Wait, you guys are getting dates?
i get a few dates a month, yeah. it’s easy. just be tall and look rich.
What if I make good money but like my cheap car and lifestyle in general?
just be tall and look rich.
Well… shit.
fake it until you make it.
Relatively new to dating via apps as an elder millennial freed from a life time of monogamy. (Only been at it 6 months)
Who are these people who want to go on a first date that involves being in a situation like a restaurant?
Seems like with apps people skip the whole courting thing and jump straight in to something that should only be for once you get to know each other a bit better.
For me, first meeting is a coffee or a drink at a well populated cafe or bar. Maybe a walk after somewhere busy in the city.
Maybe I’m just old and out of touch.
For me the getting to know you was chatting on the app, I chatted with my now fiance for a few weeks before we actually met up at a restaurant, I felt like I knew him well enough that a restaurant was fine
Glad it worked out for you.
But I can’t help but wonder what if when you met in person it wasn’t what you were expecting?
Would it have felt like a waste of texting effort?
all dating is a waste of effort. some people get lucky, some people just go on endless dates that go on where, or get into relationships that go no where.
if you find a LTR or get married or whatever, you’re not dating anymore.
but without that “waste of effort” they wouldn’t have gotten that long term relationship or marriage.
No, you’re right. People don’t date for relationships, maybe some think they are, but really it’s just having a dinner experience and potentially getting laid and moving on.
The mainstream apps owned by match group as well as bumble appear to have a lot of people like you describe. I am sure there are decent people on there also, it’s just the signal to noise ratio sucks, as well as the whole gamified bullshit of the apps themselves. I uninstalled Tinder/hinge/bumble not long after trying them and I have no plans to return. I suspect people who would put up with the way tinder functions are the same people who would put up with forced ads on their phone and smart tv etc. I would not be a good fit for people like that.
I’ve had a lot of success on less mainstream apps by simply being honest about what I’m looking for (ENM / casual ongoing) and have found many with the same views.
They’re decent people, they’re just falling into the trap of seeing an ad and thinking it can help them. Of course, the ads are just designed to extract as much cash as possible from you but that’s our culture i guess.
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going for a coffee or a walk was never a popular thing to do on a dating app. it only ever was during the pandemic when everyone had to be outside
going for a drink or dinner or an activity, was. all my first dates are drinks, movies, food.
it’s just that going out 5-10 years ago was cheap, now it’s expensive. but that’s true of everything.
A movie seems like a terrible idea for a first date, you spend all that time watching the movie instead of actually focusing on each other. Coffee is one of the best things to do.
it’s actually good, because you have a shared expereince to talk about after.
you don’t watch the movie and go home. you TALK about the movie.
So the first date is like a 3 to 4 hour affair minimum? Coffee can be as short as an hour, and I can dip after 15 if it’s not going well. Much more time efficient
No? It’s like an 2-3 hours. Most movies that aren’t marvel movies are like 90m long, then you chat for an hour over a drink or food. then you go home.
i dunno where you live, but most restaurants/bars here are very fast because they are tryign to turn over customers as much as possible. most coffee shops have a 15-20m seating limit now too. you can’t just order 1 coffee and sit there 2 hours and if you spend 2 hours for a single drink the wait staff will ask you to leave.
Average feature film length has been 120 minutes since the 2000’s, and it’s been trending upwards since then. Even if the movie is only 90 minutes though, you’re still gonna be in the theater for at least two hours anyways, between standing in line for popcorn/snacks/drinks and sitting through previews. And if you’re gonna follow up with a drink or food anyways, you could just… skip the movie lol
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to police people’s first dates, and if both parties want to go see a movie and get a drink after, great. In today’s dating ecosystem though, for the majority of people, the prospect of sitting in a dark room with a near stranger for 90-120 minutes is uncomfortable, and usually not a very good first date idea.
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The person you’re dating doesn’t interest you?
Cold talk and starting a conversation with someone you never met is not a natural skill for everyone; myself included - I am extrovert when being around people I know or people someone who is with me knows, but shut as a clam when with strangers.
Doing something together that you can talk about to get to know each other’s preferences and what you picked up from the experience is a great way to break the ice.
I particularily enjoy going to a museum, theatre or music concert on a date, and try to suggest something I haven’t seen or heard before.
most people I meet are not interesting, no.
But that’s why you go on the date, to see if they are interested or not. And one way to do that is to see how they react to a shared experience. Or you find out they hate what you love.
Who is spending $200 on a first date‽
people with money. if you are a professional single person you’re making like 200K a year, a $200 dinner is chump change.
if you live in a city full of professionals, that’s a common expectation. especially as you get older.
Just going out for two cocktails where I live is $50. add two appetizers, now you’re looking at close to $100.
I make more than that and $200 for dinner is not “chump change”.
Maybe date people who are responsible with money.
Money isn’t worth anything until you spend it. Very easily to have an extra $200 in your pocket after all your expenses and savings targets have been hit, when you’re making that kind of money.
I don’t think it’s irresponsible to grab a bottle of wine with dinner or front the door fee for a trendy night club.
I also don’t think you need to drop $200 to have a good time. Street food and public theaters and dive bars are also options.
But if you’ve done that before and you want to try the Michelin star restaurant or do the scotch tasting menu or the omakasi with a cutie you just met?
Article claims nearly half of singles but you are talking 1% people.
I’ll adjust my head canon to mean 1% singles amount to nearly half of all singles. i.e. the 1% has disproportionally large amount of singles. :)
women that are vain no doubt, and guys that are cheapskate and expect the date to pay.
Last year I went on many dates and the average expense was like $25. Yes, I did sometimes go out to restaurants, but they’d be either coffee shops with food or fast casual places. And yes I pay for her meal too. How are people spending $200 on a night out?
Wait it’s the average vs the median probably. A couple extreme outliers are inflating the average.
Holy shit. And here I thought that the price of a cup of coffee was less than $10.
Because that’s what you do on a first date - coffee and chat, either at the coffee house or on a walk near it.
Spending $$$ on a first date is a great way for any guy to get hosed, and just sets up unrealistic expectations. You don’t do anything expensive until several dates in, once compatibility and mutual interest have been confirmed.
coffee house dates are awful. they are not romantic or and they are in the middle of the day so you have to go on a weekend.
coffee places are not open at night during the week anymore.
