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The Agony of Eros: Dating

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Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#41

Post by soco »

fxtentacle wrote: post #9

I believe this very nicely ties in with "No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31143279 We have turned sexual partners into an affluent commodity, thanks to apps. With a bit of paid boosting, you can show your profile to 1000+ potential partners and surely a few of them will have a favorable first impression. We've also successfully refr…

If only you had left out the pheromones part I would have agreed with you wholeheartedly. That's a lesson I should learn as well: do not pivot in the message, rather write a new one.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#42

Post by nickpeterson »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #5
deepstack wrote: post #3

The fact that someone would write this on a blog give me the sense that he/she is over analysing this dating thing. Analysis works for accounting and engineering, it does not work for dating. So stop analysing and go have some fun in life.

ignorance is never the superior tactic

Sometimes people are not aware of limits that even cursory research would have shown them. They then produce the impossible, because they didn’t know it was impossible.

Technical Example: I remember reading awhile back about a demoscene contributor who used to watch amazing 3d scenes and never understood they were not rendered in real time, so he worked at it until he figured out how to render 3d scenes as quickly as some of the other examples he had seen but his were real-time. He was so sure that others were doing it, he kept trying to optimize/improve until his were grossly better.

Dating Example: Lookup the first interview between David Letterman and Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec). They talk about how he’s married to Megan Mullally (from Will and Grace). He didn’t know who she was when he met her (she would have been quite famous at the time), and complimented her and asked her out. His ignorance of basic known things allowed a confidence to succeed at something ordinary that would otherwise intimidate a lot of men.

To be clear, I think it definitely helps to look into things, but ignorance can sometimes counter-balance doubt, which can grossly affect outcomes.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#43

Post by smeej »

varjag wrote: post #7

We expect more from our partners than ever before—we want them to be our true love, our best friend, our coparenting partner, and the person we combine our finances with. Curious what is their idea of 'before'. Unless they mean pre-industrial societies.

This sounds like what people in my culture have held forth as the ideal for "marriage" for centuries.

Sure, there were times before that where it was much more utilitarian, but anywhere you see talk of "two becoming one flesh" is at least as intense as what's mentioned in this quotation!

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#44

Post by erfgh »

beebeepka wrote: post #21

I cannot relate with the whole "dating" thing one bit. It's not just that I am old now. All I hear is "apps" and silly comments on "how we this and that". I'd go as far as saying avoid people who spew things like "we" on the internet. It's crap. They don't know you, and you don't know them. Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love. Don't fall into this app dating thing. It's a trap. Why else would th…

Dating by apps is terrible but bars are arguably even worse.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#46

Post by Brian_K_White »

deepstack wrote: post #10
Brian_K_White wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ignorance is never the superior tactic

It is true, however ignorance and analysis are not mutually exclusive. Just because one analyse it doesn't mean one can avoid being ignorant. Certain things are just not meant for analysis. Dating, Love fun are in those things for my personal experiences.

One can run all day and still not travel a mile.

One can not travel a mile without travelling a mile.

The fact that you can run in circles does not mean therefor running produces nonresults and the only way to travel is to rely on the luck that you magically land where you want, even though that does happen to a few people.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#47

Post by astrange »

beebeepka wrote: post #21

I cannot relate with the whole "dating" thing one bit. It's not just that I am old now. All I hear is "apps" and silly comments on "how we this and that". I'd go as far as saying avoid people who spew things like "we" on the internet. It's crap. They don't know you, and you don't know them. Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love. Don't fall into this app dating thing. It's a trap. Why else would th…

> Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love.

Surprisingly this may still be true (I thought people didn't drink as much these days) but it's significantly less common than apps for couples now.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1908630116

Also not very popular for lesbians.

https://www.graphext.com/post/how-couples-meet-and-stay-toge...

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#48

Post by bell-cot »

djbebs wrote: post #13
librish wrote: post #8

I find the discussion of ghosting interesting. If I've gone on a bad date or two I don't specifically tell the other person I don't want to see them again unless they ask me. This allows for a lot more saving face if I run into them in the future (we can both pretend it just fell through the cracks) and is exactly how I want to be treated. While I appreciate the honesty I do find it a little condescending when someon…

Tbh ghosting isn't as bad as saying one thing and then making excuses to not go through it. I've been on dates where I thought it went well, I got the "let's do this again", and then whenever I suggested "let's do it again on X day?" I get excuses. If they don't want to that's fine, they don't even have to say no just don't reply! But the leading on is annoying...

Charitably put, they're pretty good at communicating that they're pretty bad at communicating. Slight kudos for doing it quite early in the not-a-relationship. (And pencil in checkmarks by #2 and/or #3 in the article's "...ways these norms cause suffering" list.)

Or you could say they're using a different "rule book", or "language", or set of social conventions - which are great reasons to avoid someone.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#49

Post by nnoitra »

MezzoDelCammin wrote: post #15

Is it just me, or does this article really overthink way too much? IMO, dating is ultimately not a subject that could be analyzed by logic. At least not on on the personal / self-help level (of course sociology / statistics still work). Trying to find some kind of generally applicable "rules of the game" that would work for everyone (or even most) people seems somewhat "not even wrong". It's simply trying to use the…

Definitely this.

She is trying to game it with a person with whom she isn't a good match. It has nothing to do with communication and more about vibe and 98% of vibe is just sheer sexual attraction.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#50

Post by freedom2099 »

smackeyacky wrote: post #23
MezzoDelCammin wrote: post #15

Is it just me, or does this article really overthink way too much? IMO, dating is ultimately not a subject that could be analyzed by logic. At least not on on the personal / self-help level (of course sociology / statistics still work). Trying to find some kind of generally applicable "rules of the game" that would work for everyone (or even most) people seems somewhat "not even wrong". It's simply trying to use the…

I found it interesting. Being an older person in a long term relationship with someone I met in high school, the online dating stuff seems much harder for a lot of reasons. Firstly, meet someone when you are young they are more likely to be of a similar socio-economic group and share a lot of values by default. Second (and I realise this is controversial) if you fall in love when you are young and stupid, the pair of…

I totally understand your point… like you I married my high school sweetheart (I am 37 and to date I have being in one continuous monogamous relationship for 20 years). We did grow up together… changed together.
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