u/McQueedle

I’m a Muslim, who has experience with conventional dating, as well as Muslim ‘dating’.

I found the dynamics the same.

Women are highly selective, have a narrow range of what’s deemed acceptable, but it’s harder with Muslims because you have additional religious and cultural filters to navigate.

There’s even specific Muslim marriage apps, which let you match with women abroad. The dynamics are the exact same as Western dating, just with a smaller and more selective pool.

This brings me back to Passport bros, if the dynamics between supposedly conservative and traditional Muslim women are no different to Western dating dynamics, what makes being a Passport Bro easier?

Is it specifically the casual nature?

I’m a professional guy who went into online dating relatively inexperienced, with my last relationship ending many years ago in college. Goal was to find a genuine partner, settle down. Not interested in casual relationships or hooking up.

About a year ago, I assumed that if you were educated, financially responsible, reasonably put together and genuinely interested in commitment, finding a relationship was mostly a matter of putting yourself out there and eventually meeting someone compatible.

My experience over the last year has changed that view quite a bit - from cautious optimism to pessimism.

I used Hinge, Tinder and a purpose built marriage app on and off for roughly one year. I wasn’t getting zero attention, I got matches, likes and a handful of dates, but the conversion from “people on the app” → “someone I’m attracted to” → “mutual attraction” → “compatible” → “actually dates me” was tiny.

Real life was also far far harder. The occasional flirting at a bar, exchange of numbers/socials was a very unreliable way of landing dates.

Hobby groups I went to largely had older gentleman, or married couples (hiking and bouldering). I made lots of friends with dudes and married couples.

In terms of getting App Likes and Matches, Tinder took the lead, ironically. Once you filtered off the “Short term fun” women, there were a lot of genuine women Most of my matches and dates came from Tinder. I think the casual nature of Tinder meant people were more open to testing the waters w an imperfect match, as opposed to the more formal/serious apps, which seem to make people more picky.

A few things:
• Career/education/stability seem much less important for generating initial attraction than I assumed.
• Serious intent doesn’t bypass normal dating dynamics.
• Becoming more social actually made me more aware of being unusual. In professional workplaces, most average men around my age seem to already be partnered, and with ease.
• Seeing men who are less physically fit, unattractive, less professionally/financially established than me but much more successful romantically made me feel horrible.
• Real life events are very hard to gain traction with, especially in today’s age where everyone is super insular.
• Single women are uncommon in everyday life. If a woman is single, my assumption is she’s single by choice.
• Dating seems much more constrained by things like appearance, personality, timing and demographics than I previously appreciated.

• The biggest change, though, is that I’ve stopped assuming a relationship is something that will inevitably happen if I just keep trying.

Dating itself has generally felt more draining than rewarding, and is an extremely brutal marketplace.

So my current position is basically: Get off the apps, stop humiliating myself with real life events, and stop seeing a relationship as a viable reality.

Where I’m unsure is whether I’ve learned something realistic, or whether one frustrating year has made me overgeneralise.

For people who dated seriously in their late 20s/30s, especially men who started relatively inexperienced, did you go through a similar shift?
Did your view change again later?

Raised poor by a single mum, domestic violence, no family etc but ended up working in heavy industry surrounded by strong mentors and worked my way through college to end up in a great position.

As a young adult I definitely had a somewhat progressive strain in me, which effectively died out after entering work.

I know appreciate the importance of stable families, the importance of independence, resilience and personal responsibility. I’m very cautious of social change and progressive policies.

Cannot stand being talked down by privileged rich kids who’ve never experienced the brutal realities of life.

Most of the conservatives I meet in real life tend to come from more established generational families, even though I know me like me do exist. In the real world I feel like an outlier.

Anyone care to share?

Follows on from the frequent posts about ‘what happened to the smartest student in your school’

In my school, the weird people went into surgery or psychiatry. The conventionally ‘normal’ folks tended to become GPs

Edit: Seems everyone has a different view of ‘weird’. I’m talking like charming weird - the type that collected stamps or rocks, not creepy weird.