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Original poster

The forced chat of online dating

32 replies

RiRaAgusRuailleBuaille · 19/04/2025 11:14

Joined Hinge last week after 5+ years of exceptionally happy celibacy.

My profile is incredibly fuckoffish - I don’t want to interact with anyone bigoted, homophobic, racist, misogynistic etc and I also want to weed out those with sectarian views (I’m in Ireland, it’s a thing…). One brave soul messaged me, we seemed to have a few things in common and arranged to meet up next week as we are both busy people.

But it’s just so tedious, being checked in on every bloody day. The “hi, how are you” or “how was your day?” from someone I know virtually nothing about. I would have preferred to meet up sooner as I would have been able to avoid several days of this inane back and forth.

Woke to another “how was your day” from late last night and just thought fuck this, it’s not for me. I don’t know this man, he doesn’t know me - why is he behaving like this? I realise he’s just following the pattern that seems to be expected in the online dating world but it is just so false. I would have been happy with very little contact between arranging to meet and the meeting itself. Maybe I should have said so, but by now I have the ick and there’s no going back.

Last time I was on the apps, I’m sure we just arranged to meet and there wasn’t this tedious preamble of forced conversation in the days between matching and meeting.

I’ve binned him off this morning (he just said “ok”) as I’m not interested in creating a fake online connection or in having to endure this until next week’s meeting - if there was something there, I probably wouldn’t be feeling like this. But the day after we agreed to meet, he started with the “how was your day?” banality. I did ask my male bestie whether he does this and he said it‘s a thing. So depressing. Back to happy appless life! Does feel like a weight off, not having to correspond with a pen pal…

OP posts:
BlondeMummyto1 · 19/04/2025 11:17

I used to focus on the ones that could jump in and talk rubbish from the get go and avoid the ones who have the same
boring conversation about their day going to the gym.

crimsonlake · 19/04/2025 11:21

Maybe online dating is not for you. I well know and remember the pointless conversations on old, it just drains the life out of you until you cannot do it anymore.

TwistedWonder · 19/04/2025 11:22

That’s why I gave up on OLD because it’s absolutely tedious and finding a man who can communicate is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I filtered very heavily and still struggled to find anyone who could have a mutual back and forth conversation. It’s too painfully dull for me

Original poster
RiRaAgusRuailleBuaille · 19/04/2025 11:27

BlondeMummyto1 · 19/04/2025 11:17

I used to focus on the ones that could jump in and talk rubbish from the get go and avoid the ones who have the same
boring conversation about their day going to the gym.

Chatting about random stuff is so much better than the forced “how was your day?” Every. Single. Evening. Nothing about his day unless asked. Such a shame but maybe he is that boring and it’s
not just him following what he perceives is the formula for the apps to try and force/create connection before the meet.

OP posts:
FidosMum84 · 19/04/2025 11:28

Yes it’s tedious and I’ve recently had the same experience. You sound quite annoyed and OLD takes a fair bit of patience to move past the drivel. Is it the right time for you?
My only advice would be to meet quickly and you avoid this or at least reduce the duration.

Original poster
RiRaAgusRuailleBuaille · 19/04/2025 11:29

crimsonlake · 19/04/2025 11:21

Maybe online dating is not for you. I well know and remember the pointless conversations on old, it just drains the life out of you until you cannot do it anymore.

It really is not for me now! I had a lot more energy last time I did it back in 2018. Way too perimenopausal to have dull chats with dull folk!

OP posts:
TwistedWonder · 19/04/2025 11:34

Tbh OP my friends who did OLD prior to COVID say it’s got much worse since 2020. Think a lot more people tried it in lockdown through boredom and now it’s just full of time wasters

Original poster
RiRaAgusRuailleBuaille · 19/04/2025 11:35

FidosMum84 · 19/04/2025 11:28

Yes it’s tedious and I’ve recently had the same experience. You sound quite annoyed and OLD takes a fair bit of patience to move past the drivel. Is it the right time for you?
My only advice would be to meet quickly and you avoid this or at least reduce the duration.

Totally hate the long gap, can’t stand this drivel chat before I have met someone. I wanted to meet much earlier but shifts and trips away made it impossible, should have just binned it off at that point as a waste of time.

OP posts:
TwistedWonder · 19/04/2025 11:36

crimsonlake · 19/04/2025 11:21

Maybe online dating is not for you. I well know and remember the pointless conversations on old, it just drains the life out of you until you cannot do it anymore.

I agree. I realised quite quickly that it wasn’t for me. Trying to draw blood out of a stone springs to mind.

I decided I’d rather stay single than try and strike up conversations with monosyllabic men who think lol or hi or 👋 equals decent communication.

PurpleChrayn · 19/04/2025 11:37

“How’s u?”

