Sanity check: paid dating sites: strategy

[invalidname]

Background: I haven't had any luck with free dating apps so I'm thinking of trying some of the paid ones next. I'm thinking of starting seriously searching for someone either in a couple weeks or January 2022, depending on the likelihood of relocating which I should know more about in a couple weeks.

$10k is the amount I feel comfortable spending to find a date where I would be okay with 'losing' the money in the event it didn't end up working out. My target timeframe is to find someone within six months of actively searching. Given the average cost of matchmaking services is $5k, dating sites cost ~$500 per yearly membership, and speed dating is ~$50 per event, I'm thinking a good a strategy is to sign up for one matchmaking service with good reviews, ten paid dating sites, and up to fifty (IRL) speed dating events and see how it goes. The dating site signups would be in parallel due to the limited time frame, or staggered at most a couple days apart. The matchmaking service signup would be scheduled a month or so after the dating site signups so that it can be skipped if the dating sites work well. Speed dating would be scheduled a month or so after the matchmaking service as a last resort.

Anyone here paid for dating services before and if so what was your strategy - was it similar to the above? What worked well for you and what worked not so well?

[Wiseman2]

Start with one or two paid quality apps. Your bombardment strategy has the downfall of way too much excess.

You can't focus if you are meeting too many people at once. Pace yourself.

[d0nnivain]

Slow down.  That is too much money & you are spreading yourself waaaayyyyy too thing.  10 paid dating sites plus matchmaking plus speed dating. . . good heavens.  Assuming you have a job which earned you the $10k you expect to spend, you will not have time in your day to do all that.  

If you want to use a professional matchmaking service, do that & only that. Listen to the advice they give you.  

If you want to use a paid dating site, check around the internet for coupon codes. I saved a fortune off the subscription price.  $500 per year is too much when there are ways to get a discount.  

IMO being on too many sites screams desperation.  

I think you would do well to have 1 paid OLD account & then do at least 1 thing per week designed to expand your circle & give you a chance to meet new people.  I'm a firm believer that you have better luck in person.  So make a commitment to yourself to become more active / social.  Do go speed dating but maybe only one per month.  Showing up every week screams desperation.  Plus do you really want to see the same people you rejected last week?  Instead think about doing any of the following: 

1.  look around at work -- not your company but in the building, area, or where you get your lunch / coffee. 

2. attend industry functions to further your career & check out who is at the trade shows, continuing education seminars, chamber of commerce events etc

3.  join a co-ed sports team

4.  tell friends & family you are open to being fixed up / would like to meet a nice person 

5.  volunteer somewhere doing something you care about -- rescuing animals, raising money for the arts, protesting something etc.  

6.  check out alumni associations for things you have graduated from 

7.  take or teach a continuing education class

8.  attend singles events, especially niche ones.  I did a thing called Leashes & Lovers where you could bring your dog.  My Dalmatian garnered me a lot of attention because he was striking but also because I was one of the few women there with a dog bigger than my purse.  I joined a club that played board games.  I was about to get involved in a group that played golf where they created a 4some 2 men, 2 women.  Even if there was no love connection you got to play golf.  So find something you care about or that interests you -- art, writing, wine / beer, investing, hiking, playing a sport, etc. -- & attend.  

 

Happy hunting.  Make it fun for yourself.  Throwing money at this problem is not necessarily the best answer.  

Having now read your other thread about being an escapist & living in your parents' basement, those are the bigger impediments.  You say you hate doing almost everything I mentioned above.  That is problematic.  You need to be a bit more social.  Maybe not life of the party extrovert but try making a few friends 1st.  Love & romance will come later . Friends are the baby steps / training wheels to dating.  If you can't do the former, you have no skills to do that later.  

Edited July 25, 2021 by d0nnivain

[Wiseman2]

3 minutes ago, d0nnivain said:

Slow down.  That is too much money & you are spreading yourself waaaayyyyy too thing.best answer.  

Agree. Invest in getting in shape, improving your health, and most of all none of this will go anywhere  once women hear that you live in your parents basement.

Focus on self improvement mentally, physically, financially and residentially.

If you meet 1000 women, you still have to be someone independent who takes care of himself to make it work..

[Cookiesandough]

Why in the world should it cost you 10k to find a date. That’s not sanity. 

[Weezy1973]

I did a mix of paid and free sites. Found dates and relationships from both. But they are different beasts. Free sites give you the illusion of endless options, when in reality there are very few compatible matches.

