Do Bay Area men really think interesting women would be irresistably drawn to their unremarkable income and mastery of basic hygiene if they moved to New York?
Late 30s is a good time to date. I had the same issues as OP describes in my 20s, not in the Bay Area. It was all about how I subconsciously chose to approach things. I worked on myself, was genuine, and have had great success finding a mate up here.
(Not all that attentive, about 50 lbs overweight, fwiw)
That's one hell of a dating site opener.
Be interesting.
To expand on this: Develop yourself outside of your work. You are not your career.
People don't really care much about what exact job you have, as long as it provides stability - both financial and mental. You're no good for anyone if your job takes up all of your time, energy and attention. Your significant other should not need to carry your work-related burdens.
Have interests outside of what you do for a living. I got weird looks when I admitted at my previous job that I don't do much coding in my spare time, but honestly the guy I talked to did coding for work and most of his spare time, all the time. I mean good for him if he's enjoying himself but it's just not for me.
Use your intelligence to expand your horizons. Know what's going on in the news and politics. Read books outside of your niche (outside of fantasy/sci-fi, biographies of people that aren't called Steve or Bill, history of countries on the other side of the world). Find people and social communities outside of your industry. Get out of your comfort zone.
All of this makes for better conversation on a date, or to get a date than what you do for work or how much you make.
People who do what they enjoy and try new things, instead of trying to be interesting, tend to be interesting.
From experience, this will already put you so far outside of the usual spectrum of what people meet that this is more than enough. There's a nice side-effect that you don't need to feel like you need to "do things" to be interesting, which really isn't a healthy stance to have towards yourself.
My anecdotal advice is to change environment. Depending on where you move to the demographic (men/women ratio), race preferences and what is considered as interesting changes. As an engineer in engineering university, I had more luck on dating apps focusing on women from non-tech field with different men/women ratio. As a half-asian guy, I had way more success in an Asian country than a predominately white country. (independent from race/age of the women)
Starting with exploring genuine interests which have maybe not been 'listened to'. Being a bit adventurous (determine if things you've been curious about you actually care about), and trying new things (discover and identify new areas that exist) which could end up being interesting to you.
From what I've seen, the key to being interesting is weirdly being more of "your true self".
(not sure if any of that is actually helpful)
According to census statistics, there are 1.63 single men for every 1 woman in Marin County. 1.34 single men per single woman in San Mateo County. 1.55 single men per single woman in Santa Clara County.
So I really like your advice; if every man in the Bay became a "multi-deminsional, multi-faceted person", they would transcend the boundaries of plain arithmetic so there would be enough single women to date every one of them!
Yes, each one of them could become ultra-competitive about it, and crawl on top of the others to be among the fortunate 60% who get dates, instead of the 40% who don't.
But do you really want to live in an area where 40% of men can't get a date because there's simply no women available to them?
We also haven't discussed the downsides to these fortunate 60% men. You worked on yourself, became interesting, and got a girlfriend. However, she knows with 50% more men than women in her area, she can easily replace you. That may make the relationship less pleasant than you think.
"Just become more interesting to overcome all adverse effects from 50% gender diversity" is unfortunately quite naive.
> "How does one become more interesting"
Sure, you can change your environment to be more *relatively interesting. But that was also not the core of the question as I understand it.
Rather, providing a method or tips to be more OBJECTIVELY interesting today than your yesterdays self is something useful in any kind of 'dating market'.
- Make (significantly) more money (than most other guys in the bay area)
- Be more attractive (than most other guys in the bay area)
Making $120k in the bay area obviously isn't impressive. Neither is being fit without being on gear. It's all about the other guys around you. Both quality and quantity. These things would make you interesting in other parts of the country, or outside of the USA. Not here, though.
Now how about $500k? You can afford a starter home, a nice car, custom-tailored clothing. Plastic surgery if you think you need it.
You're presumably good at something that you're passionate about if you're being paid that much, even if it's "just" software engineering, and that's something people like. You can even date other software engineers who will be impressed by your skills and knowledge. Yeah the gender ratio sucks, but this is also the best place in the world to make your dual-FAANG-engineer-income power-couple dream come true.
