How heterosexual couples met in the US : dataisbeautiful

[–] FireRetardant 121 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Many of our cities in north america don't have good access to third places anymore, due to both availability and cost.

I refuse to use online dating/friendship services so I struggle to meet friends and partners in the new citiy I moved to. Everyone at the local bar scenes is 15-30 years older than me, my outdoor local areas are homeless emcampments or riddled with needles and litter. I've met some people at my local climbing gym, but I find it difficult to get there between the cost of climbing and my physical labour job.

It almost feels like if you don't make the plans online you don't get to meet/hang out with people anymore and I'm not a huge fan of that.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Out of curiosity, why the refusal to use online dating?

[–] [email protected] 78 points 5 months ago (8 children)

Not OP, but the usual reply I see is, because dating companies are incentivized to keep you on their app, not get you a happy relationship, so you need to go through hundreds of dates and thousands of rejections, which can be mentally taxing.

[–] FireRetardant 48 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I don't have the energy to swipe new partners every week, I'm not a fan of hook up culture, anyone I've met on the apps keep using the apps while I see them. I'm not super big into social media and frequently don't have service at work, I've had people on the apps complain 20+ minutes is unacceptable as a response time. I don't take many pics of myself to make a good profile. Overall the experience is discouraging and stressful.

[–] Dashi 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I get that, in my experience it was just weeding through the bad ones. I had my fair share of un matches/ghosts/a holes.

I also hated taking pictures of myself and had a mediocre at best bio. What worked for me was not getting emotionally invested in the apps/matches.

The matches that i got and went out on a date or two with i was very up front that i was still using the app. It wasn't until our 4th date that my partner and i deleted our apps.

Anywho, just wanted to share some hopefully positive advice. You will find the right one for you! Just have fun with it and try not to take it seriously

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

How am I supposed to get emotionally attached to someone when I'm having a borderline one-sided conversation. The People you meet on those apps are not interested in carrying the conversation and it's just mentally exhausting.

They don't provide any kind of hook that I can respond to.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I guess I can see that. I’ve always seen the apps as not owing me anything, matches are pretty rare, but it’s kind of fun to get them and chat with random people. Most of the chats never go anywhere but again, I don’t really expect them to. Just putting zero pressure on it has worked for me.

Either I don’t use any online dating and have a zero % chance to meet someone using it, or I use it, and get that up to a solid 1%. Still low, but infinitely better than 0.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Not only that, but every one that I've used also clearly sells your data. I always get weird messages outside of the dating app from "women" trying to scam me for a while after I signed up.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 5 months ago (8 children)

Online dating is so shit for the majority of hetero dudes. You're lucky if you match with somebody, luckier if you get to have some kind of discussion that doesn't end after a few messages, even luckier if it ends in a date, amazingly lucky if anything physical happens, and incredibly lucky if it turns into a relationship.

Men are expected to initiate, keep the discussion alive, ask out, keep the woman entertained, and be grateful they were chosen. It only gets worse online.

[–] Frozengyro 51 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Don't forget rule #1: be attractive, or rule #2: don't be unattractive

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Even then dating apps are terrible. You have to pay extra just to essentially get the basic service. The free stuff basically doesn't do anything

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (3 children)

That's how I found out I might be a little attractive. Lots of stories about apps being ghost towns and it being hard to talk to people. I didn't struggle much to talk to people, went on dates and found my now fiancee that way.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Online dating is shit for everyone

-a trans lesbian

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thanks to Tinder I had the best and the worst first dates in my life.

But both long term girlfriends and soon-to-be-my-wife I met through friends

[–] yokonzo 30 points 5 months ago

Happy for all four of you

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (4 children)

this power imbalance is bad for everyone as well, if you meet up with someone via these (if are not male presenting), there is a concerningly high chance that you get sexually assaulted, I am terrified how common this seems to be among the women I've talked to

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[–] starchylemming 80 points 5 months ago (5 children)

people have no friends anymore

[–] Ibaudia 24 points 5 months ago

All my friends are people I have known for 10+ years and mostly met through school.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And due to urban sprawl, everyone gets into their car in their garage, drives to work, then drives back to their garage. There's no room for walking to the neighborhood pub, convenience store, pharmacy, etc and bumping into neighbors on the way.

[–] moistclump 8 points 5 months ago

I used to live downtown in a small town and it was like that. I had other terrible issues there but man did I miss the sense of community.

[–] ThunderWhiskers 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You don't know me!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago

I do now! Hi friend!

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago

This belongs in boringdystopia.

[–] IndustryStandard 37 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Friends 📉

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 months ago (7 children)

What is the definition of "online" for this chart? The first website wasn't even up until 1991, so how can the line start at 1980?

[–] [email protected] 52 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Grandpa was trolling DARPAnet for skanks.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

BBS'es and Fidonet through modem were there before the web.

Don't think many found each other on BBS's but at least they could download low res porn.

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[–] Nobody 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

DoD nerds be fuckin'.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

In my experience, the deeper and more academic you get in the nerd forest, the freakier people get.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

University hosted BBS in 1989 here.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

It's a survey, so it relies on the surveyed to tell accurately the date they meet and how, so I won't be surprised that the line here is incorrect.

Or maybe they refer to using classified ads in the newspaper or over of those "romantic meeting agency" (I don't know the name in English, in French it is agence de rencontre) that existed back in the day

[–] yokonzo 7 points 5 months ago

Phone dating?

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago

Looks like a bisected whale!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (5 children)

That's interesting. I wonder whether those 6519 surveyed are representative of whole population, or of people who anyway online a lot. It’s seems there was an inflection around 2012 - what happened then ? The curve ends during covid lockdowns, wonder whether deflected since ?

[–] fishos 24 points 5 months ago

There was an almost overnight shift from "ewww, online people are weird strangers" to "the Internet is just digital real life". For years it was the first, and then as mainstream popularity hit, it was like a switch flipped and suddenly the Internet was "cool" and just like comics and superheros, everyone acted like they were a fan all along.

It was kinda jarring tbh. All the things that got you labeled a nerd and a geek(negatively) were suddenly good things. I think it mostly had to do with the tech surge and people seeing it as a valuable thing now.

[–] mean_bean279 9 points 5 months ago

Tinder launches in 2012.

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[–] qevlarr 19 points 5 months ago

Makes sense. People are getting married later so they're not in school or college anymore, and we have no friends

Congrats, you're a millennial / gen Z 👍

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

Reopen The Fuckhouses Goddamnit

[–] ladicius 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

2000 roughly sums up to about 130% all in all? How did that work? And now much less couples meet?? What are the gaps in these data?

[–] FireRetardant 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Is it possible some people reported both an online relationship and another method in the same year?

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[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I wonder how many met like me and my wife, smoking crack in the same trap house.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

its so high up in the graph that it isnt even visible

[–] Volkditty 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My wife and I met through a dating site in 2011. She felt awkward about online dating, so we had a cover story for the first few years of our relationship until the stigma around not meeting "the natural way" died down.

[–] NABDad 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"She was turning tricks on the street. I was one of her regulars. After awhile she said she didn't want to charge me anymore, so here we are."

Luckily, my wife and I met in high school, so she doesn't have to rely on me for a cover story.

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[–] brygphilomena 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This ends at 2020. During the pandemic lockdown.

Of course meeting online went up if every bar and restaurant was closed and half the workforce suddenly was work from home or just not working.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago

It already dwarfed every other statistic before 2020, but sure, the last little bit was covid

[–] brlemworld 9 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I'm sick and tired of being a single gay man

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Trough family 👀

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Data is Beautiful