I have subscriptions on a couple of dating apps because I am desperate for companionship of a nice lady. The problem is that the majority of ladies on dating apps have selection criteria that closely resemble those of employers, and we all know about that ordeal. I have, on numerous occasions, come across ladies who indicate on their profiles that they do not respond to intros comprising of a simple “Hi” or “Hi, How are you”. I can totally understand where they are coming from, because I am certain they receive tens, if not hundreds, of messages on a given day, and most of them say “Hi" or "Hi, How are you”. But I think they do not appreciate where we are coming from, and I am writing this to let them know.

When you want to apply for jobs, the first thing you are often told by recruiters and experts, is to refrain from sending the same resume to all employers. The recommendation is to read the job description and look for key words, which you can include in your CV. The key ingredient for success is to customize your CV and cover letter according to job requirements, and to produce an application that looks specifically and intentionally designed for that particular job. I think there is a consensus about this among most of us, but there are caveats.

First of all, there are employers out there who post a vacancy merely because they have to, by law. They do it to prove to the authorities that their selection is fair and equitable. In reality however, the situation is far from. Most often companies have a strong internal candidate they already have their eyes on, or they just place the add to show the authorities they are creating (sudo)jobs to take advantage of some benefits.

Secondly, there is seldom an exact method to match supply and demand when it comes to employment opportunities. For instance, since businesses found the miracle of metrics and the wonders they can achieve with them, maths-based disciplines have received a disproportional attention among institutions, whose priority is to educate students who finds jobs with their eyes closed. The problem is that when there is an increase in demand for a specific role, say a data analysis role, people from all sorts of backgrounds are eligible and rush to get a piece of the action, because statistics is now at the core of psychology, sociology, statistics, physics, computer science, etc. So, the supply of labour force, more-than-outweighs the slight increase in demand, which leads to an abnormally high rate of rejection among applicants. So much so, that the employers resort to machine learning algorithms to go through the applications, as they have no means of going through them one by one. This is in fact the reason why they encourage applicants to include key words from job descriptions in their CVs. Even then, majority of applications are left even without a dignified rejection notice. The ramification of this abnormal level of competition is that it spreads an illusion among applicants that job adverts are like black holes. You throw your CV inside, and no one knows where it ends up. The other problem is that there is a limited capacity among the jobless crowds to maintain their high morale. They are after all jobless and already prone to depression, tunnel vision tendency, fragility and hopelessness. So, after a certain number of failures, they loose hope and send the same CV and cover letter to all the adds they come across and hope for the best. What is the point of spending hours on hours to customize your application if you do not even get a copied-and-pasted rejection email? I know this is counterproductive, but I hope you also see how hard it is to remain productive in such circumstances, especially if you are not a born fighter, which in all likelihood, is probably why you are left behind anyway.

I hope you are still reading, because this is how my rants relate to the ladies on dating apps, and I generalize here because most of them have this particular preference. From where we stand, the competition for the ladies is fierce. So much so, that after a while we feel that the ladies on dating apps are like black holes (do not read too much in to this metaphor) and our careful reading of their profile, and inclusion of keywords in our opening statement, will all get lost with no one knowing where they end up. So, after some time, we loose interest in going through the trouble of reading every line of ladies’ profiles, which I will have you know, can be just short of a novel. We even stop looking at their religious tendencies, which for me personally, is a deal breaker. What we end up doing, is to just swipe left or swipe right based on their photos, because in the unlikely even of getting a match, there is always the possibility to go and read their profiles in order to make a meaningful second statement.

Interestingly, the reverse is not true, probably because us men are mostly desperate, being the losers that we are. A fun fact that proves my discovery comes from my experience in a dating app called Bumble. In this app, men are not allowed to make an opening statement even after a match is made. In case of a match, the app gives the lady in question 24 hours to make the first move. All the man can do, is to extend that time limit once before it expires. I am no Brad Pit, so I did not get many matches on that platform, but among the matches I received, none, not one, lady opened with more than a “Hi”, or “Hi, How are you”. Some did not even bother to type; they just sent me a waving hand and passed on the ball of responsibility back to me; so I had to go and read their profiles and come up with something smart, and preferably funny, to say. As a tip, ladies love someone who makes them laugh. So even when they are in the position of practicing their own preach, ladies often tuck their heads and punch the man in the groin, so he knows nothing comes easy in life, especially when it is related to a woman of such stature.

I will probably add to this text as my understanding of these beautiful creatures develops further. But for now, I am going to leave you with just this much food for thought, and hope that my countless rejections are not all in vain.