I was talking to my friend the other day and she was complaining about her Bumble experience. As a guy I was under the typical assumption that most women are inundated with likes. She told me that she did get some activity in the beginning but now it slowed to almost nothing.

Then she was saying that she also ran into the experience of matches not responding or ghosting. As well as even the ones she does match putting very little effort into the conversations. She is a decent looking women and no she is not super picky. She's 5'7 and her last bf was 5'5, slightly chubby, and thinning hair. She does reject low effort profiles though and tries to find people she is compatible with. She's not looking at only the top 10% or trying to go out of her league.

The last guy she went on a date with apparently canceled last minute on the 2nd date. Then she gave him another chance and he canceled again only to message her a month later asking if she would like to go out again. Which she did not respond to. She is looking for long-term and obviously filtering out the ones that just want to have fun.

I guess it doesn't just happen to men only. What she told me echoes the experiences of what a lot of the men on here are saying.

Is the length of your profile in terms of content and what you write actually something that matters to women?

Why do women put so little effort? It's better you don't match if you don't wanna chat. I don't know if i did anything wrong or if they aren't interested. This sucks!!

Edit: Wow it seems as if I have the most controversial profile in online dating history.

Hi everyone, i have an upcoming date next week. But yesterday i got a buzz cut. None of my pictures feature me with short hair (before i had quite long hair). Am i catfishing right now? Would it be weird, maybe even rude?? Need some opinions lol

thank you all for your feedback/discussion yesterday. it gave me a lot to reflect on.

i recognize that my post and comments yesterday did not land with everyone and that there were some mutual misunderstandings. i also recognize that i was not as delicate and careful and empathetic as was probably necessary to have more effective communication. all accusations of me being arrogant and self-righteous were deserved. i can be that way sometimes.

so im going to try and rewrite the post from a different angle. i know this, too, will not land with everyone and thats okay. either way, i figured it would be in good faith to try. as i said, this is as much an exercise for me as it is an offering to others. its important to try and think/speak/act from a place of truth, and a lot of the feedback yesterday showed me that there is a more common truth to be found in the sentiment. so here goes:

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i think one big reason both men and women struggle with the dating app experience has to do with a focus on "getting" something. be that matches, dates, sex, attention, validation, company, support, etc. i struggled with it a lot and it made the experience insufferable. i had a goal in mind and it wasnt being met and i was dissappointed and resentful.

i realized that i was looking at men as targets. and because of that, i wasnt seeing them as whole people. i didnt even really know why i liked them outside of their potential for sex, attention, validation, company, or support. i was falling right into the very predatory design of the apps, which are essentially made to be addictive human slot machines. it was hurting me and i was hurting them and it sucked and wasnt fair and i wanted out.

so i took a year-long break from the apps. during that time i did a few things that im gonna detail below. and it has led me to have a different way of looking at men/dating. i still have a desire for a partner, but i am also okay with the possibility that i may never find one. i have a deep love for men that doesnt put them on a pedestal, but accepts the reality of who/where they are. i know so much better why i like men in the first place, and it isnt just because they can give me sex, attention, validation, company, or support. i also have a much more secure relationship with myself that doesnt have the same gnawing desperation to be completed or validated by someone else. i am my own witness, now.

im also much more able to say "yeah i fucked that up. let me try again."

i am gonna get back on the apps soon to see what they are like now that i have a different perspective. i love meeting new people and i am looking forward to getting to know men that want to get to know me. i am not as attached to the outcome. if i make a connection, great. if they dont seem intererested, okay. if they are rude or shitty or gross, thats their affair to attend to. if their actions dont meet their words, i dont have to figure out why or make excuses or lament it. if no one likes me, thats okay too. being single is hard, but being beholden to the validation of someone else and/or accepting abuse/neglect is much much much harder.

if i start to get to the place where i feel resentful towards men for their behavior, self-loathing because i am not attracting the men i am attracted to, or otherwise start to get to a place where i see men as targets again, i will stop and reevaluate.

anyways here are some of the things i did:

i invested in all my relationships with men. friends, family, coworkers, acquaintences. i became genuinely interested in the struggles they were sharing about their life and relationships. i listened to what they were saying and believed them. i got even more interested in them as people and what they were interested in just for the sake of them being them.

- i consumed the media (books/podcasts/creators) the men in my life were consuming that was written by men for men to better understand the context for their mindsets.

- i began to develop a personal spiritual practice. it wasnt based in any particular religion, but more a personal exploration to get in touch with something larger than myself and connected to all things. things like spending time in nature, meditating, prayer, developing little personal rituals for grief/celebration, and dream work. what i realized is that god is whatever we worship, and i had been worshipping attention from men. i was turning all the men i had been with into some kind of personal deity/they had been doing the same to me and we were both resentful of one another when we didnt turn out to be perfect gods. so i decided that i was going to develop a relationship with the eternal in some way so that i would no longer feel the need to project that onto men.

