Why do you find dating hard?

IcyTrapezium · 2024-09-08T09:04:17+00:00

I don’t complain about dating being hard. Getting a good strong relationship with someone you’re head over heels for isn’t easy at all, but just dating? That’s not hard for me. But I’ll list stuff since you asked.

The big thing was date rape. I was held down and date raped without a condom once. I was so scared I’d gotten a disease. I cried when I got tested and the tech asked me why I didn’t use a condom. Luckily I didn’t get anything.

But as for the less terrible hard stuff in dating:

1) Some men misrepresent themselves and it turns out they’re actually recently out of prison (seriously), in active addiction to drugs or alcohol, or just plain unemployed and sleeping on their sister’s couch (it’s specific for a reason, you understand). It’s a bummer when you’ve gone out several times and then realize the whole time they were hiding huge stuff from you.

2) Some men take rejection really poorly. Politely declining further dates can result in outbursts and harassment. I don’t want to ghost people so I risk having that happen and it’s happened quite a few times.

3) sometimes I’ve been alone with a man and suddenly been frightened. Something in his eye made me think “oh fuck. Am I with a serial killer?” That happens infrequently now that I’m older and have been alone with more men. But when I was young I was scared the first time I’d be alone with a guy.

4) some men try to talk you into unsafe sex. It’s not rare and it’s such a let down. I have a rule now that if a man does that I just walk out. But a couple of times I had to insist and they argued with me. I can’t believe I went through with the sex. Looking back it’s cringey to me.

5) sometimes men just use the date as an opportunity to talk about their ex wife. The WHOLE TIME. It’s embarrassing how many times that has happened.

In relationships:

1) I’ve had men try to humble me and knock me down a peg

2) I’ve had men hit me and choke me

3) just generally have had my heart broken

4) one ex stole from me and ran up a credit card without me realizing.

ETA: by the way all this violent shit has happened to me with four different men. 2 men have raped me. One was a “friend” so it wasn’t on a date. This “friend” brought me lunch every day in high school. I came from a really messed up home where we didn’t have food so I would not have lunch. He brought me lunch every day and sat with me. Right after graduation I fell asleep at a house party and woke up to him on top of me taking my clothes off. He was a lot bigger and stronger than me. All those years and he was never my friend. He never talked to me again after that.

I’ve had two ex’s who beat me and one choked me until I passed out and when I woke up he did it again and again with me passing out.

Alllll this happened and I still love men and want one with all my heart to love me.

I don’t understand misogynists. I have every reason to hate men, and yet I want a man to love who loves me more than almost anything.

egalitarian-flan · 2024-09-08T09:51:35+00:00

u/kaffeetasse22 Before I spend time answering, are you interested in hearing about the years of dating issues from an older member? Or do you only want to hear from women currently in their 20s dating now?

Novadina · 2024-09-08T12:43:48+00:00

If I had hundreds/thousands of matches, I’d just filter out the best ones

How, exactly? I’ve never had thousands of matches, and it still took me a long time to filter. You have to read every profile, then have some conversations… it’s not an instant thing. It would take weeks to actually filter thousands unless you are just researching and chatting with men 24/7. What techniques do you use to filter the men who want only sex but say they want a relationship from the ones who actually want a relationship? What techniques do you use to filter the men who pretend they like you, when they actually don’t like you at all but do want to fuck you?

go on some dates, and see who I click with

And what do you do to protect yourself? Do you have sex when you hit it off with someone, or do you worry about rape, or future men not liking your “count”? How do you tell the difference between someone you click with and someone pretending to click because they want sex? And someone with thousands of matches, like you think you would get as a woman, is probably extremely hot and so has men willing to say anything at all to make it appear they click.

Guys usually text first, plan the dates, and even pick up the tab.

Texting first can take a lot of time and effort if you need to message a lot of women before getting a response. But the other two don’t seem like time consuming or difficult, I’ve done them plenty and it’s not that challenging.

And if the issue is finding commitment, apps like Bumble and Tinder let you filter for men who are serious about relationships.

