What every happened to the good ole days when we met one another, searching for love, at a bar? Now everything is on an app. And these apps are proving more and more dangerous and faulty. Wouldn't you just love to know who runs these sites though and how their love lives are working out? Also, knowing the statistics of how we're all connecting (i.e... swiping) could help out with saving so much time. Let's see whose willing to spill the tea on the behind the scenes on the search for romance.
Redditor u/brunetteht3 wanted everyone to know exactly what they're getting when signing up for love with these "apps" by asking staff to divulge.... Redditors that worked with a dating company (Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, etc.), what's the most insane user stat or behind-the-scenes fact you found out about?Can't Look Away
social media smile GIF by Robert E Blackmon
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I have a friend who works for... I wanna say Tinder. Anyway, the company isn't important; what is important is that her ENTIRE job is to remove inappropriate images. Her JOB is to look at penis pics all day. Five days a week. That's all. No stat. Just a weird freaking job.
Renewals....
My ex bf worked for the Yahoo Italy dating site back in the early-ish 2000s. His job was to pretend to be a woman, and message male customers just as their accounts were going to expire. This would encourage them to pay to renew their subscriptions. Once they renewed, he would ghost them.
He only lasted for a few months due to how unethical it was.
Analytics...
I ran operations for an online dating company (notably not affiliated with Match). From database analytics I can tell you a few things. Men initiate contact around 80% of the time in straight matchmaking, and if you are a woman looking to date other women and you simply initiate contact with another woman you have a good chance of success simply because it's very very very common for women to match but then neither initiates contact. IIRC we were able to determine that it takes on average about 3 dates before sex happens (I don't recall how we worked that out, I'm not a data analyst, but presumably it was some keyword based algorithm looking at chat messages).
We got so many requests for information from the police that we had an informal system with them, to save them from wasting time getting warrants for information about people who we didn't have data on, they would ask about a particular name/email/whatever other identifier and we would just say yes we have data about them or no we don't, and if we did they'd then go get the warrant to get a copy of it.
The other thing I can tell you from our analytics, that really shouldn't be at all surprising, is to get some decent profile photos. Go get your talented friend or just hire a photographer to take some really nicely-lit well-composed photos of yourself and watch your match rate soar.
Phonies....
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My old boss was the financial controller of a big dating site. He kept on seeing these big invoices for modelling agencies and initially thought it was because of the big parties they used to host. When he asked about it it turned out it was just content for the fake profiles they created to lure in users.
Ownership....
Most dating sites and apps are owned by one company The Match Group. They have a near monopoly. I think bumble is one of the few not owned by them.
Those morons bought OkCupid and turned it from something awesome into a steaming pile of that sucks even more than Tinder.
For those that don't know how it was 7-8 years ago:
- Usernames (could be your first name or something else like a nickname)
- Various Free text fields to describe you; also searchable
- Structured metadata (age, smoking, drugs, looking-for, offspring...) that could be filtered by
- "Match questions" that were actually fun to answer and check how others answered on stuff interesting/important to you
- "Quizzes" from personality type over nerdiness to kinkiness (and much more) and you could see the results in someone's profile
- No swiping, you just messaged people (actual messages or chat, and you could switch from one to the other if you were online at the same time) if you wanted to
- Premium accounts were very affordable and only had some small gimmicks but nothing seriously important (search by more superficial details like body type, not showing up in someone's visitor list unless you want to reveal yourself, etc.)
So basically it was an awesome site regardless if you were looking for friends, dates, fucks or were just curious to find out more about strangers.
And now? Real names only, swiping, no search, sh!tty UI (clearly not interested in desktop users), much more expensive premium accounts.
Following the rhythm....
I would love to know how openly cynical the algorithm really is. My feed on Hinge shows absolutely no one I am interested in. And suddenly, the 'roses' feature pops up. I am interested in all the people in the Roses section. But - oh - it's £4 to buy ONE rose. Which is no guarantee of a match, much less a date.