Coffee house dates are realistic. Many places are open well into the evening, especially chains. And while privacy isn’t high, neither is the cost.
And the point of a first date is not to spend money, but to gauge compatibility and interest.
Any guy that spends big bucks on the first date is setting himself up for failure by putting up a high bar that the woman is loathe to go beneath in the future. He will be caught in the “dancing monkey” trap, forced to implement ever more expensive displays just to stay above that bar.
By keeping the bar low in the beginning, a man filters for quality and substance and against being treated like an ATM. Those women who are just foodies or who have unrealistic expectations self-select themselves out of contention, leaving only the serious, well-adjusted, pragmatic, and realistic women still at the table.
There are so many things you can do with a partner that don’t cost money and will make permanent memories.
Running though the streets at 3:47 with a big knife and 5 dollar mask from pop up Halloween store
She said she wanted a guy that would chase her so…
AM or PM?
24 hour clock is the standard so AM
What time zone are we thinking?
“Don’t run, I just want to admire your skull”
Cucking. Gloryhole. Orgy. Swinging.
Or you know, going grocery shopping and making dinner at home.
It’s still gonna cost $200 but you’ll be set for a few days at least.
Or you know, potluck orgy where the cost of the meal is spread out over multiple people? You’ll still have leftover and you can reduce the amount of dishes if the rule is “no sex ‘til the sink is empty”.
Yeah but on the first dates you gotta try to impress a little right, don’t want to come off as too poor or cheap (depending on circumstances, 2 students in exact same situation is different than older working adults, for example)
If the girl is impressed by how much you can spend on food is it really worth impressing her at all?
Wait till you hear about engagement rings!
This feels like a capitalistic idea to convince people thay they need to spend money to find a partner or people to be with. Dating can have many forms and you can get to know people in many different places. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to talk to people in hobby groups or go take a walk/drink a coffee with someone
Plus a shared interest is a great start to a potential relationship. If you have nothing in common, how can you expect to get along well with each other.
Nah, coffee date. No pressure, easy to hear each other, easy to split bill and easy to leave if it’s not going well.
Yep coffee date first, dinner date second if the coffee date goes well.
There are other fun things you can do on a first date that don’t cost money too.
This
Impress your date with your creativity and passions.
- Lay on a rock and find constellations
- Walking tour of city
- Explore college campus
- Attend an inexpensive Community players’ theatre
- Free concert in the park
Wife and i would eat out about once a week sometime 2-3 times for the past 20 years, now it’s once ever 2-3 months at best.
This article draws all the wrong conclusions from the design of the survey itself. That’s the average date expense, for all single people, to include:
- Rich people who don’t mind paying more for dinners out.
- People who have been dating a long time, on their later dates with someone they’re already steadily dating and/or fucking.
- Other expenses of a date, to include hair and makeup and other styling.
Digging into one of the surveys discussed in the article shows that the cost of a first date has climbed to $93.
$93 is more in line with what I’d expect. And yes, that price tag can price a lot of people out of bringing someone they don’t know well yet on a formal sit down date.
I went to look up the menu at the place where my wife and I had our first date, in an expensive city. If we ordered what we ordered that night, except with today’s prices, I think we would’ve spent about $30 on food, $50 on wine, and 30% on tax and tip for a total of about $105. We also split the tab. And that’s with someone who I had already met in person in a few places (friends of friends), had already established rapport over the phone, and already knew that we both loved the restaurant we were meeting at.
Obviously we need more cheap/free third places in the mix. And our society would benefit from better income/wealth equality. But while we live in this current situation, people should be generally be ramping up in closeness before spending real money on dates in places they wouldn’t have otherwise gone to. I couldn’t imagine spending real money before getting to know someone at least enough to know whether I like them and enjoy being around them.
The world isn’t like that though.
The reality of the world is most people want to meet at a bar or do an activity, and that costs money. And men are expected to pay for the dating. Splitting the tab is now very rare. People are a lot more traditionally sexist than they were 10-20 years ago.
I date. Most women want to be wined and dined, or they want to do a trendy activity date. Even if I take a woman out to a museum and a glass of wine, it’s going to run me $100. Museum tickets are 30-40 dollars pp, and the wine is going to be 15-20 a glass.
Women I met used to offer to split, but that basically stopped happening post pandemic. Now they never offer to split. I’ve also noticed surge in women demanding traditional gender role dating both in person and on dating apps. Nobody is a feminist anymore like they were 10 years ago. They all want ‘masculine men’ and they want to be ‘feminine women’. A lot more women I meet now are now asking me if I am ‘actually straight/gay’ now too. No woman was asking me if I was gay 10 years ago. Gender expectations have changed and regressed.
Article is talking about the dating world, as it is, as of 2026. Not how it used to be, not how it ought to be.
You’re living in a prison of your own making. I hope you escape one day.
yeah, I’m also impinging that gas prices aren’t 5 bucks a gallon right now. it’s totally a figment of my imagination!
if i just think different, they were magically be 3 bucks again.
I think this guy drives a truck he struggles to afford…
i drive a hatchback that gets 40mpg. the women i meet want me to drive a gas guzzling truck, because it’s ‘masculine’.
the point you don’t understand is you can’t create reality around you by thinking happy thoughts.
reality exists whether you acknowledge it or not. buying a different car won’t change the basic economic facts of reality that govern the cost of things. i can choose not to ever eat out, but the prices of restaurants will not change because i eat there or not, they will continue to rise and many people will be happy and eager to pay them.
the women i meet want me to drive a gas guzzling truck, because it’s ‘masculine’.
well, that’s me fucked,i drive an ecar I charge of my solar panels, i also have and prefer my ebike
but to be fair, I don’t need to tilt the front of my seat up on my bike to have it mash into my balls for ball maxing
as theres noting more masculine and ball maxxing then making your own fuel :)
it’s fucked, but what isn’t in 2026? our government is fucked, our economy is fucked, dating is fucked.
You’re completely missing their point friend. You think you HAVE to spend $100+ on a date and that’s “just reality”. You could go on a date for free if you really wanted to. But no, you HAVE to spend $100+ for a date you don’t have a choice you NEED to spend $100+ or nobody would ever agree to go on a date.
