How do y’all handle online dating while balancing privacy concerns?

This question is especially for those who have used or are using online dating to meet new people, form relationships, hook up, etc. How do y’all balance the (online) dating scene with your own level of concern regarding privacy/security?

For example, some of these concerns may be that many dating apps are owned by a few companies, dating apps sometimes require linking to sensitive information (real phone number, google accounts, pictures, …), or that they can have vary intrusive trackers, etc

What are the steps you have made to address these concerns, if you have them? Or what are the compromises you have made? How successful are these attempts?

Let me start sharing first (in broad-stroke) about my personal experience. I’m mostly concerned with how my data are handled, transferred between, and used by different services. My concerns usually make using these apps much harder, sometimes even impossible, for example I’m hesitant to share my real phone number to sign up, and I’d prefer to limit my gmail use when possible. But that has also limited my opportunity to meet people online. Though honestly, such interactions have not been meaningful.

I’ve stopped for a while now but thinking of getting back. Just want some perspective on whether it’s worth it, and how I should orient myself with the tradeoffs.

miss_brainfart,
@miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml avatar

There is no being private in online dating, it defeats the whole point. Sure, you can use an email alias, maybe even a burner number, isolate the app in another profile and so on.

But at the end of the day, it’s still you you’re putting out there.

EngineerGaming,
@EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

I don’t. Having a photo of my face posted online is off-limits already, but it’s on the other level of dangerous when it’s in a place full of horny men. ESPECIALLY when you don’t even look like an adult, it creates a whole other level of creepy. No thanks.

authed,

Dont use the app and use the website when possible… This is true for all mobile apps

mub,

Stop playing that kids game and play Rocket League instead. Guaranteed smurf free

/s

AnonymousLlama,
AnonymousLlama avatar

Make sure to never include your face when sending nude pics. Plenty of anonymous dick pics out there.

GregorGizeh,

I just don’t bother with those sites. They are designed to exploit lonely men for money, with an abysmal success rate.

Just try and meet women some other way. Your chances of success certainly aren’t lower than online.

bionicjoey,

My chances of meeting someone IRL are definitely lower than online, but congrats on being neurotypical my dude.

Lemjukes,

Breh that attitude is 100% self defeating and contributing to the struggle you’re having connecting with people both irl and online. Neurotypical people aren’t all just good at everything you’re not. They struggle with some things just as much as non-neurotypical people do. If there’s one piece of advice id ask you to hear is not to focus on finding a date or someone to be with. Focus on developing your own independent interests and engage with the communities around those interests. But go into it with only the desire to connect with people, whatever form that takes. Do that enough times and you should start finding people who might just be interested in spending time with you rather than just sharing an activity together. Dating apps are dehumanizing and are for the hot and naturally charming, definitely not worth engaging unless you have an abundance of confidence and a tolerance for being value judged on every aspect of yourself.

bionicjoey,

Sounds like you are making a lot of assumptions about me. I do plenty of activities, have friends, etc. The issue is that my brain doesn’t know how to engage romantically with people when the social context isn’t crystal clear. Especially since I get overwhelmed in social situations with more than a handful of people, so big clubs and the like aren’t an option. Things like “flirting”, “being attractive”, etc. are alien concepts to my neurology. So I’m out there living my life, but the way I live my life isn’t ever going to intersect with me finding a partner. If it was, it would have happened by now.

People often try to give me advice (which generally seems to assume I’m some kind of basement-dwelling incel) like “treat women like you treat anyone else”, “don’t try too hard”, or “don’t put women on a pedestal”, which frankly is all a bit insulting. I don’t treat women any different than I treat men, I have some women friends/coworkers/classmates/acquaintances, and I get along well with them in general. But I’ve never in my life actually been romantically desired by a woman. And it’s not for being ugly or anything; I’ve had close friends tell me there’s nothing really wrong with my appearance. I literally just don’t know how to be the kind of person that a woman would ever so much as consider as a romantic prospect.

With a dating app, the context is clear and explicit. Both people are on there for dating, so I don’t need to deal with all of the bullshit subtext of understanding if someone is just being friendly or if they are actually interested in me. That stuff is impossible for me, and I basically have a 100% failure rate of catching feelings for women in my life who are just being nice to me but never actually thought of me as a possible partner.

