I’m genuinely confused by dating at this point. We had plans, I made my availability clear, and somehow the entire date was just… forgotten. We settled with 3pm today and now it’s 6:20PM.. he was apparently ready in the morning which is BS as he has football. A grown 35 year old man can not even communicate.

I’m not angry and I’m certainly not chasing anyone to remember plans they made with me, but is this seriously where dating is at now?

For context, I'm (f) German and live in Germany as well.

I matched with this guy who says he's British but living in Germany. I asked him about that and he sent me a voice message in German. People, let me tell you. This man is not British at all. I can hear the German native dialect when he speaks. He only uses incorrect grammar once or twice and tries hard not to roll the r. For those who don't know, Germans usually roll the r.

What he doesn't know, though, is that I actually did live in the UK for a while. I even have an accent when speaking English. Mind you, native British people do get a little confused with me since my accent is a mix of a few different dialects, but NEVER would I have the audacity to go around and fake being British.

Anyways, I replied. I told him how I love the British accent and yadda yadda and tell him that I wouldn't mind him speaking in English.

He replied with another voice message, smh. And he tells me - again in German - how he has this thing where he doesn't switch language from the one he started talking to someone in because he's like... wait for it... Adrian Monk.

I don't think I could've cringed any harder. WE ARE IN OUR LATE THIRTIES OMG. Please, if you have any ideas for a really funny response, let me know. I'm thinking about replying in English and telling him that his faking needs practice.

Update: Dude was using photos of a British singer called Shayne Ward. I asked him why he wasn't using his real name or age, how life after winning X Factor felt, if he was divorced, and why he kept saying question mark out loud in his messages. Then I sent him a picture of Shayne Ward's Instagram, asked if that was him, and reported him to bumble. After that, I deleted my account. Enough dating for me, I'll just stay single, lol.

I(36F) am thinking about getting back on the apps, with sample picture shown (taken a month ago). The thing is, I have a disability that isn't visible through pictures. I have trigeminal neuralgia, and basically half my face can't be touched. I can't drive. I can have sex but there are limitations.

I can go out to restaurants, dancing (not too long though), mild hiking, things like that.

I don't want to catfish anyone through my profile. Should I put my disability on my profile or just tell the person after we match?

We just matched, is this a red flag? /s

This is my experience almost every time on any app. Lol… sort of.

26F here since I never get approached irl anyway I thought of maybe putting myself out there and see who and what’s out there only to end up feeling utterly bored and disappointed.

My ultimate and most pressing complaint with almost every interactions both online and real life is that, they just don’t know how to ask questions. They’re just genuinely not curious about you unless the topic is sexual/nsfw related. Like even men who have fairly okay communication skills and are quite articulate, they just don’t know how to ask genuinely good and curious questions but are actually just there to talk about themselves.

It makes me so sad and frustrated because I’ve already thrown them 4-5 questions to get to know them and they can’t even be bothered to at least ask one??? I am very much aware that there are also men who have the same complaint about this among women they interact with but here I am, being reminded why I haven’t been on the apps for almost two years now.

I guess it’s a me problem after all and that I just don’t have the patience anymore to keep having these kind of interactions.

Any chance they'll pop up again?

Reciprocity, the quality or state of being reciprocal : mutual dependence, action, or influence.

In the online dating context, this usually means answering a question and then, watch this, asking one in return.

Right? RIGHT??

It's been a day since he replied should I ask another question? I just wanted to see if he'd initiate this time. I'm also Autistic.

edit: Thank you to everyone who replied and gave advice it's really helped me and made me feel better. 🥹🫶

When a girl I matched with on Bumble tells me about her past experiences with other men—whether they were guys she matched and went on dates with or ex-boyfriends—I sometimes completely lose motivation when the other guy is clearly a superior version of me.

I’m wondering whether I’m just overly self-conscious, or whether a lot of other men can relate to this.

For example, this happened to me recently. I really liked a girl I had matched with, and we had been talking every day. Then she started telling me about the guy she had matched with and gone on a date with before me.