 

The paid sites have way fewer people, so if you’re used to free you might find it to be less mentally stimulating. But I found that the dates I did get through the paid sites were more compatible overall. 

[Happy Lemming]

32 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

Why in the world should it cost you 10k to find a date. That’s not sanity. 

Patti Stanger has made a GREAT living charging fees much higher and had a couple of TV shows about her business.

I imagine if people are willing to pay it, someone will take their money.

[Lotsgoingon]

And you want to have a life outside of dating. That's the great line, right: wanna date successfully, then get a life outside of dating!

And it's true: it's your life outside of dating that makes you attractive. That you have friends and activities, hobbies, interests, that you are knowledgeable or whatever (able to fix things).  Lively conversation usually emerges from life outside of dating. 

And frankly, having friends and good acquaintances is really helpful in not being overly needy and too eagerly dependent on a partner. Friends also help you size up potential partners.

I agree with the others. Either go matching or paid site. Or you could do matchmaking and speed dating (opposite ends). 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Lotsgoingon

[chillii]

What the, sounds psychotic , you could keep up with all that ?  Jezuz.

ps, money wise though, if you've got it and don't mind blowing it , knock yourself out.

Edited July 26, 2021 by chillii

[invalidname]

21 hours ago, Wiseman2 said:

Start with one or two paid quality apps. Your bombardment strategy has the downfall of way too much excess.

You can't focus if you are meeting too many people at once. Pace yourself.

Roughly how long would you recommend trying out the top two paid apps before moving on to other options. A day, week, or month? If all goes as planned I agree that should be good enough, but I like to plan extra in case it doesn't work out so that I have a good plan B.

d0nnivain: Thanks for the tips. I don't think time will be an issue - say it takes around ten seconds to like/dislike a profile and each of the 10 paid dating sites gives me 20 profiles a day. That's a total of half an hour a day spent on the apps which I can definitely fit in. If the matchmaker is getting me matches I won't bother with speed dating, and if not.. I'll have plenty of time for speed dating.

1) I don't go back to the office for a while thanks to covid, but will definitely try looking there once I return.

2) Industry functions in my industry have bad man:woman ratios, so I don't think that's worth spending much time on. Also I'm not a huge fan of networking; never had any luck at career fairs etc.

3) I'll look into options for sports teams, but the time commitment / skill level is probably too much for a casual 'I play tennis a couple times a year' type person like myself.

4) Family recommended trying paid dating apps. I'd rather not ask them for any more help than that or needlessly worry them.

5) Volunteering seems low-yield when it comes to getting a date. Not sure that's a good use of my time.

67) Interesting ideas; I like to keep my distance from academia though. Not a huge fan of the environment.

8) That stuff is great and high-yield. Hard part is getting an 'in' (invite), but I'll try making 'lunch' friends at work once I return to the office and asking them about it. May be difficult but I'll give it a shot.

Re: throwing money at the problem, as mentioned I did try the free dating apps but they just aren't working for me. I posted a rant about that in the rant section if you're curious.

Re: the thread about being an escapist, I wouldn't read too deeply into it as it's basically a rant posted in the wrong section (hence the lock). I can make friends; I've made friends before. Male friends, never women, but the skills involved should be the same. Not making/maintaining friendships is a choice some make as they can take too much time away from the things one would be rather be doing alone.

15 hours ago, Wiseman2 said:

Agree. Invest in getting in shape, improving your health, and most of all none of this will go anywhere  once women hear that you live in your parents basement.

Focus on self improvement mentally, physically, financially and residentially.

If you meet 1000 women, you still have to be someone independent who takes care of himself to make it work..

I'm on a diet, belly fat should be gone fairly soon. Once I get a date I'll move out before it becomes an issue. How will women know whether I'm renting a place or living in a basement? Re: mental 'self-improvement' I'm in two minds about this. To be or not to be a pod person. I'd rather throw money at the problem first and see if that fixes it before giving up my 'escapist' mentality and associated hobbies. Re: financial self-improvement I don't follow. I don't have financial issues so what's there to improve?

Cookiesandough: Matchmaking services cost on average $5k. How much do you think it should cost to find a date - zero, $1, $10, $100, or $1000?

Lotsgoingon: Which of the two options would you recommend trying first: paid dating sites, or matchmaking & speed dating? I agree there should be a gap between them which is why in the opening post I mentioned a one month gap.

chillii: I estimate the paid dating sites will take 33mins a day total (see reply to d0nnivain) once the initial set up is complete. Possibly less depending on the number of suggestions they give.

