I heard in an interview that 50 years ago, people used to basically used to fall in love with heir neighbours and coworkers. Modern dating means browsing hundreds of other people in your city like they're products on a store shelf, always with the feeling there might be someone better just a couple swipes away.
I find there's actually a lot of success to be had online dating, if you just know how to talk to people and learn about them! It seems like such a tautology but I think it really is that simple.
For every relationship I ever had, I had the opportunity to observe them, get to know them in person, maybe flirt, sometimes be friends. Sometimes for weeks. Sometimes for years, without any express intent. With online dating you’re both saying upfront that you’re evaluating each other as dating material, knowing only the fluff they wrote about themselves, or I take it with this generation only what they look like. All that will probably always feel too weird for me.
This has been the story of my life. I think there is a certain type of person - physical attractiveness is part of it, but charisma is even bigger – who can "get away with" flirting in unsanctioned spaces. It's a combination of being confident enough to break taboo, perceptive enough to read subtle interest cues, and being attractive enough for those interest cues to be non-zero.
I've tried to be that person from time to time, but it almost always breaks down on one of those axes, thus consigning most of my dating efforts to the soul-crushing grind of dating sites/apps.
I think the real unwritten rule is, don't flirt with someone unless you're reasonably confident that they'd like to be flirted with. Some people might be able to figure that out in a matter of minutes, and others might need to get to know someone over the course of weeks or months in a casual group setting to figure it out.
I am sorry to say, but I think people who believe flirting is not allowed probably have not put in the effort to be able to read social cues, don't have an aptitude for it, or never learned to flirt in a non-offputting way.
I agree that if you're charming and fun, flirting with strangers is pretty straightforward, and I especially agree with the point about getting to know people over a longer period of time before trying to gauge potential interest. Worst case, you get a cute friend!
That's totally true! But that's one thing about flirting, it can be very light and non-committal.
If she is being extra friendly, smiling a lot, and giving you a little extra eye contact, you can do the same and see how she responds. If she gives you a positive feedback, take it one step farther. If she gives you negative feedback, just forget about it no harm done.
Maybe she was smiling at you in the first place because she also doesn't know if she wants to flirt with you and she's testing the waters.
I think where people get into trouble is they see someone go from 0 to 1, and they jump straight to step 7 which comes off as aggressive and off-putting.
I think people have been dealing with rejection forever. Everyone has to start out awkward, and most people get over it.
Maybe that is one place where technology hurts us. Maybe 30 years ago, a young person would have tried and struck out, and then they would have gotten over it and tried again. Whereas maybe today people try and fail, and then they can retreat into video games and online communities, which offer a superficial sense of success or belonging without the same risk of direct rejection.
Any explanation of the shittiness of straight dating apps has to center gender norms and roles.
dating is a two way street. If the other party just gives one line answers and does nothing to try to move a conversation forward, then it just becomes a job interview. You can't just magically get someone to open up when they refuse.
It doesn't help that, at least from a guy's perspective, it seems about 80% of women are really just trying to get instagram followers.
Dating also becomes a problem once you finally meet. You will never be more interesting than the smartphone in front of the other person. That person has the entire world in their hand. You can't possibly compete with TikTok or Tinder. You go to the restroom and the other person will go swiping on Tinder.
I really do believe humanity is doomed. Like really, actually, doomed. The internet is too much for our monkey brain.
These days they aren't even trying for of subscribers or ig followers, they just straight up put their cashapp in their bio. I have friends who have done that and made 100s of $ before their accounts got banned. And some didn't even get banned.
It's also true that a lot of people are on there but not realy to date. Like just to get compliments/validation. Not all girls either, just guys it doesn't work as well. Instead, a lot of us are on there just to look at/rate girls. At parties these days you will sometimes see a group of guys looking around somebody's phone "rating" girls on tinder.
"Dad, you're old (in his 60s), and short (5'5")"
You're going to be filtered out of everyone's automated search.
