Barnorama All Fun In The Barn
Understanding the factors behind modern dating’s struggles and why many feel it’s broken beyond repair.
Social media has ruined almost every aspect of dating in the modern world.esoteric_enigma:Social media has ruined almost every aspect of being social in the modern world.No_Temporary2732:I’ve realized this and withdrew from casual usage of social media for this reasonWomen are fed toxic echo chamber content. So are men. Both are being pitted against each other, to divert us from the real evils of the world and us uniting against them.Me, a lifelong feminist, was starting to find myself getting annoyed at women setting standards and getting swayed into the gold digger bs.Thankfully, i could sense it and nipped it at the bud by curbing social media usage. It was blurring the lines between women having basic standards for a partner and women having toxic standards such as “A man has to do everything, you existing is trophy enough for him”. Both exist, and the latter is in a minority but is far more vocal online.
You can mistake a genuine connection with someone and really it was just someone with really good social skills.Semyonov:Ugh just had this happen. Not on a dating app even but just hanging out with them. It’s so easy to completely misinterpret so many things when they are really friendly and invite you to a bunch of things one-on-one. I admitted my feelings towards her and she said she sees me as a friend, and she just started dating another of my friends actually (found out two days ago from her).Oh well, it happens, it’s never bad to have a good friend. I just misinterpreted a lot of things when she’s just super super friendly.Heliosvector:I had a guy invite me to his house, solo, for dinner. Pretty sure he was maybe gay? Nope! just wanted to play video games with me, show me his rig, and order KFC with me. I would expect that from my nerd friends, but not this construction worker bodybuilder. Then he kept complaining about the heat and wouldn’t put a shirt on.
There are bots created by the apps/websites to stop you from leaving if you’re not getting matches.LambonaHam:I paid for Bumble+ before because I had half a dozen people swiping right on me, but wasn’t getting any matches.After paying, they disappeared. When the payment expired, they returned.Evil at its finest.Norwood5006:Those dating apps don’t exist to make you un-single, it’s in their best interest to keep you single and that’s why they’re billion dollar industries, many of those dating apps are owned by the same company, who also owns OF.
People put too much emphasis on trying to be who they think will attract people and not enough on who they truly are.ArchaicBrainWorms:I was a weird kid who grew into a strange young man, eventually reaching the rank colorful character.Being authentic and receiving social rejection sucks. Maintaining a facade and running every interaction through a filter and receiving social rejection is worse.Mesmerotic31:This is blindingly true after being married for years. It’s a good exercise in figuring out if you’re actively trying to be the person you want to be/live the way you want to live when you stop and consider re-entering the dating pool (intrusive thoughts when I panic at the thought of losing my husband in a freak accident). You ask yourself how much of a catch you would be if you perfectly represented yourself to potential dates, showed them what life would look like with you years down the road. Like, if someone saw the spouse/parent I turned out to be, would they actually want to be with me at all? It’s always a good kick in the ass to just try harder, be awesome-er, show up for your spouse and kids right now the way you always envisioned you would show up before being in the thick of it.
People are very shallow and act like they deserve perfect while demanding others accept them just the way they are.My husband and I met in college and we’ve always worked because we know that neither of us is perfect, but we’re perfect for each other.BullMoose1904:Academic/semantic point: I would say decent people with realistic expectations tend to partner up and get out of the dating pool relatively quickly and stay out. The people like the ones you’re talking about stay single for a long time and are over-represented in the dating pool, especially on the apps. Interestingly, the same thing happens with a bunch of other seemingly unrelated things like job searches and welfare programs; a sort of perverse survivor bias.But, like I say, semantics. The practical impact is exactly what you said.
People don’t care enough about protection and it’s scary as hell. Please wear condoms.esoteric_enigma:It’s insane how many women I have to tell to stop so I can go get a condom. Like we just met on Hinge and have been on two dates…and you’re ready to have unprotected s*x our very first time?My d**k isn’t that special and I’m not the first person you’ve met on a dating app. That definitely means you’re having hella unprotected s*x out here.
People are so focused on ticking off boxes that they never give their potential soul mate a chance. When we met in person more, we could be surprised by someone we aren’t traditionally attracted to. Charisma and personality are hard to see on an app. So we swipe left on the short men or slightly overweight women. If we met them in person and experienced a person in their entirety before we decided we didn’t like them, maybe we’d be surprised at who we actually like.livinglitch:In line with online vs offline – You may not have a spark when messaging someone over the app but you may have a spark sitting down and talking to someone in person.I have had relationships where we dont text or talk online at all but we talk constantly in person.
