I am writing the following to invoke a discussion on whether or not dating apps are good to use if you want to live an optimal life.

The Question: Should you use dating apps?

Some minor background about myself. Slightly over a year I adopted a red pill mode of being. To start, I did an overview of myself and identified some basic strong and weak points.

Some examples of the positives that I identified about myself were that Im pretty smart and do well in intellectual, academic and work pursuits, I make a lot of money, and I am in elite shape. Some negatives that I identified were that my dating life sucked (oneitus relationship for 3 years) and that my social life was not anywhere near where I wanted it to be. The lists were much longer and I am still working on myself every day, but this is just some background on why the issue is coming up.

About April of last year I started to do in person pick up about once a week. I did this for a few months, and missed a few weeks here or there just not going out. Some notes on the experience:

  • Prior to this I never once approached a random girl to express sexual interest. It was insanely nerve wracking for me the first night I did it. But it was a great accomplishment. In a very short time, my approach anxiety in a bar setting went from 100 to almost zero
  • Even though I only went out maybe 8-12 times total to approach, my confidence with talking to women, and more importantly people in general, skyrocketed. Most sessions were from 11-3AM
  • Some nights were absolute slaughter houses where Id approach 10 girls and get 2 pity numbers just (as in go away heres my number). These nights were still good in increasing general social skills and better than sitting in your house jerking off
  • Other nights I talked to legitimate 9s and 10s who were very receptive in my approaches. Actually got a couple of dates with hot girls and even pulled a 6
  • I convinced myself mid summer to stop and try dating apps. My reasons were the following:
    • Staying out until 3 am was too much for me. Im an early riser and this really messed with my sleep schedule
    • Im naturally not a club guy (or haven't built enough confidence to completely let myself go inside a club)
    • I felt that the results were not worth the time being put in. Im not a guy that loves to go out and it was incredibly uncomfortable for me initially to do what I was doing

Upon an objective analysis at this point in time, I believe the above reasoning was flawed:

  • There is no reason why I had to stay out until 3 am each night. A Saturday night could easily be accomplished from 9 -12/1 am
  • Value added in my social skills even on nights that were tough when I failed miserably. Getting better at game translates into value into multiple facets of other parts of your life. You do not gain these skills on dating apps or sitting at home
  • I didn't put in nearly enough time for great results. The longer I stayed in the game, the more confidence and skills I could've built

Now onto dating apps. I made a profile on 3 apps (bumble, coffee meets bagel, tinder). I live in densely populated area. I averaged about 30-50 matches a week on bumble (using the delete and create new profile hack), roughly the same on tinder, and about 1-2 matches a day on coffee meets bagel (no hack required because of their algorithm)

What is the hack? It is just using the noob boost. Basically, if you arent attractive enough or do not have good photos you will fall in the card stack and matches stop coming after a week or so on a consistent basis.Though I am in elite shape, my face is average and I dont have a lot of good pictures of myself.

I know, I should get better pictures. And yes guys, photos really fucking matter. The first time I started I was getting almost zero matches. Later on when I took some really shitty pictures (selfies/borderline selfies) of myself that displayed my physique, my match rate skyrocketed (though no where near elite picture status)

Some notes on my experience

  • Dating apps are somewhat addictive when you start to get matches. This means that they are insanely time consuming. Way more time consuming than I though it would be. Texting random women takes a lot of effort to have good enough conversations for a meet up (if they dont bite for an immediate hang out)
  • The quality of girls is likely to be much lower than what you can achieve in a bar/club/day game/in person game anywhere. Yes, I get matches. But 50-60% are whales or below a 5. Girls I would never consider in real life. The rest are mostly 6s pushing 7. If I matched with an 8 or 9 it was impossible to actually get them to go out on a date.
  • I did get some results. Roughly 8 first dates. I hooked up with multiple 6s and went out with a 7 for about 5 months.

Why Im considering quitting all dating apps

  • The quality of women is bad relative to real life. 70 percent of the user base is men. Of that, women will only talk to the top 10% of that pool. Its brutal competition relative to real life
  • Its more of a time waste than gaming on a Friday and Saturday night. The apps never stop. I check them every night and waste at least an hour talking to low quality 6s via text all of the time
  • Ive lost nearly all motivation to go out and meet women in real life. The pussy is easy. But it also low quality and cheap. The women I met in real life game or social circles were almost always higher quality
  • Meeting women is a primary motivation for men. The apps decreased my motivation to partake in other, seemingly non related, social activities. Things like my general social circle and just hanging out with friends. It was a truly bad and unpredicted consequence of the apps. My social circle was weakened after using apps. Why do anything when the pussy is this easy? (Again, incredibly low quality pussy that you generally would not go after in real life)
  • Social Skill development is no where near the level of gaming in real life
  • I know you can use it as a supplement to actual in person game, but my personality doesn't allow that at the moment. It seems to take on an all or nothing motivational approach

What is everyone's thoughts? Are apps good or bad for having a truly red pilled existence?