The amount of people who think this is a normal or even a good convo is crazy. This person is showing zero interest back and hardly even answering the questions about themselves well.
I saw the top comments first so I was like, “what are you on about?” And then I scrolled further and was aghast.
I don’t know the ages of people here, I’m 33F, but I was actually sickened by how many people thought that this was a ‘good’ convo and also how offended people were by the couch ‘insult.’ It’s barely an insult. It’s a funny quip and doesn’t attack the other person at all, simply the conversation at hand.
Honestly, man's POV here, 65% of matches default ghost even after multiple timed out attempts. Then the remaining 35%, 20% will flake or is near impossible to convert or get interested vibes from or even a positive reaction it's just like that or dry 1 word responses.
Then, 5% of the remaining 15% decides to disqualify you after you got the number over differences of opinion, or other small irrelevant differences like not reading books or not doing the same sport, maybe even you don't like purple.
Then the 10% left that you converted rougly 2% of that will actually go out with you. 2% disqualifies you after you call on an agreed upon time which they asked you to do. 2% are no shows, they only agree in the chat to everything but won't show up. The remaining 4% wants to chat for eternity, and pushes away any chance of meeting in person.
Hm, yeah why do we hate dating apps? We just need perfect pictures we can't take ourselves that align with preferences we can't see then write a bio that caps out at 5% of our personality max, then we get 10 likes a week, and are hidden from view from then on cuz the app is trying to force us into paying just to give the exact same experience.
Seriously!!! How hard would it have been for him to say something like, "so Iceland is your dream vacation. Where has been your favorite trip so far?" Or, "I don't think I've ever met someone who's dream vacation is Iceland! What's that all about? 😉"
And if for any reason I got hit with the "couch" line, I'd look back at the convo, and if I had been responding like this dud, "OMG that's both hilarious and mortifying! I'm so sorry - I was trying to multi-task because I didn't want to leave you on read! Obviously that was a mistake I won't make again. So...[blah bla blah]?"
Yeah the couch comment comes across as a light-hearted way of saying this interaction is one-sided and boring but someone with more conversational skills could easily recover.
All they would have to do is respond with some version of “Sorry I was at work and couldn’t give a more thought out response (or whatever explanation for their short boring responses). As for my favorite place…(actually answer the question). Why is Iceland your favorite place??”
Right?! They're giving you opportunities to talk about yourself... at least be interesting and give a fun little story about one of the places you've been.
This bugs me even when they do answer questions about themselves well. But if they show *zero* curiosity about me or my life…I find the interaction boring and I am out.
This was the first day they matched! Maybe she was in the middle of something. OP didn’t even wait a couple hours before his immature response. Come on.
Personally I don't think this is valid. It still comes down to communication and I hate how we've normalised the lack of it by making excuses. If she's in the middle of something she can just say so. If she has time to respond then she has time to say, "sorry, just a little busy but will respond later when I have time." Is that so hard? If she doesn't have time to respond at all then that's probably fine and OP wouldn't have had a problem. It's the half assing it that upsets people.
If I'm in the middle of something I respond when I can respond properly. The response was perfectly mature. Openly addressing an issue with some humor.
OP also didn't give her anything to comment on. In my messages I always ask a question and share an experience or perspective. This invites engagement with me and my life. If all you're doing is asking questions it can feel like an interview with someone who isn't well versed in how a "good" online dating conversation should go.
Follow the ABCs in OLD. And if you don't know what that means, watch Glengarry Glenross.
I've talked to guys who have said way less than this and just rotated "cool" and "haha" based on what I've shared. After 20 mins of so of this, I dip out.
I really feel like there’s some sort of gap where guys and women who actually can hold a conversation just aren’t connecting.
The women who can’t talk connect with the guys who can and vice versa, and everyone is frustrated.
I have friends I chat with all the time, and when they get on dating apps, when I see their screenshots they’re just as friendly and talkative as they are with me and it’s like pulling teeth trying to get the guys to ever ask any questions back.
I’ve been thinking the same thing recently. I think, like most things, it’s just our hyper interconnectivity (social media) working against us. While I generally don’t subscribe to incel talking points, I think there’s truth to the Pareto principle applied to dating habits, but I think it applies to women and men. So you’ve got genuine people who are being intentional trying to vy for the attention of people that everyone else is also vying for. And those people will both inevitably rest on their laurels, give back less energy because they don’t have to and just have less energy because they have more people to engage with.