Thanks everyone who commented for commenting, I appreciate all the advice and various angles worth considering.

Edited July 26, 2021 by bot
incase

[d0nnivain]

When I say take or teach a class I absolutely do not mean in academia.  I mean some 1-2 shot adult education thing.  

You don't need an invite to these niche singles events.  They are open to the public.  You pay your entrance fee or sign up & that's it.  

It takes much longer than 10 seconds to read a profile.   If you are on 10 sites & get 20 profiles each, do you actually think you can review 200 profiles per day & keep them straight.  I highly doubt that.  You will be better off on one sight & really thinking about each of the 20 matches you get.  Look at the photo, read the blurb, craft a message etc.  10 seconds does not give you time to do that

Edited July 26, 2021 by d0nnivain

[Blind-Sided]

On 7/25/2021 at 5:57 AM, Wiseman2 said:

Start with one or two paid quality apps. Your bombardment strategy has the downfall of way too much excess.

You can't focus if you are meeting too many people at once. Pace yourself.

Yep.  Too much may make you miss a real connection.  

[ZA Dater]

I think your strategy is fundamentally flawed because

1: You will over expose yourself on 10 apps and make yourself look desperate

2: Its simply not worth throwing that sort of money at dating 

3: More sites does not mean more matches 

4: Dare say you might be better off paying a dating coach.

5: Your overall strategy lacks any sort of direction, sure you can get a date but what sort of people do want to date?

Less money and more thought is perhaps required in my opinion.

[SumGuy]

On 7/24/2021 at 10:42 PM, bot said:

....Anyone here paid for dating services before and if so what was your strategy - was it similar to the above? What worked well for you and what worked not so well?

Never paid for a matchmaker and if you are going to pay $5K+ would expect major amounts of leg work on their part, but then again they are going to almost certainly find you a transactional person as their whole shtick is that.   I can't recall if there are any geek match makers though, those are the ones would recommend just make sure they are not scamming you..it should not cost 1000s.

I say save your money and get onto 1 or maybe 2 paid sites/apps.   Each shouldn't be much more than $250 a year (just checked matches latest price list).  It may be odd to recommend it but seems you have some money to burn, but e-harmony did all the work for you (or didn't let you do the work) pushing you matches.  I didn't think it worked too great but it was easy to use so if I thought $5K was no problem throwing in e-harmony is no problem.  Personally, Match worked great for me where I live.

For a couple hundred you can get help on writing a profile.   The key is to focus on women who will be into the things you like and are proud of about yourself, then your true you is what they are after.  My caveat is most "help" out there is is recycled pop-psych trash...that will not get you a person who thinks outside the box, although they will want to decorate it. 

That is, if one is more than a bit introverted, a fine connoisseur of escapism, and more than a bit in the land of geek...most all mainstream dating advice and help is a recipe for disaster...unless you want to get with people who "put up" with you.  At least in my expereince. 

I started doing the "typical" thing...it "worked" (as in dates)  because guess I have enough "status" in the material world (things, looks, impressive job, etc.) but it just meant I couldn't be me...certainly not discuss the finer points of sci-fi, or science, or heck even heavy metal.  

What ended up working well for me was to have a genuine and irreverent profile, sprinkled one might say with sublet geek references.  The also working hard at finding my counter-part

[invalidname]

Thanks for the great advice all; general consensus seems to be starting with 1-2 paid sites is the way to go and if that doesn't work I can try adding more but it probably won't make a difference.

On 7/26/2021 at 1:45 AM, d0nnivain said:

It takes much longer than 10 seconds to read a profile.   If you are on 10 sites & get 20 profiles each, do you actually think you can review 200 profiles per day & keep them straight.  I highly doubt that.  You will be better off on one sight & really thinking about each of the 20 matches you get.  Look at the photo, read the blurb, craft a message etc.  10 seconds does not give you time to do that

I read (skim) very fast, faster than anyone I know. If writing messages is optional I tend to skip it since that can take a while; otherwise I'll probably create a couple form templates and substitute the name on those. That said I agree that starting with 10 sites is overkill and unlikely to yield better results than two or three.

21 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

1: You will over expose yourself on 10 apps and make yourself look desperate

Lol - how will potential dates know I'm on 10 different paid apps unless they're also on the same 10 apps, in which case are they really one to judge.

