Is OLD as hard for men as it is for women

[Beanfry]

I keep reading about how OLD is a cess pit for women, that there are no good men out there. But are men finding it the same in reverse, or are there really 100 women to every good man?

starting to think about dipping my toe back into the dating world, but the stories of how bad OLD is is putting me off. For context i turned 40 last week, so my dating age range would be 37 - 45

God, reading this makes me think it's brutal out there. I don't think I'd bother if I was single, to be honest.

It was absolutely clear. Not sure how you missed it.

this thread is literally asking if it’s as bad for men on line dating as for women!

I thought was joining in the lightheartedness with a bit of “yes it is”

I very much doubt that’s true. Studies have shown that the majority of women on OLD pursue the top 20% of men, in terms of appearance. The other 80% barely get a look-in.

I found your posts interesting @ZoggyStirdust

To be fair, I think the OP was inviting comments from men about their experience of OLD. At least, that's the way I read it. Not sure why you need to be so hostile. It's interesting to hear another perspective.

Apologies I thought this was another thread about OLD - meant to post in that one

Thank you
i mean, it’s been a while and I’m no expert. I was doing it about 10 years ago for a few months, then a couple of years ago for a few months. Happily off the dating scene now with only a few metaphorical bruises and stories.

my mate is just starting out online dating (at the age of 56) and I said to him that there are lovely people out there, they can just be a bit hard to find. he’s a great bloke and I hope he stands out as being that amongst a sea of horrors!

I’m out of the picture now, but at 40 are you not young? And is this app called OLD for older people? Personally, I would be worried about the pool of people an app like that would attract .

OLD just stands for on line dating.

But that’s literally the title of the thread! It wasn’t set up as a general “let’s moan about men on OLD”. If you wanted a thread for that, you should create one yourself!

Ah yes, ‘no drama’ translates to ‘I am utterly incapable of solving conflict like a grown up, I will expect you to add loads of value to my life, whilst adding none to yours, but don’t dare call me out on that.’

TwistedWonder said that they thought they were on a different thread

It’s definitely hard for men, in some respects harder but in a very different way.

as others have said, even a very attractive , 6’+ man with a decent job will struggle to get a tenth of the messages a less attractive women will, but I’d argue the overall quality of women is a little (not much ) better than the men.

80% of my messages received were ‘hi’ or ‘hello’ with no real substance; it may well be the majority of men send similar messages, but I personally looked at their profile and based my initial message on that.

I’d also suggest 25% of the women I was chatting to were only interested in sex, and ghosting was common.

I think there is more cat fishing with women, with an awful lot filtering their pics, and I suspect quite a high number of men pretending to be women for kicks. There are often the same photos, which have been slightly edited for different profiles.

luckily I’ve found an amazing person now so hopefully my days of OLD are over!

It's a lot worse for men.

The assumption that decent men get snapped up is absolutely false. Men are unlikely to ever get any matches or any likes.

OLD is very favourable to women. Or rather it is a lot worse for people seeking a female partner.

As a male I have had zero interest from women, when I selected "also interested in men" then a lot of likes from men came in.

I met my DH on OLD a long time ago, perhaps the cohort was different then but I would say as a woman I got more interest than I expressed. But I think thats partly how men function, they send out more interest. I do think if you are a fundamentally normal and decent man you can probably find someone though.

If you are sending out dick pics and then wondering why you are still single it may seem that OLD is difficult to meet someone on but thats a “you” problem.

I think part of the problem as well is that when people meet organically theres usually some sort of personal connection so people behave better. If you meet someone on-line disconnected from your friends and family and you are in a closed loop then people are more likely to behave badly because no-one can see them doing it. Which means that you dodged a bullet every time someone is upfront about being an arse, male or female.

If you have had ‘zero interest from women’ have you put any thought in to what you could change about yourself/your profile to be appealing to women?

Yup my DH was my one and only date on OLD, I snapped him up, obviously his profile was fine, he had the same interests as me so that was a big motivating factor for me, more so than profile pic etc.

Also consider who you are approaching. If you are 50 and messaging 30 year olds thats probably not going to happen.

@GlassFanBan I'm curious... Were the men after a relationship or friendship?? Interesting to get a male perspective on the perils of on line dating .

Put a lot of thought into it, looked at what makes a decent profile, hopefully put decent responses to prompts, had professional photos taken etc.

When comparing to profiles I've looked at, some don't bother with any prompts etc, hopefully I've put some effort into it.

The simplest answer is that I'm just not appealing to women.

What a daft question.

The main complaint I've heard from male freinds about OLD is the photos not reflecting the person you end up meeting. Sometimes radically so.

I take it you’ve never explored OLD? Most of the men put zero effort in to their profile. ‘Ask me anything’ ‘will fill this in later’ ‘looking for a whore in the bedroom and a maid in the house’ ‘no drama wanted’ ‘must have big boobs’ etc etc

I’m sorry to hear that, my only suggestion then is whether you’re swiping yes on comparable women?

I’ve only used OLD out of curiosity (and seen men I know locally on Bumble /those profiles have been true to what I know of them, but most of my single friends have dabbled (and mostly all still single). Depends on age perhaps -two friends on their 30s met on Tinder 4 years ago and have a good relationship. IME good men who become available are often rapidly snapped up
in the wild. I am in the early stages of a relationship with a man I met through friends who were inviting him out to functions as he had been recently widowed, not looking for a partner for him, but just to get him to socialize more- and no way would he have gone on a dating site. He is a lovely person but would not have attracted much attention from women on there as he is a driving instructor and women seem to filter out any job that isn’t professional/highly paid. Certainly my friends generally have a ‘wishlist’ and he wouldn’t have made it. So I think decent men have a much better chance of finding a partner in RL through mutual interests.