r/TwoXChromosomes: I did something incredibly inappropriate at work but it proved my point
Today, my male coworker and male manager were talking about the male loneliness epidemic and I heard them say something about how hard men have it on dating apps. And I jumped in and said “you think women have an easy time on dating apps?” And they both said they thought men were unequivocally oppressed on dating apps.
So, I pulled up my tinder. And I handed it to them and said, you have 10 minutes to scroll through these oppressed men and find me ONE that you think would make a suitable partner.
Some of my favorite quotes included:
“Why is he holding a gun to his head?”
“Why is he naked?”
“Is… he being intimate with another woman in this picture?” (The answer was yes)
“Do you think he showers?” (Answer was probably not)
“There is a moldy Starbucks drink behind him.”
Finally, they did find a man who looked like a nice guy, he looked clean and there were no guns or dick picks, and his bio wasn’t great but it was general and acceptable.
I match with him. His first (and only) message came up about 10 minutes later, and he says “u gon let me fuck?” I also showed them this message.
Anyways, they no longer believe woman are just violently bullying average looking men on dating apps. They accept that men are their biggest enemies when it comes to online dating.
Should I let my manager swipe on tinder for me? No, I absolutely shouldn’t, especially not in the office. Do I think it was worth it? Yes.
In comments:
A handful of years back I decided to run an experiment and copy/paste my (male) personal OkCupid profile into a new female-seeking-male account, partially to see how my (admittedly eccentric) personality tidbits would be perceived in a female form - but mostly out of morbid curiosity.
“Her” existence was only implied, since I wasn’t going to reply to messages or swipe on other people - I wasn’t that curious (or sociopathic). I used some stock footage of what I felt would be an equivalently witchy/attractive female version of myself. I set up the account then planned to leave it untouched until the next morning.
But incoming messages/notifications started flowing immediately, a veritable torrent of garbage. I skimmed through for a mere couple of minutes, and immediately began to feel viscerally nauseated by what I saw - as well as offended, disgusted, confused…
I shut down the experiment a couple of hours later, completely sickened with what I saw. I did at least wait to see if more high quality or purposeful messages would show up later on, but… Nope! Not really, sad as it was. Maybe 5% of those messages even contained a sign they read anything about “her” profile or personality/interests at all. If it wasn’t foul, it was irrelevant. If it wasn’t irrelevant, it was perplexing. If it wasn’t perplexing, it was threatening.
At best, the vast majority of what I heard was about the same level of “sexy” and/or “respectful” as what you’d hear shouted at a petting zoo by a batch of elementary students trying to get the goats to come closer to the fence.
This experience shook me more than I’d have guessed and sticks with me to this day. Unexpectedly, I found myself feeling bad for women because many of them have “no choice” but to deal with men because that’s just what they’re attracted to. All she can do is kiss the frogs and hope for a prince; or get used to constant ribbiting.
Whenever I hear people talk about how hard things are for guys, I feel like laughing now. Me? I now feel incredibly lucky to be a straight man looking for women. When I get messages, even if I only get a few a week, they’re thoughtful and presented with poise - as if I actually might be something more advanced than a weird petting-zoo goat…
and
It may be inappropriate, but I did it. My boss and I are friends, and he was talking to a younger guy at the office we shared with another company last year. Talking about how women don’t give men a chance and it’s creating an epidemic (both are happily married).
I told them both to get off the brocasts because if they actually saw what was out there, they would simply just cry. My standards were too high, they said.
I gave them my phone. I said “seriously, swipe right if you see someone worthy of dating an adult human woman. You can have as long as you need until you find one or the filters run out of potentials.
I even reset my filters to only be based on distance so they could stop with the “I bet your filters are the problem” nonsense. Only two filters: looking for man and distance, which they both agreed was more than fair. I even set it to accept a few miles outside my parameter just to see if that might change anything, and they were sure they wouldn’t need it. They’d find ONE in less than two minutes because women are so demanding.
20 mins later, they were still huddled over my phone. Not ONE right swipe. It wasn’t about matches, it was about finding a single person worth swiping right on.
They accused me of picking a terrible app. I told them that if they both worked for the next hour, I’d Let them do the same on a second app I had. They actually both worked! Same rules. ONE right swipe.
At the end of it, they agreed that men think they have it bad, but even other men think their profiles are bullshit. They then went off about how the fish pictures are baffling, wondering why more men don’t just wear full clothes, and bitching that after the 3rd mirror pic in the gym they couldn’t stand that image anymore. It wasn’t interesting and it was stupid. They were also super shocked that every profile looked so remarkably the same — that there were like five different pictures and everyone had them: fish, car/motorcycle, gym mirror, group with random people and no indication who the guy was in the profile, and some medium distance image that involved someone famous or a sign and definitely sunglasses that obscure half the face. They also found it funny that every person with a pet had one picture with said pet.
They probably went through about 100 profiles give-or-take, and between the two of them, they couldn’t find ONE guy to swipe right on. My personal opinion: it’s good for men women aren’t actually as picky as men!
So, although it’s not altogether appropriate, sometimes it’s worth it just to educate.