Sigh

[greenstorm]

Dear okc.

You're set up tinder-style now, which means that for someone to message me I need to "like" them. This means I will only recieve messages from folks I want messages from. This means that if I choose not to "like" someone, I probably don't want a message from them.

Soooooooo.... why would I care if I missed "liking" someone who "liked" me? Isn't the whole point that if I don't think someone is interesting, they stay off my radar and I don't need to worry about them? Why would I pay for the privilege of knowing that the folks I decided weren't interesting, were interested in me? And if I wanted to know, couldn't I just "like" them? I think you fundamentally misunderstand the service you're trying to provide, here.

Comments

[squirrelitude]

I think they lost the plot about 10 years back, when they decided to alter their algorithm to reduce the non-overlap penalty. (Instead of a quadratic reduction in match score based on number of questions answered in common, they changed it to linear -- because people were sad the numbers weren't large!) That really trashed the value of the match scores. I haven't paid much attention since they sold out to Match.com, but I can't imagine it has improved.

[greenstorm]

It's definitely been going downhill steadily, but it seems to be better than the alternatives still, at least in west coast population density. Flash-in-the-pan briefly popular apps don't get people out here, and things like Tinder are... not my style.

[yarrowkat]

i think the potential there is that someone whose profile you haven't seen might have "liked" yours. which probably makes more sense in larger metro areas (mine keeps reccomending people 4 hours away in Las Cruces and Taos, no matter how many times i tell it "within 100 miles"). the ads are really aggressive.

[greenstorm]

Hahahahahaha. I'm sure there are places where there are enough people in that category for it to matter, but Vancouver area is not one of those and quite frankly it's hard to think about.

[yarrowkat]

yeah, Albuquerque, even with almost a million people, is definitely not one of them either. unless i decide i'm willing to talk to random dudes on the internet, i suppose. (i have my profile set to "looking for women/nb folks" largely because talking to random dudes on the internet has always been less than satisfying; i do date men, but i'd rather meet them through friends-of-friends and such). so far, i like my own company so much i'm not doing that. and the friends-of-friends idea is definitely not played all the way out!

[greenstorm]

I guess my filter is that I'm not in there as a woman, so folks looking only for women don't get me on their radar. Also words like "autistic" and "toppy" and a two-paragraph discourse on my garden and the fact that I kill animals to eat probably help.

[yarrowkat]

i have a bunch of stuff about my garden in my profile, too. though i don't mention killing animals to eat - i do link out to the farm webpage, to get rid of people who just want to ask me about the farm and have no interest in me as a person (because i am indescribably tired of that on dating apps), and it's clear from there that we raise animals to eat.

[greenstorm]

I am very specifically screening out One True Way vegans. I just don't have it in me to do those conversations.

[yarrowkat]

omg seriously. that is so exhausting to have to deal with. it's a red flag for me if someone says they're a vegan - they will have to prove they are not getting their veganism on everybody else before i will want to interact with them!

[greenstorm]

Yeah, for me too. I've met maybe two vegans I've been able to have discussions with about food/environment/ecosystems; the rest I evade. And obviously I am both interested in those topics and they make up a huge part of my life so those other folks aren't super suitable as companions.

[yarrowkat]

yeah, if someone is going to disapprove of me for eating meat, or for raising meat to eat, we might as well not even start. people can choose their own level of involvement in that process, but i get to choose mine, too. and i teach this work!

[greenstorm]

What really gets under my skin is the one-size-fits-all ecological prescriptivists. Oof. Like, disapprove of my moral choices all you want, but do not dare to paint all ecosystems with the same brush. Do that and you do not deserve this planet.

Ha. Definitely a pet peeve.

[greenstorm]

The thought of enough people that I haven't seen the same 50 folks for the last ten years and have a sense of what they're doing through by how their profiles change is still making me giggle.

[yarrowkat]

smalltown is small! even when it's not. OKC regularly reccomends to me people whom i know well and will not be dating. :) i occasionally read a friend's profile just to see what they put; Matie and I have given each other tips on sprucing up our profiles when OKC reccomends us to each other and we're like, no, we're really great as friends, thanks

[greenstorm]

Vancouver is *so* small. I mean, there's been some exodus and influx in the last decade, thus some new folks in the pool, but even they apparently know me from places (turns out this one was rat events and a folks music festival).

And yeah, folks I'm dating, folks I have dated, and folks I know are definitely all in there. They're pretty much my 99% matches and have been for two decades.

[yarrowkat]

i was briefly in a dramatically amazing and specatularly incorrect relationship with a person who was a 99% match on OKC - this was years ago. it was a life-changing relationship. and we were so, so wrong for each other. and i learned so much. and the breakup ripped my heart out through my spine and handed it back to me in tatters. i joked that that leftover 1% was the real kicker. :lolsob:

[greenstorm]

That sounds like such an intense experience. What was the leftover 1%? That sounds like a story! Have you only ever met the one?

My 99% folks are mostly the kind that, at least back then, were willing to answer hundreds and hundreds of questions in the hope of the return of Answers about which direction we should take our lives. That mostly means we were good at discussing stuff.

Note that some of the 99% folks are dating people I would do anything to avoid being in relationships of trust with, which I think is super interesting.

[yarrowkat]

oh, i was all in. i loved them so much, so hard. we had a ton of fun at teh beginning, and then enough fun, and tbh enough super intense really good sex to keep me in it when i should have left. that 1% was emotional maturity. they are about a decade younger than me, almost, and idk, just - they take advantage of people, use 'em and leave 'em. and i do my damndest to live my life with full integrity and if i say something, i do it (or explain why i can't at least), and i couldn't handle being used & left and ultimately that was what was happening. and. also. i couldn't show up for M in a big way at a time when they needed me, because we had all this baggage about me getting involved with a mutual friend and M didn't want me to date this person X, and it was drama all the way down and i had all this resentment because M was telling me who i could and couldn't kiss, basically. and damnit, nobody gets to tell me that. and then some shit happened to M, and they reached out to me, and we were in the middle of all this baggage around autonomy and polyamory and i couldn't reach back the way they needed. i think that is one of the things that really broke it. but at the same time, M was taking advantage of all these things about me/my financial stability/car-ownership/home-ownership that they didn't otherwise have access to, and it wasn't feeling like an energy exchange so much as that i was being mooched from a lot. so it was tanking around those inequities also. this was all about a decade ago. all these years later i still don't regret getting involved with X, though i do regret that it blew up my relationship with M like that. i learned a lot. the breakup went from "i need to not talk to you for a couple weeks" to "i need us to take a break for the rest of the summer" to "i am showing up at your house unexpectedly and saying i want to talk right this second so now that is what is happening" to amazing break-up/make-up sex that probably really complicated the issue for us both, to taking another communications break. the whole thing dragged on for months. i didn't have the willpower to stop it. i don't think i would tolerate that much drama and chaos now. but at the time i just wanted M and wanted to make it right/ make it work so much i put up with all of it.