Come up with something that isn't (video/board)gaming, cycling, bouldering, or photography, that you do maybe once a month and say it's your hobby. Yoga is a decent choice.
Grats, you're now interesting. Assuming you don't have any physical or psychological dealbreakers that can't be overlooked no matter how rich or ripped you get, that is.
I would not say that any of that makes you particularly interesting. Some of it might make you attractive to certain people, but I think that's quite different from what was originally intended by "interesting" in this thread.
"Say it's your hobby"... I suggest actually finding a hobby. Because it will make you happier, not because it will make you "look interesting".
Is it? Being interesting is a competition. You are competing for the interest/attention of others. How interesting you are depends on how much better or worse you rank compared to others, in regards to the factors that make a person interesting. Relationships, friendships, jobs -- it's all competition for limited resources.
>"Say it's your hobby"... I suggest actually finding a hobby. Because it will make you happier, not because it will make you "look interesting".
Obviously you should have hobbies for the sake of personal fulfillment, and I don't see what would make you think I feel otherwise. But your hobbies are also part of your personal brand, and a factor in making you interesting (or boring), so it's important that you project as someone who has interesting hobbies (whether they actually qualify as hobbies or not, depending on the time and effort/money that you invest). Right? People list their hobbies on dating profiles. People (usually) talk about their hobbies on first dates. It's not uncommon for hobbies to be a discussion during job interviews.
>Some of it might make you attractive to certain people
Yes, hopefully (but not assuredly) attractive to certain people that you want to attract in the first place.
What wwould this better your odds for? Short-term dating success perhaps. I'm pretty sure there are better long-term strategies for happiness.
Be yourself, like what you like (unashamedly), and you will likely attract people into your life who like those same things, and indeed you.
However, when we have a discussion about Bay Area dating, and most comments blame men for "not being interesting" and completely ignore, deny, or fail to even mention the gender imbalance, I don't think it helps men to make informed choices.
I'd expect fewer young women?
When I think of my social life I think of my community and the people in it. Board game nights at my friends’ apartments, playing destiny 2 together, going canvassing with folks politically aligned with me. I’ve met so many interesting platonic and romantic relationships by intentionally building community first and my romantic life second.
If your entire socialization scheme is build around winning at dating and you come from it with a scarcity mindset... you’re the problem.
if there are 150 applicants and 100 jobs, there are 50 people who miss out. waging war to "one up" those other 149 (or 99 i guess) is certainly an avenue of possible pursuit but is likely to lead to misery IME.
alternatively, removing yourself from a systematically horrible situation is probably pareto optimal. if there are 100 jobs and 80 applicants, you're suddenly in a way better situation.
if you make six figures and can work remotely, the world is literally your oyster. there are opportunities to arbitrage your income and freedom and create the life you want - but it starts outside SFBA.
Also, newsflash: not getting attention from the gender(s) of your choice doesn't make you a "victim". We're back to the entitlement thing, I guess.
But yes, moving out of the Bay Area will help. However, I'd hazard a guess that unless someone moves to somewhere where a six-figure salary makes them a minor princeling, your problems may follow them. Because a boring dude in SF or the Bay is still a boring guy in Des Moines or Scranton.
If you know so much then what's your prescription for them?
It's also a pretty great way to blind yourself to what 'league' you're actually in. A number of my tech friends have wasted an extraordinary amount of time chasing women absurdly out of their league because they've been convinced that "having a decent job", "being well-spoken" and "eating with their mouths closed" somehow puts them in the top 3% of desirable men. Really, no.
Second, go have a life. You know, other activities outside work? Socializing? This is important anyhow. Preferably do activities because you're interested in them and socialize with people you like, not because you're there to "pick up chicks". Nothing is more tiring than dudes relentlessly on the make in every situation.
This isn't guaranteed to work... especially with dire male/female ratios (although not living like a schlub probably evens the odds a bit). And plenty of people are just really unattractive, uncharismatic, whatever. Not sure what to do then.
When you are told you need to meet specific criteria to achieve a goal, it's not entitlement to expect those criteria to lead to that goal. When trying to get people to listen to what you are saying, try not to start with a put-down.
