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The Agony of Eros: Dating

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Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#151

Post by smackeyacky »

varjag wrote: post #107
smackeyacky wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True love is a very modern concept that used to be restricted to fairytales.

Fairytales are also pre-industrial. My point is exactly that it's not quite appstore-modern.

The modern conception of true love is very modern. Nobles used to marry to accumulate property and fairy tales were little more than the glammed up version the hoi polloi consumed. Like the Kardashian thing, tabloids etc where the story is a fabrication.

I think what gets lost is that long term relationships have been more utilitarian than anyone likes to admit. Who doesn't love a love story, or want to feel the rush of first attraction?

The problem is that it isn't enough to build a life out of. You need a practical, working partnership to raise a family and app dating isn't geared to that goal. The apps give a monstrous illusion there might be something better on the next swipe, and it just isn't true.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#152

Post by psyc »

keerthiko wrote: post #93
immigrantheart wrote: post #56

Looks like the commoditization of love/dating apps and social media begins to show its ugly tail. Stories from my circle of friends/families: - Girls obsessed over their physiques. Going skinny to the point it wrecked their hormones. - People who are married just shy over 2-3 years are thinking on divorce, or have girlfriends/boyfriends. - People having open relationships. - Girls randomly make out in club with some…

not gonna lie, as far as i can tell every single one of these things has predated social media and online dating. the cycles are just faster and the ratios shifting, but it's roughly all the same stuff just happening faster and with more people involved.

Maybe the happening faster part is actually the most important thing.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#153

Post by twic »

cassepipe wrote: post #111

I wish Eva Illouz had less success. She is mostly a philosopher, that is someone who says what's goes through her head, and a not a social scientist. I think her idea of the commoditization of love has a lot of success because it seems obvious to our moral oriented minds but the "commodization of {some aspect of life} in the modern society is a commonplace of lazy social analysis, and she is far from alone doing that…

Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word thrown around by those who claim intellectual descent from Marx, with a meaning something like "corruption".

Marx used the term (well, "commodification") with a very specific sociological and economic meaning, where some object with a natural "use value" (you can wear a coat to keep warm) is assigned a somewhat artificial "exchange value" (you can sell a coat for money) by the operation of our economic system. I can't for the life of me see how that applies to any of the usual complaints about love in the 21st century.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#154

Post by Ultimatt »

apatters wrote: post #116
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…

What you're doing doesn't sound like ghosting. Ghosting is cutting off contact without warning or regard for the psychological consequences. It's very easy to not be a ghost, all you have to do is provide a kind resolution. If someone asks you out on another date but you don't want to see them again, you just say something like "I'm sorry, I've gotten really busy lately, if I do have the chance to get together, I'll…

This isn't that great. Plenty of people will be waiting to be "reached out" to. This is like "I'll call you" then they don't. Just be less of a weasel and tell people straight that you personally aren't that interested, which is no ones fault. If you think they'll take it badly give them some reassurance to cushion a hurt ego.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#155

Post by MezzoDelCammin »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #99
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 think if anything it underthinks it. It has turned into a Game Theory kind of problem. Dating sites used to have a lot of compatibility questions - I think OK Cupid still does - and they were useful for filtering by values. But filtering by communication styles is much harder, and I don't think anyone has attempted it. The core of the problem is that everyone is playing by different rules. You have no idea what the…

Well, IMO if You apply Game Theory on Your dating life, You'll ultimately end up dating a Game Theorist.

I get that it's possible, You definitely can "game" the current dating scene, but the question I keep asking myself is "why do that".

Personally, I value curiosity. If I see someone trying to game /optimize their dating profiles, it's a huge turn off for me simply because it wipes out a lot of possibilities and unknowns. All of the sudden, the "oh, hey stranger who seems interesting for me because of X" turns into "oh, hey someone who optimized their profile for X".

PS Corollary to that goes "honesty". I find it almost impossible to be curious about someone who I know is either lying, or "presenting a way too curated version of truth".

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#156

Post by liminvorous »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #6

The article was well written but I think it falls victim to bubble of anecdata in the dating and social media world online. What I mean is the people online who are dating and talking about dating online are more likely to be experience the agony of Eros. Than those who are dating or in a relationship but not sharing about it online. Sort of like a signal to noise ratio that is highly squeued towards the love fails t…

I think you’re just saying “I am not in the intended audience for this article”.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#157

Post by hahamrfunnyguy »

blfr wrote: post #112

> You learn about shared interests, job, which college they went to, their friend group. This is the prime mistake I see my friends make. As a guy, there are pretty much only two things that will seriously and negatively affect your dating life: being short or boring. Talking about your college, job, and friends is usually boring. In fact, even funny stories from these contexts are often boring for your dates to hear…

When I was in my early 20's this was a challenge for me, but I worked at it. Now, I am 40 and it is effortless. There is something to be said for having some well crafted stories, but I think that's a lesser part of it. The bigger thing is being able to LISTEN so you can find common ground and build rapport.

Getting into the sales side in my career was the first time I began to realize how important this was. But nothing changed me like working for a political campaign. I did a large amount of door-to-door, street canvasing and phone banking. I had thousands and thousands of conversations. It was hard, but could be really satisfying if you could turn an initially unpleasant interaction into one where you both walked away smiling.

I would highly recommend this type of volunteer work to help a cause you're passionate about. It was a great experience for me and it helped me develop so many different social skills.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#158

Post by hhjinks »

jdrc wrote: post #82
enw wrote: post #60

Hot take: men don’t want promiscuous women as long-term partners, fundamentally people desire long-term partners, and the commoditization of sex contributes to weak relationships and broken families.

Hotter take: men don't want long-term partners period, monogamy is social conditioning because it leads to stable and more successful settlements.

If we reframe this into societal terms, so that this doesn't get dragged into a "not all men want that" argument, why is it that most modern societies had/has rigid, monogamous family units? There are stereotypes for both promiscuous men and women, and clearly there's some degree of promiscuity in both genders. But the (vast?) majority of societies also adopted monogamous family units for most social classes. If men and women are promiscuous by nature, which forces led to the family unit in modern societies? Or perhaps that's just an illusion? How common was it to have a paramour anyway?

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#159

Post by jdrc »

hhjinks wrote: post #158
jdrc wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotter take: men don't want long-term partners period, monogamy is social conditioning because it leads to stable and more successful settlements.

If we reframe this into societal terms, so that this doesn't get dragged into a "not all men want that" argument, why is it that most modern societies had/has rigid, monogamous family units? There are stereotypes for both promiscuous men and women, and clearly there's some degree of promiscuity in both genders. But the (vast?) majority of societies also adopted monogamous family units for most social classes. If men…

obviously nonmonogamous communities did not survive so what we see may be survivor bias. Nowadays however it IS becoming possible for nonmonogamous socieites to survive due to our superior technology. Hopefully there will be better studies out there than my office-chair evopsych.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#160

Post by everdrive »

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…

>The article's complains "men signal emotional seriousness that they don’t actually feel"

I agree that dating apps and other modern technologies have changed the dating scene for the worse. However, this (feigning love when a man really just wants access to sex) has been a male dating strategy since time in memoriam. (and I'd certainly be open to the idea that this particular dating strategy is under a lot more pressure given the current dating environment. ie, that men are much more tempted to use this strategy than they would be otherwise.)

I guess this really isn't a strong disagreement with your point. (or really much of a disagreement at all.) But, I think it's important to point out that this is not some aberrant pattern which never previously existed, rather it may be a rational pattern in certain contexts, and all we've done is change the context in which people are operating.

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