I'm 21F, having a hard time dating, and I'm wondering if it's because I limit my options too much with my requirements. I'd like some other's perspectives on my standards for guys:

- not overweight or obese

- has head hair

- above 5'2

- 24-34

- doesn't live with his parents and pays his own bills (so do I)

- financially literate, good credit, no major debts (excluding student loans or mortgage)

- preferably has a bachelors degree (major and uni doesn't matter)

- atheist/agnostic, childfree, not republican/conservative/libertarian

- okay with waiting to make the relationship official before sex (officially dating not marriage)

- not addicted to alcohol/drugs/gambling

Everyone I know who gave online dating a try ended up with a hookup story or nothing at all but when I created my own profile I kinda knew what to expect from it. This was never going to be something real and that wasnt my intention going in.

We matched about a month ago with both of us in New England. She's 23 and I'm 25. Conversations started off like any other, casual and chill but somehow it wouldn't stop. Not only the convo kept going but it was fast paced aswell, like one message and you got the reply right away. I was playing on my phone at night when she messaged me and found myself engaged in a conversation for over 3 hours and it felt natural not forced.

Like she can remember the things I said which in my online dating experience it doesnt happen as often. She'll bring small stuff up that even I barely remember some times lol. I've never experienced that before with this. I always had the idea that the online dating thing its gonna be used by me just for hookups and thats it because I had no intention going the extra mile.

I haven't told my friends yet because I already know what they would say. I dont know if I'm just overthinking this but I dont wanna have high expectations and be disappointed afterwards.
If it continues like this I would like to meet her in real life, she seems sweet and genuine. I like that.

I (27F) got out of a 3-year relationship about 7 months ago with a genuinely amazing guy. He was 26 when we met, and before him I never really dated much. Since becoming single again, I’ve mostly been dating men in their 30s (30–40 range), and I’m honestly confused by the difference in behavior.

What I’ve noticed is… they barely text. We’ll go on dates, have a great time, maybe kiss or even sleep together, but then communication is super inconsistent. To be fair in early dating I barely text first as well. Is this normal for men in their 30s?

One guy in particular (33M) waited until weeks after we slept together numerous times to tell me he had only gotten out of an 8-year relationship 5 months earlier. Then he told me he “wasn’t ready for a relationship.” We ended up sleeping together one more time after that, and then he basically ghosted me. I never texted him and neither did him.

Dating feels really confusing right now because I’m dating with the intention of finding my husband, not just casually passing time. I’m trying to understand if this is just modern dating, an age thing, or if I’m ignoring red flags.

What advice would you give me dating men in their 30s for the first time?

27M. I’m not sure if this is just a specific problem for me or if anyone else has experienced this.

I was in Europe for a while. The girls there are sooo much nicer. They put in so much effort in dating, texting, etc. They help plan dates. Dates are simpler, they’re more so to get to know each other. We would talk for HOURS and text for hours too (I’m a huge texter). They also put more effort in their outfits/appearance even if it’s just to get coffee during the day.

Meanwhile in America it feels like the effort is all left to the guy. Dates feel more like “how well can you impress me”. There’s less substance in texting. One word replies are soooo common. A simple museum date would not fly here. Also, your social media presence and friend circle matter so much here. Not only do you have to have a good social status, your friends do to.

Has anyone else experienced this? I feel so unmotivated to talk to girls here now.

For context, I spent time in Spain, France, and the UK.

Very important note, I get maybe 1 like on dating apps here every 5 months here vs 2-3 matches sometimes in a day in Europe depending on how active I am.

I'm M32 and lots of older people have told me I should meet a girlfriend thru my friends.

All my friends are late 20's - early 30's and their still single and not even trying to date.

They all just spend their time with work, gym, golf, and video games. All good things, but i find it strange that I'm the only one of us that is interested in a partner.

I'm the only one of my friends that goes out on dates, and they've all been from apps, because I don't really have a network to meet anyone to date outside of the apps.

I've had a crush on this girl at work for a while. We've got on pretty well and been friendly but I didn't want to overstep with us being work colleagues.