It's even harder to fix the overall messaging than it is to realize it in yourself. But each person who realizes that they have been sold an entitlement, and gets past it, is one more person who can say, "No, all of the assumptions you've been sold are wrong."
the good news is now that you know that you've been sold some bad goods, you can start to figure out what the real story is. and only good things can come from that :} there is some great advice in this thread, especially this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21977225
It was merely a rant about how they felt people shouldn’t feel entitled to anything and that expecting to be able to date if you’ve got your life in order is too much entitlement.
Because last time I checked, "expecting to be able to date" involves the decisions of other people and you're not really generally entitled for other people to do much more than treat you with decency and respect. Not, necessarily, want to jump your bones. Sorry.
By your standards I’m not hot shit but my girlfriend loves me so I’m wondering why I should even care what you think?
I'm curious as to what's driving your serial misinterpretation, if anything. I suppose it's possible you're just having difficulty with parsing out arguments and reasoning about them (is English your first language?), but it seems just as likely you're on the insecure side. You keep cropping up and asking complete strangers on the Internet to validate your relationship.
So, ok. Dude, you're probably fine. Although it's not a guarantee; there's still a possibility that your girlfriend runs off with Mick Jagger, or a rock-climber who works in a cafe who has $18.23 in his bank account, or a temperamental chess player with a huge schlong who bathes once a month, whether he needs to or not. Keep your eyes peeled at all times!
This is not a problem of interestingness. This is a problem of skewed gender ratios. In India and China there are way more men than women. That means that some men will remain without partners regardless of what they do or how interesting they become.
That's their problem you might say. Sure, but only if you ignore the negative consequences of young men being unable to find partners.
The analogy to India and China is pretty good, aside from a few tiny differences, like the fact that most single males in the valley we're talking about intentionally came there from somewhere else, are hugely wealthy relative to poor Chinese and Indian workers, and that it's ever so slightly easier to cross a county line to somewhere less bizarre than Santa Clara than it is to emigrate out of India or China.
It's funny how I can post a ranty-but-true thing about how the world actually works (i.e. "having some table stakes attributes will not make you a 'pussy magnet'") and just get bombarded by people like you complaining about the dreaded ratio and philosopher1234 who clearly is wondering whether his girlfriend is about to leave him for a rock-climbing jazz musician who doesn't bathe or something.
All these dudes come flooding into an area to work in a dude-dominated industry and collect Big Valley Salaries and somehow this is a problem that needs to be worked out? If it's that big a problem, leave. Geez. How hard it that to figure out?
I just objected to this idea that they should work on their interestingness and that doing so would somehow solve the problem of them finding someone. I think you acknowledge that even if they all become incredibly interesting, they wouldn't all be able to find partners.
Wearing dress shirts instead of t-shirts was a good idea though.
Because no one owes you shit. If you don’t like your circumstances change them. Either change yourself or change your surroundings. You are not owed a relationship of any kind, for any reason. Being a single man in the Bay Area is pretty awful because of the ratio, even if you are reasonably good looking, professionally successful and confident. It’s no fun being a young professional woman in New York City either. The ratio is the ratio; it has its effects. People give women marginally more lip service sympathy but they do exactly as much to actually help. Nothing.
As for attracting interesting women you actually wanna marry. Yeah you should probably have interests outside of tech. If all you are interested in is tech that makes you really boring because it's one of those subjects with no spillover. If you're an artist people might not appreciate the technicalities of mixing oil paints but they will enjoy looking at your paintings. Tech is impenetrable unless you are also in it. No one gives a fuck about that graph problem you solved that just made your distributed system more scalable because they don't understand half of those words. Imagine two people speaking a language you don't speak to each other and all they want to do is talk in that language. So boring.
Gold-digging isn't relevant imo given that they also have tech incomes, and generally have rich families overseas to boot. I really don't understand why most guys here pass on them. The only reason I ever get from my friends when I ask is "I just don't like fobs". Whatever, more for me.
Oxford dictionary plural for: A chain attached to a watch for carrying in a waistcoat or waistband pocket.
You are not a fob if you moved here from China at 9 years old, didn't read or speak your first word of English until then, and have no discernible accent as an adult.