- i invested in creative practices. things like drawing, painting. music, filmmaking, gardening, and baking. things that got me into a flow state. i realized that when i create things, it produces all kinds of feel-good hormones that are often just as good as sex. it also helped me become better in touch with me and who i was. after a while i started to really understand meaning and purpose and it ended up having a significant impact on all my relationships, my job, and the work i do in my community.

- i journaled. 3 pages every day to help me purge all the gobbly-gook in my head. after a while i began to recognize my patterns of thought. it helped me get a better sense of why i do what i do. it kept me honest.

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anyways the point is, when i did intentional work to invest in men and myself, it changed the way i look at dating. really, it changed everything.

if you got this far, thanks. i will try my best to respond to anyone who comments in good faith. these are messy conversations and i was messy yesterday, too. its hard out there. and its gotta be possible to find the balance of being firm in our convictions and giving one another grace.

best to you all.

I'm ready to date, I have been ready forever. I just had a lot of health issues in school, and I don't go out besides work and concerts or special events. I don't have any friends besides my family and coworkers. Idk how to talk to men on these apps, I feel unworthy and lame. Like I'm not on the same level as them socially. Please give me some advice and don't just say I'm not ready to date because it's just a lack of experience that I'm trying to overcome my weird feelings about

I met a guy through Bumble about 2 months ago and we had two really good dates within about a week. He initiated the second date, we were affectionate, and he suggested future plans, including trying a newly opened restaurant together.

Then he went travelling for a while. During our last conversation he sent me some photos from his weekend away. We chatted back and forth, i sent photos too, and I eventually replied, “So pretty, have fun!” He answered, “Thank you!” and neither of us messaged again.

At the time I assumed the conversation had naturally ended and that he would reach out again if he wanted to continue seeing me. It’s now been almost 2 months.

In normal early-dating etiquette, would you consider “Thank you!” the natural end of that conversation and leave the next initiation to him, or would you have followed up again yourself? Is it weird to text now after months?

Why do people connect on dating apps, talk for a while, and then suddenly start disappearing?

I understand that everyone has a busy life, work, responsibilities, etc. But sometimes it feels like “I’m really busy” becomes an excuse for barely communicating or just slowly ghosting someone.
I’m not expecting anyone to text all day or be available 24/7. But if you’re joining a dating app and choosing to connect with someone, shouldn’t there at least be some consistency and effort?

And if you’re no longer interested, that’s completely fine. Just be honest about it. I’d much rather hear “I don’t think we’re a match” than have someone disappear and then come back days later with another “sorry, I’ve been busy” message.

Maybe I’m expecting too much, but I feel like consistency and communication are pretty basic when you’re trying to get to know someone.

Am I wrong? What’s your experience/view with this?

37 M | Never Married

Oh how OLD has changed quite a bit since I was last on it 10 years ago.

I feel like 50% of people I interact with are scammers. I've had four exchanges that definitely were with fake profiles. Just blocked a dude 5 minutes ago because after a few texts it was apparent AI was writing them. When I asked for a call because I was wary of scammers, he came back with "what a scammer?" lol.

It's gotten to the point where unless they offer very specific geographic or personal details in the first couple of messages, I assume they are fake. I'm not sure where they lift all the pics from. Facebook?

I did meet two people in person, so I know other actual people are on it, but the added stress of an already unpleasant endeavor makes me certain I will be deleting my account. The lack of depth/detail of these apps makes it so easy for scammers to thrive.

Any other mature folks out there who can recommend another site? (I've done okcupid and Match in the past). I know there are scammers on them all, but perhaps less on some?

I’ve been getting stalked on my social media from a dude who saw me on Bumble almost 10 months ago and I’m sick. I have a boyfriend already and I’m very much happy but everyday I impulsively check my account to see if he returns and he always does.

When I first installed Bumble I made the grave mistake of putting my social media in my bio because I thought that would be a way for other people to get to know me. I mainly post artwork and stuff too so I thought maybe people would be interested in seeing my art (I even stated in my bio that I made art)

But it’s gotten to a point that this is eating away at me every single day. I always wait and wait for him to come back like a roach and stalk my profile and I feel like I can’t do anything about it. I think I know his name because he makes his name the same thing on all of the accounts he creates. I don’t know where he lives and I hope he doesn’t know where I live. He was an asshole and I blocked him for being one and I guess he can’t get it through his thick skull I want nothing to do with him.

I’m venting but I also want advice because I’m so tired of this. I hate dating apps, I wish I never used them but at the same time if I never used Bumble I would have never met my amazing boyfriend. Please what do I do?

