[HN Gopher] Tired of dating apps, Vancouver man launches social ...
___________________________________________________________________
Tired of dating apps, Vancouver man launches social experiment to
find companion
Author : empressplay
Score : 40 points
Date : 2021-09-18 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca)
| motohagiography wrote:
| $7000? Sounds like dating apps are wildly underpriced, or they
| are not fit for purpose. Likely a bit of both. A girlfriend of
| mine once used a matchmaking service for profesionals that was
| priced in the $10k range and the stories she told me about them
| all seemed to have the similar theme, where if you want a person
| to represent something in your life (wife, partner, husband,
| etc.), it's a recipe for disappointment.
|
| Durable relationships with friends are ones that just work
| because you don't freight it with external meaning. That we use a
| noun for a "relationship" between people at all is probably the
| root of a lot of its difficulty. Relationships as things are
| intractable, whereas relating and choosing how you relate is the
| simplest thing in the world. It's as though we codified relating
| into a noun so we could trade it, which makes sense when you look
| at "being in a relationship" as a proxy for being property, and
| matchmaking services that want to sell you one.
|
| Intimacy does require a shared perimeter of safety, trust, and
| exclusivity relative to that specific personal intimacy, and you
| need to maintain it, but reducing it to role-playing expectations
| just turns it into a power struggle in the guise of a game.
|
| For a lot of people, marriage is basically a dead institution,
| but we still go looking for someone to "make" a marriage with, as
| though it's a thing you make that is abstracted from the people
| involved. The same can be said for family, where we relate to
| "the family" as our reflection against an ideal of family,
| instead of each person directly.
|
| Maybe I've been into the stoics too much, but the simple mental
| rephrasing of "my partner," to "the partner I have" changes how
| you relate to them, from being an extension or reflection of
| yourself to being an experience in your life, and it takes a lot
| of pressure off how you relate to them.
|
| That last statement is a destroyer of codependent relationships,
| which is probably good because someone spending thousands of
| dollars to find someone to represent their idea of a
| "relationship," in which they like their reflection in it is just
| going to suffer. That is, until they don't need to check a
| reflection to know they're good.
| rektide wrote:
| i was starting to cobble together a project Eddystone (bluetooth
| le url beacon) dating profile, before google killed the android
| notifications for eddystone.
|
| the inability to communicate digitally with those around us at a
| bar or at a park is pretty silly. it'd be so neat to start more
| ad-hoc, non-applicationized communications channels! and a chief
| use would definitely be, "hi, single and interested!"
|
| was talking with someone yesterday about dating & they actually
| brought up dating & knowing people's availability, & tech for
| facilitating info exchange at a bar ornwhat not. which is a
| twist, because usually it's me semi-subtly wading into a
| discussion about p2p tech. latter in the conversation they
| brought up stoplight parties- using very visible clothing
| (red/yellow/green) to signal interest (no/maybe/yes). trying to
| think of more over real world ways to connect seems ultra
| interesting to me.
| tomtimtall wrote:
| Interesting experiment. Traditionally when people reach the point
| of wanting to pay money to get a wife, they travel to some less
| well off country and buy a wife from there.
| bbarnett wrote:
| But online dating sites are just that, pay money, hope to get a
| wife.
| cassonmars wrote:
| Being on the other side of that though is: join app, wade
| through many low quality matches because the ratio is like
| 10:1, become extremely choosy because every right swipe is a
| match. It produces really bad psychological effects for both
| cohorts.
| coder583 wrote:
| There is an approximately equal amount of men and women in
| the population. How is it possible that so many matches are
| "low quality" for women?
| cassonmars wrote:
| For starters, the pool of people on say, Tinder, for
| example, is already disproportionately imbalanced in
| terms of represented populations (as I said, 10:1).
| Assuming an even distribution of "attractiveness" (which
| obviously isn't straightforward to quantify and varies by
| locale), there's already a huge discrepancy: even a woman
| of average attractiveness (of ten women 1-10, she ranks a
| 5) has fifty (given ten women, there are a hundred men in
| total) that rank below, in terms of attractiveness. When
| you have a limited number of right swipes a day, well
| below the number of available options that _do_ qualify,
| and nearly every right swipe is a match, it leads to a
| conditioned behavior of selecting well above one's
| "rank". Of course, online dating apps have no interest in
| removing the barriers that result in this condition -- it
| makes men pay more for more swipes, higher priority in
| the stacks shown to women, and the option to see who
| swiped on them. In other words, it's a rigged game.
