What's the point in dating in today's society

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Before we get into that: are we presuming that we’re looking for something that looks like actual Catholic dating? Because yeah, if I wanted to hook up it would probably be pretty easy.

(Also, I’m dating a short, skinny nerd with glasses who works for a non-profit and makes less than I do, so don’t give me that “women’s idea of an average guy” stuff.)
 
Responding to men out of my league? They were the ones who initiated contact, not me. So it is not my fault. If you’re not interested, why message a person first at all? I think it’s very uncharitable to not reply if you started it first. Be blunt and tell the other party whether you’re interested or not. The end.
 
If I am unattractive, I won’t be receiving messages in the first place. Convo style? They are the ones that’s all hello, what’s up? I am a writer and can start and maintain a decent convo, fwiw.
 
Yeah, lets go on Catholic Match.

@fin

Congratulations, you are what’s called an outlier. An extreme outlier.
 
Not true. I am on CM. If you read the boards from both normal men and women, the problems are similar. At first I thought I was the only one. Turns out it is common. No one replies, no one messages, ghosting, blocking.

Btw I am also on secular dating site. Get lots of views and messages but similar problems. Most ppl do not know how to talk it seems.
 
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Tempting. I wouldn’t though, because I think that would qualify as “leading people on” in my book. Which is not exactly ok behavior.
 
Yeah, and what about that good old thing…what was it called? L…
Modern society says it is just a sum.of chemicals rushing to our brain, traditional society says it is too much to make a foundation for a moral life, both agree that thing simply isn’t good enough to even mention.
 
I rather like C.S. Lewis’s take. Eros is a good thing. Its weakness is that it aspires to more than it can ever be, and it needs the assistance of Divine love to be what it should. The natural desire of lovers to promise faith forever is a great virtue, but being mere lovers cannot provide that on its own.
 
Praying for your intentions jdevani.
God bless and I hope it all works out for you.
 
To be fair given that young people are more often non-religious than Catholic or Christian it’s not unreasonable to be pessimistic about dating.
 
@Darklight “Eros is a good thing. Its weakness is that it aspires to more than it can ever be, and it needs the assistance of Divine love to be what it should. The natural desire of lovers to promise faith forever is a great virtue, but being mere lovers cannot provide that on its own.”
Eros is just one of the four words used in Greek for “love” - phylia, agape, storge, eros. Making a promise is no longer about just eros, it is part of the other three because it implies unconditional love, submission to a contract (promise). When people seek a soulmate they look for all four aspects.


The most sought one is agape


Should it happen even outside faith, between a man and a woman, only God’s presence has made it happen yes I agree. We were made in His image.
Some of early saints had visions of the Holy Trinity even without being raised in Christianity (St. Barbara for example). So if the love is complete how can it be so without God?
Love complete does not necessarily mean a comfortable life, good posessions to leave to offspring, and other measures we put on love, just all four aspects achieved. But it does mean unconditional loyalty to one another because of storge.
 
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I think Hallmark might be looking for a new script.

Add a meet-cute and an awkward bike-riding scene and you’re good to go!
 
ChunkMonk said:
What’s the point? To have sex. To raise children. To have a companion through life. To not die alone.

But if you’re asking: are these really achievable? That depends.

How tall are you? What are your finances like? How handsome are you? Do you have tight Game? When you meet girls, do they generally go out of their way to talk to you, smile at you, laugh at your stupid jokes… Or do they tend to ignore you, rarely meet your eye, and give a half-hearted chuckle at best?

If you are a top 20% guy then you’ve got a good chance of landing a quality girl. If you’re a top 30% guy, you’ve got a fighting chance. If you are a 50% or below guy, then you’re most likely out of luck. The quality of girl you can realistically pull and keep locked down is going to be very low.

Something tells me you’re probably a top 40% maybe top 30% guy, but you probably think you’re a top 20%. Your best bet is to think of the quality of girl you think you can pull, and realize that you can actually pull two full levels below that. (If you think you can pull 7s and 8s, you can actually pull 5s and 6s, if that).
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I have a funny feeling that your idea of “quality” is virtually entirely physical appearance.
 