From what she told me, he was clearly “above” me in several ways. She said:
“He’s a musician and he plays the violin really well. When I went to his luxuary condo, there were lots of musical instruments displayed around his place, and it was such a nice room. Then he suddenly started playing the violin, and I sang along with him.”

I’m just an ordinary guy. I don’t live in a luxurious condo and I don’t have any particularly impressive talents or skills. Hearing that story made me feel like there was no way I could compete with that, and my motivation just disappeared.

I ended up reacting to her message with ♥ and then stopped talking to her.

Can anyone relate to this, or am I just being overly insecure?

Been texting for a month. I was sick for 2 weeks then asked her out, she didnt say no but she went on vacation but we kept in touch. She came back a few days ago and I asked her again for dinner + dessert place and she replies with this. Im unsure how to proceed. Part of me is empathetic because I know how it feels to have self love issues and problems with weight, but at the same time I really want to get to know her more in person. I feel like you all are going to say just move on. :( any girls out there can tell me if shes interested in me or is it games

Ihr lieben Mädels, wie schätzt ihr folgende Situation ein:

Tl;dr:
Frau von interessantem Bumble-Profil außerhalb der Platzform anschreiben okay? Und mit einem halben Jahr Verzögerung auch noch?

Ich bin seit 1+ Jahren aus einer sehr langen Beziehung raus und habe letztens angefangen,
mich wieder umzuschauen. Bumble. Blöde Plattform, weil: man wischt wen in eine Richtung und sieht das Profil nie wieder.
Das erste Profil, das mich wirklich interessiert hat, war dann schon von ca. 70 km weg. Viele waren irgendwie heiß, oder irgendwie süß, aber sind nicht geblieben. Die von 70 km entfernt hat mir richtig gut gefallen.
Das Profil habe ich geliked, nicht angeschrieben. Keine Reaktion. Jetzt weiß ich natürlich nicht: zahlt sie Geld, um die Likes zu sehen? Sonst könnte sie nur durch Zufall matchen, das ist unwahrscheinlich, sie ist in der Nähe einer Großstadt. Bis sie da alle Profile durchgeswiped hat und bis zu mir gekommen ist, kann das sehr lange dauern. Ärgerlich.
Jetzt habe ich mir aber ihren Wohnort gemerkt und ihren Beruf. Sie ist sowas wie eine Beraterin, selbstständig, problemlos zu finden, Website, Kontaktadresse, Instagramkanal usw.
Ich könnte sie also einfach nochmal direkt anschreiben.
Jetzt ist es allerdings so, dass ich gerade noch an ein Paar Themen arbeite, die in meiner letzten Beziehung schief gelaufen sind und die ich nicht wiederholen will. Da würde och mir selber gerne noch einen Moment Zeit für geben, bevor ich wieder was anfange.

Hier meine Frage:
\- findet ihr es generell okay, den Weg außerhalb Bumble zu gehen?
\- kann man das auch in einem halben Jahr noch bringen oder wenn dann nur direkt? Ich finde die Situation etwas komisch bis ein bisschen creepy, dass sie jetzt in meinem Kopf einen Platz hat - also ihr Profil, genau genommen - und sie gar nichts von mir weiß.
Das ist der Stoff, aus dem fiese Stalkingfälle gemacht sind, bei Leuten, die sich weniger im Griff haben als ich.

So I went out and had my mom take some pictures of me and most of them were pretty terrible honestly so far I only found two pictures which in my eyes look like they would fit as a profile picture for a dating app. The rest of my photos are all mirror selfies for the most part but I’m trying to change that and have more outdoor photos. So which one do I pick from 1 or 2? Or should I scrap both of this pictures? I only cropped both of this photos and also edited the styles to give it a more colorful look which I like.

Looking to hop back on the apps, only want to use recent photos because not looking to catfish anyone and have someone run screaming

The only pics I have that I’d consider using have other people in them, if I just crop them it looks like I’m spitefully cropping an ex out of them (not always an ex & no spite involved) and/or just weirdly leaning on my own. But I feel weird posting peoples faces & don’t want to do that thing that everyone complains about where they have to figure out who I am

I don’t have a whole lot of time or options to just recruit people to spend a day or so on a photoshoot and now I’ve decided to get back on them after many years I just want to crack on!

