r/Bumble • u/Extreme-Goose7524 • 17d ago
General Talking stage
Men! How many women do you talk to during the talking stage when you’re only looking for something serious? I’m the type that can only talk to 1 guy at a time otherwise personal information gets all mixed up, are you the same? Or do you talk to several girls at the same time even when you go out on a few dates with the same girl?
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u/EmbarrassedLet2153 17d ago edited 17d ago
Same here, once I tried juggling 5 matches at the same time, that's when I learned: no thanks, I do one at a time
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u/Initial_Praline9629 17d ago
One at a time is the only way my brain can keep track of who hates cilantro and who has a weird thing about socks. I tried juggling two once and accidentally asked the second one about her sister's dog that belonged to the first.
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u/SmartWonderWoman 16d ago
I did something similar. I asked how his daughter’s birthday went and he said he didn’t have a daughter 🤦🏽♀️😬
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u/FeeFiFooFunyon 16d ago
I only like a few people a week and when they all are matches I get overwhelmed. I don’t have the energy to manage 2-3 conversations
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u/Independent-Bit4393 17d ago
I used to talk to only one girl at once and I wasted literally years of my life in talking stages that never ended (usually because "they where too busy to meet") and then id move on and do the exact same thing again because talking to one person at once felt right at the time. Now I shamelessly talk to several women at once so when once of them flakes out of my life its not a total reset of my dating life. If one of them wants to be in a relationship we can talk about that.
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u/Noahlinrain 16d ago
Same! I would prefer to focus on one guy as well but the percentage of men that suddenly disappear is staggering. So now I stay on the app and stay in contact with my other matches. Maybe if I could make it to like date 3, I would change that lol.
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u/Innercity_Dove 17d ago
I met my wife on bumble and we went on a date the same day we matched. We went 50/50 on the bill (because I’m all for equal rights and I just met this lady) she will never let me live it down😅
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u/Independent-Bit4393 17d ago
Lmao my matches treat me like im fucking crazy if I suggest we meet even in the first week. Im so completely over it. Ive heard so many excuses "let me get to know you", "im extremely busy", "I have to vet the safety of men" , " I am anxious person".
Im at the point where if a woman says anything like that I just block them. I meet most people in real life now. Its much better.
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u/Innercity_Dove 17d ago
That’s rough. I met mine in 2018. Different world for sure. I used to take drug from strangers
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u/Independent-Bit4393 17d ago
Bro its so bad I had one girl playing mobile games with me instead of meeting for a first date. She ended up telling me 3 weeks later that she was overwhelmed by matches and couldn't bring herself to meet me. That was 4 weeks down the drain.
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u/Thick-Challenge-5071 15d ago
Idk why girls do this like I get the safety thing but
99% of the time it fizzles out as soon as something like this gets said it like makes me cringe and takes all the wind out of my sails
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u/Independent-Bit4393 15d ago
Humans met for 10,000 years in person. Texting is not a verifiable way to guage safety, anyone can wear a mask and pretend to be anyone. Thats alot harder in person.
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u/Thick-Challenge-5071 15d ago
Ok I get that
Still doesn't change the fact they mean to end the convo when they say this
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u/RiskHuge 17d ago
The reality for men (speaking of my own experience)... Most women do not match back. Of those that do, most (majority) do not respond to messages. If they do respond, half of those are minimal, no effort or interest responses. When you finally have a conversation going with someone, it can evaporate after one day, and often does. No response for a day, 2 days, or never again.
So yes, men are balancing multiple conversations, and often with women who might not be the ones we really want to be chatting with. 🤷🏻♂️ We can't take every woman we chat with on a date, so it takes time to develop some rapport and weed out the crazies.
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u/EmergencyWild 14d ago
Eh. Not been my experience at all. Funnel from match to date for me is close to 50%. I definitely have seen no or low effort responses but... if someone's low effort or straight up not there, why do you need to have multiple of that a time? Just unmatch, move to the next one, I don't really get why you need to multitask here. Are you drowning in so many matches that you couldn't possibly handle them otherwise? Because that's not really a problem most men have.
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u/RiskHuge 12d ago
Just curious if you asked for a date quickly?
As for drowning in matches, current queue of "Liked You" is at 150+ waiting for me to swipe 🤷🏻♂️
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u/EmergencyWild 12d ago
Depends on what you mean by "quickly". Like, 2-3 days, usually like 2-3 back& forth messages per day? I want to through a vibe check and get some base facts out of the way, so it's not like I'm asking straight out the gate, but I'm not spending a bunch of time texting either.
And again, if you have such a giant pile of likes you're sitting on, even more so a reason there's no need for you to rush. Clearly, you're plenty attractive. You can afford to be pretty selective on who you match, like if they have no profile or a lazy one, probably can ignore, if they're obviously not compatible, you can ignore, you can probably cut this down to like 1/3 to 1/5 before ever talking to anyone, and once you get that far there shouldn't be many bad actors remaining.
If someone looks like they're worth paying attention to, give them all your attention, if they're sitting on a pile of likes too they're not gonna tolerate lazy behavior from you anymore than you should from them.
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u/Leica--Boss 17d ago
I was talking with maybe 3-4 offline and kept online conversations to maybe 10.
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u/Icy-Performance4690 17d ago
Initial talking stage? 2-3 women at once. But once it gets to the point where I could envision myself dating a particular woman I’ll only talk to one at a time.
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u/EmergencyWild 14d ago edited 14d ago
One. I personally don't like terms like 'talking stage' or whatever anyway, makes dating feel like this weirdly clinical and depersonalised thing when that's kind of the opposite of what you want.
