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I'm going to rate all dating experience since my 18th birthday. It has been over a decade since I turned 18.
I rate the early stages of dating a 2. A 2 might even be generous. Dealing with women on dating sites (before swipe apps launched) and women on swipe apps is nauseating. There's a tremendous flake rate of women on sites/apps. They can flake either before an in-person date occurs or flake after a first date. There's no better way on this planet to feel worthless than go on a site/app sourced date, do not have sex on the date, and have no future in-person interaction after that one site/app sourced date. Because of the immense flaking, it's a defensible idea to really push hard for sex on the first date from a site/app sourced date because it helps you as a male achieve differentiation. When a woman has hundreds of options in her Tinder/Bumble inbox, she has a really high threshold of expectations on a first date. If a first date isn't enormously magical, there will be no second. Dates that were good enough 15 years ago to warrant a man a 2nd date are not good enough now to warrant a man a 2nd date because of the proliferation of options and worsening male-female sex ratios. If you are able to have sex on a first date and the sex is decent, that gives you a fighting chance of being perceived as better than the 100-200 other options in the Tinder/Bumble inbox.
It isn't a bowl of cherries either looking for dates outside of the apps, though it is overall an improvement. Doing grocery store, mall, coffee shop, book store, or street approaches makes a man feel like a salesman constantly cold calling/prospecting. There's some inefficiency to this way of sourcing dates, but because of what happens on apps, it is a slightly better option. The bars are fiercely competitive too and require a tolerance for late nights and alcohol.
Once a person navigates the minefield of the early stages of dating, it gets better. I rate the relationship stage as a 6. Relationships can cause their own set of agitating circumstances, but as long as sex is occurring on a regular basis, it is much better than the early stages of dating.
I enjoyed this thread folks.
I am a 'frequent' dater, with a mind-boggling amount of 'one-n-dones', only a few good LTRs to speak of, pre-n-post-divorce, which are the cherished and clarified peak experiences which makes life worth living.
If you want a numerical score, I give it an 8 out of 10 when I think about RESULT not PROCESS. There is some joy the 'shopping process' and the rush of meeting a new person, and what she's all about. I have spent many hours navel-gazing, wondering if the best part is the initial rush of lust, delight, and untapped potential, or if the best part is the solid 4-month to 2-year point where confidence, trust, familiarity and frankly virtuoso-level of sexual experience can begin to show itself. A staggering number are subconsciously looking for 3-10 encounters, then do the slow-fade and onto the next. I find that is JUST as common, as the people who married their first kiss, and decades later they can't relate to being single-n-dating for the majority of your lifespan.
But let's be clear, like anyone I send PMs which go unanswered, and after a couple weeks a txt comes back with 'who is this?!? I dont remember you, send a pic'. I hate the cold-approach-to-fourth-date-stage as much as anyone, because that's where you experience the most failure and humiliation. It depends on the locus, or object of analysis that you fixate upon. If you think about the flakes, the disappointments, missed connections and the bizarre abrupt endings to what Seemed like a Good Thing, to the number of totally batchit crazy mofos wandering around with an axe to grind (just they always seem normal across the table on a first date...), it's very easy to conclude the only way to win the game, is not to play. The meme says 'disregard females acquire currency' - but that the santized version of what the rappers say '#$%@ bishes, get money'.
Only you know what gets YOU out of bed in the morning, with an wry smile on your face.
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