How to Meet People When Online Dating Apps Don’t Work

21 min readMar 16, 2021

Do Online Apps Suck… Or Is It Just Me?

*I originally wrote this as a post to help men. However, women can benefit just as much.

Online dating apps suck, especially if you’re a man.

When I first got Tinder (I admit I was reluctant), it seemed like a pretty solid idea. I would get the chance to meet women that I otherwise probably would’ve never met and all I have to do is spend 10 minutes or so a day swiping left and right. Seemed like a good idea.

So I started swiping… and swiping… andddddd swiping. Nothing.

Maybe it’s my photos, let me change those.

More swiping… more swiping… and more swiping. Nothing.

Maybe it’s my bio, let me change that.

More swiping… more swiping… and more swiping. Nothing.

I’d get occasional matches, a decent amount of replies from that, and a grand total of one date with a woman I was quickly uninterested in.

Ok it’s either I’m doing something terribly wrong, I’m extremely unattractive, or the app sucks.

I researched and experimented enough with my photos, bios, and settings to eliminate anything I can directly control.

I’m definitely not unattractive by any means. Women respond quite well to me in real life. I’m not the most physically attractive person in the world I’ll admit but I’m definitely not ugly. I’d say I’m somewhere near average, slightly better than average at best. My value for sure is in my personality and my brain, not necessarily my looks.

Ok, maybe it’s the app’s fault. Let me do some more investigation before I jump to any conclusions.

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OMG Online Dating Apps Are Probably The Worst Dating Game You Can Play

After doing some investigation, I realized that it wasn’t my fault that Tinder was failing me.

First things first, 78.1% of users on Tinder in the United States are male. Even if all 21.9% of women paired up with a man through Tinder, 56.2% of men would still find themselves girlfriendless — which is more than the number of men and women who end up finding someone.

But that’s assuming every single woman is looking for someone on the app, and if you’ve used these apps in the past you’ll know that’s not the case. Many women use it as an ego validation tool. That’s fine, but it doesn’t hide the fact that the math doesn’t work in your favor.

I don’t have the statistics on other online dating apps but I imagine they all follow a similar trend for reasons we will get into in this article.

Just that basic calculation alone should make you want to delete your account, uninstall the app, and throw your smartphone out the window but it gets worse.

It also places an unnatural emphasis on physical appearance as the only thing your potential match can judge you on is the photos you take and to a lesser extent — the bio you write. So if you are not among the best looking men in the world, your chances of succeeding in a platform that strictly only values looks are slim.

A Less Obvious Reason Why Dating Apps Suck More

But those two points were things you probably already knew or thought of before. But the biggest reason why these apps don’t work is the biological factor.

You must understand that men and women have different biological traits they seek out in a mate and have different instincts when finding a mate.

Men are far more influenced by the physical attractiveness of a female than females are. Men look for signs of fertility such as waist to hip ratio, skin condition, youthful features that indicate health and reproductive status such as big eyes, small nose, full lips, long hair, breast size, butt size, full thighs. This is why when you see a younger woman with long silky hair and a tight, round butt, you immediately get turned on. Of course, men value things such as the ability to be a good partner and mutual love, however, physical attraction is far more significant in male attraction.

Although women value physical attractiveness as desirable physical traits is a strong indicator of good genes, they don’t place nearly the same amount of value on physical attractiveness as men do because women prioritize an effective masculine partner with selecting mates.

Physical traits that women find attractive can include, big muscles, strong jawline, and waist to chest ratio, as these are all strong indicators of masculinity. They are also attracted to the ability to provide resources coupled with masculine traits — both physical and behavioral, and the ability to be an effective partner is what women find desirable.

Although the modern economy now gives women the same opportunities to attain resources as men as monetary value is not dependent on physical labor but intellectual abilities, women may not require the resources from a man but naturally still seek indicators of the ability to acquire resources such as ambition, education, career potential, while being repulsed by opposite traits such as laziness, unemployment, and pessimism.

Traits in an effective partner include the ability to acquire resources as previously mentioned, social ability, health, responsibility, romantic intent for the woman, having a fulfilling life outside of women, and being secure in yourself.

Since a good portion of the traits that women find attractive are behavioral and not strictly visual, it is extremely difficult for them to tell if a man is attractive and boyfriend material from just his Tinder profile.

