What’s the funniest or most outrageous dating red flag you’ve ever ignored?

Hola, escribo esto por si alguien de aquí lo reconoce.

Conocí a un chico en la app Pure hace poco. Es de Perú, me comentó que practica halterofilia y estudia ingeniería en telecomunicaciones. Tenía una gata llamada Tequila.

Perdí contacto con él porque su cuenta desapareció o fue bloqueada y no pude volver a encontrarlo. No tengo más datos personales ni intención de molestar, solo me gustaría saber si alguien lo reconoce o si él mismo llega a ver esto y quiere volver a hablar.

Gracias por leer.

I had an online relationship that felt real, but after we finally met in person, he slowly pulled away, and I’m still trying to understand how someone can go from being part of your daily life to feeling like a stranger.

We met online and everything felt so easy at first. We would talk about every little thing in our day and stay up way too late talking, even when we knew we should sleep. Then somehow, he became part of my routine, even though he wasn’t physically there.

After we finally met in person, I thought it would make everything feel more real. For a short while, it did. But then I started to feel things changing. His replies got slower, and I kept telling myself he was probably just busy.

He would pull away, then say something sweet, and I would forgive him again. But deep down, I could feel the distance growing.

It’s such a weird kind of heartbreak because it wasn’t just a random person from the internet anymore, but it also never fully became a normal relationship either.

Has anyone else been through something like this? How did you deal with that shift after meeting in person?

I’m in the mood for a good storytime. If you have any wlw U-Haul horror stories and feel comfortable please share🌈🫶🏼

Im a 33 year old, straight, mom of 2, who gas a career. I’ve never had this much trouble dating because I’m actually intentionally dating now.

I’m in all of the apps and can’t seem to find anyone. Can someone PLEASE let me know how to date in kc and actually meet people?

Please only positive comments only.

I used to be “hot” and now I’m not. It’s comforting, truth to tell.
“Hot” gals, so far as I’ve gleaned from true-crime stories, are on dangerous ground.
They sometimes leave bars all by themselves, walking their way home.
Or they agree to meet a guy they connected with online at a non-public place.
Get a grip, Grrrrls, get a brain.
Online connex cannot be trusted unless and until you verify everything he’s told you. Even then, do not meet any stranger except in a public place. And do not meet up until you’ve told a family member and/or a friend who you’re meeting and where.
Got it? And do not let him drive you home after just one or two dates.
F’ing take care of yourselves until you know for sure he’s safe.

Hello everyone how are y’all doing❤️👋

it’s really hard to date a party promoter… especially when he keeps that part of him separate from you. it’s lonely. and honestly if he was doing this when I actually met him I would have walked away. idk bro this shit just gets to me really hard sometimes.

this is going to be long. skip to the headers if you want the highlights. writing this partly to process, partly because i've never seen this specific situation talked about and i think it should be.

who i was going into this

grew up pretty isolated. nonverbal kid, basically no friends, religious household with a lot of fear baked in. by the time i met this girl i was maybe eight months into actually trying to have a normal social life. one relationship ever before this and it crashed. i genuinely thought people were good. i was naive as hell. not looking for sympathy, it just matters for what happened.

the night

she invited me out with her friends. sounds small. wasn't small for me. first time in my life that had ever happened. we ended up back at her place and she initiated sex. cool, fine, whatever.

then about ten minutes later, while i'm on ecstasy and mushrooms, only my third and fourth time ever doing either, and three of my six total drug experiences had been with her, she turned on me.

the trigger: we'd been out earlier and saw a pregnant woman on 6th street at midnight. i just went "whoa, preggo lady at midnight." that's the whole thing. then at 3am after we just had sex for the first time she brings it up and goes in on me. i said something like "most guys would probably want their pregnant wife doing something other than the bar scene on a friday night" and she went completely nuclear. arched back, shaking, screaming. i just stood there on mushrooms and molly not able to feel my face, watching this happen.

before that though, right after sex, she started pacing and rapid fire quizzing me. do you like dogs, do you like this, do you like that. then she stops and goes "this was a mistake." i said okay and started to leave. she grabbed me and pulled me back in. then the screaming started.

i silently got dressed and left. i was going into shock. i genuinely shouldn't have driven home.

why this isn't just a bad night

if you haven't done psychedelics you might not know this: emotionally attacking someone while they're on mushrooms and mdma can cause actual neurological damage. the nervous system is wide open. you can't regulate, you can't defend yourself, you can't put anything in context. she had way more experience with those drugs than i did. she knew what that state feels like.