I haven’t used those apps, but the ones I did also let you filter for that and it never worked. Most men I met weren’t looking for a relationship- they just wanted sex, regardless of what they said in their profile. I figure it was the age range I was dating - men in their early 20s on dating apps just seemed to more often want something casual.

So where’s the challenge? I’m really trying to understand what makes dating so hard for women. What am I missing?

The threat of rape is a big thing you seem to have overlooked that I felt I always had to keep an eye on. I’ve been drugged before and had no desire to repeat that. Some men I wanted to have sex with then got aggressive once in the bedroom. It’s very scary, I have to take precautions accounting for this or I won’t be able to enjoy myself on a date, and even then I’ll be nervous about whether my precautions will work.
Many men will lie and act to get laid. This means they pretend to be into things you are into, they pretend to like you, they will say what they think you want to hear, they will lie they want a relationship with you, etc. It’s hard to filter out incompatible people when they are lying and pretending to be compatible. And it hurts your feelings when you think you have a budding relationship and your all excited, then the guy just bounces because you didn’t want sex yet or because you did want sex but he just wanted it once, so you realize he never actually was into you or was having reciprocal feelings.
Finding someone compatible can be hard! This is hard for both genders, women aren’t an exception. I had to date a lot of people to find someone compatible.
Threat of violence. Men are much stronger than women, and some use that against you. Men I’ve really liked have suddenly turned aggressive and it’s very scary. It can even happen after like months of dating or more - it’s not instant.

Educational-Love3406 · 2024-09-08T08:50:12+00:00

People have nefarious intentions for you and have no qualms about misrepresenting themselves to get what they want, meaning

apps like Bumble and Tinder let you filter for men who are serious about relationships

is meaningless. not to mention the fact that 99% of the time a man says he's looking for something serious, he usually doesn't say the second half of "but I'm good with using someone for something casual while telling them I may want something serious with them one day." Your post assumes honest and good intentions from men, which I assure you is not the case.

Regular-Material-142 · 2024-09-08T11:35:14+00:00

The biggest struggle for me now is men wanting to get physical quickly. I've literally had men say they don't think I'm into them because I want to get to know them.

Unhappy_Offer_1822 · 2024-09-08T10:54:18+00:00

i dont complain about dating. i just dont use dating apps or social media so dont really meet anyone

Obvious_Smoke3633 · 2024-09-08T12:32:25+00:00

A lot of the guys who have pursued me in the past have been pathological liars. They lie from day one about their age, height, job, marital status, if they have kids, where they live, etc. I've had to run background checks in the past just to make sure I wasn't going out with a liar. It's not all guys, but the guys who do this are very active on the dating scene and ask out as many women as possible. It's insane.

HighestTierMaslow · 2024-09-08T15:05:09+00:00

I'm 37. Happily married for 7 years. I did OLD apps from ages 20 to almost 28, on and off. Did some dating with men I met IRL. Going on dates isnt hard most of the time, a satisfying relationship was difficult. Alot of men don't start thinking of commitment until their late 20s and lie about it, along with other intentions. I lost my virginity card later in life and that scared away men (for reasons about me that weren't true they were assumptions). Finding someone compatible (where i can be myself and not have to compromise all the time) in general isn't easy. Women are expected to be more sacrificial in relationships so before I met my husband I always said men weren't a good return investment. They treated me badly (Once they got comfortable, how long this took varied) and/or we weren't compatible and since I am the woman...I was the one expected to do most of the compromising. I also strongly disagree men plan dates. My little bit younger single friends say men today off of apps are generally low effort. A huge issue I had with men off of apps is half of them pressure you for sex when I've known my Brita water filter better. (But judge "easy women" still and look at a woman's past which makes no sense...) I find OLD apps to be pressure cookers in this way...

HappyCat79 · 2024-09-08T17:12:48+00:00

Well, men lie about their intentions all the time. I had several dates with men who said they were looking for a LTR but open to short on their dating profile only to tell me that they like being single and aren’t interested in anything long-term once we actually met.