We’re all living in prisons of our own creation cuz we get an idea in our head and think that’s how it HAS to be.
do you date?
nobody goes on free walking dates dude. at least proper adults. that is a construct your in your head.
last time i went on a ‘walking date’ i was a in my early 20s. yeah it was fine back then. 35 year old women dont’ wanna go for walks in the park, they want to go on a proper date.
I can see the guard has those gates firmly shut and chained. Hoping you can get out some day.
And fyi, I went on a 3 hour walk in a park with my now partner on our first date. Getting to know someone is the most important part of a date and you can do that for free, if you would only believe that you could. Maybe the people you are trying to date don’t want to do things like “go for a walk” or “get to know the other person”.
cool, was she a 40 year old woman in 2026 at that time?
No? Gee it’s almost as if you are projecting your past experiences into the present/future.
just like when grandpa used to talk about marrying grandma and popping out 3 kids the time he was 24. that is nice and all, but it’s not 1956 anymore. it’s 2026. nobody in their sane mind in 2026 thinks teenagers should be marrying at 17/19 and popping out 3 kids. the world has changed.
just like 20 years ago nobody had computers in their pockets and social media didn’t exist.
lecture me all you want grandpa about how it ‘should be’, it won’t change the fact it’s 2026 and this is how the world works today. i suppose you think a new house should only cost 5,000 dollars too? i got a newflash for you, homes now cost well over 500K and new ones are closer to a million dollars. clearly that’s my fault, the prison of my mind is what is making housing prices so high… if only i had a ‘positive attitude’ homes would be magically be 5000 dollars again! or my income would be 500K a year! clearly it’s a personal failing of mine, not at all the economy or market conditions over which no single person has any control…
A lot more women I meet now are now asking me if I am ‘actually straight/gay’ now too.
wot ? do they ask you if you’re vegan while you’re eating a steak ?
They all want ‘masculine men’ and they want to be 'feminine women
why are we dating and not fucking ? :)
Article is talking about the dating world, as it is, as of 2026. Not how it used to be, not how it ought to be
indeed.
i read books, i cook, my apartment is very clean. i have a pet cat. it makes them uncomfortable that I do these things.
women think this means you are not a real straight man. real straightmen can’t cook, they don’t eat, and they are gross and dirty and they have a dog.
literately have had more than one woman over to my place tell me it creeps her out that my place is too clean and i must have maid service, so i say no i just like to keep it clean, and they immediately get upset. probably because they hire a maid service and are slobs.
Move, maybe? Do you live in a red state?
I live in Boston. I love it here. I own a home and it’s the best living here.
I’m not moving just to get laid more. Thanks.
Surprised you’re running into so many gender-trads in Boston.
Then again, rent in Boston is crazy; maybe it’s not manliness, but that they are looking for breadwinners? Men with beacoup bucks don’t clean. You said you drive a practical car, not a status symbol. Dogs with pedigrees are expensive. Etc.
People in Boston are socially conservative. They are mostly center-right democrats, not progressives. They like Hillary Clinton, and they HATE Bernie Sanders. They hate poor people just as much as the republicans do, they just don’t hate them based on race or sex, they just hate them for not being rich and going to elite colleges.
I’m a progressive, and yeah most women here are turned off by that. They want a traditional guy who will pay their bills for them so they can quit working and travel with his money. And yes, they all have $10,000 dogs.
My dog is a $200 rescue dog. So was my cat. If i don’t clean my apartment would be disgusting from all the fur covering everything.
I’m not going to pretend that I understand everything happening to today’s young daters, but what you’re describing isn’t true in my circles (which skew older and richer, but where the people going on dates are more likely to be divorced and/or have children from prior relationships, but where $200 on a weeknight dinner is not unusual or a financial stretch).
More importantly, I still stand by my description of how the article mangled the underlying studies. Dating can be expensive, but not everyone who goes on a $200 date in that survey is going on a first date with a stranger, and $93 is probably a better metric to follow to understand what is happening.
The rest of my comment is just a description of what I believe will both reduce the amount of money spent on first dates and increase the expected value of that date by deferring any decision to spend any money by only going on dates with people you already kinda know and already like. If you don’t believe that advice is practical for your current circumstances, I’m sorry to hear that, but I wonder if you can find another way to achieve similar effects.
i can’t change the world around me anymore than i can lower gas prices.
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That’s like 30 minutes with a mid-tier escort.
How do you know?
Wow, I don’t know, like, some sort of, like, interconnected electronic information repository I can query?
I can even find out the atomic weight of gold! Let me prepare my stack of punch cards and I’ll being them to the data center tonight. I hope I don’t drop them!
How do you not know? ;) j/k, but I think occasionally the prices do pop up in some posts or articles
what? with my current girlfriend we had an ice cream and a walk. these americans are crazy.
Haha same. We went for a walk and had a coffee.
It’s not everyone. My first date with my husband, we went to a modestly priced restaurant. Looking at their menu now, it’s $20 a plate for a lot of food (plus tip). We had them cater our wedding. But that was back in 2015. Also, we’re a gay couple, not sure how that has influenced dating habits.
For a moment I thought you were talking about your previous girlfriend.
American dating is is stuck in the 1950s.
It’s really not stuck in the 50s, it’s controlled by tech. Some tech lord could step on your ability to get a date on any online dating, which is most of dating now, outside of friends hooking up friends.
We could have a long conversation about how online dating sucks, and has gotten worse as companies maximize revenue and the oligarchy has tightened control of everything.
No, it’s not.
Nobody is controlling online dating. Stop with the conspiracy nonsense.
The issue with online dating is everyone wants the best they can get, but they can’t get it, so they ignore realistic options and chase unrealistic ones. And they double down on this after every bad relationship, thinking they need to ‘raise the bar’, but all they do is price themselves out of the market by having expectations that like only 1% of the dating pool can ever measure up to.
People do this to themselves. Like the article says, their expectations for first dates are too high so they just give up, but what they won’t do is ‘lower their standards’. They won’t accept dates that are less than $200 because they ‘know what they are worth’, even though very few partners can realistically afford such dates. Not to mention, the bar/cost only gets higher with time. If you expect a $200 first date, you expect a $1000 date a month or two later. So basically the only guys who can afford to date are finance bros or tech bros with massive incomes and wealth.