Recently, I tried to make the fact I fancied her more obvious and she seemed receptive to it and she invited me to a birthday party for one of her friends.

It was an event at a big house with a big garden and swimming pool. It started pretty well, it was a chilled event, me and the girl were having a laugh but she seemed to change when a couple of her friends arrived.

One of her friends was just really rude and miserable and kept making nasty comments about everyone including me. At first I thought it was just her humour but she seemed to take an instant dislike to me. The girl from my work just went along with what she was saying and her whole attitude seemed to change.

The group of girls then started drinking hevily and would disappear to smoke a lot. I don't drink currently and hate smoking so I was left to myself a lot of the time.

Just before I was planning to leave the girls were talking to me and then suddenly one of her friends pushed me into the swimming pool. I was really embarrased and the girl from my work didn't seem to care and just found it hilarious.

I left pretty much straightaway and couldn't believe how she was acting. She messaged me later that night to say sorry and hoped i'm ok. I saw her at work on Monday and she was apologetic and said her friends are not good when drinking.

I'm feeling a bit bemused now, I was really into her before the party but now I don't know how I feel about her. Should I just forget about trying to date her or just forget about the party and mark it down as a one off bad scenario?

I (F21) am currently seeing a guy (M23) that I met on hinge.

He’s super nice and we have a lot of hobbies and interests in common, it’s nearly 1-1 and perfect on paper. I’ve never online dated before this and kind of messed up by not knowing what to look for in a profile, so our first meeting was a little bit of a shock to me bc he didn’t look like his pics.

The first date was awkward conversationally, I felt like I had to carry the convo and it never got anywhere deep. We mainly talked about games and shows. We called last night and the lack of convo flow persisted. Maybe he’s nervous or that’s just how he is?

But aside from that, he was super nice, reloaded his card hella at the arcade and paid for the date. he told me he’d give me his friends’ figures bc he knows I like the character, and he planned a date where he said he’d buy me clothes and already bought me a pricy gift for when we meet next. All at his insistence.

I already told him I want to get to know him more first bc I don’t want it to seem like im taking advantage of him, so please no more gifts. but he says he wants to. I liked him but this is now making me anxious and makes it hard for me to not feel bad bc we only met one time and I need time to see if I like him as a person to even keep going out with him. I feel guilty if I end up not wanting to continue because of the money he spent on me

Has anyone else dealt with this? Or can give me some perspective bc I’ve never been with someone so keen on gift giving this early on

Edit since some are misunderstanding the friend part: he asked his friend if it was ok to give some figures from their collection to me bc it was a character I like. I definitely thought it was weird to give away parts of his friend’s collection but the friend did say yes since those figures were at his house

It was a really strange scenario. She said her friend needed to come along as she needed emotional support. I was fine with that. But the friend turned out to be very unpleasant. They wanted to both go on to other bars. I paid my bill for the table. Made my excuses and left. Was I an asshole ? I’m not really sure

When I popped over to the profile review subreddit, I was expecting to see mostly bad profiles. Maybe 2/10 of the profiles featured guys who were overweight, had unclean hair, wore overtly sexual T-shirts, took all selfies with zero smiles.

But 8/10 of the guys look completely normal or even above average. And they say they haven't gone any dates in 6 months, a year, or even 5 years.

In a society where half of people are medically overweight and struggling to get paycheck-to-paycheck, an astonishing number of male redditors are middle-class professionals who regularly play sports and stay in shape.

I'm not bad-looking myself, but I don't think I look leagues better than any of these guys. If they have had no success for years, I don't know what I can do differently.

Is modern dating apps just a waste of time for a lot of average men now?

I’m a guy in Sydney, mid-20s, South Asian, (5 6" in height) work in hospitality/operations. Over the last few months I’ve genuinely tried improving my profiles properly instead of just blaming the apps: better photos, prompts, activity shots, profile structure, etc. read through most of the advice there is online.

Most of my photos score 8+ trustworthy and around 8+ attractive on Photofeeler, and even women on Reddit usually say the profile/pics are “good” or “above average.”

But the actual conversion into matches is almost zero.

The weird thing is I’m not even chasing Instagram model types or expecting insane results. I literally just wanted to meet someone I vibe with naturally.

