I met some nice people, but had better luck just meeting people naturally in my 20s. I think the reason why dating apps didn’t work is that it’s kinda like job apps online, where there’s just waves of people, and everyone is just kinda putting their resume on their profile. Hard to stand out and meet “real” people among bots/hidden likes/ app design/bad matches.

Usually these companies make money by having users churn through loads of bad matches and then continually pay for premium.

I’d recommend joining a club IRL or volunteering, it might be a more organic fit. Friends -> dating can come naturally out of that.

It can be rough on your head (emotions, ego, attitude). I went to Match at 67, felt a little like back at Jr. High. Announced I’d give up twice, but arter a bit looked back again. My last “what the hell, one more” connection was with my now partner and I’m glad I stayed with it. I don’t know how much was luck. We’ve been together 4 years, sold our houses, bought one together.

Your sons are speaking from their experience, which may not be the same as yours.

I met my wife on a dating app in 2019 on Bumble (28 at the time). It can work, but you have to be willing to sift through a lot of bullshit and be patient. You also need to be able to handle rejection and mistreatment (like getting stood up/ghosted). It’s ultimately a numbers game and it takes time to find someone that is actually right for you.

I expect it’s probably also not nearly as bad for older age groups. At your age, I think people are going to be a lot more likely to be direct and know what they want.

My advice is to try it out. Worst case, you decide it’s not for you and try something else.

Have you ever done Speed Dating? Where you have 5 minute dates and if it goes well you arrange another?

It’s kinda like that, except it’s presented in the most shallow way possible and wrapped into a skinner box. The apps are so full of bots (usually scammers/phishers) that most of the matches you recieve will be fake. That’s means there’s a little dangerous with every new person you match with while you both figure out if you’re talking to a human or not. Beyond this, the apps are somewhat anonymous in a dangerous way. You don’t know if you’re meeting the person you say you are until they show up in front of you. Sometimes you match with someone and their personality isn’t what they say it is.

They’re fine, probably just about the worst way to meet someone as a long term partner. I’ve had good luck with hookups on dating apps, but I’ve had the WORST luck actually dating on them.

It’s a waste of time. There is so much technology between you and real people that it is just a exercise in frustration.

Work on yourself, get a hobby, go to groups that have that hobby as their main thing, there you will find a new mate or someone who will introduce you to your new mate or someone who knows someone who will introduce you to your new mate or…

Or if you really want to go with apps buy unlimited likes, boost your profile and set up an autoclicker that just accepts everything. If you got a bunch of matches you can ghost the people you don’t want.

They’re pretty bad but you can get lucky. I had a long-ish relationship come out of them. I’ve had a ton of long term flirts that came out of them. It’s fun and nice to flirt with people slowly and every once in a while for like 5+ years lol.

That being said, I’ve been off them for a year. I prefer to meet people in real life when that’s a possibility.

I used bumble and found my now wife. My advice is to do it like a background task while you are also doing other things, so you’re not desperate you can evaluate people there better.

It depends.

Those apps rely a lot on your physical appearance, and how good you look in a photograph.

And if you are interested in dating women you’ll have a harder time than if you try to date men.

As a bisexual person every time I open a dating app I have hundreds of likes from men, and barely one or two from women.

Also be aware that experiences for people 10 years ago are not valid now. Enshitificacion have also take it’s tool from dating apps, and experience is way worse than it used to. Last time I opened one I didn’t even got a match in months (until I deleted it). So you would have to mentally prepare for that possibility and keep your self esteem up despite of that.

To be honest, learn who you are before going on an app or trying to engage for a partner.

You’ve been together (in perception, at least) a long time and you’re still that married person and it will take time to remember who you are without that other person, regardless of whether you were a functioning couple or two people in the same house.

The loneliness is just the transition sinking in.

I’m a couple years older than you.

They absolutely do work, and I can’t recommend them enough - this is coming from a male mid-40s divorcee. I was on and off Tinder for 4 years looking for a relationship and met several women, before finally meeting my soul mate. For somebody like me who isn’t the most outgoing person, they were a godsend in terms of meeting people. Some of the negativity in these responses is wild.

They’re a relaxed, accessible mechanism for starting conversations. Yes, there’s incentive for the companies to keep you on the apps but it’s certainly not forced, because if they didn’t ever work, their incentive for use evaporates.

I am 100% of the opinion that people who have limited luck on dating apps are likely to have the same limited luck in real life. It’s just that the apps present you with multiple “opportunities” in succession that you don’t get in real life, so it could feel like constant rejection for some. If you match with a real person and start a conversation that goes nowhere, that’s down to yours or their communication, or a simple incompatibility. Both parties have already shown an interest at the point of matching. Where it goes from there is down to you.

It’s entirely a numbers game. You can’t expect to hit it off with every person you match with online, any more than you could in real life. But you will find someone that you otherwise wouldn’t get the chance to meet through other circumstances.

I’m 35, Ive been using them since they were new, around 21 until right around the pandemic, so around when I turned 30. My impression is that they have gone downhill a lot. I don’t consider myself a very handsome man, but I’m pretty well read and I have a lot of hobbies and I can hold a conversation. Early on, it was literally just a list of people and profiles. You could start a conversation with anyone, I did pretty well. I would say in this era, (maybe between 2011 and 2014) I would rate OKC the best. Tinder showed up and I gave it a try and I would say its the worst (and remained the worst). The gamification even then was insane. Pay for higher placement. Pay for ‘super likes.’ None of these were guarantees she would reply back or even see it; you could have been throwing your money in a void. Like a skinner box for incels.

I won’t pretend there isn’t a physical dimension to dating; but the way Tinder was set up, it was inevitable it was going to become a “hook up” app. You had the option to post something like 8 pictures and eventually they let you post a short bio, at first it was just a few words (which most people left blank anyway). It was designed to be a meat market. I know people have met their partners there and I am not trying to take that away from anyone but come on guys, that’s not what Tinder is. I honestly had better luck meeting women on 4chan than Tinder. And it doesn’t help now that the Match group has a crushing hold on the entire industry, so the gamification model has basically spread everywhere. All of the things about Tinder in this thread are true; the gender imbalance, the bots, the scammers. I ended up deleting everything in 2020; I had a girl ghost me and everything after that just felt so fake.

I’ve heard it’s actually pretty good for 40yo+ people. The app isn’t the main problem, it’s the people.

You may be better off joining a club/group activity around a common interest. That way, even if you don’t meet anyone, you have something to do that isn’t soul-destroying.

Its not a total scam, I know some couples who met on dating apps. However, be aware that as a man your choice is limited. There are about 10 men for every woman on dating apps.

It can work, but honestly I think its easier to get to know people when I’m out and about. This depends on how outgoing you are, though, of course.