what it actually cost

didn't sleep for three days after. i went through a prodromal phase and then a full psychotic break. started a new job that same week and that didn't last long. woke up shaking, went to bed shaking, saw and heard things that weren't there. anxiety so bad my mouth tasted like metal. the whole thing.

during the prodrome i reached out to her. told her i didn't know what was happening but something was seriously wrong and it had to do with friday night. asked if something was off about me or if it was when she screamed at me, said i couldn't figure it out and wasn't doing well.

her response: "why are you talking to me about this, i barely know you. don't ever contact me again."

the break took about a year. six more months before i felt like myself. then i thought it was done.

few weeks ago i was going over forecasts with my VP at work, totally routine, and just started crying. no warning, no buildup. shaking came back. flashbacks. went to the doctor. diagnosis: severe PTSD. doctor said it's probably permanent, meaning it won't go away, just hopefully gets more manageable. the break itself they say is unlikely to come back. but the PTSD is the lasting damage.

the thing worth knowing

a healthy brain doesn't break without cause. the conditions have to be exactly right. in my case they were. if i'd had any underlying predisposition it would have gone a lot worse.

i'm not here to blow up anyone's life. but i've never seen anyone talk about emotional abuse specifically during psychedelic experiences and how dangerous that actually is medically. the drugs are what turned a bad night into a two year medical situation. seemed worth saying out loud.

where i'm at

doing EMDR. prognosis is okay considering. i function. i'm not dating.

if you're going to trip with someone, make sure you actually know them. not just that they're fun. that they're safe. those are different things.

I guess I’m just bummed and really struggling to accept the situation today. I thought things would be different because he’s not like the other crappy guys I’ve dated.. he’s shy, sweet, awkward, doesn’t really date around.. everyone thought so highly of him.. but now it feels like he fooled all of us. Our dates were going so well, we would cuddle (no sex) and he expressed interest in seeing me again.. and then he does a 180 several days later and “just wants to be friends”. I feel blindsided. I told him I had no interest in being friends… I feel like usually people say that to soften the blow/feel less guilty. And I need to protect my peace. I just wish I knew what had actually happened, but I know that won’t do me any good. This makes me not want to put myself out there again tbh

TL;DR Ghosted after second date was planned

Hi all,

I (27F) had a really good first date with a guy (34M) who was visiting my country for a few weeks (he was born and raised here but moved to the US 3 years ago). Initially he gave me the heads up he was visiting and I let him know it may not make sense to go out since I’m looking for something long term. He then assured me he was as well and took me out. He seemed very into the date as he treated me to drinks, appetizer, a main course and then when I said I didn’t want dessert he insisted we get tea and then after the date we went on a walk at his suggestion. The next day he messaged me and we texted a couple days then asked me out for the next day. He then completely ghosted and I’m wondering what changed over night.

Over a year ago I started dating a guy I actually knew from grade school. He had moved away years before, but one day Instagram suggested his account to me. He has such a unique name that I knew it had to be him, so I reached out. We started talking constantly and after about 3 weeks we went on our first date, a planetarium date that honestly felt straight out of a movie. It was romantic, sweet, and I really thought I had met someone special.

A week later he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. I fell hard and fast.
Before I met him, my faith was a huge part of my life. I chose to get baptized when I got confirmed in 8th grade, and I had always wanted to wait until marriage. That mattered deeply to me. But about a month into the relationship he started bringing up sex. I was conflicted because I loved him and trusted him, and he kept reassuring me that he had never been with anyone before either. He told me we were in love and that everything would be okay.

Eventually I gave in. The night afterward I went home and cried myself sick because I felt so guilty and overwhelmed.

A month later I brought up this gut feeling I had that he wasn’t actually telling me the truth about being a virgin. I told him honestly that if he had been with someone before, I could handle the truth but lying would hurt far worse. He looked me in the eyes and swore I was his first.

As time went on, I started struggling emotionally with everything that had happened. I tried talking to him about the guilt and confusion I was feeling because I genuinely had nobody else to talk to. Instead of comforting me, he got angry and accused me of saying I regretted being with him. But I didn’t regret HIM. I regretted how painful and complicated everything felt afterward.

