Shit men on dating apps.

[ThatAquaRobin]

Feel like giving up. I mean seriously what's the bloody point?
I'm 49. I have been chatting to what seemed like a smart intelligent guy (55) for the past week in Whatsapp. Met on bumble.
He checked out ok, one mutual Facebook friend.
We had set up a date for this evening 6.30 and the last message I had was around 8ish last night saying how he was looking forward to it.
Today he cancels at 1pm-ish saying "he's met someone else he likes and wanted to be honest"
Am I naive or is this the norm now?
Honestly I just want to cry
What's the point?

Have you read / joined "The Burned Haystack Dating Method" by Jennie Young?

You can find the BHDM group on Facebook. Jennie Young is the author / organiser and she also has a substack blog and book coming out.

By the way I'm 57 and single.

Currently I'm not on any dating apps - but I have been on and off during the past 15 years. I do intend to dip my toe back into the OLD waters in a few months (well, perhaps Spring/Summer 2026).

My own idea for next time I try OLD
● change dating app every 3 months

Agree. It used to be a nice supportive thread that turned into a boasting thread and a couple of posters making it all about me me me me me.

@TwistedWonder so glad it wasn't just me seeing this, its rubbish as the thread was so nice and supportive and I felt like I could share on there.

My lovely friend has met a good looking and highly interesting bloke recently on a dating app - middle earner and early days but seems a decent one - never married Late 30s . However she too has a lot to offer, great looking, quirky, fun ,interesting portfolio career, lovely family, early 40s , never married but has a young teen son and lived with someone for 7 years, open minded and very easy going if a bit scatty !! ( think Bridget jones) . I think the thing is there are some decent chaps out there who are worth meeting but they really do have their pick of some fab women and can pick and choose a lot and easily drop you if it’s ’not Suiting’ knowing there’s plenty of other fab women to meet - I don’t think this applies sadly so much to older women - the pickings are much slimmer

Oh dear, I used to love that thread. Haven’t been on for months, it’s a shame it’s not supportive anymore. I’ve been on a couple of threads (like this one, and the one with the OP who’s never been in a relationship) that have turned into a thread full of great advice. So there’s still some great dating advice on this board.

No it’s not the same for men as it is for women on dating apps. Not in your 40s anyway. In your 40s the vast majority of people (no, not everyone) are married with kids. And most of those women also having caring responsibilities for elderly parents and work too. Now 75-80% of all divorces are initiated by women. So 75-80% of the men on dating apps in their 40s are men, whose ex-wives have decided they would rather be a lot poorer, lose their home, move to a shittier neighbourhood, take on more hours at work, do more childcare and have less time for themselves than spend one single second extra in the company of said man. IT IS NOT THE SAME FOR MEN.
The only thing for it OP is to wait until your 60’s when you start to see more widowers coming onto the apps.
(light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek, yada, yada)

Okay so using your maths - 25% of single men over 40 are NOT the ones women ran away screaming from. So for us - we’re in the same boat as the 75% of women, who all think we’ll be as bad as what they escaped from….

I read a bit about that method and the principle seems good. I actually think I more or less applied it when I was doing OLD.
The only problem is that I feel that once a woman hits 50 there are no more needles in that haystack 😁.
No I would not meet guys if their profile was hardly filled out, if they had not done an effort to put a decent picture with their profile, if they send me a message with just "Hi". But after applying that filter there were no guys left to meet 😀.
The fact is that it's simple demographics. From a certain age on there are simply more women than men in general. And there are also more single women than men. Mind you we are looking for a heterosexual man, and there are significantly more gay men than there used to be 30 years ago.
This means that a decent single heterosexual man over 50 has his pick of women. There are some who become rude because of this.
For 50+ women it's slim pickings.

In theory you may be right. In practice? Hmmm I wish

On one of these threads, someone provided advice that you needed to be targeted with OLD, pay for premium for one month, use all the advanced filters and swipe away. Well that was a shit move. Got shadow banned.

There is no way to game dating apps, they punish you for next spending enough time on them, they punish you for not being on them regularly etc. Even when you give them money, they still don't give you anything.

Because in theory we are all looking for the same thing.