Think about it, if you were a woman, how would you know that Jonathan from 2 miles away is an attractive masculine man who is an effective partner just by looking at 4 photos of him playing with his dog, and drinking beer with his friends. Almost impossible am I right?

Unfair Fear Distribution

Are you starting to realize why you get so few matches and so many flakes on these online apps? But wait… there’s more.

Not only does valuing behavioral traits make it almost impossible to screen through potential candidates, but online apps also trigger a woman’s biggest biological fears in a way that many men don’t understand.

As a man, what is your biggest fear when it comes to meeting and dating women?

If you said rejection, being humiliated, or being laughed at, you’d be in line with the majority of men.

Do you know what a woman’s biggest fear is when it comes to meeting and dating men? If you also said rejection, humiliation, or being laughed at, you would be wrong. Those are big fears, but not the main driving fear behind their actions. A woman’s primary fear and thought when interacting and dating men is the fear of being assaulted and killed. As author Margaret Atwood put it: “Men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them.

Why is this so? Men are far larger and physically stronger than women. A healthy man’s average body is 5’9” tall and 144–176 lbs. A healthy woman’s average 5’3” tall and 107–135 lbs. So men on average are 6 inches taller and weigh 9–69 lbs heavier. Men are far more physically aggressive and violent than women. Men are far more likely to commit assault, rape, and murder.

An average man could do some serious harm to an average woman if he really wanted to, although most men are rather harmless. It’s not normal men like you and me she’s worried about, she’s worried about the men who are irrational, creepy, or become violent when angry, and she can’t really tell who’s who until she gets to know you. This is always on a woman’s mind while the thought of a woman assaulting and killing a man is rarely on a man’s mind.

You wouldn’t voluntarily run across a highway full of speeding cars, you wouldn’t put yourself in a boxing ring against a prime Mike Tyson, and you wouldn’t feed a wild bear in the fear of being attacked, yet these are slightly exaggerated scenarios of the same fears that all women have when meeting and dating men… and us men are completely oblivious.

Add on top of that, Tinder and other online apps reduce the cost of rejection to nothing. This gives confident men, normal men, and men terrified of rejection the same dating ability.

Although the fear of rejection in men might seem like something negative for us, women need the fear of rejection in men to succeed in dating as the fear of rejection screens out the men who have less masculine traits as they wouldn’t have the courage to approach her in the first place. The fear of rejection in men invites the desirable men into her life as they are the ones with the confidence to actually come over and talk to her in spite of these fears.

Imagine if every salesperson had the courage to walk up to you and ask you for a sale, every homeless person asking you for money, or every person you know asking you to hangout… exactly.

Online apps eliminate that filter, which gives the most confident, masculine man the same playing field as the unemployed, lazy man who lives in his parent’s basement as all that either man has to do is swipe right to get his chance with a woman.

In Summary, Dating Apps Suck

In summary when on these online apps, men are sexually aroused as they see visual photos of women in bikinis, tight skirts, and faces with makeup and good lighting. They are also oftentimes left frustrated as they compete with the overwhelming number of other men while they are only really represented by the photos they take.

Women are also frustrated too, as they are flooded with opportunities but they are not nearly as sexually aroused. On top of that, anytime she replies to one of her dozen or hundred requests to meet up in person, she is opening herself up to her biggest fear as a woman from a man that may or may not be attractive at all.

Put yourself in a woman’s shoes for a second and pretend you were a single woman with a Tinder account. Suddenly, you have yourself with 100+ matches with men who swiped right on you and have dozens of messages asking or even demanding that you meet up with them in person, and you know almost nothing about any of them.

Based on your previous experiences, your friends’ experiences, and your own intuition, most of your Tinder matches are with normal but boring and slightly unconfident men, a good number of them are be creepy or weird, some are men who resemble escaped jail convicts more than they do your future boyfriend, and a few are high-quality boyfriend material. But you know that every time you say yes to meeting up with one of these online profiles, you are opening yourself to your biggest fear of being assaulted, raped, or killed.

As a man who is now aware of the realities of online dating for women, you understand the many problems that many men face when trying to find their woman online.

What You Can Do Instead?

So Tinder and online apps effectively strip everything that goes for you except for options. There’s very little that a woman can use to evaluate you on your personality, verbal courtship is difficult to assess through texting (or your cheesy pickup lines), stranger danger is through the roof, and she is being carpet-bombed with hundreds of men like you.