They want to keep you using the app and spending money for as long as possible and their slogan 'designed to be deleted' is such bs it's comical. And you can't turn to other apps because they're all owned by the same corporation.
The 99%
Disappointed Talk To Me GIF by Dark Igloo
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This was years ago now, but I used to work with a guy who had been an engineer for Match.com.
He said 99% of the profiles were inactive, and that 80% of the active profiles were men.
He didn't provide numbers but also said the was a huge disparity between the average number of messages sent to women versus those sent to men. According to him, all told the site was mostly men reaching out to dead profiles and never getting responses.
As I said however, this was years ago, so it's entirely possible that they've cleaned the site up since then.
Right ain't right for all....
Not been working but a friend wrote her master thesis about the different criteria in online dating and real life. Almost half (43%) the female participants who were in a relationship told they'd never have swiped right on their current partner. Other interesting results were that over 60% of men they wrote with on apps and agreed to go on a date, would have no chance, if they asked in real life.
Edit: Since many asked about the thesis, I'll ask her if she can share it here but be prepared, it's in German. As to the second point: I don't know exactly how she worded the question in the survey but iirc she was referring to clubs and the like.
Bugged
A couple met on the dating app I worked on. Unfortunately, the man passed away and the lady returned to the app where they met for remembrance.
One day, a bug in the system made some profile likes to be sent again after months and she received one from her deceased boyfriend.
Her bug report was heartbreaking.
Oh Mary Jane
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Lots of gay guys get banned from Grindr selling weed. Would get a lot of emails of "why am I banned." Go to their profile and will say "HMU for that 🌳.
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Redditor istrx13 was wondering things families don't talk about...
They asked:
"What is the 'we don’t talk about that' in your family?"
I'm not getting into my family. You'll have to wait for the play.
The 30s...
"My great aunt was a nurse supervisor at a mental hospital back in the 1930s. She fell in love with a patient who was being evaluated to stand trial for murder. She helped him escape and they went to Florida to hide out. But they were eventually found and the guy was put on trial and got the chair. My aunt got off easy, but she moved far away and rarely came home."
p38-lightning
he didn't make it...
"The brother that was born between me and my first sister. It was my mothers second child. Apparently he only lived about 3 days. Neither my mom nor my dad ever wanted to talk about it much. My sisters and I both have seen the birth certificate, which my parents kept."
"We also know there were about 3 years where they waited before my mom became pregnant with my sister afterward. Both of my parents are deceased now and to be frank, I think I only got about a paragraph of conversation about it, ever, from either of my parents. Just a, 'he didn't make it.'"
"It's not creepy or some strange thing, it's just sad. You can tell it affected them both very powerfully, especially to go the rest of their lives and not really share it with current and future children they had. It must have been horrible."
suddenlyreddit
Now that she's dead...
"My mother's cult-induced severe mental illness, which caused her to viciously abuse her two oldest children verbally and physically, and forced my dad to have her committed to a mental hospital several times. Now that she's dead, we still don't talk about her much, lest she "come back from beyond the grave" and continue her lunatic ways..."
LusciousLennyStone
“drama”
"That I have been in contact with my birth family. My older brother and I are both adopted, but he has publicly stated that he has no intention to contact his own birth family, because, he feels that it would be disrespectful to the parents that have raised us, like, why mess with a good thing?"
"So, I’ve never told him that I did it. My husband also didn’t think I should contact them, he was concerned that there would be 'drama.' I keep in touch with some of my birth family mostly online and so far there’s been no drama."
Relevant_Proposal_63
Hey Stud
"That my late uncle was a gigolo. Only my father and I know the truth."
KazumaWillKiryu
rose love GIFGiphyNow being a gigolo has got to be a great story. Tell us more...
"always is right"
"My 'always right' aunty got proven wrong for once and rather than just accept it, she ghosted the whole family except for her immediate. Sometimes I talk to my cousins and always ask how wrong Wendi is doing?"
