Silicon Valley Singles Are Giving Up On the Algorithms of Love (washingtonpost.com) 243
The Washington Post: Melissa Hobley, an executive at the dating app OkCupid, hears the complaints about the apps [being unable to find good matches] regularly and thinks they get a bad rap. Silicon Valley workers "are in the business of scalable, quick solutions. And that's not what love is," Hobley said. "You can't hurry love. It's reciprocal. You're not ordering an object. You're not getting a delivery in less than seven minutes." Finding love, she added, takes commitment and energy -- and, yes, time, no matter how inefficiently it's spent.
"You have a whole city obsessed with algorithms and data, and they like to say dating apps aren't solving the problem," Hobley said. "But if a city is male-dominant, if a city is known for 16-hour work days, those are issues that dating apps can't solve." One thing distinguishes the Silicon Valley dating pool: The men-to-women ratio for employed, young singles in the San Jose metro area is higher than in any other major area. There were about 150 men for every 100 women, compared with about 125 to 100 nationwide, of never-married young people between 25 and 34 in San Jose, U.S. Census Bureau data from 2016 shows. That ratio permeates the economy here, all the way to the valley's biggest employers, which have struggled for years to bring more women into their ranks. Men make up about 70% of the workforces of Apple, Facebook and Google parent Alphabet, company filings show.
"You have a whole city obsessed with algorithms and data, and they like to say dating apps aren't solving the problem," Hobley said. "But if a city is male-dominant, if a city is known for 16-hour work days, those are issues that dating apps can't solve." One thing distinguishes the Silicon Valley dating pool: The men-to-women ratio for employed, young singles in the San Jose metro area is higher than in any other major area. There were about 150 men for every 100 women, compared with about 125 to 100 nationwide, of never-married young people between 25 and 34 in San Jose, U.S. Census Bureau data from 2016 shows. That ratio permeates the economy here, all the way to the valley's biggest employers, which have struggled for years to bring more women into their ranks. Men make up about 70% of the workforces of Apple, Facebook and Google parent Alphabet, company filings show.
A lesson learned. (Score:1)
It's a big data experiment and the result is exactly as expected. Go figure you can't cheat at this either.
Re:A lesson learned. (Score:5, Funny)
I think they screwed up somewhere. From what I understand about half of the male population is gay, so the dating pool should be pretty good no matter which way you swing. Of course, there is the number of lesbians to counteract that, but urandictionary doesn't have any data on that, so I can only guess.
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Re:A lesson learned. (Score:4, Insightful)
In a marriage someone has to marry up and someone has to marry down. Traditionally men have married down as women have not really had real jobs. That has changed. Now women have equally good jobs so now some women need to marry down. But women have been brainwashed that the perfect man will earn more than them, be handsome, a great father and help around the house. The fairytale cannot happen for everyone. Some women computer engineers will have to marry baristas. Its not because there is a shortage of men, its because now women have equally good jobs and given the silicon valley costs and lifestyles 2 bristas getting married cannot afford to live here and 2 engineers getting married would be too busy to run a household.
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I read that first time as a "programmable wife", and thought - has this man not heard of Galatea [wikipedia.org] (though the name is much more recent than the myth), or the Stepford Wives [wikipedia.org], or modern robotic sex dolls [realbotix.com].
Ever since the (mass) production of the first (common) condoms (around 1850), sex and reproduction have been two distinct questions. But people still struggle to understand this. Sex robots and teledildonics are just another step a
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The problem, at least in your specific case, isn't the women.
After reading your post, it's pretty obvious that it's you.
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Actually, he's not wrong. Most women do act quite entitled. He just failed to mention that most men also act that way as well.
I call this phenomenon the natural population governor of the developing world. The more materialistic we become, the more choosy we are about our partners, the less we spawn. I've often thought that China didn't need a law for birth restriction. They just had to give them bling.