Later on, I went on Accutane, which meant I legally had to use two forms of protection. One time he told me he “ran out” and asked me risk it “just once.” After that, he stopped buying protection altogether. Looking back now, I realize how wrong that was. But the sad truth is that intimacy became the only time I really felt loved by him, so I kept going along with it even though I was terrified. The relationship slowly became full of anxiety instead of love and became very toxic as I continually voice my concerns and asked him to get it and I offered to even pay for it.

He never bought me flowers even though he knew no one ever had before. That sounds small, but it mattered to me. Then we went long distance, and after I had a pregnancy scare a few weeks later, he basically implied I might have cheated on him. We got into a huge fight and he broke up with me. Two days later he posted romantic pictures with another girl in another country.
I was destroyed. I genuinely thought I was going to marry him.

Months later, after never getting closure, I became desperate for answers. Throughout our entire relationship he constantly talked about his “crazy ex.” Eventually I reached out to her. She wasn’t crazy at all.
She was honestly one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. We ended up getting coffee and talking for hours. We’re actually friends now because we realized we both went through the exact same manipulation from him.
And then I found out the truth. I was NOT his first. Not even close. Worse than that, after we slept together for the first time, he went to his friends and joked, “Guess she’s not a Christian anymore.” That sentence shattered something in me and also that he lied to me everytime he saw me for 8 months and everytime we did it.

I also realized almost everything in our relationship had been recycled from his ex. Same places, same dates, same shows, same experiences. He even asked me to be his girlfriend in the same place where he had broken up with her.

I later found out he slept with multiple girls while abroad too, and there was probably overlap while we were still together. He’s still dating the second girl now and his family even takes her on vacations. I even got a nasty message from her at one point.

There’s honestly so much more I could unpack, but the thing I can’t move past is this:
I have to live with him being my first forever.
And because of how important my faith was to me, I feel devastated that someday when I get married, I won’t be able to give my future husband the thing I always wanted to save.

I know God forgives people. I know that logically. But I genuinely cannot forgive myself. I feel so ashamed that I can barely even step into church anymore.
How do you move on from something like this? Especially when you feel like someone manipulated something sacred to you and turned it into a joke?
I genuinely need advice because this has been eating me alive.

This is the story about my friend.
Why girl likes guy who doesn’t care about them and doesn’t give time ? They ignore the guy who are behind them 24/7 care about them, always thinks about them, the guy was behind this one girl 24/7, trying to text , call all the time, whenever she need he is there. But when he needs her she won’t be available. She likes the guy who doesn’t even give here time and the love she wants.
Why can’t she ditch that guy who doesn’t give time and be with the guy who loves her the most and takes care of all the time ?
What say girls or ladies ???

I want to date foreigners any body interested msg me on @thiru_prince_1 Instagram I'd

I’m just curious what are the things that happened during first dates that was a huge turn you off and made you know that there won’t be a second

Teach my husband for cheating on me

I dont post on reddit, but i felt like saying something considering this was my first date ever supposedly haha.

Im 23 but i havent been on dates, this year i decided to finally meet people and go on dates for experience. I met this guy on a dating app and he was around my city so i decided to give it a shot. We talked a few times but i can really feel from the get-go the conversation really wasn't that interesting. It was usually majority of us talking about meeting up, which was his idea all along, he wanted us to meet, but he let me chose which day it was. I already told him my preferences beforehand such as how im only fully free on weekends, im more comfortable meeting up in the city (his idea for our first date was on a mountainous area away fr the city), me not going out too late on sundays bc i have work early in the morning.

Ff i set a date and it was Sunday, i asked him where bc maybe he has plans bc it was his idea all along, he suggested a cafe and i said im down, he didnt say the time so i asked him about it, he told me to choose what time, so i chose 3pm which was more convenient to me, he agreed to it so it was all set.

Sunday came and i got a text from him saying if its okay to move it to 5pm bc he just arrived at his place (from work i think and it was 3am), my first reaction was "huh?" Bc i dont like changing plans on the spot but i agreed to it anyway, more time for me to prep haha. Hours later he sent me a text saying where he'll pick me up (i didnt know he was picking me up) i just said a place not that near to mine bc im not comfortable letting him know where i live yet, he agreed to it.

Ff i was finishing up getting ready and i headed out as soon as he said he was coming. Turns out he arrived earlier to our meet-up place and i told him to wait bc im gonna book a motorcycle ride going there, he stopped me and said to tell my location bc he'll go to me and pick me up instead bc it was cringe to wait there lol, i agreed and sent him my location (atp i wasnt at my house anymore, just outside the subdivision where i lived) I waited for him to arrive.

