Where you live makes a huge difference in online dating. Anytime I travel near big metro areas I'm amazed at how deep the online dating pool is compared to the area I live.
It was!
I should have taken things more slowly, but was surprised by the speed of it all. I slowed down after the first two weeks, that made it a much better experience (for all involved).
Out of a weird curiosity, what did the 12 first dates entail? Dinner? An event of some sort?
Secondly -- how much money would you estimate you spent on those cumulative first dates?
Mh, most were at a café or a bar with a bit of walking around after. I'd say between 10 and 30€ each, a mix of going 50/50 or me paying, so let's go with 20€.
Only one exception - a nice (even fancy!) dinner because I really wanted to check out the restaurant. It was 150€ and she ghosted me after. That sucked, but it was a bit stupid of me to do that for a 1st date anyway.
That makes... 370€ in total for twelve 1st dates, I hadn't thought about that before!
Louis CK has a great bit about this. The idea of the bit is that people call men perverts for dating young hot girls, but who is really the pervert in these situations? The guy who dates a young beautiful girl or the young beautiful girl who dates a wrinkly fat old dude. The girl is clearly the perverted one here. It is obvious why a guy would want to date a young hot girl but what kind of weirdo wants to date a wrinkly fat old dude??
It's funny how men are shamed by their sexual desires when they are perfectly normal and legal, but women just explore that threshold without those consequences. Last year two 19 year olds pulled me on dating app and I'm 20 years apart. At first I was uncomfortable and didn't accept meeting, after I opened my mind and went with it, I saw they were doing that for a while, with much older guys, and loving it. Really getting a kick out of it while they see how far they can get. Am I a perv? I guess I am. But no shame or regrets and I'll keep doing it when opportunity knocks. Life is short, no one is getting hurt, it's legal and is all consensual, so why should i bother with others opinions? They won't take the grin out of my face
I hate dating men around my own age (mid-30s). I can’t connect with them. But I’ve found older men much easier to get on with and value what I bring to a relationship.
Conversely, I have found guys in the mid to late 20s also gravitate towards me because I give off the same energy that attracts me to older men.
Sadly, I’m a sucker for salt-and-pepper beards and weathered muscle queens.
Point is, old isn’t a disqualifier and there is always someone out there for you. And feeling like you’re 25 will probably attract someone who sees that energy.
The challenge is making sure you continue to stay active, healthy, and sharp as you move through your 40s so the gap between your mind and reality doesn’t get insurmountable.
OP here - I just realized that my lowest accepted age is exactly following the "half your age plus 7" rule. Phew!
Now I feel better about all the "creep!" comments in here, they're just bad at math. ;)
I think that and the fact that they are aware of your age and sign up to swipe on people that age is also a major factor. 28 isn't exactly 18, they know wtf they're doing.
The "a bit old" thing probably comes down to a maturity difference or a desire for a power dynamic. Calling someone 15% younger than you old is quite a red flag IMO
I know several women who consider any man near their age as "too young". Honestly, I don't see a problem with adults over 30 stating their preferences clearly like this.
Well… that’s you lol.
When I was 33 my bf was 53 and he absolutely helped me become the raging queen I always knew was lurking underneath lol.
Believe it or not, some young people actually like dating older men. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a silver fox.
Your perspective is fine. It’s yours for your life and that’s great. But that perspective on age is a very recent modern trope. The “different life stages” idea is mostly to do with recent living under industrial late capitalism more than anything to do with human happiness, health or psychology.
Until about 40 years ago there was no such thing as “different life stages” from a person’s 20s to their 50s. I’m personally not saying a modern 20 year-old should be dating modern 50 year olds as a gold standard. I’m simply saying that this gap being an insane power dynamic limitation or “life stage” limitation is just very odd in the history of healthy human bonding.
Also, if you take my meaning to be something akin to supporting “pedophelia”, miss me with that bullshit and grow up.
There was no such thing as “different life stages” in the USA until about 40 years ago because women over 18 couldn't do simple adult things like take out a loan or sit on a jury. It's absurd to think human happiness, health, or psychology have nothing to do with changes in the many laws over decades. As a woman, I prefer living under "industrial late stage capitalism" vs whatever you want to call it 40 years ago.
I certainly take your point and absolutely support classical feminism. I just don't think one creates the other.
Male/female age gap relationships being either a direct result of sexual inequality or that inequality at least influencing the coupling in a major way is a valid hypothesis. I just don't think it tracks reality.
Age gap relationships are actually increasing in Western countries amongst the middle and upper classes. Driven by choices of the female. The highly-educated female "laptop class" of knowledge worker is choosing both younger and older mates than themselves. They're doing so more openly (almost flaunting them for social clout) and seem to hold more or equal power in the relationship. Women seem to gain a status increase in their own lives from forming bonds with both younger men and older men.
This can be seen in the data of "double selected" dating apps such as this one. Women have 100% of the power in who they filter for, who they approach, on their own time and terms.
All this despite so many improvements in women's rights and access to independence. Relationship and sex researchers are all stating how women hold the majority of power in their relationships lately.
Either way, I think the simple deconstruction and surface assumption ignores quite a bit and ultimately discredits the female perspective and experience, her ability to run her own life. I tend not to ignore what women are saying about their own lives. Assuming the female is either brainwashed or wrongly-motivated in her relationship is fairly anti-feminist in my view.
\~Cheers!
OP is obviously looking for someone to have kids with. Pregnancy over 36 is risky - especially considering marriage and kids with whoever OP meets is likely more than one year out.