I had a short term girlfriend a few years ago, who broke up with me because our first ‘nice’ date was only $300. She expected me to spend $500 and really said if I wanted to impress her I should have spent $1000. This was just a dinner. I made about 90K a year at the time, and she made 70K… she basically expected me to spend 1/4 of my monthly pay on a single dinner…
fast forward 5 years and shit has only gotten worse.
Match . com bought almost all of the dating sites. And the rest have consolidated.
If you think that the tech lords didn’t set up ways to hurt people they don’t like from their perch, or that the government and their connected pals don’t have them do that for them too, you are quite mistaken. They did it because they can, it’s as simple as that.
You are shown people they decide, you are shown as they decide, by their black box calculations, and their laughably bad matching of people based on their flawed personality tests.
That said, while the tech lords can step on some schmuck surreptitiously, what you describe is far more common. Dinner and a movie and drinks is just so expensive now, it’s not even an option for many people. Your costs in your example I consider astronomical, good riddance to her, that personality would leave you for someone richer first chance she found.
Also people just have an idea of what they want and exclude people based on their criteria in a way they wouldn’t be so quick to do with people they meet in person, which leads to everyone lying even more, which makes it worse.
These sites aren’t geared towards finding mates for life, but for keeping people paying monthly subscriptions indefinitely.
Listen, friend, you’re sounding a bit unhinged in these comments. You’re going on about how all women want masculine men driving pickups and going on $1,000 dates and all… Just because you had a shitty ex a few years back doesn’t mean all women are like that.
None of the women in my life are like that. I’m betting you’re considerably younger than I am but none of the women I’ve ever chosen to surround myself with have ever been like that.
No, I’m reporting my experience of dating for 15 years. You can tell me I’m unhinged, but my experience 100% matches the articles. I’m in the trenches.
I’m not armchair dater who scoffs at the reality of the thing because they have no experienced it.
I’m glad you’ve had that choice. I’m not you. I know people who got married at 22/24, and people who had never had a boyfriend/girlfriend in their 50s. It’s almost liek the world is full of different people, with different experiences. And maybe you should listen instead of thinking your life is the only one that is true and everyone else is is doing it wrong if they aren’t you.
American society in general is stuck in the 50’s
yeah well, we were at the height of our economic power back then.
people seem to think if they just daydream hard enough they can magically have a 1950s life they see on TV.
And that any man who can’t provide a 1950s lifestyle is a failure of a human being. When in reality only about 2% of the single male population has the income/wealth to provide that lifestyle these days.
it was different in the 2000s, most of my friends/family coupled up and things were better and generally couples were economic partners. now things are economically bad and dating has regressed to 1950s expectations that men are the providers and women are the takers. when i meet new women and i suggest we are financial equals, they laugh in my face and tell me I’m a sexist asshole and how I owe them because of my male privileges… and how they have worked so much ‘harder’ than I have and they ‘deserve to be treated’. or they say they are should get ‘princess treatment’.
These are all highly-educated, liberal/left women working in a major city. Lawyers, doctors, other well-paid professionals. But they are all heavy social media users and if you go on social media and see women talking about dating… you see why they think this way.
people seem to think if they just daydream hard enough they can magically have a 1950s life they see on TV.
racial segregation and they ability to rape your wife and assault gay people with impunity ? mmmmm people daydream about that ?
yes, they do.
“wHy ArEn’T tHe YoUnGeR gEnErAtIoNs GeTtInG mArRiEd AnD hAvInG cHiLdReN??”
marriage and children is more expensive than dating, by far. full time childcare costs are 2-5K per kid, for about 4-5 years before they can get into kindergarten. if one partner makes less than 50-75K, it makes no sense for them to work.
nordic nations with lots of subsidies also have kow birthrates
if you give women choice, (education, careers etc) they mostly choose 0, 1 or 2 kids at most, all of those choices are below replacement. For every woman choosing 0, you need another choosing 5 just to stand still.
If you take away choice, keep women mostly at home, use religious indoctrination (quiver full) and insist upon a patriarchal society sans birth control you’ll raise the birthrate. It’s why many conservatives are starting to talk about banning birth control, where once they frowned on teen moms, they’re now advocating for it.
True, but unless you or your partner are against the very idea, most prospective relationships start with dating, then are moving toward marriage, children, or both.
That’s why you can communicate early into dating that you don’t want to have kids.
yes, and mostly 1 or 2 kids at most which is a falling birthrate, for every woman that chooses 0, you need another to choose 5 basically just to stand still.
some well-off professionals in nyc, have basically started ‘plantonic co-parenting’ arrangements.
as in, two well-off couples produce a child, but are not romantically involved, the child is basically a small business they co-own and invest in… and the child is not a product of love, but a product of financial investment of each partner…
basically child production without dating, marriage, or any personal relationship between the parents.
that’s where we are today. the concept of a loving family is now being replaced by purely transactional relationships that are treated as business arrangements. can’t wait to see how those children turn out… but hey at least they will have trust funds for their lifelong therapy about why mommy and daddy didn’t love them or each other, or anyone but themselves. and mommy and daddy will probably also want them to be good little business executives who have no soul anyway, because having human attachments would get in the way of their work-life and their corporate ladder climbing!
I have no idea how niche I am, but I wouldn’t want to date anyone who is ok spending $200 on a date. Lets walk in the park and talk for hours. That’s my kinda date.
You shouldn’t spend any money on her until you’ve had sex, so she doesn’t feel pressure to put out after an expensive dinner. Ideally, she should put out before the date even begins, just to make her feel more secure.
This feels like the PUA equivalent of giving a dog a pill in peanut butter, you’re killing me XD
Hear Me Out: This capitalist/traditional attitude towards dating radicalized men into the manosphere. For the last three years this anti-“modern women”/anti-feminism movement has been rising across the internet; and about 75% of their resentment is just about distaste toward dating apps and paying to take a girl out for dinner.
For years I was laughing at ( and then after they helped Trump’s re-election, ripping my hair out over ) their complete refusal/inability to see any other alternatives to connect with people besides the most shallow idea of a date. Perhaps these folks just completely unimaginative, or have no personality to offer, and nothing to provide besides the traditional chivalry of this generic “provider” fallback that is unfeasible for most in this economy.