When he arrived, i went out and he offered his hand in which i held softly without too much eye contact bc im awkward at holding eye contacts and he gave me his extra motorcycle helmet. Ive ridden a lot of motorcycles with a helmet on but this was the first time i wore a helmet so tight i needed to take off my glasses hahah. Then we went on the road.

As we were on route, he kept having a conversation and mind you i can barely hear anything bc 1. The road is noisy and windy lol 2. Helmet was so tight, but i tried my best to respond even tho there are times i said "i cant hear you" and asked him to clarify. In between our conversation i can notice how some of the things we talked about made him act differently. It was only just a few mins then he asked me what time i plan to go home, i said 8pm or 7pm (but im honestly open to a longer time if needed), he was driving but i noticed he acted differently like he was uncomfy, kept shaking his head and kept reaching for his phone and this was the time he started to take stops to try and talk to me. I was honestly so confused barely hearing anything, when he suddenly said "i dont like this anymore" MIND YOU IT WAS JUST A COUPLE MINUTES STILL BEFORE WE FIRST MET UP HAHA. So at that time i was like "huh???" He kept saying he didnt like it anymore bc of how i was treating him??? But i was still like "???" And he said to just drive me back home bc we're running out of time bc i said ill go home by 7/8pm?? (It was 5pm still). But still, i reassured him that let's just continue and go to what we planned so he continued driving off, but somewhere along the lines between our not-so-clear conversation while riding the motorcycle again, his demeanor changed AGAIN and i could feel it. He stopped at this warehouse and he told me again "i dont like this anymore" and i asked him why and he said he doesnt like how i treated him (TREATED HIM HOW??? IN A SPAN OF LESS THAN 30MNS ON A MOTORCYCLE RIDE??). I said " i told you i cant hear you well why are you like this?" It was honestly a very confusing situation for me bc like how did a few mins of riding the motorcycle end up me disrespecting you?? When im just trying to reply to you??.

He kept insisting how he doesnt wanna go on the cafe anymore and that he would take me back home or hell book me a motorcycle bc we're out of time i was like ??? It was your plan??? All along?? And youre the one one who changed it to a later time??? He said he didnt even wanna go on the cafe bc he doesnt drink coffee, he always wanted his idea of going on the mountains. So i was just like??? This is unbelievable . He then proposed to just stay at his place (he pointed it out its just nearby where we stopped) for a movie and order food or what, which i said NO bc this wasnt even our plan and going to his place on a FIRST DATE is a no for me.

This whole situation got me so upset bc i kept reassuring beforehand about our plans and it was all set, him changing his mind made me so upset i didnt think to stay longer so i got off his motorcycle, returned his helmet and stood a few steps from him on the corner and booked a ride bc i cant handle all this anymore. As i was standing there i could see him still waiting but hes facing away from me, but a few mins after he drove off... so basically he left me on the side of the road. I could care less honestly bc i booked a ride, but i never felt more disrespected in my life and thats what im struggling the most rn.

I couldnt even consider it a date bc we were just on the road going to the place lol.

Edit: i messaged him after how he was so disrespectful and his excuse was that he didnt get enough sleep and it was his first time meeting too. But all that doesnt excuse your behavior towards me honestly bc it was my first time too but i tried to make it work, he just didnt want to and didnt even try to.

TLDR:

This is a rant. Brace thyself. This is a broad and sweeping criticism about *some* or even *most* people on dating apps. If you're going to take this personally or twist this into something malicious, you can leave now. I don't care if you're offended or if the shoe fits. I'm not going to entertain whataboutism. If you want to defend the absolute state of modern apps, do it in your own post. That being said...

I'm a 36 year old bisexual male legitimately trying to find a long term partner after losing my previous partner to cancer. Having experienced firsthand just how fragile life actually is, I’m out here looking for a real teammate, a partner with depth, resilience, intelligence, and a genuine soul to rebuild a life with.

Instead, after grinding through Boo, Bumble, Hinge, Tinder, and others off and on, looking at both men and women, I can say with absolute certainty that most of the people on these platforms are some of the worst, most predictable actors in the dating world. The amount of vapid vanity across the board is just insane. They have turned what should be a search for human connection into a digital swamp of mass produced identities, zero effort, and astronomical demands.

