Prior to online dating, men and women met each other primarily in physical spaces and through social circles in the real world: school, work, church, family, friendship circles, and neighborhoods. The markets were very fragmented.

Because every school, neighborhood, church, etc. was in essence its own market, that meant they each had their own local marketplace winners. And people would often match up within that based on their relative value in the market.

But with online dating, all those old local relationships markets have been merged. Now everyone has access to a large number of singles throughout his or her area. That means in the online dating world, you are no longer just in competition with people in your social circles. You are also in competition with everyone in your city or region. It may be true that your pool of prospects is also bigger. But the dynamics of these global type markets have in practice tended to produce more extremes of winners and losers. (The extremely high levels of inequality for men in particular may also be driven by the highly-imbalanced gender ratios on these sites, with far more male than female users).

In summary, online dating has a number of characteristics that work against most people. People are penalized based on things like cats in photos that might have nothing to do with them as people. It’s not great for people who are not very good looking. The sites also generate high levels of inequality, especially for men. This puts most men at a disadvantage. But the same inequality gives the most attractive men enough options that there’s no incentive for them to commit, which also puts many women at a disadvantage, too.

Lots of people did meet their spouse or significant other through online dating. If it’s a tool that works for you, there’s no reason not to use it. But especially for men who aren’t in the top 10 to 20% in looks, going back to the physical world and social circles of yesteryear may be a better option. Not only does this allow men to avoid the globalization effect of online dating, it also allows them to look for opportunities to let their best male attributes shine.

Shameless stolen from https://ifstudies.org/blog/date-local-why-you-might-want-to-avoid-the-online-dating-trap