I wish I could just sit down with one of these men, and just ask them “Why not find women elsewhere?”. Delete the dating apps and go find a hobby, join a volunteer organization. If you’re such a “traditional conservative masculine man”, go to a Catholic church or alt-right fascist rally. It’s a whole lot cheaper than flying abroad to sugar-daddy at a favorable exchange rate. (Passport bros)
Though… the article does say: “More than half of Gen Z adults reported spending $0 a month on dating in a 2025 Bank of America Better Money Habits survey.” and mentions folks rejecting dating apps because they prefer real interactions…so maybe folks are waking up.
Why not find women elsewhere?
This is the same vibe as “go hand out your resume in person”. I’m old enough to remember when most people didn’t have dial up. Things have changed.
I’m an elder millennial that has and continues to do all of this shit they are saying in other comments, I still meet more new people regularly that I actually want to talk to again through dating apps. Third spaces are dead and people have over the past 10ish years stopped being interested in expanding their circle by happenstance. I’ll even admit to this myself.
In general we don’t trust each other, and there’s a very real chance that any person you meet could be a fascist even in left leaning cities. This has understandably made women especially more leery of the men they meet even when men are explicitly feminist because the men that hate women lie about their beliefs exacerbating the underlying problems even more.
People don’t understand that we’re not just experiencing political and economic collapse, the culture we all grew up learning how to live in no longer exists. This is a symptom of that
most ‘liberal’ women I have dated the past 5 years were closeted conservatives. don’t assume men are the only secret MAGAs
anyone of them with half a brain knows they have to lie about it to get other people to like them. every closeted conservative woman I have met never told me until like date 3-5, usually after we had slept together and she could let her guard down.
entirely seconding the rest of this. I am actively social in hobbies and volunteering. I have never ever met anyone to date that way. Everything is apps, and the occasional random approach at an event or bar or etc. Dating and socializing are two very different things these days. The last time i dated a ‘friend’ i met through other friends I was in college, 20 years ago. as am adult it’s been nothing but dating apps for most people I know, and the other people met someone at their job.
Wasn’t trying to say it’s just men, it’s happened to me with maga women, although I would imagine the rate is much lower from that subset. Lots of white women liberals that don’t give a shit about intersectionality or capitalisms role in their own oppression .
But we’re on the same page overall, dating is broken, some will still get lucky but it’s bleak out here. Unless it’s explicitly for single people to meet each other.
it won’t get better until the economy gets better, which, as we know, nobody seems to want to fix. they just want to make it worse so the rich get richer and the rest of society gets worse.
historically marriage and child rates are follow economy. when the economy improves people get married and have kids, when it’s bad, coupling and children rates plummet.
Things have changed especially because we all are becoming less social. Getting to know someone in person is still much more effective. Talking to strangers without pretense is however less accepted.
amen to that. even irl the level of presumption and pretense is insane. i quit a lot of social activities because i was becoming depressed dealing with the arrogant and delusion most people are living with about other people. I had so many occurrences of being going on rants about ‘people like you’ or bashing people who aren’t exactly like them. it was so miserable.
people were not like this 10 years ago. social media has warped their brains. people are so hateful and angry now.
Less tolerant, I also notice it with myself.
I love to read. I used to have cool dates talking about books. I haven’t had one of those since 2018!
Now when I talk about books, I get lectured what a racist male supremacist I am for not reading Toni Morrison or similar. (I had this happen to be like 10x times in the last few years) It’s insane. I can’t even enjoy my hobbies anymore without them being weaponized against me for not being ‘woke’ enough or something. Or I get told reading anything other than business self-help books is ‘a waste of time because it is not productive’.
God forbid I just… enjoy books because I like stories and it’s fun. No, now if you read it has to be for some political virtue signalling thing or for ‘self improvement’.
He gave a couple good ideas, join a service group, take Salsa lessons, go to local events. There’s a tree planting event in my community this week. You won’t meet people if you go once, but if you keep going people will recognize you. This is called “making friends” and sometimes that leads to romance. Things in your community still happen like the olden days.
Sounds like you have some experience here. Would you like to share more about it? How long have you been doing this? How many dates has this resulted in? How many relationships?
Well, I’m married so it worked at some point. I’m involved with my community and the community is your dating pool. The other guy is right in a sense, it’s mainly coupled people you meet at events but the more people you meet the more people meet you. You have to make friends before you make lovers. My wife and I have absolutely tried setting up people we’ve met with people we know. My personal opinion is that people who “never meet anyone” are probably assholes and people steer clear of them.
Okay well you didn’t answer any of my questions.
Well, I’m married so it worked at some point.
How long ago was that?
i actively volunteer for the past ten years. single people dont’ go to these things. it’s all married people. making friends doesn’t lead to romance, it leads to making friends with people who have no interest in dating you because they are already coupled.
it’s also time your spending not pursuing romance, which means less time for that. dating takes a lot of time and effort. it’s not magic, it’s more like exercise. yo uahve to be constantly exercising to stay in shape, and you have to be constantly dating and pursuing romance if you want romantic life.
Wow… please don’t take this as an attack, it is not intended as one. Your post made me seriously sad. I couldn’t imagine living a life where I had to treat dating and romance as “exercise” and something I have to plan into my calendar.
I hope you find what you are looking for.
it’s not any different with jobs. you have to constantly be on the hunt for a new job and working constantly beyond and above to get new skills if you want to remain employable. the day of getting a job and sitting back for 30-40 years and taking it easy are long gone. we live in a hyper competitive society, esp in the major cities. dating is the same, everyone is endlessly trying to ‘upgrade’ their dating prospects and if you aren’t ‘improving yourself’ constantly you are seen as a loser who deserves to be alone, just like if you don’t have multiple degrees or training certs at your job you are considered under performing.
10-15 years ago things were different. now, if i don’t get 2-5 new certs each year at my job, I’m considered under performing and if you want a raise, you better be getting that 5, 2 is the bare minimum effort. did i mention that the certs now expire every 2-3 years now? they used to be considered ‘lifetime’ but they ended that in the late 2010s, so they can keep the gravy train going. in 2010 when i was hired, having 2 basic certs was considered really great, now if you have 2 for a starting job, you are considered a failure and unemployable, you need to have like 6-10 to even be considered. oh ad the starting pay is like 15% more than it was when I started 15 years ago, even though the COL is now 2.5x what it was.