TwistedWonder · 19/04/2025 11:38

All right sexy 😘 - from a pensioner who looked like a goblin

BobbyBiscuits · 19/04/2025 11:42

I think you shouldn't give up just yet. He clearly didn't have the gift of the gab. He sounds boring.
Give it another try and maybe be direct about the conversation style you are into. Say up front you're not big on small talk before meeting up.

You sound like you're very confident and honest and I'm sure there must be a few decent blokes out there?! Maybe try a different app?

Woollygreymittens · 19/04/2025 11:42

@TwistedWonder you have made me laugh! That’s exactly my experience and the reason I’m single and no longer do online dating

Original poster
RiRaAgusRuailleBuaille · 19/04/2025 11:49

PurpleChrayn · 19/04/2025 11:37

“How’s u?”

Thankfully not that dire!

OP posts:
Original poster
RiRaAgusRuailleBuaille · 19/04/2025 11:50

TwistedWonder · 19/04/2025 11:38

All right sexy 😘 - from a pensioner who looked like a goblin

Edited

That’s priceless!

OP posts:
Gettingbysomehow · 19/04/2025 12:01

When I did date online I immediately blocked anyone who just turned up saying hi. Boring bastard alert. Think of something interesting to say.

RainySummer01 · 19/04/2025 12:07

When I was online dating I didn’t swap numbers with anyone until after we met a few times for that reason. I wanted to avoid the constant ‘How’s your day’ texts which were just wearing. Don’t give up completely though!

DenholmElliot11 · 19/04/2025 12:15

this is why i prefer to hunt for men in the wild instead. this way, you get to know them, then decide if you want to invest your time. It's why it's always worked so well.

Not invest your time, then realise how ill-matched you always were.

Eagle2025 · 19/04/2025 12:16

I remember once just for "fun" I decided to just repeat what he said to me (this was on the app we never got to the stage of exchanging numbers). Hey hows you?, fine, hows you? You been up to much today? Not much, yourself? Etc etc. Just put the minimum effort in like they did. Just to see how long they would tolerate it 😆

LetsWatchTheFlowersGrow · 19/04/2025 12:21

Of course the frequent “how was your day”? is a thing. I know that just from the “He hasn’t messaged in 6 hours, am I being ghosted”? threads on here.

By keeping in touch, however tedious, he’s showing you that he’s interested.

Tarragonpie · 19/04/2025 12:22

RiRaAgusRuailleBuaille · 19/04/2025 11:35

Totally hate the long gap, can’t stand this drivel chat before I have met someone. I wanted to meet much earlier but shifts and trips away made it impossible, should have just binned it off at that point as a waste of time.

Show quote history

Why do you have to keep chatting?
If you arrange to meet in a week can you not just say something like… ‘okay I’ll message you again the day before just to confirm, talk then’?
Would that stop the texting every day (in future)?

FiveStoryFire · 19/04/2025 12:27

This is ironic because you’re chatting with a load of people you’ve never met on here.

bananasarent · 19/04/2025 12:31

Honestly, I don't think it's an online dating thing generally, it's a crap man you've encountered! I've never had the same experience others bemoan on here and I think it is probably just I'm sooo picky about who I engage with. I have lots of filters and then have a decent amount of chat with someone back and forth getting to know them (maybe a week)to decide if I'm interested in meeting up. If we then had a gap between making a plan and then being able to meet up I'd probably deliberately cool the messaging in between...but I've never had the experience of them suddenly doing those crap How's your day messages after having been decent before. You can usually tell the crap ones from their banal chit chat from the off and I just delete those ones!

Lurkingandlearning · 19/04/2025 12:35

I’ve never thought about this before. I assume it’s done just to keep some flow going until you meet. Continuity? But I can see that it would be tedious. If you do give OLD another try and someone who seems promising drifts into that, how about saying: instead of boring each other with our daily grind until we meet, how about sharing a fun fact (you’d probably phrase that better.) Just impersonal odd things. I might say, I’m a strong swimmer but I’ve never learned to dive. Nothing deep or heavy, just things that would b a bit more interesting and might even make conversation easier on the first date.

Having said that I have never tried that, never had success with OLD, haven’t dated in years so wtf do I know 😬

Edited drive to dive. 🙄

CandyCane457 · 19/04/2025 12:59

Ergh yeah I would hate that forced “how was your day?” chit chat. Don’t give up though, as hopefully there are others out there who can actually have free flowing conversations. I did online dating for a couple of years and would soon ignore the ones who had no chat, but there were others where we chatted so easily.
Also I met my partner at a work do, and we swapped numbers, and got texting afterwards. We arranged a date for three weeks later, but those three weeks waiting for the first date were filled with constant, non stop texting and the chat was so good. I don’t think at any point in those three weeks we needed to ask “how was your day?” as we just had so much other stuff to naturally, free flowingly chat about.