What you can do instead is put yourself in a situation that allows you to be social with people you’re attracted to in real life.

By the way, you can still use online dating apps. In fact, I recommend you do it if you’re single and looking to meet someone because it’s better than nothing. But using it as a primary way of meeting people may not be the best strategy for most men.

The reason why meeting women in person is so much better for your dating success is that there is so much more a woman can evaluate you on when you’re in front of her talking. She’s no longer limited to 1–6 photos and a bio (that you probably took from the internet). She can evaluate you on your mood, body language, voice, conversation, confidence, body features, scent (usually unconsciously), and the dozens of tiny signals those give out. This gives her subconscious more information to base a good decision on, which means it gives you a better chance if you’re not having much luck online.

The simple fact that you’re talking to her in person puts you miles ahead of anyone on her Tinder matches list because you had the confidence to go talk to her, and she has so much more information to base her attraction to you off of.

So instead of using online apps, if you can make dating an extension of your social life, it will work out much better for you. Think about how you can create a lifestyle in which you can put yourself in conversation with those to who you are attracted to.

A Lone Wolf is Not Sexy

For some reason, the idea of being a lone wolf in the dating scene is still common. You will get this man or woman who has a very small social network and little to no friends and expects their romantic partner to fill the holes in their lives and fulfill them. This is so wrong for being practical in dating. This lone wolf has little to no social proof on who they are as a person, and how well they’re reciprocated by others.

Social proof is a very real concept that has to do mainly with safety. If you can get reassurance from other people that something is safe, you are more likely to try it since the risk factor is low. This is seen everywhere including in the consumer buying process where people will look at testimonials, reviews, and critiques before making a purchasing decision. Why? Because people don’t want to risk their money. That’s why you buy products with lots of 5-star reviews, you buy things your friends recommend, and you eat at restaurants that have crowds of people in.

If people are that cautious about their money, you can be certain that they are going to be far more cautious when it comes to them as a person! This is unconscious by the way. If you have no network of people who know you, have no friends around you, or only have friends who seem weird and sketchy, these are blaring signs in human instincts to get the F*CK away. Does setting off blaring alarm signs sound like a good dating strategy to you?

Dating is infinitely more difficult if you don’t have friends. For one, because what you perceive as a dating problem is most likely just people problems. If a man with no friends and little ability to make friends claims that women just don’t find him attractive, he’s mixing up women-specific problems for general people problems as other men or women don’t find him very attractive as a person either. Plus, going out to meet people whether that be a bar, a social event, a meetup, or just meeting people out and about is harder when you’re alone for them. And you’re being locked out of the easiest way to meet dating prospects — through friends of friends.

However, if you’ve followed the advice in my book or on this website and have created a fulfilling social life yet are still struggling with dating, then your problem is most likely dating specific.

Before You Date: Get High-Quality Dating Advice

If you had a very important exam, you would study really hard for it right?

If you had a very important football game, you would practice diligently for it, right?

If you had a really big speaking event, you would make sure you know what you’re talking about right?

So why would you even consider trying to date if you’ve never studied it to become competent enough intellectually? Whether it’s because of your ego, because of a stigma you believe is present, laziness, or ignorance, you would want to make that change and start learning dating advice before you date. You don’t need to become a Ph.D. in dating or anything like that but you should know what you’re doing.

If you type in “men’s dating advice” or “women’s dating advice” on Google, you’re going to get absolutely flooded with information, resources, articles, forums, books, videos, and so on. Just reading the first book or article and believing it is going to hurt you since you’re not filtering the information you get… not all information is equal, or even good for that matter.

Here’s how to screen for high-quality dating advice:

Science-based: if the information doesn’t talk about human mate preferences, human sexual psychology, human evolution, and the like, it’s probably bad advice. The books should be full of scientific research and literature you can validate the information with.
Cross-gender insight: dating is a two-person process. Dating is also a two-gender process. You’ve got to know what and how the other gender thinks when it comes to dating so you know how to effectively deal with them. Does the author give you straightforward, evidence-based information about the other gender, or do they approach it in a superiority or man/woman-hating manner that treats the other gender like something to “seduce” and “conquer”?
Authentic human connection: if the information centers on games, manipulation, power moves, indirect signaling, get rid of it. Even if you do date someone through those tactics, do you expect them to be emotionally healthy individuals?
Realistic: how do the authors talk about the real-world implications of their writing? Do they talk about how you can “sleep with any woman you want”, “how to make him beg for more”, or “get your dream partner”, or do they focus on the practical steps required in hitting your goals? There isn’t anything wrong with ambitious goals, but there is something to be said about goals that sound pretty bullshit. If you can’t figure out which is which, you might be in their target audience of people gullible enough to fall for their nonsense (at least you’re aware now.)
Emotional aspect: dating is not a logical sequence of steps, it’s an emotional one. How do the authors talk about the emotional aspect of dating? Do they get real with you about how you can expect to get hurt and rejected, then give you practical ways to work through those feelings, or do they promise you’ll never experience a single negative emotion ever again? Do they talk about your emotional growth and maturity or do they focus on “tactics” and “seduction techniques”? Do they even talk about it at all? Dating is an emotional process, and it’s going to be scary and suck sometimes, how real is the author about those parts?

Where to Meet People

You could be the most handsome man or the most attractive woman but you have to put yourself in places where you can meet the people you want to date.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t put in enough thought or effort into how they can meet the people they want, which leaves them frustrated, confused, and sad.

When picking places to meet people to date, you have to consider two things: the quality of the people around you and the quality of the interactions you can have with said people.

Quality of the People Around You

The quality of people depends on the attractiveness of the people, their potential compatibility with you, and the sex ratio of the people.

One of the biggest factors to dating success is your geographical mating market. While this makes perfect sense, it may or may not be something you have given conscious effort into thinking about. The neighborhood and city you live in are two of the most impactful factors that go into your dating success. If you live near the downtown of a major city that is among the best mating markets. If you live in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, that is among the worst mating markets.

If you live in a rural area in the middle of nowhere and you want to take your social and dating lives seriously, consider moving. Seriously. And if you live in a bad part of a good city, consider moving as well.

Select places to live and venues to attend based on the three criteria: the attractiveness of the people, potential compatibility with you, and a favorable sex ratio.

First of all, you want as many attractive people around you as possible. The reason for this is because there is a higher chance that you will end up talking to one of those attractive people. This matters both on a geographical stage and that of your venue. The place you live in matters and the places you go matter, you better make sure there are attractive people that go there too.

Although bars and clubs don’t make for the best mating market, they are good in the sense that lots of attractive people go there to have fun and also because bars are a culturally accepted place to meet people.

But the specific bar, group activity, or social event you attend share the same logic. Not all venues are created equal, so you have to be mindful of what kind of people go to the venue. One bar could be full of attractive women in their 20s while the bar down the street could be where middle-aged people go to sip wine. One gym you could go to could be full of attractive, muscular, social men while another gym could be full of old men.

I remember sitting at home, scrolling through my Instagram following list, and realizing that I only have a handful of people I ideally want to date, although most of them are taken or unavailable for other reasons. Then I took a walk through the vibrant bar scene near my apartment and realized that there are a ton of attractive women in this place. I realized I was in a great place in terms of attractive people around me and I wasn’t using that to my fullest advantage.

The next thing you have to consider is their compatibility with you. Assuming that you’re in a city and more importantly, a venue that has a solid number of attractive people, you also have to take into consideration how compatible they are going to be with you. Of course, you can figure this out by talking to the people individually and you should go for it, but you can also get a general idea based on who attends.

Compatibility just means how likely they are going to be receptive towards you. This can differ depending on what kind of personality you have, what are your hobbies and interests, what type of person are you interested in, what is your status, and everything I just mentioned but for the other people.

If you go to a luxurious Manhattan rooftop bar and you’re a 20-year-old male NYU student, good luck up there (if you can even get in) because all the women there are not going to be compatible with you, even if they are all attractive. It’s not that the women are bad people, but they’re looking for something else.

On the other hand, if that same 20-year-old male NYU student went to an intramural sports league with other university students with attractive women and cool men, they will do way better since they are in a place where they are more compatible with other people.

Lastly, you want to consider the sex ratio. If you take the possible mates in the venue you’re at, what is the ratio between your gender and the opposite gender? The more of the opposite sex and less of your sex there are, your odds of talking to someone and potentially date skyrocket. So for heterosexual men, go where there are fewer men and more women and the opposite for women.