I found it hard to meet someone who was interested in actually getting to know me as a person rather than just liking me because I’m attractive.

There are also a lot of single men with tons of baggage. I don’t mean kids, that’s not baggage to me. I mean they haven’t healed from the pain of previous relationships and they carry that bitterness and anger with them everywhere, determined to punish every woman they meet in the future for the things their ex did to them. I know women do this too, but men also do it quite often. It’s hard to get close to someone who is super guarded.

It’s so hard to meet a man who is in touch with his feelings and isn’t afraid to express them openly and honestly. It’s hard to meet men who value and respect women as people. That’s why when I met my boyfriend I found him to be very attractive and impressive.

I also disagree with the notion that men do most of the planning and paying. Only one man did that and he’s my boyfriend now. Most of the other guys I met didn’t want to have an actual date and a couple of them did take me on a real date but I had to pick the place and the activity. I didn’t mind, but when my boyfriend named the place, time, and activity- I was very impressed by that.

I think dating is hard for everybody. Each person is so unique, so to find someone who checks all of your boxes can be a challenge. I feel very lucky to have met a man with whom we share so many of the same opinions, interests, experiences, and a mutual physical burning desire.

It’s been a year and I still desire him as much as I did on our first date.

I think that too many people try to act like someone that they aren’t in order to impress their date rather than just being their authentic selves, and that makes relationships challenging in the long-run.

My boyfriend and I brought our true selves to the date because we share the philosophy that we would rather be alone then be in a bad relationship where you can’t be your authentic self.

bv0724 · 2024-09-08T11:18:50+00:00

I don’t believe that I am able to vet complete strangers. It is rather easy to hide who you are for limited durations for a short period of time.

My parents set way too high standards for me with their relationship. They had the best marriage in our social circle. It was difficult to find a partner who could create what my parents had with me. And me being a cultural minority with some very old fashioned values that would make me old fashioned even in my home country certainly didn’t help either.

Nellylocheadbean · 2024-09-08T15:37:23+00:00

I don’t find dating hard personally since I just use it to keep myself entertained but the complaints I see from women are

Enough men aren’t attractive so the pool is small.

There’s a lack of effort whether in the dating stage or in the relationship stage.

Many liars and deceivers.

A lot of men can’t take no for an answer and can get aggressive.

Very Boring

Very Useless

Very Disappointing

I’m probably missing some but that’s off the top of my head.

DXBrigade · 2024-09-08T09:32:02+00:00

Personnally, getting matches is easy but building a stable relationship from that is not. We also have the biological clock to worry about which put a lot of pressure and there is always a risk when you date a guy you met on the internet (some men are completely different from the way they present themselves on the internet and some are dangerous). I also think it's relative to the woman, "easier" doesn't mean easy.

p_fulga · 2024-09-08T11:22:46+00:00

The issues are simply different, calling it "hard" is just a quick summation without having to go into too much depth at the given second. In my experience the biggest problem was always safety, especially when it came to men in particular. And I've had issues before with women I've dated, I don't want anyone to think I'm singling out men, I've been cheated on and I've had to break up before over incompatibility issues. I'm just focusing on men since straight relationships are more relevant to this community and the question in particular. Also keep in mind in this I hadn't used online dating until post college until I had just turned 22, I'm 23 now.

With men I've dealt with a lot, even when I didn't give them any signs back, or actively gave back negative signs. I come from a pretty rough background and when I was 14, I had a high school senior take advantage of that to use me as an emotional and verbal punching bag. I just thought it was normal because of how I grew up. Other friends had to pull me out of it, and it took a lot of coaxing and educating from friends and my best friend's family to learn why I felt like shit so much and why it was wrong, my home life and my relationship. When we broke up I had years of messages from this guy, no matter how many times I blocked him, of him threatening me, calling me slurs, using any deep cut insult he could.

In late high school and college were the worst points. I got good at noticing if people were going to be abusive, I just compared them against my family. So I could avoid that, but that didn't solve everything. I had a man cheat on me and then when I called him out for it, he flipped out on me and I genuinely thought he was about to attack me in literal public. He was primed and ready.