Re:A lesson learned. (Score:5, Funny)
We're all nerds here, so if technology isn't solving the problem the answer is MORE TECH. In this case the obvious solution is user reviews, which are conspicuously missing from dating sites. I am a solid four-star guy, and I realize that five-star chicks are out of my league, but I also don't want to waste time on two-star and three-star women. It would be great if I could downvote women whose photoshopped pictures don't match reality.
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Or full immersion VR girlfriends - less cleanup afterwards and no embarrassment when you have fleshy friends over.
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Or just ditch the fleshy friends. Your plastic pals are more fun to be with.
I for one welcome our new robot girlfriend overlords.
Here I am reading slashdot at 5:30 PM Saturday (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here I am reading slashdot at 5:30 PM Saturday (Score:5, Funny)
Get married so you have an excuse like us winners.
Hmmm (Score:1)
The article summed up the issue quite well.
On paper, people are far too picky and don't want to just meet/explore. However, given a different setting they relax expectations.
My advice, break dating rules and do something fun. If the date turns out as a no go at least you had fun.
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Step 1. Meet and see if the person is remotely compatible.
Step 2. Do something fun on second date (or an extended first).
First dates should be a quick hit and run.
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Re: Hmmm (Score:2)
Re: Hmmm (Score:2)
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And to make it worse, women are even more picky. If you're neither tall nor powerful, most women just won't be interested, and would rather be alone.
Yeahhhh right.
And how many women have you passed over because they weren't attractive enough for you? I mean would date that 85 year old granny over there? Ah thought not.
I think you're just not counting sufficiently attractive women as existing for the purposes of the poit you're attempting to make.
As a second exercise, you may wish to look around. You will se
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The granny said no, saying it would feel creepy to date a guy young enough to be her grandson.
Re: Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, the traditional belief that men are more promiscuous than women can't actually be correct, due to basic maths. if you have e.g. 100 men and 100 women, and each man has dated 3 women on average, then each woman must have dated 3 men on average as well, out of mathematically necessity.
It's more about the distribution than the average. Say, in a group of 100 men you have 50 who have never dated, 25 who have 1 date, 15 who have had 2 dates, 5 who have had 3, and 5 who have had 50. Then in the corresponding female group you have 5 who have had 1 date, 20 with 2 dates, 25 with 3 dates, and 50 with 4 dates. The average is the same for both groups, but any random woman you select is likely to be more "promiscuous" than any random man.
The same with cheating. If some men are cheaters, they must be cheating with someone, which implies female cheaters they're cheating with. Or, if they somehow are only cheating with single women, then some other single men must be getting *zero* partners to make up the difference. e.g. if married men are more promiscuous than married women, then single men must be less promiscuous than single women, which is a result that would seem to be contradictory to common sense: what's more likely is that married men and married women are equally likely to be cheaters.
No that doesn't work. You're mixing promiscuity and cheating, which are two different things, so your conclusion simply doesn't follow from the rest of your argument. But, even ignoring that, it falls apart for the same reason I listed above; distributions matter more than averages.
Besides which, if, say, 100% of men cheat, and 0% of women cheat, it's quite possible that there is a subset of women who service a large number of cheaters. Professionally. There might even be a name for sure a profession.
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distributions matter more than averages
It depends how you perceive or ignore things. Although your point is interesting, I keep seeing newspaper articles about how survey X shows that men on average have had 30% more sexual partners than women. They're not talking about distribution at all. The conclusion fits with our stereotypes on male/female sexuality, but it's a mathematical impossibility more easily explained by self-reporting bias.
Re: Hmmm (Score:2)
Although your point is interesting, I keep seeing newspaper articles about how survey X shows that men on average have had 30% more sexual partners than women.
Surveys could well show that without anyone lying ... if there is a small outlier group which isn't properly represented.