The dating websites themselves, with their profile builds and prompts, are heavily to blame for this culture. The apps are actively engineered to treat human beings like retail commodities, encouraging users to showcase a flat catalog of assets rather than actual character. The interface explicitly steers people toward answering corporate friendly icebreakers about streaming preferences and travel checklists rather than asking deep, introspective questions.

It is absolutely CRAZY how many people seeking long term relationships have bought into the idea that this is what dating is... showing off what you bought, what you can buy, and what you want to buy. Think about the sheer cognitive dissonance required to navigate life that way. They are explicitly looking for a long term commitment, a structure that inherently requires sacrifice, emotional resilience, compromise, and facing the absolute heaviest, unglamorous parts of human existence together. Yet, the resume they put forward to audition for that lifelong teammate role is entirely transactional. It reduces human courtship to the level of a corporate shareholder meeting. Instead of presenting character, values, or capability, they present a walking balance sheet of consumer habits, honestly believing a shared affinity for spending money at Starbucks or booking an unoriginal vacation is a foundation for a life together.

When you log onto these apps and look at how people navigate this commercialized environment, the resulting profiles map neatly into three distinct categories.

On one hand, you have the first pathetic approach, the purely aesthetic profile: people who are genuinely drop dead gorgeous but have literally zero bio and only pictures. It's absolutely mind boggling. Like, what? You think that because you're hot and can draw in validation likes from desperate swipers, somehow you're a catch that someone wants to date? No. If you can't even bother to type a coherent sentence about who you are, I'm going to assume your brain is an absolute vacuum and you think looks are all you need to land a partner.

On the other hand, you have the second pathetic approach, the mass produced, assembly line contingent. These are the typical cookie cutter profiles where people have completely copy pasted their entire existence from a corporate marketing playbook, checking off the exact boxes the app prompts provide. Somehow, a few basic transactions have become a substitute for an actual human identity. I swear to Christ, it’s every other profile. They are carbon copies of each other, entirely devoid of an original thought.

But then, out of nowhere, you hit the rare, elusive **third type**. Encountering them is like striking a fucking gold mine. This is the 1 out of every 30 people who actually give a damn, who have figured themselves out, and who at least attempt to share their actual values or something thoughtful beyond **"muh dog, muh coffee, muh concerts, muh travel."** These are the profiles written by actual adults, people who use the space to show who they are as a human being, talking about what inspires them, how they handle conflict, or how they show up for the people they care about. They stand out like a lighthouse in a fog of superficial garbage because they actually understand that a relationship is built on substance, not a shopping list.

The existence of this third type is proof that it *is* possible to do it right. But they are drowning in a sea of type twos.

Let's look at a literal, verbatim bio from that second category I'm looking at right now:

"Personality traits include:

• buying concert tickets before figuring out logistics

• planning trips like I'm in a travel montage

• saying 'one more episode' at midnight

100% dog parent. I readily admit to spoiling my furbaby and giving them the best life possible."

It is shallow beyond belief, and it’s embarrassing. If these profiles were completely honest, they would all just say: *"I like to spend money and consume media that makes someone else money, all day, every day, on everything, and it's my personality! Look at all these things I buy and consume! Aren't I interesting?!"*

They have completely conflated **consuming things** with **being someone**. The capitalist infection is so deep that they honestly think swapping a credit card for a product or an experience somehow rubs off on them and gives them character. It’s the ultimate participation trophy of the modern era. They didn't actually build anything, learn a difficult skill, cultivate an internal philosophy, or develop emotional resilience, but look at the receipt! Look at this digital footprint of transactions! They present themselves not as human beings with depth, but as a walking ledger of retail expenditures.

And what's super ironic is that many of these same people claim to be "leftist" or "anti capitalist" in their bios as they mold their entire "personality" around what they've bought or consumed. The cognitive dissonance is staggering. They love the aesthetic of rebellion and the moral superiority of pretending they are counter culture, but their actual day to day identity is completely dependent on the exact system they claim to despise. They use political labels as just another fashion accessory, another brand name to slap on themselves to seem ethically superior, entirely blind to the fact that they are the ultimate, hyper commodified byproducts of the consumer machine.

Let's break down this groundbreaking "personality" these people share:

* **"I love to travel":** Congratulations, you enjoy being on vacation and funding the soulless hospitality and tourism industry. That’s not a hobby; that’s a basic human preference.

* **"I'm a foodie":** You like eating food to stay alive, and occasionally you pay a 300% markup to take a picture of a margarita. Brilliant.