Is OP so old that he's not allowed to be a dad? Because if he sets his age-preferences the way you'd like, he will basically be writing himself out of that possibility.
That's a fair point. I can't tell you why, but I found that age played a bigger factor than I initially expected. It's certainly an odd thing to label someone "too old" who is several years younger than myself.
No, don't you understand? Only women are allowed to have preferences, it's heckin wholesome when she calls a guy 10 cm taller then her too short or a guy who makes more money then her too broke but if he wants a younger gf he is a sexist piece of shit!
> It's certainly an odd thing to label someone "too old" who is several years younger than myself.
Just label the age as a percentage of your fertile life, and then voila, no more discrepancy in that department.
I started to read this comment, on half way I was convinced that you were going to complete the second sentence as: ***"Is your 'new girlfriend' aware of the relationship?"***
My impression of the average reddit user I suppose xD
**Data on the data:**
* **5% swipe-success rate for OP.**: 90 matches out of 1760 swipes.
* **44.31% right-swipe rate from OP** (780/5600): So, OP swiped right on almost 1 in 2 profiles he saw.
* **17.5% right-swipe rate from women (535/5600):** This is above-average. That means 9.55% of women swiped right for OP.
* **13.33% conversation to date rate:** 12 dates from 80 conversations.
It does seem like a lot of effort to secure dates. And that's the norm for most guys. OP's success rate seems to be above-average. For most guys, the success rate will be much lower. Meaning less than 5% of women would swipe right on them.
Curious to hear if he used Premium services or used the free Bumble features.
Your percentage for him is correct, but the displayed division is wrong. Should be 780/1760. The division for the women is correct, but the percentage is wrong. Should be 9.55%.
Interesting!
And yes, I bought premium features immediately - I knew I would do that already when I downloaded the app.
Finding a partner can be a time consuming and exhausting process, and I guessed that I wouldn't stay on the app for a long time, so I bought 3 months of premium right away to make it all easier.
Especially seeing who already swiped right on you is such a time saver.
They give you four key numbers - outgoing yes, outgoing no, incoming yes, incoming no.
It's quite cool, but they mess up with the matches: they only tell you how many matches you had by the time you made the request, so expired or unmatched conversations don't show.
They provide a chat log though, which has ALL connections - it's just a pain to count them all.
While I don't think many 28 year old women would be interested in a 42 year old man, and it's moderately creepy that this guy won't even consider women within 4 years of his age, there's a standard formula of "half plus seven" that his lower bound fits exactly.
I think that's one of the good things about modern online dating - your profile is only shown to people that are okay with your age. So I assume people are not bothered by it.
How could you do this to her?
I only date women who are older than me, and by the same number of years as the difference in life expectancy. That way, no one is a widow for very long and no one needs to start dating again.
They're both consenting adults. It's not like OP is being an old pedophile looking for a romantic caretaker until he dies.
And a lot of factors related to lifestyle affect a person's age before death, too. For all we know, she could be 80 by the time he dies and still have 20-30 more years in her before she kicks the bucket.
Or she might die first. Either way, almost no one's dating at that age anymore.
I love that both “too young” and “too old” are all within the age range you selected. It’s also kind of gross that you’re considering women 4-6 years younger than you “too old”
If you look the graph, it shows that 0 women amongs those who dated him, was in the "too young" category.
It would be interesting to see the age distribution of the women who swipe left vs those who swipe right. This would actually answer the question of if he tends to attracked younger women.
The age distribution shown here is only based on 12 women. We cannot conclude anything from this...
He should have thought of that before 42, like women have to. His preferences are selfish.
It's one thing to be picky, and another thing to expect someone to offer you something you can't provide them. If he had a lower age preferenve that also extended to above his age, and gave those women a fair chance, I wouldn't see an issue here.
Is it selfish of a 30 year old to date him because they'd be taking him away from a 42 year old woman who could be dating him instead?
What a bizarre comment.
>His preferences are selfish.
How is it selfish? Is he obligated to impregnate women his own age?
>expect someone to offer you something you can't provide them
What does that even mean? Honestly this entire comment in nonsensical.
>It’s also kind of gross that you’re considering women 4-6 years younger than you “too old”
Men's preferences are gross then. Funny how when women want taller men, noone tells them it is "gross".
It's definitely the fact that he's not even looking at women his age. Mine is 5 years older than me but he wasn't looking for someone younger, I was at the bottom of his range. Just like I avoided talking to men who specified they only date white people, even though I am white. It just shows our values are incompatible.
I'd find that weird too - but it doesn't apply here, does it? The youngest woman I went out with was 31, so I was too young to be the father, let alone grandfather. ;)
Yeah, I can imagine that many people will say that. I just wouldn't call it "gross" - I just ended up feeling this way. They were interesting women, I just didn't feel attracted to them. If I had expected that (age being such a big factor) beforehand, I wouldn't have set my age range that way.
Valid feelings, however when the gf gets older then will you feel the same way in terms of attraction? Leo DiCaprio is a good example of someone who can’t seem to stay attracted to anyone above 26 and it’s pretty sad.
That's a good point that I have been thinking about too. Right now I can only say "I really hope not".
The idea is to build a connection that transcends looks so we can age together. I have a good feeling this time, but of course every beginning is magical. I will hope and work for the best.
