But one thing I notice is that there's a subset of the gay community that seems shallow and very physical in their sexuality. When you speak of 'satisfaction' in this sense it seems to be purely the physical side and nothing else counts. For me that doesn't work at all. Good for them of course (and I do really think they are truly fulfilled by this so power to them!). But it's a phenomenon that seems pretty unique, I have not heard of this in the lesbian scene for example (my friends are very diverse and open about their sexuality)
Of course this subset is highly represented in those clubs and on Grindr because that is where they find their partners easily.
In these clubs I don't feel so comfortable because they take consent for granted while in the kinky community we always confirm consent before doing anything. Even as much as touching someone's arm.
But I also know a lot of gay people that are more sensual and careful like me. You just don't find them much in those places because they are similarly put off by the attitudes.
But as the internet became more popular, dating sites became more mainstream, and then the location-based ones matured, it almost became a race to the bottom (so to speak).
If someone is horny right now, why chat with person A (with a text-based profile) when person B has photos? Why chat with person B when person C has shirtless photos? Why chat with person C when person D sends dick pics right away? Why chat with person D when person E sends dick pics and will drive to your house in 10 minutes? So a subset of users start pushing this towards being hyper efficiency, but that comes at the expense of the other subset of users who don't necessarily want that.
My experience has been you can't ever escape that. That mentality has permeated the system, and now we're conditioned to "meet up within 3 messages", "send pics in first message", "no fats, no fems, no flakes", etc. And if you don't like that and want something slower then you get told "it's just grindr, what do you expect?" (which eventually morphs into "it's just tinder what do you expect?", "it's just hinge, what do you expect?"). But even the people saying "it's just grindr" also complain that after they have sex, they just feel lonely again and that they feel trapped or addicted to grindr.
Obviously I'm painting with really broad strokes. Some people do find relationships on grindr. Some people are satisfied with their interactions. But, I think like the original article describes, it feels soul destroying. And by the time you're in your 30s, I think a lot of gay men realize that easy sex doesn't necessarily mean good sex and it often doesn't mean feeling satisfied or content afterwards. But it's difficult when you have a heterogenous population, with a vocal faction of the population that keeps pushing the limits of efficiency, and the rest of the population is just sorta dragged along.
I (as a cis hetero man) consider many such things toxic masculinity in today's society but I'm very emo (and proud of it nowadays). But if it's consensual it's fine, it's more that consent is often overlooked by the people who are into this kind of sex.
So really to me the problem is that men, on average, struggle with expressing their emotions more. Asking those men to form healthy, loving relationships with other men is then a challenge. Not impossible, but certainly more difficult.
To me, Grindr is a symptom not the cause. If you are taught from a young age that men don't cry, toughen up and be a man etc, then sex is reduced to the physical act. Add in some emotional truama, which is again very common in the gay community, and the problem is exacerbated. Of course Grindr doesn't help and makes it all worse, but really they're just making money off the damage which is already done.
But what is also happening is that men tend to pick more violent ways of killing themselves - shooting themselves and alike. Women tend to go for poisons and such. So, the suicide attempts are much more closer between genders - but men more successful at it.
I see what you mean though. I'm used to being the token guy at self help workshops lol.
I agree Grindr is a symptom not the cause. There were rough gay clubs for decades before apps ever appeared.
I don't think this toughening up thing is really the issue though. Many gay friends like this kind of sex and are plenty emotional. And for young people this toughening up bullshit isn't really a thing anymore anyway. When I grew up in the 80s the traditionalists were still like that and there was this (in my opinion) fascist thing in Holland with pretty much all men still being forced into the military and be primed into obedience, following orders and stuff. But since the 90s it's a different world for young people. These things aren't expected and part of their lives anymore. Unless they actually decide they want to be told what to do and join the army voluntarily.
I don't mean to digress, but this statement of yours could easily apply to technology or any cultural change.
I put very little effort in my sleep and have a very good one.
Some things are just good and cheap. It's nice.
Unfortunately, that never characterized heterosexual courting, eating healthy food while working full time or finding meaning in your life. Most people struggle with those.
Also note reporting satisfaction with something can just validate the pleasure it brings to you. I'm personally satisfied with Netflix.
But you can't fill your life with such things and expect happiness.
Obvious just means "given our context, we don't expect to require much complex thinking to get to that conclusion".
It's just another convention.
Given our context of most of us having eyes and color receptors calibrated in a similar fashion, I expect most people will see the sky blue. Of course if you dig deeper, it opens the discussions to nuances.
It's the same here.
Nothing wrong with that.
Yeah...the goal of these dating apps is not to have you happily be in a relationship and stop paying them money.
Other thing they need to do is eliminate the requirement that all new treatments reviewed by the FDA meet the requirement of a "disease". Theres a lot of things people want out of lets say gene therapy that is not strictly a disease but benefits your health in the end. And I dont know why cosmetic or enhancing treatments should not be considered as well. They need to loosen up.
FDA approval for (gene therapy for instance) is taking something like 15 years to get approved. And only their narrow definition of whats necessary for the public is even considered. This is an absurd situation. Govt red tape is literally killing us.
You don’t have to look very hard to realize this trope is totally wrong, just google “vaccine”.
Of course, alternative treatments such as the nasal spray that is supposed to totally eliminate the disease have, well, lost funding[0].
But I guess those vaccines, right? They just prove that we don't live in a rent-seeking society.
[0]: The End of Vaccines at ‘Warp Speed’ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/health/covid-nasal-vaccin...
Not saying that FG is a good oracle to go off of, but if it's such a prolific mindset that comedy shows are riffing on the concept the people up top have definitely crunched numbers on such factors.
Family Guy also jokes about virtually every other conspiracy theory, yet birds do in fact exist.
comedy is awareness, and awareness is an important first step. But awareness is not hard proof. It's at best a step to start investigations with.
So I don't know what you want me to say. I do see it both ways. Maybe there is a point, but nothing I can argue in a real capacity.
>Family Guy also jokes about virtually every other conspiracy theory
Indeed. but FG can be strangely prohetic at times. Not always (Trump Guy aired in like, 2019, 3-4 years after everyone made every joke in the book. And FG didn't add much there), but said episode aired in 2012. So we're talking nearly a decade before the internet consensus started taking this hard cynical anti-capitalistic approach.