For the sake of the argument, assume that men frequent prostitues far more often than women (it's a stretch, I know, but just go with it). How many prostitues would you imagine were interviewed for these surveys? If a hooker gets a random phone call saying "we want to ask you about how many partners you've had", how likely is she to tell the caller to fuck off, compared to someone not e
Re: Hmmm (Score:2)
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Assuming you're not trolling, the OP's example would be
- Population of 3 men and 3 women
- 1 man dates each of the 3 women, the other 2 men date no one
Male average: 1 date
Female average: 1 date
Expectations (Score:1, Insightful)
Can apps help you find "love"? No. Can apps help you find sex? Yes.
The complainers don't understand the difference between love and sex. That's why they fail.
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too true
you can use an app to date, talk about something in common and fuck for a few years and get married but real love won't be there until you go through some hard times together
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Wasn't Tinder originally meant for quick hook-ups, and not for making marriages like some people use it now? Just imagine the conflict when some people send dick pictures with "how-abouts" while others want to find the true, romantic love. It's like somebody didn't read the fucking manual, literally.
Best way to get laid in Silly Valley (Score:5, Funny)
Write a heartfelt but rather naive memo explaining that you value diversity but want your company to enhance it in ways that don't 'incentivize illegal discrimination'.
Get promptly fired by your Ivy League Communist wannabe management.
Go on the paid speaker circuit and start a Patreon. Sue your company.
Meet blonde alt right hottie with rich conservative parents on the paid speaker circuit.
"Value her diversity" HARD. Start a family and write a book.
It beats slogging away knocking out boilerplate code in a single sex environment.
Re:Best way to get laid in Silly Valley (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Penthouse,
I never thought that I would be writing one of these, but you know, sometimes life can get pretty crazy. When I wrote a memo "valuing" diversity I though my career was over. But then I decided to sue my company and go on the paid speaker circuit. You'll never velieve what happened! I met this alt-right blond hottie with rich conservative parents with a thing for skinny engineers...
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I notice you didn't respond to this
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
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I dunno, I think I'd have more cognitive dissonance pretending to approve of SJW nonsense at work in order to not get fired than debating Reactosphere types. Ironically the Reactosphere is more tolerant of diversity than the SJWs.
On the Alt Right [youtube.com]
Re: Best way to get laid in Silly Valley (Score:2)
You're incredibly homophobic. You must be a Tea Party member wishing Ted Cruz was president.
Maybe not OkCupid, but... (Score:1)
Actually, isn't Tinder that?
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You'll just have to wait.
It doesn't come easy.
It's a game of give and take.
Date out... (Score:1, Troll)
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While you're trying to force people to change their preferences, remember that if you just stop caring about gender it more than doubles your dating pool!
Not Scaleable or Quick (Score:2, Interesting)
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I used a dating service to find my wife. We get along and rarely argue.
She laid it out for me what women want. Strength to support them when they are balling their eyes out. Not 'oh I am there' but actual sympathy. Not but maybe I can get some if I act interested. But actual strength. The 'bad boys' that most men fail out to women like because those losers project that strength. But women quickly find out it is a facade.
The service I used laid out the odds. For every 100 people you meet 25 or so you
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"I want someone who can make me laugh"
This is not just an expression. If your problem with women is having esoteric interests that they don't share, humor is actually surprisingly good at breaking the ice. And if you're concerned about height, hit the gym. Change those things about you that you CAN change.
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She laid it out for me what women want. Strength to support them when they are balling their eyes out.
If someone balled their eyes out, I'd probably call an ambulance then nope the fuck out of there. That sounds seriously unpleasant.
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That sounds seriously unpleasant.
It's a lot easier and less messy if you use a spoon.
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Trying to ignore the actual issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as the gender imbalance isn't solved, online dating is going to remain a game of chance and a mess for both genders. Right now, all it's doing is taking the already fairly dated (but still very widespread) social norm that men should be the ones initiating romantic advances (and therefore take on the numerous refusals and the emotional toll that goes along with them) and push it to a ridiculous limit.