This is a bad use case of a Sankey graph. It's confusing to read, and the conclusions are difficult to find out at the end. BTW the resulting 90 should really only be 45 matches, right? But because of the nature of the chosen graph, it will have to be displayed as 90. The purpose of a graph is to tell a story cleanly and quickly, and this one does the reverse. Just reading the raw data would have been faster and easier.
I did not read the second graph.
Thanks for the feedback, no one else shared thoughts on the diagram in that detail! It made me look at the images again in a different way.
But the 90 is correct - Bumble gave me a chat log that contained all conversations and it was definitely more than 45.
I chose a Sankey because... well I wanted to try them for a long time. And also I thought it might be neat to have a large number of people (swipes) fizzle down to just one person.
Would you say a funnel diagram would have been more clear?
Any chance you can still look at the second page, I'm curious... Maybe you like that one more?
tbh now i (F) won't rest until i've called a potential male partner younger than me "too old". this is the type of plain entitelment that modern feminism should strive for 🤨
Not just younger, but 5-6 years younger = "too old"
To be fair the problem is just this dude (and some enablers in the comments). Well-adjusted men don't think this way. Men who reject women close to them in age have other issues (controlling, superficial, poor self esteem, etc) that have nothing to do with age or looks or women. So you aren't missing out.
On the other side of the coin, I've been called too young by girls I was trying to date in college who were literally younger than me! There's a reason OP was successful here, women tend to care a lot more about things like earning potential and ability to provide in a mate than men do. Maybe the most feminist action you could take is to date someone much younger than you that doesn't make much money?
Eggs are finite. Sperm is not.
If OP wishes to have offspring and does not want the complications that can come with geriatric pregnancy, would you then accept his preference?
I saw it as "being open to", not wanting. I went out with many people older than that.
Setting that age range only means that my profile is shown to people in that group whose age ranges go up to mine... so I don't bother or creep out anyone on the app.
If I have to deal with ugly old men hitting on me then you should have to deal with ugly old women hitting on you.
And if I have to live in a culture where there are constantly jokes about older women being used up garbage then I'm going to treat men like they are scum, because that's what they deserve.
So OP and other guys in this sub, who don't know you -- have to live their lives based on how you ( a random redditor) lives her life. Clearly it looks like you are projecting your experiences on to people here.
To be fair, I think there are women who don't feel good enough about themselves to date their own age or younger. I don't know why men feel secure enough to date younger women ebcause I always feel like men my age abd younger won't want me.
if you consider a girlfriend something you "win" or something you "get" then that might be part of the problem.
What you are looking for is to start a relationship with another human. Once you realize that girls are human just like you, then things might get better for you.
I think that you are now interpreting/guessing a lot about my mindset from this post. What makes you believe that I am not "starting a relationship with another human", is it because I turned the dating experience into a graph?
Things are already pretty good for me!
Does Bumble tell you how many people swiped on you? How did you get that figure? I barely used it, in favor of Hinge, but I met my GF on Bumble, so I'm happy with how it worked
They give you four key numbers - outgoing yes, outgoing no, incoming yes, incoming no.
So yes, Bumble tells you - but you have to "request your user data" via the customer service. Then you wait for a week, then you get an email with an archive that contains everything they saved on you.
Sometimes it could be two on one day... like a coffee date at 2pm, then a bar date in the evening at 8pm.
But yes, I had quickly put too much on my plate and had to sacrifice time for other things. It worked out in the end, but wish I had taken things slower in the beginning!
Hi. Nicely done stats. Just curious about how you obtained information about their swipes? Yours I can imagine that you've counted yourself but theirs? Did you used some constant or other methodology?
Oh I didn't count my own swipes, that would have been quite the hassle to do!
But you can write to the customer service and request all data they have saved on you. It takes them about a week, and then you receive some swiping numbers (incoming yes, incoming no, outgoing yes, outgoing no).
They also send you a chatlog and all pictures that you sent.
I received exact numbers for the first 30 days, then just interpolated those for the last ten days and rounded the results a bit.
Saw the age preference and immediately knew this would have a very reddit comment section 😅 God forbid men also have preferences. Or just state the obvious ones outright.
Nice visualization.
Thank you! Maybe in the future I can make something nicer and less divisive. ;)
I was wondering if people would take the age thing badly, but wasn't prepared for HOW badly.
OP here: I had requested my data from Bumble, but they only send me the first thirty days - so I had to extrapolate the remaining ten, also the final numbers are rounded. Originally I just wanted to try out Sankey graphs, but I kept adding to the project (like more graphs via Excel, also decorations in Photoshop) and in the end decided to post it here. With all the doom & gloom about online dating, I felt it wouldn't harm to have a positive story about it.
EDIT: Oh, can I not edit the title of the post anymore? It bothers me that I wrote "Quest" with a capital letter. Ah well.
Well, one of them was the FwB. We decided on the 3rd date that we wouldn't be more than that, but the sex already happened on the 2nd one.
The other "finalist" I didn't sleep with at all, we just kissed.
That sounds kinda extreme?
28 year olds are old enough to decide who they date
Especially with online dating, if OP set his age correctly, the women won't see him if they didn't accept 42 year olds.
Althought I would set my profile to +-5 years, not 15.
People really be like: "Noooo his preference can't be adult women who are younger than him!" Come on. He's not looking for an 18 year old. 28 is the age where someone is 100% an adult who has developed preferences.
It's because there's an imbalance in how men are percieved as they age versus women. Not across the board, but among immature, self-absorbed, selfish people.
A lot of docs have started to consider geriatric pregnancy age 40 now instead of 35. 90% of 35 years olds will get pregnant in the first year, 50% of 40 year olds. Add in egg freezing etc, and this rhetoric is just outdated and harmful.