I had a guy months into the relationship just admit he'd been lying about his religion to get with me and demanded I convert to Christianity, when I didn't he flipped out too.

I had a man hide his interest of me for an entire class semester and then track down my email, not available information amongst students, and get really pushy about dating him.

I was stalked at my workplace by a man who would come in right before close and would just watch me from the aisles, and then often watch me from outside for a bit before meandering off, he'd ask other co-workers about me, my personal information, my schedule, anything. Thankfully most of them were smart to not answer. My boss wouldn't help me at all no matter how nervous the guy was making me.

I had a guy who I thought was a friend from a mutual club show his true colours during a storm when you couldn't go outside safely. I was at his place trying to weather the storm and he took advantage of that to rape me. To this day I still refuse to go anywhere private that doesn't have an escape route with most friends I make.

I had men who would wait for me in the dark at bus stops to compliment my body and try to get physically close to me. It was bad enough sometimes I had to have a weapon on hand to deter it. I still get problems similar to this one pretty often. Some are a lot more dangerous than others. Like a man who was clearly on meth who was so pushy and so clearly unstable I had no idea if he was going to get violent. I had to just learn how to trick them into thinking they got what they wanted like a number or a name, and then bail out fast.

Honestly men on dating apps have been some of the easiest to pre-screen and read. It could also just be I got better at spotting red flags so I could just ghost anyone who I noticed anything wrong with.

These are the things in my experience that I typically think of when I think about how dating is hard for the average woman. Abuse, violence, sexual assault, the threats of all these possibilities from prior experiences involving them. You get better at handling it, but that never takes away from the fact it happened. And some things you just can't stop or predict if someone bold face lies all the way up to it. Again this isn't me saying all men do this, I'm not saying view all dudes this way at all, just that these are things a lot of women have to deal with. That's usually what's being referred to when a lot of women say dating is hard.

Planthoe30 · 2024-09-08T11:11:41+00:00

It wasn’t hard but I was picky. I knew early on because I dated young what I was looking for so I rarely called anyone back. I had also had a lot of guy friends which gave me low risk dating experience which helped me filter. I was probably overly aggressive with my filtering but I don’t regret it at least I found what I wanted.

I did have a negative experience my first relationship because he abused me but I couldn’t immediately get away from him because he pulled a gun on me. So I had to come up with a plan. No he didn’t have any dark triad personality traits that I was aware of until he physically abused me. Everyone thought he was a nice guy and was shocked about what I went through. I didn’t struggle with feeling safe around men after that because I didn’t want him having any more power over me. It helped I had a lot of support from friends including men so having had positive friendships with men actually really helped me recover. I ended up learning self defense inspired by that situation and it came in handy later when I was sexually assaulted. I believe I prevented myself from being raped because my aggression startled him. He didn’t want this smoke. kisses arm guns So if anything I’d say safety is probably the hardest part.

Lanaglu · 2024-09-08T12:21:48+00:00

I don't complain about dating but I do find it hard a lot of the time.

I'm autistic and can suffer anxiety and it just makes socializing in general more difficult and I can get uncomfortable more easily and if I get like that I am not good at expressing that discomfort. Some men will keep trying to make me do things I don't want to do and push my boundaries and it can make me feel sick, and not want to date at all.

A lot of men can be very cold or fake and it makes making any kind of connection impossible and can be very isolating. I would say there is a good percentage of men who aren't being themselves but the person they are trying to be isn't even the person I would want them to be, so it's doubly bad.

And finally I have niche interests and niche appeal, I won't be compatible with the majority of people, I have found some great guys online, so I know there are men out there for me, they just don't live in the same country so we can't meet.

attendquoi · 2024-09-08T16:07:03+00:00

Men lie to get what they want, and I don't tolerate lying even if I want the same thing. That's really the only complaint I've ever had.

fiftypoundpuppy · 2024-09-08T16:18:48+00:00

Dating apps are useless since OKCupid got Tinderized.