We are all working 3x as hard, for half as much as we used to get. Dating is the same. dating is a job market for romance. in my city, women expect you to typically making 200-300K a year to be even considered ‘worth’ their consideration. even though statistically, men in my city have an median income of 80K. so you nee to be making triple median to be considered a ‘date worthy’ guy.
i make about 150K a year, own a place, volunteer, have run my own small business, have two advanced degrees, active hobbies, very fit endurance athlete, etc. and when I go on dates i basically get asked why i am not more successful in life and that I lack ambition and drive and that my life is too ‘lazy’ because I’m not working 80 hours a week. also get told I’m ‘cheap’ because I don’t like going on dates that cost more than $200. It’s insanely brutal dating market. but i really want a family so I keep trying, but every woman who is interested in me basically expects me to be a multi-millionaire who has no life outside of work and dating her.
Don’t get me wrong but I think we might live very different lives. I’m also dating people and also having romantic relationships but I never… considered that path you are taking. It sounds exhausting.
But it doesn’t though. Dating is something you do to find people to be with IRL. Dating apps are made to keep you engaged and noy to lose customers. If you want to find someone to be with IRL, you gotta look IRL and it helps going somewhere, where people have similar interests
datings apps are how you use them. if you ask people out irl, and they say no or ignore you, the app has nothing to do with that. it’s the person on on the other end not being interested.
They are statistically not made for actually finding someone. If they were they wouldn’t be profitable. The goal is always to keep people using the app and spending money. If you are straight, the ratio of men to women on the average dating app is skewed against you if you are male and in your favor if you are female.
Dating apps are just the way for capitalists to make money off dating
Cool, then why is that more the half of new couples meet on dating apps?
You don’t use apps. You don’t know what you are talking about. It’s not a conspiracy. They are free. I don’t pay for any apps and I regularly get dates from them. Do most women who message me, not meet up with me? yeah, because they aren’t interested in me. That’s their choice.
If i only did in person dating, I might go on one bad date a year. at least with apps I get way more dates, and half of them are decent, even if they don’t go anywhere. i went on like 20 dates last year, a few were bad, but 18 were from apps, and one of them became a short term thing for a month, but we were not politically or financially compatible so I stopped seeing her, plus she hated my cat.
How are dating apps still a business if they are made to lose their customers?
I don’t think they would still exist or be profitable for the companies owning them if they were actually good at getting people together.
I think more than half of the new couples meet on dating apps because the opportunities to meet people IRL have been heavily reduced since the pandemic.
they sell your data. they sell ads. they have optional features you can extra for that are expensive and some people use them. i have been using dating apps for 15 years now. they haven’t changed that much. it’s just that they are all swipe apps on your phone now. but the business model has been the same since the 2000s, it’s basically freemium service like free to play online games are. and it’s profitable because while the vast majority never pay, the small number who do, spend a lot, and are called ‘whales’. the business model is all about getting the whales. people like me, who have never paid once in a 15 years, aren’t really making them any money.
again, you clearly dont’ use apps and you’re just making stuff up.
I’m not an expert on manosphere but I think it’s just a radical manifestation of a broader anti-feminism movement that spans beyond the internet, beyond young people and beyond dating. It’s not attitudes towards dating that radicalized men but a more general feeling of losing power and privileges. Listen to conservative men of all ages and they will complain that you can’t molest women anymore, you can’t date rape and you have to very careful because people now tend to believe women when they accuse of you of abuse. The manospere is just how the push back against those changes manifests on the internet. In real life it’s one of the issues fueling the surge of far-right parties.
Dating has been a big gateway for the manosphere though. Women can actually support themselves now, on a large scale, even to the point where women are surpassing men in education and getting better paying jobs out of school than many men are getting.
So, in a real sense, for possibly the first time in history, men are actually having to be more than just a stable provider to attract women. And many are choosing to become bitter and resentful instead of doing things that might actually improve their chances. The manosphere offers a “lose 15 lbs in 3 days fraud diet” but for dating. And people look for shortcuts constantly.
I generally agree but you think dating means asking women out and trying to prove to her you would be a good life partner while for a lot of man dating meant getting some girl drunk and fucking her in the dorm bedroom or spiking her drink at a club and fucking her in a bathroom stall. This is the dating they have lost because of feminism and progress and now want to get back to.
Remember Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing and Micheal Wolff’s accusations? Kavanaugh tried to rape her and absolutely nothing happened to him. This is the power man used to have and now are trying to get back. The manosphere sect leaders can’t say it out loud but it’s the core of it and all the anti-feminist movements.
Reading these last three comments — I was taking “dating” to mean forming a stable relationship because they’ve been throwing out words like “stability” and whine about divorce; but you’re probably right. The “GamerGate” rage that funneled into the manosphere has very rapey vibes, and that’s about fictional video game women. Seeing the rise in misogyny-inspired attacks; increased joking about rape and abuse; and that online rape guide CNN did a report on… I’m very scared for our future, especially for the future of feminine Gen Z and Gen Alpha folks.
This has been going on for much longer than just three years.
anti woman sentiment online has been around far longer than three years
I’ve been online for a loooong time. From my recollection: it hit its peak with the “anti-SJW” / “anti-feminist” rage during GamerGate in the mid 2010s. It was well on the decline until Andrew Tate and the TikTok manosphere accounts which copied him brought that rhetoric back; now targeting real world women instead of “woke” gamedevs and script writers.
can confirm
Capitalism did ruin dating. I’m pretty sure the CIA does everything in it’s power to prevent you from seeing the problem is the fact that you depend on the market for everything.
Why is anyone spending that much on a date? FFS, you can find plenty of great, cheap eats in NYC. You just gotta look. Husband and I routinely go into Boston to dine and have never broken 65 bucks for food.
Husband
Well yeah, you’re not it
Why do peacocks have such ridiculously inefficient feathers? Bird tail feathers can be as little as 1 inch long.
If someone expects me to pay a massive amount of money on a first date, that woild be a dealbreaker for me. Why should I reinforce any traditional gender roles in a crumbling capitalistic society
Different people exist
I know, but it seems short sighted to me to accept only a single possibility for dating which involves spending a lot of money
Straight up I went on a drinks to check how we vibe date last week, super simple, 5 beers total, two orders of wings as apps(so 12 wings), $80 before tipping $20. Not to mention the haircut I could’ve put off had I not had a date which was $60, and the gas I used getting there $5. Even if I tipped my personal minimum for a server at 20% that’s over $100. I don’t mind paying for a first date because it’s every woman is potentially putting their life on the line by meeting a man they don’t know alone for however long it lasts, but I used to could plan 2-3 first dates over a week, spend less, and get more food and drink.
