It’s been trending this way for years, but seeing it graphed out like this is shocking.
What do you think are the effects of this drastic change?
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I wouldn’t have expected schools to be so low tbh
There is a big change these days to keep predators out of grade schools. It used to be the norm for a man to be 10 or even 20 years older than his bride. So I am not surprised to see grade school dropping.
That’s not at all what I meant… When my girlfriend and I met for the first time, we were in high school. We were both students in the same class.
That is insane.
It’s so sad to see real life vanishing
I remember being in highschool in the late 90s/early 2000s and someone found out I had an online dating profile.
I was relentlessly teased about it, borderline bullying.
I eventually met my current wife online, couldn’t be happier.
looking back, the teasing was likely because I was the only genuinely nice guy those girls knew and were upset their choices for dates were abysmal. it’s all for the best though, I wouldn’t have wanted to be around anyone who could treat me that way and be ok with it.
I’m pleased that the stigma against online dating has all but vanished.
I think the online thing is about to start dropping. The sites are so full of looky-loos who just want to chat and never actually meet in person they’re hardly worth the time. I expect as the bot infestation continues to grow, they’ll be even less useful.
We just always go full circle in the world with almost everything.
some of recognize that and use it to enrich themselves & entrench their positions; a few others who also recognize it decide to use it to try improve humanity’s lot in life; and the overwhelming majority are only vaguely aware at best, call the latter tankies while idolizing the former.
There is also the enshittification that intentionally make the sites worse and harder to use… I will never in a million years understand why useful features are removed completely other than “the longer you are stuck on the site the more likely you are to pay for premium.”
POF used to have a section for you to add tags and a function to search by tags. Completely gone. Not even a premium feature. OKC used to have an additional text entry to elaborate on the questions you answer, now completely gone. “do you believe animals have spirits like people” yes or no… No, but that makes me sound like an asshole. I don’t believe either do, but I can’t explain that now… OKC used to let you browse profiles instead of just swipe swipe swipe. Match group bought every successful dating site and absolutely destroyed them to make them all seemingly identical “Tinder 2.0” clones.
POF is even more of a joke now, they are moving more towards streaming and paid rewards… Fucking streamer profiles “not here to date, just here for the streaming.” It’s so absurd what happened to online dating.
A lot of people are ok with tinder or hinge, but I need more information about a person I’m not one of those “unga bunga she pretty, lemme smash” types. I need a profile to read…
I sure hope so. That or a good open source app for dating becomes available as an alternative. Alovoa is the only one I’m aware of and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. I’m not opposed to the idea of meeting people online but I just absolutely cannot stand the predatory monetization practices of these companies and the social environments they facilitate. It’s unbearably toxic.
Also the pandemic is over so people are allowed to meet outside
“dating” (fucking) apps: ew ❌
becoming a furry and then dating exclusively within the fandom for a much smaller pool of candidates but that are generally much more intelligent and just as socially awkward as you so the awkwardness cancels itself out: ☑️
My first unofficial bf (really early in my teens) was a normie, and when that collapsed I went furry-only for relationships, never looked back. Had some amazing relationships due to it. The intelligence bar is much, much higher, so when you get into a conversation, it’s a deep, insightful, intriguing topic. My ex, he has adhd, autism, and several other quirks, and I could listen to him talk about stuff for hours, literally. The excitement he got from discussing something he was interested and passionate about, made topics I know nothing about and/or care nothing about, interesting; and I would always learn a nugget or two of information. And because furries are typically all weird as fuck, nothing is really weird. It’s liberating to just speak your mind without being worried about being judged or criticized.
I tried to dip my toes into the traditional dating/hookup apps a decade or so ago. Assholes as far as the eye can see, nothing meets their standards and they will demean you because of it. Fuck them all, and not in the fun way.
Totally agree with this. I’ve been on and off the apps for years and they get worse each time I try again. There is a population of people that use dating apps like a game trying to get the high score with the points being likes and matches. It’s just another form of social media at this point.
Removed by mod
Most of the “people” on there aren’t people. They’re either bots or occasionally those looky-loos that are just hired actors to keep people engaged to the site and try and get as much money out of them as possible. Especially the paid dating sites are mostly just that. They’re just sucking money out of people that are genuinely emotionally invested and sometimes even desperate. It’s real sad, and disgusting from those sites.
I think online dating will still remain. But it’s less of actual interest for long term stuff, and more want to have a fun one night stand kind of deal. I feel like most other things on that chart turned into that as well though.
I think the online thing is about to start dropping.
The graph stops at 2020…the height of the pandemic where everyone was stuck in physical, but not virtual isolation.
I agree with you except my guess is that has already dropped if post-pandemic data was introduced.
“online” doesn’t necessarily mean dedicated dating/match making apps.
The Internet connects people in a way that nothing ever has before. You use the Internet to seek out interests of yours, as will other people. So like minded people tend to meet even incidentally.
I met my partner online, but it was on a game, not a dating service. Neither of us were really looking for love. We became friends, then started dating, and now married for years.
…Even now, though, if we have an argument I shout, “noob! EZ! Uninstall!” and she waits around awkwardly for some moderator to penalize me.
