Dating Apps Have Taken All the Romance Out of Going to Bars
WORDS: TIM LATTERNER
VinePair.com
Published: April 26, 2018

Once upon a time, you used to meet people in bars. Some were cool, some weird, and one or two might become dear friends — or, in an ideal world, the love of your life.

In this bygone era, people gathered at bars to socialize, blow off steam, and share news of the day. They didn’t drink silently while staring at the same CNN Breaking News updates on their phones.

Back then, bars were cultivators of romance. They purveyed liquid courage for those with love in their hearts and appealing strangers in their sight lines. If the cards were in your favor, and romance was in the air, magic might strike as your eyes met another’s across a crowded room. That room was a bar.

That’s all gone now.

Bars still exist, of course, but the rise of dating apps has transformed nightlife almost as much as it’s altered courtship. From creating Instagram-worthy design, to shifting weeknight business models, to changing bartenders’ roles, dating apps have radically reshaped the bar experience.

It didn’t happen overnight. In 2011 the category leader, Match.com, had 1.78 million paying subscribers. Today, some 40 percent of Americans are using dating apps. According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2015, nearly 60 percent of Americans believed that online dating was a good way to meet people, up from 44 percent in 2005. This sort of ideological sea change, coupled with rapidly rising membership numbers, has altered the ways people view bars and dating.

Gone are the days when you might have something in common with someone you meet at a bar because he or she shares your taste in watering holes. Now they just share your taste in apps, and agree to meet at a place one party chooses. If tomorrow, Tinder and Bumble and all their peers created a partnership with Denny’s, and Denny’s were the only place users could meet one another, well, you had better develop a taste for burnt coffee, because your bar-going days would be over.

“I heard a comedian once say that it’s like we’re basically sitting here with a bar in our pocket — we’re sitting in a bar full of single people, looking on our phones for other single people that aren’t there with us,” Pete Vasconcellos, bar director at New York’s The Penrose, says. “It’s really weird and backwards, but that’s the new normal.”

https://vinepair.com/articles/its-th...-industry-irl/

This is stupid...girls always want to dress and be flashy to get attention out in real life...it gives them the perfect excuse to take photos too


That's why bars/clubs are way way better than dating apps, instead of solely relying on an algorithm

i agree with the article - which was written in 2018. it's only gotten worse now. people don't go to bars to meet people anymore. the prospects are all on dating apps. why go out and possibly see 1 prospect when you can sit at home on the toilet and browse thousands of prospects? i'm late to the dating apps party and have just had this epiphany.

Why would I waste my time with bars when I can literally log into an app and go to their house directly

You're saying all the girls just sit at home on a weekend and swipe to meet Chad all day?


Girls are constantly looking to go to concerts and bars as an excuse to hangout with their friends...they aren't dudes who wanna sit around at home and find easy lays just swiping

And when they're swiping right...you're most likely not the only Chad she'll being talking to...even meeting up

i think most of the women who go out to bars today are going out to just hang with friends and they are already with someone and aren't good date prospects - they are not looking to meet anyone - they're not interested - they're already hooked up. the prospects are on the apps not in bars. in general. i think Corona accelerated this. back in my day - 80s, 90s, 00s, every prospect went out to bars. today it's not necessary and it's hugely INEFFICIENT. and you have a reverse network effect happening.

Join Date: Feb 2019
Posts: 15,808


Go touch some grass

nice try bro but i'm retired - early. i have lots of time on my hands.

correct. it's so much more efficient. you can choose to deal with the world the way it is or deal with it the way you'd like it to be. do i prefer meeting chicks in person over dating apps? absolutely. but it's not efficient in 2023. and that's a shame. you can still do both methods but dating apps 10X your game. and i was against them for a long time. but now i've given in.

it's like Willie Sutton said - "I rob banks because that's where the money is."

I'm not saying there aren't good women on online dating apps. I just don't trust it

I'd say the same for bars but I think your chance of running into quality is prob higher in bars. Look for a more nerdy, shy girl who looks uncomfortable going out. That's more likely your higher quality girl

If you just want to fuk then it's different. Bars and apps are good

If you're really looking for higher quality I think putting yourself in spots they'd go to is prob better. Art chit, volunteer chit, gym.. something like that

Still.. your chances are low everywhere

the women on apps are qualified prospects. they are single and looking to mingle.