Cite your sources
doesn’t mean they exist in abundance or in your area.
i’m sure some humble ice cream date lady exists for me, but she probably lives in another state. where I live women think you’re a jerk if you want to take them out on a cheap date, and if’s not a ‘nice’ date unless it’s $500 or less. and yes, they look at the tab and judge you by how much ‘spend’ you are putting out.
I’m gonna say this… and I’m a married hen, but if that’s the mentality of women today, christ, no wonder so many end up desperate cougars.
You habve no idea the number of women I see in their late 30’s still trying to catch a guy.
Not all, by any means, but a shockingly high enough number that I do notice…
marriage rates are plummeting.
Which is financial suicide. Those tax breaks for being married really add up and you can save $$ waay faster.
Bingo. It’s the ones stuck in the gender and conformity roles getting plucked the hardest.
Nuts to that.
because it’s do that or date nobody.
I date. 80% of single women expect traditional gender role dating. the other 20% of women don’t date.
#1 deal breaker women hvae with me is I don’t spend enough money on dates to impress them, even when it’s $100-300 dinners. They expect $500-1000 dinners, weekend get aways , and international vacations. all as part of the ‘dating’ process. because that is what social media has told them is what they ‘deserve’.
But are you interested in someone that wants this? Is that someone you want to have as a partner?
If no, then there is no point in spending so much.
If yes, there is truly not really another way except spend a bunch.
Putting so much emphasis on money and wealth is a thing very popular in the manosphere and around social media. It isn’t that widespread in reality. It also depends on where you meet people. If you meet them at an expensive hobby meeting like golf or something, it’s pretty likely that they want someone who is willing to spend money.
Do you know women platonically? Maybe ask them what they want on dates(doesn’t mean you have to ask them out, just to get a different perspective), see if that matches what you perceive.
No, that’s why I’m single. I cannot find a lady who doesn’t have these very expensive expectations for dating her. I haven’t met anyone like that since 2015, over a decade ago. The world has changed and so have people’s expectations.
in 2015 rent in my city was about 1600 for a one bedroom apartment. Now it’s 3200. in 2015 women I met were happy to go get ice cream and you could go out for a beer with them for $10. a dinner date cost maybe $50. nobody i met ten years ago demanded that ou take them on international vacations as part of dating, that was for a long term anniversary or something… now it’s an expectation for 3-4 months of dating.
it’s not 2015 anymore. it’s 2026. prices have doubled or tripled for everything since then. people’s expectations for life and dating have changed. social media barely existed in 2015, now it’s everywhere and inescapable.
It is widespread in reality. I’m meeting these women in the real world and this is what they demand of me. It’s what women I meet, even friends of friends, demand of men. and they all complain we are broke losers, because we can’t meet their expectations.
The women I meet who don’t demand this from men are already married, and their husbands are paying most of the bills…
also my 17 year old newphew, has the same issues. his girlfriends who are his own age, dump him for not taking them out to expensive dates and dinners, w/ his 15/hr part time job… he had two girlfriends and both of them demanded expensive dinner dates, and he said ‘i can’t afford that’ and now he has decided to give up on dating entirely because he doesn’t see the point in wasting his money on it and he knows he can’t date without spending lots of money he doesn’t have.
when I was his age I was taking my gfs out to movies and chili’s for $10-15. I used to take my girlfriends to a ‘fancy’ dinner and it was like $30-40. now teenage girls demand think they deserve $200-500 dates. he was talking them on 50-100 dollar dates and they thought he was cheap and ‘low effort’ I was making 10 bucks an hour, he is making 15… for me two hours of work paid for a date, for him it would be 20 hours.
the issue is the math more than anything else. in the 2000s life was cheap and dating was easy. now life is expensive and dating is super hard
Interesting, maybe it’s also a country difference. In germany the reality is very different. Most people I know don’t spend that much money and it’s a common thing to split the bill on the first date, so I assumed it wouldn’t be extremely different. Maybe the people in your area just have weird expectations idk.
No, I’m not it but I am a representative of what the successful gambit can result in.
You represent men looking to find a steadfast friend that can become a partner for your life, yes?
The “game” as it is being played is screwing you. (if I am correct about what I’m reading that others in this thread have written) What you don’t see, is that you have time on your side in a way that women do not.
(Truthfully, most men get so much tastier as they head towards 40… you’ll find out in time…)
Some golddigger insists on you dropping hundreds of dollars for a date? No. Refuse that. Any relationship with a woman like that won’t last anyhow.
Don’t waste your time or mental energy.
These are the EXACT women that will end up desperate cougars panicking as their biological clocks and looks tick down. You don’t want the women that peaked in high school. Hig maintenance, high bullshit, high drama. Nuts to that. It’s not a game, it’s a lifelong partnership you are looking for. You will end up a plucked (henpecked) bird if you don’t refuse to play it…
I thank my own rank stubbornness that the whole web2.0 social media horseshit had passed me by. No insta, fb, tiktok, threads, twatter… so I’ve missed most of that poison (not that I’d do much more than make fun of it…) and have missed the toxicity that it spews.
Save your money and energy for someone that will step up to being your partner in life (and a bit of fun crime).
No plucked birds, thankyouverymuch.
I’m married to a woman I fell for when we were 13 in the 90s. Every expensive date I’ve ever been on has been for my benefit too.
Other people have different priorities and are made happy or secure by different things. As long as it’s all consensual and not harmful, horses for courses. It’s not that deep
I can’t imagine how this is true. Must be no drink, no apps, no dessert, and mindful choices on entrees. Because just an entree at a regular ( not fancy) place in my town is 24-32 bucks and that’s not for the nicest dish. A drink is 8 to 25 bucks depending on whether it’s a cocktail. Yeah, your spouse is fine with a quick meal with no add ons, but for a date, where the point is to kill time together, relax and get to know each other, lingering over a dessert and having a drink or two to loosen up is kind of the point.
Obviously you can agree that your first date should be going out to get coffee to see if you click, but that’s still going to be 50 bucks after two to four drinks and a couple of scones.