20 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

4: Dare say you might be better off paying a dating coach.

Thanks, I'll look into that! They seem to cost around $300 an hour which is a lot cheaper and potentially more effective than a matchmaker.

11 hours ago, SumGuy said:

Never paid for a matchmaker and if you are going to pay $5K+ would expect major amounts of leg work on their part, but then again they are going to almost certainly find you a transactional person as their whole shtick is that.   I can't recall if there are any geek match makers though, those are the ones would recommend just make sure they are not scamming you..it should not cost 1000s.

I say save your money and get onto 1 or maybe 2 paid sites/apps.   Each shouldn't be much more than $250 a year (just checked matches latest price list).  It may be odd to recommend it but seems you have some money to burn, but e-harmony did all the work for you (or didn't let you do the work) pushing you matches.  I didn't think it worked too great but it was easy to use so if I thought $5K was no problem throwing in e-harmony is no problem.  Personally, Match worked great for me where I live.

For a couple hundred you can get help on writing a profile.   The key is to focus on women who will be into the things you like and are proud of about yourself, then your true you is what they are after.  My caveat is most "help" out there is is recycled pop-psych trash...that will not get you a person who thinks outside the box, although they will want to decorate it. 

That is, if one is more than a bit introverted, a fine connoisseur of escapism, and more than a bit in the land of geek...most all mainstream dating advice and help is a recipe for disaster...unless you want to get with people who "put up" with you.  At least in my expereince. 

I started doing the "typical" thing...it "worked" (as in dates)  because guess I have enough "status" in the material world (things, looks, impressive job, etc.) but it just meant I couldn't be me...certainly not discuss the finer points of sci-fi, or science, or heck even heavy metal.  

What ended up working well for me was to have a genuine and irreverent profile, sprinkled one might say with sublet geek references.  The also working hard at finding my counter-part

Great post; thanks man! I'll give it another read after I have more luck getting matches and more empathy towards women. Currently it's just impossible for me to conceptualize the concept of 'women genuinely into things I like or may come to like, or anything besides singing, dancing, and the like'. When I think 'types of women', it feels like unlike men, they all have no individuality in any meaningful sense, nothing interesting/relatable about them, and no unique insights or viewpoints whatsoever.  I'm sure my mentality will change over time though, as it is born from a lack of experience wherein everyone seems somewhat cookie-cutter until you get to know them beyond a superficial level.

[d0nnivain]

Skimming the profiles, thinking that writing back is optional & creating templates guarantee you will get zero dates.  Yes, dating is a numbers game but it's not a math problem.  Nobody wants a canned response.  People are looking for somebody who takes the time to read their profile carefully, who crafts a thoughtful tailored response & who is focused on them.  

A dating coach is vastly different than a matchmaker.  The coach gives you social skills you may lack but you have to find the potential dates to use the skills.  A matchmaker does the leg work for you & gives you both potential dates who have been pre-screened to best pair with you & dating tips / coaching.   

This is your biggest impediment to dating:  

Quote

When I think 'types of women', it feels like unlike men, they all have no individuality in any meaningful sense, nothing interesting/relatable about them, and no unique insights or viewpoints whatsoever.

You make it sound like one woman is interchangeable with every other women.  People are not cookie cutter so your plan for a cookie cutter response is all wrong.   You say this mentality comes from lack of experience but even that is a poor excuse.  You have met people, gone through school & had female classmates, watched TV/movies etc.  People are unique individuals.  Until you take the time up front to ascertain what makes a given woman different, you will not succeed in your quest for a relationship.  

You say you want to throw money at the problem first rather than give up your escapist mentality.  Wrong approach.  Women can make their own money.  Nobody worth a darn needs yours.  Relationships are about quality time & emotional sharing.  To achieve quality time with somebody, a real connection, you have to let them in, not run away from them.  Money won't solve this problem long term.  It may get you a date but it won't sustain a relationship.  To to that you have to give part of your soul to the other person.  

As for knowing you are on multiple platforms. . .it's about an intangible desperation.  People can smell it a mile away, even before the internet & it's oozing out of you.  Stick to your plan of 1-2 quality sites if after 6 months a given site isn't producing results you can think about changing sites.   