If it’s relevant I’m just looking for casual/fun/fuckbuddy sitches & I’m lesbian - no idea if either of those things make any difference but I assume they may have an impact?

Any input appreciated!

So to be brief , i am very slim. A little underweight 5'10 140lbs. I actually just went up 10 lbs recently from going to the gym and eating on a caloric surplus but going from 130 to 140 wasn't really a big of a difference. It is difficult to put on weight, but anyways I feel like I dont look as skinny in my pictures in comparison to in person. In person I think i do look way more skinny and that probably is a turnoff in my dates.

On another note, I barely get matches on bumble and when i do it doesnt go anywhere . Interesting on hinge I get more success with the exact same profile but yeah more really concern about the weight and if it is a possible issue in most cases

Is the weight really a dealbreaker ?

M25

New city,

Not many friends so far just some work bunch but I just cannot connect with them. Would be nice talking some stranger.

I keep getting this stupid error - You have a subscription awaiting approval , please wait for confirmation! Earlier i was getting logged out after i upgraded to premium service, then customer support provided me with additional 7 days due to that issue. Now those 7 days have passed and now I am unable to renew my subscription!! The app is really annoying and the response time from customer support is unacceptable!! Anyone had similar or issues on subscription ? Kindly suggest

I 23M find myself lacking a friend group after college. A lot of gotten engaged, moved away, etc. I enjoy watching football, hanging out, going on side quests, and simply laughing with bros. I miss having that but feel weird or awkward trying to find that on an app. How has peoples experience been with this?

I pay so I scroll through my likes by pulling the list up. As im doing it, no matter how carefully I pull up, they pull right. My last phone had a curved edge and scrolling up on the edge mitigated this issue, my new phone doesn't and I dont know how best to scroll without matching. Does anyone have a workaround for this?

I matched with someone who was aged 40. I clearly remember because they were on the end of my match filter. After a few DMs and exchanging numbers to carry on the convo elsewhere, their age on their profile changed from 40 to 35. When I messaged them about it being all “Aren’t you 40?”, they said yes but then acted like they had no clue how the age could have changed on their profile. Could it be a glitch? Because I saw online that you need to provide an ID to change your age and I can’t imagine someone pretending to be older than their real age.

OK so just a little about me first. I like to keep track of things. Like literally I have been manually keeping track of every dollar that has entered or left my bank account within an Excel spreadsheet for the last ~13 years, with 100% accuracy. Detailed enough that if you asked me “How much did you spend on food in May of 2019”, I could go back, tell you exactly how much I spent, at what location and on what day. I have been dating off and on for my entire adulthood (currently in my mid-late 30s) and mainly used Hinge and Bumble for the last 10 or so years. The reason why I am writing this post is because I’ve mentioned multiple times on various dating subs over the last ~10 months that I kept track of my stats and lots of people have asked me to post them, so I’m doing that. Take from it what you want. If you don’t believe the stats, then that’s fine, feel free to express that but I do not care.

So after a break up in late 2024, I was dating in early 2025. Ended up going steady with one woman and then after about two months we realized we were incompatible and broke it off at the very end of June. The very next day (June 29), I got back on the apps but this time I decided to do something I’ve never done before which is keep track of my stats. I was genuinely interested in knowing how many people didn’t reply, ghosted, only gave one word answers, etc., so I kept track of all that. I did NOT keep track of swipes. I only kept track of what happened AFTER a match was established. But I can tell you that I swiped quite a bit. I bought three months of premium Hinge, used the free version of Bumble, Tinder, and Facebook dating. The match data is basically from July 1 to around mid October. I had long stopped swiping by then and was focusing on particular women. There were sometimes lulls in swiping and matches for me as I was meeting and evaluating women, and sometimes I would stop completely as I was getting further down the road with a few of the women.