ChunkMonk said:
For every 50 girls you message, you will be lucky to get 1-2 responses. Roughly 10% of those will respond more than once. Of those, less than 1% will ever get to a meet-and-greet level, and of those less than 1% will ever go to a second date. The average man will never recieve a message from anyone who is even remotely attractive.
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Those numbers can’t possibly hold on specialty Catholic dating sites–from what I hear, the numbers simply aren’t big enough.

Today 35% of marriages start with an online “meeting” (although that’s not just online dating but also random stuff like CAF (!) and World of Warcraft).

https://www.usnews.com/news/article...d-of-new-marriages-began-with-online-meetings
 
ChunkMonk said:
Something tells me you’re probably a top 40% maybe top 30% guy, but you probably think you’re a top 20%. Your best bet is to think of the quality of girl you think you can pull, and realize that you can actually pull two full levels below that. (If you think you can pull 7s and 8s, you can actually pull 5s and 6s, if that).
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When I read paragraphs like this, I think the fundamental problem is people looking for a “spouse” on purpose (I need a certain type of female, and then I’ll fix her into shape), rather than asking out a person who they actually like (I enjoy seeing so-and-so in my class, and we laugh are the same things, maybe I should ask her out…).
 
jdavani said:
they’re just nominally catholic or they’re already with someone
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Y’know, I was just “nominally Catholic” for quite a few years too. People can and do get more interested in their faith as they grow older and wiser. This is also one reason you see a lot of elderly at church (in addition to the fact that they have more time to attend and also may be thinking more about their impending death and judgment than the average 22-year-old).

if I’d had a cool boyfriend who was also really interested in going to Mass every week, I might have been motivated to do the same. If you don’t want to date a Protestant and try to get them to convert, then your next best bet is a lukewarm or fallaway Catholic.

I get the impression you’re writing an awful lot of people off and decreasing your pool. I myself dated a lot of people who I didn’t think were all that great at first, but one of them stuck, and I am married today. I think you need to give people a little more of a chance instead of writing them off immediately because their religion is wrong or their social skills aren’t as good as you like, etc.
 
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ChunkMonk said:
Then you are either the unluckiest girl in the world, not even remotely attractive, or straight up something is seriously wrong with your conversational style because I and every other man that has ever tried the online dating scene will tell a completely different story.
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You may be an expert on dating for you and your friends, but what makes you think you know what online dating looks like for the women who do it?

Why not listen to women who have actually done it?


WARNING: SOME NON-CAF LANGUAGE.
 
That’s a part of it, obviously. Maybe even one of the biggest single pieces. But that’s actually a small piece when you consider the entire puzzle.

Chastity, loyalty, humility, strength, intelligence, devotion, understanding, compassion, empathy, purity, passion… There are so many things involved in what makes a person a person, it’s impossible to boil it down to any one attritibute and say that is the only one that matters.

But, given the nature of the Game, physical attraction is the first one hurdle, and the best way to instantly classify your ‘field of play’. Maybe that 9/10 is an all around great gal… If you’re barely a 4 you’ve got a pretty poor chance at roping her in. Go ahead and give it the old college try, but be realistic about your chances. Maybe don’t waste time fighting for the quality 8s and 9s if you can only reasonably pull 5s and 6s. Maybe learn to appreciate a good 4 if you’re ugly like me. If you’re a straight up elephant man dude maybe you should be open to a homely woman with a good heart.

For a guy, knowing his general ‘field of play’ is very important.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
When I read paragraphs like this, I think the fundamental problem is people looking for a “spouse” on purpose (I need a certain type of female, and then I’ll fix her into shape), rather than asking out a person who they actually like (I enjoy seeing so-and-so in my class, and we laugh are the same things, maybe I should ask her out…).
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I expect it’s more the latter bit - wanting to fix her into shape. Nothing wrong with asking someone out to see where it goes, so long as you’re very basically compatible. Coffee is not a commitment! (Basic compatibility for me would be something like “generally accepts the Nicene Creed, currently committed to sexual morality, and demonstrates basic personal responsibility”.)

I’ve actually been told though that the majority of successful online marriages are not from dating sites. People have a higher rate of success when they meet on a site for mutual interests of some sort.
 
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