Love On the Internet
Online dating - despite its myriad flaws - is still your best bet for finding love.
Link That Made Me Think
As I said last week, everyone hates online dating.
“Dating apps are exhausting!”
“Men’s profiles have so little information!”
“Their text messages are so boring!”
“They’re so aggressive and want to meet instantly!”
“They’re so passive and will text you forever without asking you out!”
“They’re so flaky and will ghost you for no reason!”
“They’re always looking for the next best thing: someone younger, prettier, or more impressive.”
“They don’t even KNOW what they’re looking for.”
This is true. As a dating coach, I can even explain WHY it’s true:
Dating apps leave little room for the written word.
With no information, it’s hard for men to make clever conversation.
With only photos to go on, men overvalue looks over substance.
Since men make the first move, they’re rejected more and push harder to meet ASAP before you disappear.
Since women reject over 90% of men, men have to swipe on more women just to get a first date.
If a man is texting 10+ women at once, he still has one Saturday night to offer, so he may not ask you out as quickly as you’d like.
Men have infinite options and “approaching” you only requires a swipe, so it’s not surprising that he’s looking for other women.
By the way, the above complaints are almost the same for men.
Yet my logical explanation as to WHY you hate online dating doesn’t change a thing. For most Love U clients (at least before they enroll), online dating falls somewhere between a colonoscopy and a pelvic exam on the fun scale.
Then again, it’s necessary to go through a certain amount of unpleasantness to reach your audacious goals. After all:
There is no love without dating.
There is no dating without online dating.
This conundrum is the subject of today’s article, from the Techno Sapiens Substack, called Love On the Internet - Surprising Stats About Online Dating.
Here are a few highlights:
1. Online dating is dominant, and still, not enough people do it.
Some 53% of adults under 30 have ever used a dating site or app – including a quarter who have used one in the past year. This compares with 37% of those ages 30 to 49 who have ever tried online dating and smaller shares of those 50 to 64 (20%) and 65 and older (13%) who say the same.
There are 127 million single people over the age of 18.
I’d presume the vast majority would like to have companionship, support, sex, and unconditional love.
Yet 80% of the 50+ crowd are sitting on the sidelines waiting for love to find them in their homes and in their offices.
It doesn’t take a dating coach to note this is not an optimal strategy.
2. Dating apps may be dominant for Gen Z - but dating sites are still better for women over 50.
My clients often ask me why I still recommend Match and OkCupid given the pre-eminence of dating apps. There are two primary reasons:
a. Dating sites like Match and OKCupid have long-form written profiles and utilize email to initiate contact. More info from the dating site = better dialogue with fewer men, more trust, less texting, and superior first dates.
Unless, of course, you like swiping right and texting dozens of guys at once.
b. Dating sites like Match and OKCupid are used more by older people.
For people 30-49 who are dating online:
Tinder is used by 44%
Bumble is used by 24%
Match is used by 34%
OkCupid is used by 28%.
For people 50+ who are dating online:
Tinder is used by 17%
Bumble is used by 9%
Match is used by 54%
OkCupid is used by 15%
eHarmony is used by 28%.
Advantage: dating sites.
3. Different people pull different statistics to tell different stories.
The author cites a Pew study that shows 10% of couples met online.
If I were to cite a study, it would show that 39% of couples met online.
The author cites a study that shows women filter out 70% of men.
If I were to cite a study, it would show that women filter out 95% of men.
I couldn’t say if my studies were better than her studies. My only agenda is to illustrate that:
Online dating is ubiquitous, if highly flawed.
If you’re not dating online, you should.
You may want to try dating sites instead of mobile dating apps.
Women are choosier and less used to rejection than men.
You can’t change online dating but you can change your approach to online dating.
That’s what we do in Love U - with great success.
If you’ve tried online dating and discovered that it doesn’t work, it’s like going on a diet and discovering your diet doesn’t work.
Someone makes a healthy lifestyle choice and changes her life.
Someone learns to navigate online dating better, attracts better men, and finds a lasting, long-term relationship after meeting her guy online.
On the Love U Podcast
Run Toward Intimacy, Not Away From It!
When you've been hurt before, the obvious move is to avoid getting hurt again.
Guy slept with you and never called? Stop dating. Guy didn't want to be your boyfriend after two months? Stop dating. Guy didn't want to marry you after two years? Stop dating.
Because intimacy has always led to heartbreak, your choices in men actually become WORSE.
Suddenly, you're in a friends with benefits situation. Suddenly, you're seeing someone long-distance. Suddenly, you're exclusive with a man who doesn't want to get married.
Why? Because somehow it feels safer to be in a dead-end situation than to be with someone where things could get real - and you could get hurt.
It's time to break that pattern and start moving towards the men who really want to commit - not away from them.
My Not-So-Viral Social Media Post of the Week
It’s a Barbie and Ken Extravaganza. My wife always kills it on Halloween. For 10 years of other Katz family costumes, click here and scroll to the bottom.
Do you have a dating question? A dissent? A screenshot of a guy’s text? A Honey Shot? Email me at questions@evanmarckatz.com or click the button below and I’ll respond in a future Lovesplaining.
Thanks for being part of my Love Universe!
Follow Me and Spread the Love
Subscribe to the Love U Podcast
Search My Blog (1000 Questions Answered)
Discover the Best Books on Dating
I have really wanted Match to work and used it diligently for a year but i had not had great success there. I find for me I am getting better results on sites aimed for use by my ethnicity such as black people meet, and even a swiped based application called BLK. I even get decent responses from free site such as Facebook dating but it’s a lot more work there because it’s free. Point being be willing to give different formats a try.