But my Dad is funny and can talk to anyone. I kept telling him, OkCupid isn't your scene! Meetup.com is!
Unfortunately, he didn't listen to me
Dating coworkers is now forbidden in many companies, especially if there are differences in hierarchy. In some countries it becomes a possible legal liability for the one in the higher position.
Some large organizations that require traveling even forbid dating the “local population” when deployed abroad.
Podcasts are similar to books though, you have to dig through a bit of garbage to find one that works for you. Here's my list:
- crime in sports
- Linux unplugged
- software engineering radio
- the knowledge project
- coinsec
- persona
- ten percent happier
- quanta podcast
- physics world weekly
- ologies
- darknet diaries
- stuff you should know
- the joy of why
- fall of civilizations
- smartless
- money talks
- planet money
- small town murder
- offensive security
- the journal
- programming throwdown
- timesuck
- Conan O'Brien needs a friend
- philosophize this
- against the odds
- levar Burton reads (no longer running)
- curiosity daily
- science weekly
- future of journalism
- wtf
- broken record
- idea cast
- swindled
- malicious life
- views room
- behind the bastards
- the exchange
- stuff to blow your mind
And for the "junk" I listen to just about every comedian podcast that exists: Bill Burr, Bobby Lee, Chris destefano, Stavros!, Tom Segura, (this list goes on a while...)
Along the same lines, I also came to theorize that books that were written to be read don't make good audio candidates. Yes, doable. But I found lectures and speeches to be better suited for listening (as it was their original and intended medium).
That said, my gut impression is that people are less sociable and less socialized than we used to be. I believe we simply spend less time around other people, and we are less adept at building relationships. It’s easier to remain sexually, socially, financially, and resource independent from other people - so we do and sexual relationships become less frequent.
If you are fully immersed in your raw, human sexuality - that’s great. For many, sex and sexuality is more nuanced than mere fucking.
What is this "sex life" you speak of? (haha).
On a serious note they helped me learn to be content with being alone or at least not worry about "looking" for it via dating apps, and I would say not playing that game (dating apps) is what is "ruining" my sex life (or lack of).
You can just say Cum Town ;)
It's basically a few pixels on mobile.
I think this is an illusion. When I check some films with awards (let's say "do the right thing", not a blockbuster but a well-known film) I cannot find them in any streaming service (maybe criterion collection). I can definitely think of tons of tv shows I cannot find on dvd, let alone on streaming platforms. Not even on torrent networks.
This idea that the internet has everything is fine for some topics (like programming), but I believe it does not apply to some contents, and films are one of them.
EDIT: grammar
It makes me think that the prom table would be full of nonsense, expletives, and talking about women, but isn't that what you'd normally expect?
Gossip, mostly. Talking about your peers, who said what, how terrible teachers are for making us actually do work, commenting on style or the lack thereof, etc. Also, while there were fewer TV series, they still existed. Star Trek, B5, Knight Rider, Airwolf, etc.
I would have laughed if someone had told me that I'd be turning it on, but I frequently do. Basically whenever I'm not sure what to watch, I flip to that and throw on one of the channels.
I had to stay once in an old hotel in a small town. It had an old CRT analog tv with analog cable. It brought back memories. Like the TV tuner changing channels really fast.
Fast channel surfing is something I hadn’t been able to do since switching to a digital tvs and digital cable about a decade ago.
The movie, The Big Short, was on heavy rotation about a year ago. Good movie. They have an entire channel dedicated to Narcos, so I'm basically fluent in Spanish now - well, "drug dealer Spanish", at least.
If you Google “rt <name of movie>” you will get the rating too.
The weirdest thing is I don't remember what I used to talk to my friends about when I was in high school. We didn't have much shared media to talk about (e.g. periodic TV shows people obsess about today). None of us so much picked up a newspaper at the time so current events were out. None of us had that many specific interests and the interests we had weren't shared. But somehow we spent hours talking about something. I wish I could be a fly on the wall of my prom table to just take in what was discussed.