| bluejay2 wrote:
| Women are, in general, hypergamous, meaning they are
| looking for men who are "above" them along some
| dimension: wealth, status, looks, education, etc. I can
| not find the link, but I read somewhere once that
| something like the "top" 80% of women are competing over
| the "top" 20% of men. In other words, the "bottom" 80% of
| men are un-dateable for those women. That is how you end
| up with the situation described.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Sounds like you've read the OkCupid blog post that used
| to be online, before Match decided to buy OkCupid and
| censor them.
| bluejay2 wrote:
| I think you are right.
| jwond wrote:
| There was an OKCupid study that found that women on
| OKCupid rated 80% of men as below average.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/okcupid-inbox-
| attractive/
| jack_pp wrote:
| That's funny at first glance but it might be more
| accurate than we would like to admit. Maybe there were a
| lot of below average men (compared to the general
| population) on OKC when that study was conducted
| klipt wrote:
| You say that like spending money on marriage is a bad thing.
| But effectively, if you marry someone who earns less than you,
| you're paying money to maintain that marriage for the rest of
| your life anyway.
| OJFord wrote:
| Not in any obvious definite way if you're both above
| sustaining yourselves. I.e. if there _is_ discretionary money
| (sourced from both parties) then what you say is only true if
| the decisions /compromises not in your favour outweigh your
| portion of the discretionary funds.
|
| (...I don't want to spend my life thinking like this.)
| klipt wrote:
| Well you can ignore it as long as the marriage goes well
| :-) but in a divorce the court will make it very clear just
| how much money the marriage cost the higher earner, both in
| terms of dividing up past earnings, and in terms of
| dividing up future earnings via alimony and child support.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| > He's offering prizes of up to $7,000 in value to anyone who can
| help him get a date, and ultimately, a wife.
|
| That's the gist of the article.
|
| I don't like online dating either. But this "social experiment"
| is just, I dunno, grimy?
| godelski wrote:
| Honestly it just sounds like he's outsourcing a match maker.
| There are professional match markers and they aren't uncommon.
| It's also pretty common for friends and family to play match
| maker. I'm not sure I'd use a professional match maker but this
| isn't too weird.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| People pay for matchmakers all the time.
| dleslie wrote:
| He also plans to hand out the money after the wedding.
|
| It's all very... Transactional.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| In my experience of human society, marriage is extremely
| transactional. It's modern legal form was invented largely to
| legally codify how wealth transfers related to marriages
| would be handled, essentially.
|
| A marriage in today's society is more of a business
| partnership than anything else; infidelity is as common as
| not. Often in wealthy circles joint business ownership
| precludes divorce as well, so enter the side partners.
| Typical aristocratic nonsense, which is what you get with
| Empires.
| handmodel wrote:
| I've joked to friends (but would follow through) that if they
| introduce me to my future wife I would give them 5k. That is
| such a small amount of money to help you find the most
| important person in your life.
|
| I think its a bit worse to pay for dates/access which is the
| entire premise of dating apps, matchmakers, clubs etc.
| because those dont have a vested interest in helping you find
| anything long and successful. In fact, its the opposite.
| [deleted]
| vgel wrote:
| I wonder what, if anything, will replace dating apps. As someone
| who tried dating apps for a while, I never had much luck with
| them. I ended up meeting my wife in person at the LGBTQ center at
| my college, we were friends for awhile, started dating, then got
| married a couple years later.
|
| I'm not sure what dating apps optimize for. It's easy to say "for
| hookups!", but it seems like a very low% of matches on those apps
| lead to any kind of in-person connection, date or hookup:
| anecdotally I think I had a few hundred matches on Tinder, but
| only went on ~10 dates / hookups as a consequence. For most
| matches, the conversation would fizzle after a few messages.
| Maybe it's different for straight people?