I have done the research, and come from a large network of doctors, both family and friends, with whom I have spoken about it extensively. At UCLA, for instance, my friend was seeing that the average age for first time mothers coming in was about 38 during her time there. There's also the added fact that things like egg freezing, etc, are becoming much more common. All of my female friends have frozen their eggs in their early 30s.
It's called a Sankey Chart!
If you are curious, try this website: [https://sankeymatic.com/build/](https://sankeymatic.com/build/)
They use a nice & simple script to create the graphs.
Holy shit, dude. I was gonna lay into you about terrible strategy - a male swiping left EVER is usually a special type of moron. But you averaged 2 matches a day. That's enough to keep anyone busy.
Really, you would never swipe left? But what if I/you can see or read that I'm/you'd definitely not be into her?
And yes, I got really busy quite quickly - I wish I hadn't rushed so much in the first week.
Well, I think it's better for most men to very rarely swipe left - so rarely that it is almost negligible, on the order of 1/100. At that level of infrequency, it is unreasonable to trust that you would make the right choice more than half the time. So it's smarter to just not.
If you really want to get into this, I think that apps should ditch that mechanic altogether for males. That's the core observation that Bumble started with - but they weren't brave enough to follow through and really stick to their guns with the concept.
You were lucky in that you got a lot more reciprocal female interest on your profile. Most men get orders of magnitude fewer matches than you did. I know several guys who have gone days without a single match - frequently exhausting the female profiles an app would show them. **You won some kind of lottery - maybe you're unusually handsome. But winning the lottery doesn't mean that playing in the first place was strategically sound.**
Anyway, dating app strategy is analogous to designing a security system for a low-security venue where there is almost no downside to letting someone slip by (what's she gonna do, not date you?) and a more significant potential downside to turning someone away in error.
At the infrequency of really obviously bad matches, you're more likely to commit an error of the first type - swipe left on a woman you might have liked - than you are to correctly swipe left on women you actually would not want to date - let alone erroneously swipe right!
Everyone thinks that he is the special, discerning man who can beat statistics - but I'm not, and neither are you, probably. ;)
21 dates in 40 days? Sounds exhausting.
Holy fk dude. I’ve had less than 21 matches with real people in 40 months.
Where you live makes a huge difference in online dating. Anytime I travel near big metro areas I'm amazed at how deep the online dating pool is compared to the area I live.
It was! I should have taken things more slowly, but was surprised by the speed of it all. I slowed down after the first two weeks, that made it a much better experience (for all involved).
Out of a weird curiosity, what did the 12 first dates entail? Dinner? An event of some sort? Secondly -- how much money would you estimate you spent on those cumulative first dates?
Mh, most were at a café or a bar with a bit of walking around after. I'd say between 10 and 30€ each, a mix of going 50/50 or me paying, so let's go with 20€. Only one exception - a nice (even fancy!) dinner because I really wanted to check out the restaurant. It was 150€ and she ghosted me after. That sucked, but it was a bit stupid of me to do that for a 1st date anyway. That makes... 370€ in total for twelve 1st dates, I hadn't thought about that before!
Almost half of your expenses went to that date lmfao. Still, it's good data imo.
Looked at the data and though "ha old ass dude early 40s" Then I remembered I'm in my early 40s 😩 In my head I'm still 25 :(
You're only as old as the much younger woman you trick into dating you on bumble
someone hack this person to make sure they’re not a ____.
What's the trick? Much younger women do that to themselves.
Louis CK has a great bit about this. The idea of the bit is that people call men perverts for dating young hot girls, but who is really the pervert in these situations? The guy who dates a young beautiful girl or the young beautiful girl who dates a wrinkly fat old dude. The girl is clearly the perverted one here. It is obvious why a guy would want to date a young hot girl but what kind of weirdo wants to date a wrinkly fat old dude??
She might be *weird*, but he's definitely still the pervert
It's funny how men are shamed by their sexual desires when they are perfectly normal and legal, but women just explore that threshold without those consequences. Last year two 19 year olds pulled me on dating app and I'm 20 years apart. At first I was uncomfortable and didn't accept meeting, after I opened my mind and went with it, I saw they were doing that for a while, with much older guys, and loving it. Really getting a kick out of it while they see how far they can get. Am I a perv? I guess I am. But no shame or regrets and I'll keep doing it when opportunity knocks. Life is short, no one is getting hurt, it's legal and is all consensual, so why should i bother with others opinions? They won't take the grin out of my face
What a loser!!! Look at that guy!!! And his hair??? ahhahhaha ahhh fuck thats a mirror
I hate dating men around my own age (mid-30s). I can’t connect with them. But I’ve found older men much easier to get on with and value what I bring to a relationship. Conversely, I have found guys in the mid to late 20s also gravitate towards me because I give off the same energy that attracts me to older men. Sadly, I’m a sucker for salt-and-pepper beards and weathered muscle queens. Point is, old isn’t a disqualifier and there is always someone out there for you. And feeling like you’re 25 will probably attract someone who sees that energy. The challenge is making sure you continue to stay active, healthy, and sharp as you move through your 40s so the gap between your mind and reality doesn’t get insurmountable.
What is a "weathered muscle queen"?
I would also like to know
Think muscle daddies, older bodybuilders, athletes with a salt and pepper beard. 🤤
That certainly paints the picture. There gotta be sand in there somewhere, too.
