Asexual

Well, I wouldn't call it pessimistic, just cultural. I'm more referring to the dating culture, which I feel is upheld by the people who are versed in going on dates, aka dating. Sure, some dating experiences yield long term relationships, but mostly the culture around dating seems to be focused on short term compatibility. Fact of the matter is, that you don't need to date. Dating is not a necessity for a long term relationship, and many who are in long term relationships will tell you that they've never dated. That doesn't mean they haven't been out for a fancy meal, of had a nice stroll at the park, it just means they got to know each other by other means. For the dating aspect, though, it's great for some people, for their purposes, but unless you meet in some formal place, it's not needed to get to know each other.

As for dating apps I have a very pessimistic viewpoint on. Firstly, the ratio of men to women is skewed towards lonely men looking for women being a massive majority (enby in this calculation is quite literally nonexistent), leaving many men only matching with scam-bots, and the women who get matches, usually also get a ton of unwanted attention on those matches. And hookups? Well, they're more profitable for dating services, as they come back to use the service again. Same cannot be said about someone who actually finds a long term partner, as after that, they're done with the service, so it's far more profitable to keep the lonely people hooked on paying the subscription with just a right amount of hope to be the carrot for them to pay a little more. Not only that, but if you've used a dating app, how long did you take to decide on whether you were interested or not, on a potential match? 1 second? Less? Well, that only means you have to make the impression in that 1 second. It's an advertisement for you, in a space filled with advertisements "for the same product from a different supplier", how will you stand out positively in that 1 second? All you can be is superficial, to get people to even read your bio.

On the other hand, I remember Kurt Cobain saying once that he know much more talented bands that haven't even been glanced at. While I feel he expressed his impostor syndrome with that comment, the fact of the case is that Nirvana had larger exposure than these bands. They were lucky enough to be noticed by the crowd that liked what they did, in large enough scale that they became popular, but I'd imagine for every 1 person that liked their stuff, even in their native scene, there were 2-4 who didn't. What mattered was the exposure. Same goes for meeting people: The more people who see you for who you are, the more likely you are to meet someone who likes who you are, even if majority of your interactions would be just fleeting moments. The important will stick. That's also one of the things I don't recommend dating, because you want the ones who stick to not be sticking because you happened to be more cordial and representative than you usually are, as to keep that adhesion, you need to sustain it, while if you be as quirky as you are in an environment you feel at home, people in that environment will stick you you because of who you are comfortable being. And trust me, people love quirks. Quirks make us human.

The bottom line basically is that if you go for a jog every morning at 7am, you will start saying hi, to other people who go for a jog 7am every morning. And if you happen to see each other in the grocery store afterwards, you at least have 2 common interest to talk about: jogging at 7am and buying groceries. Who knows, maybe even more, but at least that is what you know. All you need to to is being exposed to people.

Hope it works out for you. Remember the best part of volunteering is that it's not as commital as paid work, you can take things slow and talk with your fellow volunteers. And if it's not working out just go do somthing else. Let no one boss you around and actually have fun.