If they ghost you, walk away. Be wary of them sliding back into your DM’s in the future. Pay attention to inconsistent communication or things like “I lost my charger/my phone died”, “I forgot to call/text!”, “just been really busy”…..but its all the time. Pay attention to “breadcrumbing”Many people are emotionally unavailable and are pursuing Stimulation and validation, not connection. Hookup culture can blur boundaries. Decide if you’re cool with a situationship.schlubadubdub:On the flip side, people don’t have to reply immediately to texts/calls as it’s fine to disconnect/have a life/work/be doing other things. Everyone has their own standard for what is a “reasonable” time to reply. It can be particularly difficult for people with things like ADHD, and doesn’t automatically mean they’re disinterested, emotionally unavailable, or stringing someone along. It can though lol.
Online dating is a perfect environment for people who are bad at long term relationships and it only gets worse the older you get.Leybrook:Yeah, and it doesn’t help that most apps are owned by the same shitty company that prioritize user engagement over outcomes. They’re all designed to be addictive and ineffective for those wanting to find partners. The worst part is that there used to be good sites and communities, but they all got bought out, after which they got either Tinderified or deleted. Enshitification of dating.
People have now become disposable. You could be falling in love with somebody and accidentally say the wrong d**n thing, or wear a T-shirt they don’t like or have a bad day or disagree on some minor detail like whether or not Taylor Swift sucks and suddenly you’re completely cut off. Their contacts changed their socials have locked you out and you can’t reach them. You have to be prepared for heartache because everyone is quickly replaceable Nobody has bothered practicing making up or compromising or trying to see another person’s perspective. We all want perfect from the get go and don’t wanna do the work to build something phenomenal.OutofSyncWithReality:This is exactly how I feel. With dating apps you’ve got hundreds of potential partners at your fingertips. No one makes an effort anymore they just wait for Mr/Mrs perfect to fall in their lap and ghosts anyone who drops the ball for even a second. It’s brutal sometimes.
Everyone is just out to get theirs.ChevalierMal_Fet:So, last year I got divorced. I was really hurt by the end of the marriage, which involved infidelity from her everything was just shitty.I was single for a while, and went on a few first dates that went nowhere, and I felt like I was going to be alone forever.Then, through Facebook dating of all things, I got a like from a nice woman who had an interest similar to mine. We got to talking, and things just progressed from there.It’s a long distance thing, but we are able to make trips to see each other every couple of weeks, so it’s not too bad.But, the wonderful thing is just how nice it is to be excited about a person who is excited about me- she remembers those small details about what I like and dislike, and she compliments and says nice things to me, and when we’re together I feel like I’m the luckiest person alive.And, the most wonderful thing is that I’m completely and totally free to just love her wholeheartedly. I can send all the cheesy and sweet texts, and random pictures, and whatever else. When we visit each other, we can cuddle and hug and hold hands and do things with each other. We’re able to just be happy.There are others out there! It was hard holding on to that part of myself that wasn’t a cynical jackass, but I was determined to not let the modern dating situation change the parts of myself that I liked, the parts of myself that were able to just love somebody.Even if you get hurt by somebody, you just have to keep on loving.
Dating apps that have a subscription or any monetary aspect would lose you as a customer if your dating experience was successful.Personal-Sandwich-44:Yeah, I paid for a month on Hinge, and it didn’t end up seeming worth it for me, so I cancelled, but that presumably marked me as someone willing to pay, so a prime dating app customer.Ended up meeting my now partner of a year+ on that same app, so cancelled my account and all that.Obviously that by itself would be a net negative for them, but numerous friends have asked how we’ve met, and it’s pretty good marketing, so in the end a net positive.
Cheating is incredibly common, it’s much easier to do and hide with phones.Alph1:Disagree. It might have been easier back in the day. No instant communication means you could easily be away from your partner for at least a day. Need to talk to your cheat partner? Payphones are untraceable and were everywhere.
A lot of single people can’t afford housing on a single income. It often takes two incomes combined to even qualify for a one bedroom rental at today’s prices. Even earners with six figure incomes may not earn enough in HCOL cities to qualify. This extremely high cost of housing is felt in dating as there is a lot of pressure on couples to form and split rent. It’s accelerating courtship timelines. It’s also making it very obvious to young women that many single men are effectively homeless, living out of Airbnbs or on couches when they have to but preferring to live with hospitable girlfriends.mountainvalkyrie:It’s extremely common. Lots of people (I only have experience with men, but probably women, too) will try to move in with you the first week or so after meeting, usually with a sad story about where they’re currently living. Even if it goes well at first, if things stop going well, you can end up feeling stuck.
69m. I met my wife in a chat in 97, and have been off and on social media since it started. I read some of the stories of young men and women in their 20s, and it’s hard to believe the s**t some people expect others to put up with. MOST of it is from what they see on social media. So many people getting s**t on think it’s normal, because the person doing the s******g learned it online. It’s f*****g not normal.,.
