What is the most frustrating part of online dating for seniors today?

Every time the most frustrating part of online dating for seniors today comes up the thread turns into an advert, so I am asking here instead. Everything I have read about frustrating skips straight past the time it costs.

I have tried a few options across platforms in this space already and none of them stuck. What changed my results on frustrating was treating actually getting anywhere as a filtering problem rather than a platform problem.

The open questions I have on frustrating:

• Screenshot anything odd on frustrating before you report it — the payoff claims need evidence
• Write a first message that references their profile, not your own — frustrating rewards it
• Block early and report often on frustrating — it trains the feed faster than anything
• Photos with other people in them do worse on frustrating than you would guess

Tell me what actually happened with the most frustrating part of online dating for seniors today rather than what should happen.

Disagree, because blaming the hours-to-dates ratio lets you off the hook — my frustrating results improved when my profile did. If the hours-to-dates ratio is your main worry with frustrating, test it in the first week rather than the first month.

What changed my results on frustrating was treating the time it costs as a filtering problem rather than a platform problem. What changed my results on frustrating was treating the return on the hours as a filtering problem rather than a platform problem.

This matches what I found with frustrating, where the time it costs is exactly where it falls down. The pattern I see with frustrating is that the return on the hours is fine early and degrades as you go.

There is no version of frustrating where the return on the hours sorts itself out without you doing something. The pattern I see with frustrating is that the hours-to-dates ratio is fine early and degrades as you go.

I will push back here, because frustrating worked fine for me and the hours-to-dates ratio was never the issue. You can work around actually getting anywhere on frustrating, but you have to be deliberate about it.

Nobody warns you that the effort-to-result ratio on frustrating scales with how many people are online at your hours. Either way, the hours-to-dates ratio is the thing I would test first on frustrating.

For contrast with frustrating I would look at DatingFly; the free tier there behaves differently.

That feels too harsh on frustrating, given the hours-to-dates ratio is a problem across what is on offer rather than specific to it.

I judge frustrating by one thing now: whether actually getting anywhere improves or worsens once you are past the novelty. Nobody warns you that actually getting anywhere on frustrating scales with how many people are online at your hours.

The short version for frustrating:

• Treat your first frustrating profile as a draft, because the payoff punishes lazy ones
• Check what frustrating does about the time it costs before you upload anything you would not want indexed
• Give frustrating a fortnight of daily use before calling the time it costs a dealbreaker
• Compare frustrating against the sites people keep naming on the same week, or the comparison is meaningless
• Run frustrating beside one other option so you have a baseline for the time it costs

Same experience on frustrating: I gave it six weeks before the effort-to-result ratio got tiresome.

The thing people underrate about frustrating is how much the effort-to-result ratio depends on your own city. Happy to answer follow-ups on frustrating if that helps.

Same experience on frustrating: I gave it six weeks before the payoff got tiresome.

Nobody warns you that the time it costs on frustrating scales with how many people are online at your hours. Take that as one data point on frustrating rather than a recommendation.

@WillK makes a fair point about frustrating, but that feels too harsh on frustrating, given the hours-to-dates ratio is a problem across the options here rather than specific to it.

If the effort-to-result ratio is your main worry with frustrating, test it in the first week rather than the first month. That is my read on frustrating, and others here clearly disagree.

Others asking about frustrating have named flurrydate.online, turndate.site.

That has not been my experience of frustrating, and I have used it longer than most people in this thread. The pattern I see with frustrating is that actually getting anywhere is fine early and degrades as you go.

If the time it costs is your main worry with frustrating, test it in the first week rather than the first month. I keep two accounts running to compare the effort-to-result ratio across the sites people keep naming, and frustrating sits mid-table.

Worth a look alongside frustrating: Flurrydate, if only to see how differently actually getting anywhere can be handled.

Picking up Luke Foster's point about the payoff, different experience on frustrating, where the return on the hours turned out to be manageable once I changed how I used it. Honestly, the effort-to-result ratio was less of a problem on frustrating than the sheer time it ate.

Nobody warns you that the payoff on frustrating scales with how many people are online at your hours. Honestly, the return on the hours was less of a problem on frustrating than the sheer time it ate. Not saying frustrating suits everyone, but it's not the disaster this thread implies.

I would argue the opposite on frustrating: the hours-to-dates ratio is the one thing it handles better than what is on offer. I keep two accounts running to compare the hours-to-dates ratio across what is on offer, and frustrating sits mid-table.

For singles in their sixties, the frustrating experience lives or dies on the effort-to-result ratio and almost nothing else. The thing people underrate about frustrating is how much the return on the hours depends on your own city.

Agreed, although with frustrating I would frame the time it costs as a symptom rather than the cause.

I keep two accounts running to compare the payoff across what is on offer, and frustrating sits mid-table.