> Greentext

I think xkcd did a "what if" about finding your soulmate. from what I remember, if you were on a conveyor belt, seeing ten people a second, and you'd know your soulmate the instant you set eyes on them, it would take 20 years on average to find them.

edit: my numbers were a little off. here is the actual page

I’d say it’s not even delusional thinking like that. It’s “all I have to go by is a picture and a description, and nothing stands out to me.” Add in the existing heavy weight in availability in one direction for women looking for men and you get a situation where a catch is meh.

The best trick to getting dates in my experience has been to make people who could be attracted to you feel good when they’re around you. No tinder profile will make you feel good.

Imagine how many matches a good looking girl gets. It's not even like this can't be true, because they can literally go through thousands of matches. And since you just see the photos and profile they can pretty much filter everything out that doesn't fit a high standard. That's literally the system of apps like this. Why settle for some average guy, who might or might not be nice, when they have tons of above average looking people to choose from?

Not that it's impossible for average guys on those apps, but the chances are just low because of those facts, as even average girls will have so much more matches than them. One can try, if they dare. But I'd stick to something like local interest groups. At least that gives you some sort of basis / topic to learn to know each other, without immediately going for the goal of finding your dream partner. And even if that doesn't turn out to be more, you could still end up making some good friends, which is also a very healthy thing that a lot of people need.