As a mid-20s male I can completely relate. Have spent way too much time trying to optimize the amount of matches I can get on these apps.
You might feel like your achievements and positive qualities are not being valued by women and you've worked so hard to improve yourself for nothing. Trust me, this is not true. There are other factors at play that make online dating unreasonably unfair for you.
1. If you are in the Bay Area, you are at a distinct disadvantage. The male-female-ratio, homogeneity of interests and credentials make stand out far less than you would in the general population. It is also natural for women to form negative stereotypes about men in tech if they've been on bad dates. There's no way to tell that you won't be the same from your profile. I've experienced this first-hand where every woman I managed to go on a date with responded positively and complained to me that the guys they meet are immature, entitled or lack social skills.
2. If you are not white and live in the USA, your odds are slimmer even among your racial group. There are studies to confirm this and you can compare yourself to your peers.
3. Physical attributes like height, fitness and facial attractiveness matter but to a way lesser extent than people think. I've been skinny as a rail and ripped with a substantial amount of muscle and the number of matches were still about the same and women I met in person didn't seem to care either way though I would rate myself as considerably closer to the generally accepted male standards of attractiveness when jacked.
4. By far the quickest hack to get more matches on dating apps is to improve your pictures. Bite the bullet and do it, the bar is pitifully low.
5. No matter how many matches you get, the vast majority of them will act the same way. They'll not respond, stand you up and ghost. Most people are incapable of dealing with the pressures of interacting with other and will choose to do what's easiest for them instead of what's right. However, the more matches you get, the less you'll care about this.
6. Your point about appealing to the lowest common denominator sounds attractive when you feel like you have no prospects but you'll realize it is a sheer waste of time once you learn to value yourself appropriately and stop degrading yourself because of the feedback you're getting from the apps. This is difficult to do unless you really deeply understand the dynamics of these apps so the typical suggestion is to get off them and just date in person.
7. You were pretty much sold a lie growing up that everyone is entitled to love and the average guy will have an easy time finding a partner. When you understand the evolutionary pressures placed on women to select the best partner and today's world where women feel like there are many more high value men due to social media, it is easy to understand why they find it repulsive to settle for someone who's average. Most women grow out of this kind of thinking and seek real connection at some point though.
TLDR; You're probably undervaluing yourself but its not really your fault. Move out of the Bay Area. Get better pictures for your dating apps. Don't expect to have an easy time dating if there is nothing extraordinarily exceptional about you.
> If you are in the Bay Area, you are at a distinct disadvantage. The male-female-ratio
This is just true in the entire USA under age 35. If you're a man - you have a distinct disadvantage. More men (107:100) are born than women. This evens out around age 40 because men killed themselves at a much higher rate than women have. (Think about that - women kill themselves too but 7% of men have to off themselves to just even it out if all the women lived)
Practically speaking, you're going feel the gender ratio of your geographical region/metropolitan area. Sure, men will be at a ratio disadvantage more often than not in the US, but there are definitely zones where the ratio is inverted. I spent half my 20s in NYC and half in SF and the wow was the difference glaring.
I’m just letting you know that even in NYC the ratios are still not in mens favor. 18-35, there are still more men in NYC than women. You’ve been sold a lie for a long time - lol.
Every source I can find in a cursory search only shows the overall ratio, not age group segmented - whats your source?
And regardless, even if it was somewhere between slightly favorable and slightly unfavorable in NYC, it is strongly unfavorable in SF, which accords with my subjective experience dating in the two places.
First Google search result. Census data contains all the info you desire. It’s not highly publicized because no one likes to admit that men might be struggling with something - lol. It doesn’t sell well in the media.
I will agree that the gender ratio of SF and SV are wildly worse for men than NYC. Just saying that it isn’t some holy grail that people like to sell it as. Men outnumber women in this world from birth. It’s only because men kill themselves that we have less men than women by age ~40.
In NY I could easily get matches/dates... in SF it was much more difficult. And when I did get dates in SF, 2nd dates were much less likely, I got ghosted more often, etc. In terms of the silly reductive attractiveness scale, I went from feeling like an 7 or 8 to a 3 or 4.
You might feel like your achievements and positive qualities are not being valued by women and you've worked so hard to improve yourself for nothing. Trust me, this is not true. There are other factors at play that make online dating unreasonably unfair for you.
1. If you are in the Bay Area, you are at a distinct disadvantage. The male-female-ratio, homogeneity of interests and credentials make stand out far less than you would in the general population. It is also natural for women to form negative stereotypes about men in tech if they've been on bad dates. There's no way to tell that you won't be the same from your profile. I've experienced this first-hand where every woman I managed to go on a date with responded positively and complained to me that the guys they meet are immature, entitled or lack social skills.
2. If you are not white and live in the USA, your odds are slimmer even among your racial group. There are studies to confirm this and you can compare yourself to your peers.
3. Physical attributes like height, fitness and facial attractiveness matter but to a way lesser extent than people think. I've been skinny as a rail and ripped with a substantial amount of muscle and the number of matches were still about the same and women I met in person didn't seem to care either way though I would rate myself as considerably closer to the generally accepted male standards of attractiveness when jacked.
4. By far the quickest hack to get more matches on dating apps is to improve your pictures. Bite the bullet and do it, the bar is pitifully low.
5. No matter how many matches you get, the vast majority of them will act the same way. They'll not respond, stand you up and ghost. Most people are incapable of dealing with the pressures of interacting with other and will choose to do what's easiest for them instead of what's right. However, the more matches you get, the less you'll care about this.
6. Your point about appealing to the lowest common denominator sounds attractive when you feel like you have no prospects but you'll realize it is a sheer waste of time once you learn to value yourself appropriately and stop degrading yourself because of the feedback you're getting from the apps. This is difficult to do unless you really deeply understand the dynamics of these apps so the typical suggestion is to get off them and just date in person.
7. You were pretty much sold a lie growing up that everyone is entitled to love and the average guy will have an easy time finding a partner. When you understand the evolutionary pressures placed on women to select the best partner and today's world where women feel like there are many more high value men due to social media, it is easy to understand why they find it repulsive to settle for someone who's average. Most women grow out of this kind of thinking and seek real connection at some point though.
TLDR; You're probably undervaluing yourself but its not really your fault. Move out of the Bay Area. Get better pictures for your dating apps. Don't expect to have an easy time dating if there is nothing extraordinarily exceptional about you.