Also, you’re kidding yourself if you think meeting potential romantic prospects IRL doesn’t require a certain amount of natural charm and charisma. I’d much rather at least use an app where I can meticulously craft a first impression instead of rely on my actual charisma in the moment to make a first impression. Literally everything you said in the last couple sentences of your reply applies to IRL trying to meet someone as well.

GregorGizeh,

I have adhd if that helps

But yes, your chances of meeting someone otherwise are not necessarily more in quantity, but more likely to succeed than being one of hundreds of dudes swiping on a woman. Regardless of if you are autistic

bionicjoey,

I mean… I’ve gone on 1 date using dating apps. I’ve gone on 0 using conventional methods of meeting people. (yes I’ve only been on one date in my life. I’m 28. Fuck me right?). Sounds like my autistic ass has slightly higher chance of not dying alone if I stick to the technological approach.

GregorGizeh,

I mean, you do you of course, but in my opinion online you’re just that, someone struggling to connect by conventional means. Offline so to say you could still have your other attributes going for you, maybe you meet someone while you’re enjoying a hobby or activity and you could bond over that. Granted I have only had a handful of relationships myself as well (am mid thirties), but they all lasted between two and five years, so I would say they were reasonably successful. And I met all of them conventionally: while doing an apprenticeship, at university, going to the same gym at the same time for some weeks, and the classic friend‘s friend.

And I would hardly call myself smooth, it is just helpful to have more time to make a positive impression than a bored two second glance at someone’s phone before swiping.

Daqu,

I juse a fake name, a different gender and AI generated pictures. I get a lit of invitations to meet, but refuse due to privacy concerns.

QuazarOmega,

Morale boost simulator

bionicjoey,

https://i.imgur.io/K0KPgis_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

SkyeStarfall,

i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/…/08d.jpg

rubythulhu,

it’s pretty easy i just send out a bunch of messages and either get nothing back or creepy dudes being weird and sometimes unsolicited creepy dudes being weird and then i get discouraged and don’t go back to that app for a while

Tiuku,

There’s Alovoa but there aren’t many users…
On the flip side, if you do happen to meet someone there, there’s a high change that they already grasp privacy, FOSS, etc.

QuazarOmega,

Is there any review out there? I’d like to see how it works aside from hearing people’s opinion on it

Tiuku,

No idea but it works along these lines:

  • Make a profile
  • Set what you are looking for. E.g. males, a relationship
  • Browse other compatible profiles
  • Like/dislike
  • People see who has liked them
  • Two persons liking each other can chat
manapropos,

Anyone who thinks this deeply about the subject is never gonna get laid with a sane, emotionally mature human being

Knusper,

There’s tons of women, who need to protect their privacy in online dating, to avoid stalkers and worse. And that’s specifically because many people want to get laid with them.

manapropos,

https://lemmy.basedcount.com/pictrs/image/e53118b2-f28d-4b5d-b6cb-9e96b3e3ff89.jpeg

Knusper,

So, why do you care?

MalReynolds,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

You’re using gmail, you’re already screwed, might as well get laid too. But seriously, look into alias providers like simplelogin and anonaddy, it works for this use case and can smooth the transition away from gmail in the future. At the end of the day you need to make contact with potentials so it can’t be truly private, plus they’ll be mining your data, combining it with facebook shadow profiles etc, it’s technically quite plausible to identify you from that alone. VoIP, aliases and so forth are band-aids. At the end of the day you need to make a choice, is the potential of finding someone worth more than some of your privacy ? Or…

Consider local hobby groups, hiking, meet-ups and so forth. The so called ‘Third Place’ (other than work and home) is on it’s last legs, but it’s not dead and will hopefully see a resurgence, find and partake in one. Put yourself out there.

MagneticFusion,

This is probably not what you want to hear but I’m going to say it anyways. I personally think dating apps are a pretty stupid way to meet new people especially a potential partner that you are going to marry one day because the only thing that is making you and them decide whether to swipe left or right is superficial things like looks and whatnot which can very easily be faked with the age of social media. As a result, most of the people you will meet are also very likely just going to be looking to hook up and not seriously date, and they especially won’t put up with you not having social media and whatever the hell.

That being said, if you are going to use dating apps, the best way is to just use like an alias email, use privacy.com for payments, if you are on android use a work profile for the dating app, possibly only use it with a VPN, use a VoIP number, etc. If you are going to seriously try to date though you should probably just use your real name.

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