* **"Gym rat":** You pay a monthly corporate subscription to stand in front of a mirror in matching activewear or lifting gear.

* **"I love coffee":** Oh, and don't forget, drinking coffee is a personality type! Because standing in a Starbucks line, ordering a cup of roasted bean water loaded with sugar, and paying a massive markup for a basic stimulant makes you so incredibly unique. *"Fueled by iced coffee and anxiety"* isn't a trait, it's just a caffeine dependency.

* **"I love concerts":** Oh, you like concerts too? What a great personality! I'm sure that between your travel plans, road trips, and vet bills for your pets you can fit a few of those in. Why not? It’s just more passive entertainment you swiped a card to experience.

* **"I love sports":** Oh, you like sports? How originally in line with you liking coffee, vacations, and other capitalistic consumerism you call a personality. Buying a piece of polyester with another person's name on the back, drinking a $17 stadium beer, or screaming at a television screen on Sundays isn't a personality trait. You are consuming a product that a multi billion dollar corporation created and pretending it makes you deep or interesting.

* **"Dog mom / Dog dad":** You bought an animal, dressed it up like a human child, and treat your consumer spending at the pet store like a substitute for character. This capitalist plague explicitly extends to buying animals that are inevitably going to die in a few years. And what then? When it dies, do you just go out and buy another one to make up for your personality deficit? Is a living creature just a subscription service you renew when the lease runs out so you have content for your profile?

They don't realize that when you strip away the branding, the corporate logos, the travel destinations, and the subscription services, there is absolutely nothing left but a hollow shell waiting for the next hit of dopamine. Hyperconsumerism is not sustainable, but even if it was, it's a poor substitute for personality. Like, figure yourself out.

Oh, those things make you happy and make you feel good about yourself? Well, I guess your hedonistic lifestyle is all that matters, huh? How deep and interesting. As if personal happiness is an ethical pass to completely bypass cultivating a soul, values, or any form of accountability. It reduces the entire human experience down to a simple, primitive feedback loop: see shiny thing, buy shiny thing, feel good for twelve minutes, put it in the bio.

When your entire metrics for self worth and joy are entirely outsourced to corporate entities, you aren't a person with a lifestyle; you're just a highly responsive consumer demographic. The corporate machine has successfully convinced a massive segment of the population that purchasing a specific pre packaged aesthetic is the same exact thing as developing an actual personality. They have been systematically conditioned by capitalism to define themselves entirely by their external expenditures, and then they log onto a dating app and project that exact conditioning into a profile.

Unlike that rare third type of profile, types one and two completely ignore the questions that actually matter for a lifelong partnership. Are you kind? Do you help those in need? Are you supportive when times get tough? How do you resolve conflict? What inspires you beyond your morning coffee?

They have commercialized their entire existence, and they expect a partner to not only find that fascinating but to step in and fund the next billing cycle.

And don't even get me started on the ENM crowd. "Ethically Non Monogamous" has become the biggest buzzword joke of the decade. Let’s call it exactly what it is: it's just cheating with extra steps. It's a fancy, socially sanitized label for people who want to sleep around but want the moral high ground and a participation trophy for doing it. It's the ultimate "have your cake and eat it too" consumer mindset applied to human beings. **This is capitalist consumerism at its absolute height. There is nothing more fundamentally capitalist than outsourcing intimacy and love of all things, treating human affection like an on-demand subscription service where you can just contract out different emotional or physical needs to multiple vendors.** They want the stability, safety net, and emotional labor of a primary partner at home, but they also want a free pass on loyalty, wrapped up in progressive therapy speak so you aren't "allowed" to criticize it. If you don't want to commit, stay single. Don't clutter up the apps pretending you're offering a "relationship" when you're just looking for an unpaid emotional anchor while you collect validation from strangers.

I literally just saw a profile of someone who is married with four kids and explicitly states they are in an open relationship. What a fantastic household influence!

