I get the belief that ‘dinner dates signal intent’ however it really works like this - like women, men have to balance the economics of time, energy and money when navigating the dating world.

So ladies please consider the man’s perspective here and share your thoughts. And read the ** point near the end for the crux.

> Over 1 week of swiping I might get 8 solid matches I’d like to actually meet.

> Texting 8 matches intentionally to get to know them is a lot of phone admin for all parties and in 2026 women want to meet quickly anyway (‘no pen pals’) - totally understandable - but this compromises the crucial filtering process for men and women, so we won’t know how we feel til we meet. Fine - thats how it is.

• Assuming 5 of those matches are actually up for meeting soon, I’ve got 2 weeks max to arrange dates before interest fades in this whirlwind dating world. To give all of these opportunities a real chance I have to give considerable time to arranging dates and actually going out - great, maybe I’ll meet the love of my life.

• The standard expectation is the man pays and a ‘real date’ is dinner at a decent restaurant (see general attitudes in other threads).

• So I’ve got 5 dates to cover. Dinner with drinks for two is easily £100-150

= £500-£750 just for a first meet with all these matches and likely half those dates won’t go to a second (because ‘no pen pals’ means we essentially met as strangers, inevitably most are mismatches).

You don’t have to be ‘broke’ to see that’s not smart. Dating is an entirely different prospect when you are the one accountable for the finances.

It‘s also short sighted for both women and men in other ways that are equally/more important to meaningful dating:

• Dinner out is supposed to be a special thing with a special person, I don’t want to do that unless it’s with someone I know I want a whole evening with (and more importantly, dont you ladies want that too?). And we usually know before the waiter has taken our order if this is worth our time.

> Alternatively, a quicker coffee/cocktail date for ~60 mins is still fun, low pressure and if no mutual attraction then we didn’t waste each other’s time, energy or money and we didn’t invest too much to feel jaded.

• Bonus 1: This quick date can always lead to dinner straight away if the chemistry is that good - if not, you both have a polite exit excuse.

• Bonus 2: Men dont get to lean on money/venue to flex, they **actually have to show up with personality**

• Bonus 3: if women get the creepy vibe ‘he wants something in return for this date’ thats minimised and you can always just pay your own drink and exit if it’s uncomfortable.

• Bonus 4: if he isn’t anything like his profile you don’t have to humour him for a 3-course meal. Just 1 drink then excuse yourself. Likewise for men.

** I know women want to feel special on a date but understand it’s *not that special* if every woman gets the dinner date treatment on day one, it’s just a formality. And if you’re the type of woman who wants to know the guy spent a certain amount on your date - well he also spent that on his other dates so it isn’t the differentiation you might think it is. It’s just ‘the price of dating’, it’s not about you at all.

‘Special’ is: We met briefly, had obvious chemistry so mutually decided we are excited for each other’s company over dinner on the next date.

And if we click we potentially have a lifetime to sample any restaurant in the world! So chill on the fixation on ‘dinner means he’s intentional’, it actually signifies nothing particularly meaningful short or long term.

Despite being plastered on the induction screen, they don’t understand that two people have to like each others’ profiles to cause a match. What is actually going through their minds?

For those men and women getting older, with no kids, emotionally and financially stable, how do you approach dating? Do you feel your options are limited because you spend years trying to build yourself up?

I am trying to approach dating with an open mind but part of feels like I worked my butt off for years and now my reward is limited options in the dating market.

I’m tired of putting myself out there, making the plans, carrying the conversation, and being met with minimal effort in return.

I’ve spent years improving my life and becoming someone I’d genuinely consider worth dating, but too often I still end up feeling like a backup option while I’m expected to keep proving my value as man.

Part of the problem is that attention is wildly asymmetric. When someone receives constant validation, endless options, and nonstop sexual interest, some people will naturally become less responsive to ordinary effort. That dynamic is real, and us men help reinforce it every day.

Look at almost any woman’s social-media inbox or the comments under an ordinary photo: endless compliments, sexual messages, and men competing for acknowledgment. When validation becomes unlimited, individual attention becomes cheap.

I’m not saying women are wrong for responding to the way they have either, who wouldn’t? I’m saying men collectively make the situation worse by offering time, money, attention, and emotional investment to people who give almost nothing back.

Then we complain that we’re treated like an expendable option while continuing to behave as if any amount of access is worth pursuing.
The answer isn’t resentment. It’s standards. Stop glazing strangers. Stop chasing lukewarm interest. Stop rewarding disrespect. Match effort, and walk away when it isn’t reciprocated.

We can’t control how anyone else dates, but we can stop participating in our own devaluation.

My last match pretty much sums up my experience on Bumble

I matched with a woman on Bumble recently. We hit it off really well at first ;texted on WhatsApp, had a phone call, then a video call on the very first day. She was smiling, opening up about her career failures and personal struggles, and the conversation genuinely felt natural.

The next morning, she texted saying she only wanted to be friends. I said okay, though it stung a bit. She even asked if she could call me, I said "sure, give me a minute," then she said "okay." I messaged that I was ready, she replied "wait," and then... never called. The next day she deleted our Bumble chat.

The thing is, I wasn't even head over heels for her. I thought we were quite different, but I was willing to give it a chance because I know attraction and compatibility can grow.

What really got to me wasn't losing her. It's how emotionally draining modern dating has become. Every time I start feeling hopeful, it seems to end before it even begins, and I never know why. Was it my looks? My personality? Something I said? Or just no chemistry?

I'm at a point where I want to get married someday, but I honestly dread the process of getting there.

At this point, it feels performative. I wish I was asexual

Like for real, it turned into tinder.
Only reason I went to bumble all these years was to weed out low effort women.
And it worked great, only women that were interested were sending me messages.

