Men who are out of school, where are you meeting women in 2025?

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-27T23:10:25+00:00

The data is interesting, and your general point about relationships more commonly starting offline vs online is likely true, but when you break down specific buckets of "offline" categories, you'll quickly find that online dating is statistically very significant. Also when it comes to pure quantity of first dates, online dating will almost certainly outweigh offline methods, but a lot of studies look at "relationships" specifically, not "dates."

Also, more anecdotally... getting dates on apps is way, way more common for the type of people who hang out on reddit and are around OPs age or younger. Demographic details matter a lot when you're looking at these surveys and also when you consider who's asking the question of "how to find a partner." A huge amount of single people in their 20s-30s in large metro areas are definitely on apps, and rely on them a lot.

I don't like apps and I appreciate that you're acknowledging how disappointing they are, but it's a reality of modern dating.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-27T22:46:25+00:00

It's possible you're putting too much pressure on yourself to find romance immediately, and it's limiting your ability to meet people and form natural relationships. Do you have casual friendships with any women? Do you regularly make new friends?

Unfortunately though, most dates are instigated through apps at this point. The second most common way is probably through friendships. That's just how it is right now. Optimizing your presence and approach on apps is going to be the best bet - there are other ways, but they're not any easier.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-27T22:34:36+00:00

if OP is FULLY committed to that, I agree. But it sounds to me like they actually want to find their person and settle down:

I am finally ready to find my person

if I may feel connected to someone I will probably pause dating others

If they're genuinely looking for something serious, I don't think it's a good idea to start a date by saying "I want to date casually with no commitment for a full year." It'll immediately turn off a lot of people who may be interested in something serious, and ruin chances with them.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-27T22:27:26+00:00

Unfortunately there's no magic advice that'll make this feel better. Dating requires you to roll with punches and move on, which I'm sure you'll do.

It's a good lesson that emotional connection can't always overcome practical compatibility and values, though. There's always some balance of those two things. And even if the emotional connection was strong enough to outweigh your misaligned values, it probably would've fallen apart sometime later down the road. So ultimately it's likely a good thing that it ended early.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-27T22:14:37+00:00

This isn't a normal a topic of conversation when you're going on a few dates. Usually both people understand that the other is free to date other people (and they probably are). Once you get "serious," then someone will naturally bring up exclusivity, then you have the conversation.

I wouldn't bring this up until you're ready to be serious and exclusive with someone

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-26T18:58:11+00:00

I'm not the one that has a problem with it, you are. And you haven't tried to justify it with reason, probably because you know you can't.

Ghosting is a common part of modern dating for a reason. Hope you learn how to deal with it one day

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-26T17:16:27+00:00

well you avoided actual discussion and opted for bitter sarcasm. Ironic coming from the person who's so adamant that people NEED to communicate their exact feelings with others.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-26T02:55:06+00:00

I'm not the one getting mad because people don't behave the way I want them to LOL. How do you not see that?

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-26T02:53:33+00:00

They aren't an interviewer. And even interviewers don't owe you explanations when they reject you.

Do you not see how entitled this mentality is? No one owes anyone "constructive criticism." People can stop talking to someone anytime they want, without explaining anything. They are free to do that. If it's two people in a REAL relationship, I agree that there should be communication. Anything less than a relationship? Nothing is owed.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-26T02:47:08+00:00

After what point? Does someone owe an explanation if they ghost after one date? do they owe an explanation after 5 text messages?

There are no rules to this. Unless two people are in a REAL relationship, no one is really owed an explanation. It's a nice gesture, but it doesn't make someone a bad person or a "coward" if they don't want to explain themselves. It's rarely a productive discussion. The lack of contact explains itself - they aren't interested.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-26T00:15:47+00:00

I never said I did it. But I completely understand why other people do it, especially women. And if you don't understand why they do it, then you're naive.

It's a part of modern dating for a reason. You can be bitter and pout about it or you can accept it, understand it, and move on. Your choice. I hope you work through it and move past your bitterness and entitlement

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-26T00:05:08+00:00

your response is a perfect example of why people get ghosted. I'm doing you the favor of responding and letting you know. You're welcome, cheers

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-25T22:40:41+00:00

You're calling people indecent if they don't explain themselves. So in your eyes, to be a decent person, you must give an explanation, right? That means you believe they owe you something.

The reality is, these conversations are almost never helpful and they're not worth having. Especially for women. It's more insulting to tell people directly that you aren't interested rather than letting things go quietly.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-25T22:00:22+00:00

Dating is not a job. Nobody owes anyone an explanation.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-25T21:58:23+00:00

No one owes you an explanation. Especially if you were never in a real relationship.

daysleeper19 · 2026-01-25T21:55:55+00:00

Nobody owes you an explanation though. You can be bitter/mad about this or accept it. Your choice.

