A new way to relapse. Dating Apps.

Hookup sex is frowned upon when overcoming compulsions of the sexual variety. I mean don't feel like you are missing out, that stuff isn't rewarding in the long run anyways.

 

Dude Tinder is a flaming joke.

I am glad you are avoiding them.

I mean when I relapse I install Tinder but in my right mind wouldn't think of it.

Just my own experience. I feel asking a third party business to find a partner for one is bad news anyways so like I can't just bash Tinder but not other dating services.

They all suck.

Sue me dating service customers.

 

Better safe than sorry?

 

Keep up the nice efforts! I started working at this place that has sexual stimuli all over. I adjusted to it. Like it made me want to be with someone looking at it but I didn't fap over it.

(Same place I pulled my pants off and had relations with a mannequin years ago, I was blazed if that makes it sound justified?)

 

This is exactly the feeling I have as well, 2 sides of me, animal vs logical/normal. Congrats on your progress!

 

I’m really glad you wrote this post. You’re basically describing my situation to a tee. I would do the same thing with dating apps and have the very same thoughts about the transwoman thing. Here’s my take:

The people on Tinder like apps and I’d even argue the more “legitimate“ ones like match.com, aren’t even real for the most part. Everyone is playing the same game “let me upload the most attractive pics and write what I think everyone else wants to hear” The truth about who someone is gets buried or obscured and imo it’s just too much competition.

Why? Because you have to compete against a ridiculous amount of profiles so you have to put up your best front. Anything less than perceived perfection and it’s onto the next profile. It’s just that easy.

I’ve been told I’m good looking,smart, etc and yet I couldn’t get matches either. Very very rarely. Its destroyed my self esteem, self worth, lowered healthy dating expectations, and who can forget the countless number of relapses born out of it.

Does everyone do this? No of course not but not enough for me to stay and “keep trying“ like all the other backward advice I’ve been given about these apps. Too much ego and shitty attitudes from people on these apps who think they have license to have them because they’re attractive. I wish I knew how much of this is to cover up insecurity. I’ll never forget one attractive woman’s profile: “If ur not hot go fuck yourself. If ur a ginger, go fuck yourself. How many x’s until I run out of people?” Yeah.

At the end of the day it gets dangerous to me because aside from the obvious hit to your self esteem and recovery, you start to consider riskier behavior: prostitutes, hookups with whoever etc. It’s been a downward spiral for me mentally. Sites like these and the recovery stories are my only hope. Sorry for high jacking the post and the rant but I felt like I had speak on this.

 

Hey all!

What a great thread - bare and honest, with raw emotions and so much transparency about the destructive forces behind all the app dating and hookups. I wish I would embrace this truth before I have made so many mistakes with these apps - would have been easier on me and could have avoided a lot of heartbreak.

I remember my very first hookup with a guy on some web chat app. He connected with me and began showering me with compliments, asking to undress etc. I was attracted to the way he acted, to what he was doing or saying. Perhaps he was one of the unfortunate souls like the original posters here, taken over by his own inner demons and not really willing to do it, but still doing it. Anyways, it ended with a climax on his side (not mine) and him suddenly disconnecting. I felt totally used and empty and like I have just been thrown into a garbage bin after someone wiped their nose on me.

After that it had been a similar downward spiral. I had encounters with men, most of whom told me that they are actually straight, but they want to try something new (how porn messes us up). One guy said he likes being sexually active with men, but is romantically attracted to, and wants to go out with, women. How messed up is this? The original design of our brain is that we should not have romance and sexuality separated - yet alas!

Another man told me he is in the army and no one may know, and that he is married with kids, but he wants me to so things to myself while he was watching and M-ing. Not that I would do it - but it would be so easy to capture his pictures and videos and to mess up his whole life. The vulnerability and lack of critical thinking that we get into with this addiction is astonishing.

