Hookup culture just isn't for everyone, and the notion that it is has been the cause of a lot of grief and agony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
Most kids have a third place growing up, being an extension of school or another place like the skate park. If you leave school and don't find a new third place, finding new friendships becomes difficult.
I agree, and that's why I find it important to study and understand the social dynamics of hookup culture through research [1].
[1] What is Hooking Up? Examining Definitions of Hooking Up in Relation to Behavior and Normative Perceptions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546226/
That said, bars are a great way to expand that circle. Dating is just one aspect of socializing. People who go to bars specifically just to "pick up" are creepy.
I'm sorry, but how could you possibly think this is the case? Hookup culture is still very fringe, wildly looked down upon.
Humanity has had a purity culture for the past few hundred years. Sex has been a tool to oppress and shame. To this day, this purity culture continues. Women are slut shamed. Gay men are perceived as disgusting by proxy of their sexual inclinations. Kinks must never be spoken out loud.
Sex is still not talked about. We bead around the bush, play innuendos. Speaking directly about what you desire in the bedroom is almost unthinkable. Some married people endure years of subpar sex, when simple communication could fix it.
Where is this hookup culture? Because if I talk to 10 random people about my hookups, in even a very surface-level amount of detail, what responses would I get?
I get disgust, pearl-clutching. I am a whore, a slut, no cleaner than a pig and practically begging to get AIDS. In fact, AIDS might just be a good thing, to rid the world of immoral scum.
Do you see that same level of reaction to proclaims of marriage and romance? Because I don't. Not sure where you live, but if this is your definition of "hookup culture" and you truly believe it's been pushed on everyone... maybe I should move to wherever you are. But I've never seen or heard of such a place.
A lot of interests need a common space.
This is the problem with the tech world. They are so preoccupied with whether they can, they don’t stop to think if they should.
Yes, that's from Jurassic Park.
I'm sorry, but I think you may be spending too much time online.
Reddit has worked around their lack of it to some degree with location-based subreddits like r/AtlFilmmakers. But subreddits are high maintenance, and they isolate content. Plus, the naming conventions aren't standard. Maybe there's r/AtlFilmmakers for filmmakers in Atlanta, but another subreddit for musicians uses the state in the name instead of a city.
It's a bit like folders vs. tags. It would be nicer to have a single filmmaking subreddit with the option to filter on users' locations -- and default filtering out of location-specific posts in other places.
That wouldn't just make for better dating, though it probably would compared to something like Tinder. It could also lead to stronger local communities and better health outcomes.
Funny this got mentioned as France just successfully got that very feature removed from Telegram by arresting the founder and citing that feature as the one being used most for abuse.
Bunch of sources about that here: https://ground.news/article/telegram-to-start-moderating-pri...
After some backlash about safety/privacy, it was disabled on everyone's account and required people to manually opt-in:
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/10/strava-flyby-feature.htm...
Very few people opted back in so the feature became useless.
Most people still have the setting that matches them with people who have run with them on a group run (same exact route at the same time).
Honestly, though, there are easier ways to determine where you live and your routine, e.g. address books + parking a car outside of your house & observing.
I mean given sattelite imagery is a thing I doubt army bases are secret, but that was still a bit of a whoopsie, on both the personnel's part and the app's.
If you’re looking for someone, these features often make finding the names of their new accounts trivial. It also tells you that person is within the app’s range.
Better than any app, go get a hobby in person and get out there to meet people who are into it. Chances are you present yourself way better in the real world vs online. Online dating, especially the Tinder variety, really skews to work for some demographics and not others (I am not talking about gender here so much as age, location, etc.).
My suggestion is get a hobby that you explicitly are interested in, but don't go in with an expectation that you'll find someone, or make that your primary goal.
> Chances are you present yourself way better in the real world vs online
For many of us I don't think this is true
The issue here is that you need to have hobbies that are explicitly good for finding partners. For instance, I love riding motorcycles. I am happy to do group oriented aspects of the hobby like track days or group rides, etc. The amount of women in that activity is near zero. The same is true for cars. It's almost entirely men. Even if you say there's 10% women showing up - that's still a horrific 9:1 ratio.
I find it super annoying because my hobbies are so masculine and male dominated. I have to actually go out and do things that I'm not really that passionate about or interested in as a way to meet women - and then I have to be really good at said hobbies.
Fortunately, I am someone who is able and willing to suffer through things that I don't enjoy for a goal but it is going to contradict all the most popular advice out there of "do what you love and love will follow". It's just simply not true. All the women I've met were through activities or hobbies that I had no real interest in doing. I was simply doing them to improve my odds in regards to dating women.
Who cares if you're interested. Just do the fucking work.
In this sense hookup culture can relieve such pressure and allows for decoupling the sexual needs, and romantic ones even - personal note: I think it's weird how people online talk as if it's mandatory to mistreat/abandon the people you hook up with. I build a small but nice network of "friends with benefits" which for me are simply friends who enjoy a specific activity. Like, exactly the inverse of what everyone is recomending and it worked for me.
