How couples meet in the US
How couples meet in the US
This is really a monumental societal change.
3rd spaces are nearly completely destroyed, and online seems to be the main option for ppl now.
How couples meet in the US
This is really a monumental societal change.
3rd spaces are nearly completely destroyed, and online seems to be the main option for ppl now.
Why is it a blue whale?
Well, I heard a big goal of every app these days is to get whales... Maybe this is what they meant? O.o (/jk)
Soon it’ll be the neighborg
Yes, absolutely. But also: I wonder how much of the online stat is stuff like people who met in online communities/groups compared to, say, dating sites and apps.
Because I could absolutely see a large portion of that line being people who met after joining a local meetup group for a shared interest like tabletop games, hiking, sports, etc.
It used to be that the dating pool was very limited in the way that making friends and dating in school is, where the odds are good that the thing you and your friends have most in common is your age and the distance that you live from each other. It wasn't until college that I really met a diverse group of people who all shared a common interest in what they were passionate about. Nowadays I can go online, find people nearby who share a hobby of mine (or even meet people through an online hobby first and then physically meet years later), and maybe find lifelong friends or partners through that rather than somebody my friend happens to know or somebody I work with.
Nobody finding love in brothels anymore :'(
Alabama folk don't even need to leave their home to find a life partner!
Fuck the commodification of human relationships. I wish people wouldn't support that
Perfekt graph to display a shit society
I mean, we met online but not on a dating site.
First long term relationship, brother of my friend who came down here from up north. Had kids, never married, at midlife he got radicalized and hella racist and abusive, we split dramatically after 21 years, (not all his fault, I also did regrettable things in response to what was going on).
Second round met online, had a date, hooked up for awhile, really got on well. He'd had a string of 2 year relationships (from "good on paper" matches from eHarmony) so I said after 2 years we can live together. Our kids all got along, his parents liked me after awhile, he wanted to get married, I said you can ask after we've lived together 2 years. We are happy a dozen years in.
I don't think it matters how you meet but it DOES hurt to think of people as a commodity, all that swiping and trying to maximize compatibility. People are people not clothing or toys.
all that swiping and trying to maximize compatibility. People are people not clothing or toys.
Exactly, all these apps need the user to be self absorbed. "Who's YOUR right fit? Who is YOUR type? Who fits YOUR personal fantasy narrative?"
Love is about two people giving themselves toward each other, not obsessing over their "ROI" in some transactional economic thinking. But that simply doesn't compute to a CEO and natural human friendship doesn't return 4x to investors every quarter, so it's gotta go, right?
Building a relationship should be out of interest in the other soul, and finding that person isn't what these algorithms promote. They turn dating into just another job hunt with metrics to meet, a "market" of desirability, bullshit interviews, performative fakery, marketing, and ego.
I also met my partner online, but ~20 years ago on World of Warcraft LOL. Younger people ask me for dating advice and I'm like "Stay off those stupid apps and just go meet people who might like what you like and see what happens!"
Yeah that does bother me about the graph. It's the digital age, you can't just lump one value to "online" and expect it to be a representation that makes any sense, did they meet on a dating app? As gamers? Facebook friends? I met my fiancee on deviantart after she liked one of my photos and messaged me to tell me so.
Society is online now, third spaces are still a thing but they're in a different form. This data is presented in a way to make you feel bad about the globalization of the Internet
Only goes to 2020. I think that after 2020, the online dating scene has seen a pretty sizeable decline.
Thats good news, but now I go to find newer stats.
No... no newer stats.
This is the most upsetting graph ive seen in many years... and this is why so many people are single. Its the reason I am single. I absolutely abhor "online dating". The couple times I did try it it was regrettable, and I dont want to do that again. Lord, help me find a suitable wife.
Grade school?
I can't remember the stats, but a significant amount of people never make it more than a few miles away from where they grew up. That would mean, especially in rural areas where a large geographic area is concentrated into a single school, you likely have been near or around your eventual partner, and if you're close in age you probably were aware of each other.
It's something crazy like 25% of Americans will die within a mile of the house that they grew up in, and more than 50% will never leave the state they live in.
People had cooties back then. What gives?
Looks like a whale, mouth on the left
I'm not in the US but I met my wife online, as did a few of my friends. The overall process of finding someone compatible took years though and it wasn't very much fun. It's probably worse now that dating apps are actively invested in keeping you single and swiping.
Would be interesting to see how these compare to the number of people who's given up on meeting an SO and/or doesn't have the time/energy to.
I've met a disturbing number of young people who haven't given up on dating per se, but make zero apparent effort in it.
I mean like, never talk about anything but work or family.