[SumGuy]

5 hours ago, bot said:

....Great post; thanks man! I'll give it another read after I have more luck getting matches and more empathy towards women. Currently it's just impossible for me to conceptualize the concept of 'women genuinely into things I like or may come to like, or anything besides singing, dancing, and the like'. When I think 'types of women', it feels like unlike men, they all have no individuality in any meaningful sense, nothing interesting/relatable about them, and no unique insights or viewpoints whatsoever.  I'm sure my mentality will change over time though, as it is born from a lack of experience wherein everyone seems somewhat cookie-cutter until you get to know them beyond a superficial level.

Fair enough, was rushed myself the other day only time for one reply.   When I was younger was "taught" that women didn't like these things.  But that was back Bill Gates was a billionaire.    Even then though it was BS, just took a while to meet enough women that were not for the "prejudice" the world tried to instill in me loosen it's grip.  Believe it or not, these women (at least when I was younger) often were told they had to hide their "geekness" as well, many are the stories of women I knew in STEM who were told this...as well to to not be smarter than him or take the lead.  Heck women are still given that advice.

You do need to change your views on "types of women," frankly kind of disturbing, bordering on incel.  

Not sure where you got those views (stereotypes).  Realize if they are based in part on observation there can be confirmation bias as well as selection bias in those you encounter. 

Now many people you just meet off the cuff, on the street, at work, etc. have a work/public space persona...which by it's very nature is not putting on display what makes someone unique...large classes of people do not have the that luxury of being unique in the work-a-day world.

Women are people, and people differ.  I can guarantee you though that the women of which I speak (heck most people) will be turned completely off by you interacting with them and seeing them as some stereotype, especially a negative one.  

Liking singing and dancing is not incompatible with loving sci-fi or being able to carry on a critical conversation on history, chemical reaction dynamics, art, JRRT, etc.  In fact, I love dancing now (always did just too self concious for so many years to do so in public places) and give me enough drinks will do karaoke. Have dated "geeky" women who love it and those who are too nervous...I'd say half my gf were not big into dancing at all...the only correlation I have seen is those more extroverted like dancing and those more introverted did not, this even applies to the several non-geeky women have dated.

Lastly, if anything, I see the opposite on women as a group...women have more individuality and many interesting things about them and a whole view point that is unique (at least to me) as I do not live day-to-day having to navigate the world as a woman.   I agree and do believe it is important you change your head on that and begin to be able to see these things.  Also keep in mind, commonalities does not mean a lack of uniqueness, especially when the number of common elements is small and/or not truly defining of the person.  

[JRabbit]

On 7/26/2021 at 3:08 AM, bot said:

How will women know whether I'm renting a place or living in a basement?

most women ask this question before agreeing to a date.

[JRabbit]

8 hours ago, bot said:

otherwise I'll probably create a couple form templates and substitute the name on those

eww...this is disingenuous and not a good strategy if you want a true connection. Women know when messages are canned.

[JRabbit]

8 hours ago, bot said:

Currently it's just impossible for me to conceptualize the concept of 'women genuinely into things I like or may come to like, or anything besides singing, dancing, and the like'. When I think 'types of women', it feels like unlike men, they all have no individuality in any meaningful sense, nothing interesting/relatable about them, and no unique insights or viewpoints whatsoever.  

whoa...this deserves some exploring further

[ZA Dater]

I have to ask why such a comprehensive approach, maybe try two sites to begin with. Have good photos taken and write a decent bio and see where that gets you, the more I read your planned approach the less logical it seems and the more desperate it appears.

Ultimately you can influence how successful you are by your bio and pictures but that just get you the interview, money canny buy you the words to say on the date, just consider getting the date as a start.

[Wiseman2]

Just now, ZA Dater said:

 the more I read your planned approach the less logical it seems and the more desperate it appears.

Agree. Work on yourself first. Get in better shape, visit the dentist, barber, get some "date clothes" get a good profile and pics on a few paid apps and start there.

Most of all get your own Apartment.

Your logic of dumping a wad of money into an elaborate multipronged dating strategy so you can get an apartment with a gf is backwards logic.

[invalidname]

tl;dr replies which are mostly noise with a bit of a signal follow. Thread is winding up but I'll keep posting until the discussion is dead.

21 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

You make it sound like one woman is interchangeable with every other women.  People are not cookie cutter so your plan for a cookie cutter response is all wrong.   You say this mentality comes from lack of experience but even that is a poor excuse.  You have met people, gone through school & had female classmates, watched TV/movies etc.  People are unique individuals.  Until you take the time up front to ascertain what makes a given woman different, you will not succeed in your quest for a relationship.  

