So I (31F) have been using dating apps as well as trying to meet men IRL. I’m running into some challenges on the apps that I suspect may be due to me having very limited romantic experience with men.

I find that I’m getting into a whole bunch of chats with men on these apps, but I’m not particularly excited about any of them. It’s become a bit of a chore to check the apps and reply to messages several times a day. There are two different things going on here:

  1. Some of these men are physically attractive in their pictures and seem interesting and compatible from their profile, but the messages are super low effort or they’re average but he makes no suggestions about meeting up IRL. I know that the men who give one-word answers or who only compliment my appearance and ignore my attempts to get to know them aren’t that into me, but what if it’s just medium effort lackluster conversation? (Like “how was your day?” Every day for a week and nothing else).

    I can give specific examples in comments or DMs if necessary. I don’t want to reject a man who could be great IRL just because he’s bad at messaging. But I also don’t want to put so much time and effort into keeping the conversation going with someone who sees me as a plate.

  2. Some of these chats are with men who are not attractive to me physically, have bad pictures/profiles, or whose profiles indicate incompatibility. But their messages are thoughtful, high effort, engaging, and enjoyable. These are the men I’m happy to message, but kind of dread meeting IRL because unfortunately I’m not one of those women who can overlook appearance entirely for a good personality. I don’t immediately decline these guys because I don’t want to be shallow and I have had my opinion of guys go from “meh” to “hot” once I got to know them. But I’m not sure how much time and interaction is needed to know if I could grow into attraction to someone, or if I just like them as a person platonically.

Relevant info: I’m a virgin waiting for marriage. I have limited experience with men although I’ve been on quite a few dates since my last advice post here, including with a guy I was talking to for 3 months before it ended (he moved for work). I have recently lost a lot of weight and otherwise improved my looks and attitude. I was homeschooled and was not attractive during my early 20s so I didn’t really learn to handle the amount and variety of male attention I’m getting now.

So basically I’m the exception that proves the rule in that my SMV is significantly higher now than it was 10-15 years ago during my “prime”. I can easily reject sexual propositions from men, but having guys want to get to know me and actually date is kind of new to me.

I don’t think this is an issue of my SMV not being high enough to get what I want. I have been approached by attractive men IRL and there are enough men who remain interested in me after I make it clear I’m waiting for marriage. I also don’t think my filtering standards are too high: be a man within 10 years of my age who isn’t obese, polyamorous, or currently married, have a job or be in school, be open to a LTR, and be some flavor of my religion. What may be unrealistic is that I want to be attracted to a man I date and feel desired by him, and I might be expecting that too soon from guys on apps I haven’t met yet.

In the past, I would have entertained any man who actually wanted to talk and not just sext with me. But now there are so many that I don’t have the time and energy. I don’t want to miss out on my future husband because I kept looking for someone better. Nor do I want to have a scarcity mindset and be so busy trying to entertain every man who is interested in me just in case there is potential for me to develop feelings for him, that I miss out on someone I would be excited to talk to and spend time with. So what I’m asking here is:

  • advice on rejecting a date offer or ending a chat with a man who hasn’t done anything wrong but hasn’t inspired my desire either ?
  • advice on determining whether a guy is just looking for sex, playing games, not that into me, or legitimately busy/an awkward texter and does want to get to know me.
  • advice on how to encourage a guy on the apps to suggest an IRL meeting. How do I drop the handkerchief, so to speak?
  • advice on finding the balance between giving someone a chance and wasting both our time?

I know that the common complaint men have is women using these apps for validation, and I really don’t want to do that. But also, there is kind of a reciprocity that when we get positive attention from men, that makes us want to be nice to them, which makes them want to be nice to us and so on. I don’t want to be rude. I have experienced rejection and I know there’s no way to reject someone that won’t hurt them, but I want to make sure that I am rejecting men in a way that is not more painful to them than necessary. I know this has been a very long post and I appreciate any insights you have into the topics!