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The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

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Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#221

Post by transitionality »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #128

This is the core problem of a dating site: 1. Forging connections between pairs of strangers where they will fall in love, 2. …under conditions of oppressive patriarchy. Number 1 is a pretty easy numbers game. for each person, a subset of people match them algorithmically. Another subset will be good matches. If your algorithm doesn't suck, some of the first set overlaps the second. Number 2 is the problem. If you ar…

You are your own parody. You are living proof of Poe's Law. You are why feminism is now a dirty word and even successful women like Marissa Mayer don't want to be associated with it. Feel proud.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#222

Post by transitionality »

curt wrote: post #84
gimeq wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, just be tall, good looking, confident, and comfortable conversing in contrived situations like bar/cafe meetings with strangers. Wonder why guys can't figure that out?

you can teach yourself to be confident and comfortable around women. I used to HORRIBLE back in the day.

I bet your idea of a horrible dating life is most guys' idea of a Casanova style dating life, 6'8'', built, good looking guy.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#223

Post by transitionality »

seldo wrote: post #16

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 respectabl…

Glory holes had zero stigma for gay folks. Gay folks aren't exactly picky when it comes to getting tail.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#224

Post by nessus42 »

ErrantX wrote: post #178
Udo wrote: post #171

Another question is, of course, if straight dating can be fixed at all. After short stints on all the major dating websites, and of course trying to date in the real world, I've come to believe that the basic expectations people have can't really be satisfied, mostly by virtue of mathematics. The following is a male perspective, but I think the observations should be on par for the other side as well: First, there is…

> the men are overwhelmingly fit, handsome, and great in general I'm not ashamed to say I've used online dating with great success :) I'm by no means "fit", "handsome" or otherwise awesome - and my dating successes before OKCupid amount to very little. However... I'm a pretty nice guy. And a lot of the guys on dating sites, especially those that actively message people, are jerks that no one wants to date. The secret…

I agree. In the Boston area I've had great luck with online dating. (And personal ads before there was online dating). Well, I haven't yet met the love of my life, I suppose, but I've gone on what must be a few dozen dates over the decades via this route, had seven long term relationships from this, including one woman with whom I got married and divorced.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#225

Post by benaston »

My experience is mainly with OKCupid. I presume most other dating websites are variations on the same theme.

The problem is that OKCupid is a geek's worldview distilled. Whether a girl is visible to you is largely based upon algorithmic analysis of a questionnaire, which in turn is based on nothing more than pseudoscience.

So you have a questionnaire written by a team of computer programmers acting as gatekeeper to you contacting someone? Do you see the potential problem here? Who says the questionnaire is relevant?

Add to this fact that the quality of women on these sites is low on average, and it doesn't bode well for guys. Lots of guys will of course chime in and say it works for them. My interpretation of this is that given the sheer number of users, there will always be people who "luck out".

Cupid Plc (another online dating company, unrelated to OKCupid) is under heavy suspicion in the UK for faking high quality female profiles. I don't know if OKCupid does this, but the site really has no built-in mechanism to give you much trust in the profiles you see.

Overall, I think the problem with online dating websites is that they are not actually solving any of the difficult problems of dating. Online profiles are useless because they are 90% equivalent. Oh, so you like tall, athletic men? And you enjoy movies and wine, music, art and watching Game of Thrones? You are mainly good, but have a wild side? You are unique?

Given this, why the focus on these profiles? Guys are only interested in the photos (having put the effort into reading through fifty identikit profiles already).

...and then there's the transition to meeting up. This is fraught with difficulty because you have know way of gauging how to approach the issue. For some people "let's meet" will be enough and looked upon positively as decisive and confident. For others it is seen as completely inappropriate. The site gives you, the guy - it will usually be the guy - no way of knowing which strategy to use and so you lose 50% (or more) of the time on the basis of not having enough information to make a good decision. Given already low probability of finding someone who "suits" you on these sites, this is incredibly wasteful and not addressed.