I worded it badly but the gist is I see interchangeability in women because at some level that's all I'm currently looking for in a relationship. Dig deep into a woman and you'll probably find something unique, but I've never dug deep because I'm perfectly satisfied with the standard superficial stuff. I'm not actively looking for friends and don't need my date to be amazing or my new best friend.

21 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

You say you want to throw money at the problem first rather than give up your escapist mentality.  Wrong approach.  Women can make their own money.  Nobody worth a darn needs yours.  Relationships are about quality time & emotional sharing.  To achieve quality time with somebody, a real connection, you have to let them in, not run away from them.  Money won't solve this problem long term.  It may get you a date but it won't sustain a relationship.  To to that you have to give part of your soul to the other person.  

Sounds like you're describing a friendship, not an adult relationship. I'm not asking my date to give up all their existing friendships. The way I see it the special something I'm providing beyond the numerous friendships and connections that they undoubtedly already have is s*x and children. I'm terrible on paper and 'perfectly normal' in person, so I'm not too worried about sustaining once I get passed the initial obstacle of 'who is this person and why would I go out with them when there are so many other, better profiles to pick from.' Will that involve quality time & emotional sharing, probably; will I have to make a deliberate effort to that end, probably not. I think it will come naturally like most things in life.

21 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

Stick to your plan of 1-2 quality sites if after 6 months a given site isn't producing results you can think about changing sites.   

Great advice; thanks! That's definitely the direction I'm leaning in and seems to be a common theme among all the replies.

13 hours ago, SumGuy said:

You do need to change your views on "types of women," frankly kind of disturbing, bordering on incel.  

My views are commonplace, fairly tame, and shouldn't be all that disturbing. That said they're worded poorly - like you, I was rushed for time yesterday when I wrote that post.

14 hours ago, SumGuy said:

Women are people, and people differ.  I can guarantee you though that the women of which I speak (heck most people) will be turned completely off by you interacting with them and seeing them as some stereotype, especially a negative one.  

People aren't mind readers. They know what you tell them and nothing more. For instance, you had no idea that I'd write such an 'offensive' post before I wrote it.

11 hours ago, JRabbit said:

most women ask this question before agreeing to a date.

If it becomes a problem I'll move out. One thing at a time; I haven't gotten to that stage yet.

13 hours ago, JRabbit said:

eww...this is disingenuous and not a good strategy if you want a true connection. Women know when messages are canned.

Yeah the nice thing about using 2 instead of 10 dating sites is I should be able to customize the messages a bit more and avoid that.

11 hours ago, JRabbit said:

whoa...this deserves some exploring further

I don't know about that; seems it's being taken the wrong way. Strange hobby some people have, pretending they're 'perfectly virtuous' on the internet - no wrong think allowed!

11 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

I have to ask why such a comprehensive approach, maybe try two sites to begin with. Have good photos taken and write a decent bio and see where that gets you, the more I read your planned approach the less logical it seems and the more desperate it appears.

Ultimately you can influence how successful you are by your bio and pictures but that just get you the interview, money canny buy you the words to say on the date, just consider getting the date as a start.

It is a bit desperate; I'll definitely start with two sites and stick with that for a while. My underlying assumption is that although terrible on paper, I'm great in person, so I don't foresee stages after the initial date being an issue.

11 hours ago, Wiseman2 said:

get some "date clothes"

What are date clothes - suit and tie? Flip flops and t-shirt?

12 hours ago, Wiseman2 said:

Your logic of dumping a wad of money into an elaborate multipronged dating strategy so you can get an apartment with a gf is backwards logic.

Where I live, rent costs more than $10k per year, so perhaps waiting on that until I actually need it and would benefit from it isn't as backwards as you may think.

[Wiseman2]

2 minutes ago, bot said:

Where I live, rent costs more than $10k per year, so perhaps waiting on that until I actually need it

That's incredible inexpensive. You need it now. Unless you're a college student under 25, there's no reason to live with mom and dad.

[invalidname]

6 minutes ago, Wiseman2 said:

That's incredible inexpensive. You need it now. Unless you're a college student under 25, there's no reason to live with mom and dad.

Rent is substantially more than $10k, but I have a job and can afford it. I turned 25 recently, and should be moving out before 26 if all goes as planned and I get a date. My point - the reason I mentioned $10k - is that the so-called "insane" amount I'm willing to spend to find a date is nothing compared to rent. Spending money to find a date - that's something useful. Lining a landlord's pocket with it - not so useful.