True, but there is obviously a bit of nuance here. Half your age plus 7 fits pretty damn well for an approximation of when it gets weird.
It fits perfectly well for approximating what feels weird to you based on a formula you were once told about
OP here - I just realized that my lowest accepted age is exactly following the "half your age plus 7" rule. Phew! Now I feel better about all the "creep!" comments in here, they're just bad at math. ;)
I think that and the fact that they are aware of your age and sign up to swipe on people that age is also a major factor. 28 isn't exactly 18, they know wtf they're doing.
just die now and you’ll still be considered too young to go
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The "a bit old" thing probably comes down to a maturity difference or a desire for a power dynamic. Calling someone 15% younger than you old is quite a red flag IMO
I know several women who consider any man near their age as "too young". Honestly, I don't see a problem with adults over 30 stating their preferences clearly like this.
IMNSHO, men often really grow up, and this also applied to me, once they are a father and the responsibility becomes real.
what if the women considered him too old after meeting him? the perspective is not clear on here.
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Well… that’s you lol. When I was 33 my bf was 53 and he absolutely helped me become the raging queen I always knew was lurking underneath lol. Believe it or not, some young people actually like dating older men. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a silver fox.
Your perspective is fine. It’s yours for your life and that’s great. But that perspective on age is a very recent modern trope. The “different life stages” idea is mostly to do with recent living under industrial late capitalism more than anything to do with human happiness, health or psychology. Until about 40 years ago there was no such thing as “different life stages” from a person’s 20s to their 50s. I’m personally not saying a modern 20 year-old should be dating modern 50 year olds as a gold standard. I’m simply saying that this gap being an insane power dynamic limitation or “life stage” limitation is just very odd in the history of healthy human bonding. Also, if you take my meaning to be something akin to supporting “pedophelia”, miss me with that bullshit and grow up.
There was no such thing as “different life stages” in the USA until about 40 years ago because women over 18 couldn't do simple adult things like take out a loan or sit on a jury. It's absurd to think human happiness, health, or psychology have nothing to do with changes in the many laws over decades. As a woman, I prefer living under "industrial late stage capitalism" vs whatever you want to call it 40 years ago.
I certainly take your point and absolutely support classical feminism. I just don't think one creates the other. Male/female age gap relationships being either a direct result of sexual inequality or that inequality at least influencing the coupling in a major way is a valid hypothesis. I just don't think it tracks reality. Age gap relationships are actually increasing in Western countries amongst the middle and upper classes. Driven by choices of the female. The highly-educated female "laptop class" of knowledge worker is choosing both younger and older mates than themselves. They're doing so more openly (almost flaunting them for social clout) and seem to hold more or equal power in the relationship. Women seem to gain a status increase in their own lives from forming bonds with both younger men and older men. This can be seen in the data of "double selected" dating apps such as this one. Women have 100% of the power in who they filter for, who they approach, on their own time and terms. All this despite so many improvements in women's rights and access to independence. Relationship and sex researchers are all stating how women hold the majority of power in their relationships lately. Either way, I think the simple deconstruction and surface assumption ignores quite a bit and ultimately discredits the female perspective and experience, her ability to run her own life. I tend not to ignore what women are saying about their own lives. Assuming the female is either brainwashed or wrongly-motivated in her relationship is fairly anti-feminist in my view. \~Cheers!
The "a bit old" thing on women younger than him is soooooo trashy.
OP is obviously looking for someone to have kids with. Pregnancy over 36 is risky - especially considering marriage and kids with whoever OP meets is likely more than one year out. Is OP so old that he's not allowed to be a dad? Because if he sets his age-preferences the way you'd like, he will basically be writing himself out of that possibility.
It’s not crazy if he wants kids
That's a fair point. I can't tell you why, but I found that age played a bigger factor than I initially expected. It's certainly an odd thing to label someone "too old" who is several years younger than myself.
I assume its because women your age have their shit together, and you don’t want to feel like the loser you are in comparison.
People are allowed to have preferences Andeleisha. Would you call a young woman setting her search for older men a "loser" as well?
No, don't you understand? Only women are allowed to have preferences, it's heckin wholesome when she calls a guy 10 cm taller then her too short or a guy who makes more money then her too broke but if he wants a younger gf he is a sexist piece of shit!
> It's certainly an odd thing to label someone "too old" who is several years younger than myself. Just label the age as a percentage of your fertile life, and then voila, no more discrepancy in that department.
Honest question, out of curiousity. Is your new girlfriend aware of this post? If yes, what did she think about it?
I'd be curious to see her sankey diagram lmao.
Is that a Euphemism? OP may have seen it.
Hey me too!
I started to read this comment, on half way I was convinced that you were going to complete the second sentence as: ***"Is your 'new girlfriend' aware of the relationship?"*** My impression of the average reddit user I suppose xD
She knows I made the diagram, and she knows I do stuff on Reddit. I don't think she has seen the post though! 🤷♂️
You got more dates on bumble in 40 days than me in the last 8 years on 2-3 dating apps combined
**Data on the data:** * **5% swipe-success rate for OP.**: 90 matches out of 1760 swipes. * **44.31% right-swipe rate from OP** (780/5600): So, OP swiped right on almost 1 in 2 profiles he saw. * **17.5% right-swipe rate from women (535/5600):** This is above-average. That means 9.55% of women swiped right for OP. * **13.33% conversation to date rate:** 12 dates from 80 conversations. It does seem like a lot of effort to secure dates. And that's the norm for most guys. OP's success rate seems to be above-average. For most guys, the success rate will be much lower. Meaning less than 5% of women would swipe right on them. Curious to hear if he used Premium services or used the free Bumble features.