I take it you weren’t around in the 90s when Chris Rock made this exact joke (it was on Bigger and Blacker), and it killed.
This is a commonly held belief because treating symptoms always* come first. It always comes first not because the pharmacryptoluminati are ghouls after money, but because it’s easier. But that’s not a good punchline.
> I can't envision a Jonas Salk of modern times…
Fortunately overcoming your baseless skepticism is not a prerequisite for winning the Nobel.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/kariko/facts...
okay, that's perfectly fine. I just wanted to talk about a family Guy episode, I wasn't looking to convince you of... well, whatever we're arguing about at this point. You win.
>Fortunately overcoming your baseless skepticism is not a prerequisite for winning the Nobel.
the COVID vaccine is the exact kind of example of why modern pharmaceuticals is a mess. I understand it was a global emergency, but the mess between 3 companies and the lack of clarification early on regarding insurance and what's covered or not (even though it was also offered insurance free). It shouldn't have been this debate on Pfizer or Moderna or J&J. It shoulda just been "COVID vaccine".
But yes, good on Katalin Karikó. I'm very glad she's getting and gotten the recognition she deserves.
Anyways this discussion has long ran its course and when you resort to insults it's time to disengage. Take care.
That nasal spray has, of course, been conclusively shown to be ineffective. Otherwise we’d use it, because that’s how science works.
My gay friends using grinder don't expect it to be fullfilling, they expect it to be pleasurable.
Pleasure is nice, but it doesn't sustain happiness.
And intense pleasures that are easy to have regularly mess up with your dopamine system.
It's fine if you only have one part of your life like this. The rest balance it out. And we all need fun.
E.G: one of my friends is deeply involved in teaching kids, another one is a very dedicated doctor, and so forth.
In that case it's healthy.
I do agree with you that when people use apps, they should set correct expectations. I think it’s the unmet expectations that are causing problems.
How can this be gatekeeping? It's a conversation. Saying "repeated shallow dopamine hits will make it harder for you to build long term joy" isn't stopping anyone from doing anything. It's just a proposition.
> People have been satisfied with “simple pleasures” that made them happy throughout centuries
I don't think this is really...anything. Wisdom tends towards building for the long term and delayed gratification, not short termism at the expense of the long term. Being happy at seeing a beautiful sunset is at the expense of nothing, which is the difference being proposed.
Heroin feels really good, which is why it’s dangerous. Because it feels too good, for what it actually does to you, and that’s a trap for a decent percentage of the population.
Netflix in itself is not a problem.
Filling your life with it is.
Which is easy to do because it's intense dopamine effects for little effort.
Then again, divorces are through the roof as well, so maybe that is also failing at large.
Apologies for the rant, I just don’t get it when others say “do X, not Y to be happy”, as if happiness is nothing but a subjective state of mind. Obviously I am not entertaining the obvious physical/psychological addictions and stuff on that level, but if someone chooses a trash reality TV over “life enriching books”, that’s not my place to give them advice.
I don't make this assertion as some form of gatekeeping, and I don't expect everyone to have the same values. I don't have the answers, but I want to ask these question, in a Socratic style. Dig down and figure out what makes one "tick". Not quite as philosophical as "what is the meaning of life", but a similar vein of "what gives you* a meaning to live"?
It's a relatively simple question: "If you had 10 million dollars today, what would you do?". If that answer is still just netflix, beer, sex, and games: well, that's your answer. Not what I would have gone with (and I imagine others have other riches or charities or power they'd do), but if they truly just want to live simply even when granted riches, so be it.
The question isn't about some fantasy land, but more to figure out what values and other factors in life they care about. e.g. If you would by a yatch with 10 million, that probably means you would like to explore some water based activities. Maybe not fancy sailing, but rowing or fishing. Just an exercise to think outside the box many are trapped in.
>I just don’t get it when others say “do X, not Y to be happy”, as if happiness is nothing but a subjective state of mind.
Why do I care? I feel like at some point in the plot of life many forgot that they had passions and aspirations about what they wanted to grow up and do. We get bogged down by college grades (if that), by trying to grab a job, by trying to live and make rent, and then by retirement... what's left? you spent 40+ years working without a purpose just to fulfill check-boxes, without filling in the blanks in between the lines. It may be out of place, but living to be some corporation's peasant isn't a way to live.
I simply want people to remember that spark and remind them that they can still work at it, not work to simply get by and pass your life by. If that spark is as simple as netflix, so be it.
> Back when I was a kid, I’ve only seen a poverty and everyone was “simple”, and people still lived and laughed.
in some ways I miss that simplicity. Honestly, part of my goal with those kinds of riches would be to just gather some old friends and hang out for a while. I wasn't a rich kid either, but I remember the days where it didn't take a month's planning to get 4 people together for a 2 hour sunday brunch.
But there's some things money can't buy, and I know most of my friends are too prideful to take a "vacation" off, even if I was perfectly willing to compensate them for it.
What? All of these apps exist merely to organise the first meeting. Those users will not interact with each other on the platform after that.
The numbers are interesting: there are about 32,000 new HIV cases in the USA each year, and the per-month cost of ongoing anti-retroviral therapy is estimated at $1,800 - $4,500. This works out to a gross cost of ~ $0.7 billion to $1.7 billion - and it's cumulative, year after year. as HIV patients need this treatment for the rest of their lives. Given profit margins of 10-15% in pharma at least, this is a huge cash cow for the industry. (Also explains the reluctance to invest in seeking a permanent cure for the disease that would allow patients to terminate their therapy).
Now, would a profit-hungry industry deliberately encourage reckless sex practices in order to grow demand for their product, year after year? It might bear some investigation.
From the perspective of your theory, that would seem counterproductive. As a greedy pharma company you'd want people to take a drug that makes them feel good while they are on it, be no permanent cure, _and_ still allow them to spread the condition.
You can list your STD status, whether you take pre exposition meds and when you last checked yourself for STDs.
Birth control changes this of course, but society (let alone biology!) hasn’t adapted to that yet. It’s very unclear where we’ll end up long term.
STD risk is dramatically higher for women too, but one could make a ‘giver/receiver’ argument with men that is less clear. Still less risk though I believe.
Men have always been able to ‘hit and run’ in a way that women can’t. No one is getting pregnant because they were ACE, or had homosexual sex (with either gender). So it’s about meeting one’s own needs, with limited consequences, for both parties.