I'm not compatible with 99% of men IRL or online.

Of the ones I'm not immediately incompatible with, I'm not attracted to 99% of the ones who remain.

I could go out more but I don't care enough about dating to do so, and in fact have stopped entirely since I realized that I wouldn't ever fully trust my partner anyway. There's a hot guy I did a foster dog takeover from a few months ago who is single with no children, but I gave zero IOI because what's the point if I'd never trust him anyway?

And re: online, since most men just mass swipe matches are meaningless anyway. Most of those guys were never really interested and it shows in their lack of engagement via messaging. I'm usually sending the first message (really for shits and giggles because I'd never date someone I had to message first - if he wanted to, he would) and it's like pulling teeth to talk to them. This is what men don't understand when they go on about our "thousands" of likes and matches - they're completely meaningless. It's just men pushing the actual filtering onto women and they don't even read our profiles until after matching.

kayceeplusplus · 2024-09-08T13:34:59+00:00

Easier =/= easy

AutoModerator · 2024-09-08T08:40:04+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "Debate" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair according to these guidelines., just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Objective_Ad_6265 · 2024-09-09T19:47:10+00:00

It's not about thousands of matches it's about finding the ONE for you.

Meshakhad · 2024-09-11T17:51:55+00:00

For me personally, there are two issues. The biggest one is finding a woman (or enby) who would at all be interested in me. A straight, bisexual, or pansexual women can easily find straight guys. But I'm a trans woman who still looks like a guy. A straight woman (aka the majority of women) won't be interested, and neither will many if not most lesbians. So my pool is limited to bisexual and pansexual women and enbies, plus lesbians who are open minded enough to date a trans woman who still looks like a man. I'd have to pull them based purely on personality. And that's just dealing with gender preference, let alone more specific issues like age, interests, personality, etc.

The other issue is my lack of confidence. And here I'm at a crippling disadvantage, namely that I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. When I try to approach women in person, I feel like I have a mask glued to my face. I am working on presenting as female, but it takes time, effort, and money.

My solution in the meantime is to date via the Internet. I don't mean dating apps or websites. I mean through other social websites, ones where you don't normally show your face. I've landed (online) dates via Reddit, Twitter, and even Alternate History Dot Com. Remember what I said earlier about pulling someone based purely on personality? That's what dating on Reddit or Twitter is like. Your appearance doesn't matter until you want it to. Right now, I have an actual crush on someone whose face I have never seen.

Meshakhad · 2024-09-11T17:53:42+00:00

For me personally, there are two issues. The biggest one is finding a woman (or enby) who would at all be interested in me. A straight, bisexual, or pansexual women can easily find straight guys. But I'm a trans woman who still looks like a guy. A straight woman (aka the majority of women) won't be interested, and neither will many if not most lesbians. So my pool is limited to bisexual and pansexual women and enbies, plus lesbians who are open minded enough to date a trans woman who still looks like a man. I'd have to pull them based purely on personality. And that's just dealing with gender preference, let alone more specific issues like age, interests, personality, etc.

The other issue is my lack of confidence. And here I'm at a crippling disadvantage, namely that I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. When I try to approach women in person, I feel like I have a mask glued to my face. I am working on presenting as female, but it takes time, effort, and money.

My solution in the meantime is to date via the Internet. I don't mean dating apps or websites. I mean through other social websites, ones where you don't normally show your face. I've landed (online) dates via Reddit, Twitter, and even Alternate History Dot Com. Remember what I said earlier about pulling someone based purely on personality? That's what dating on Reddit or Twitter is like. Right now, I have an actual crush on someone whose face I have never seen. Your appearance doesn't matter until you want it to.

missmireya · 2024-09-08T09:25:49+00:00

42F- There ain't no man trying to be in a committed relationship or trying to marry a woman my age.

thegoldendragon7678 · 2024-09-08T09:28:50+00:00

(Most) men find themselves stranded in the desert, thirsty but with nothing to drink. (Most) women find themselves stranded at the sea, thirsty and surrounded by water, yet still nothing to drink.