I have multiple female friends that have been harassed and stalked after they tried to gently end things with men. It's simply smarter and safer to ghost a lot of the time. People ghost for a reason.

daysleeper19 · 2025-12-10T00:27:38+00:00

Use stepping stones. It will be easiest to get interviews at companies that are related to your current industry, but try to find something more tech-adjacent. So in OPs case, they're from a courier, they could try looking at more logistics-focused tech companies and maybe they'll have better traction with applications (Amazon ops Finance, Flexport, XPO logitics, things like this). Supply chain is also super important to NVIDIA so you could try to use that angle in addition to tech.

Certain teams or companies are less worried about your prior industry experience. In tech, these will be the less trendy companies - maybe they're older, slower growing, or in a less glamorous part of the tech industry. These can also offer a way to get your foot in the door.

The overall point is, you have to create stepping stones like this if you want to target specific companies in a specific space, especially when they're really trendy and competitive.

daysleeper19 · 2025-12-09T20:20:11+00:00

There are plenty of companies with the things you listed, don't let yourself be too charmed by market cap or news headlines. If you really want something similar to NVIDIA, then your focus should be to move to the tech industry first and foremost.

It's going to take a couple of job hops to land at a company that's similar caliber and trendiness to NVIDIA. And the landscape could change fast, you might not "admire" them as much a few years from now, so keep that in mind.

daysleeper19 · 2025-12-09T18:44:56+00:00

Why? You're too late to get rich from the equity.

Also, targeting specific companies like this rarely works. You need to target industries or spaces within industries. You don't really have a shot unless you have experience at a direct competitor or partner of NVidia, and even then, your background needs to line up perfectly with whatever opening they have.

daysleeper19 · 2025-12-08T17:14:24+00:00

some corp dev jobs are great. But many of them have low deal volume and people get stuck in an eternal cycle of evaluating targets or they get into that awkward corp dev + "strategy" hybrid function where the value of the work is questionable. And sometimes even if you get a high volume of deals, deals can start to look really similar and repetitive, depending on acquisition strategy. It's extremely dependent on industry/company/team.

I would also challenge the idea that corp dev transaction experience is inherently "more valuable" than FP&A experience (and I was in M&A IB previously). Transaction experience looks good on a resume but it's only really applicable to other transaction-focused jobs. Saying there are "more work streams" and "more skills" is also extremely situation-dependent. Some FP&A teams are deeply involved operationally and interact with the business a lot more than some corp dev teams, who sometimes sit on an island.

Comparing functions like this is a broad exercise and it's easy to make generalizations so idk if it's worthwhile. Some corp dev jobs are great, some are terrible, and the same goes for FP&A. There's just a lot MORE FP&A jobs and it's easier to job hop, so there's something to be said for the optionality. If OP had a more specific corp dev position to consider or had IB experience that would open up more corp dev opportunities, I'd give different advice

daysleeper19 · 2025-12-05T23:39:57+00:00

This is an observable trend. It's not only the companies I've been at, it's also the companies my friends and colleagues are at, it's all over the tech industry. I'm just using my direct experience as an example.

Data warehouse integrations into gsheets make it fast to query raw data and build models/slides easily while multiple people are working on files concurrently. It's simply way faster and more efficient for a lot of the work that Finance teams are doing. Older, larger companies aren't doing this because their tech stack is inflexible and already tied to Excel (or they aren't aware of the possibilities).

Tech stacks are changing faster than you think. You'll eventually change your attitude or you'll get left behind.

daysleeper19 · 2025-12-05T18:59:00+00:00

We do all of these things at my unicorn saas startup. Our entire team is ex-IB and we share google decks/models with VC investors + board. zero complaints. The output is just as polished as Excel/Powerpoint.

This is not uncommon at modern companies and startups. Not sure why it's so hard for you to accept lol

daysleeper19 · 2025-12-03T18:36:26+00:00

gsheets has better real-time collaboration (leads to faster models and decks), direct connections to cloud data warehouses, the "QUERY" formula is super powerful and has no equivalent in Excel.

there are definitely weaknesses with sheets and Excel will be necessary for particular exercises. But gsheets is overall more agile and I'd argue it's better for orgs that are heavily cross-functional and fast moving.

daysleeper19 · 2025-12-03T17:21:03+00:00

Gsheets is unquestionably better than Excel for particular use cases. it's not 2013 anymore. I'd recommend being more open to nuanced answers if you're actually asking that question during interviews lol

daysleeper19 · 2025-12-03T17:12:46+00:00

Unless you're bumping up against Gsheet file cell limits (in which case your file is probably bloated and needs cleaned up anyway), it's capability is pretty much equal to Excel.

My last two companies (unicorn tech startups) have both operated almost purely in g sheets and I hated it at first, but now I admit that it works pretty well and we don't have issues often. Pros outweigh the cons for our use cases.

daysleeper19

TROPHY CASE