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So You’re Not Desirable

nytimes.com

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Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#51

Post by bambax »

There is a blog post on OKCupid that discusses the same concepts:

> the more men as a group disagree about a woman's look, the more they end up liking her

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-mathematics-of-beauty/

If everyone agree you're ugly, that's bad. But if some people lilke you a lot and some people dislike you a lot, that's much better than if everyone agree you're "okay", or "cute".

However, the OP has a rather floating concept of uniqueness that they seem to conflate with intimacy or friendship; of course once you become friends with someone they're unique to you, but that doesn't mean much about their "uniqueness" as a property of their being.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#52

Post by peteretep »

Blackthorn wrote: post #33
hypron wrote: post #4

>In a related study of approximately 350 heterosexual individuals, we collected these same measures in networks of opposite-sex friends, acquaintances and partners. Among these well-acquainted individuals, consensus on measures of mate value was nearly zero. These are the people who know what authors you like, what you wore for Halloween six years ago and what obscure movie you will quote the next time you all get to…

What's wrong with the friend zone? See: http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2615 (This is a snarky way of saying that friendship is its own reward.)

Nothing inherently wrong with it, in the same way there's nothing inherently wrong with a relationship based entirely on casual sex with no attendant intimacy or commitment.

In both cases, though, in practice, you're likely to find one side is getting exactly what they want out of the relationship, where the other is holding out for more.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#53

Post by rjknight »

I feel that this could have been stated much more simply:

1) There are personal attributes which are easily observable (mostly physical, also charismatic and possibly social status). This is basically what we can know about a person from appearance alone.

2) There are personal attributes which are less easily observable, and these include temperament, interests, response to various situations, behaviour outside of group situations. To know these things requires much greater time interacting with a person, possibly in smaller groups or one-on-one.

People's tastes in #1 are mostly uniform. Someone rated highly for #1 by one person is likely to be rated highly by any other person. The same is emphatically not true of #2, where ratings vary wildly.

As exposure to #2 increases, it increases in importance over #1. Let's say that #2 constitutes 80% of your overall "rating" of a person, and you really like them so they're a 9 despite scoring only a 5 on the initial assessment. Their total score is 8.2. Someone who scores a 10 for #1 but a 4 for #2 scores 6.2. These numbers might be off and they might vary between people but I think it's a pretty simple idea.

Most people are taking this as a suggestion about their own attractiveness, but the flip-side argument is possibly even more important - the person you're most likely to be really attracted to isn't necessarily the person who scores most highly on #1, and if you're using #1 as a filter then you're ruling good people out.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#54

Post by borplk »

dubfan wrote: post #30
mjmahone17 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, work for a company that has a good gender balance, or, if you absolutely can't find that on the engineering side, where you interact with non-engineers. Though the better alternative is to have a life outside of work. Do yoga. Go for group hikes. Go to non-tech meetups, or street fairs, or concerts. Join a dance class. If you really, really need tech to solve all your problems, use Grouper to get a cha…

I've never been to yoga but it sounds like a bad place to meet women. Women wearing form-fitting clothing posing in revealing ways tend to be self-conscious about how they can be sexualized and objectified.

Especially if you are not handsome enough you are immediately thrown into the "creepy rapist" bucket.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#55

Post by PhasmaFelis »

dubfan wrote: post #39
Blackthorn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you need to do is go somewhere where women exist. Find extracurricular activities that tend to skew heavily towards women, and see if any such activities interest you!

I've always thought that women didn't go to extracurricular activities to find dates, and only men do this. I'd like to be told I'm wrong, but my experiences show otherwise. Of course I do live in a west coast city infamous for its gender imbalance and the associated mentalities that go along with that.

> I've always thought that women didn't go to extracurricular activities to find dates, and only men do this.

According to the article, if you feel you're lacking in immediate mate value and want to emphasize uniqueness instead, you shouldn't be trying to "find dates" but just to expand your social circle. That fits with my experience pretty well, actually. The idea isn't to meet a woman that you can ask out for coffee the next day; the idea is to start spending time with a wider range of folks, get them acquainted with your uniqueness, and increase the odds that one of them will either find your particular traits attractive or introduce you to someone who does.

As a side benefit, you'll also be meeting new friends and broadening your horizons.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#56

Post by Dewie »

Romance is funny. On one hand, people believe in some intrinsic uniqueness in people that make a few of them destined to be their "soul mate". This is purely a matter of being-who-you-are, which can't be measured as objectively good or bad, but is perfect for the few that are your destined "soul mates" (some people won't call it 'soul mate' or have such a mystical aura around it, but may believe in the same thing just as well).

On the other hand, people believe that people can be objectively measured and that they can be assigned a dating market 'value'. Then people have to assess their own value in order to be realistic about who they can date, lest they (gasp) overshoot and try to be with someone who is out of their league.

These two viewpoints are polar opposites. Yet it seems that people seem to either concern themselves with one or the other, at some point in time.

There is nothing like this league-stuff for friendships (perhaps except for in high school) or any other human relationships. Why? Perhaps it's because of the seemingly almost universally accepted concept of monogamy.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#58

Post by 127 »

hangonhn wrote: post #7
hypron wrote: post #4

>In a related study of approximately 350 heterosexual individuals, we collected these same measures in networks of opposite-sex friends, acquaintances and partners. Among these well-acquainted individuals, consensus on measures of mate value was nearly zero. These are the people who know what authors you like, what you wore for Halloween six years ago and what obscure movie you will quote the next time you all get to…

I always hated the term "friend zone" because I think it's really as simple as you have just described. One person likes the other and the feeling isn't reciprocated. It's unrequited love. The friendship part makes things more painful and complicated but I don't think it has any bearing on why the person isn't attracted to the other.

I have always seen the friend zone as a term to describe the dynamic where the girl is using the bait of relationship and sex to make the guy do things for her.

I guess other people see it as the guy being too clingy and not getting the message.

These are two entirely different concepts which both carry the term "friend zone".

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#59

Post by davedx »

sevilo wrote: post #14
te_platt wrote: post #5

I remember during my first year at college looking through a friend's high school yearbook remarking on some of the girls I thought were cute but he didn't. He made comments that didn't have to do with their physical appearance - like "she was mean" or "she was rude". When he looked through my yearbook the same thing happened, we just switched sides. I thought it was interesting how knowing the person actually change…

now that you mentioned it.. I remember a psychology course I took in college just a while ago mentioned that, female's evaluation of attractiveness is greatly affected by knowing the person's financial state/personality/social status etc. While male's evaluation of attractiveness is less affected by other factors. Not sure how true this theory is..

It's even more complex with women. Their perception of male attractiveness is also tied into where they are in their menstrual cycle.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16848141

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#60

Post by doctorKrieger »

luckychild305 wrote: post #17
greggman wrote: post #12

I'm not sure how this is helpful. I've known I'm personally more attracted to personality than looks. That's not the problem. The problem is it's hard (at least for me) to get the opportunity to be around members of the opposite sex long enough for them to see my "uniqueness" Personal examples. My last job of 5 years had 100 people on my floor only 2 of which were women. My friends are generally all geeks who have no…

I can genuinely recommend you to read 'the game'. Don't get deterred by what people might tell you about it, especially people who have not ready it. It was eye opening to me that it's in your complete control to show people (not only girls, really anybody) your uniqueness, and that you can literally meet dozens of people every week and must not rely on office environment or random coincidence.

pua is usefull only when you want to get sex, but honestly considering the time you have to put into mastering pua, you can safely get a second job and pay for hookers, at least it'd be less random.

Also the book was utter garbage i've read around 30% of it and fell asleep.

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