The Dating Market

Dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge now dominate the quest for love and connection. Their gamified interfaces let users swipe through potential matches instantly. Profile photos and brief bios replace nuanced first impressions. How has this affected you? how has it affected men? How has it affected women? Lets look at any and all data we can find and try and sort out what the hell is going on in the dating market.

1st. We will look at data from reputable sources and we will draw some conclusions from them.

2nd. We will start looking into internet theories of online dating. These are generally backed up by anecdotal evidence or surveys of very questionable quality.

Data from “reputable” sources

It is actually surprisingly hard to find good research into the dating market. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place, someone add more if they know more.

First lets look at data from pew research, this is a survey conducted end of 2019:

Yeah not that surprising to me at least. Everyone I talk to hates the current dating scene (unless they are extremely attractive).

This is terrible of course, but I do wonder about this data over time. Like wouldn’t all the above statistics be much worse 20 years ago. Are we trending in the right direction here?

I have to imagine a lot of these people would be dating if the dating market was less terrible.

I think it is clear from this data that there is a problem in the dating market. But this data and these reputable sources do not really attempt to dig any deeper.

Internet data & theories.

Well, its all downhill from here folks, the internet is a scary place for dating theories. Please practice safe thinking and don’t start believing the first theory you hear. Some of these theories touch on facets of the truth, others don’t. Regardless, many get dark fast. You have been warned.

So the internet is just full of videos and experiments like this:

The results of these experiments tend towards the same results.

For guys, dating online results in incredibly few dates per swipe. There is a lack of options … unless you are top tier attractive.
For girls, dating online results in many, many dating possibilities. They're swamped with options.

Once you start watching a few videos like this you will quickly find yourself introduced to the following three theories.

Blue Pill:

Believes dating success comes from being a nice, honest person and treating people with respect.
Rejects manipulative "pickup artist" tactics, believes genuine connection is key.
Says improving oneself and looking for compatibility works better than games.

Red Pill:

Takes a tactical, systematized approach to seduction and dating
Uses psychology and sales persuasion tactics to attract the other sex.
Advocates strategies like negging, building social proof, and establishing dominance.

Black Pill:

Believes dating is hopeless for certain groups of people (especially men) due to factors like genetic looks.
Sees sexual marketplace as brutally competitive due to dating apps and shifting gender dynamics.
Pushes average people to “looks-max” and work on themselves, breeds resignation and fatalism in below-average looking men.

Many of these theories started within male pickup culture but let's be clear the internet, has pushed these theories into all niches. Here is a great youtuber talking about how some of these theories are now being presented to girls.

Some people put this in a further historical perspective. I certainly don’t agree with all of this, but it is interesting all the same.

Theories less talked about:

It is easy to point at dating apps and say they are the problem (And honestly, I think they are a large part of the problem) but let’s consider some other theories. Less sexy theories which don’t spread around the internet as well.

Economic problems. I have to wonder how much of these dating problems are actually stemming from economic issues. I mean if you don’t have much money, you are not capable of going out regularly.
Porn addiction. Self-explanatory. People demands are being met in an easier, less-risky way.
Inequality. We are constantly bombarded by images of how other people are doing so much better than ourselves. I can only imagine that this hurts our self-esteem and reduces people’s willingness to take risks when dating.
Seeing so many pretty people.