So this post is based of off anecdotal evidence as I actually don't know how common it is. But I have 2 girl friends and 1 gay guy friend who have been on the dating apps for years with no long term relationships (i.e. over 3 months), and their behaviour confounds me. I have straight guy friends on the apps as well, but their behaviour patterns seem different, mostly because they don't get anywhere near as many matches.
Essentially my thesis is that people with a lot of options on dating apps tend to overvalue an instant connection on a first date. The amount of times I ask my friends how their date went and they go "Oh, I won't be seeing them again, there just wasn't that spark," is truly ridiculous. When you ask them if there were any red flags or any big disconnects, I usually get the response of "I just wasn't feeling it."
The opposite is also true, people don't just break potential connections due to the lack of spark, they also ignore huge red flags just to pursue someone they share a spark with. I've also heard a lot of "they might might be married, and they might have anger issues, and we might have just met, but it's love, you know?". And when they break if off a couple of months later and you ask why, it's "well, I couldn't handle the anger issues". Wow, no doi.
I've only noticed this pattern after I went on dating apps for the first time and got myself a boyfriend. He was cute but very shy, so it was awkward as hell and I was carrying the brunt of the conversation. I wouldn't have gone on a second date if he didn't ask, so I said "fuck it, why not?". It took until the fourth date for him to break out of his shell, and I'm so glad I stuck through with it because oh my god this man is amazing. We've been together six months now. He also tells me that he's been on four dates from the app before we met, and all four didn't agree to go on a second one.
I don't know how likely I would have been to spend so long on one person if he wasn't my second match and instead I had been on the hamster wheel for a while, but still, I'm so glad it worked out for us.
When I try to tell my friends this (but only when they ask how I did it, I don't give unsolicited advice), they think that just because it worked for me doesn't mean it'll work for them. That spending time on someone they don't feel a connection with is a waste of time, that that's not how it works. Hence coming to reddit, you guys can determine whether or not this is an unpopular opinion.