Marriage and other forms of sexual control has always been about trying to get a degree of accountability and stability that is a compromise between the sexes so that society isn’t inundated with the poverty, countless needless deaths and out of control orphans/unwanted children that result otherwise. At least pre birth control.
Shotgun weddings were a thing for a reason! Dad was going to get stuck with the costs of raising some random assholes kid otherwise, and fuck that!
And out of control physical violence and abuse if men don’t get what they need too (which is more than just sex, despite what many men will say).
If things don’t get reined in somewhat, we’re going to be Brazil - if we’re lucky.
Large segments of the population ending up in Favelas, insane crime rates + massive drug use, general chaos and social disorder, especially in the cities.
Think ‘US in the late 70’s, early 80’s’ but with way more people, denser, and more intense.
Males that refuse to mate with females is something that we only see in humans. It’s inherently less well understood. You can’t apply the vast body of animal behavioural studies because all males of all other species will mate with females.
You can hypothesis generate with evolutionary logic, but that doesn’t mean anything until you do some experiments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals
I am not sure where you got your data but male male mating seems to be rather well researched in animals.
Just grabbing one of the many quotes:
----- One species in which exclusive homosexual orientation occurs is the domesticated sheep (Ovis aries).[8][9] "About 10% of rams (males), refuse to mate with ewes (females) but do readily mate with other rams."[9]
The part you’re missing is that all of those males that mate with males will mate with females as well.
The paper Wikipedia references about rams notes that the only mammals with exclusive homosexual behaviour are sheep and humans. Exclusive homosexual mating is exceptionally rare. There are about 6000 mammal species.
The Wikipedia sentence should read the only other mammal which exhibits exclusively homosexual mating behaviour is sheep.
Also domesticated animals have been under some pretty weird selection pressures so you have to be careful comparing their behaviour to a wild type animal like humans.
[0] one suggestion is the "gay uncle hypothesis" which posits that people who themselves do not have children may nonetheless increase the prevalence of their family's genes in future generations by providing resources (e.g., food, supervision, defense, shelter) to the offspring of their closest relatives; this hypothesis seems to be consistent with the evidence without being sufficient on its own.
Being a hero by jumping on a grenade is a pretty terrible survival trait for an individual for instance, but essential for the group to have at least one in any decent sized population. All the non-grenade-coverers will strongly support such folks, as long as it doesn’t hurt their own survival chances somehow.
So if we look at individual tendencies as coming more from die rolls than anything else, with a wide distribution, a lot of outlier behavior makes a lot of sense.
A hardcore survivalist most of the time is going to be selected against, for instance, for many reasons when things are going well. They’re dumping all their stats points in the wrong categories!
But any population that doesn’t have at least a few is going to completely disappear on those rare long tail events (an actual nuclear war?).
And if those survivalists are actually capable, they get the benefit of ‘seeding’ the next generation without any competition! Long odds, but potential huge payoff biologically.
Also many of the traits might also only show up under extreme stress, and we’ve learned to frown on doing destructive a/b tests on entire cultures.
I'm not sure how you'd be able to control for that sort of bias in any kind of rigorous study, or how much variation might be left if you did.
But the dynamics between men and women are so damn different it's evident there must be a difference to begin with. Just because it's not proven and not certain 100% doesn't mean we can't look at it and go "yep, this really seems to work a certain way".
There are no double blind tests done for parachutes.
Plus maybe you don’t need an escort if you are a match with someone else looking for the same thing as you.
strip clubs I imagine. They can't legally say they have escorts, but it's an entire scene. Like any other tribal knowledge, you need to know the edge cases and know the right people. And/or be rich. You can't just google this kinda stuff, you gotta get out to your town and dig (well... you kind of can. But you don't want to take the risk asking for certain Craigslist ads on this stuff).
Or you can go to Vegas where prostitution isn't illegal.
The Japanese already have a very similar service, called Delivery health.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_prostitution_in_moder...
Gay stuff is just more underground. You're never going to just walk into a gay club, for instance. Nor wander into an LGBT meetup by surprise.
Yeah man, love this app, who wouldn't...
There might very well be a problem in the gay community in this regard, but if so it runs way deeper, this would happen with or without grindr.
I actually prefer people list their preferences up front, that way that's no disappointment later.
For example, I can think a straight guy is cute, but I'm not personally attracted to straight guys, I find it unattractive, because I know they're not interested (in addition to hetero culture, chest beating etc that is just gross).
Easier for someone to say "not into short guys" up front cause then I just skip over them rather than interact and have awkwardness later on.
to be clear, there are multiple examples here of varying politeness.
Or you can just read the reviews on App Store / Google Play and see for yourself.
The geek section has been taken over by self described "nerds" aka jocks who live in the gym but have an xbox to play fifa. Ugh.
I’m allowed to just exist and be happy with it. Perhaps I don’t need a hobby to keep me happy. Perhaps my favorite thing to do is watch Netflix with my family. Who are you to judge?
It really has nothing to do with the low quality of dating apps, that can be blamed squarely on Match.com’s monopolistic anti-competitive tactics.
Unless you are Jesus or Buddha, there are things that will very likely make you unhappy.
e.g: eating a lot of crappy food and spending a lot of time watching tv shows are one of them. It diminishes your health, put your dopamine system in shamble and bring no meaning in your life. It's very rare people are happy in those conditions.
The happiness police has determined that you are the one who is unhappy.
You can share your own opinion as usual, but it's going to be a hard sale.
It's not about forcing the idea on you, rather it's reporting what a lot of humanity have found to be true on the long run.
Based on my experiences when I visited the USA, with sidewalks in most of the states I visited suddenly stopping for no apparent reason forcing me to re-trace my steps and take a different route, or with many road crossings feeling so dangerous that I was seriously tempted to take a taxi even for really small distances[0]? There's plenty of places where the city designers make this unnecessarily hard.
One of the reasons I chose Berlin over San Francisco when I was deciding how to show the ultimate lawful middle finger to UK politics, was that I like walking.
[0] it's only the 0.4 miles from the The Cupertino Hotel to 1 Infinite Loop, but ten lanes on the North De Anza Boulevard and 2/3 on the on/off ramps connecting it with the Junipero Serra Freeway is terrifying.