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While your description is pretty much spot on you say it's a mess for both genders and I don't really see how. Women certainly can make romantic advances if they like someone, but if they just sit back they get plenty offers and can pick and choose. Sure they complain about not finding Mr. Right and all the guys looking for a one night stand, but if you look at the standards in the lower end of men where the choice is between a girlfriend or no girlfriend... eh. Anything with a pussy and a pulse can get a b
Create a female profile and test it out (Score:3)
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Yes, all of this. I actually think this should be a thing that everyone experiences - very few things expose the difference in gender experience better than what it's like to be a man (ignored) and a woman (inundated) on a dating site.
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The problem is people not having enough opportunity to socialize. Online dating is a time saving measure, but it makes the effort required so low that we get the problems you describe.
As well as a lack of time, there is a lack of venues. Lots of places to drink, but that isn't really what you want for a serious relationship.
This is definitely a cultural problem. For example, in Japan it's going the other way, with some guys deciding they are happy without a girlfriend and women but being able to find a part
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Re: Trying to ignore the actual issue? (Score:2)
Why?
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Men should be strong enough to handle the emotional toll rejection. If you're not good enough to deal with it, maybe that's life trying to teach you a lesson. Don't try to fob this heartbreak off onto women, they have enough problems already.
I don't think anyone's blaming the women - they do have their own problems (constant streams of inappropriate messages being one of them). The system is flawed, that's what's at fault.
Also, why the hell should men be 'strong enough'. If you are strong enough to handle multiple rejections then you're probably not paying attention, you could well be being an awful person but you wouldn't notice because you're being 'strong' and 'handling it'. This is exactly toxic masculinity - that being affected emotionally
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Shouldn't you? After a while? If you get 50 rejections in a row you probably should be taking it personally. I know we're all supposed to be self-sufficient in confidence but at some point you need to calibrate to the outside, otherwise you may well be being an arrogant arse, or any number of character flaws that you can't see from the inside. At some point you need to listen to how people react to you.
The question is, when, and how much.
Ha yes saw that (Score:2)
Re:Trying to ignore the actual issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are exactly correct. It's a horrendous experience for everyone. The men who have any self-awareness (ie most decent people) get very quickly disillusioned, the repeated effort to make contact and get nothing back eats away at the ego. Rather quickly these men give up and leave. The ones that stick it out are the ones where this treatment doesn't bruise their ego - the ones that don't care and will behave in any manner.
The women on the site get tens of messages per day, and a good number of those will be from the men who have no shame and will say fairly inappropriate things. Words do matter, and that constant stream of unpleasant things means they don't have a good reason to hang about either.
It's bizarre that the new technology actually takes us backwards in male-female heterosexual interaction. The social norm that men approach women, in real life is tempered by the fact that women have multiple ways in communicating their interest without doing the main approach - through looks, touch, etc., in a way that is ambiguous and deniable. You can negotiate interest without actually breaking the 'order'. On the internet everything is formalised so much that it is impossible to have any ambiguity. Someone presses the 'like' button first. Someone sends the message first. So that is left for men, who have to do it without any information about whether they will be welcomed. Women have to handle many inappropriate advances, men have to approach without any idea whether it's appropriate.
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The social norm that men approach women, in real life is tempered by the fact that women have multiple ways in communicating their interest without doing the main approach - through looks, touch, etc., in a way that is ambiguous and deniable. You can negotiate interest without actually breaking the 'order'.
I think we're headed straight for a big culture shock in that particular aspect though. As women rightfully rectify the state of things regarding sexual harassment, assault, etc., the expectation that ambiguity in responding to advances is acceptable will also have to vanish. Most men will not attempt an advance if the response could potentially turn into some form of accusation of depravity. Women will have to be more direct and obvious in their responses, or we'll see a sharp decline in relationships as o
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Wow... You've got some issues there, buddy...
Their algorythms don't work because they are BAD. (Score:5, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with love being hard, it's because their algorithms SUCK. Mainly because they look for "desireable" traits rather than excluding 'deal breakers'.
