Tinder

Decided to experiment joining up with Tinder, and after a couple of weeks stumbling around with it have come to the sad realisation that it's just the same "pay to win" mechanics that plague modern gaming, but applied to online dating instead. It's now not so much an easier way of allowing people to hook up as "how much are you willing to pay in order to get noticed"?

I really do feel like I missed the boat with the whole thing, i.e. not getting in on it before it turned into an over-monetised nightmare.

I mean ffs, paying for a full account and then being expected to pay more just to message people is such a piss-take.

― "Spaghetti" Thompson (Pheeel)

my feeling is that it's less "pay to win" and more "pay to _feel_ like you're winning". i couldn't get a date for ages and it wasn't because i wasn't paying for the dating sites, it was because i was a fucked up person with no idea how to have a healthy relationship with other people. i tried doing some of the queer dating sites but i don't know how to take pics of myself that make me look hot (advice to cis men: for the love of god do not post a pic of you holding a fish, it's not so much that you're doing it that bugs me as that _you genuinely don't even know what you're doing is A Thing_) and I mean fuck it if I ever get to a point where I feel like I'm competent to date I'm on Discord.