|
| My hypothesis is there's a "Market for Lemons"[1] problem here:
| take a pool of potential matches on Tinder. The pools narrow like
| so:
|
| 100% of people are on the app (given)
|
| x<100% of people will match with an average person (picky)
|
| y<x% of people will message or reply to a message[2]
|
| z<y% of people will go on a date / hookup with someone[2]
|
| People in each pool will be selected out of the swiping pool,
| leaving the people left for you to swipe on being, on average,
| less committed to ultimately going on a date. For example: people
| in the `z` group will get into short/long-term relationships and
| stop using Tinder. People in the `y` group will be busy texting
| with someone they met on Tinder (using pickup lines, etc.) and
| swipe less. Etc, etc.
|
| I'm not sure how a dating app would solve this issue. Traditional
| ways of finding partners, like meeting people at a bar or hobby
| group or at college, doesn't either: it's just there's a benefit
| to making friends or talking to people beyond trying to hook up
| or start dating them. Most people, if they make 5 friends at a
| college club but don't start dating any of them, are still happy,
| I would think.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
|
| [2]: Why would people match or reply to a message, but not want
| to go on a date? I've anecdotally known several people who do
| this: some just wanted validation from random strangers, some are
| just shy and would theoretically want to go on a date but didn't
| work up the courage to actually do it, etc. etc. Lots of reasons.
| cassonmars wrote:
| > He says the swipe-right or swipe-left nature of many of the
| apps means people are judging a person based on very little, a
| photo and a short bio.
|
| Sounds like he's using the wrong apps for his goal. It's
| intuitively determined that the gradient of intentions for dating
| apps goes from being hookup-oriented to long term compatibility
| in direct proportion to the amount of info given before matching.
| amelius wrote:
| This looks interesting:
|
| https://www.fitness-singles.com/
| erikerikson wrote:
| The value of internet dating for people looking for a serious
| connection is access to scale and therein the bypass of the
| happenstance of initial conditions. This approach gives up on
| scale. At first I was challenged with how to effectively gain the
| value of that access to scale. But then I selected a dating app
| (okcupid) that allowed for depth and designed my profile to ward
| off others and select for the subpopulation that I had
| hypothesized was most likely to hold the partner I was interested
| in. It's only been 10 years but I'm happy with my results.
| godelski wrote:
| Giving up on scale might be a good thing tbh. With scale comes
| a lot of noise. Also with it comes choice paralysis.
|
| On noise, it's not uncommon to see less than 1% of male right
| swipes to turn into a match. As many here may know, this can be
| pretty emotionally taxing.
|
| Then add on the choice problem. It's a well known psychological
| effect that too many choices can cause us feel bad about our
| choices. The classic example of this is with cereal in the
| grocery store. If you only have a few choices you pick one and
| think "I did the best I could" but if you have a hundred to
| choose from you'll think "maybe I could have done better" and
| doubt yourself even if you like the cereal. In relation to
| dating I think we end up judging a bit more than normal on
| first dates. I know I do. But first dates are often awkward and
| not a great indication of if you're a good match or not, unless
| there are major red flags.
|
| I'll admit that I've had more success by being set up by
| friends. They know your personality, they know the other
| person's personality and if you will match. I think there's
| also a bit of pressure to go on a few dates and help get out of
| that awkward stage and really find out who the other person is.
|
| But everyone has different takes. With scale one method might
| work well for some people and might not work for others. A wide
| array of tools is honestly the best because there never will be
| a singular solution for everyone. I think the major problem
| here is that were trying to turn all forms of dating into
| Tinder like and pretending like that's the only successful
| model.
| erikerikson wrote:
| I mentioned okcupid as an option that helps focus better into
| your expected compatible population. Others are noting it is
| changed from when I used it. The reason I liked it is that
| all my choices were far higher quality and my experiences
| helped me better understand my deeper nuances.
|
| If you're looking for a relationship I would suggest avoiding
| the swiping apps. That fits my bias. I think that choosing a
| partner or partners in life is one of the most important and
| most salient things we do and should get commensurate
| attention. Further, none of the most important aspects of a
| person are present in their appearance, not to mention a mere
| image. I believe this is so even if there are echoes of them
| available and accepting that our presentations to the world
| are generated by the pattern that we manifest. It still seems
| to me that it is the pattern you are attempting to discover,
| evaluate compatibility with, and create relationship to. The
| point there being to create new configurations and patterns
| according to the value systems of participants and structures
| of reality. It would take a huge stretch of imagination to
| devise a swiping app to help with that.