What I hadn't noticed was that there is a major road inbetween, and that the walking time, according to Google Maps, is 92 minutes, covering a distance of 6.8km! So yeah, I took a taxi...
We technically have a choice, but practically, our biology and social context make one path very attractive.
I don't think that's a common experience. I'm in my 30's and love wandering aimlessly though a city or somewhere in nature. I doubt that will change as I continue to age.
can feel a bit lonely seeing other groups pass by. But you see your app tell you you got 4 miles in and burned 800 calories and you realize that you're progressing.
You should probably pick up other hobbies, but a lot of everything in life is all about presentation. You kinda need to do the opposite for tech a lot of the time unless you are specifically going for a tech oriented partner; don't describe your job as you would to a co-worker ("I'm a software engineer who works on the pathfinding algorithms in Google maps"), but give a quick elevator pitch ("I work at Google and I help figure out your destination"... and sure insert some zinger if you're clever).
It’s no wonder these dating apps aren’t working when standards are so high!
Just put yourself in the shoes of someone who might see your profile. If I’m a bearded guy who enjoys hiking, Netflix, and IPAs what reason do they have to swipe right on me compared to the other 50 bearded guys who also enjoy hiking, Netflix, and IPAs?
See heres the difference, "your family". your goal with Netflix in that sentence isn't necessarily to just enjoy your favorite shows, it's to bond together with people you very likely spent years taking care of.
Now, as for me with no hobbies as a single overweight dude in the suburbs who's only possible redeeming factor is making decent money... Do you think I have a chance of achieving such a family if I took on your quote (minus the "with my family")? Even if Tinder wasn't enshittified I'd sure have a hard time carrying a conversation with any potential dates. Yes, they will judge me, hard. I'm not physically attractive enough to ignore being interesting (and not that financially attractive either. I'm not buying a partner 4 star meals every day levels of rich).
(I am mostly underselling myself here btw... mostly. I do have hobbies past Netflix thankfully).
Yes, they are.
Is a ready made meal from a spouse worse than a meal cooked by yourself? Is a frozen store bought dinner worse than a pre-cooked meal that you personally cooked and froze? Is a meal made by a chef at a nice restaurant worse because you didn’t cook it yourself? This standard is ridiculous.
It’s especially funny to me, because there’s a running joke in my family that a meal cooked by somebody else always tastes better than when you cook it yourself.
I think we're missing the forest for the trees here. it's not about cooking, it's about making sure your whole life isn't "ready-made meals". Put the metaphor into every other aspect of life.
We will all take shortcuts somewhere, but shortcuts imply a destination. if your destination is just more McDonalds, I think we are missing something vital to out lives.
>a meal cooked by somebody else always tastes better than when you cook it yourself.
the "joke" implied intimacy in said meal. It's not the meal, it's who made it for you. coporate billionaire food chain pumping out "burgers" cooked by minimum wage workers with no upward mobility is about as distant as you can get.
No, the joke is literally that it tastes better because I’m not worrying about the fine details. You are your own worst critic and all that. When somebody else makes it, you can enjoy the food for what it is and don’t find yourself focusing on the flaws.
And I don’t think I’m missing the forest for the trees here. The whole argument hinges on, “things are innately better if I put more work into it”, which I don’t believe is true. In the specific example of ready made meals vs a meal being cooked personally, the quality of the food has no bearing on how much work it took you to prepare it.
And this is trivially provable. Wealthy people that have personal chefs certainly don’t have a lower quality of life even though they don’t personally prepare every meal. Of course McDonald’s everyday will lower your quality of life, but going to fine restaurants won’t. All of these have vastly different levels of effort involved, but the effort involved doesn’t correlate to quality of life.
Reminding that capacity for delayed gratification is a predictor of success as it can provide better overall balance in that game of all games when compared with optimal instant gratification only.
Careful... are you going to suggest next that Remote work is no substitution for office work?
Remote work is just a means of earning income.
You are comparing apples to oranges by assuming there is some relation between online chatting and remote working.
Companies need you, its not about you needing company.
Working from home has very real trade offs that may work for you and your team, but it is no substitute for working and especially meeting in person. It primarily impacts communication efficacy, which for many larger teams is already the limiting factor.
You're describing the way normies work, and that's greta but not everyone is NT.
And to be frank the thing is people are caring less and less about work. Spending power of the working class has decreased as company profits soar. Layoffs are rampant, pensions are dead, and interviewing is its own chore also enabled by an enshittified app. We should stop sugarcoating it and just lay it out: companies don't care anymore so why should workers? If spending power is falling and work doesn't want to increase income, the next best thing is getting back your time.
And the thing that makes it different from dating is that a long distance relationship is extremely hard to maintain, especially if you want plans like family or intimate dates or whatnot. My workplace is not a romantic relationship; I do work for agreed upon pay and the work benefits if that pay still ends up bringing more value than they pay me. I benefit from a variety of factors depending on my person; growth, money, environment, personal fulfillment, etc. take your pick. Some of those require a physical office more than others. My desires don't require it (even if it would be convenient).
I agree with everything except this.
There's people I've had a deep relationship with online and when I met them in person there was nothing. Really weird. There is actually so much subliminal communication in chats just like in real personal interaction. It just takes a lot of experience to pick up on it. And getting to that point with someone is certainly not quick or low effort :)
I think the other commenter nailed it: in text-only chat, you end up projecting your own ideals upon the other person.
Human communication is full of nonverbal cues which do not translate at all over text. In absence of those nonverbal cues which our brains are (usually) wired to pick up on, we end up mining the text for semiotic constructs which conform to our ideals of the other person, rather than the reality of the other person.
This is done subconsciously, and doesn't become obvious until you meet the person in real life and they are completely different from what you imagined.
Fantastic explanation.
I don't agree because this is a two-way street. Some people just communicate more directly in chat than in real life, especially because the nonverbal and physical side is not throwing off distractions all the time.
There are many "nonverbal" cues you can pick up on in a person if you know them very well in a chat environment. The time they suddenly need to reply if you ask them something emotional. The wording they use that is slightly off. Things like that.
Also, I don't really imagine the other person if all I have is a nickname. They remain just that, an entity. I don't imagine their physical appearance at all.
Chatting is fine.
Getting most of your meaningful social interactions out of chatting is, however, a good way to feel depressed.
Very few people are actually wired to never be touched, to never smell humans, to not be part of group dynamic.
