I've read out there that the ratio between men and women on dating apps is pretty awfully skewed. The estimates I've read, from a variety of sources all claiming inside insight, put it somewhere at 10:3 men:women on the high end and about half as many women on the low end. Let me tell you, I sure do feel it. I've been using some combination of Tinder, Bumble, and Hinged on and off for more than half a decade now and I've had two dates total. The first one didn't have a second date because she sexually assaulted me, the other because she just didn't feel any chemistry. I can get maybe 5 matches in a month if I'm maxing out my free likes on two platforms every day. The chance they even respond to the first message is like 1/10. So on, so forth. I think I'm a decent catch. I take care of myself. I have a job, hobbies (even ones that aren't video games/TV!), open myself up to plenty of new experiences, try to listen to others, and was lucky to be born with some conventionally attractive features. Hasn't helped very much.
This all sucks, but this is nothing that anybody who has used a dating app could tell you. What really kills it all is A) the way this shitty feeling is monetized to sell $30/mo dating app subs that I will not buy on pain of death B) the white-knuckled grip half the women in the south (where I live) seem to have on outdated gender roles C) the lack of any alternatives
Elaborating on that last point, I live about an hour outside of the nearest city of any decent size. I'm in maximum old-white-people-exurb territory. There's basically nothing for me to meet people my own age, let alone women my age, without an hour's drive. All but three of my friends are guys, and they aren't really positioned to introduce me to anybody either. Out of my ~10 closest friends, only one of them has even been in a relationship in the past 5 or so years. I can't move because I'm at my parent's house right now and it feels super hard to justify moving out when you're making less than 50k/yr and have a stable family situation just because I'm sexually frustrated. It's been so long I feel like I wouldn't even know how to flirt or recognize flirting even if I landed in a miracle situation anyways.
What do yall think? Am I making too much out of it?
it feels like some people are incapable of being loved and i'm one of them. its not like its never happened to me but thats not much comfort a year or more afterwards. i can notice the material conditions, the economic and social forces, the personal traumas shaping my habits and psychology, neurodivergent symptoms alienating me from swathes of the people around me, that lead to this constant loneliness but there's nothing apparent that i can personally, realistically, do about them. you can't even mention the fact that you have unmet sexual needs as a cis-passing AMAB without people understandably seeing it as an implied threat because of how fucked up our patriarchical society is. how can i hold a normal conversation with anyone let alone a date let alone literally any woman or vulnerable gender minority when my internal monologue is constantly telling me to kill myself and that no one will ever love me. every time i have a sexual urge, every time i think about sex, i want to kill myself. not that i will ever actually do it but its a constant intrusive thought and feeling i have. i'm the only driver where i live so i have to drive roommates on dates and stuff and it can be excruciating bottling up these kind of toxic thoughts and feelings i have, but i do it anyway - i save this pathetic whining for here, and its not like its their fault that i'm a pathetic unloveable loser. i want them to be happy, just because i can't be like them doesn't mean they should be as miserable as me. not that it is literally any consolation when dealing with this kind of impossible loneliness, but at least you have a job, no one will hire someone with the work history gap i have at my age. i have my own ultimately unsatisfying privileges though, i have like another 5 years of living rent free with my parents but no idea what i will do after that. i was too autistic (or something idfk i have a bs PTSD diagnosis for a weed medical card but i was legitimately sexually abused by other kids in grade school because they all knew what sex was before me so its probably ultimately legit) to make friends or relationships in school or college or to get jobs afterwards so now i'm just a pathetic 30 year old incel with receding hair (i look like several different wojaks at different times) and no future i guess, in addition to the fact that no one in my generation/economic class will ever own a house, lifelong untreated mental health issues and personal traumas combines with a complete lack of healthcare or mental health resources have made relationships impossible for me