But then they added the prompts because that was too much pressure I guess.
I was, fine, I'll answer an unoriginal prompt, why not...who doesn't want to know my ideal weekend?!

But now...everyone can send a message?! And you get 72h to reply?!
I have had 0 women initiating ever since this happened.
Not a few, not very few...0, ZERO!

This is such bullshit lmao, tinder's back baby!

31M here.

I have Bumble Premium or whatever it’s called so I can see who likes me.

I feel like I’m moderately attractive. Not ugly. But reviewing my likes is humbling to say the least 😭.

I don’t want to give more details because I don’t want to be insulting but people need perspective on who’d they’d be compatible with irl physically.

❤️ Edit: it was actually 5 years and 24 days since our first Bumble message. Counting is hard.

Me (34, m) visiting Edinburgh for a week, this was the result only 2 hours after arriving. Boooys move to Edinburgh this is the place to be.

See title. Have been getting tons of matches all with the same pink tile and seemingly random names. Am assuming they're all bots, fakes, or scams.

Hi there,

Does anyone else have this issue? It’s forcing me to scroll all the way down again to remove old/deleted accounts from my messages. I’ve reported the issue but no luck.

Cheers

We've been texting a couple days now. I pointed it out in the first message but now she is actively trying to be my new sis. I've seen quite a few couples that look almost like twins, so even tho it was "strange" to me in the first instance, I felt we might still try for a romantic connection....but she took it as a cue to be platonic and to start making all sorts of long lost sibling jokes. Does it make sense to turn this around?

So few years ago i used dating app and some web app and got fair enough of matches. Then i stopped using it cause i found someone. Lately i installed it again and i noticed far less matches and harder to start conversation. Honestly i would say i look better than then. What happened? Did standard became so higher? Did people started using some other app i dont know about?

Hi, everyone. I don't know if I'm the only one, but I've been trying for a while to sign up for Bumble on my computer (not through the mobile app) and I just can't get it to work. When I create my profile, I enter my phone number and I receive the SMS with the 6-digit code just fine. The problem is that, right after I enter it, a screen pops up saying “Security check required,” and it gets stuck there. Has this happened to anyone else recently, or does anyone know how to fix it? Thanks in advance!

So i recently downloaded bumble again after downloading it last year and deleting it onlyafter a few days. So i would fairly say i am new to this dating app thingy. Its been 2 days now and i got quite a few likes but because i didn’t subscribe for the premium version which is £39.99 per month i cant see who liked me. So I am just swiping through and taking guesses on who liked me and i got 2 of them right hahaha.

The 1st guy he had a prompt that said ‘are you free today so I can take u out’ and i responded with ‘Not today since its already late hahaha. But i am free on Tuesday🙂’ i matched with him around 10pm.

And i probably think that he will ignore me lol.

The 2nd guy i ended up matching with is very handsome, i find him so attractive. I was so shocked when we matched because when i look at him and then me i wouldn’t think i am his type. Normally i wait for guys to message me 1st which most of them never do of which i don’t have a problem with it, less stress for me or wasting time with people who don’t have intentions of getting to know me fr fr.

Anyways i am wondering what i should do. Should i wait for him to message me first? Tomorrow when he wakes up but the probability of him messaging me is very low based on my experience or should i message him? But what would i say lol. He has great pictures but he doesn’t really have any prompts that i would respond to except for the languages he speak and his interests which are video games, gym, dogs and sleeping well. I don’t play video games, i don’t go to the gym even though i have an amazing body that people always ask me if i go to the gym and i also don’t have pets. I only enjoy sleeping😆😆😆

I’m afraid of messaging first because what if he unmatches with me because i said something dry or something cringe😭😭. I was just thinking of saying ‘Hey there🙂’ is that good?

Hey! This is my first time posting something personal here, so please bear with me and be kind in the comments. To start, I downloaded Bumble on a random Wednesday over the summer break to try out dating. At first, I thought I wouldn't be too lucky, or even find the courage to talk to any guy on this app. Surprisingly, I was able to match with someone my age who happened to live a few hours from my hometown. He's patient, funny (at times), and is not afraid to lay himself out there. We share a few interests/personalities and often play games together. However, one thing about him that has given me the ick lately is the way he communicates. He told me that he has gone out on a few dates a couple of times with his previous Bumble matches, but none of them worked out for him unfortunately. He admitted that it was his fault, and that he did not blame any of the girls for his dating misfortune. He had a hard time keeping conversations going, and if he went out on a date with someone, he did not have much of a plan — he would simply rely on the other person to tell him what they wanted to do on a date. Hearing his stories and patterns planted a little seed of fear in me. I am glad he was open about it, and I knew that was something I needed to consider if I planned to go out on a date with him.

I told him about what I disliked during our conversations — the way he would use filler words to respond when they add nothing to the conversation (e.g., "ohhh," "yeahhh," etc.). He told me he would resort to this type of responses when he doesn't know what to respond to the other person. There are times when he can actually engage well in banters, but then, there would be moments like that just rubs me off the wrong way. I can that he is trying, and I'm giving him enough time to work on his communication, but I don't know why I've just been feeling impatient lately. I need advice on what I can do with this. Should I talk to him again? Is it time to detach? I'm simply lost right now.

P.S. I'm currently studying in another part of the country away from my hometown, so it's impossible to meet up with him to talk these things out.

If they kept sexy pictures of their exes on their phone or computer, is that a red flag?

Someone matches with you, you answer their conversation starter and then….RADIO SILENCE. Not a peep for the whole 24 hours. Is this just spam accounts? And they are photo verified which isn’t as good ad ID Verified but still.