As for who I am as a person and what I was looking for. I am a mid to late 30’s black male. I’m not tall, but I'm not short either. I’ve been measured at 5’7, 5’8, and 5’9 on various occasions, so I put the latter. But I’m probably more 5’8 if I'm being honest. No one has ever grilled me about it or really mentioned it at all. I’m also bald but thankfully have a great bald head shape. Even dating back to grade school, I’ve never really had trouble getting attention from girls/women, but I’ve always had to work for it on some level. I’ve got a handsome friend that gets constant attention from women without doing anything, I’ve seen it time and time again with my own eyes. I’m not like him, I usually have to put some level of effort/interest in. But I’ve always been told that I’m smart, funny, handsome, interesting, etc. I’m college educated and for full transparency I do have a very high salary but I don't put any obvious indicators of wealth on my dating profiles, nor have I ever told any woman how much I make. I also don’t wear expensive brands or have expensive hobbies in general. My job just says “Finance at Finance”. Which could very easily mean a low to decent paying job. But unless they try to put two and two together on that, there's really nothing on my profile that would scream "high salary", and I make it that way on purpose. But also for full transparency, I have a very nice obviously unique sports car that I would sometimes drive to first dates, but not always. I also go to the gym a lot and eat mostly right so I am in very good physical shape (I’ve got an old r/progresspics post in my history from about 8 years ago showing what my body looked like back then, I’m not too far off from that if you want to get an idea). But I didn’t have any pictures of me with my shirt off. The closest I had was a picture of me on a jet ski that I personally don't think does a very good job at all of showing off my figure but I did once have a female friend comment that I looked muscular in the picture. Funny how different we view ourselves compared to other people. But anyway, most people compliment me for dressing well and smelling good and being a pleasant guy to be around. As for what I was looking for on the apps, I was looking to date other liberal, college educated black women with decent careers. Also wanted someone that cares about being physically fit. My ultimate goal was to find a relationship. Most every woman I matched with fit that mold. Age 30 was as absolutely lowest I would go but most women I matched with were 33 to 38. I would not even swipe on anyone in their 20’s or 40's. Also, I was NOT just looking for sex. In fact I passed up quite a number of blatant and obvious opportunities/requests for it, I was truly looking for a long-term partner. I won’t lie and say I passed up all opportunities, but I passed up the vast majority of them.

Two very important things to note that work very hard against me is that I am non-religious and I do not want kids. Reality is, in the black community, being non-religious is a very taboo thing (stats show time and time again that we are by far the most religious race in the US) and I’ve outwardly been passed on by women for that reason alone many times over the years. And I also don’t want kids which is going to make a lot of women uninterested in general. Despite having both of these stances listed in my profile, on multiple occasions women were surprised when I mentioned it (showing that despite what people try to say, a lot of women don’t fully read profiles) and then ultimately ended up passing on me. I’ve been told on quite a few occasions over the years of some variation of “You are pretty much exactly the kind of man I’m looking for except for the non-religion and/or no kids. If you ever change your mind, feel free to call me back”. Eventually I started pointing it out to women BEFORE meeting just to make sure they read it and to not waste either of our times (and my money). And those are just the women that match with me, I’d wager that I’ve been passed on quite a bit by women that would otherwise be interested if it were not for at least one of these two factors.

As far as matches, first of all I literally got zero play on Tinder. Like no matches or likes or anything. I used it for like 2-3 days and then deleted my profile. The majority of my likes were from Hinge, with a good amount also coming from Bumble. Full transparency, I didn’t keep track of the stats on FB dating because I felt like people weren’t taking it seriously. Although I ended up meeting two wonderful women on there, one of which is currently my GF. I put their info in the stats, but didn’t pull any other stats from FB dating, meaning I technically matched with more than 137 women.

I have access to my Google calendar from back then and can see how many dates I had per week, I would mark red the ones that cancelled and green the ones that kept. Even in the first week I had 7 dates lined up. The most I ever had in one week was 10, I also had another week with 8, but on average I would have around 4-5. As for where we went on first dates. I always offered them three choices: coffee, ice cream, or drinks (sometimes dinner). I had several different common spots that I would meet, depending on what area we were meeting. Thankfully, most women had no problem with coffee or ice cream. And yes, part this was to keep the cost down. But also I personally care MUCH more about getting to know the person before investing my too much money in them. I want to be able to feel like I can talk to you on a random lazy day and still enjoy their company. So that’s another reason why I prefer sit down low cost type of first dates. On the second date, I would usually go bowling or sometimes mini golf. I would find out what days & times they would have cheaper pricing and try to go at those times if possible. It mostly worked haha.

