At their wits’ end thanks to “frustrating” dating apps, men have begun catfishing as women on the likes of Bumble and Tinder. At the point of desperation at the realization that they’re not getting as many matches as they’d like, many guys are making female profiles to see what the online dating experience is like from the other side.
- It’s their way of being proactive, apparently. Dan, 36, works in finance but he was getting sick of striking out on apps. “I was downloading the apps and then deleting them soon after,” he said, as per the NY Post. “It was so boring, trying to be unique, trying to be clever. I don’t think my personality comes across on them. I’ve been unmatched [for] telling a joke. It was very frustrating.”
- Posing as women lets men check out their competition. Dan had a friend who seemed to be having more luck than him despite not having “much of a personality,” according to Dan. (Sounds like a great friend, eh?) That inspired Dan to create a profile pretending he was a woman to see what kind of guys came his way.
- This is becoming a major problem on dating apps. As Austin-based dating coach for straight men Blaine Anderson revealed, “At the beginning of the summer I had two clients mention, unprompted, that they made profiles of women. I thought it was unusual, but then another guy recently reached out on Instagram and said the same thing. I was like, ‘This is starting to feel like a pattern.'” After posting an Instagram poll, more than 250 men admitted to doing this.
- Good guys are seriously overlooked on dating apps. At least according to Anderson, who thinks that women have it much easier. “Women get a ton of matches despite what their profile looks like, and the reality is most men, even really eligible bachelors, guys who would make good partners, don’t get many matches,” he said. Creating fake female profiles lets guys see what kind of men are on the app who might be doing things differently.
- They see it as a learning experience. Men who pose as women on dating apps do so because they want to scope out the competition and see what they could be adding or taking off of their profile to increase their chances of finding a good match. “I was doing decently, but I wanted to see if there was anything I could improve. I wanted my profile to be at its best potential,” said one 28-year-old New York man.
- However, there is a problem with this. While most men insist they’re not doing anything wrong because they don’t actually respond to the men’s profiles or interact with anyone, trying to curate a profile to get more matches is a bit disingenuous and potentially even extremely dishonest. Women don’t want a curated version of men, we want the real deal. Dating apps may not be the best place to show off all your best qualities, but that doesn’t mean you should try to present yourself as anyone other than who you are.
