a healthy long term relationship.

Honestly, this is why I hate it. It's literally window-shopping and people desperate to showcase themselves at their best.

I've used it before and it was the biggest waste of time in my life. I never adopted these same strategies, but on top of that, the whole system is busted: women get overswamped and men are completely ignored, which only adds to the imbalance.

I'm not saying it's not viable, you can meet someone anywhere, but it's one of the worst options in my mind. It's like speed dating in real life, but even more worthless.

I say, the same way people have always met, even before technology, be places you want to be first, and you'll naturally meet like-minded people. And just maybe, there might be someone you already have that connection with who is so much more.
Online, I legit feel the closest analogue to this is forums. It's how you make the best friends and how you possibly meet the best partner online. And forums are dying out..... doesn't that explain just so much about why everyone is so desperate these days?

TINDR, FACEBOOK, CRAIGSLIST, OKCUPID, MATCH, bullshit like this is becoming people's go-to choice and they're so desperate for it, it's forced to boot; I can't think of a better combination to fail.
 
Most men these days would go "MGTOW" and just quit women all together if they were in my situation. I get their reasons for doing so, but to me it's so dumb. I realize that not all women are crazy, and the experience I gained from my past relationships help me weed out the crazies to find someone that's "somewhat" normal (and trust me, in NY, the majority ARE crazy, so the sea is more like a stagnant swamp).

I don't think it's unreasonable to simply give up on dating. Some people just don't have the stamina to get emotionally fucked over repeatedly and keep getting back on the horse. Maybe it's never being taught how to look for the right people, poor life skills, maybe its emotional resilience. Whatever it is, they are out of the running now.

In life there has to be losers for their to be winners.
 
I view online dating as an outgrowth of declining community bonds and increased urbanisation/individualism. Hundreds of years ago nearly all marriages were arranged, but even then you'd likely be marrying your next door neighbour or someone in your general vicinity. I imagine such a system was likely soul-crushing for a lot of folks who never got the chance to explore their sexuality and meet the loves of their lives, though it did connect families together for generations and brought about a sense of kinship given that nearly everyone was related in some way. In religious, rural communities dating still largely functions this way.

Even up until very recently most marriages were set up by friends and family, though not in the same way. There wasn't a huge dating pool so people tended to marry the best suited person as it was unlikely they could go somewhere else to find love/sex. However people have largely gotten less and less connected since the 21st century. Families have gotten smaller, very few live with their non-immediate relatives and going out and exploring the world has only gotten easier. With the vast availability of easy sex and the pornification of everything there isn't the massive incentive to marry and build a family like there used to be. Because of this and how ubiquitous the Internet is it only makes sense to use the web to find someone, especially if you're stuck in a shite area with no suitable partners. It also gives an excuse to avoid putting yourself out there irl and face rejection. I don't know about y'all but getting rejected by a stranger online is far easier than approaching a crush and getting denied.
 
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I think it really depends on the people you meet and find, like regular dating. Dating apps seem to be a bit shallow in my eyes, where people post the best pictures of themselves and write quirky, funny one-liners to try and show that they're interesting, but I'll admit that there can be good relationships that form between people from Tinder. I think it's better for hookups and not for deep relationships, though.

Online dating is pretty good, though. Unless you're some e-thot posting selfies and another e-thot DMs you on Instagram or something, I think you focus more on the person's personality and interests rather than impressing them and being qUiRkY. After all, you usually start out as friends and develop into a couple, if you're both interested in each other. But, like I said, I think it depends on the person, but the Internet makes people brave to be themselves, for good or for worst. It's hard, though, seeing as they start out as long-distance, and god damn long-distance relationships are hard as FUCK. You need a lot of trust and communication if you want to get into one, and a lot of dedication to your significant other.

Obviously, I don't think they both are as good or even better than meeting someone and dating them in person, but what do I know about that? (:_(
 
You're much better off finding someone in a social setting than trying to meet someone off of the internet. Far too many internet horror stories dissuade me from ever attempting to pursue online dating.

You should never let someone else's experiences sabotage your own. You'll never experience or learn anything.
 
I'd say nope in general
But if you're desperate (and semi attractive) or just looking for a sidepiece, and willing to swipe through and meet about 1000 walking piles of shit, you might just find someone decent, who like you also has no idea how to interact with people outside of the internet.
However if you are a woman be prepared to get molested a couple times first, and if you're a dude be prepared for imminent rejection
 
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