Even introverts, which pay a great price for IRL social interactions, also pay a price for not having them enough.
But some people I only know online for logistical reasons.
But yes, many (most?) in person relationships are also ‘imagination’ driven. Some very pathologically so (NPD, BPD, DID, etc.).
Also, I don't really imagine the other person if all I have is a nickname. They remain just that, an entity. I don't imagine their physical appearance at all. They don't have a face or even a gender until I know it or is obvious from the nick. All I have is the things they say, the beliefs they have. It is more pure than their physical appearance which in many cases they don't control. Is that so weird?
I know not everyone has this ability but I do and I notice it a lot. Also, in many cases it does work out in real life. Just sometimes it doesn't.
On the other end could just be a really good chat bot. It may feel good at the time, but what future does it hold, and/or what useful feedback are you getting from it that isn't just a mirror of yourself or someone similarly disconnected physically?
Dissociative Identity Disorder is a problem for a reason. At the end of the day, real life/our physical selves do matter.
I can't help but feel there's a serious issue somewhere in the reality described in this sentence.
Overall, a person's identity is not so clear cut as we like to think. Whether in text or in person, people are often performing and wearing some kind of mask rather than exposing their "true" selves. (And, one might ponder whether a true self really exists separate from these layered behaviors.) For one reason or another, some folks may have more modes than others or switch more easily by different nuances of context.
A romantic idealist might think of a text-first relationship as somehow meeting the true person. They might even believe that they've found a soul-mate and invest in ideas like "beauty is the person inside". That they are more advanced and would not judge a book by its cover. But to meet in real life, they eventually will discover how they respond to the outsides too. The face, the voice, the body, the pheromones, the posture and mannerisms. Finding incompatibilities at this level can create a strong cognitive dissonance.
But also, people sometimes compartmentalize aspects of their personality and behavior. They might be dedicated to their real-life relationship but almost put on an alternate ego as an escape. They behave like a different person in this other (possibly secret) mode. Someone meeting this alt-person could be in for a rough ride if they do not understand that it will always be a background "fun" mode for the other party, not something they would prioritize or allow to supplant their primary lifestyle.
And finally, some might find control or security in an alternative context. Whether virtual chat or just some other space compartmentalized from real life, they may find it easier to escape boundaries of their primary social personality. They might bypass shyness or anxiety or repression expected by their social circle. But in a crossover setting, they might involuntarily shut down, to the bewilderment of someone who knew them in their escapist space.
Very well put. I'm pretty sure this was the case where I had online contacts that didn't work out IRL. I had a really strong connection but they were not able to continue this in real life due to physical distractions. Or in one case, I wasn't.
I love chat but before AI and before understanding the value of people reaching out to me apart from the chat medium just to say they were thinking of me I cannot consider the value of chat to be anything beyond a poor substitute to real conversations and interactions.
The whole point of engineering is about efficiency, like making a bridge that holds while using the minimum amount of work and materials. A bridge using more materials is not necessarily a better bridge.
You can often make things better by putting in more effort but it may also be counter productive, sometimes the easy solution is the best. Some ready to eat food may be better than what you can cook yourself, even some reputable chefs admit it and the efforts they save on these parts let them focus on the parts where they can make a difference.
They generalized across an entire group of people "engineers and tech people" all but insisting that they should value "efficiency" over "effort". I am responding to the generalization and the forced assignment of values for those people (me included) prioritizing certain values over others (I don't). In general such an attitude of "shoulds" goes hand-in-hand with a lack of respect for others expressing complexity, subtlety, nuance, and especially agency in such matters. And also encourages race-to-the-bottom behaviors not just economically but also in social dynamics. It's an antisocial attitude and especially romantic partners lose interest very quickly when people act this way.
Source: I was like this once and see it in many techies I know socially. It's a mental shortcut that is common in social settings where techies dominate.
The point is that the most treasured and memorable things in life are products of great effort. You can have a ready to eat meal but there’s also some value in learning how to cook and eating something that you yourself made. Sometimes a ready to eat meal is the only option, but limiting yourself to ready to eat meals for the rest of your life (for their practicality) is a very bland way to enjoy your ability to eat.
I want to say I first heard of this finding through Jonathan Haidt or Daniel Gilbert, but a cursory search doesn't bring up the study.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inside-the-box/20140...
The obvious engineering solution for people struggling with finishing a marathon is to get them motorcycles. It completely and immediately solves the problem. Do you expect those people to be satisfied by this solution?
If you can get a similar thing that is of lower quality for significantly less effort, that may be worth it.
But sometimes, it's worth the extra effort for the extra quality.
It takes a lot more effort to make an effortless-looking bridge.
Maybe there's a sweet spot somewhere.
It worked because things that used to contain sugar were rare and not loaded with it.
Our smart species then went for concentrating the stuff we love so much, and make it easy to get.
And today, it's a problem for us.
It's the same thing with netflix, dating apps, porn, etc.
There is nothing wrong with a little sugar to make your life sweater.
But sugar alone is not going to sustain you. And too much will be very bad for you.
We have have been very good are removing the effort at getting a lot of it. But we are not good are taking just what we should now that we have it. And even worse at getting the rest as well.
Also it turns out the effort of getting it was not awesome, but came with some benefits we have now to artificially put back in our life. And we are not doing so with enthusiasm.
It takes more finesse to build a bridge out of half as much rock. And not necessarily half as much effort. In fact arches require you to build a temporary building, then the real building, then demolish the temporary building. Today we call it scaffolding.
Because context matters, just like effort matters and easy solution in relationship doesn't seem to work often
>Some ready to eat food may be better than what you can cook yourself, even some reputable chefs admit it and the efforts they save on these parts let them focus on the parts where they can make a difference.
It's not about putting effort into everything, it's about putting effort into nothing in your life. Sure, if you're fine eating fast food it's fine (just don't let it affect your health too much). It's fine having low quality hobbies as long as you have some other passion in life, even if that passion is as traditional as taking care of your family. It's fine not having passion in work as long as you have an enjoyable hobby. Etc.
But if you cut corners on every aspect of life, you end up without edge. Safe, bland, potentially lifeless. That's what mid life crises are made of when you realize you just existed for 40+ years (most people's better years) and don't really enjoy anything, or anyone.