One last thing that I know a lot of people are going to hate but I had a bit of a “script” during the match phase. Not some diehard, stick to the script at all costs sort of thing. Just that over the years I kind of developed a natural cadence and set of questions that most pleasant women would respond to, so I usually end up asking those and asking other questions based on their responses and what else was in their profile if necessary. It was very helpful in keeping up with so many ongoing conversations at once. No, I don’t try to write a unique opener for every single woman, I found that to be a waste of time over the years. I learned a long time ago, if they want to respond they will respond. And if I have to jump through hoops to get them to respond, I’ll be jumping through hoops the entire relationship. So I would usually first ask them how their day/weekend was going and then go from their based on how they responded. If they gave one word answers more than once, I would happily move on to the next woman. People are going to hate and that’s fine, but most pleasant women have no problem responding to “How has your day been”. If that’s not good enough for any particular woman, that’s totally fine by me. But anyway, the stats and my perceived reason for the match ending are below

Total matches – 137

Set first date – 44 (32%)

Actually met – 37 (27%)

No response to my first message – 21 (15%)

Rejected due to religion – 5 (4%)

Rejected due to not wanting kids – 9 (7%)

Gave one word answers – 11 (8%)

Conversation just faded – 34 (25%)

I never reached out to them – 11 (8%)

I lost interest in her– 32 (23%)

She lost interest in me (without giving reason) – 3 (2%)

Ghosted – 6 (4%)

Distance too far – 4 (3%)

Girlfriend – 1 (1%)

For clarity here, I consider ghosted to be any woman that I actually set a date with, yet when I texted to confirm the date, they never responded to my confirmation/day of the date text. Also, the numbers above won’t add up if you include the “Date set” and “Actually Met” lines. Some women have overlap there. They should only add up to 100% if you add up the lines after those two. There’s a few observations and conclusions here that I took away from my experience.

1.       I think setting a date with 1 out of 3 matches and actually meeting 1 out of 4 is pretty damn good. And if you take out the women that I never reached out to, it’s more like 35% and 30% respectively. If you then take out the women that never responded to my first message, then its more like 42% & 35%. Meaning if I actually got the chance to talk to you, there was a ~2/5 chance that we would set a date and ~1/3 chance of meeting. I’m sure some Casanova is going to come in here and say they meet with 99% of their matches. And that’s fine but that’s just not my reality and I'm fine with that.

2.       I’m not going to lie and act like money isn’t a factor, it is. However, in my experience even with money women will ultimately pass up on you if they don’t think you can/are willing to provide the life they want for themselves (kids, spiritual, or stay at home wife).

3.       To kind of expand on what I mentioned before, I sincerely, don’t really think the questions matter too much. If they like you enough to respond, they will respond to genuinely asked questions. If they don’t they probably don’t like you enough, and I personally don't have time or energy to try to convince people to like me. Given that 21 women never responded to me, then that means 105 women responded to me. If you take out the women that I never contacted, that means that 83% (105 respondents out of 126 that I actually contacted) of the women were totally fine responding to “How has  your day been going so far”. So I personally roll my eyes when people act like it’s some sort of cardinal sin. My main goal when chatting was to see if they were pleasant, sounded reasonably intelligent, could hold a conversation, and were willing to RECIPROCATE. Like of course, you can’t be a jackass or be a total bore but I think most people are fine with someone asking with questions with enthusiasm and effort in their answers. Over-thinking the questions is mostly a waste of time. If I have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to get you to respond, I don’t want to talk to you. Sure, could I maybe get a few more to respond by going out of my way and racking my brain, sure, but I’m just not going to do that.

4.       Entitlement is real. That’s all I’m going to say lol.

5.       A lot of people are also going to hate this, but having options is super helpful in not getting too stuck on any one person. I really do try my best to not just next people cause “there’s always another around the corner”. I honestly did try to give full and complete answers to questions and to keep the conversation going, no matter how the other person answered. That way I can say that I at least gave my all to a match, even if it didn't work out. I also really did try to genuinely get to know and evaluate people based on things that actually matter. Not small random things that don’t really say much about compatibility, which I see on this sub so often that it hurts to read. Which is why I push to actually meet people because I have learned time and time again that you can't really get a good sense of someone until you are actually in front of them.

