Advice

Dating can be confusing, which is why so many people turn to their friends, social media or a Reddit forum to ask questions or to understand and resolve challenges they face. If you aren’t familiar with using Reddit, there are some very popular subgroup discussions for a wide range of topics that involve dating. 

Reddit is an open platform where people can anonymously post their story, question or dilemma and open it up for others to respond. Users can subscribe to different topics and get notifications when a new thread is added, or when their thread has a new comment. It’s a place where you can take a really deep dive into a subject that interests you.

There are a number of popular online dating communities on Reddit. We put together our own choices for you to check out:

Boomers are looking for love and increasingly turning to dating apps to do it. But Tinder isn’t necessarily what they are looking for.

BBC reported that the demographics with the biggest growth for dating app usage are 18-24-year-olds and those over 50. Between 2013 and 2015 when Tinder began to take off, online dating tripled for the younger demographic and doubled for those aged 55-64, according to Pew Research Center.

However, older daters were finding obstacles in using popular apps like Tinder that continue to cater to young users. For example, when Tinder launched its premium paid service, the company charged significantly more for older users, which caused an outcry. Some dating apps don’t let people over 50 sign up at all, so boomers were either having to lie about their ages or look for another platform. 

A new study called "Pressure Points Study 2019" by popular dating app Plenty of Fish revealed that modern dating has become a source of pressure and anxiety for many people. They also found that while daters crave authenticity, they also embellish their own profiles to attract more dates.

In a survey of about 2,000 singles, Plenty of Fish set out to find what singles wanted from their dating apps.

First date jitters are a big concern among daters, especially women, with only 22 percent saying they weren’t concerned, but the vast majority saying they worried about how they come across to their dates. Forty percent of all singles were worried if they were interesting enough, 16 percent were concerned about whether they talked enough, and 12 percent worried if they were considered “fun.”

Badoo and Mel B Partners with a Podcast

Badoo is the latest dating service to venture into the world of podcasting with a new show that takes an honest look at the highs and lows of modern romance. “The Truth Flirts” is an eight-episode series hosted by Melanie Brown, aka Mel B or the Spice Girl formerly known as Scary.

Speaking to the British newspaper The Independent, Brown revealed that she doesn’t currently use dating apps because she is “perfectly happily single” but that she finds the concept “fascinating.”

“I was on a dating app a couple of years ago but that was because my friend set my profile up as a joke,” she said. “It was a picture of me and my friend and I would scroll through it on a Thursday or Friday night and see how people reacted. It was fun at the time. I understand why people find it quite addictive.”

Image: Cosmopolitan

Single life is full of ups and downs, and while the dramatic moments are not always fun to live through, they make for great entertainment. Tinder has partnered with women’s lifestyle magazine Cosmopolitan to create a branded podcast that digs into what dating is really like across the United States.

‘Single, Swipe, Repeat’ is a 12-episode audio show hosted by Faye Brennan, Sex & Relationships Director of Cosmopolitan. Brennan is joined each week by a celebrity guest host to break down the most memorable, hilarious, emotional, romantic and relatable dating stories shared by Tinder users throughout the country.

We know we shouldn’t compare ourselves to what we see on social media. Everything, from the poreless skin to the sunsets over pristine beaches, is edited and carefully curated. But despite our better judgement, we can’t help feeling envious when we see travelers on picturesque getaways and fashion influencers posing in their flawlessly organized closets.

This compulsion to measure our real lives against the heavily filtered lives we see on social media now extends to our relationships. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are littered with images of #couplegoals that make it easy to draw comparisons to our own relationships and give us unrealistic perceptions of love. According to a survey from Match.com, one third of couples feel their relationship is inadequate after scrolling through snaps of seemingly-perfect partners plastered across social media.