Dating in 2025 is NOT ridiculous!

This is my response to a post from yesterday. To be clear, I think venting is good. Still, it was a little sad for me to read — I used to think the same way as the OP.

First off finding someone in 2025 is ridiculous. They say try a dating app. Only works if youre a 10/10 male or a woman. Like seriously you can't get fuck all and when you do.....it's either a bit or you get hit with the "how tall are you?" Or get ghosted. They say oh go out and just meet people and interact with others within hobbies or something.....yeah I think the balding 40 year old male buying his batman comics or the group of guys at the rec center playing basketball is gonna help me find someone....

Finding someone isn’t hard. Never has been throughout human history, unless you lived in the plague times or some emergency. Truth is that we can all settle. Most of us do settle, actually, which leads to heartbreak.

Dating apps do work. Just depends on how realistic you are. These apps are pretty upfront about what they want from you: money. You don’t have to be a 10/10 or even 3/10 to get matches. You have to pay money or wait a while. Matches do happen for everyone at some point. Romance has never been some easy low-effort experience when trying to get a good match for yourself, unless you prefer arranged marriages. Us GenZ guys don’t really know what it was like to live in a world before smartphones. People had to just get lucky finding someone in person on accident without fucking it up. There was no pre-check of vibes over text. You just had to hope you had nothing stuck between your teeth and go up to a girl randomly. Comedy and bits have been used since caveman times, and so too have potential partners sized each other up.

Be honest bro, you look at a girl’s fingers in the Tinder selfies to see how thin her fingers are. You want to know whether she has a nice side angle to the face, and you look at her height too. A woman asking for your height may not be discreet, but it is honest.

On getting ghosted, again, I point to the past. Guys would legit ask for a girl’s number, get it, and never call them. Girls did the same to guys. Imagine the Renaissance letter correspondence between two forlorn lovers going cold — now that is ghosting at its worst.

The hobbies stuff is less about dating and more about life balance. You usually look better when you do more than just party, work, and fuck.(depends on the person ngl...)You also feel better about yourself when you measure your worth by more than just romantic success. Hiking to the top of a local hill? Classic boost to the ego. Also, don’t knock the local basketball leagues or comic readers until you try that stuff. Everyone’s a nerd for something.

They say be yourself..... Ok that's true I've learned that's true to an extent. However, some people have "ick lists" and is the most ridiculous little things and that they will be like nah I'm good. Therefore you have no idea what to do because she may be turned off by you by the littlest things like how you walk or how you hold a mug or something.

Okay, whoever said “be yourself” was right, but that great quote probably had context lmao. The ick lists are pretty ridiculous, but some make sense. Snot rockets are a common ick. Would you like to see your date do a snot rocket as she exits an Uber? Anyway, being yourself is still an amazing phrase to live by (within reason!!!) because people should be honest about what they’re like in romance. Show off what you possess, stay humble, and remember that every bad romantic experience saves you the trouble of being with the wrong person.

If you somehow get lucky and do somehow get a date and you think it goes alright and you two laughed and had a good time....she may say she had a good time, next day you'll get hit with the "it was nice meeting you but I don't think this will work out" and of course your genuinely confused as to what you did and why did you just straight up lie to you and you wasted time and money that you'll never get back.

Again, better to know someone isn’t a good match than to be with the wrong person. Stay humble, remember your possessions, and move on. Getting ghosted or the “you’re so qualified but we have no more positions left” corporate messages is not a big deal. Think long term. Think about long term again, and again after that. With the right partner, all those confusing moments will be forgotten by the first anniversary.

As for wasting your time and money, that is always by choice. Men in other countries pay higher prices for good company (Japanese salarymen stereotypes). You know when you get on those dating apps that some women are on there for free meals, paid sex, and tickets to music festivals. And that can go both ways. Some men date women but just do it for the sex, then ghost right after the first or second time.

It's ridiculous and the societal pressure to be in a relationship adds to the ridiculousness of the whole situation. If you're not in a relationship,as a guy, you're a loser and you have something wrong with you

I know it can really feel like society is being ridiculous, and like society is adding pressure. Not true. This is a business. It’s all good business. Big corporations make money off of romance. Think about Valentine’s Day, think about Tinder advertisements, and think about the “totally for sure random algorithms” on social media that make humans around the world feel lonely and worthless. Lonely people make great consumers. Lonely men who feel like losers are easy prey for a Tinder subscription that is “on sale!” You’re not a loser. Don’t let anybody or anything convince you of that, especially not these toxic dating apps.

And it isn’t just men being targeted. Women are targeted by corporations too, and I’ll let women who experience that firsthand explain it in the comments if they want to.

Here’s my piece: look around. Talk to people who have successful relationships. Talk to older people. Read more on this subreddit about dating tips. Connect with real people and don’t get isolated by dating apps or technology. Prioritize your mental health above everything, even romance. Then physical health, then personal goals, and then romance. Dating apps can be fun and they can be cruel, but they don’t decide your worth by any means. You do.

<<< TLDR; Dating in 2025 is not ridiculous. Neither are women or society. Things have simply changed. New tools, with their own drawbacks and pricetags, but dating is still a competitive effort that can really fuck with our heads in times of low success. >>>