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So You’re Not Desirable

nytimes.com

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Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#81

Post by [deleted] »

BugBrother wrote: post #79
Udo wrote: post #63

The article makes a good case for "when they get to know you, some of them will fall for you." When I was still young and at least somewhat cute, I remarked to a friend how depressing it was that women always go for rich and arrogant men. My friend's reply absolutely changed my perspective on this: by choosing socially well-accepted and successful men they actually place a lot more emphasis on the inner values than m…

I have to put in another viewpoint here. How a woman looks decide who I [try to] talk to, but a good sense of humor, intelligence and cool personality will change my "target" quickly. From what I've seen, this is not unusual for men. (And probably the same goes for women too, I wish I had anecdotal evidence that my "good" sense of humor worked wonders. :-) ) Edit: Other people below said similar things. Edit 2: How l…

[deleted]

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#82

Post by DrJones1098 »

nailer wrote: post #72
Udo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being rich is an inner value? Being successful is, and being rich is one of the markers for success. I had problems with this view as well until it was explained to me from a woman's perspective. The operating assumption being, as I said earlier, that men and women use different heuristics to do preliminary mate filtering. By and large, you get through the filter by being beautiful as a woman, and by projecting suc…

There's no 'moral' right or wrong either way - both are biological indicators. Women often look for men who can provide for their children, and who are capable of producing sexually successful offspring. In violent climates, physically strong men are valued more than financially strong men as that's what's required to protect offspring. Men often look for women who are fertile and healthy. In both cases, market value…

Man when I realized that people were really (subconsiously) seeking some biological imperative based on child survival from superficial materialistic characteristics instead of a best friend type to spend their life with in a mate it really messed up my head about the dating game. But you got to do what you got to do.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#83

Post by Udo »

BugBrother wrote: post #79
Udo wrote: post #63

The article makes a good case for "when they get to know you, some of them will fall for you." When I was still young and at least somewhat cute, I remarked to a friend how depressing it was that women always go for rich and arrogant men. My friend's reply absolutely changed my perspective on this: by choosing socially well-accepted and successful men they actually place a lot more emphasis on the inner values than m…

I have to put in another viewpoint here. How a woman looks decide who I [try to] talk to, but a good sense of humor, intelligence and cool personality will change my "target" quickly. From what I've seen, this is not unusual for men. (And probably the same goes for women too, I wish I had anecdotal evidence that my "good" sense of humor worked wonders. :-) ) Edit: Other people below said similar things. Edit 2: How l…

> From what I've seen, this is not unusual for men.

Yes, I agree with everything you said. Of course the implication here is that it's different for women. Which may well be the case.

Anecdotal evidence on my part seems to suggest that men are prone to add exceptions to their filter in order to let people in, whereas women overwhelmingly tend to only restrict their results further. In the end, this all might be explainable by supply and demand concepts, the underlying theory being that women always have a higher mate value than men. This sounds mathematically absurd at first, but it seems to fit the behavior patterns observable in the wild.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#85

Post by Tycho »

Dewie wrote: post #73
Udo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being rich is an inner value? Being successful is, and being rich is one of the markers for success. I had problems with this view as well until it was explained to me from a woman's perspective. The operating assumption being, as I said earlier, that men and women use different heuristics to do preliminary mate filtering. By and large, you get through the filter by being beautiful as a woman, and by projecting suc…

> I had problems with this view as well until it was explained to me from a woman's perspective. The operating assumption being, as I said earlier, that men and women use different heuristics to do preliminary mate filtering. By and large, you get through the filter by being beautiful as a woman, and by projecting success as a man. The argument goes that beauty has absolutely nothing to do with inner values, while su…

Obviously if you take a really superficial, surface reading of 'rich' then it's not going to be very useful. But look at what they are making of their life - are they capitalising on or squandering their opportunities? Are they improving their lot, or settling for what comes easily, or mooching through life?

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#86

Post by Udo »

DrJones1098 wrote: post #82
nailer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no 'moral' right or wrong either way - both are biological indicators. Women often look for men who can provide for their children, and who are capable of producing sexually successful offspring. In violent climates, physically strong men are valued more than financially strong men as that's what's required to protect offspring. Men often look for women who are fertile and healthy. In both cases, market value…

Man when I realized that people were really (subconsiously) seeking some biological imperative based on child survival from superficial materialistic characteristics instead of a best friend type to spend their life with in a mate it really messed up my head about the dating game. But you got to do what you got to do.

You're not the only one. When I was young I thought the whole thing was primarily about soulmates and less about the actual mating...

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#87

Post by _random_ »

Noxchi wrote: post #66
sevilo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is true, and it's caused for evolutionary reasons. When people have sex, the woman is in a much more dangerous place than a man. Having a baby for a woman is very costly. She needs someone to protect her while it happens and to help raise the child. The cost for a man is very low. He only needs a couple minutes to do his part in making a baby, then he can leave at any time. So with that in mind, lets say the scena…

"Having a baby for a woman is very costly. She needs someone to protect her while it happens and to help raise the child."

UK has a generous protection for single mother and it completely messed up traditional marriage institution.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#88

Post by Dewie »

nailer wrote: post #72
Udo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being rich is an inner value? Being successful is, and being rich is one of the markers for success. I had problems with this view as well until it was explained to me from a woman's perspective. The operating assumption being, as I said earlier, that men and women use different heuristics to do preliminary mate filtering. By and large, you get through the filter by being beautiful as a woman, and by projecting suc…

There's no 'moral' right or wrong either way - both are biological indicators. Women often look for men who can provide for their children, and who are capable of producing sexually successful offspring. In violent climates, physically strong men are valued more than financially strong men as that's what's required to protect offspring. Men often look for women who are fertile and healthy. In both cases, market value…

I don't think anyone was talking about ethics.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#89

Post by tomp »

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.

That is why you shouldn't go to a yoga class to "meet women", but with an explicit goal of "making friends" and expanding your social circle. Then maybe you meet someone who knows someone who you fall in love with.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#90

Post by tomp »

Noxchi wrote: post #66
sevilo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is true, and it's caused for evolutionary reasons. When people have sex, the woman is in a much more dangerous place than a man. Having a baby for a woman is very costly. She needs someone to protect her while it happens and to help raise the child. The cost for a man is very low. He only needs a couple minutes to do his part in making a baby, then he can leave at any time. So with that in mind, lets say the scena…

But multiple locally optimal strategies could be deduced from these assumptions. On the one hand, if a woman finds a man that stays, and has a child with him, the kid is likely to survive, and reproduce on his/her own, thus continuing the genetic line.

On the other hand, if she gets impregnated by a man who leaves, the chance of the baby reproducing are lower. However, if the father was very evolutionarily successful (great genes, exceptionally high mate value), even the low chance (5% for a male child that reproduces) can result in her genes being spread far and wide (assuming that the male child inherits his father's genes that make him very evolutionarily successful). Furthermore, the expected payoff of this strategy is further increased by the fact that (1) a woman can try this tactics multiple times in her life, and (2) she can cuckold a man that will stay with the child of the man that left.

The second strategy explains many this in our society, for example "why nice girls like bad boys", why "preselection" or "social proof" works for women, and why no sex before marriage was/is so strictly enforced in many societies.

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