I've used Bumble before, and while I didn't kill on it, I was able to consistently connect with matches and even get my last relationship. It felt like while matches were rare, generally the conversations would last long enough for something to actually develop. Now, it's completely different and entirely unusable. I actually get more matches now than I did before (I'm in better shape), about a dozen matches every time I re-make my profile. However, despite getting about a dozen matches fairly easily, LITERALLY ZERO of these matches go absolutely anywhere. Zero. I have 3 conversations currently on my Bumble, I messaged from a match, and none of them have responded. I used a compliment on one women, she matched with me (which means she has to respond to the compliment for the conversation to start), and of course she didn't reply. Most women I match with simply don't respond. The 3-5 that do respond, talk to me for about a day. Then, they completely stop responding. I can hold a conversation, that's not the problem. The problem is now that men can make the first move, my competition is literally infinite. It is only a matter of time before she matches with someone more attractive than me. Which, I don't blame women for moving on to better options btw. I blame Bumble for destroying the defining identity of it's app for absolutely no reason. Bumble used to be so much better than Tinder, but now Bumble is exactly like Tinder which is so stupid. Bumble used to be decent because when women had to make the first move, it meant it was so much easier to connect with someone and establish something. There was a buffer before you were completely washed away. That buffer is the only reason Bumble actually worked. Now, it is literally impossible to connect with anybody. I don't mean because women are just super picky. I mean that if you get a match, and you initiate the conversation, by the time she even sees your response you have been pushed down 50 places to the bottom. Again, I'm not trying to say it's women's selectiveness the issue. I'm saying Bumble's platform change has made the app objectively unusable for I'd argue the vast majority of men. You simply can't use it anymore. It just sucks, because Bumble was the only dating app I had any sort of success with. I know I'm at least somewhat attractive because I get matches, but it's exceptionally frustrating having literally every single conversation or match I have go literally nowhere. Every single one.

Imagine you have been in a date with someone you genuinely like. The date went well, but they suddenly stop replying without explanation. Two weeks later, they message you again as if nothing happened.

You later find out they were more interested in someone else, but that didn't work out, so they are coming back to you.

Are you giving them a second chance, or are you walking away? Does your answer change if you genuinely liked them?

Ive been chatting to a guy on bumble for months n months. Had dates, moved to whatsapp ages ago. Still in contact every few days and flirting despite the long distance.

His bumble has disappeared. No deleted. Not unmatched.

Why does this happen? Tech thing?

Edited to add I am not worried about him ghosting me. We have a good chat. Just nevet happened on the app before.

Over the years dating apps have been trashed a lot. I don't think the apps themselves are the problem. They are just a tool.

All your bad experiences on dating apps are due to how people behave on them. The apps expose human nature and what people truly value and care about. And it ain't pretty.

It's not like people get on dating apps and suddenly become a different person. You can choose who you want to match with and you can choose how you treat your matches. If you choose to treat your matches like shit, or they treat you like shit, that's not the apps fault. That's people showing who they are.

I need a whole playbook review at this point. Just what the hell am I doing wrong? All my profiles on other apps are basically copy and pasted this.

So i rarely get some matches i talk but then it dies after a couple of days. Last one I talked to was good but I'll admit she was a bit rougher then I am but still pretty and funny. We talked and agreed on a movie date. Set the location then she made a "joke" saying guess she will get pizza and drink herself out in a car behind the Arby's. I texted back "?" She replied with it was a joke. I then texted ok what movie seems good to go see? Then she unmatched me. Like wtf i guess cause I didnt respond better to her "joke" but it was so random and out of the blue it just through me off.

I was so disappointed the last time I installed the app. Nobody wanted to engage in a proper and respectful conversation first. I’m 27F and a part of me wonders if I should give it another try.

same man can get zero matches or 1-3 matches in one city and can get 10+ matches in one day in another city what you think share your experience

I feel like the whole texting phase on Bumble is completely misleading. I’ve gone on dates with people who had amazing banter on the app and texted paragraphs, only for us to sit in dead awkward silence for two hours in person.

On the flip side, I almost unmatched someone for giving me super dry, one-word answers, but we ended up meeting and they were the most charismatic, talkative person ever.

Do you guys still give dry texters a chance, or do you automatically assume bad texting equals a bad date? How long do you usually text before just asking them out to see the real vibe?

Im genuinely trying my best to get to know my matches including sending them the first message but all I get is dry response like as if I'm bothering them.

I ask important questions like their hobbies and try to talk about something theyre interested in but they give me one word response... i don't know what I'm doing wrong honestly... i wanna find a boyfriend already and I wanna go out on dates too...

Is this like a common issue we're all facing?

Is it because of elo?