r/technology • u/thinkB4WeSpeak • Sep 11 '26

Society Dating Apps Are Dying

https://time.com/article/2026/09/09/dating-apps-are-dying/
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202

u/jeminar Sep 11 '26

I married a tinder date from a different era.

What are people using to meet instead?

445

u/LePhasme Sep 11 '26

Singles events are popular, but mostly people are just struggling.

43

u/jono12132 Sep 11 '26

Singles events aren't really that popular. It's very location dependent. I live in a C tier sort of city in England and they keep trying to start dating events but they keep giving up. I'm guessing because they can't get enough women to go. The last one I saw advertised had an offer for 50% off  tickets for women. Dating is very location dependent I think 

3

u/mythrilcrafter Sep 11 '26

It's indeed extremely location dependent in my experience.

I'm in Upstate South Carolina which is what I would call a "suburb-city", that is to say, more residential and "rural-ish" than a major metro area like Atlanta and Charlotte (and definitely noting close to the Bay Area or Manhattan), but also not so rural as to be "the sticks" or actual "fly over" counties.

The dating scene here is a hardcore desert, I've only gotten a handful of matches in the last year and only one actually resulted in a date) and I know that I/my profile isn't the issue because after I started traveling recreationally and going to places like Philly, DC, and Boston; I would suddenly start getting matches and profile likes.

Also the demographics of my area's dating pool are EXTREMELY skewed towards the "old enough that they have kids who aren't affected by a divorce" age group. Which usually doesn't work/isn't compatible with singles who are in their late 20's and early 30's.

5

u/Remarkable_Cause1384 Sep 11 '26

tbh women should just be free. Certain weird men would cry about it but if there's an abundance of girls at an event... the men will come.

12

u/Nitr0_CSGO Sep 11 '26

Based on what people have said there is an abundance of women but basically no men

4

u/Spankpocalypse_Now Sep 11 '26

I’ve seen women on Reddit complaining there are no men at singles meetups, but the men I know in real life have said the opposite. Feels like the gender divide is so bad that men and women aren’t even hearing about the same events.

3

u/Jah_Ith_Ber Sep 11 '26

This is what I've heard too. Apparently the women show up with the same absurd expectations that they have in online dating, but now they are physically in front of you pissed off that you're not 6'2 and gorgeous. Getting swiped left one hundred times in a row through an app doesn't sting anywhere near as much as getting swiped left in person one hundred times in a row.

1

u/SmokingLimone Sep 12 '26

Where I live women can literally enter clubs for free on some days. There's still a male surplus

1

u/DoJ-Mole Sep 11 '26

Yeah I’ve been tempted to go to one but the age ranges I see advertised are usually 25-34. Which might be more of an option in the next few years but I’d rather not date older personally (one or two years older could be fine, but I’m only a few days into 26)

1

u/jaggedthoughts Sep 11 '26

That's interesting. I'm going to a dating event on Saturday where womens tickets sold out in less than a day but they can't get any men to attend

0

u/_BrokenButterfly Sep 12 '26

If they want women to come then it needs to be free for women. Or free for some woman aligned thing, like wearing a skirt, having a pony tail, etc.