Get your HPV shot.New_Wolf_8346:Please get the shot! I dealt with pre-cervical cancer for many years due to high risk HPV. So many abnormal pap smears, so many procedures to get rid of the bad cells. Most people acquire a strain of HPV in their lifetimes but a lot go away on their own. But, don’t take the risk. I eventually had a total hysterectomy, one reason being my history of pre-cervical cancer.MintChucclatechip:Learned in my health psychology class that 80% of s*xually active adults will get HPV in their lifetime, and there’s many strains of it, some are cancer causing.
Watch out for anyone that just has a gimme mindset and thinks they’re the prize. Men, women, nonbinary, doesn’t matter. Dating should be about creating a good experience/relationship together, not one side thinks the other owes them something for their time (whether that’s material things, sexual things, or otherwise). I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with wanting any of those things, it’s the attitude I’m talking about.
If they never ask questions about you and only talk about themselves.If it feels more like an exit interview than a conversation,If they seem superficial — guess what. They are.If they laugh at everything you say and keep saying “You’re funny….”.ADHD-Fens:It is definitely possible to have a back and forth without questions, though. You say something about yourself, I relate something from my experiences to yours, you bring up an opinion you have about the topic, I express surprise that someone else was thinking the same thing as me.Questions are part of a good conversation, obviously, but I have had conversations where someone asks me a question, I share an interesting answer, and then they just ask another question – sometimes changing the topic altogether. It’s kind of exhausting, and it makes it seem like they don’t actually care about the things they’re asking.Another thing is that some people don’t like the interview style of getting to know someone. I prefer to learn about people through shared experiences, at least initially. It’s a much more natural way to get to the core of who someone is – and more effective, too, in my experience. Obviously questions are needed for very basic stuff (do you want to go… do you like… etc.) but that’s like 10% of it for me.
You have to make sure before you invite them over that they aren’t homelessYears ago I meet a woman who lived one state over, we talked, she seemed completely normal, if a bit of a free spirit. I had to go to her city for work so we meet and had dinner. There seemed to be chemistry so the next weekend I drove up to stay with herGot to her house and her room (she was renting a room from a friend or so she said) was completely empty except a big hiking style backpack, her laptop, and a bed roll (she said she had a bad back)We did all sorts of fun things around town, but in retrospect, they were all cheap or no-cost things that she was suggesting. She did get me into a low budget zombie film her friend was shooting, and I got an IMDb credit for that.The next weekend she wanted to come stay with me, but she didn’t have a car So I rode up to pick her up, and she hops in my truck with her backpack and laptop and bed roll. I didn’t think too much about it but after the weekend was over (which was bananas weird) she’s said ‘You’re my boyfriend, I love you and It’s us against the world’. I was like whoa, slow down, and I realize she was not planning on going back. She did a 180 on me and I was the biggest a*****e in the world. It was a tense 24 hours till I could get her friend to come pick her upAfter she left I did a quick inventory and she drank 6 bottles of liquor, stole all my family heirloom silver dollars and my 8×13 Pyrex baking dish.
The vast majority of today’s daters think that having casual s*x does not conflict with dating for the purpose of building a long term relationship. Because nothing says you are into someone like having s*x with someone else.
Everyone seems to know how awful online dating is, but they still seem to do it. Oh, and for the fellas, I guarantee your confidence will rise significantly if you delete the apps for about a month.
There aren’t a lot of places where it’s okay or normal to meet people in person. Dating apps led to an overwhelming amount of positive feedback, with at least the implication of consent that you can’t always get easily before you approach people irl. And as a result, people started going out less to find people, and more with pre-arranged plans with people they’d met. Add to this, people are now hyper-aware that it’s dangerous to meet a complete strangers especially for women. Which isn’t to say that all strange men, or strange people are dangerous, but mass media makes it easy to hear the horror stories of people who met the worst examples, and with stakes that high it’s hard to feel trusting to anyone you don’t know in some way. So even if you went out specifically to find someone, it’s hard both to approach someone and to be open to someone approaching you, without being wary that they might have darker motives than a hookup or a relationship.
Get over your a*******n to online dating. It takes a while to not want to download it again. But its is useless these days. Think about every time you downloaded it? Why’d you do it? Bored? Lonely? Avoiding yourself? That is everyone else on there (at least the majority you have to sift through). It gives the illusion of endless choices so we think people are disposable and never give a chance to truly value others for their complexities. Get over this convenience. Please. Say hi to more people in public. Make authentic connections. Be friends first. Prioritize making friends and relationships in the real world.
I was doing online dating for a while and was having some success but an anonymous person posted me on an “are we dating the same guy” social media page and my ex, her friends, and other anons took the liberty of spreading untrue and hateful things about me that were likely seen by some 85k women on the page in my city. it ruined my chance at online dating, my psyche and self confidence, and gives me anxiety towards talking to people who might have seen it. Moral of the story: online dating is a liability, but it’s nice when it works out.