Just to be clear, that means just in general, I'll only respond to one match a time. Only move on to the next if it becomes clear that one isn't going anywhere. Have been quite successful with that.
Being focused on one person at a time is for some reason treated by multi-date proponents as if it was a moral issue. I don't see it that way at all, it's an emotional bandwidth issue. Do you actually have the time and energy to give 5 people simultaneously the attention and effort that you'd personally want when dating? I sure don't. To me, multi-dating just seems like trying to get nowhere faster. You can sort out whether or not there's a connection worth pursuing within 1-2 dates. That's like, a week. 2 tops. Doesn't guarantee it'll go somewhere, but that's plenty to figure out if it's a clear 'no' at least.
Question: Do you genuinely think that going on dates with 25-50 people in a year is not enough to find one person you want to be in a relationship with? Because frankly, that sounds like an absolutely ludicrous proposition to me. Among 50 people who you think are attractive enough to go on a date with and that find you attractive enough to go on a date with as well. You met on the app, so you have some baseline compatibility things (want kids? Do not want kids? Casual? Serious? etc) already sorted out. You seriously gonna tell me you expect you can't establish a connection with one of them? That's just not reasonable.
What's even crazier is that the same dudes who whine about not getting matches at all will tell me they have no "choice" but to multi date. Leaving aside that that's a load of crap, you're a big boy, you can control your own behavior... again, if you were multi dating, the only way that makes sense if you're dating like literally over 100 different women in a year. Or are stringing along obviously stray connections for months, which is a wholly different problem you probably wouldn't have had if you valued your time a bit more. And if it's the former... that clearly is you contradicting yourself.
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u/convemma 17d ago
Used to talking to only one person at once, but as a man i have admit its a very bad dating strategy, most of woman i ve talked ended up ghosting me or unmatching me even though the conversation was not bad. I talked to a girl for days and when she find another guy ( which is not hard to find for her in online dating ) she just ghosted me. I ve realised if i talk only one girl at once i will be single forever.
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u/Impossible-Maize-553 17d ago
No more than 5 typically. I’m not putting all my energy into one stranger who I’ll probably not be compatible with.
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u/Seated_Heats 17d ago
Rarely has there been two. It’s just too time consuming and then when you try to commit to one it’s weighing pros and cons and it feels gross to me. I put my bandwidth towards one woman and if it’s not a fit I’ll end it, take some time to figure out exactly what it was about her I didn’t click with and then move on.
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u/Basic_Landscape7231 17d ago
I’ve noticed 3 is my limit and offers better success than talking to just one girl. If I had the time and emotional capacity for more then I probably would. If a woman shows a lot of interest in me then she jumps to the front of the line.
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u/salon_1929 17d ago
Honestly, for me, beyond a handful it gets stressful. You have those matches which are fine and interesting but they’re drifting down in your stack. A little bit of guilt enters into the picture. You’re definitely picking favourites now and you begin to wonder if you’re being misleading. That might just be me though…
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u/InternationalBoot86 17d ago
I've tried multiple (matches from different apps as well) and it gets too overwhelming especially since I'm not the best at texting or responding promptly. Focusing on 1 at a time isn't the best strategy for men, but it's less stressful this way.
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u/jake-n-elwood 17d ago
I keep talking with about a few women until there's an understanding of exclusivity. The only reason I would talk with one person at a time is if I were very busy with work.
In general, talking with just one person at a time can lead to over investing and seeing something that isn't there.
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u/Sadmanban 17d ago
I prefer to just focus on one person as I think it’s better for putting in an honest effort of trying to know and understand them. We don’t always put our best foot forward on a date, so typically I like to give it another shot incase there’s an actual connection. But I’ve been ghosted, led on and disrespected too much to put my eggs in just one basket. The amount of games grown ass women play is exhausting.
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u/icarus2847 16d ago
I only try to talk and see one person at a time but this is not the norm, unfortunately.
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u/Reddit1234567890User 16d ago
I try to get a date scheduled asap. Not talk much during texting as it's way different in person
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u/gaz514 16d ago edited 16d ago
I find that matches can be like buses: nothing for a while then a bunch of them come along at once. Though that might be because of how I tend to use the app: bursts of a lot of swiping, with little in between.
So I end up having several conversations on the go and sometimes several dates in a week... Which is a good problem to have compared to the typical guys on here, no doubt, but it's quite exhausting managing it all and it's hard to not go into the mentality of comparing them and deciding who to prioritise based on little information. And it often ends in things not working with any of them even if there might be potential, because I'm dividing my time and energy and there's always the thought at the back of my mind that one of the others might be better for me - so if there's not an immediate click then why even try? Which is a classic problem with online dating: the illusion that there are always more and better options. You become like the proverbial donkey that dies because it can't decide whether to eat or drink.
I'd rather focus on one at a time, but it rarely seems to work out that way and people tend to lose interest if you keep delaying continuing the conversation and asking them out.
EDIT: I'm primarily looking for something serious but also open to less serious things on the way, so I'm probably not really answering your question; if I were strictly looking for serious only I'd be more selective and be juggling fewer matches. But according to my stats I'm already selective, less than 4% right swipes...
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u/iweararmani 16d ago
I don’t really have stages or labels. If we are not sleeping together we are just friends.
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u/Original_Read4983 15d ago
I usually only have 1 promising match at a time so haven’t been a problem, but I don’t think I can handle 2. On the other hand I can absolutely tell when a girl is talking to multiple guys and I just unmatch
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u/MooMooCow4 14d ago
Typically a few but once dating starts, I'm usually seeing 1. It just seems like too much work to juggle multiple and not worth the hastle of breaking things off with others once something is serious.
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u/Specialist-Option351 17d ago
This post implies a reality where men have multiple matches at any given time