-AntiVegan-
Iliza Shlesinger Ghost GIF by IlizaGiphy"silver fox"
"How my uncle, whom is a single, 'silver fox' (so my grandma calls him), multimillionaire, executive of one of the big 3 car companies is secretly gay. We ALL know except grandma, that's why we don't talk about it. He also has no idea that the whole family knows."
laurmichele
All the Feels
"Sex, love, anorexia, emotions in general."
Constant-Memory-1069
"Mate, literally same. My parents are the most emotionally unavailable people I have ever met. It's not really their fault bc my entire family is cooked mental health wise, but damn."
"I'm convinced it was a huge contributing factor to my anorexia diagnosis. Lots of emotional turmoil but I wasn't taught how to talk about emotions, wasn't even really exposed to emotions, and no one to talk with about them anyway. Only way I could signal to the outside world I was not OK was starving myself, I guess. I'm ok now. Hope you are also ok."
Soggy_Biscuit_
Crazy Woman
"My cousin who is absolutely crazy. Got an abortion because she hated the guy, got married to him a few months later and started a family (they have 3 kids who are demons)… they moved out of state but she started coming back home once every few months to drop off the kids at her parents and then go on a bender and basically live in a motel for a few days."
"Then the divorce came, she married one of the guys she was banging on the side, got divorced again after cheating on him with husband number 1… now she’s dating her drug dealer. Again she still has custody of her 3 kids."
Old-Air1062
Whoops...
"I was a complete accident. They found out at the wedding and I’m pretty sure my Christian grandparents weren’t happy. They’ve only talked about it a few times."
AHorrorFreak
Pray I Hope GIFGiphySome secrets are meant to stay in the family and meant to go to the grave.
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I grew up poor, believe me I've imagined $50k a lot. "Shmoops" might get voted off the island when $50k keeps your babies safe and housed. Relax, animal lovers. Optimus Prime is in no danger of going anywhere.
Nobody is tryna pay $50k to be headbutted and farted at all day.
That fact is precisely why my reaction to someone offering me cash for him would be straight up suspicion.
Optimus is a big beautiful male pit bull with so much muscle that he has abs on his butt.
He doesn't have any official papers, and he's fixed so he can't be used for breeding.
He's not a therapy dog and doesn't do any special tricks (on purpose) and in the time it took me to write this intro he farted so loudly that he scared himself awake and then got so excited by the sudden wake up that he did 3 bunny bounces. It's clear this would not be a high-skilled-labor kind of hire, ya know?
So why would someone want to spend that much money on this dog specifically?
Hmm?
GiphyI'd be suspicious that anyone willing to drop serious money on him was going to try to use his size and strength in dog fights and THAT is not gonna fly with me. Not a chance.
The person offering would have to convince me that they're willing to spend that much money on a giant dumb pit bull for some non-fighting reason and that he would have a dope life. Maybe I'd say yes because they sincerely believe he's the reincarnated spirit of their college bro who died in a horrific skiing accident, and they need to take him on a cross country road trip to fulfill the last thing on their bromantic bucket list?
Maybe.
Reddit user spondgbob asked:
"If someone offered you $50,000 to buy your pet, how would you respond?"
Here's what Reddit has to say.
Outside
"I'd tell them to meet me outside the local PetSmart in an hour and then rush there and buy a hamster or something."
"Kind of my only option since I don't have a pet."
- eleven_eighteen
"You sir, are playing 3D chess while the rest of us are all playing checkers."
- StillAll
GiphyIrrational Love
"Great question."
"Made me think for a second because my immediate answer is no but upon thinking about it, and how badly I need the money, the answer is still no."
"Irrational love is crazy."
- To_Fight_The_Night
"Same."
"I could desperately use that money and there's nothing special about my cats. Took a moment to realize it's completely irrational but I could never part with these idiots."
"The harder question after this is at what price point, if any, would you do it?"
- joyfall
Everything Has A Price
"Everything has a price, and they’re in luck that the price for my blind, deaf, arthritic dog happens to be $50k"
- DoctorDblYou
"I mean $50k is $50k."