I am sure many people's brain are wired differently and things "just happen" for them but I need to be more explicit to make anything happen. It also feels boundary crossing, especially with activities where there is physical contact. And even if you take a rejection well, I imagine it doesn't feel great for the other side to get unwanted romantic attraction. It has so much potential to create unnecessary drama.
I wish there were places you could just got to find romantic partners. Not like speed dating but where you can casually hang out. Sure bars and clubs do work for a certain crowd but are not that great if you are not into the "party scene" and lots of people there don't really want to meet other people but just party with friends.
Probably depends on the details of the online communication.
A video call, a synchronous one on one text chat, an asynchronous one on one text chat, and a public broadcast like HN or Twitter all create very different experiences.
HN’s format makes it easy to show aloof, professional detachment and conceals my age and looks. For dating, though? That ain’t an advantage.
That's because they're primarily filled with old people, with "old" interests. Short of a coordinated visit, you'll always be in the minority. Heck, I'm in the minority, and I'm in my 40's the few times I accept an invitation to go to one of these places.
There's also the occasional left-over haughtiness about the value of being let into the club. Left over from when they were exceptionally popular. This can push people away too.
This depends a lot on the person.
> Because hobby apps are nicer places to exist, people spend more time on them – and they can eventually turn into services that are more than advertised. That includes finding like-minded people with whom you’d want to spend your time romantically.
> One reason that people may be starting to find love on apps not explicitly designed for that purpose is because the expectations are lower – and as such, the atmosphere is less sexually charged.
I feel an 'Ask HN' coming on: "have you found love on HN?"
The problem with Letterboxd that it's gamified and there is an incredible amount of noise and it's getting worse.
Top reviews are all just copy paste like baits.
"Me when watching a Ghibli film :cryingemoji:" 20k likes
"Yes I'd let Ethan Hawke visit me every single night" 10k likes
etc
It's a good site but also must users are writing dogshit
Just look at the popular reviews page https://letterboxd.com/reviews/popular/this/week/
“Yeah I’d let Jim Keller design my CPU” 200 karma
We try to search for meaningful relationships, which socials stole from us apparently, by switching to different socials, pretending they're going to do better than the previous ones.
Wouldn't ditching socials altogether get us in a better place on this matter? It is utopia at this point I guess. Some socials could actually be useful to make new friends/relationships but it seems to me that the very people that constantly complain about the "anti-social" aspect that our lives have taken are the ones that go on and try 1000 different dating apps, give up on friends after a couple of months to try and find new "better" ones.
Granted, as a professional loser I'd like to find someone that likes cycling too, though cycling alone is great too - still, I'd rather find that person in one of those rides than in some weird thing like Strava fly-by's or something.
On Zwift your followers can be automatically notified when you start a ride, and you have zero control over them receiving that notification.
It's creepy how much they push the social aspect.
I've found that it's really what you make of it. My city has a bunch of cycling subcultures - social slow rolls, fast road riding, sightseeing and exploration, commuting and errand-running - and different people like to see and talk about different types of rides and sometimes dabble in different subcultures, but generally people care way more about seeing the rides, and whatever fun banter or background context you add when you post it, than analyzing your speed and elevation.
I really love the social aspect of Strava because I'm friends with all the other people I follow on it. In some way I think it is more intimate than traditional social media. You could get a better picture of my life and how I spend my time from seeing my physical displacements during the day than by seeing the super filtered Instagram stuff that I only choose to share when I'm having a good time and doing something interesting.
Also the watch reminds you to move from time to time.
Komoot is great for planning of "trips" and "stealing" other people's routes. I've done couple of them and you kind of never know what you're gonna see there (hopefully not agressive dogs), all of them were pretty enjoyable. It has a bit of a social aspect, but barely anyone uses it where I live, so IDK how it is.
One thing I miss from Strava are segments (or whatever they're called) - short parts of your route with it's own leader-board. Has "speedrun, but IRL" vibes, which is pretty cool IMO.
It also has a great route builder.
Strava looks great for some sport activities, but I’d like to meet other nerds into 80s computing, hobby electronics, comics, sci-fi, home automation, kayaking, city exploration, etc
You invariably end up with lical Facebook groups, which are just a flow of posts, and require a FB account, or some non local reddit group, or small scale website you have no idea exists.
Something is missing. It sure would require mass appeal to be useful, but a ‘Tinder for your hobbies’ might be nice. Get matches from people near you who enjoy a cross-section of the same stuff.
Add some social aspects for those who like to show off or share (don’t force it though), make discovery easy, let people organise events…
It sounds to me like what is missing is community.
Around here, if you go outside you're soon going to learn who the like-minded nerds are. Even if you don't chance-encounter them directly, the people you do encounter are apt to know them and let you know about them. From there, you can reach out. Connection made.
In fact, I was just having a conversation with an old friend who recently moved to my area and he noted how everyone is out there talking to each other and finding out about each other, which felt foreign to him. He says where he moved from he was effectively anonymous. I suspect your living arrangement is more like his previously was.
Perhaps the solution isn't tech-based, but simply for us to be more neighbourly the old fashioned way?
Typical social network dopamine hits probably aren’t great for your health, but when it’s paired with 100 miles of exercise, I think it has a net positive. I’ll definitely admit to pushing myself further than I typically would for those Strava kudos.
