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The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

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Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#11

Post by nhangen »

I think the lie told is not one of predestined love, but of perfect love. That you'll find the person of your dreams, they will sweep you off your feet, and you'll never have a negative feeling about them. It will all end storybook.

Of course the next 20 chapters are ones of compromise, empathy, regret, and apologies, with happiness and perfection in between.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#12

Post by groby_b »

smoyer wrote: post #4

My 25+ year marriage is actually the product of "predestined love" and I think most people could end up with a love like that. The reality is that you have to keep your eyes open if you want to notice the person that's right for you ... and you have to meet enough people to find them. EDIT: As I thought a bit more about it, I also realized that you have to have some criteria for what you're looking for in a partner t…

It's not "predestined love" alone - it's also willingness to actually work on that relationship. I've got 23 years so far, and it's been awesome. But it required talking about things, occasionally compromising, being willing to listen, and paying attention to what's going on. And sometimes sticking it out, even when you thought "This really isn't fun right now".

And congrats on 25+ years - you're obviously doing it right :)

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#13

Post by rayiner »

Maybe it's my social circle (busy pushing-30 professionals) but I think there is almost zero stigma among my friends over online dating. In fact, less so among women than among men. Men for some reason feel they have to play the bar scene even if they don't like it or aren't good at it, but women feel no such need. Indeed, for a lot of my women friends, online dating offers the very real advantage that it's socially acceptable for women to actively choose in an online context, while in meat space the social convention involves their waiting for the loudest, drunkest guy to come up and hit on them.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#14

Post by dbecker »

I think this may be solving a legitimate problem, but I think you are incorrect that the source of the problem is hollywood.

Online dating follows historically from personals classifieds. Personals ads contained very little information (in part because they had to be so short). This meant you were going on a date with someone you knew nothing about. It was worse than just a blind date... because you didn't even have any common friends to validate the person wasn't a psycho. People (esp. women) who valued their safety tended not to use personals ads, and there was a definite stigma that people who did use it likely had problems.

Though online dating is popular now, I think it was previously viewed as the high-tech version of printed personals ads. So the stigma carried over. It's certainly decreased over time, but I think that history is part of the stigma.

Again, I think you have a potentially viable solution to a problem people care about... even if I disagree on the source of them problem.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#15

Post by jrockway »

What's the incentive for my friends to do all this work for me for free? Why would I bother setting up a profile for a friend? It seems like a lot of work for no benefit.

The OkCupid profiles make more sense: you make them so that you look good and you get dates. Work -> reward.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#16

Post by seldo »

I'm honestly really surprised to hear that anybody thinks there is still stigma attached to online dating. I don't know what it's like for straight people, but online dating definitely has zero stigma for gay folks. I mean, compared to Grindr -- where all criteria for meeting somebody have been reduced to "I don't want to have to walk more than a couple of blocks" -- online dating like OKCupid is staid and respectable.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#18

Post by jerrya »

jrockway wrote: post #15

What's the incentive for my friends to do all this work for me for free? Why would I bother setting up a profile for a friend? It seems like a lot of work for no benefit. The OkCupid profiles make more sense: you make them so that you look good and you get dates. Work -> reward.

The article was tl;dr for me, but is there a gamification angle?

Like can me and my buds set up a fantasy football league and see how our team scores against other teams (or against women teams??)

Because gamification, social media, that's money in the bank right there.

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