If you’re focused on sheer quantity of options, the average woman will definitely have more than the average man. But are those men really eligible? Depends. That’s where the struggle comes in.

Other than personal safety, which other users have already mentioned, you also have compatibility. You say that apps filter out people and in theory they do but people lie all the time; many men will say they’re looking for something serious, won’t pressure you into sex, won’t cheat, etc. but what “bad” guy would actually advertise themselves as such? Only the stupid ones. While we may have more options, we need to filter out the ones that are truly genuine. Men need to do the same, but that’s my point: we have similar struggles, it’s not a competition.

serpensmercurialis · 2024-09-08T16:26:40+00:00

It seems like it should be easier for you. If I had hundreds/thousands of matches, I’d just filter out the best ones, go on some dates, and see who I click with.

You’re greatly underestimating how time-consuming this is with current apps. Let’s say overnight I get 1000 likes. Men swipe on women way out of their league with zero consideration for how they’re shitting up the app by wasting people’s time. That’s why most apps filter so ugly men only see ugly women after a while, but when you first get the app it’s a free-for-all. Let’s say it takes an average of 30 seconds to go through a profile and decide if you like them. That is OVER 8 FUCKING HOURS if I am only going through guys who liked me and only spending an average of 30 seconds per profile.

That doesn’t include talking to anyone, vetting them, planning anything, going on the actual dates. Just the raw legwork of actually finding someone you like with the swipe system is time-consuming, and it is that way by design. Old OKC used to be the fastest way to select high-quality people, but they completely changed everything so it’s useless now. Why? Because it was too easy to find people who were great for you, and they want to keep people stuck using their service.

Going through all that effort just to find out the dude is still attached to his ex or sucks in bed or something? Nah. Fuck that. I just decided to meet people through my hobbies and interests and that works way better for me. Low-quality dudes can keep swiping on every woman they find physically attractive regardless of whether or not she’s out of their league or has stated preferences he doesn’t match and is using paid features to bypass. It’s not my problem anymore.

asexualgolddigger · 2024-09-08T09:35:33+00:00

Guys always look at other women, always jacking off to other women some guys do it to our sisters and female friends instagram pics everyday lol, girls don’t like putting up with men’s sexual needs but they’ll never say it, men n women have nothing in common it’s annoying to pretend to care about mens interests or what they talk about

MiddleZealousideal89 · 2024-09-08T18:38:19+00:00

It can get tedious, most people you match with/meet won't be a good fit, and it gets old doing the same first date routine/lines all the time. It's difficult to find people you gel with, as in, you find each other attractive, AND you have stuff in common, AND you have similar values, AND you have compatible plans for the future, AND you can live with each other and not have the other person's quirks bug the shit out of you. That's not including the issues of guys just wanting to bang and bail, guys not taking rejection well, guys who turn out to be a shittier version of who they initially presented themselves as.

Dating is rough for everyone, there are just variations of the specific shittiness involved.

maam9243 · 2024-09-09T19:31:10+00:00

Men lie. About everything. The end.

Nyanpireeee · 2024-09-09T20:35:27+00:00

I’m not really involved in the dating scene but here’s what I understand from women who are. Lots of options ≠ good options. A ton of them only want casual hookups. Many are entitled, think they can buy the chick’s body for the price of a meal. Incompatible, egotistical, rude etc.

januaryphilosopher · 2024-09-08T09:47:13+00:00

I didn't use dating apps as people only really use them for hookups. Even if that wasn't the case I'd be wasting time going on dates with people I don't know and need time to figure out if I'm attracted. Asking out men in real life, only one said yes, but I'm very grateful for the one.

Title	Why do you find dating hard?
Author	kaffeetasse22
Upvotes	79
Comments	482
Date	September 8, 2024 8:40 AM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1fbt7bl/why_do_you_find_dating_hard/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/why-do-you-find-dating-hard.1529789 https://theredarchive.com/post/1529789

Comments