Beware the paradox of choice.As we have so many options now, you risk throwing away a good thing because they aren’t as pretty as the other girl your speaking to or not as funny as the other guy.When you date a person and there seems to be a connection, pause or delete the apps and put your effort into that one person, see how it goes for a few months.Trust me, because of dating apps and the huge amount of potential options just a swipe away, it is hard not to look for perfection but perfection doesn’t exist so stop swiping, focus on this person for now, stop looking for perfection. This huge amout of choice can really cloud your judgement and could potentially ruin a perfectly good budding relationship all because you think “what if…”.
Unfortunately, it’s really hard for 30+ year old women to find a partner and it really sucks that they need to race against the clock to both pay the bills and to find a partner who isn’t a massive d****e. A lot of my classmates from high school spent their 20s traveling, building their careers, and enjoying themselves. As they should. But then they turned 30 and suddenly had trouble finding a relationship unless they were willing to get married super fast. One friend got dumped because she wouldn’t agree to marry a guy when he proposed. They’d only been together for 6 months.
Narcissists love dating apps. It’s free attention and validation. The good ones know how to hide it really well. Be wary of anyone who seems too good to be true.Frag0r:Be wary of anyone who always agrees with you and barely states an opinion whatsoever without you stating it first.It’s a manipulation tactic to mirror your opinion, likings, behavior and phrases. Eventually you will let your guard down and that enables the narc even more.Watch if words match actions and spectate the body language. The body can’t lie.Also, if someone often ends a statement with a high tone, sounding like a question, it could mean they are lying.If you see these things happening and you have a bad gut feeling, just disengage. It’s no joke. This person is not healthy and will hurt you for the Lulz.
If they tell you you have to pay to unlock their crypto account, it’s a scam.just_a_bit_gay_:Seriously, my sister got into a relationship with a crypto bro and I’ve been trying to tell her that it’s all BS but they keep p**sing away their money because “his buddy knows a lot, it’ll rally just gotta wait a little longer”. It’s sad to watch but there’s not much more I can do.
1) It’s risky. You know almost nothing about the other person’s past and they can paint any picture they want. It’s easy to be “normal” for a few dates, but the crazy often comes out shortly after. 2) people are promiscuous and not being cautious with their health and disease.3) people have learned to treat each other as disposable. Online dating is like dating in bulk. The other person, and probably you too, are talking to about 5+ other people at the same time. It is so easy to find the next better looking and more successful person. So much so that nobody gives a s**t about the other person. Hence all the ghosting.
If they seem uninterested or dry, don’t bother. You don’t want to be in a one sided relationship where your always fighting for their attention.Hanta3:TBH that’s been the vast majority of women I’ve matched with. When I talk about it with my friends who are women, they also show me that their conversations are similar, but the difference is the men they talk to seem relentlessly h*rny in comparison to myself. Works out for them, but speaking so forwardly feels really unnatural and disingenuous to me, idk.
The amount of rampant cheating, simply because of the availability to swipe as soon as they get bored or annoyed with something most folks would communicate in healthy ways, because the grass is always greener. AND YOU WOULD NEVER KNOW THEY ARE DOING IT until they drop the ball or break up with you randomly. Dating apps etc are also perfect environments for people who are super s****y at long term commitments and relationships to continue being super s****y at long term, or really any relationships. Please remember, how you get them is how you lose ‘em folks.Richard_Thickens:”How you get ’em is how you lose ’em,” might be one of the most insightful things I’ve ever heard, and this is my first time hearing it. Woah.That just applies super well to the respective initiations and terminations of so many of my relationships, it’s difficult to count. It fits in well with my (rather jaded) observation that they weren’t mine to begin with, and they certainly aren’t mine now.Thank you for that. Unfortunately, you don’t always know exactly how you get them, but that’s how things go, I guess.
People don’t really give a f**k. They care to the extent of getting what they want with false future promises. Just to discard you and start all over again.Much-Statistician-50:Who hurt you?Silent-Option311 (OP):I’ve had 3 exes and I’m always a doormat.
Everyone is very narcissistic these days…
Be bold, or live with regrets.
Instant gratification not only is ruining our lives through social media and mere entitlement but also you can’t expect to meet the love of your life at once. great and healthy relationships take time, effort and patience! this is not excusing toxic or a*****e behavior but i’ve noticed that people will cut others off at the SLIGHTEST disagreement. it’s sad. i get it, put yourself first but also take some accountability.
Most people just want attention and validation to stroke their ego. They do not actually love or care about you. You are replaceable and those sweet messages that make you feel extra special are being sent to a whole roster of other girls.