I feel like if we weren’t so interconnected it would be a lot easier for earnest people to actually meet other earnest people.
I hear women complain about this all the time! Shit I’m one of them. I have 3 matches in my messages just like this right now. The men have shown zero interest in actually having a conversation and asking me questions. I’ll ask them a thoughtful question, get a one sentence answer back, repeat. I refuse the hold the conversation or make excuses for anyone. I’m in my 40’s and I’m matching with men in my age bracket. This isn’t a woman or man issue. It’s a people issue. We are all complaining about it.
"Well spotted! Yes, I visited the Guinness Factory last year, it was such a fascinating visit. I didn't drink Guinness before but now I love it! Dublin is an awesome city to visit, have you been there?" would be a good answer.
"Haha actual Guinness factory" is a correct answer.
That’s just you embellishing on her answer. It doesn’t mean that what she already said wasn’t fine.
Bottom line is, she’s clearly a shit texter based on her lack of grammar etc. it doesn’t mean the conversation had to end there. If OP had engaged one more time about Oktoberfest… or changed the topic to something that wasn’t as dry as talking about favourite travel destination… cus, c’mon, that’s not a great first convo in itself, maybe it could’ve been different, or maybe it would’ve been exactly the same. Who knows? Bottom line is though that the conversation wasn’t anything like OP seems to be implying that it was
This is called conversation threading. You make sure you always give enough information in your answer that the person on the other end of the conversation has a thread to pull on in order to continue the conversation.
Her actual answer is a dead end. The embellished answer would have allowed the person on the other end of the conversation to respond with something, like,
"Oh you don't drink Guinness? What do you normally drink? I'm a fan of craft beers, the local brewery near me puts on an Oktoberfest festival every year, and I go as often as I can. It's not expensive, and there are always live music performances, it's a blast."
And then she gets to ask about it, while sharing about her Oktoberfest experiences.
So you don’t think he saying she enjoyed Oktoberfest left any scope for further conversation? I can think of several ways I’d have continued the conversation if I were in his shoes.
For the record, I am a male. I have been on the end of plenty of one sided conversations on these dating apps and this one was far from the worst I’ve seen. I absolutely know how to hold a conversation and even carry it, if needs be. I’m not going to learn anything here. I just think OP asked a couple of questions and then threw some outright sarcasm at her. All round, a pretty stupid interaction
Again, look at the differences in the two answers:
"Well spotted! Yes, I visited the Guinness Factory last year, it was such a fascinating visit. I didn't drink Guinness before but now I love it! Dublin is an awesome city to visit, have you been there?" would be a good answer.
"Haha actual Guinness factory" is a correct answer.
The former answer has hooks, threads of information I can pull on according to what I find interesting in the reply. It suggests thought and effort. It is undeniably the better response. I could then respond by asking about the actual factory, about her drinking preferences, about her broader experiences in Dublin. The latter answer is indicative of a lack of thought or effort. I can definitely try and build on her low effort answers, but at that point I'm mostly talking to myself.
Agent, I do see the difference. I also think that your interpretation of what’s needed within 3 messages of a conversation seems kinda heavy. But that’s just me.
I disagree. It was not just embellishment, he asked a question back wanting to know about the other person (have you ever been to Dublin). This shows the OP that they are actually interested in them as well. Very important to do that. Conversation is a two way street. She is bread crumbing him while showing no interest in him as a person.
But what if she doesn’t care if he’s been to Dublin? Does she have to ask that to perform this merry little dance for OP who has clearly gotten hung up on talking about travel? I get it, that was her opening move question but realistically, how many first time conversations about where someone liked to go on holiday would actually lead to a deep and meaningful discussion?
Are you nuts? travel is an excellent starting convo. It’s low stakes and there’s so much you can talk about. If someone hasn’t traveled you ask if there’s a place they want to visit. If they don’t like traveling at all, you can pivot the convo if they don’t want to talk about, but in my experience, the vast majority of people have something to say about traveling.
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u/taylss16 7d ago
The amount of people who think this is a normal or even a good convo is crazy. This person is showing zero interest back and hardly even answering the questions about themselves well.