- MinnesotaMiller
"Like I get that some people view pets as family, good for them. I don't, so as long as they weren't gonna torture the animal or something, then 100% would do it."
- avelak
Poo Problems
" 'You may have the one that runs from it's own poo after it sh*ts' "
- Blastin-Ass
"Had a cat get spooked while sh*tting... when it finished he managed to nuke 4 rooms :( "
- tuffymon
"I call what my dog does a 'poop-about.' "
"Like a walk-about, but she is pooping as she waddles around the yard sniffing rocks and stuff. She's a weird critter and I love her more than anything."
- cycloptopussy
"One of my earliest memory is having a blast farting in the bathtub... and then..."
"Don't make fun of your pet, your own poop can be very scary and we deserve love no less than more courageous creatures."
- RaccoonyDave·
GiphyBye
"Give it to them."
"I love my aquarium and fish in it. But I could build a sweet aquarium set up with $50k."
- Inner-Nothing7779
"Exactly! I wouldn't sell my dog but I'd give my aquariums away for 50k."
"One of them is a custom that a built a background for and I'd still give it away for 50k."
- RPC3
"Yeah, I would sell my cat in a heartbeat. Call me a narcissist I guess."
"Good thing I dont have kids."
- Maggy_Monster
$100k
"I'll take the $100,000 in cash."
"50k to give him to you and another 50k to take him back tomorrow when you've finally reached your limit and can't keep him anymore."
"My dog has his own spirit animal, and that spirit animal is a bag of dicks."
"My dog has separation anxiety and a powerful set of lungs."
"I have to drop him off at my mom's house on the way to work so he can be with someone familiar or else he'll be howling all day. He sounds like a dying bison."
"I'm talking loud enough to hear inside your house half a block away. While he's *inside* my house!"
- Tobias_Atwood
Medical Needs
"I'd sell."
"My kitty is old at this point and I worry now. Someone willing to pay $50k for her probably has the money to take care of medical needs that will be coming soon. That's money I dont have."
"I love her, she has been my family for 17 years now, but if she gets sick reality is I'm gonna have to get her put down probably. She'd have a better chance with someone rich to spoil her at the end."
- BlueClouds42
GiphySick Sh*t
"I'm shocked by everyone saying they'd do it?!"
"If someone is willing to pay that much, just imagine the sick sh*t they are planning on doing. No way I could live with myself."
"Would you sell your kid? You can get a lot more than 50k for one of them..."
"I have a hard time believing someone willing to sell a dog for a 'lot of money' wouldn't be tempted to or actually sell a child."
"It's alooooot of money for children, so if money is the motivator...."
- Pepperclue_55
Little Napoleon
"Couldn't sell."
"My a$$hole cat is a jerk, but family. Though I would expect a lot of push to sell him since he is mean to everyone with only rare moments of niceness."
"Plus they whoever got him would likely kill him."
"He is allergic to fish, can't wear a collar even a breakaway one (somehow almost strangled himself twice), sits in the middle of the road if he escapes, eats the random stuff on the ground, randomly attacks people (full on claws, teeth- goes for the veins usually breaks skin and causes a bruise), has diseases, and goes after other animals in the house regardless of size."
"I hate it and get mad at my boyfriend every time he says it, but he jokes that natural selection is trying its best with my cat. He's kind of right."
"He is untrainable and awful, but incredibly cute and everyone wants to pet him (but quickly learn not to go near him.) At least he does not attack kids 5 and under though."
"I wanted to name him lil Napoleon as he is perpetually ready for a battle and a short legged munchkin. I took him in from my sister but couldn't change his name so it became my nickname for him."
- Wolfling
Get Over It
"It is a beta fish that we have had for six days. The kids are currently celebrating it still being alive because they accidentally killed our first fish in about six hours."
"Suffice to say, I’m pretty sure we can get them over it."
"Yes please on the $50,000."
- NurmGurpler
Time to be honest with yourself—would you do it?
What would your reaction be?
Let's argue in the comments!
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