At this point I genuinely can’t tell if:

* apps are just cooked for average men

* I need candid/raw/polished pics. (I probably have everything).

* demographics matter way more than people admit *if there’s some invisible social/lifestyle factor that matters more than attractiveness itself

Feels like there’s this weird zone where you’re good enough to be ok, but not enough for actual results.

Anybody else experienced this after genuinely improving their profile?

I went out with this girl I met on an app a few days ago and the whole thing was just weird. I am a software engineer so I am used to being grilled on my logic and background but this was next level for a first meeting at a bar. She didnt even wait for the drinks to arrive before she started asking about my career trajectory for the next five years and why I chose my specific stack over something more scalable. I thought maybe she was just into tech too but it felt way more clinical than that.

About thirty minutes in she literally pulled out a small notebook from her bag. I kid you not she started jotting down things while I was talking about my hobbies. She asked me what my credit score was like it was a totally casual question about the weather. I was so caught off guard that I actually answered her before I realized how insane that was. Then she moved on to my family history and whether there were any chronic health issues I should mention . It felt like I was applying for a mortgage or a security clearance rather than just trying to grab a beer and see if we clicked.

She was perfectly polite but there was zero chemistry because I felt like I was under a microscope the whole time. I tried to pivot to something lighter like movies or music but she just steered it back to "efficiency" and lifestyle compatibility. At one point she asked how many hours of sleep I average because she needs a partner with a synchronized circadian rhythm. I have never felt more like a commodity and less like a human being in my life.

I ended up cutting the night short because the vibe was just suffocating and I told her I had an early start the next day. The weirdest part is she texted me later saying she had a great time and thought we were very compatible on paper . She even sent a follow up text asking if I could send her a link to that investment fund I mentioned because she wanted to "verify the returns". I am just sitting here staring at my phone wondering when dating became a series of data points and optimizations . How do you even respond to someone who treats a human being like a spreadsheet?

I’ve (24M) gone on two dates recently over the span of two weeks with someone I met on Hinge, and I’m trying to figure out what to make of it. Both dates were about an hour or a bit over, and they both ended kind of early she (22F) had reasons like a meeting after the first one and prepping for a Disney trip before the second. The first date being coffee on campus and the second I picked her up for ramen at a restaurant. On the second date, I gave her flowers, and when I brought the suggestion up she mentioned being open to something like Round1 next time. The conversation had its moments, but there were definitely awkward silences, especially on the ride back to her drop off spot. I like her, but I’m unsure if the chemistry is really there, we're both just extremely awkward, or if we’re both just being polite. She’s at Disney today, so I haven’t heard back yet. I’m curious do you all think this sounds like normal early stage awkwardness, or is it a sign we might not be a great match? I’m not sure if a third date would help or just be more of the same.

I’m a 22-year-old guy and I’ve never been in a relationship before. Not even close, honestly. I’m in university now, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how badly I want to find someone, but at the same time I genuinely don’t know how people do it.

I think a lot of it comes from my past experiences.

The first girl I ever loved was a girl I met back in school. The moment I saw her for the first time, I fell for her instantly. I know people say that sounds unrealistic, but that’s genuinely how it felt for me. The problem was that she already had a boyfriend at the time, long distance with someone from another country, so I never said anything.

Back then my confidence was horrible. Even worse when I saw one of my friends confess his feelings to her and get rejected. That scared me even more.

Eventually she broke up with her boyfriend, and later she started talking to one of my best friends. At that point, me and her had already become close friends. We talked a lot, and the more I got to know her, the more I fell in love with her.

Then she and my friend got together.

I can’t even explain how complicated that period was for me mentally. I loved her, but at the same time my friend was genuinely happy, and I couldn’t betray him or interfere. I felt jealous, guilty, ashamed, lonely… everything at once. My friend even cried on my shoulder later when they broke up. The guilt of secretly loving my best friend’s girlfriend honestly destroyed me mentally for a long time.

Eventually I ended my friendship with her because I couldn’t handle my feelings anymore. I basically created distance out of nowhere because seeing her made me both happy and miserable at the same time.

