Icaria

Very 'inspirational', but as useless as your previous reply.

Finding a romantic partner should come naturally from making friends. Friend may introduce you to a romantic partner, or they could become one.

That's a lovely idea, unfortunately a lot of us are growing old waiting for this bullshit.

I don't agree with everything the guy above you said, but my circumstances are very similar to his.

I have friends, but they don't know anyone they can introduce me to.

Sports are off the table due to both health problems and a lack of interest (do you really want group activities to be full of disinterested guys just there to chat up chicks?), never mind that they're all heavily male-dominated around here.

Local councils put on events, but they are either for children, for mothers, or for seniors.

Everything has been turned into a product to be sold to you, almost every event costs money, and when you do pony up the events are somewhere between borderline scams and actual scams.

...

This is a recurring issue with this subject. Someone offers advice, someone points out why that advice isn't very applicable, and the first person makes no attempt to "adapt and overcome" themselves and either a) offer better advice, or b) admit that they don't have any better suggestions.

Calling it a thirst trap is too innocent. These dating app companies are scum-sucking vampires designed to make most people feel lonely and desperate enough to give them money in perpetuity. People just handed one of the most important and intimate aspects of their lives over to US tech bros, pressured everyone else to do the same, and two whole generations are not just having less sex than their parents, but half of them have never had a long-term relationship as they're approaching 30.

You're making highly authoritarian, essentialist arguments

Bruh, spend less time online and/or on campus, you're turning into a moon person.

The fucking irony of someone who was on the receiving end of malpractice from a psychiatrist as a child having to state that, yes, mental health professionals are generally authorities on behavioural and cognitive issues, and yes, adults are generally authorities on most things compared to 15yos. If I can get over it, I'm sure you can - hopefully before you spit out any little undisciplined animals of your own, and make them everyone else's problem.

As you double down while getting downvoted to oblivion as everyone tells you how wrong you are

This is an indicator of a weak mind. Popularity contests have about as much bearing as insults. At no point have any of you explained how or why my reading of the post isn't valid, and I highly suspect the anonymous downvotes and smartarsery are because you know it is and just don't want to think about it, either due to an overarching agenda, or because no one likes feeling like they've been hoodwinked.

Die mad, I guess.

Dude, I'm getting hitler comparisons and called a boot licker for inserting the only hint of healthy skepticism into the whole damned thread. Now I'm getting fuckin' 'u mad's straight outta 2008. Excuses, deflections, personal attacks; as the kids say, cope harder.

(Oh and I'm not discounting the more sensible responses, it's just there's not a lot to say to personal anecdotes about some guy's 12yo son.)

Any credibility you had, you aborted it with that last line. Naaaah, this is totally not just some teenager who resents adults telling them what to do, and this forum is totally not just a bunch of anarkiddies circlejerking, but also we're gunna call you a bootlicker.

Who cares if the quote is total bullshit by someone acting in bad faith if it hones the edge of the ideological axe you have to grind. Shit's just reddit all over again.

You search for one thing and it starts showing recommendations.

I fail to see how this is a bad thing. Youtube's old default homepage would show scam and content mill recommendations.

Figuring out matrix was annoying for me. I had to figure out which client program to use, I had to navigate the less-than-ideal way of joining servers, and there was a difficulty curve for understanding the program's features and how to use it. It wasn't impossible, but it took effort

I went through the same effort and all I got for my troubles was a few dead chatrooms where what little discussion exists is purely about distros.

The barrier to entry filtered out everyone else.