The tech boom in Seattle is bringing in droves of successful, insufferable guys

This is exactly why I hated living in the SF Bay Area. We've all heard the jokes: Man Jose and Man Francisco. This article just reminded me of the terrible time I had trying to meet a nice gal there for nearly a decade. Although, to be fair, I've read the census and it seems that the entire West Coast is afflicted by this problem of more single men than women, whereas the East Coast has the opposite problem.

Anyways, to offer an opposing point of view, I found girls like the author equally unpalatable and boring. Sorry, it works both ways.

why is it suddenly A-OK to generalize men in tech?

"When you see an asshole, you've seen an asshole. When all you see are assholes, you're the asshole"

Our generation (and by that, I mean broadly "anyone from a western culture currently in the first half or so of their career") has a serious problem with seeing and understanding things outside of our own little world. When we see things, people, events, that displease us, we always have to extract some grand underlying theory and trend about it, about why the world is against us, and why it's just not right. We're always the ones with the intelligence, the burning passion, the openness of mind, the great understanding of the world- it's always others that aren't enough. Of course, the author isn't an entitled self-centered young adult just like the men she describes: it's the whole tech industry that's even more awful than the law or banking industry, and just can't ever be good enough for her! We believe ourselves to be individuals imbued with uniqueness and intricate subtleties, and yet judge others as merely the sum of the loosely defined groups we put them in.

(I have tons of female friends who are in committed relationships/engaged/married to men from the law/banking/tech industry, while themselves having graduate degrees in literature/philosophy/fashion design/biology/etc, and they are all very satisfied. But I'm sure they are all wrong and as vapid as their partners from those god awful industries)

This woman was part of the date with the "insufferable tech worker" as much as he was. If she had a terrible time and found the date bland, chances are he did as well.

As a non American, I do find the US dating culture hilarious to the point of the absurd. It's a practice codified to the extreme, as boring as it gets, practically a checklist of do's and don'ts and desirable attributes and undesirable attributes. In an hour after work around a cup of coffee, the average American expects to gain enough knowledge about the human in front of them to judge whether they should see them again or cut contact forever. How can you expect anything but abysmal success rates in that case?

In the culture where I'm from, you typically meet people through social gatherings where your friends brought some of their friends, who themselves brought some of their friends. You get to know people through shared experiences and group discussions rather than awkward timed sit downs at the local Starbucks. And maybe after a few of those events you realize that the guy who spent the first 30 minutes of your first conversation talking about his job actually is much more than that- because honestly, how reasonable is it to issue a definitive judgement of someone based on 30 mins of conversation with someone you've never met before?

I agree that teaching people how to carry on conversations would be a useful course. But the slight problem with a finishing school is that nerds will probably disagree on the topics of such a school and find some of these suggestions offensive.

E.g.

>How do you pay attention to world news and politics?

Hopefully little as most news isn't news in any usable way. And unless you're actually doing a lot of research, you're unlikely to be discussing anything at a usable level. It's not like I'm going to be comment intelligently on e.g. Crimea without spending what, hours or more(?), reading background on it. News reporting is unlikely to get much insight other than noting which countries are in NATO and saying things like if the US started a war with Russia it would be a big deal. The rest just makes people suffer more bias as they start overestimating the incidence of uncommon events.

Talking about the news is as small talk as talking about the weather. At least with the weather you're likely to get some things right.

Politics, at least in the US, seems to be dominated by moronic discourse. Even the writers/shows that I "agree" with are intellectually dishonest and obviously just "rooting for the team". I'd be surprised if all modern politics is not about the same thing.

>Can you debate philosophy gracefully and purposefully?

What do you mean by philosophy? Because what "most people" consider philosophy is unlikely to lead to any useful discussions. And worse, if you're trying to have a polite conversation with someone but somehow find out they take p-zombies seriously... well it puts a downer on the mood. Just like when someone says they've been feeling sick, probably because of all the WiFi or chemtrails. Or maybe that's what you mean by graceful? How to say "oh really?" in a nice tone and change the subject?

You might have confused "genuine" with "compliant" and "truthful."

I am under no obligation to answer your stupid, predicable, and irrelevant to our social future questions.

In fact, it would disingenuous of me to give you the impression that your social style was anything but annoying and bland, and likely to lead to me never wanting to see you again.