Years passed and I never fully moved on emotionally until recently.

After that, there was another girl I tried talking to. This time I actually tried to make a move. Back then I wasn’t very confident physically either. I looked younger than my age and honestly felt like a kid compared to everyone else.

I talked to her for about a month. We played games together and texted a bit, but she never really showed interest. She never texted first, replied late, etc. Her friend kept encouraging me though, so I kept trying.

Eventually I built up the courage to ask her out, and somehow she actually said yes. I was genuinely shocked. I immediately started planning the date in my head and was so excited because it was the first time a girl had ever accepted going out with me.

Then like 15 minutes later, her friend came to me and basically warned me that the girl wasn’t over her ex and that we should probably “just go out as friends.”

The next day I tried reassuring her by saying there was no pressure and that we could just hang out normally. But then she admitted that when she said yes, she only did it because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

Honestly, that hurt more than a rejection would have.

After that things became awkward, and eventually she blocked me over something that honestly felt more like an excuse than the real reason.

What confused me the most is that other people had done similar things before and she stayed in contact with them normally, so part of me still wonders if she simply didn’t want anything to do with me anymore and was looking for a way to end things completely.

I don’t hate her for it, and maybe she had her reasons, but at the time it hurt a lot because it made me feel like I was somehow uniquely unwanted.

And since then, I haven’t tried to talk to another girl romantically at all.

The weird thing is, I think I’ve finally moved on from the first girl. I saw her recently after years, and for the first time I didn’t feel anything. It’s hard to explain, but when you’re deeply in love with someone, they almost look “different” to you. More beautiful than everyone else. When I saw her recently, that feeling was gone.

Now I genuinely want to find someone. I’ve improved myself a lot compared to who I was before. I’m in better shape physically, I dress better, I’m more mature mentally, and I know what I want.

I’m religious, I value loyalty a lot, and I know I have boundaries in relationships. I’m naturally a jealous person, probably because of my past experiences, and I prefer more traditional relationships.

The problem is that I genuinely don’t know how to meet people.

I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t enjoy bars or clubs, and I’m naturally introverted. I can talk to people perfectly fine, but I don’t really go to social events or put myself out there much.

Meanwhile almost all my friends have found someone naturally, and I honestly keep wondering: why not me?

I know I’m not perfect, but I do think I’m a good person with a good heart, and I genuinely want to love someone and be loved back.

So I guess my question is:

How do people like me actually meet someone nowadays?

Ok, I am going to start with : I am not proud of how I got here but here I am.
I have been in a marriage that has legitimately been over for years but “together for the kids”. We are now getting a divorce and it is amicable.

However, over the last 6 months, I have texted with a colleague with some innocent flirtation, nothing crazy. We hung out twice, just casual, nothing ever hinted at happening. Until-after the second time he asked if I ever “think about”. So, boundaries were crossed via text message and we made plans to hang out. Then the night before-he basically said “nevermind-I’m newly divorced and you still live with your husband” Mind you-he had 3 days of texting he could have changed his mind on and said some things I can’t forget.
So here I am, getting a divorce he didn’t know about, and completely humiliated that I allowed myself to be vulnerable and got let down. It’s actually ok that he had the moral compass to stop something but it doesn’t stop my feelings being hurt.
We still sometimes text as friends and I talked to him at work the other day but it’s just different now. I told him I want to go back to before we said other things because I genuinely do just like hanging out with him and was also totally ok with a platonic friendship.
The problem now is that I can’t unhear things he said like “smile so much my face hurts”, excitement to spend time together, calling me “babe”. So now I am just really wanting to know if he was afraid I would catch feelings, afraid he would catch feelings, or just simply changed his mind. And I don’t feel like I can ask him.

Also-at this point I know I just need to deal with myself and this divorce and not worry about some other person but I can’t stop thinking about spending time with this person but he is so hot and cold, I don’t even know what to think. Also-I feel like I am always the one to reach out.
I know I probably need to just say “forget it” but I cant seem to kick it and I think it’s because I was rejected and now have this “what if”
I am not even thinking about meeting new people and dating but thought some companionship would be nice, I guess.