This a 'one night stand' mindset - you end up finding the desirable/attractive but damaged people, not the acceptable ones.
Example:
OKCupid asks people if they have cats or dogs. Then they let you look for someone that already owns a cat or a dog. They do NOT let you exclude people that have cats or dogs.
That is a one short term relationship system. If you only date people that already have a cat or a dog, you are looking for someone that won't have to change their life style to fit with yours. Perfect if all you want is a couple of months of fun.
However, let's say you want to get married. If they love you, they will grow to love your cat or dog. It will not be a 'deal killer'. But if you are allergic to a cat or a dog, you NEED to exclude those people. You can't ask them to give up their pet just to date you. If you tried that, your success rate plummets.
Same thing with many other such factors. If you are a short man WITHOUT a complex, then you are perfectly willing to date women, regardless of their height. You have no problem asking out someone a foot taller than you. That's healthy, non-discriminatory thinking. But if you try to ask out most tall women, you will be wasting your time, because most such women only want to date tall men.a
The truth is short men do not want to search for short women. Short men want to search for any woman that is willing to date men their size. Guess what - OKCupid knows which women are not willing to date short men but OKCupid will not let you exclude those women from your search..
The dating web sites are all seriously flawed by their 'show me a 10' mindset, rather than a "no deal breakers" mindset.
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It has nothing to do with love being hard, it's because their algorithms SUCK. Mainly because they look for "desireable" traits rather than excluding 'deal breakers
This is laughable, and demonstrates a severe lack of comprehension of interpersonal relationships, even the bare minimum self awareness.
We all like to believe we know ourselves inside and out, but the fact is we don't know shit. We're just kinda riding these chemical signals. Our bodies are this amazingly complex machine; we can't hope to know a 10th of what's going on, nevermind being fully cognizant of what we like. Your exclusionary list that you seem to fond of would only serve to deprive people of
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It has nothing to do with love being hard, it's because their algorithms SUCK. Mainly because they look for "desireable" traits rather than excluding 'deal breakers
We all like to believe we know ourselves inside and out, but the fact is we don't know shit. We're just kinda riding these chemical signals. Our bodies are this amazingly complex machine; we can't hope to know a 10th of what's going on, nevermind being fully cognizant of what we like. Your exclusionary list that you seem to fond of would only serve to deprive people of their choices, virtually guaranteeing misery except for those lucky few.
Are you seriously suggesting that riding on the love hormones will cure cat/dog allergies? Because that was a good example of a deal breaker, something you cannot change by willpower alone.
More generally, I agree with your general argument that we people don't really know what we want. If you're looking for the "10" you imagine right now, it's probably not that great for you in the long run. OTOH, from personal life experience of myself and others, I believe it's much easier to know what you don't like t
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Are you seriously suggesting that riding on the love hormones will cure cat/dog allergies?
That's not what I said, Ms Newman.
What I said is we don't know ourselves anywhere near as well as we like to pretend we do. So someone with a cat/dog might realize they'd rather be with an amazing person who has animal allergies ( than have animals ), but only if s|he were looking to find them first ( and visa/versa ). Or perhaps those animal owners are themselves allergic, and so have hypoallergenic animals.
You are artificially, and inappropriately, limiting your pool of potential matches through hard ex
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OKCupid asks people if they have cats or dogs. Then they let you look for someone that already owns a cat or a dog. They do NOT let you exclude people that have cats or dogs.
That is a one short term relationship system. If you only date people that already have a cat or a dog, you are looking for someone that won't have to change their life style to fit with yours. Perfect if all you want is a couple of months of fun.
Your words do not back up this assertion.
Why it it only perfect "if all you want is a couple of months of fun"? Aren't relationships built upon congruencies as well as fascinating differences?
Regards.
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That is a one short term relationship system. If you only date people that already have a cat or a dog, you are looking for someone that won't have to change their life style to fit with yours. Perfect if all you want is a couple of months of fun.
