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Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

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Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#71

Post by soulofmischief »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #62
nhchris wrote: post #43

> This might be hard, as no unwanted advances are taking place. We simply have students excelling at the course, and drawing-in a crowd. I should've been more clear with my "leching" comment. Still, it seems harassing in nature. It seems increasingly that society demands a world where dating only happens during designated and approved dating times and venues, and outside those strictly delimited places, men are to be…

eh, there's really no good signal for women to display that says "hey, i'm open to being hit on right now" or "please don't hit on me right now"

Well that's the issue. It's not their fault. The idea of dating today has been reduced to hitting on people and jumping right into high commitment situations instead of slowly building a lasting relationship built in solid fundamentals, the kinds of advances which are rarely rejected in practice compared to just hitting on someone as if they are a checkbox to be ticked.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#72

Post by JuniorBalleg »

ada1981 wrote: post #36
Metacelsus wrote: post #6

For many people, college itself is a dating service.

What else is it?

Adult daycare? An expensive way to delay the onset of adulthood a few more years? An elaborate proxy for an otherwise-prohibited IQ test?

Mostly it's a piece of paper. For many professions, no matter how pointless the journey, that's a very necessary piece of paper.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#73

Post by Der_Einzige »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #13

I still have clear recollection of the 50:1 men-to-women ratio in my CS2xx classes and higher. Your odds weren't good if you were hoping to meet Mrs. Right. I imagine things have gotten better since. Still, seems like a fairly high effort low outcome place to meet someone who is likely not even receptive to advances in that context. Do colleges not offer many other opportunities for people to meet outside of class in…

Things have not gotten better.

I had several 3 and 4 hundred level CS classes with literally zero women in them. This was at a large, major public school with several hundred in our CS program.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#74

Post by wilsonnb3 »

nhchris wrote: post #43

> This might be hard, as no unwanted advances are taking place. We simply have students excelling at the course, and drawing-in a crowd. I should've been more clear with my "leching" comment. Still, it seems harassing in nature. It seems increasingly that society demands a world where dating only happens during designated and approved dating times and venues, and outside those strictly delimited places, men are to be…

Nobody cares if college students try to date other students from their classes.

It is weird when people take a class specifically because of that reason though.

It is even weirder when the class in question is something that they have a very high skill level in specifically so that they will be able leverage that into some kind of situation that leads to dating.

This is pretty cut and dry to me, I am not sure why so many people in this thread see no problem with this.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#75

Post by thepasswordis »

The only thing this person needs help with is how to laugh at the cleverness here.

Doesn't this actually push really hard towards a perfect 50/50 split of men and women in the classes anyway? Isn't that exactly what the professor wants?

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#77

Post by ShredKazoo »

GalenErso wrote: post #20
gedy wrote: post #15

People can tsk tsk this, but it's damn hard to find a mate if you are not in the top 20% of (straight) men, and basically requires you to be aggressive like this. You may be praised for being a "nice guy" by being passive, but it will not get you dates.

As a woman, I can speak on experience that women will run away from any space men try to invade to seek us, whether it's dating apps, classes, bars, etc. The last thing I want is for a horde of thirsty men to chase me.

Are you trying to meet a guy at all? If so, how would you like it to happen? How does finding dates work, in your ideal world?

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#78

Post by viraptor »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #9

I suspect that if you just announced this fact to the women in the class - either officially, if that doesn't get you in trouble, or under the table if it would - then the problem would basically solve itself. Certainly no males in the class would be getting dates.

I was a bit disappointed in how much the question and the answers concentrated on the course/university/app. Students have agency and are relatively intelligent. There's one side of "how to change this in the future" which matters of course. But for making the environment safer? The teacher can literally state what's happening for the first few lectures: "This semester the class composition looks different, because we've been joined by a large number of students using app XYZ to select this class for its high female:male ratio. They're likely familiar with the curriculum already and are hoping for easy grades and the chance to get close to others under the pretext of tutoring. Keep this in mind if approached. You know who you are and you're still free to change your course for this semester. Now for the actual lecture..."

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#80

Post by soulofmischief »

stavros wrote: post #68
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eh, there's really no good signal for women to display that says "hey, i'm open to being hit on right now" or "please don't hit on me right now"

Maybe that's what we should work on instead, along with making hitting on people acceptable for women too. That way, it's not just a male thing, and people can still indicate they want to be left alone.

It's definitely acceptable for women to hit on men, in fact there is currently a double standard in place in many cultures.

Two days ago at a party I saw a woman sexually harass multiple men without any repercussions, and she constantly apologized afterwards which somehow made it ok to continue the behavior all night.

Yes, that person clearly has unresolved issues to work on but the double standard is there and it's harmful in both directions.

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