Live data from Hacker News

Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

researchgate.net

541–550 of 806 posts

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#541
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's interesting to me. I have female friends in their 30s who go on tons of dates but reject pretty much all of them for any long-term relationship. The ones they seem to be in to tend to reject them after a couple of dates. This is simply the other side of the coin, "online dating divides people heavily into winners and losers" What is happening is that in the same way most women get more attention than most men,…

I don't understand how this is a stable situation. If women have to compete so much, wouldn't it be better for them to lower expectations?

I'm sure they are aware of the situation as well as their own biological clock and are acting according to their desires. Unfortunately we have to just let people make their own decisions in the realm of dating. Maybe the future is common egg freezing or artificial wombs and people can delay serious families until their 40s or 50s.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#542

I'll chime in as somebody who's been considered top 10% of attractiveness in one country and bottom 50% in another - the difference in the amount of sexual opportunities on apps is absolutely staggering. Not that this should be a surprise to anyone. Where I am considered attractive, I've gotten 80+ matches in one day and random women messaging me at 11PM telling me they're lonely and to come hang out. I've had more f…

Whos considering you in the top 10% v bottom 50%? How you you know there isn't a cultural difference where one group replies that you're attractive to be polite where as the other says the opposite because they feel you're being rude?

Probably because they're not letting me bang them out of politeness.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. I still struggle sometimes. Many of my friends do much worse than me. I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-looking, that have not been touched by a woman in years. While I think that globally the sentiment about this is true (market is driven by women), I also had many average-looking, intellectually stimulating male friends that sai…

I've fallen for plenty of women who I was not initially sexually attracted to but as I spent more time with them they became so. Not because they looked any different, but because emotional bonds formed. So called "inner beauty." I'm confident this is an extremely common experience for men and women alike. The issue is that this will never happen through a dating app.

very good point I think that is lost in the modern dating economy

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#544

As a 30+ year old kissless virgin I have recently began noticing that the loneliness part has began affecting me more deeply than usual. I suppose noticing the first signs of aging in my face led to the realization of all things not-done. I've had a couple of episodes of despair in the past few months because of this. Unfortunately people like me become helpless. You'll be alone because you _are_ alone: you don't hav…

Ugh. Did you consider looking for help from paid professionals?

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But it takes time. Most importantly, women lose their ability to have children earlier than men but in their early 20s many of them are busy with other things and think they have a lot of time. They get less desirable as time goes by so when they decide to ‘get serious’ at 35 it is already getting late

If this is the case then it would seem an easy problem to solve as men looking for relationships and not getting any responses should only have to message those 35 and older.

If they are young they are less established in a career which disqualifies them.

My take is that "age gap" relationships are difficult, even somebody who is 50 today grew up in a very different world than someone who is 27 on top of all the other issues about not outliving your partner too much, etc.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#546
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) I was raised into believing that sex implies serious relationship and vice versa. As in "if we are having sex that means we are in serious relatioinship". As it turned out - this does not work like this for most (many?) people. Turns out yuo can just have a good time and some sex without worrying about 1001 things before you do so. This seems to contradict some view on women's POV here. As in, for women the sexu…

> As in, for women the sexual transaction is big serious deal. If that truly were the case, you wouldn't see 5% of these hypersexual men monopolizing 50% of sex (as the paper says). Or maybe many women like intentionally putting themselves in harem-like situation, if in exchange they get to have sex with "hot men". Overall, it's a deplorable state of affairs.

Can you elaborate on the deplorable aspect?

What's deplorable and what would you prefer to occur?

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article a few years ago saying that in Manhattan women outnumber men, and that led to men needing to compete less there, so yeah probably economics related. But a gov-sponsored app? No way. It's bad enough they have your whole financial/employment history (IRS), but to add your health (medicare/aid) and now dating/sexual histories too? What's left that you can keep private? Sorry, bad idea there.

I hear you on privacy, but would you rather the data be given to MatchGroup who can sell and use that as they wish, or to the government that at least has an incredible amount of oversight and has to go thru greatly transparent lengths to move data? Having worked in both the gov and commercial spaces for a while I’d definitely say govt agencies are much, much, much more careful about how they handle sensitive informa…

Yup, if I were in the dating market I would definitely favor a government system. Not only do I trust the government more with data privacy (not that they are good, it's just they are way beyond private enterprise), but they have the data to weed out most of the junk. There wouldn't be a bunch of bots, there wouldn't be a bunch of sex workers who just create a new profile when the old one is banned etc.

(And I would like to see government job boards, also, for basically the same reasons.)

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#548
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm betting the #1 cause of men rejecting women is also looks based...

Yes, except most men do not enjoy the liberty of being picky about it. For most guys I know, the attractiveness cutoff is merely “not obese”

The average woman does way more to take care of herself than the average man. I'm betting if most/a substantial portion of women didn't wash themselves, for example, that that would become another cutoff pretty quickly. Or if women didn't shave regularly/were showing stubble everywhere. Or if they routinely showed up with rat's nest hair.

(Most women who don't do basic things are depressed to the point they aren't on dating apps, so you wouldn't have an opportunity to swipe on them.)

One reason I'm glad I'm gay is that so many men just reek or don't perform basic hygiene.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#549
post #544

As a 30+ year old kissless virgin I have recently began noticing that the loneliness part has began affecting me more deeply than usual. I suppose noticing the first signs of aging in my face led to the realization of all things not-done. I've had a couple of episodes of despair in the past few months because of this. Unfortunately people like me become helpless. You'll be alone because you _are_ alone: you don't hav…

Ugh. Did you consider looking for help from paid professionals?

I am under psychiatric treatment. And the way we treat it isn't by expecting me to magically integrate to society at my age with my lack of experience but by managing the despair.

That's why I wanted to comment here: I found most comments looking for "ways" to get these guys "dates". But some (and I bet it's most) of those who are sexually lonely (or romantically lonely) are past the social point-of-no-return. They are pestilent to others. Constantly exposing them to environments where they will face rejection at best, excoriation at worst is only going to drive them deeper into misantropy. And that may lead to violence.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#550

As a 30+ year old kissless virgin I have recently began noticing that the loneliness part has began affecting me more deeply than usual. I suppose noticing the first signs of aging in my face led to the realization of all things not-done. I've had a couple of episodes of despair in the past few months because of this. Unfortunately people like me become helpless. You'll be alone because you _are_ alone: you don't hav…

I may be totally wrong, but please bear with me: what do you feel about going out? Not for dates but for "honing" some social skills and maybe even creating opportunities (okay less of that but still).
Post reply on HN