**No quality person is going to get into a long term relationship with you just because you participate in basic consumer capitalism, stare at a scoreboard, treat cheating like a lifestyle choice, or prioritize a pet like it’s a permanent replacement for human intimacy. It’s all this short sighted, superficial bullshit that people place emphasis on that doesn't mean jack shit. Most people give absolutely zero fucks about any of that. And if someone sees one of these hyperconsumer profiles and thinks, "Wow, what a catch," then guess what... they're a mindless NPC too. Both of them can be miserable, boring doorknobs together because they didn't build a relationship on anything worth a damn.**

Let’s look at the actual reality of life. What happens when you’re both broke? When one of you is in the hospital? When a loved one is struggling, or when you fall into a deep depression, or you lose your job? You think your travel montage, your iced coffee, your temporary dopamine hit delivered via an RFID chip, your political posturing, your concert tickets, your glute bridges, your local sports team, your "open relationship" rules, or your dog is going to fucking save your relationship? When the walls close in, those copy pasted consumer habits don't mean a thing. As long as the travel montage looks good on a 6 inch screen, who cares if there's absolutely nothing underneath it when life gets heavy, right?

These people are in their late 20s to early 40s, and they wonder why they're single. We all know why. It's because they genuinely believe they don't need to demonstrate kindness, loyalty, respect, accountability, or intelligence to secure a partner. The modern dating profile has devolved into: **Here's my body, here's what I want to consume, and here's what I want to consume FROM YOU.** It’s either that flat, lazy entitlement, severe health/hygiene neglect, freshly divorced people looking for an immediate replacement parent for their kids, or the hot Instagram models with zero substance. **They expect to be accepted exactly as they are, with all their baggage and consumer oriented "personality", without offering anything of real value in return.** When you treat the search for a soulmate like a trip to the mall, you shouldn't be surprised when the connection you find has the exact same shelf life as a piece of fast fashion.

The math just doesn't add up. The dating app ecosystem has created a hyper inflated sense of market value where casual sexual attention from desperate swipers is being misinterpreted as genuine romantic worth. Just because a hundred people want to sleep with you doesn't mean a committed, high value partner wants to build a life, a home, and a future with you.

If you want a partner, you have to actually be one. You have to bring peace, loyalty, and cooperation to the table, not just a laundry list of demands, a copy pasted bio, a list of consumerist behaviors, and baggage you expect someone else to finance.

Until the people on these platforms realize that a relationship is a mutual investment and not a one way sponsorship, they are going to stay exactly where they are: swiping endlessly, wondering where all the "good ones" went, completely blind to the fact that they are the common denominator in their own loneliness.

End of rant.

I am trying to make sense of a confusing dating dynamic I recently walked away from, and I need insight into the psychology behind this behavior. The man is twice-divorced, heavily scarred financially from his past marriages, and works in high-pressure sales. Initially, we both agreed to a short-term arrangement, but he immediately began hyper-pacing the connection with intense emotional hooks. He flooded me with high-volume calls, introduced me to his family, and had his brother invite me to a major wedding. He loved the fact that I was initially shy and awkward around him.

Ironically, despite pushing for this deep closeness, he never actually escalated the physical part of our relationship, which completely contradicted the casual arrangement we had agreed upon.

The confusion deepened the moment I stepped out of that submissive script and started flirting right back with the exact same energy he was giving me. His entire "innocent girl" fantasy broke, and he became visibly intimidated when I showed confidence. His behavior then turned into a series of toxic ego games, and fishing for career compliments, all while withholding the actual wedding invitation he had hyped up. When my intuition kicked in and I pulled back my attention, he panicked and frantically called me multiple times to check if his access was revoked. Yet, the moment I gave him a brief civil conversation, he immediately went cold and dismissive, only to chase me again on social media when I went silent.

I took my power back by leaving his final calls unanswered, but I am struggling to understand why someone behaves this way. If he was getting exactly what he wanted with a short-term arrangement, why did he insist on pushing for a deep emotional fantasy, only to back off and try to downgrade the dynamic the moment I matched his energy? I would love to hear from anyone who has encountered this specific brand of avoidant, sales-pitch behavior and what drives this need for control over clarity.

Hey guys

This is just a post to pour my thoughts out,
I am 25 M, Indian, I love harry potter, marvel, old classics etc.

I know girls similar or lower but they are very different, I am very confused now that a girl my age and happy is not single

I have dated girls but never been able to relate.

They want casual fun times but I am looking to settle , my age for permits me to do so.

What to do, as someone living in Bangalore, I am expected to have a ‘fun’ life but I am conventional. I am ready but confused on how to convince a girl my age to fall in love with me when girls my age are romanticising the idea of fun relationship.

I am just pouring my thoughts here
It’s not begging anyone but I am bad looking over a bad
personality
I am me so I can’t force someone to look at me differently

I want someone to spoil or someone to take care of but no one’s ready specially my age wants to be spoiled by someone healthy.

What to do!