| Arech wrote:
| Ha! I second for okcupid. The only normal dating site (that
| allows indepth profiles) that I was able to find back in
| 2015-16. Never needed it since then, because I married a girl I
| met there)
| doctorwho42 wrote:
| Unfortunately okcupid has trended away from what it was 5+
| years ago. My last SO was through okcupid right before they
| changed the incentives in the system. Now it has been driven
| towards the same swipe culture as all the other apps. Though
| you can still answer questions and write detailed profile...
| The system doesn't seem to promote that as much. My key gripe
| right now with how it is setup is that the only discovery is
| through one of 5-6 swipe categories and your filter criteria
| no longer impacts any of those swipe decks.
|
| So in practice they have taken away the discover and pushed
| towards swiping removing any positives of their platform in
| the process. I have heard that many of the dating apps are
| now owned by 1 company. So if that is true, it makes sense
| from a shitty business perspective
| klipt wrote:
| The incentives of dating apps are all wrong for the daters.
| They want to maximize users, which means they want you to
| keep dating through the app forever. Finding you a great
| long term match is, from their perspective, _losing a
| repeat customer_.
|
| Ironically the old fashioned matchmaker who only took a fee
| after the wedding had much better aligned incentives.
| toss1 wrote:
| >>Ironically the old fashioned matchmaker who only took a
| fee after the wedding had much better aligned incentives.
|
| And that, right there, is probably the key principle for
| a solid matchmaking app...
| icedchai wrote:
| Yep, it's basically useless now. Are there any decent
| dating sites?
| Arech wrote:
| That's very sad news... I think it'd already started to
| mutate back then in 2015-2016, but it was still possible to
| make and to discover a detailed user profiles, that
| actually allowed to get interested in a person.
|
| On the other hand my internal entrepreneur says that it
| could be a great opportunity to launch okcupid2.0 given
| that there's an actual demand for this kind of site.
| icedchai wrote:
| Okcupid is pretty awful now. Last I checked, they had removed
| even the most basic search functionality, making it more
| Tinder like.
|
| Dating sites were better in the 2000's. Yahoo personals?
| Craigslist? Even the old match.com were better than what we
| have now.
| tmhrtly wrote:
| Has he given up on scale? He's already got a news article and
| (many) thousands of eyeballs on him. Maybe the scale is in the
| publicity. Still, by no means easily reproducible by anyone
| else trying to do the same.
| erikerikson wrote:
| I completely agree. I was factoring in that his attempt is
| novel and noteworthy but doesn't generalize. I wouldn't
| expect copycats to achieve similar results.
| jcims wrote:
| I think this scales in quality vs. quantity and it might
| actually work _better_ that it does for this guy when folks
| copy this approach. Dating apps clearly have more eyeballs,
| but the suggestions he receives through this are likely to
| have some context and social status.
| ctrlp wrote:
| This guy and his experiment seems like a good signal for women to
| avoid him. Why, exactly, is he finding it so hard to meet
| someone? What's wrong with him? He's not ugly. He seems to have
| his own place. Yet he feels he has to pay his friends for help?
| What kind of friends are those? Moreover, he's the kind of person
| who publicizes his love-life in the paper. It looks to me like
| he's casting himself in his own private season of 'The Bachelor'.
| Ladies, run.
|
| As an aside, I feel bad for the generation that thinks dating
| apps are the best way to find a mate. The whole 'scale' argument
| seems ludicrous to me. It sounds like the ultimate consumerist
| approach to finding companionship. Compatibility is a necessary
| but not sufficient condition of a happy marriage. Anyone who has
| been part of a good marriage knows that you grow more compatible
| over time as you build a family and are challenged by life
| together. The whole concept of finding someone who _isn 't_ like
| you (or your supposed ideal -- how do you even know what your
| ideal is??? Think about your ideal child. Now think about your
| actual child. Would you trade?) so that you can grow _with
| /towards_ that person seems like a better life than just finding
| that person you can be your lousy self with. Maybe your self at
| 25 sucks? If you haven't been in a long-term relationship by 35
| then I say with confidence your self probably does suck, not
| because you're a bad person, but probably just selfish and
| immature, sorry.