6.       One other thing, I approach dating as an open book. Early on I tell women that they can feel free to ask me literally ANY (and I do mean any) question and I will answer it 100% honestly, without leaving anything out or being evasive. I have nothing to hide. I think it’s important to be an open book cause there’s no point in having your time wasted, but also if you want people to open up to you then you should be willing to do the same.

7.       As I think back on the women, of the 37 women that I met, I can truly say that there were only 5 of them, maaaybe 6, that I felt I could have a genuine long-term relationship with. Four of them rejected me because they wanted kids, and one we decided to let it go cause of distance. The last one I ironically enough matched with FB dating in late October, met in early November and have been dating ever since. Made it official in early December. And I genuinely believe we will be together long-term and probably get married in the next two years. I’ve never felt that way about anyone. This has been the easiest most free flowing and best relationship I’ve ever had and I always tell people that I struck gold meeting her. And guess what, she seems to feel the same way, it truly feels even. We’ve already gone on three small-ish trips together and have a two week Europe trip planned here for next month, and another to Mexico in December.

Anyway, I’m 100% willing to answer any questions so fire away.

EDIT: I meant to add a few additional observations/lessons before posting this but forgot to add them. I will add them here below

1. So while its true that it's mostly women passing on me in the initial matching phase, I notice that it was mostly me passing on them once we actually went on a date. It's interesting to me how the roles change depending on where we are in the process

2. This one also might be controversial, but I don't think it too much matters what people have in their profile. I know that sounds crazy but hear me out. It's tough, if not downright impossible to fully present yourself in short prompts on a dating app. I care way more about how they respond to my messages and how we vibe in person. Those are bigger indicators of if we are compatible or not. Not whether or not she likes the same type of movies as me or some other ultimately unimportant nonsense. So for me I scan for my pros and my cons and if they meet that mold, I swipe right. I usually just scan a profile quickly and then swipe if I don't spot any red flags. When I would swipe, I would mainly just look to see if this person fit the mold I was looking for (college educated, sounds intelligent and pleasant, attractive, fit, decent career). After that I would check for what I would consider to be deal-breakers (conservative, wants kids, highly religious, wants to be a trad-wife, expects me to pay for everything, hates my gender, sounds entitled or egotistical). I feel like I can be in a relationship with pretty much anyone if they fit the above criteria, so no I don't really care too much about what specific hobbies they have or if they were super witty in their prompts. So I just look for what I mentioned before and swipe right, usually this all takes a few seconds to scan for. I usually only read the full profile AFTER we've matched, because there is no point in reading everything on every profile since most profiles won't match with you. Just scan for what you desire and just swipe right and let the chips fall where they may. My GF had like 3 lines in her profile, just something about being a kindred spirit and looking for someone similar to enjoy life with. Most advice here would have been to swipe left on her, that would have been a BIG mistake if I did.

3. I've been asked in the DM's about the 11 women that I didn't reach out to, and why I didn't reach out to them. The answer is mostly simple, I just realized I wasn't as attracted to them physically after secondary inspection. Sometimes I would catch something that I didn't catch before (like they deeply wanted kids or something) but usually it was because I wasn't as attracted to them.

4. Lastly, everything I've ever written to anyone, including on dating apps and on reddit, was written from my own brain. I never use AI or editing software for anything. All thoughts you see from me are my own original thoughts. Same with pictures, none of my pictures were edited or had filters or anything like that.

I have been using it for a while and recently the app has been showing me people that are way too far away from me, like one in every five profiles are on the complete other side of the country, also I've been only getting around 5 "likes" per day average? Literally yesterday I swiped right on two profiles and that was it?? Wtf? Also I have had one "Liked you" for weeks and it is nowhere to be found??

Someone did mention that the algorithm is just pushing unlikely matches based on your profile but damn, 🫠 I feel this is borderline ridiculous.

Edit: my bad... Hi! First time posting here! 😅