I've read out there that the ratio between men and women on dating apps is pretty awfully skewed. The estimates I've read, from a variety of sources all claiming inside insight, put it somewhere at 10:3 men:women on the high end and about half as many women on the low end. Let me tell you, I sure do feel it. I've been using some combination of Tinder, Bumble, and Hinged on and off for more than half a decade now and I've had two dates total. The first one didn't have a second date because she sexually assaulted me, the other because she just didn't feel any chemistry. I can get maybe 5 matches in a month if I'm maxing out my free likes on two platforms every day. The chance they even respond to the first message is like 1/10. So on, so forth. I think I'm a decent catch. I take care of myself. I have a job, hobbies (even ones that aren't video games/TV!), open myself up to plenty of new experiences, try to listen to others, and was lucky to be born with some conventionally attractive features. Hasn't helped very much.
This all sucks, but this is nothing that anybody who has used a dating app could tell you. What really kills it all is A) the way this shitty feeling is monetized to sell $30/mo dating app subs that I will not buy on pain of death B) the white-knuckled grip half the women in the south (where I live) seem to have on outdated gender roles C) the lack of any alternatives
Elaborating on that last point, I live about an hour outside of the nearest city of any decent size. I'm in maximum old-white-people-exurb territory. There's basically nothing for me to meet people my own age, let alone women my age, without an hour's drive. All but three of my friends are guys, and they aren't really positioned to introduce me to anybody either. Out of my ~10 closest friends, only one of them has even been in a relationship in the past 5 or so years. I can't move because I'm at my parent's house right now and it feels super hard to justify moving out when you're making less than 50k/yr and have a stable family situation just because I'm sexually frustrated. It's been so long I feel like I wouldn't even know how to flirt or recognize flirting even if I landed in a miracle situation anyways.
What do yall think? Am I making too much out of it?
Yeah using dating apps in a rural area is gonna be miserable. I was lucky that the small town I grew up in was fairly close to a college campus so I dated a few girls from there, no chance otherwise. It’s very location dependent, I can get hundreds of matches in some places and practically none in others. I think dating apps are totally viable in big cities albeit still not easy, my four most recent relationships have been from them (fingers crossed the current one works out long term and I never have to do that shit again).
It doesn’t sound like you’re looking to relocate but I’d highly recommend taking the plunge and trying it out. I wasted 24 years of my life in a tiny town with no real opportunities, an hour commute to a mid job until I saved enough to move closer to said mid job was looking like my only future. I was lucky enough to find a good job on the other side of the country and it’s been nothing but up since then. I’m not suggesting moving just to get laid easier but because there are more things to do, more friends to make, more job opportunities, more new ways to experience life. Rural America makes it so much harder to do all of the things I value in life, I didn’t realize just how bad it was until I got out and saw what life could be like. The next step from there is leaving the country entirely but I wouldn’t advise jumping straight to that lol