“Do you take this woman, to have and to hold, to draw aggro and tank for, in MSQ and DLC, so long as the NA servers stay up?”
“Roger that”
“And do you take this man, to have and to hold, to heal and to buff, in grinding and in raids, so long as the NA servers stay up?”
“I do”
chockobo music starts
Story time?
Met on Elder Scrolls Online, graduated to hanging out outside of the game, picked up some other co op games together, fell in love!
I once moved across the country for a woman I (re)met during a random Words with Friends match. Took us a dozen games before I realized I’d originally met her through LiveJournal, about a decade earlier.
Many years later, my wife moved across the country to be with me, after we met on Reddit. (Clearly the previously mentioned woman was better as a friend.)
I just like that it looks like a cuttlefish.
Give me $50/month and I’ll find you some random stranger 😉💕! I used craigslist and found a perfectly good used girlfriend. 15 years and she’s still going!
I’m kind of surprised that College has always been low
Only about 1/3 of Americans have an undergrad degree. And that’s up from the 25% from roughly 15 years ago.
In earlier generations more people didn’t even go to college. If you’re in the 70% of silent generation that never went to college, you’re certainly not going to meet a spouse there. Especially if you attended a university that was only for one gender.
I like the idea of dating apps, but I don’t like the implementation or at least how they end up being used where the focus is entirely on visual attraction. I don’t particularly think or care about looks; I’m attracted to personality. Most people have blank profiles and just a lot of pictures, so I either have to decide to not like a majority of profiles or like everything just to maybe get a chance to talk to someone.
And it doesn’t help having BPD and not really having a solid identity to tell people who I am in a single block of limited characters. So when nobody even communicates when you actually match, it just makes the whole thing seem pointless and stupid.
I have not online dated. Are the people with blank profiles interesting people at all? Or are they just there for a hookup?
Kinda depends on their gender, in my experience. Guys without a profile and pics of just themselves not really doing much are usually just looking for a hookup. The girls without a profile are usually what is generally accepted as highly attractive and probably don’t even care because everyone will like them.
I have yet to actually have someone talk to me on any of these apps beyond saying hello or asking how my day is. I had better luck actually finding people to talk to, get to know, then set up a date through Craigslist back when it had a personals section.
I met my wife through eHarmony. I tried the other apps available at the time (mid 2000s) and most were “profile pic & swipe” level of depth. eHarmony had a fee (so both parties were at least a little more committed to finding a partner, rather than “sign up for free account while drinking one night”). Also it had maybe 100(?) questions you had to fill out before it’d give you any matches… basically a quasi personality profile about what you were like and what you were looking for in a relationship. The result was fewer matches, but all the dates I went on were meaningful (eventually leading to ~15 years of marriage & 2 kids).
There’s now additional dating sites beyond just eHarmony that have this barrier to entry which seems similar (although I don’t have personal experience with those).
The few times I’ve had friends set me up never ended well. Those were usually the worst, in terms of compatibility.
It’s funny I guess how friends view you. Either that or they just want their friend groups to be one big “family”.
I’m not surprised to see such a huge drop there.
Now do how they split!
It doesn’t split, but I’d guess 99.9% of those online meets are dating apps (rather than other ways of meeting online).
That’s kind of sad, not because there’s any one way people should meet, but because meeting people is now mostly mediated through for profit companies.
I’d honestly be very surprised if that was the case. There’s so many different ways to interact with people online that I expect dating websites to make up a majority, but there’s probably like a 45% spread of things like social media/forum communities, online games, etc. All the kinds of things that used to be done offline (like meeting people through DnD at the local hobby shop) but can be done online or have become largely online thanks to the commodification of existing in public spaces. Shared interests are a great start to a relationship.
Hell, I’d love to see a breakdown of the percentages just to see how many relationships start from 3rd place games like Second Life and VRChat.
You didn’t meet your spouse on World of Warcraft?
I feel called out lmao
Is it just me or is that graph all fucked up?
Definitely. This graph is how folks on Grindr hooked up.
Well theres more then 0 percent that do meet multiple people throughout the year. So maybe still bullshit, but its a thought.
Just got married to my wife this last weekend, who I met after being on Bumble for about 2 weeks… Gotta go buy some scratchers.
Huh. I never knew that people really do meet at bars for more than just a one night stand.
It is more that you meet them for a one night stand. Then you decide to hang out later. Then you wake up one day and you two are married with children.
Yeah, one night stands can turn into lasting relationships. I know a decent number of married couples who met in zero-commitment contexts, whether it’s a hookup from a bar or while on vacation in a tourist town or things like that. Or even meeting on a hookup-oriented app that somehow turned into a not-just-for-hookups service after becoming acquired by Match, but during the phase when it was most definitely mainly for no-strings hookups.
Met my girlfriend at a bar, but that’s not why either of us were there.
Became friends first, didn’t start dating till a few months later.
There really just aren’t that many places to meet people irl any more, and I simply won’t do online dating.
I never thought so many people who meet online get into actual relationships, not just one night stands.