|
| Moreover, delegating mate selection to an algorithm is maybe the
| most unromantic thing I could have conceived in 1999. No offense,
| but it pains me to imagine all the 'how I met your mother'
| stories. It sounds so transactional. Passing through dozens or
| more people on your way to a marriage seems like Goldilocks
| tasting porridge.
|
| Moreover, it's been argued that dating apps are bad socially for
| the larger dating pool. Women on these apps compete for the 20%
| of "high-status" males. They are conditioned by these males to
| think they have a chance and to expect to land a high-status
| mate. Many never find "Mr. Right" and miss out being in a
| committed relationship during their most productive years.
| Meanwhile, the 80% of men are competing unsuccessfully for women
| who are uninterested in them. The 20% of males who can pick and
| choose are disincentivized to settle down, they also waste their
| productive years 'playing the field' and ultimately find they are
| unable to love at all. Sounds like a lose-lose-lose to me.
|
| Here come the down-votes (ducks). Tell me I'm wrong.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Whatever happened to just asking pretty girls you see on dates?
| That's how I met my wife. Total stranger, gave her my number and
| asked her out for coffee. Been married ten years now.
| [deleted]
| mcculley wrote:
| They are all looking at their phones now.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| I'd argue many are throwing a different signal - wearing
| earbuds or headphones. Looking at your phone could be
| anything from talking to a friend to checking the weather.
| Listening to music sends a much stronger signal of "I'm busy,
| come back later or not at all".
| ditonal wrote:
| Everyone overthinks things but this really is a good option.
| I've also been with my wife over ten years so maybe I'm not the
| authority any more. But even back then online dating was a
| thing but I had zero success with it. But it always seemed as a
| man, women basically gave you +2 in attractiveness just for
| having the confidence to go up and introduce yourself. Seemed
| crazy to throw those free points away so I just psyched myself
| into forcing myself to "just do it" if someone caught my eye.
|
| Besides meeting my wife this way, there was one girl who rather
| coldly rejected me that I later ran into via another social
| circle. I apologized if I had made her uncomfortable and she
| told me that even though she wasn't interested she was also
| somewhat flattered and that the incident made her day.
|
| I think with sexual harassment in the world and all these apps
| everyone overthinks things and think just walking up to a
| stranger is for boomers or pick up artists. Really it's just
| the normal human interaction that worked for a couple million
| years and still works today. And at least for typical
| heterosexual dynamics, the ability to make eye contact and say
| "Hi, my name is" will always be more impactful than a Bluetooth
| signal.
| fn-mote wrote:
| > Total stranger, gave her my number and asked her out [...]
|
| I'm really, genuinely glad this worked out for you.
|
| When feminists talk about the objectification of women, though,
| I think this is a prime example. (Admittedly there are no
| details.) The assumption that bothers me is that it is ok to
| approach a "pretty girl" about entering into a relationship.
|
| Isn't this problem as old as the hills?
|
| > Why can't I walk down a street free of suggestion?
|
| > Is my body my only trait in the eyes of men?
|
| > -- Suggestion, Fugazi, 1988
|
| [1] https://genius.com/Fugazi-suggestion-lyrics
| kortex wrote:
| That approach for most folks is a) really daunting b) usually
| extremely low odds of success.
|
| It's one thing if it's someone in a social circle, however big.
| Total stranger? Seems to only result in frustration for most
| folks.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| It's a skill that can be learned.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Pick-up artist? I don't think most people tolerate that
| kind of behaviour these days.
| blunte wrote:
| This makes a nice news story, but based on the criteria
| mentioned, it is doomed to failure.
|
| 1. There are very, very few life-long partnerships. And of the
| ones that are, some of them are for reciprocal benefits (not
| love); some are because the people are too scared or complacent
| to leave; some are because the two are completely lacking in
| ambition and hope for a better future. Most people change over
| time, and most people change differently (especially different
| sexes). To imagine them remaining on a parallel trajectory
| through long life by nature (instead of sheer willpower or
| complacency) is naive.
|
| 2. Swiping left/right by looks is not for long term partnership.