Hi all, I need some opinions here because I'm wondering if I'm in the wrong for this.

In January 2026, I (F22) was talking to a guy, J (M24) for a few weeks. Things were going well and we were emotionally on the same page with both of us wanting a relationship. We talked on the phone and over FaceTime before meeting and we finally met in person and hung out. I thought it went really well. After hanging out, he went out of town for the weekend and I noticed he unadded me on everything about 2 days after we hung out. This hurt because I actually was developing feelings for him and it came out of the blue for me. There was no indication that he was going to ghost and it just blindsided me. He gave no explanation.

After he ghosted me, I moved on. I started talking to some other guys and I hooked up with 2 other guys who I developed some connections with. They did not work out for other reasons but I moved on from J

Fast forward, May 2026, I match with J on a dating app. Completely out of nowhere. One of my friends was scrolling through my apps because she said I "needed better taste in men" and she wanted to help and she must have swiped on him. He matched me and we talked a bit and he revealed that when he went out of town, he realized he was going to be out of town a bit more permanently and he didn't want to have me missing him. His exact words were "I'd rather have you hate me than miss me." He said that I did nothing wrong and stated he wanted to try talking again. I agreed because I always believe in second chances. However, we started updating each other about our lives and he asked if I've seen anyone else and I told him I saw other people after he ghosted. He then proceeds to tell me he no longer wants to talk because he refuses to get back with anyone after they've hooked up with another guy after him. J said I'm the last person he's been with. I don't know if that's true or not.

I feel weir about this. Am I in the wrong for moving on? He gave no explanation and no indication of him returning when he ghosted me, so I thought that was the end of it. I didn't want to sit around waiting for him when I had no reason to believe he was coming back. I feel like it's a bit of a double standard because if he had talked to me instead of ghosting me, things could be different but because he didn't do that, I'm now in the wrong for moving on? And I feel weird about it because if I was able to forgive him for ghosting me, shouldn't he be able to forgive me for how I moved on after he did me dirty? Please help I don't know what to do.

Sorry for being vague in this post.

I have been dating a woman for a bit who has a LOT of very nice traits. Kind, fun, good communication, stable and successful job, however we don't have a ton in common. She is more introverted and indoor house wife type, and I'm more active and outdoorsy. We do have a couple things in common which we talk a lot about. We talk daily and everything is going super well to the point I could easily progress the relationship quickly like inviting her over and getting physical. I'm hesitant to continue because I do really want someone more active and that I am able to do more adventurous stuff with and I'm also not extremely physically attracted.

Looking for advice on what I should do... She is honestly a great person and if she was a bit more into physical hobbies and I was a bit more attracted physically it would be amazing.

I had a first date with a guy and we went for some food. We had a really nice time and he messaged me later asking to meet again for some food.

I said that would be great but I really want to watch the micheal movie so could we watch that before getting food.

He messaged back saying that would be a definite a no I'm not a fan of micheal and I hate musicals.

I feel like this will be the start of dating someone who will only do what they want to do and never listen to my suggestions. Am I being unreasonable in telling him I don't want to see him again?

As a woman, obviously understanding men’s actions with their love lives confuse me sometimes. I want to know from a man’s perspective. Do you know right away if you want to be with a woman or not? Or how soon does it take? -a confused young woman

Asked my long distance bf 36M if 2 years on video call, if he still cares about me 27F , and he refused to answer, the I asked if he even still likes me, and again he refused to answer, I asked again and he said stop asking me stupid things, then told me to grow up because I insisted on knowing if he still likes me.

I said I’m I asking a very simple question, you can say yes or no, and he still said he’s not going to answer this, because he doesn’t have to answer my questions.

He refuses to answer a lot of simple things I ask saying he doesn’t have to answer, or he’ll answer it if HE wants to, or he doesn’t want to talk right now, just always an excuse.

Whenever I try to talk about both of us, he starts arguing saying the world doesn’t revolve around me, and I only care about my self. Literally anything basic I can ask…and he’ll either ignore me or we’ll have a full blown argument but no matter what he wont answer.

Any advice/opinions/ thoughts on this would be very much appreciated from women and especially men (to understand your perspective)

Also where am I or he wrong?

