I still think the problem is a lot of people value in-group membership too much. Like, we all want to fit in with our friends and loved ones. But some people really will jump off a bridge and die because their friends are doing. It’s like, I don’t know, a hit of cocaine every time they do their in-group rituals or go to a rally or whatever. I don’t know how to fix that. It seems like it might be deeply baked into human brains.

But if we even wanted to start, we’d have to give these maga-hats a better group to belong to. If these people channeled their weird in-group masturbation energy into, like, cleaning up litter or knitting or whatever, we’d all be so much better off.

We probably need to get rid of a bunch of billionaires who are pumping out horrible content 24/7, too.

Feel like this is just asking for someone whose loved one died of cancer to invoke Saint Luigi on some of Bayer’s leadership. I wouldn’t be mad.

It’s more like “friend of a friend” is a +2 circumstance bonus, and you’re rolling 1d20 + Investigation vs DC 17. It helps, but it’s pretty small. You can stack bonuses on your profile (eg: Good Pictures +3, Good Profile Text +2) to get a similar effect.

Also a lot of my friends’ friends aren’t people I’d want to date.

There are so many people using dating apps in 2025, it’s not a big filter. If this was 1997, then “meeting people online” would in fact be a very small slice of the population.

I said elsewhere that writing a good profile is a skill many people have neither the aptitude nor training for, and thus fuck it all up.

Talking to strangers in public? Also a skill, and I’d say a much more difficult one with much higher stakes.

I’ve known charismatic sensitive people that can read a scene and chat up people. That’s an outlier. Most people are bad at all of that.

also, remember the “man or bear? Definitely the bear” thing from a while ago? Still a thing.

There’s a big gap between what you’re describing and the USA. We pretty regularly see fines that are a fraction of what the crime earned, if it’s prosecuted at all. We also have an utterly insane far right wing party and a spineless right party.

We should break up match group. It’s not a whole ass monopoly, but it has such a big market share it doesn’t really need to compete much. So it offers garbage, makes a lot of money because there aren’t a lot of other like options (and people don’t realize the apps are all owned by Match)

When I was younger I sometimes tried to go out with people I was friends with first. The rejections were worse. I’d still have to see her all the time at social events.

There was also a lot more “oh! She’s cool! Shit. She’s seeing someone. And doesn’t date men.”

The apps let you filter for a lot of stuff right up front. Don’t have to waste time pining after people that aren’t available.

Someone from the app says no or doesn’t click? Back into the aether they go, never to bother me again.

To each their own, if it’s working for you, but there are a lot of things dating apps can do better. Capitalism just shits up the place, as usual.

I file that under cruelty, but yes that’s also a factor.

Most people who issue a RTO mandate should be put up against the wall and shot.

It’s bad for labor. It’s bad for the environment. It also bad for productivity.

The only reason to push for it is stupidity and cruelty.

Right. You can’t pick the lesser evil in the election today, then go do nothing, and expect good outcomes.

Harm reduction has a place but it’s not the whole solution

I don’t think that’s really applicable here.

Every date is a roll of the dice and you’re hoping for that Yahtzee. Or at least a four of a kind. If you’re making four rolls a week you’re probably going to find it faster than one a month.

You’re also don’t have unlimited time. You probably don’t want to find your first big love when you’re 70, when you could instead find one at 30.

And to be clear, I wouldn’t recommend going on a date with just anyone with a pulse. Check your deal breakers and shared interests first.

Of course, you could do app-dates and from-real-life dates at the same time.

This also assumes you, like me, have boundless energy for dates. I know people that are exhausted just leaving their house once.

I think I’ve had like two dates from in-person meets, and if I put effort (without paying) into it I can get like 1-3 dates a week on the apps. I’m not a model or other outlier.

I live in an urban area and put effort into writing messages. The bar for men is really low.

All of that said, fuck the capitalist hellscape.

I don’t recommend really setting up a fake profile, since that kind of selfishly pees in the pool.

Talk to your women friends. Ask them to show you what they’re seeing and what they dislike.

(If you don’t have any women friends, that’s kind of a red flag you should give some thinking on)

One of the problems I think is there aren’t good feedback mechanisms. If you have a bad profile, probably no one is going to tell you.

Well, some of the apps do have tutorials that try to help. I think Hinge even crammed an AI tool into the profile writing section. Maybe that helps some people. I think a lot of people just don’t understand the assignent, and think their personality and charm will shine through even when it’s not shown at all. Those people probably won’t use the tools or take feedback.

I skip on a lot of blank or bad profiles, and wonder if those people think they’re ugly or being screwed by the algorithm or whatever. I don’t have a way to be like “you’re not giving me anything to work with, and frankly this sole impression you’re giving me reads as lazy and uninteresting”

I believe you. I wonder if anyone’s done studies on this to verify it’s true, how true it is, and maybe figure out why it’s true.

I have bad news: lots of non-men also post useless stuff like “I can’t live without water lol” or “what are you looking for: my keys lmfao”

Having a good profile is a skill, probably related to marketing, and some people have neither natural aptitude nor training in it.

Yeah it’s not enough for them to realize their conclusion was bad, they need to realize the flaws that got them to the bad conclusion. Otherwise they’ll easily be conned again.

I don’t see most people who voted for trump having the strength of character to do that sort of introspection and reflection.

We used to have web forums for that, and they worked pretty okay without the costs of LLMs

This is a little off topic but we really should, as a species, invest more heavily in public education. People should know how to read and follow instructions, like the docs that come with Google sheets.

I feel like it’s an unpopular take but people are like “I used chat gpt to write this email!” and I’m like you should be able to write email.

I think a lot of people are too excited to neglect core skills and let them atrophy. You should know how to communicate. It’s a skill that needs practice.