I agree. And they match with you

But by and large they are bigger whores. Guaranteed

They're gonna have over 100 conversations if they're on the app for 2 days. They're gonna have 45 guys different numbers in their phones. Theyre going to have 25 different texts from guys a day if theyre active. They're going to have gone on and fuked over 10 guys from the apps way more easily. They're going to be talking to different guys while going on dates with you. They're going to have a higher propensity for redownloading apps and doing it again

So, again.. sex = good
Relationships = nah

Social media and dating apps are the same. Although dating apps a bit worse

Imagine meeting a girl at a bar. LMAO.

Degens going to degen.

Well summed up

How's meeting a girl at a bar degen???

I think it's more degen through an app tbh...but it's 2023 so fukk it

Because both are random as fuark.

When you meet a girl, you need to destroy some of that randomness. You need to know something about the girl. All of the info cannot come from her(because sloots and men lie)

That's why you need to protect your credibilitee.

Well 50% of that credibility comes from her appearance...tats, piercings, how much skin she's showing, etc.

I agree with half of what you say...but Bars/Clubs/Dating Apps are the only places to meet chicks nowadays

True its hard to meet new people. But if you are going to do it via bars/apps, just take alot of caution is all I'm saying because of the credibility issue. Random people lie etc etc you don't know anything about them. That's why miscers are jaded about females in general. But then this is the same misc that meets females via these ways.

this, or the park

BJ + anal on the first date in most cases

started to go to this bar about 15mins away to watch the Bills games and the 5ish times i went, had three chicks strike up a conversation. granted, one was elderly and blind and merely needed to find her way out.

For Havoc or Bradley?

riddle me this then, I have 80% swiping right on me.

zero messages in the 2.5 weeks I used it ( bumble )

that seems pretty inefficient?

80% swiping right on you? WTF exactly does that mean?

Zero messages? You must be doing something wrong.

It's efficient in the sense that you don't have to get dressed, go out and spend money at a bar and sort through the masses of physical people and crowds looking for a physical needle in the haystack when you can do it virtually at home naked on the toilet quickly by the thousands.

I hit the glass, "Get the **** off the phone!"
She jumped up and said, "You just had to be the one
to interrupt me when I was having so much fun"
I said, "Hold up, yo, bitch you think it's cute
To be perverted let alone a sleazy prostitute"
She said, "How can you try to disrespect any female
Or me and my homegirls just because we sell"
I said, "Pussy? That's what you call it?"
She screamed out, "You're god damn right you alcoholic!"
She said, "This is a public phone and you do not run it"
I said, "So is your pussy but can I use it when I want it?"



Got inside and seen all types of ****
Men who looked soft but acting wild
Dancing to the beat, Ten City style
Females who wore jeans that were tight
With faces resembling transvestites
Everyone in the bar gave my girlies mean looks
As if they were fugitive crooks
They smiled at me and the God, showin all thirty-two
That's when I caught the clue
As this red-bone, who thought she looked fly
Rolled up on me, and she said "Hi"
That one little word ****ed up the whole night
Her voice was deeper, than Barry White
I jumped up, and boy did I flip
I pull out a nine and I empty the clip
The place was flowin with crazy blood
A little midtown massacre type flood
And as we stepped off from the scene
Here's the message I got from Rakeem
Stay out of bars (4X)



Based GZA

I never had luck meeting girls at bars. It was always a loud, crowded, expensive, high pressure environment. Girls always have their defenses up because they know drunk guys are all around then. It’s honestly terrible.

Cold approach during the day has always gotten me the best results. Online is good too but you need to be attractive and have really good pictures.

if you had a car nearby you could have taken her out to the carpark just for a backseat blowjob

romance in bars? lol wtf? before there were dating apps people would rag on the bar and club scene

I think you're the last person to be taking advice from, ded srs






that being said


it's hilarious going to bars especially nicer ones. I remember sitting at the bar of this place in st. augustine florida on st. george street, very nice place, and there were groups of people all sitting with each other. All males, all females, no in between.

I do a lot of people watching to see what social media is doing to society. Yesterday I went into a hooters and counted 49 guys in there, 1 female. Other hooters I've been a regular at I've seen a grand total of maybe 2 couples. No one I have ever seen at the bar has ever hit on any of the girls that work there. They honestly look bored out of their minds, there is zero mingling.

The initial place I spoke about, there were 2 girls that came in there dressed to the nines. Absolute dimes, they sat and chatted for about an hour. Then started sitting on their phones, and then left. No one dared approaching them, although that was clearly what they were there for.

I'm going to start asking people where they met their significant others. I'm curious to see what the ratios are, because i'm willing to bet about 80% of them are going to say mutual friends. I want to know just how honest they are going to be about it as well. I want to see how many of them actually say they met through dating apps.