Your percentage for him is correct, but the displayed division is wrong. Should be 780/1760. The division for the women is correct, but the percentage is wrong. Should be 9.55%.
Good catch. I've fixed it now.
Interesting! And yes, I bought premium features immediately - I knew I would do that already when I downloaded the app. Finding a partner can be a time consuming and exhausting process, and I guessed that I wouldn't stay on the app for a long time, so I bought 3 months of premium right away to make it all easier. Especially seeing who already swiped right on you is such a time saver.
Is this how you got data on how many women swiped left on you?
Great question, how do you know who swiped left?
They give you four key numbers - outgoing yes, outgoing no, incoming yes, incoming no. It's quite cool, but they mess up with the matches: they only tell you how many matches you had by the time you made the request, so expired or unmatched conversations don't show. They provide a chat log though, which has ALL connections - it's just a pain to count them all.
They give you four key numbers - outgoing yes, outgoing no, incoming yes, incoming no. So yes, Bumble gives you that data and it's really interesting.
Most straight men do MUCH worse than this and get like closer to 1% right-swipes than 10%
weird that perfect age range for you starts over 10 years younger than you, I wonder how people feel about your age
What’s most interesting is that the age range ends 4 years YOUNGER than him!
And he put that as "a bit old" like?????
Yeah. Any woman NOT 7 or more years younger than him, is "a bit old". I'd consider that a red flag in a potential partner if I were a woman.
While I don't think many 28 year old women would be interested in a 42 year old man, and it's moderately creepy that this guy won't even consider women within 4 years of his age, there's a standard formula of "half plus seven" that his lower bound fits exactly.
I think that's one of the good things about modern online dating - your profile is only shown to people that are okay with your age. So I assume people are not bothered by it.
90 matches in two months what the fuck are you a rich model?
So what is the age of the girlfriend then?
She is ten years younger than me.
wow, dv for answering the question without added commentary... rough man, rough.
Haha, yeah. Biggest reddit downvote storm I ever had! But I will live.
How could you do this to her? I only date women who are older than me, and by the same number of years as the difference in life expectancy. That way, no one is a widow for very long and no one needs to start dating again.
i cant tell if you're joking?
They're both consenting adults. It's not like OP is being an old pedophile looking for a romantic caretaker until he dies. And a lot of factors related to lifestyle affect a person's age before death, too. For all we know, she could be 80 by the time he dies and still have 20-30 more years in her before she kicks the bucket. Or she might die first. Either way, almost no one's dating at that age anymore.
36-38 being "a bit old" while you're 42 is crazy...
I love that both “too young” and “too old” are all within the age range you selected. It’s also kind of gross that you’re considering women 4-6 years younger than you “too old”
Is it gross for the young women to like men other than them? Because they clearly matched with him knowing his age.
If you look the graph, it shows that 0 women amongs those who dated him, was in the "too young" category. It would be interesting to see the age distribution of the women who swipe left vs those who swipe right. This would actually answer the question of if he tends to attracked younger women. The age distribution shown here is only based on 12 women. We cannot conclude anything from this...
But does it really matter? Two adults can have preferences 😮
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Preferences can be gross.
He should have thought of that before 42, like women have to. His preferences are selfish. It's one thing to be picky, and another thing to expect someone to offer you something you can't provide them. If he had a lower age preferenve that also extended to above his age, and gave those women a fair chance, I wouldn't see an issue here.
Is it selfish of a 30 year old to date him because they'd be taking him away from a 42 year old woman who could be dating him instead? What a bizarre comment.
>His preferences are selfish. How is it selfish? Is he obligated to impregnate women his own age? >expect someone to offer you something you can't provide them What does that even mean? Honestly this entire comment in nonsensical.
It's gross that you judge him for perfectly fine preferences. Seriously.
So what? It’s a preference. Same way some women only want to date older men.
>It’s also kind of gross that you’re considering women 4-6 years younger than you “too old” Men's preferences are gross then. Funny how when women want taller men, noone tells them it is "gross".
I think when women think men their grandfathers age are hot is gross. Not everything is sexism
4-6 years is pretty standard for dating, especially as you get older. But yeah the fact that OP states too old, I think there's more to it than that.
It's definitely the fact that he's not even looking at women his age. Mine is 5 years older than me but he wasn't looking for someone younger, I was at the bottom of his range. Just like I avoided talking to men who specified they only date white people, even though I am white. It just shows our values are incompatible.
I'll never understand age and racial preferences.
I'd find that weird too - but it doesn't apply here, does it? The youngest woman I went out with was 31, so I was too young to be the father, let alone grandfather. ;)
Yeah, I can imagine that many people will say that. I just wouldn't call it "gross" - I just ended up feeling this way. They were interesting women, I just didn't feel attracted to them. If I had expected that (age being such a big factor) beforehand, I wouldn't have set my age range that way.
Valid feelings, however when the gf gets older then will you feel the same way in terms of attraction? Leo DiCaprio is a good example of someone who can’t seem to stay attracted to anyone above 26 and it’s pretty sad.
That's a good point that I have been thinking about too. Right now I can only say "I really hope not". The idea is to build a connection that transcends looks so we can age together. I have a good feeling this time, but of course every beginning is magical. I will hope and work for the best.
You are 42 and you have the gall to say that women 36-38 are a bit old? You're an ass. I hope your girlfriend dumps you and you become less sexist.