| It is for short term physical excitement. And in that regard,
| it's a good start.
|
| 3. No amount of online communication or friend referrals will
| compare to frequently being around someone, getting to know them,
| and falling in love with them. This is a very low percentage game
| he's betting on (unless he's just betting on publicity, in which
| case he wins 15 minutes of fame).
|
| 4. Wait until the (unnamed nationality) recruiters get wind of
| this. For a chance of $7000, they will inundate him with dates.
| The smartest of them will promise to share half of it with the
| women, in which case he'll have more dates than he has time for.
| And if he has some money, the more desperate women will fake
| their way to marriage, winning the $3500 and potentially a
| comfortable life (only having to have sex with him a couple of
| times per week).
|
| This may sound pessimistic, but it's really just an observation
| on traditional modern marriage. People don't work like the story
| books suggest, and the story books are based on fiction that
| doesn't represent the vast majority of human history.
|
| The good news for him and anyone else who wants to expand their
| awareness is that one can have many good meaningful relationships
| and some really great physical relationships in one lifetime. And
| be happy through most of it.
| echan00 wrote:
| You sound so pessimistic you should just keep your comments to
| yourself from now on out.
| blunte wrote:
| It seems pessimistic, but it's only pessimism if you accept
| the current systems that are in place (economic, human
| relational, etc.).
|
| I actually think that there can be great joy, mutual success,
| and net-postive happiness amongst people if they are willing
| to reconsider the rules and boundaries set by 1-20
| generations before them.
|
| Just as with studies and news articles, it's important to
| consider who benefits from the message being presented. Quite
| often, it's the "establishment".
|
| After all, the establishment has tried to convince us that
| smoking was good for you, that mastubation would make you
| blind (and a host of other maladies), that burning fossil
| fuels wouldn't harm the environment, that eating low-fat
| packaged goods wouldn't make us fat, that drinking diet sodas
| wouldn't make us fat, that vaping wouldn't do some really
| wack stuff to us, that politicians represented us, etc. etc.
|
| There are places in the world today where a woman
| breastfeeding in public is considered offensive. Who made
| that determination? (I use this example because it's about
| the most natural human activity, perhaps beside sex.) And
| yet, much of the US establishment wants us to believe that
| it's inappropriate. All of these crazy rules and artificial
| limitations could be much of what's wrong with our
| relationships and our behavior. I'm trying to point out the
| absurdity of things.
| GPerson wrote:
| I don't agree with this person's comments but I don't think
| they should be told to shut up either. They have an
| interesting viewpoint.
| endisneigh wrote:
| None of what you say here imply or explain why his idea would
| be doomed (not to mention most of your assumptions are not
| always true or false and like most things depends on the
| person).
|
| Not to mention points 2, 3 and 4 are completely unsubstantiated
| lol. How is this the top reply?
| blunte wrote:
| > How is this the top reply?
|
| Because I replied early? I dunno, only 3 points.
|
| His idea is doomed because he says, "I'm looking for somebody
| who has a kind heart, someone who's curious and maybe has a
| sense of humour, it doesn't have to be my sense of
| humour."... and he's depending on other people, with their
| own sensibilities and emotions, to identify people he might
| fit with?
|
| This is not new. People forever (perhaps more often women)
| have been motivated to play matchmaker for their friends. If
| that method were most successful, dating apps wouldn't exist.
|
| Another reason his idea is doomed is because he put money on
| it. That provides a perverse incentive which favors the
| person who can provide him the most dates (who can
| superficially entertain him until he weds one).
|
| What you call unsubstantiated I call obvious.
|
| 2. Who out there believes that Tinder is where you find your
| life mate? Maybe it is now, I dunno... but it was certainly a
| hookup app for the first many years of its existence.
|
| 3. A friend is going to be more accurate than you would if
| you got to know someone naturally and fell in love with them?
|
| 4. Absolutely not unsubstantiated. Put any money value on
| something, and hordes of hungry gamers (not gamers, but
| gamers) will find a way to take the shotgun approach. After
| all, if one of his friends is able to keep his calendar
| booked with prospects, then that friend is more likely to win
| the prize.