Getting better at making stuff made stuff less cool and more functional. In dating apps, instead of trying to actually match people that would probably be great together, they use the app to match as many people as possible together, knowing it will fail (or, function as a hookup), and keep the people coming back.
But it’s human nature that the vast majority of the time it will be one-sided on the guy’s part. So you’ve got to somehow maintain a social scene with enough single women to make even one match plausible for you, while those women are constantly inundated with unwanted attention and feelings from the guys in the group, without the group either splintering or developing social norms that prohibit romantic overtures. That’s asking for some incredibly robust social technology in an era where we should be grateful that any kind of IRL social scene even exists.
You are absolutely correct here, but the primary problem with this is that a combination of sexual harassment statutes, #metoo movements, and generalized "women don't ever want to be approached" zeitgeist has closed this avenue off.
This avenue is generally still available if you follow the two rules, but if you do not, it's over for you.
Church is probably the only exception to this, but with drastically increasing secularization of society, good luck with that.
It’s okay to ask, but learn to take a hint.
My communities are very valuable to me which makes such an endeavor high stakes.
So I thread lightly.
It (the extreme of what you're writing about) exists only on the internet.
Just turn off twitter and you'll realize those things do not exist at the scale that you think
Respectful advances in places where both people are on equal footing and there are not external pressures, have never been seen as off limits as far as I am aware.
Twitter aside, there is a general post COVID feeling of "coldness" out there in my anecdotal experience. It's kinda always been that way given me being in a big city (or at least, within driving distance of one), but even small talk seems to have diminished these days. Forget women, people in general just seem less interested to wave hello unless you're at a very specific function.
The upside of all that is that most men don't usually take it personally. Like, I can throw out a text to someone I haven't seen since college in another state and we chat like old times (you know, minus the 5 years of catching up). So it's not like they ignore people on purpose. I guess life is just busy.
I have no clue how to meet truly NEW freinds though. Meetups are so flaky and a lot of my tech/gaming circle is probably inside anyway. At best I met some closely connected friends that were ex-coworkers I never talked to.
All my male friends are either from college or work, and like you said they tend to forget you if you don’t follow up.
If anything, the blow up is massively an improvement at least we do not have to pretend it does not exists.
Wait, what? This reads like the classic boomer complaint that is hard to get to know women when you can't slap their ass in the office any more. "No one can take a joke any more, etc etc"
Women are not a monolithic voting bloc. Some will respond to approaches that repel or bore others. The only way to know is to get to know them as people first and potential romantic partners second. This is why a social scene, or in sone cultures, extended clan gatherings, is so important: you see someone in a relaxed setting and can make some assessment of their personality and values. This also means that it takes time. I don't want to say that a should all go back to the weird heteronormative 1950s, but using as many social networks as possible, including unusual ones, is essential.
As an older dude who has seen the games that young men play at work, I understand that the hormonal drive for guys is absolutely saturating, but you will fail and fail again if you think that #metoo stops you. If it did, you were misbehaving to start with.
No, it's the extremism that's a problem. Men went towards TheRedPill and similar idiots. And especially the younger millennial women and younger have seen this garbage for what it is.
However the pendulum swings to compensate. I've heard recently from quite a few places the old radical quote from 2nd wave "sex is always rape because of patriarchal power imbalance".
I've also slapped precisely 0 butts in the workplace. Nor have I said the usual shitty "women do _" things. But the problem is so many younger generations's women are overly on guard.
Hell, I've had them (at work) ask "don't I look good?", seeking attention. I flatly said that I don't make comments on appearance of men or women.
If I wasn't already with someone, I'd likely be with nobody. It's too toxic out there as a man or someone who presents as a man.
How did you end up getting with someone in that case?
Neither of us were looking for relationships, or sex, or whatever. We've never done any dating apps.
We met literally in the Starbucks line. Conversation started up, we both had time and sat down for coffee. It just went from there. We've been together for 10y.
Would it happen like that or similar again to either of us? Nope. Nor is it repeatable.
If you read up on the Richard Stallman #metoo cancelation attempt I'd really like to know how you thought he was misbehaving because from my perspective it was simply used to jeer at and bully somebody vulnerable.
I think it's pretty rational to think that could happen to somebody else.
This indirectly led to him being accused of being a sexual predator but it doesnt mean he actually is one.
The attacks on his character and the noisy tantrum Google had over AGPL a few years ago (e.g. even banning it from their own version of github for a while) are manifestations of the same desire to see him and his movement nullified.
A watered down FSF run by an inoffensive do-nothing would be a better outcome for big tech than leaving him in charge. Hence the all the attempts to cancel him, including via cynically hijacking #metoo.
Yes, that was my entire point. The movement didn't only mean that more Weinsteins got what they deserved. It also lowered the bar of what is considered "creepy" and raised the risks of behavior which is perceived as such.
A society that isn't built on reciprocation is not a society worthy of my respect.
Quite the contrary. I don't want to misbehave or be construed as misbehaving so I never tried anything at all. You see the most negative examples so of course you won't see the ones who don't want any risks at their workplace and put their head down.
Even on HN you will see a lot of people who hate conversing with coworkers and simply want to clock in and clock out, with no interest in making friends. And I feel that's a minor factor that leads to such behavior.
However, when the (alleged) "victim's" interpretation of something is given as much weight as it is in these laws (and it is--anyone who's had a corporate sexual harassment training course knows this), it greatly increases the risk of even more mundane interactions being reported as harassment. Even if the real rate of reports is tiny (or even unchanged from an era prior to the existence and refinement of these laws), the perception of risk still matters.
Dating apps prefilter for "acceptable to indicate interest to" and let you avoid an ambiguous landscape that's impossible to perfectly navigate.
If you talk to women like they're human beings instead of bizarre creatures that you need to manipulate into mating, this doesn't actually happen.
There's no meaningful difference here, particularly if you're a grad student. But I guess you'll now say that undergrads are allowed to ask somebody twice, but grad students must not ask more than once? Or maybe you'll just insult me and tell me to be miserable quietly like other people in this discussion already have.
There is a certain level of professional conduct that people expect in a professional setting that’s not there in school.
Also, I would be very wary of approaching someone at the gym who was working out. I use to teach at gyms part time when I was single. Women would have to really start the conversation with me before I would make any move.
In person also allows for demonstrating qualities that aren't apparent in a profile. People's vibes are often very different in person vs. online. A man approaching a woman irl signals courage and confidence in itself if done non-awkwardly, so that also gives a guy a leg up over a bunch of dating profiles that are unknown quantities.