If that 20-year-old male NYU student went to an intramural sports league with 20 people and 15 of them were men, his chances of talking to or potentially dating one of the 5 women go down significantly. Not because he did anything wrong, but because 75% of the people there are competing for the 25%. So even if all 5 women paired up with 5 men, half of the people there will still be pairless.

If that same 20-year-old male NYU student went to an intramural sports league (or event with attractive, compatible people) and it was 5 men and 15 women, his chances of talking to and potentially dating one skyrocket. Not necessarily because he did anything right, but because now those 15 women will compete harder to get the attention and interest of the 5 men.

Apply the same logic to places you go to or groups you join. Popular bars often have a fair ratio while groups or activities can differ greatly. Check them out or find out what kind of people attend before attending if possible.

Quality of interactions

So you’ve picked a few places where attractive people go, they’re compatible with you for the most part, and sex ratios are favorable or at least 50/50, great but that’s only half the battle.

The other half of the battle is having good interactions with them. When it comes to having good interactions, the main factor that will help you is how accessible are conversations. What I mean by this is how well can one person start a conversation with another. This is where some dating experts have problems with using bars as places to meet people. It’s usually dark and loud, people are drinking, public sexual humiliation is at risk for men, women’s safety is at risk, and as a result, you get awkward interactions if any at all. Now bars aren’t a bad place to meet people if you’re willing to start conversations with strangers. Most people are not but some people are, it’s great for those people who can.

Conversely, a group fitness activity such as a sports league or CrossFit is great for the quality of interactions because you’re all part of the same group doing the same thing so you have something in common, you see each other more than once so you have a sense of familiarity, and conversation is expected and easy to start. Plus for fitness-related activities, exercise is a social lubricant in similar ways as alcohol, minus all the terrible things that come as a result of alcohol consumption.

If you’re at an event that isn’t a group activity but there is something in common such as a wine tasting, an art gallery, a class to name a few, you still have a sense of commonality as you can start a conversation about whatever the event is about. Starting a conversation with someone in class is far easier than starting a conversation with a random person at a bar.

I was at a bar recently with a friend I haven’t seen in a while so we decided to meet up for a few drinks. We ended up at this one patio bar with seated tables. Granted we weren’t going out for the sole purpose of finding women to talk to although we are both single and would be willing to chat with some cute women if given the chance. This bar had everything we talked about with the quality of people. It was downtown in a major city in a very vibrant restaurant/ bar area, there were a handful of attractive women of similar age to me and a favorable enough sex ratio. This should’ve been a great place to meet women but nope, there were plastic dividers between each table (to protect from Covid-19) so this means little if any interactions between people not at our table.

With that being said, biologically and socially, men are still expected to initiate the conversation so men put themselves in situations where starting conversations is either expected or easy. This means group activities or places where you are around people with something in common.

Women can start conversations too, nothing wrong with that in fact very encouraged but if you feel like you want to wait for the man to start a conversation, do yourself a favor and send signals of interest. This means looking positive and having open body language. One of the most terrifying things a man can do is start a conversation with a woman he’s attracted to because of his instincts of the fear of sexual humiliation and it doesn’t help if you’re turned away from him or look unapproachable. If you see a man you want to come to talk to you, face him, open your body language (no crossing arms), give him eye contact, play with your hair, and SMILE!

If you smile at a man and he doesn’t come to talk to you, then he’s too scared to take the obvious signal and that’s his problem but if you look angry or have a neutral expression, you’re not giving him any help in alleviating his fears so if you can’t blame him if he’s not willing to approach what seems like someone who will bite his head off and reject him.

Have Fun and Find Out What’s Interesting

When you’re talking to someone who you may want to date, there are a ton of thoughts and emotions that flood your mind: does he/she like him, am I attractive, what if he/she becomes my boyfriend/girlfriend, am I saying the right things, omg he/she does like it, holy shit why did I say that. These thoughts and emotions can cripple your chances if left unchecked so let’s focus on having fun and finding out what’s interesting about other people.

Focusing on having fun and finding out what’s interesting will help you accomplish your dating goals and make everything less stressful in the process. It’s pretty hard not to have fun with someone as long as you or they are not complete bores, and almost everyone has something interesting about them. The reason why this is so important when dating is because your future dating relationships are going to be with people you have fun with and are interesting enough for you. Why not start now?