One of the hardest times that I had to walk out on someone on my app was when I met a certain guy on Kik. He was not even from my country, but the "chemistry" we had going made us come back to each other for more and more. By that time I was already dating my to-be-wife and what I was doing did not coincide with either my values, my morality or my life's goals and priorities. Eventually I told him straight out that I am a Christian and that I may no more continue with this behavior. The damage was done already, I know. Disappointing him, contributing to the image of hypocrisy around the Church and having to tell my gf about what had happened, causing a lot of heartbreak and tears. And not to mention heavy depression and withdrawals which I had to go through for months - simply because the kick was so high and my brain was lying to me, telling me that my perfect life is only in my phone, not in the real world around me. Wicked!

What is the drive which pushes us over the edge? Why do we make such stupid choices again and again, being near insane, risking everything just to enjoy that empty feeling of a few fleeting moments? It's all because of love - or rather the lack of it. We all want to be accepted for who we are, not to be rejected or downgraded, we want to know that we mean something, that we are able and talented, attractive and attracted to.

And also we don't want to be lonely - alone is ok, but loneliness is what kills us. Today our society is so fast-paced and screen-oriented that to construct a deep and a meaningful relationship which will last for years is like an insurmountable challenge. I just spoke to someone else from here yesterday, trying to motivate him to get more support. He told me that he has no one to go to offline - and that online I am the only one he talks to. Family? Church community & leaders? Male friends? Wife? Nope, nope, nope. Can you see our crisis as males - we are lonely!

This is gnawing on me, this is why I am writing! As a survivor of apps and the endless and futile search drive to connect and to find a perfect match, I might have developed a chemical addiction in my brain which had caused my critical thinking to numb, yeah. But the initial season for me going towards these empty things was the lack of love, companionship and brotherhood in my life. This is how I tackled this eventually - by putting my "black mirror" face down and going out there, mingling with real people and seeking lasting non-sexual connections with both males and females. Because I had to learn that people are not created for me to use and objectify and to do my bidding. They all have a story.

And to those I have misused via sexual addiction - I am very very sorry and I ask for your forgiveness! You are a real person, with your own emotions, struggles and dreams, desires and potential - and it is not fair of me to take it away from you just because I feel I need to fill some void in my life. And I will appreciate it if you will come willingly and give it to me by your own choice, on healthy and reasonable terms of a lasting non-sexual companionship.

Finally, for those who will appreciate a Christian verse, I want to share some hope which I have been holding on since forever when fighting the garbage of illusionary fleeting satisfaction. You might want to read the whole chapter of Jeremiah 2 - here is the link - but this is the core verse which reminds me who Jesus is for me and what the substitutes really are. And yeah, perhaps Israel struggled with this hundreds of years ago - but it still shows that human nature is all the same and predictable - and if there was hope for them to come right, then there is also for me.

 

Similar situation here, thought i'd write it up briefly.

I've been using dating apps in this way for a while now. For the past 3 years or so. It starts of with tinder, then goes on to swinging websites and then grindr.

The problem is when using these apps in the way we're using them is that you're just looking for a sexual release, girls on tinder for the most part aren't looking for dirty talk over these apps. So you move on to grindr and swinging websites and suddenly after a few messages they're saying what they want to do to you. Also as its a real person there's more on a connection than porn which means the dopamine high is bigger.

Anyway one time I did meet up with someone of a swinging site, a TV, after it was done I felt disgusted with myself. But then 2 days later i'm back at it again (this was around 2.5 years ago). I've been hitting these apps hard recently and think its only a matter of time before I d it again so need to stop

 

I'll sometimes go to dating apps in a place of confidence, but it is too much of a trigger, and swiping on a hundred girls to talk to none of them is an unhealthy level of rejection.

 

SO true

 

30% You need to "win" 30% of the time. Jaak Panksepp found that baby rats would only ask adult rats to play with them if they won 30% of the time. Mammals, it appears, have a necessity to win 30% of the time to be satisfied with the competition. Jordan Peterson mentioned this study in one of his lectures.

 

Interesting. That percentage sounds about right

 

Dating apps is the only time I see young girls that are my age. But yeah I gotta stop using them.