I've def met a few people like this. They have a few terrible dates on these sites, and it just stresses them out too much to even try again. Its really sad.
i'm sort of like this and i don't see it as sad.
i was "married" (in quotes because it was illegal for me to be married at the time) and both internal and external stressors taught me that i got less significantly fulfillment out of the efforts & sacrifices necessary to maintain that long term relationship than i do now that i've been single for the last decade+; so i stopped stressing myself with the belief that i need to be partnered.
it's definitely sad if you get more out of being partnered than single, but i suspect that it's not true of a significantly large number of people and that most are just taught to believe that they should be partnered and that, in turn, causes people to lament lacking partnership out of ignorance that they don't really need it.
10 years of online dating, 6 dates out of it. As a well below average guy I just gave up
🤚
Feel kinda lucky to have met my partner IRL now (though obviously that doesn't make my relationship any better than those that meet online). It's horribly depressing how reliant on online communities we've become, and how social gathering spaces and third places are eroding.
An additional hot take: online communities create weaker links than in-person communities. hear me out please
Not because the connections themselves are less strong, but because they don’t tie to any other connection. If I met someone in real life, chances are high they are going to meet my family and create connections with them too. On the other hand, if I met someone online, they would most likely not meet my partner and definitely not meet my broader family. What in real life could be a merging of social groups, and therefore a strengthening of everyone’s social nets becomes online the creation of a single link, that is therefore that much easier to break off.
right... I can't meet anyone for the life of me and be damned if I give a rats ass about even attempting to meet someone online. it's a ceaspool of distrust, lies and fake garbage online. not a good way to meet anyone tbh..
There's a few star trek episodes where they deal with characters who become addicted to either holodecks/holosuites, or games, but I guess it being a space-socialist-utopia of sorts, they give people enough 3rd spaces and community gatherings, so that its rare to find people who completely retreat from real life, and usually a sign of some mental affliction or trauma.
At least right now, I don't see the US recovering from this... 3rd spaces might pop up here and there, but they'll be increasingly rare, and against the trend of overall social isolation.
When I was in college, the local indie tea/coffee shop was really nice. But then staryucks moved in a block or so over and they tanked. The nearest indie coffee shop recently was about 30? miles away and run by immigrants. There's no public transit, so I have no idea if they're still open, but I suspect not, since our local population is all but non-existent, now.
Yea, this isn't something I can see getting fixed under capitalism. I still hope that as imperialism crumbles and the treats slow down the US empire will have a revolution, but that's not in the immediate future it seems.
Curious which app though bc most of them just hit you with a wall of sorority girls. Like seriously I sat there on Hinge for an hour swiping left and it still had more. Bumble didn't do that it immediately figured out who I like and I got a few dates off it, didn't put a coin in the machine either. Still going out with someone I met off there. I didn't even bother with these apps for years because they're horrible but yeah that's what worked for me. I forget which one of the apps isn't owned by Match but the main ones are doing social experiments on people now or something.
They literally use an ELO system, by the way. Which is crazy. So if you swipe right on someone you are "challenging them" and you lose when they don't want you, lowering your ELO score 💀. I don't need to explain what they think a chess victory is in their ELO system. They're US tech companies which means they get bored living in a money pit and do social darwinism for fun.
Met my wife 15 years ago on eHarmony. It was the only online service I know of that didn’t “just hit you with a wall of sorority girls”…
I have no idea if it’s at all like it was back then, but at the time it asked you a bunch of very detailed questions, and would lead you through an entire process of learning about potential matches before actually letting you communicate freely with them.
I know a few people who married off of that but they're all Gen X and kind of unhappy. It works.
I wonder how much is just a definitional conversion of 'through friends' to 'online' because friends are now online as well.
Married the person I met online. We are basically inseperable.
If you pay me $5 dollars you may talk to each other for 5 days! But, if you pay me $10, you may receive an additional free talk week!
Don't you guys want to talk? So give me money! There are women in your area ready to talk!
the sad part is, we have us oligarchs mediating it worldwide. not a good look.
and then they want us to reproduce 😂
I predict that we'll see a lot of people giving up on human relationship altogether with the advent of horny AI chatbots.
well thats the one place I'll never look lol, rip me
Neighbors is an interesting metric. Holding steady and now beating collage.
If neighbors means "near the parents home", then it makes sense. Many go to colleges in different cities, then don't stay, and lose touch with their college social circles, but the families near your parents home keep a consistent connection.
i really dont know if i should do online dating, like i mean i kind of want to meet someone and this is how to do it appearently, but also i rather would meet someone by chance and get to know them over time.. And like furthermore everytime i try these apps, it ends up with me beeing obsessed just about the matches itself, feeling either good or bad, and no intrest to actually chat with people since like it feels a bit forced and like i dont know, it is automatically like multiple chats, since mostly likely some dont respond and this for example already feels weird and then it is more like just chatting with someone than chatting with a specific person if that makes sense.. and like it does not feel like fun or anything to talk with multiple people basically about the same stuff and so on.. i hope someone understands what i mean
i dont really spend much time on dating apps and last time was years ago to be fair tho
Needing an app through a business to find love is fucking depressing.