People suggest meeting someone socially - I find that impossible. I joined a new gym recently (for fitness rather than meeting someone). But there isn't really much chat before or after classes and no way of knowing who may be single of not.

I have used the apps in the past and without trying to make it into a sob story or boast, was quite surprised (after reading posts on here about how rubbish ex husbands were) to get so little matches for me. While I am no Brad Pitt I would consider myself average looking, physically fit, wide range of hobbies from pubs to travel to flying, high income, nice house - super clean, can cook, emotionally intelligent yet despite having good pics and detailed bio got very little. I was only looking for long term.

That’s why a lot of older women go younger now.

Yes, that is surprising.

I would say that if you are a decent man™ you should expect 1 like a week, a Brad Pitt type should expect 1 or 2 likes a day. Any woman should expect 1 like an hour.

A lot of statistics I see bounded around is that men receive about 1 like for every 100 a woman receives. Men really shouldn't expect much from dating apps, indeed the premium features are very much geared towards them (with the unlimited liking etc), whereas for women you can just sit back and watch the likes come in and tick your pick.

@TwistedWonder I went and looked on the dating thread, the sheer boasting there sounds like a troll!

@BeerAndMusic have you ever asked friends why they think you aren't having much luck? Or can a female friend rewrite your profile? It could even be as basic as you have too many hobbies or too good to be true?

Agree. Get a woman - or women - to critique your profile. And your picture choice. And your filters. They will have a different perspective, and obviously it will be more relevant than yours!

@BeerAndMusic you seem to be exactly what a lot of women are looking for so there has to be a reason why you’re not getting the interest. Old pics? Not stating what you’re looking for? Any phrasing in your bio that’s offputting? Get a friend to check your profile out. I showed some friends mine recently and they said it was good. I wanted some feedback on the photos but they confirmed that they all looked like me and there was a good range on there which was reassuring. Now I’m just trying to find a match that’s a normal human being.

@BeerAndMusic for example if someone went on and on about travelling, this would be offputting to me. Or if they were overly flirty, thats a no. Too many drinking comments - thats a no! Too much about wanting to wine and dine me, thats a no! The person may be perfectly decent but the wording etc would make me swipe left!

There's probably nothing wrong with his profile, it's simply a numbers game, and we have seen from time and time again that men who state that they are on OLD simply get no interest, that's just how OLD works. There have been previous threads about how it is a lot worse for men than women on OLD.

Women get the wrong kind of attention, men get no attention. That's OLD in a nutshell.

There are simple things that can help a man get the profile right though.

1. Be truthful about age. "I'm actually 56 not 49 but can't change it" - immediate swipe left.
2. ditto "No drama please"

And ‘if you don’t look like your photos, you’re buying the drinks until you do’

Is that one real?! I think these things are such a cliche now that if a man is serious about finding a woman on OLD or has had a female friend review their profile, they wouldn’t put such rubbish in there.

Red flags are much more subtle now. For example I found the men who had any kind of self-congratulatory quote in their profile (think “man in the arena…” and the like) or who alluded to being obsessed with a certain branch of self-development (cold plunge, sauna therapy etc) to be the worst. They had zero interest in an equal partnership and just wanted a (usually younger) woman to worship them. They had ‘main character’ syndrome, as the kids are calling it.

@TheSuperfluousWoman The fact is that it's simple demographics. From a certain age on there are simply more women than men in general. And there are also more single women than men.
This means that a decent single heterosexual man over 50 has his pick of women. There are some who become rude because of this.

You literally just made this up, because it's incorrect.

Men on dating apps massively outnumber women.

Men compete for women on dating apps; it's not the other way round. If a man was to swipe right on every profile, he might get 2 or 3 matches a month or so. If a woman was to swipe right on every profile, the number would be higher than that.

There are plenty of single men who are prepared to go on dates with women. Pretending otherwise is just delusion.

@Crushed23 I think these things are such a cliche now that if a man is serious about finding a woman on OLD or has had a female friend review their profile, they wouldn’t put such rubbish in there.

It's not gender-specific. There are plenty of women who also use that joke in their profile.

It's a bit of a cliche joke, but it's a joke nonetheless.

If I see this I immediately swipe left. Not the type of man I want.