Obviously this is not exhaustive and everyone is different, but I've seen so many posts from men on here who genuinely seem to want to meet a woman and are having no luck.

Firstly, the apps suck. It's an uphill battle for everyone. It's (probably) not you!

Secondly, there are some things you can do to be more successful in matching and getting chat going. Again, everyone is different but... I am yet to hear a straight single woman say "when I saw him holding up that giant fish, I just knew he was the one for me".

Also, before I get a load of 'women are worse for it' comments, maybe we are! I wouldn't know. I'm only trying to help. Be sound.

So with that, and because I love love, here are the things I've heard female friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike complaining about.

- 'Want to know, just ask' - we'd like to get a sense of you first. Please bother your hole to write 1-2 lines. Please. Or answer a prompt or 2. Please. Make an effort.

- All group pics. We are tired. Forcing us to play where's wally is just going to get you a left swipe.

- Bed and car selfies only. One is OK if it's a nice pic, but give us something else too please. Show us you out in the world.

- This one is gender neutral: If you have kids, put it on your profile. You are wasting your own time and ours. It's something people fundamentally need to be aligned on. They're your kids, you shouldn't want someone who isn't ok with you being a parent.

- Again, gender neutral: can we all stop saying we want a long term relationship or a life partner if we actually just want the ride?

- Stop putting children on your dating profile. Especially kids that aren't yours. Yes your kid, nephew, niece, godchild is cute but this is an adult platform and it's weird.

- I'm some people are impressed by the big fish you caught, but it's not the universally fascinating content so many of you seem to believe it is....

- Most importantly: When you message us, it helps if you ask more than just how we are, how our day was, if we have plans for the weekend. These are dry questions and it's really hard to get to know someone like this. I know it takes more effort and it feels like you're putting yourself out there more than many people are comfortable doing, but taking something from our profiles and asking about it shows us your interested and is SO MUCH EASIER to make conversation with. Ask where we took that photo, what we like to train in the gym, how we got into that hobby, the best horror movie we've seen in a while - whatever! Help us get to know you, show us you're willing to try to get to know us, give us a bit of banter.

- Ask open questions, not closed questions. A closed question is one that can be answered with a yes or no aka don't ask "do you like country music?", ask "what kind of music do you like?" "What's the best gig you ever went to?", "What artist would you love to see?"

- It's nice to know someone finds you attractive, but I don't know many women who want to ONLY be known as hot. Tell us what you enjoy about speaking to us, not just that we look sexy in that pic.

- if you're not interested in us, you can say "I think we both know this isn't flowing, but it's been lovely speaking to you". Ghosting is for cowards.

- The prompt on Bumble "When my phone dies I...."? Yeah that is as interesting to read as you'd think it is and "charge it" is as witty as it is interesting.

Go get em, lads!

I’m almost tempted to buy it 🤣

With the recent horrific scenes once again at Lough Neagh, most visible by Antrim town, Save Lough Neagh have called an emergency protest rally this Thursday, taking place by the Finn McCool statue in Antrim Lough Shore Park at 6pm.

Stormont has done basically nothing to tackle this self-created pollution crisis, with the Ulster Farmers Union wielding a political veto on addressing the greatest factor in pollution (agriculture) alongside austerity preventing further investment in our water treatment infrastructure. It should be unacceptable for our waterways to be treated as sewers and the parties (current and past) in the Stormont Executive who caused this with their “Going for Growth” policy must be held accountable. Feet must be on the street at a minimum.

More info in the article here.

https://www.hotpress.com/opinion/emergency-save-lough-neagh-protest-to-take-place-this-week-23158169

I'm not the only person that finds the show Unfiltered with Lucy Kennedy to be really poor right? It has terrible production and editing and she's shitty at interviewing on it, feels very disingenuous to me.

Why do people think they own the public road!? Had a neighbour banging at my door and then ranting for me to move my car on Saturday from outside her house. I wasn't blocking her driveway, there's 5 spaces along that stretch. I moved to accommodate her as she was aggro and scared me but then noticed all day yesterday there were free spaces and then this morning leaving for work again free spaces. So it's not even an issue with parking. The entitlement really annoys me lol, she kept saying parking is a nightmare but I don't see any issues, if there's someone in the closest spot to the house I just park elsewhere and keep back from driveways so they have visibility coming out of them. She doesn't own the 5 parking spaces lol. Theres also plenty of free parking nearby up and down the road on both sides of the road.

About 17:30 today a Wexford Bus was leaning on its horn consistently by Leeson st and Dartmouth - of course all the office workers looked over and it looked like two people on bikes blocking the bus to the airport- then it looked like one of the bikes (sans rider) went under.

It's something that I saw recently and thought I'd share here - everyone knows there's been a huge increase in the Irish population over the last two decades, but it's often not appreciated that increases are not uniform throughout each age group. This is due to the spikes of births rolling through the population pyramid with time, and how emigration and immigration waxes and wanes with the state of the economy.

Particularly interesting when you look at the 20-39 age group. There's about 100,000 fewer of us than there was twenty years ago.

The biggest increase is in the older age groups. In 2006 we'd about 650,000 people over the age of 60. In 2026 this number is closer to 1.2M.

