Unrelated to the game...wanted to talk about online dating!

Hi guys!

I've been seeing a lot of comments on the internet about the unfairness of online dating on apps such as Tinder. A lot of these are jokes, but some of the comments are boiling with rage. I wanted to give my opinion on the matter, and I wanted to get yours too if you're interested!

The most pervasive idea currently is that there are far too few women on Tinder compared to men. Men have to work much harder in order to get a date. According to this source, 28% of active users are women and 72% of active users are men in March 2021. There are also those who think that women are "hypergamous", and date up. Cross culturally, we do see this phenomenon happening, and a lot of people are using this as fuel to show how imbalanced the dating market is.

I do believe that these are valid points, however to compare men going on Tinder vs women going on Tinder is where the fallacy begins, in my humble opinion. I think it is widely agreed upon that men have more of an innate need for sexual activity than women. For example, most of the content of the adult industry is targeted towards men. Women on the other hand, might not be looking only for sexual intimacy in a man. For instance, if a woman goes on Tinder, she may be looking to feel good about herself, see her available choices, and if someone she finds is interesting, she would ideally have a monogamous relationship with someone who can provide as well (Of course, not in all cases). By nature, if women offered sex up for free to anyone they met, they would most likely be given a "yes" as an answer (joke source), so women on Tinder are essentially advertising what men want without asking for much in return, since the rest of the things she is looking for is usually not in her profile. This of course would create a difference in demand, as there are many men who would want to have their sexual frustrations resolved, but not as many women who would want to give their sexual intimacy so casually.

I think the equivalent for a woman going on Tinder as a man would be going on a SD-SB dating site. The man is not only offering what he has on a vanilla dating site, but is also willing to pay upfront. The man is therefore cutting out the intra-gender competition by eliminating men who do not have as much resources. This is much like what women are doing to other women on Tinder by advertising the possibility of cheap sexual intimacy. One may say that the man on a SD website will only be attracting one type of woman, but I propose that the same might be said about a woman going on Tinder.

In conclusion, I believe that there is a gender imbalance on dating apps such as Tinder, and it creates frustration among men. However, if one were to look at it in terms of "sexual economics", the outcome of these dating apps tend to be quite logical. I have seen the joke that if a straight guy wants to feel what it feels like as a woman on Tinder, he should go on Grinder. While I find this hilarious, I believe that men would find a similar result on SD-SB sites. I am not advocating for men to go on SD-SB either, but simply drawing the comparison between the two.

Let me know what you guys think!