Reviewing online dating apps was a fun exercise, and you all seemed to enjoy the post (a sincere thanks for all the ad clicks! Please keep clicking!), so here comes the sequel: The Online Dating App Experience - With Screenshots!
I think posting actual examples of messages is a good way to illustrate what it's like to try and find dates online. Of course, it is just my experience, since every screenshot below is of a message I personally received on my dating profiles. Everyone else's experience may be completely different, and it goes without saying that it is all valid.
Note that I am fully aware that it's not only women who get terrible first messages and are insulted and objectified at online dating sites/apps. What transfolk, disabled people and people of colour experience trying to date online is much more horrifying. People of all genders can be desperate, clueless, racist, classist and everything else in between.
Online harassment is a problem for everyone.
Yet, I am a straight white cis woman, and I mostly deal with straight cis men online, so naturally every message below comes from a man.
Online harassment is a problem for everyone.
Yet, I am a straight white cis woman, and I mostly deal with straight cis men online, so naturally every message below comes from a man.
I've been having it quite good with online messages for a while, honestly. I haven't gotten a dick pic in a long time. I haven't been called a bitch or asked if I was a feminist. (I am, duh.)
Most of the messages I get are vapid one-liners, inane references to my practice of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, out-of-context compliments or just lazy "hellos". Then there are some odd ones. And ones with sexual undertones. And the combination of all of the above. I don't frequently engage the messengers, which probably accounts for lack of post-rejection insults.
Most of the messages I get are vapid one-liners, inane references to my practice of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, out-of-context compliments or just lazy "hellos". Then there are some odd ones. And ones with sexual undertones. And the combination of all of the above. I don't frequently engage the messengers, which probably accounts for lack of post-rejection insults.
