[raw_anon_1111]

For context, I don’t want this to sound bitter. The first time I was single as an adult was from 1996-2002 and dating apps weren’t a thing. The second time I was single was from 2006-2011 and I wasn’t really trying to date and spent most of the time getting my head back in the game and just hanging out with female friends until I started dating my now wife who I met at work. Even she had to make the first move.

That being said as five foot four guy, the chance of me having any success on a dating app at the time from everything I know would have been basically 0 no matter what. “Working on myself” would have done no good. I was objectively in great shape as a part time fitness instructor and I just run my first (and last) two half marathons before I met my wife.

Some guys just haven’t won the genetic lottery to succeed on dating apps. Again I’m not bitter as one of the relatively few straight male fitness instructors, it wasn’t hard to date during my first stint of singleness

[nostrademons]

FWIW, one of my (male) friends is about 5'2" and met his wife on OKCupid. She's about 4'10".

Dating is kinda like founding a startup or getting a job, in that you have to kiss a lot of frogs, but you only need to succeed once. The point's to eliminate all the unsuitable prospects in the pool and find the one that is a match for you.

[palmotea]

> Dating is kinda like founding a startup or getting a job, in that you have to kiss a lot of frogs, but you only need to succeed once. The point's to eliminate all the unsuitable prospects in the pool and find the one that is a match for you.

That's true, but dating apps are still a pretty toxic technology. It's got kind of a McNamara fallacy baked into it, they encourage users to setup filters on easy-to-quantity aspects (height, age) in a fairly thoughtless way, and entourage superficial, consumeristic evaluations. Most people would probably benefit from IRL interactions, which present a more holistic picture.