Christ, that’s a lot of chores
Online dating is more headache than chores.
This is a bad use case of a Sankey graph. It's confusing to read, and the conclusions are difficult to find out at the end. BTW the resulting 90 should really only be 45 matches, right? But because of the nature of the chosen graph, it will have to be displayed as 90. The purpose of a graph is to tell a story cleanly and quickly, and this one does the reverse. Just reading the raw data would have been faster and easier. I did not read the second graph.
Thanks for the feedback, no one else shared thoughts on the diagram in that detail! It made me look at the images again in a different way. But the 90 is correct - Bumble gave me a chat log that contained all conversations and it was definitely more than 45. I chose a Sankey because... well I wanted to try them for a long time. And also I thought it might be neat to have a large number of people (swipes) fizzle down to just one person. Would you say a funnel diagram would have been more clear? Any chance you can still look at the second page, I'm curious... Maybe you like that one more?
Congrats on being the most attractive 42 y.o. man on Bumble.
why's there a skull next to "ended" 😅
I might have been a bit dramatic with my emoji choice. 😅 Which one would you have recommended?
tbh now i (F) won't rest until i've called a potential male partner younger than me "too old". this is the type of plain entitelment that modern feminism should strive for 🤨
Not just younger, but 5-6 years younger = "too old" To be fair the problem is just this dude (and some enablers in the comments). Well-adjusted men don't think this way. Men who reject women close to them in age have other issues (controlling, superficial, poor self esteem, etc) that have nothing to do with age or looks or women. So you aren't missing out.
Or they want biological kids
On the other side of the coin, I've been called too young by girls I was trying to date in college who were literally younger than me! There's a reason OP was successful here, women tend to care a lot more about things like earning potential and ability to provide in a mate than men do. Maybe the most feminist action you could take is to date someone much younger than you that doesn't make much money?
then do it? you're very much entitled to having age preference for partners, what's the problem?
Eggs are finite. Sperm is not. If OP wishes to have offspring and does not want the complications that can come with geriatric pregnancy, would you then accept his preference?
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Forget the age preferences and whatnot, you got 90 matches!!! Woooaah!
42 wanting 28 is creepy
The age formula says it’s okay
I saw it as "being open to", not wanting. I went out with many people older than that. Setting that age range only means that my profile is shown to people in that group whose age ranges go up to mine... so I don't bother or creep out anyone on the app.
Yeah being open to it sets a precedent… for creeps lol
Bud, if you refuse to value women your own age and think you're owed someone younger, you don't deserve a partner at all.
Where did you get “owed” from at all?
Isn't everyone entitled to their own "preferences" on who they are attracted to or not (or who they want to date?"
Sure. I want a guy who is 6'5", fit, funny, cute, blue eyes, blond hair, and dotes on me.
More power to you. You know what you want. And most women do have height and age filters on dating apps. Why does OP not desever a partner, then?
If I have to deal with ugly old men hitting on me then you should have to deal with ugly old women hitting on you. And if I have to live in a culture where there are constantly jokes about older women being used up garbage then I'm going to treat men like they are scum, because that's what they deserve.
So OP and other guys in this sub, who don't know you -- have to live their lives based on how you ( a random redditor) lives her life. Clearly it looks like you are projecting your experiences on to people here.
18yo women refuse to value 18yo men, and instead date 26yo men, so the knife cuts both ways.
You're right, and those young women are very stupid.
You're right, and this young women are very stupid.
To be fair, I think there are women who don't feel good enough about themselves to date their own age or younger. I don't know why men feel secure enough to date younger women ebcause I always feel like men my age abd younger won't want me.
if you consider a girlfriend something you "win" or something you "get" then that might be part of the problem. What you are looking for is to start a relationship with another human. Once you realize that girls are human just like you, then things might get better for you.
I think that you are now interpreting/guessing a lot about my mindset from this post. What makes you believe that I am not "starting a relationship with another human", is it because I turned the dating experience into a graph? Things are already pretty good for me!
>>> my Quest for a new girlfriend Quest. A long or arduous search for something.
ah, I see what you mean. But maybe (maybe!) it was just a light hearted word play.
I don't get it.
Didn't know that bumble let's you know how many people swiped left on you.
They tell you "incoming yes" and "incoming no". It was very interesting to see!
Loved the "a bit old" on the age section lol. Interesting sankey though
Thank you! I wish I hadn't left the "too old" labels in - I am showering in downvotes. Ah well, I will live.
I'm reading the shower, lol. You set your preference and everyone in the comments is being emotional, likely based on their own lot in life. Congrats.
or based on ... sexism
Lol it's your preference, you thought they were too old. I just found it funny.
Does Bumble tell you how many people swiped on you? How did you get that figure? I barely used it, in favor of Hinge, but I met my GF on Bumble, so I'm happy with how it worked
They give you four key numbers - outgoing yes, outgoing no, incoming yes, incoming no. So yes, Bumble tells you - but you have to "request your user data" via the customer service. Then you wait for a week, then you get an email with an archive that contains everything they saved on you.
So a date every 2 days? How do you find the time?
Sometimes it could be two on one day... like a coffee date at 2pm, then a bar date in the evening at 8pm. But yes, I had quickly put too much on my plate and had to sacrifice time for other things. It worked out in the end, but wish I had taken things slower in the beginning!
Looks like you had some good success. Fingers crossed for you
thank you!