Yes… and no.
I’m going on my 41st year with the husband, and thinking back to when we first met, and started hanging out together and dating… It was never about the money. We packed lunches and went on picnics, took road trips and went hiking and only occasionally went out to eat. The first time we met, we were in a bar, and struck up a conversation. We’d hang out with mutual friends and chill playing frisbee or catch at the local park. (We both still have the gloves we got as kids in high school!)
In the long run, it’s not about how much money you can spend trying to impress each other, or having a good time be defind by an experience created by or bought from other people… It’s about how much time you want to spend together, it’s about having conversations, and when those moments you have suddenly not go the way you planned, you roll with it and find a way together, to make it work and have fun regardless.
Best time we had was on a trip into Boston to go to the museum… Got stuck in traffic behind a road accident and sat for an hour, joking with each other and laughing at everyone else also stuck in traffic having freakouts over it. Him mangling the lyrics to songs on the radio and throwing out terrible bad dad jokes and puns. That was the moment I realized this guy sitting next to me was a keeper.
If you like each other and are easy in that company, it’s not going to matter if you’re in a fancy restaurant or not… and at that point why waste the money?
What I’ve found that makes a relationship into a lifelong adventure aren’t the things that can be bought, they’re the moments that are unexpected and personally yours.
You’re looking at this through the wrong lens. People aren’t spending money trying to impress someone, they’re spending money because that’s what the world has become. Every single one of those that you mentioned still costs money and everything has gotten more expensive.
Edit: Plus, I believe when articles and stuff talk about this, they’re specifically talking about going out to a restaurant or something similar like the movies, etc.
Third spaces have been increasingly monetized and monopolized in the past 2 or 3 decades, and CoL has added pressure on top of that. Boston is lucky because it’s an old city with some great parks and avoids some of the issues that modern cities have (and that’s not to mention the problems outside of cities). If you want to see what a modern US city is like, go down to the seaport - you know, the part of Boston that everybody hates that basically has nothing going on unless you’re spending money. According to this article, 100 million people in the US - including 28 million children - do not have access to close-to-home parks. That’s almost a third of the US who have to spend money just to touch some grass. And gas is closing in on $5 a gallon, so forget those road trips. Even the MFA is $60 for tickets for two. Burgers are about $20 each now, and drinks are even more. Just a cheap meal can run you up to $100 very quickly.
Regardless of what you’re doing, if you’re meeting somebody in a third space it’s getting hard not to spend a fair chunk of change, and even “cheaper” options are still just that - cheaper by comparison. For every date night someone is having at home, someone else is buying $300 concert tickets.
…that’s what the world has become…
No, that is what you’re letting the world become. Don’t passively accept any social conformity - esp. when it demands larger and larger amounts of capital.
You let it get this way when you accept it as such. I’ve never made much money, (nor has the spouse) never saw spending money as an option to coincide with dating, (and no, I was not coming from the obnoxious angle that the man has to pay…) so when I started hanging out with the person I eventually would marry, there was no notion that a date involved anything other than hanging out.
Window shopping, coffee and conversation… hell bring a thermos with your own coffee and pack a meal.
(at this point, neither of us drinks alcohol - I was putting out the recycling back in 2009, and saw the beer bottles and cans and had the epiphany that it was an awful lot of money spent on something that did me no good whatsoever. Naah, fuck that shit. Done. A moment of revelation that my husband latched on to after yet another one of his friends drank themselves to death a handful of years ago… when you hit your 50’s and start to lose friends to booze… it’s an eye opener - red warning flags - for sure…)
I guess what I’m seeing in what you’re saying is that there is some informally formal rules for dating that involve spending ever larger amounts of cash… and that what I have found, in finding that perfect person, was that there are no rules to the dance.
If how everyone “dates” has become a cash grab based on expectations of what you’re “supposed” to like to do… Naah. Push back on that. Honestly you do not have to follow any path laid down before you. It’s up to you to change the dance steps.
Step outside the box. You have way more agency than you realize.
Lifestyle inflation.
Fr, 200$?? like WTF?? For 200$ you can just find yourself a good expensive hooker and you save yourself the time and effor LOL But to be real, just maybe, dont go out with random golddiggers and basic girls. Personally, if its not a 50/50 or each one pays their stuff; its a red flag. And you can easily spot if its gonna be that or not from the tinder profile pic lol
Damn bro stop telling on yourself
For 200$ that would be my thought process lol. I’m not spending 30$+ on a random meeting with someone im not even sure i’ll click with.
How about spending $30 to eat something good while meeting a new person? You talk as if dates were simple transactions where you pay for the possibility of having sex with someone. If that’s dating for you than you’re right, just go get a hooker.
Dudebro is having a redditor moment. Glad to see it getting called out here.
Everyone that liked your comment including you agree
escorts in my city are closer to 400-500/hr to start, plus you have to tip them too. so 2 hour date is going to run you $1000, plus the cost of food and beverage.
where do you eat, fast food places? mcdonalds?
i live in boston and for me to eat alone it’s $65 minimum at any average place. a nice place it will be twice that.
hell dinner for two at tasty burger will run you $50 now for two drinks two burgers and a large bascet of fries.
Off the top of my head - we will go to Chinatown and hit the dim sum joints, Hai La Moon - meal for two - less than 60 bucks - with tip.
MFA has days where the price is discounted and you can pay what you want… https://www.mfa.org/visit/free-and-discounted-admission
Cheap shit is everywhere. All you gotta do is do a bit of digging to find it.
Chinatown is gross. MFA discounted day is mobbed and miserable.
I can also get free library passes to museums… but guess what, i’m not a cheap skate. I can afford to pay and I do.
But acknowledging the prices of things isn’t complaining about them, It’s acknowledging them.
LOL! I guess it’s all realtive to what you’ve experienced of a place…
Chinatown is fricking spic and span compared to what it used to be when it was the Combat Zone in the 70’s and 80’s and you could watch the whores strutting up and down the sidewalk in front of the Naked Eye Lounge - with it’s neon eyeball sign blinking open between a pair of women’s legs. Used to be an insanely great Pho restaurant across the street from that.
ok, so you are like 60+? right, so your experiences are totally out of touch by about 20-30 years…
65 bucks I realize this is NYC but goddammit. This is like 3 peoples worth if food and drink here…