No one would call a Hong Konger with a HK English accent a fob either.
Also clothing :-)
It's obviously not the case in the Bay Area, but it is in a lot of places. To be honest, I was a bit shocked with the kind of mismatched couples I saw in San Francisco. Lots of appealing men with less appealing women. Ratios do matter. Also, a SWE salary is not unremarkable in most of the country (look up salary statistics).
Wtf dude.
> Dude sounds like catch.
That's sort of the point.
And the idea of match is "willing to let me pay for her". There is no other standard for suitable partner ever mentioned. No expectation of shared values or similar livestyle (except valuing looks). No expectation of mutual support.
And the experts on what women want are people who "dated" over dozens of people last year - meaning none of them trying for long term stable relationship.
And everytime I read those discussions I kind of think I would not want to date them either. Mostly because they primary think in hierarchies instead of relationships and because I would not want a guy that would use his money as leverage over me.
This means that for you as a woman dating is first and foremost about separating life partners from sex partners. Your advice goes in that direction. But it is totally worthless for men, most women they meet will be looking for a life partner so they are not hard to find. Instead men face the problem that most women are very reluctant to date them, so men mostly need advice how to get more dates.
So women apply a higher standard to their casual sex. They want to know that somebody is going to be kind and considerate. That's going to take several dates, which means they're also looking for somebody who's interesting over the course of several evenings. And once they've found that person, they'll often want more -- not a lifetime, but weeks or months.
Maybe that turns into a commitment, but the stereotype that every woman is looking for a ring misreads the situation. If you go on each date assuming that sex is completely off the table for the first week, you'll find that a lot of women are willing to have sex after that without visiting a judge or priest first. And being genuinely interested in them during that time, rather than just counting down the days, will improve your odds.
And complained about women they date being primary interested in them paying for them. Like, he trying to attract her primary on money, who is going to take that offer?
If males look for sex date and women look for relationship, you have mismatch. And no group should feel angry or entitled about the other not being interested in them - they want fundamentally different things. In that case, he is not getting date because he is player and women around happen to be not interested in that.
And then he sees another dude in long term relationship with a woman that seeks that and is all offended about unfair world.
And also I kind of thing that if this is the need, prostitution should be an option. It is kind of same thing, except transaction is clear from get go.
They generally don't get that, and will give other reasons why they can't just hire somebody. But I believe that's the real reason: it's the one thing that they cannot buy, and therefore matters most when they have all the money in the world.
The assumption that the decision to have causual sex is somehow result of valuing the dude is imo wrong.
Not only is that incredibly demeaning to women, it's self-defeating. If they could just believe that many women actually enjoy sex for its own sake, if they can have it without being abused, harassed, and stuck alone with the consequences, they could get themselves laid a lot more.
I know a guy who makes $350k and has a security clearance but wears white socks, is overweight, eats with his mouth open and is super awkward. That’s not a “catch,” in women’s eyes, unless he owns it without the usual creepy awkwardness, shame and/or insecurities.
Sense of humor, directness, interests outside tech, goals in life, socioemotional self-awareness and demonstrated relentlessly-resourceful go-getterness is what makes women run. And don’t be so damn predictable.
PS: skip Tinder unless you’re a 19-year-old sports player or an 20-/30-something model.
One of the major factors - aside from the gender ratio - behind tech guys not finding partners is this weird expectation that if they shave, clip their fingernails, and don't act like an outright dirtbag that women will flock to them, regardless of whether they have any personal appeal or not.
A lot of dudes in tech are just bores with zero interests and a outsized sense of entitlement to the opposite sex (talking about the het guys, don't know how it works on the other side of the fence). Just to top it off, they expect to be magnets to interesting women, too - these guys are the first to sneer at gold-digging women who are, frankly, their appropriate mirror image. That is, if the only thing you can say about yourself that isn't table-stages normal person stuff is that you're "a SWE making $120K+ a year" who exactly do you think you're going to attract?
Bonus points: deciding that the one thing that's missing from the above picture is being swole, and filling in any extra time not spend being a "respectful male SWE" with incessant iron pumping.