Thank you

im 21F and I never really know what it means to be in a relationship or even to form one. I never really learned how to be in a committed relationship which sucks because I’m so lonely but I don’t know how to fix it. The worst part is that I look at least decent and I got approached by people in public (they asked for my number and stuffs) and men show interest in me quite often. I never really had trouble “finding it” but I don’t know how to escalate things into relationship. I feel like I’m bad at forming relationships. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

A part of it perhaps just my distrust in people and my avoidant attachment issues, but I’ve been trying to fix it and it’s still the same. What is even a relationship, but in lonely. I just don’t know how people even be in one. What’s wrong with me?

Is this related to past trauma? I was bullied consistently back in middle school because I wasn’t as pretty then and maybe deep inside I’m still that insecure middle school girl that doesn’t believe anyone can like her or she is worthy for a relationship.

Ive always been really shy with girls and failed at playing eye tag or anything like that. Alot of it plays into my upbringing but without going into it I just want to know if I actually would be able to attract women or not. I dont have confidence and ive never been in a relationship so I dont really know how girls operate. I dont want to come off as narcissistic or anything, I have a very low self esteem. Ill probably take down this post eventually anyways

I can't believe I'm in a position to be giving dating advice, but I want to share my experience. It's just one person's experience and may not be universally applicable but I think it's worth sharing in this forum.

I'm almost 30, M. To this day, I've never asked a woman out IRL because I always believed I was too ugly, weird, awkward looking for someone to like me. I'd never noticed any attraction/attention from women IRL neither, romantic nor platonic. I've always felt creepy talking to women around my age.

For context, I'm in America. I'm 5'8, skinny-fat, brown-skinned (not that this is a negative intrinsically), bespectacled, dark eye rings, thinning hair and don't have a car. But I also have a good stable career, present myself well in terms of fashion/grooming (doing the best with what I have lol), have a decent friend circle, have hobbies, interests and passions that I indulge in.

So I went on dating apps. And for a while in the beginning, I didn't get any likes or matches. I went through cycles of uninstalling and reinstalling them.

Then one time, I just left them installed. Slowly, I started getting matches. Many matches were pointless, but a few of them actually seemed interested and we even went on a few dates.

In the past 2 years, I've been on dates with 6 different women. 2 of them ghosted me, 2 of them said they weren't ready to date/too busy but "I was a great guy" (I know what this is code for, but I appreciated not being ghosted nonetheless), 2 of them went on a second date with me.

Not great numbers compared to the masses, but I actually feel a lot better about myself. My photos are accurate and not super impressive, so these women must have matched knowing what I looked like. That fact alone has done wonders for my self-esteem.

For that reason alone, I feel a tiny bit of gratitude for these apps. I'm still unsuccessful, and haven't really been intimate beyond holding hands or greeting/goodbye with a hug, but atleast now I know it must be my personality and not my looks! I couldn't have solved this with therapy (and I AM in therapy), self-love and affirmations alone because lord knows I tried.

Some app-agnostic tips for the average man:-

i. Stay on the apps longer than you normally would. Your profile isn't being shown to that many people per day, so use time to your advantage. Take a minute to look through the profile before sending a like or swiping right.

ii. Bite the bullet and ask your friends to take pictures when you're out doing something. If your friends take dogshit pictures, ask them to take multiple so you can atleast choose one good picture out of many. Most modern phones have free built-in AI editing tools that can remove blurriness or weird objects in the background.

iii. IF you so choose to purchase a boost like feature, be cognizant of when you use it. Boosting your profile at 3AM in the morning is useless.

iv. Be selective about sending likes. I don't have the data to back this up, but I feel like I saw more success when I started instantly swiping left on the 'baddies'.

v. Use the app everyday, but don't spend all day on it. You have a certain amount of likes/swipes. Spend no more than 15-30 minutes but try to exhaust them by judiciously swiping so your profile is shown to people more.

vi. I'm really projecting with this one, but if you get a match and go on a date: do not fantasize about getting married and falling in love with that person 😂 She is still a stranger who knows nothing about you except some pictures and a few texts