dating sites and dating in general

I know I just said in another thread that I have bad luck in online dating, but I decided to try it again because I'm not sure I will have many if any other options. The issue is, even if I find a few people I'm interested in, I'm not sure how to approach writing the first message. Even though I'm female, I never got a lot of messages so it's not like I can just wait for people to message me.

For example, there's this woman I find interesting...I pretty much could have written her about me section (so we have similar personalities) and she also likes seafood. I'm not sure how to put that into a message that isn't awkward or weird. I'm also afraid she (or others) would have a problem with me going back to school (so not having a lot of money), having been with a guy and still leaving the door open for guys (and if I message guys, I would be concerned that they wouldn't be comfortable with me being into women and not totally femme), or having a problem that my former partner is still my friend and we officially haven't been just friends for that long. I would think other people would find that weird, but I got over him rather quickly despite how long we were together. We really were meant to be just friends and any lingering sexual interest I would have in him would simply be because there's no one else available and I'd be comfortable with him because we've had sex before. Anyone else could probably replace him as a sexual interest.

So I'm not sure what to do. I have no idea how to get a date either online or in real life. My last partner was completely by chance and he initiated at first.

Pursue your interests and you will meet people who like the same things-groups, volunteer work, hobbies. These can be something that sustains you between relationships as well"

A lot of people are bisexual and it’s not that uncommon. My daughter is bisexual and she always informs people up front. She is yet to meet a man or a woman who objected to it. Saying that, it’s very personal choice and you might meet people who’d object (I personally wouldn’t date bisexual man so it’s just a choice for me). So you just have to take a risk.

As about not having money because you are in school it’s ok too.

I recommend that in your first message you ask for details on
Something they said and offer your details. If they say they like to read, ask in your message what kind of books they like and mentioned that you like XYZ writer and ask if they’ve read his book etc etc

You know what's weird is in many groups I've been in, there's usually one or two people I feel comfortable around (if even that) and after they leave, I don't fit in or feel comfortable in the group anymore and have to leave.

What's even weirder is that I'm a musician and other than my former partner, I have not found a musician in the area that I feel comfortable around or feel like I have enough in common with to even be friends.

Working at a high school was one of the only times I remotely fit in and I don't think I had much in common with most of the people there so I never really understood how one approaches people with common interests. Hobbies have always been a bust for me in the past as well. I would LOVE to have musician friends...

I did tell my former partner upfront about my sexuality but I'm not sure I will again. If I were to find anyone online, I'm sure they would know. I might have to avoid women though because my lack of experience at all with women would be a red flag.

Is it okay really for someone my age to even be in school, let alone not have money because I am rather than have the lucrative career I'm supposed to have at my age? I'm only going back because I was supposed to teach in higher education and spent most of my 20s getting a doctorate just to find out how toxic the environment it was and how I really would never be good or smart enough to teach at a college. The specialty I needed to actually be competitive for jobs was suddenly unavailable as soon as I started my doctorate. My life has just been a pile of stupid decisions and a waste and I honestly feel pretty ashamed of my education. Even though I'm starting to have high school students address me as "Dr.", it still feels wrong. I'm not sure I would want who I was dating to know.

But your suggestion for the first message is helpful. Now I just have to get the nerve.

ETA:
I'm not sure I will be open and readily share details about my feelings and about who I am as a person again because that's what destroyed my first relationship. Of course, if asked directly I won't lie, but overt honesty/openness seems to be a relationship killer.

Tinder isn't just about hookups. There are people looking for all kinds of different things on Tinder.

As for Tinder being about looks. The thing is, if it is about looks vs personality, you can almost instantly tell from a picture if you are physically attracted to a person. To know if you are attracted to their personality will take many chat messages and probably meeting in person because of overall demeanor and non-verbal communication. So for a dating service, it makes 100% sense to prefilter potential partners based on looks and then maybe some other objective things that are considered important, like if someone smokes, religion, political views, and level of education.

OP says he is male? Male vs female makes what happens on Tinder completely different. I feel like most males on Tinder are there because they are desperate for a hookup, but I do not know this from first hand experience, because I am a male myself. And many females on there seem to be there for an ego boost or for their Instagram account. Most say specifically in their bio that they are not looking for hoopups, FWB, or ONS. Not sure if they actually mean that if they get matched with the hottest guy ever. Why mention it? It also seems like most females aren't even trying; bad pictures and no bio.

So to get matches, what happens is this absurd feedback loop where males swipe right on almost every woman. This means for females, most swipes right will be a match. So they become hyper selective on who they swipe. Which makes it so many men get fewer and fewer matches. Which means they have to lower their standards. Which means they have to swipe right at an even higher percentage to even get a match.

Also, men with weak profiles have to recreate their account to get a newbie bonus, or else their profile gets hidden. Because their Elo will be low and because there are so much more men than woman on Tinder, their profile stops getting shown even to woman that may be interested in them. I don't know if this is why Tinder is about asking for phone numbers. I thought it was kind of an American thing, bth.

So I guess many men get matched by woman who they don't really find attractive. And then they have to talk to them because of the Elo thing. So those men just end up saying rude things. If you are desperate and you get matched by a woman who you aren't really interested in it makes no sense to invest a lot of energy.

And then Tinder decides it would be a good idea to show profiles of people with high Elo to everyone. So if you swipe right on those, you need a high Elo for them to even see your profile. So they probably never see you and if they did, they would swipe left. So you will never get any matches from them anyway.

It is known that woman are extremely picky when it comes to online dating, especially when it comes to looks. They rare 80% of all men as below average when by definition 50% ought to be above average, according to the famous OkCupid statistics. And woman punch way above their weight in online dating because of supply and demand.

I created a Tinder profile and it was shocking to my ego. Basically I was only liked by woman who were older than me, not in shape, lowly educated, seemed really strange, were of a different ethnicity (I suspect that Tinder users are really 'racist' and thus non-white females have a really really hard time as the vast majority of people are white). I hoped I had a shot at an educated, sophisticated, good-looking, in shape woman in her late 20's. Turns out that according to Tinder the best I can do is an out of shape, lowly educated person in their 30s. How can such a person keep up with me? If we go hiking in the mountains, how will she manage? If I explain to her what I did during the day, how can she relate. When she sees my abs, what does she have to show for?

As a male, unless you are already top 10% good looking and naturally photogenic, you need to create photos specifically for Tinder. You need a professional or semi-professional headshot or upper body shot. Then you need to ask your friends to do something fun and tell all of them to take pictures of you. Same on your holiday. You need like 4 pictures that tell a story of how exciting your life is. You need pictures that make her dream about how cool it would be for her to be part of that picture narrative.

For various reasons, my ego was already crushed by woman. Tinder made it worse. But I am not easy to give up. I will be taking professional pictures and then I will ask my female friends to help me out. This online dating thing is so stressful and humiliating and boring. All I want is some good looking sophisticated female to select me as her potential hookup partner. And then we go on a date. And I hope for some good conversation. And then I want to reject her. That's all I want. I will pay dinner. I will be a gentleman. All I want is to reject a desperate attractive woman who is going out of her way to try to seduce me. I already gave up on 'interesting', 'sophisticated' and 'intelligent'. Let alone 'trustworthy' or 'respectable'. I hope that will bring some healing. But I think it will be a big failure. For me, all this so far proved to me that the combination of females and romance only bring me grief.

I cannot imagine how hard all this dating must be if you are a bald, short, overweight, and jobless minority.