So... good luck to anyone trying to improve things.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#226

Post by weeksie »

largesse wrote: post #210
crazygringo wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny... here in New York City, I hear people saying the exact opposite. That guys are having a great time on a dating site, because there are tons of attractive and interesting women, and all the single girls seem to create profiles! And girls not having a lot of luck on a dating site, because a lot of guys don't create profiles, and sometimes it seems like all the "good" ones are taken. However, this may also…

That's just an extension of the "big city" effect. In general, attractive women gravitate toward big cities seeking successful men. I know that sounds sexist, but it really is a thing and it skews demographics. There are more dating women in NYC competing for fewer men. The situation in Nome, Alaska is reversed.

It sounds like a sexist comment because it is.

The reality is that in a place like New York educated women move to the city for their careers. So do men, however when men get married and have children they tend to continue to work, whereas it's more common for women to leave the workforce. Hence, the percentage of the men in the city that go home to their family in Connecticut (or Westchester, or whatever) is much higher than the percentage of women that do so. Far more of the men in the city are ineligible. Couple that with higher university graduation rates among women and the trend will only continue.

I've _never_ seen behaviour that would indicate that women move [to New York] in order to find successful men. Oy.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#227

Post by weeksie »

crazygringo wrote: post #196
Udo wrote: post #171

Another question is, of course, if straight dating can be fixed at all. After short stints on all the major dating websites, and of course trying to date in the real world, I've come to believe that the basic expectations people have can't really be satisfied, mostly by virtue of mathematics. The following is a male perspective, but I think the observations should be on par for the other side as well: First, there is…

It's funny... here in New York City, I hear people saying the exact opposite. That guys are having a great time on a dating site, because there are tons of attractive and interesting women, and all the single girls seem to create profiles! And girls not having a lot of luck on a dating site, because a lot of guys don't create profiles, and sometimes it seems like all the "good" ones are taken. However, this may also…

Yeah, New York City has got to be the best place I've ever been single (and that includes Sydney, Oz). The women are pretty great here. As for the OKC thing, the general attitude is that it's good to ration your usage because it's _too easy_ to fill your schedule with online dates and not meet women offline.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#228

Post by JulianMorrison »

transitionality wrote: post #221
JulianMorrison wrote: post #128

This is the core problem of a dating site: 1. Forging connections between pairs of strangers where they will fall in love, 2. …under conditions of oppressive patriarchy. Number 1 is a pretty easy numbers game. for each person, a subset of people match them algorithmically. Another subset will be good matches. If your algorithm doesn't suck, some of the first set overlaps the second. Number 2 is the problem. If you ar…

You are your own parody. You are living proof of Poe's Law. You are why feminism is now a dirty word and even successful women like Marissa Mayer don't want to be associated with it. Feel proud.

Heh. When feminism makes people - no lets not concede even that, when it makes MEN angry, it's doing its job. Having unearned, unequal power ripped away from you ought to hurt. But thankfully, as here with dating, there are things that will improve even for men when we've won.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#229

Post by eru »

weeksie wrote: post #227
crazygringo wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny... here in New York City, I hear people saying the exact opposite. That guys are having a great time on a dating site, because there are tons of attractive and interesting women, and all the single girls seem to create profiles! And girls not having a lot of luck on a dating site, because a lot of guys don't create profiles, and sometimes it seems like all the "good" ones are taken. However, this may also…

Yeah, New York City has got to be the best place I've ever been single (and that includes Sydney, Oz). The women are pretty great here. As for the OKC thing, the general attitude is that it's good to ration your usage because it's _too easy_ to fill your schedule with online dates and not meet women offline.

Try Singapore, too.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#230

Post by aaronbrethorst »

hnriot wrote: post #141
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I picked my girlfriend[1] of four years up at a bar. After a few dates, she broke it off with a guy she'd been dating casually who she met through Match.com. [1] Ivy-educated, Ph.D.-holding, tenured professor girlfriend.

Ivy educated and a two timer. How will you feel when she dates the next guy and after a few dates dumps you? I don't see the need to brag about her education? Was that in some way relevant? It sounds like you might be feeling like you need to compensate for her to timing behavior.

> Ivy educated and a two timer.

Seriously? That's uncalled for. I hope you were just having a really shitty day, or something, and didn't actually mean to insult both me and my girlfriend.

Obviously, what I wrote wasn't clear enough. Read the other responses.

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