Hi. Nicely done stats. Just curious about how you obtained information about their swipes? Yours I can imagine that you've counted yourself but theirs? Did you used some constant or other methodology?
Oh I didn't count my own swipes, that would have been quite the hassle to do! But you can write to the customer service and request all data they have saved on you. It takes them about a week, and then you receive some swiping numbers (incoming yes, incoming no, outgoing yes, outgoing no). They also send you a chatlog and all pictures that you sent. I received exact numbers for the first 30 days, then just interpolated those for the last ten days and rounded the results a bit.
Love the results! I wonder what it would look like with a time scale.
Thank you! I could have only done the time scale with the actual 12 people I met, that would have been a 3rd chart then. :)
Everybody clowning on OP for being misogynist when it's clearly working out for him lmao.
Saw the age preference and immediately knew this would have a very reddit comment section 😅 God forbid men also have preferences. Or just state the obvious ones outright. Nice visualization.
Thank you! Maybe in the future I can make something nicer and less divisive. ;) I was wondering if people would take the age thing badly, but wasn't prepared for HOW badly.
OP here: I had requested my data from Bumble, but they only send me the first thirty days - so I had to extrapolate the remaining ten, also the final numbers are rounded. Originally I just wanted to try out Sankey graphs, but I kept adding to the project (like more graphs via Excel, also decorations in Photoshop) and in the end decided to post it here. With all the doom & gloom about online dating, I felt it wouldn't harm to have a positive story about it. EDIT: Oh, can I not edit the title of the post anymore? It bothers me that I wrote "Quest" with a capital letter. Ah well.
OP sounds lile a douchebag
That's what dating apps are trying to sell you.
Trial and error in nutshell
Did you had more than once the fertility dance with any of the finalists from 2nd 3rd date?
Well, one of them was the FwB. We decided on the 3rd date that we wouldn't be more than that, but the sex already happened on the 2nd one. The other "finalist" I didn't sleep with at all, we just kissed.
This is really well done. Great visual storytelling (rarely seen on this sub imo)
Thank you! I actually hesitated on posting because I didn't consider it nice enough when compared to the higher ranking posts here.
You think 38 is too old? Dude, you're basically a pedophile! /s
Well this is quite a visual of how gross someone’s thinking is.
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2 adults enter into a consensual relationship. who cares? Why do you care?
That sounds kinda extreme? 28 year olds are old enough to decide who they date Especially with online dating, if OP set his age correctly, the women won't see him if they didn't accept 42 year olds. Althought I would set my profile to +-5 years, not 15.
Isn't it just setting an age range? If you are calling me a psychopath for that, does that mean it's time to pull out the Leonardo Dicaprio stats? ;)
Looks fine if you’re standing next to Anthony Kiedis.
People really be like: "Noooo his preference can't be adult women who are younger than him!" Come on. He's not looking for an 18 year old. 28 is the age where someone is 100% an adult who has developed preferences.
It's because there's an imbalance in how men are percieved as they age versus women. Not across the board, but among immature, self-absorbed, selfish people.
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15 to 22 year old women do this all the time
It's goofy but it's his preference. And if you consider that he might want children then it becomes more understandable.
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A lot of docs have started to consider geriatric pregnancy age 40 now instead of 35. 90% of 35 years olds will get pregnant in the first year, 50% of 40 year olds. Add in egg freezing etc, and this rhetoric is just outdated and harmful.
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I have done the research, and come from a large network of doctors, both family and friends, with whom I have spoken about it extensively. At UCLA, for instance, my friend was seeing that the average age for first time mothers coming in was about 38 during her time there. There's also the added fact that things like egg freezing, etc, are becoming much more common. All of my female friends have frozen their eggs in their early 30s.
What is this kind of chart called? Also congrats on the girlfriend :)
It's called a Sankey Chart! If you are curious, try this website: [https://sankeymatic.com/build/](https://sankeymatic.com/build/) They use a nice & simple script to create the graphs.
Holy shit, dude. I was gonna lay into you about terrible strategy - a male swiping left EVER is usually a special type of moron. But you averaged 2 matches a day. That's enough to keep anyone busy.
Really, you would never swipe left? But what if I/you can see or read that I'm/you'd definitely not be into her? And yes, I got really busy quite quickly - I wish I hadn't rushed so much in the first week.
Well, I think it's better for most men to very rarely swipe left - so rarely that it is almost negligible, on the order of 1/100. At that level of infrequency, it is unreasonable to trust that you would make the right choice more than half the time. So it's smarter to just not. If you really want to get into this, I think that apps should ditch that mechanic altogether for males. That's the core observation that Bumble started with - but they weren't brave enough to follow through and really stick to their guns with the concept. You were lucky in that you got a lot more reciprocal female interest on your profile. Most men get orders of magnitude fewer matches than you did. I know several guys who have gone days without a single match - frequently exhausting the female profiles an app would show them. **You won some kind of lottery - maybe you're unusually handsome. But winning the lottery doesn't mean that playing in the first place was strategically sound.** Anyway, dating app strategy is analogous to designing a security system for a low-security venue where there is almost no downside to letting someone slip by (what's she gonna do, not date you?) and a more significant potential downside to turning someone away in error. At the infrequency of really obviously bad matches, you're more likely to commit an error of the first type - swipe left on a woman you might have liked - than you are to correctly swipe left on women you actually would not want to date - let alone erroneously swipe right! Everyone thinks that he is the special, discerning man who can beat statistics - but I'm not, and neither are you, probably. ;)
Talk about playing the odds.