Disclaimer: married for 9 years so this is all theoretical
Tinder promised to help me with the numbers game, then built their entire business on scarcity.
Compare that to 50 per day out of a pretty poor pool and stiff competition and your odds are not looking great.
They are also other signs that hint towards compatibility such as wealth, class, education, social anxiety you get a feel for it over time. I would trust that over what you see in a profile. Not that you can’t lie on those just that it’s much harder. Plus The dark things people tell you after a drink or 2 would often be enough to get one cancelled off the internet.
Also keep in mind that a lot of people screened themselves out just by not going out. All those gals that don’t have anything money, live with their parents and go to bed at 9 or have no friends. You won’t find them at the bar but on tinder you might
The ideal situation is an honest dating selection system. Only if/when it is honest, good combinations for dating emerge. There you have it: dating happens in irl.
I can speak from experience that such systems exist(ed) in electronic form.
Unless we are talking about extreme introverts, I don't think there is a setting where meeting in person is worse, than writing emails/chatting.
Dance hall: you can see how the other person dances and moves in real (and you don't have to be drunk, if you don't want to). How she talks, with whom she talks and how. And yes, how she smells, how she talks, how she acts. And if sparks seem to fly both ways, then you can also go outside for a bit to see if it was more than just the ecstasy of the moment. All of this way more direct unfiltered and unmodified information than an online exchange.
"The ideal situation is an honest dating selection system."
And traditionally this used to be the village dance. Today it is in general mixed, but if you like online dating, then I don't want to talk it out of you. Just that in my experience lots of online romances I witnessed with other persons, turned out to be mostly vaporware, not working in real life.
I think meeting people in shared-activity groups is the best bet. You already know your interests align and you enjoy the same things. My old triathlon club would have like 6 weddings every year. Turns out getting to know people over 80-mile bike rides is a great way to learn about someone.
Of course I still do it for general friends purposes (when you live alone and wfh as a man, you NEED to make an effort to get out just to get out of your own head), but Idk how effective advice this is for someone who wants to meet someone in a timely matter. Not everyone wants to play the long game.
Also helps build strength for when you climb those 300m comms masts or enduring those crazy G turns flipping lines in low level geophysical aircraft surveying.
Of all things I tried shared activities worked the best, Tinder the worst.
The actual meaning of the advice is to find a physical activity you can tolerate in order to find a mate who isn't fat. It is a way to make their completely reasonable and relatable position on fat people seem like something noble. "My mate and I enjoy hiking. It is our shared interest." The reason I know what I'm saying is true is because every time this discussion comes up, people peddle the shared interest bullshit and inevitably bring up 'physical activity.' And sorry for getting a hair up my ass about it, I just find it crazy when people can't just say what they mean: If you are an average man who prefers a woman with a nice body and you dislike or are unsuccessful on dating apps, try going to a group activity that will filter out fat chicks. The end. Nothing pretending this is anything but another attempt at finding a mate.
Physical activity filters for people who actually care about themselves. If you can't be bothered to look after your body, then you're likely not going to be any good at looking after your relationship, your family, raising children etc.
Of course I also know plenty of guys who cheat on their wife as she gets older and less hot (the classic “he gets older but all his dates are the same age”), and theres a danger for thin women who are filtered for their physical traits like this.
I didn't meet my wife until I joined a language meetup. I met lots of friends through this group and after 5 years, I started dating my wife and we have now been married for almost 9 years.
The meetup is gone, but I'm still friends with the core members of the group (we are all married now. I think there are 5 couples that met their spouses from the group) and we meet on a monthly basis.
Shared-activity groups are the best thing outside of college because you are more likely to meet someone compatible due to your interests.
Plus, I have the feeling that asking out women is considered increasingly rude.
> Developing crushes on people you actually know in your social scenes is more reasonable.
This is certainly an option for people in their 20s, or maybe in very mixed professions with a lot of interactions, but not an option for a lot of us who don't have a rich social life. Plus a lot of people refrain dating people at work.
I still feel dating apps are the best option, even though they don't work for me anymore since I'm past 40.
You're providing yet more examples of low-effort interaction, albeit offline.
Plus, asking out strangers is lots of fun. The uncertainty that comes from stepping outside scripted social interactions creates tension. And tension what sexual attraction is made of, if you can remain calm and have fun with it.
And while it doesn't have the highest chance of success, when it lands it creates this feeling of stars crossing. Two strangers make eye contact and are immediately drawn to each other? Who doesn't want that 'how'd you two meet' story?
My point is, if that is the primary way we meet partners, it leaves those with anxiety, and introverts, etc, tragically excluded.
I’m grateful I happened to find my partner before the era of high-effort dating sites dissolved and was replaced with Tinder (etc.) We actually write stuff about ourselves. I bet nobody would swipe the correct direction just based on my face.
And if it is not mutual, admitting it can be a total social suicide.
I agree that admitting it can be social suicide. But I think that's true only if it is the person's only social group; and it is approached either ham-handedly or if the group in question is relatively petty or immature.
I think it being mutual is the bigger danger. A group is more likely to survive a false start intact than a breakup. If it doesn't work out, people don't even really choose sides. They already know who is going to stay and who is going to go.
It's difficult to practice something where failure means disaster.
You can flirt with a large variety of people and the social consequences are pretty low. Thinking about how people respond to it is also free. If it's rejection you fear, say hi to strangers. Some of them will ignore you (or maybe even be bothered). That's rejection. It feels like rejection. But the stakes are so low it's safe and you'll become inoculated to a degree or at least comfortable with it. If you want to get better at asking people out, either roleplay with a friend or ask people out that you find interesting, even (especially) if you don't have a crush on them. Bonus: You might get practice at dating, or just find someone you really like.
I have tons of female friends in social groups whom I've asked out. Some had boyfriends or even husbands and we all had a good laugh about it afterwards.
Where it gets messy is when people start hanging out one on one with members of the opposite sex, calling it "friendship", and then confessing feelings.
A more introverted person can't find people to meet at a club or a bar because they don't want to go to a club or a bar. That's who they are.
Gay people can go to gay bars but even those are rife with straight people now, and usually filled with the "scene" type gays that someone might not be into as well.