That said, I don’t think something like Strava is particularly useful without the in person aspect to go along with it. Heck I don’t even know how you’d gain followers without doing group rides.
Anybody here from Germany who would share practical experiences with such apps?
I'm quite apprehensive of the idea that this is now how you meet people. Of course it doesn't necessarily have to be but myself being in my early forties, single, few friends, full time computer job have to say that it is a challenge.
It isn’t surprising at all that focusing on real life shared interests and values first instead of sex first would be a good strategy for finding a long term partner.
The issue is that a long term relationship (and sex) is often considered creepy to pursue in venues not designated for that.
https://discollect.app my public profile: https://discollect.app/profile/clo0oz2hw0005fv02qbxn866c
Also, is there a way to find who else has listened to what I've listened to?
Right now the only way to see if you have common discs with someone else is to directly visit their profile and a "Discs In Common" section will show up. But that's sort of impossible to stumble upon since user discovery is non-existent at the moment. Will be improving this in the near future (others who've collected this disc, etc).
I'll come up with an actual roadmap this week, but here's a few ideas that will be on it:
- Bio, messaging, full location, profile photos - Album reviews (only after collection) - Improved empty state and onboarding - Folders to organize your collection - Readable profile links
Appreciate the great feedback!
(Not to say that there aren't a large number of great projects off the main path.)
> It's a cycle
Lrf, guvf vf n cha.
And here with the birth of broadband I thought we'd moved past the age of line noise.
If you could somehow solve 2, 3 and 4, I assume there'd be many thriving topical communities in parallel, just like the forums of yore that you speak of.
The popular saying on the chats was "Give a man a chat server and he chats for a day. Give him a Go server and he chats for life."
I moved to a new city in 2015 and made a handful of long term friend groups, all started from meetup. I moved to a new city in 2024 and it's basically empty... except for some Wiccan book clubs, or MLM pyramid schemes or whatever.
I don't get it. Seems like there would be competition in this space to replace Meetup, but there's nothing? Or did we all just collectively give up on meeting strangers.
I'm quite of an introvert. And all my long term friendships have faded or my friends have moved cities or countries.
But around lockdown I took up miniature painting and started watching a bunch of 50 to 100 viewer channels about the hobby. With those numbers the streamer knows you by name by the second time you show up and you soon bond with others in chat.
This got me in contact with the small local hobby club, but also by the time I could attend an in person nationwide convention my family was astounded: dozens of people they knew nothing about were greeting me, stopping for hugs and chats, giving me stuff from their stands...
I've seen both romantic and business relationships emerge in that environment.
I think the "activities" part plays a role. I think a lot of men today struggle with socializing, especially with groups that have a good chunk of women. They feel like they don't belong and are acutely aware of how they can be perceived.
The gym, on the other hand, is a pretty isolated thing.
A very attractive mild acquaintance was either bored or lonely or whatever and set up her own run club, one guy showed up. Without wishing to think like a PUA these are good odds.
Paste in a list of your interests (maybe use a list of subreddits you’re subscribed to, or you X inferred interest list)
And it will suggest people to chat with ranked by most common interests.
Could be a weekend project. Anyone want to team up?
Something like feeding your Reddit username to
And suggest other users to chat to based on the analysis
Apparently it was and is used by married people who seek affairs or in another words people who want to cheat on their partner. If you can build community and business around that then you can build community and business around anything.
Btw I think dating sites invented the whole chatbot affair thing because Ashley Madison was using fake chatbot accounts to catfish and lure people into buying Ashley Madison membership or whatever they use to monetize their product.
No, this "article" as far as I saw was simply conjecture.
If there's any amount of this happening - it's hellishly small or limited to people who don't go out at all. If you didn't meet the love of your life in college, dating apps still seem to be the reigning king of the well educated white collar professional (HN audience). I think I've only met one couple that met at a club/bar - almost all others met through a shared hobby (where they met face to face originally) or at a party with mutual friends. By far the leading one though is college + dating apps. IRL meeting as a way to form a relationship after college seems pretty uncommon for my well off and well educated crowd.
I’m still trying to figure out how to sound casual and just interested in chatting and not having the first message sound too weird.
But I’ve made a couple friends and had a bunch of good chats.
I wish reddit, X, and even HN would be more encouraging of direct messaging people. That would mimic real world networking better where you’re usually breaking off into one on one or small groups.
Of course, this doesn't mean that it can be monetized easily.
Does not belong in quotes.
His view of free speech is different to the majority of people reading that article, seems reasonable to put quotes around it.
I don't know, but has anyone tried using Tinder in the US recently? Just scammers, crazies, wackos and strange people - if you can get a match. Tinder has gotten totally useless, in fact, it has become a marketplace for lemons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
Your chance of finding a decent date would be bigger on a Hire a dog walker app or hire a cleaner app. Some years ago, I was told that Couch Surfing is a dating app. Kind of.
Good luck.
Supposed name was my name K: kandfriends
The real "killer app" is Trailforks.
Reddit is perhaps the mother of all hobby social networks. You can not beat Reddit at least not yet or as long as majority of users are indeed humans.