Knowing that the experiences between women and men in these matters are so different, I was wondering what it looks like from the other end.
Do you feel overwhelmed with the amount/ content of messages very often? Do you have a similar experience in apps or communities that are meant to be platonic?
5 comments
I barely get messages. Maybe 1 every couple of weeks, if that. Sometimes I’ll go weeks without one. I’m gay so my settings are set to women only. It’s rough out here
When I was a member of Fetlife (not a dating site, I know), it was a small handful a week. Then, the floodgates opened. Dozens by the week. All from males (and, sadly from a few women) who could not or would not read / take no for an answer.
Actual dating sites, far too many within the first couple of weeks. I gave up on the concept of dating sites very quickly. Pretty much a case of “If you’ve seen/experienced one, you’ve seen/experienced them all.”
First day downloading an app is insane; you could get dozens of messages within a few hours. After that, I get ~5-10 a day that slowly taper off as I go through profiles. It’s a lot to handle and completely unrealistic to try to hold a compelling dm conversation with more than a handful at a time, many of which go stale pretty quick. If people don’t get a response to their first message, it’s literally just unlucky because so many women are drowning in messages. I have a feeling that most men swipe right on virtually every profile, so it adds up quickly.
As for content, it varies. A good number will directly engage something in my bio and I’m most likely to respond to those. I think some people are sick of trying, so a few will just be a “hi” with a wink or something. And of course, there’s the first message misfires that make your skin crawl since they’re so weird and creepy and that’s at least one a day. Most recently I got “you look shaved” as an opening. Who says that??
when i unpause hinge, i get around 50 matches in 1 hour (truly not an exaggeration). its very overwhelming so i pause the app all the time. i don’t match with everyone of course, but of the ones i match with, only about half will actually shoot me a message.
Huge difference between men and women for me. I don’t date men anymore, but when I did it was basically a constant barrage of messages. 60% of them were just a hi, 30% were something rude or inappropriate, the rest was good. Felt completely overwhelming which is why I never really used the apps much.
With women it’s much better. Way fewer matches and messages, but the ones I do get feel “realer”. Obviously it’s still just a dating app so there is no actual investment at that point, but with all the guy matches I knew that it was just from those guys swiping right on everyone to see what sticks and that it’s not necessarily out of interest in my profile specifically. Whereas with the women it all feels more intentional.