As an introverted gay nerd you can meet people organically in person but it's a considerably more difficult.
My best relationships are ones that have felt effortless from the start. The ones where I had to put in more effort to make the connection work ended up not being as good.
In fact, I spent too long trying to "fix" the mediocre relationships because I was hung up on the same cognitive bias you're espousing: that quality comes out of effort.
In fact the effort indicated that the match wasn't right. It was a hint that our libidos and psyches weren't meant to be forced together.
Simplistic models of the world, like assuming effort = quality, are the mainstays of hackernews/engineering minds because of our need to quantify everything into the most generally applicable predictable patterns. When those patterns don't line up, one has to reckon that making armchair declarations about the world is as prone to cognitive biases as the "wrong" mentalities those declarations eschew.
Isn't the entire point of technological progress offloading the high effort of all the needs and wants of life from humans to machines? Why have technology if it can't make things easier?
I can't emphasize how much this rings true to me. I struggled in dating: I spent far too much energy both trying both to find someone and in making relationships work once I found one. I was always told that a good relationship means putting in effort, and so I always constantly put 100% of my energy into it. Naturally, that left me burnt out and resentful when my partners would be putting in next to nothing.
Of course, a relationship does require some effort, but I suspect most men struggling to find a satisfying one are putting in far too much effort into it. So long as you have the basics down, it's mostly luck. This can be depressing when you do already have the basics down and still aren't having any success, but the reality is effort in relationships has steeply decreasing marginal returns. It's better to put your energies into things that actually benefit you and let luck and time do their work.
Which is true, and true for most things. Here's my "Being There" analogy:
If you aim to grow a garden, not watering, tilling, weeding or caring for it at all could have mixed results. A moderate amount of effort and you have a bountiful harvest. If you're putting extensive effort, and nothing is growing, it means the conditions aren't right for what you are doing. The seeds are bad, the soil is bad, the climate may not be right. You aren't going to win any favors from the universe forcing a good outcome out of bad conditions. The effort you put in is meaningless.
The sweet spot lies in a moderate amount of effort, but only contingent on cycles of positive feedback that justify that effort. Human beings have evolved to respond to those feedback cycles with dopamine precisely because it naturally encourages more effort. There are some things of course you can't rely on that paradigm (like you can't build half a semiconductor factory and expect it to produce half as many chips), but in those areas where instincts are insufficient, one shouldn't go on hunches or pithy aphorisms: there has to be scientific thinking behind the effort you put in or you're just flailing blindly against the universe.
the sad part in adult life is that "effortless" =/= "no effort needed". Unless you have some sort of worth, people won't just drive up to your house to hang out. You need to make some effort to get out there and do some regular meetups until that "click" happens. As you allude to, sometimes that click never happens. Maybe it never existed, maybe the opportunity never arose.
it's way different from college or grade school where you are around people your age 8+ hours a day with plenty of events tailored towards more people your age, and you get more time to have that click align.
>Isn't the entire point of technological progress offloading the high effort of all the needs and wants of life from humans to machines?
yes, but it's not the goal of sites like Tinder. And I haven't seen a successful "just wanna hang out" site/app yet to begin with. they want continuous money and their product's success cases means the customer is finished.
I think an app can do a great job bringing people together, but Tinder has grown too large and as a result diverged from the customer's needs.
There are low effort dating apps to get laid. To get laid, people don't want to put in a lot of effort. To get laid with a young guy, gramma Does have to put in a lot of effort, and it probably helps if her young lay is flipped out on E at an illegal underground club in London, as opposed to sitting in an office on his break between presentations.
My wife and I met on a paid dating app. It took me a day's worth of hours to fill in my profile, and what my requirements are. For my match, I defined education level, minimal number of fluent languages and what they are, age requirements by race (some age faster, some slower), political views, religion, even the types of makeup they usually wear (none in my preference).
I got about 20 matches per week, and could only write my matches. There was no swipe, no "like" button. Only a text box. I went on a date with a phd student in english lit. I went on a date with a french-american doctor chick who graduated Stanford with an MD at 22. I messaged about 2 girls per week and always got conversation going, usually mutually deciding not to meet. I got messaged by about 2 girls per week, and always replied. I went on one date per week for 2 months and met my wife who speaks 4 languages, has a master's, and is 7 years younger than me. We did have some incompatible things, which were flagged in the match profile, but we decided those could be worked on and got married 6 years ago, 6 months after we met. The only photo she had on the app was the one she took for her passport.
But on this app I used, you would not only have to pay $25/month, it would be next to impossible to get a piece of ass and you'd have to invest hours in text and phone conversations before you met.
There are different tools for different things. This absolute crap article points out that you can't win a formula1 race in a uhaul, and calls automobiles bad. And it's blatantly obvious in their very first menopausal opening paragraph. The article is the bad app here, and that type of "reporting" is what is "soul-destroying" our society. Shame on them.
Maybe, but to the brain engaged in the activity, watching movies or playing video games is much better than a hobby. Real life is only exciting about 1% of the time for anybody. Curated entertainment cuts out most of the boring stuff. Consider this: physiologically, the person watching the biography is probably living a more exciting life than the person who it’s about.
We were all conditioned to buy courses to learn programming in 5 minutes, yet we are bound to be disappointed.
We eventually learn though, with more frequent feedback loop and fails.
Hard disagree. A habbit you enjoy doing repeatedly is a hobby, Netflix or just staring at cable tv qualifies. Ready made meals can contain veggies, frozen veggies in a bag are plenty healthy and popular. But even if you were right, people live long and healthy lives eating mostly fast food with small portions and working out. I don't really care about Chatbots but IRL human interactions are terrible unless you are the right type of person in the right type of place, online interactions with people like the one we are having now is in my opinion a higher quality interaction than IRL, sort of like writing letters in the olden days, we take our time and compose our thoughts and communicate better.
Things that require low effort are usually low quality.
There is nothing wrong with deciding some part of your life will be filled with low quality things. We can't make efforts on every single parts of our life.
But if you do this for entertainment, and dating, and food, and the rest, your life is filled with bland yogurt.
Netflix is no substitution for a hobby. Ready-made meals are no substitution from cooking vegetables. Chats are no substitution for IRL human interactions.
It's crazy we even have to say it, it should be obvious.
I guess it shows how much humans are biased to quick rewards. It's very hard to say no in a world of abundance of those.