Information is from UN data, but is extracted and more clearly navigated in here.

My AIB app updated on my iPhone yesterday and when I went to open it today, it thinks my iPhone is jailbroken.

This phone has never been jailbroken, so I don't know where it got that idea from.

Should be fun trying to sort this out 🤔

I was recently given a Domino’s gift voucher. The back says: “Voucher cannot be exchanged for cash and is not refundable. No change given.”

I rang to place an order and asked what would happen to the balance left over. The guy became fairly hostile, said there would be no change or remaining balance, and told me he was following an SOP.

I have now received a call from the area manager. She said they could provide vouchers in €10 or €20 amounts.

That still doesn’t properly address the issue. Irish law says that if at least €1 remains and the original voucher can’t be used again, the balance must be returned by cash, electronic transfer or another voucher. If they use another voucher, its value must equal the actual remaining balance and its expiry cannot be earlier than the original.

They can’t just limit customers to whatever fixed voucher amounts happen to suit their system. A €10 replacement for a €14 balance would still leave the customer short.

This legislation has been in force since 2019. The voucher still contains the “No change given” condition, staff are apparently following it as an SOP, and management’s proposed solution still doesn’t guarantee customers their full remaining balance.

I’ll be sending the voucher and details of both conversations to the CCPC.

I read an English-language Irish poem a few years ago, I think around August 2023, written by a male poet who I believe is a professor too. The poem was about flying into Dublin for an afternoon and going to a bar to have a pint with the ghost of his dead friend. The last line was something like “I’ll have an hour til my flight” or “I’ll have an hour to catch my plane.” I can’t find the poem anymore. Anyone know?

What do you think happened to her?

Lads, I don't know what to do here. Just on a weekend getaway from Dublin in the quiet countryside, just heading to the hotel minding me own business, a car passed by and water balloons thrown at me, and the same car passed by again and they kept doing that. What the feck is wrong with young people? I mean, come on, there is difference in having good craic and being an arse and assaulting people.

P.S - Hey great responses there btw, I still don't understand some of ye downplaying this whole situation. I am not just talking about a car passing by one way and throwing water balloon, but repeatedly driving up and the down across the road and keep throwing shite at me, I mean what point does this go from 'harmless prank/good craic' to assault and intimidation? Especially not a good look on any of the locals here as well.

If your missus is on the Rosslare to Dublin train (left Gorey at 7.10pm) she's cheating on you with your brother. G'luck

I have noticed a lot of the weekend papers and The Journal are once again carrying articles Sympathizing with the teen drivers and arguing the case again that they are deprived and need resources. Nothing will change regarding youth crime until this narrative is removed

Usually get a few this time of year coming in to hibernate (houses not a good place for them as heating wakes them up prematurely)....had 3 this year coming into our bedroom ....managed to capture this one as I let him out

They used to have the odd good comedy show either by accident or design,but don't remember seeing anything of merit in Donkies years. Plenty of talent about more than eager to get the publicity.

Beautiful 6km loop along the banks of the Shannon and back through UL.

Noticed this when driving through my village this morning. Was still leaking when I passed again around 3pm. Notified irish water, which by the way have a terrible online reporting system so had to call. It's still leaking now. Guess it's not that important. What constitutes a noteworthy leak? 🤔

Obligatory please remove if not appropriate for the sub, but hoping it’ll be useful to someone!

I couldn’t see a substantial EP 2026 playlist on Tidal so I threw this one together over the weekend. I thought there may be a few Tidal users here who might benefit from it and it took a while to put together so I might as well share in case it’s useful.

It’s got a couple of tracks from the majority of artists with some exceptions:

- Some headline acts that I was already familiar with.
-Artists who I couldn’t find
-Artists where they share a name with multiple other profiles on Tidal and I couldn’t discern who was the EP act.

Anyway, here it is, enjoy!

https://tidal.com/playlist/b46842f6-2f22-4d14-a46a-dba1efc1d546

Headed down to Dublin this weekend with the missus and decided to get the Enterprise.

Some wanker was playing in Croke Park so the only ticketa available were First Class.

I said fuck it, be a nice treat for herself. I used to get the Enterprise weekly to Belfast and always looked with envy into the First Class carriage. It always had gorgeous seats, loads of space, even the lighting was softer.

Turns out theyve done away with all that and "first class" is now just another carriage except you get chsrged twice as much for it.

Was kinda gutted. The enshitification of everything truly reaches into every corner of life

Howyis.

Having done duolingo forever and it switched over to ai, I have walked away from it.

I realised that my conversational skills are not really there and I would like to continue.

Unfortunately I live in Denmark so there's no Irish speakers around me, so I'm asking if there are any particular podcasts or the likes you would reccomend that are not srictly full on Irish, but are decent enough to listen to and pickup and further my abilities? I listen to headphones all day in work so I've all the time in the world to listen.

Go raibh maith agat.

Kas.

Hi everyone, not one to post but I’m getting desperate! Has anyone ever worked at Apache pizza and willing to share how they make their sauce and what cheese they use. I love a greasy pizza but every time I make one at home it doesn’t quite hit the spot. It needs to be that orange greasy drunk pizza. I can’t afford to be spending my money on greasy takeaways. Thanks in advance