| coder583 wrote:
| You've made a lot of grandiose claims with no evidence. Looks
| are extremely important as a spark in the vast majority of
| relationships, and people who meet online still spend time
| together and fall in love.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| It's not rocket science. It is, however, really hard. It's very
| hard to know whether to stay or go but i generally feel happy
| with marriage and kids. While it takes a lot of time and soul,
| it removes the need to be looking for someone, which can leave
| a lot of time for working on what i want to be working on.
| That's optimistic, but, hey.
| blunte wrote:
| Marriage and kids can be a very happy and enriching
| experience, for all involved. I'm not disputing that. (I had
| 15 years of magnificent marriage and have two amazing young
| adult children. I wouldn't trade that for anything.)
|
| But this assumption that two people who find each other a
| perfect match now will still feel that way in 5, 10, 20, 40
| years is just unrealistic. It would be much better if people
| understood that we are all unique, and we all grow and expand
| in different ways. Sometimes a couple grows in the same way
| (and usually they do, quite a lot); but sometimes one of the
| couple grows in a different direction - discovers something
| important to them which pulls them away. It doesn't mean
| there was a problem with the other person or the
| relationship. A very simple example is when one person finds
| their career developing and fulfilling, but the other partner
| has a happy life in a certain town, near their family,
| friends, etc. To stay together, one of them probably must
| give up something very important. But to realize that a
| parting doesn't mean losing connection, it just means going
| separate ways, is natural.
| eloff wrote:
| That's way too cynical a view. It's often accurate, but it
| certainly does not describe all relationships. I've been
| married 8 years now and it's not at all like that. It's not a
| fairytale either, but it's a real love. While we've both grown
| and changed a lot, we haven't grown apart.
|
| There's hope, and it's a tough dating world out there, but if
| you have your attitude is over before you start.
| blunte wrote:
| 8 years? Not being flippant, but 8 years is one chapter. More
| than 8 years of my marriage were so great I couldn't imagine
| anything better (and I have not topped it with anyone since).
| I'm saying that you can and should enjoy relationships, but
| if you expect the impossible, it will end badly. It doesn't
| have to end badly! It could end naturally, with great respect
| and friendship.
|
| No, my attitude is that one can have many meaningful chapters
| (perhaps more than one with the same partner). The problem is
| this shared assumption that relationships should never end.
| If one person can grow a lot in life, and you have two people
| together, the idea that they will both grow in the same ways
| which keep them sharing the same connection is _very_
| ideallistic.
|
| Add children, which certainly changes the parents, and you
| have even more variables. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do
| what is right for you at the time, have children, have a
| happy family, and enjoy it. It just means you should not
| think it's the end of the world if (when) people's directions
| begin to diverge.
| datameta wrote:
| There are quite a few contrived scenarios in there, but I don't
| disagree with the last paragraph. For some people that sort of
| thing (not without effort, patience, understanding, caring,
| etc) can bring both spontaneous adventure deep discovery.
| Others are fortunate enough to find it primarily with one
| person.
| fn-mote wrote:
| While I disagree with this comment, I think that others who
| disagree should post substantive comments instead of snark.
| Shallow dismissals are missing an opportunity to refute claims
| you disagree with.
|
| Unfortunately, I think most of the points here are spot on.
|
| #2 (swiping is for physical excitement) and #4 (an offer of
| money creates incentives for un-genuine behavior) seem
| indisputable and deserve to be addressed
|
| #1 (few life-long partnerships)
|
| According to some random web site [1], about 45% of US
| marriages end in divorce. This seems to support assertion #1.
|
| #3 (online communication does not compare to the quality of in-
| person communication): Seems like a no-brainer assertion to me,
| HN posts excepted... (j/k). Of course the online communication
| is supposed to lead to other opportunities to get to know
| someone better, so it should really be compared to hanging out
| in a bar or something. Which I would expect is also
| (relatively) ineffective at helping find a partner.
|
| I mean, really I think the claim that there are few life-long
| partnerships is not relevant. A relationship needs a place to
| start and grow. Later failure of a relationship that "could
| have" worked out isn't an indication that the filters applied
| at the start are not functioning correctly.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| I've never used a dating app, probably never will. I don't see
| the allure. It's like the fast food of human relationships -
| completely synthetic and made to fill a desire (in some cases).
| Not to mention the level of vanity in these apps.
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