This could be intentional. If you find a permanent relationship, then OKCupid will permanently lose you as a customer. Even if you don't pay them to be a member, they will have one less profile they can use as bait for attracting new members.
Re:Their algorythms don't work because they are BA (Score:4, Insightful)
1) I didn't whine, I stated a fact - one you agree with (that short men are fine asking tall women out and that women are NOT OK with it.) You are the only person here whining.
2) What would you think if someone said "jews are money grubbing bastards?" But you are fine attacking nerds as immature perverts.
3) Stop being upset when people call you on your personal flaws. It's OK for women to complain about men being shallow pigs only interested in sex with thin women. It's also OK for men to complain about women being shallow pigs only interested in relationships with tall men.
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short men are fine asking tall women out and that women are NOT OK with it
Is that true though? I know a few people who demonstrate otherwise, but of course that's not data. Is there any statistical evidence?
Being tall tends to give people an advantage in almost every aspect of life (except flying) so I do wonder if any observable trend is more related to that.
True enough, but misses the point I think... (Score:2)
"You can't hurry love. It's reciprocal. You're not ordering an object. You're not getting a delivery in less than seven minutes." Finding love, she added, takes commitment and energy -- and, yes, time, no matter how inefficiently it's spent.
The complaint, Ms. Hobley, isn't that your site/app fails at finding a match that a person is already in love with; it's that your site/app fails at even finding a match that a person could fall in love with.
Yes, your users have to work at making a lasting relationship. I think there are very few people who don't understand that on some level. But if people are finding your site/app less useful than meeting people through their hobbies, you're probably doing something wrong.
Although, to be fair, I do wonder
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Actually, that's a pretty high bar. People you meet through your hobbies are more likely to have common interests, which makes them much more compatible than randomly selected people using almost any other metric.
One big problem is that the
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Because in Silicon Valley, dating apps know not to ask about hobbies.
Executive summary (Score:3)
Lonely Silicon Valley men:
How long must I wait
How much more can I take
Before loneliness will cause my heart
Heart to break?
No I can't bear to live my life alone
I grow impatient for a love to call my own
But when I feel that I, I can't go on
These precious words keeps me hangin' on
Melissa Hobley:
You can't hurry love
No, you just have to wait
She said love don't come easy
It's a game of give and take
You can't hurry love
No, you just have to wait
You got to trust, give it time
No matter how long it takes
(Apologies to the Supremes and/or Phil Collins)
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Re:Executive summary (Score:5, Funny)
It made me wonder if it's even possible to say the sentence "You can't hurry love." without breaking into song halfway through.
It leads to the eternal question, though. What is love?
Prior Art (Score:2)
My mama said you can't hurry love
No, you'll just have to wait
She said "love don't come easy
But it's a game of give and take"
You can't hurry love
No, you'll just have to wait
She said "love don't come easy
But it's a game of give and take"
You can't hurry love, no you'll just have to wait
I See (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
misunderstanding (Score:2)
Silicon Valley is not much different than North Dakota and the oil/gas industry, where lots of young men go to earn big bucks for jobs that need some certain skills and are in demand compared to the average population. The housing prices are ridiculous there too and the aren't many women in oil/gas fields because they're sensible enough not to want to do that kind of work.
Silicon valley just looks a little bit nicer and appears like a place
You don't find love. (Score:4, Funny)
Inferior Social System (Score:2)
Compared with the Indian engineers (male or female) who are expecting an arranged marriage and are not in the dating pool, the non-Indians (mostly Anglo-Americans) are not happy. Suggest the lonely Anglo-American men to try switching over to the Indian system. Some of your Indian friends might even help you.
Re:Inferior Social System (Score:4, Insightful)
At one level you might think it. But, I've talked about it with a number of Indian co-workers. At least, of the castes that end up working in America, there's some *stupidly* expensive wedding expectations, *stupidly* expensive rings and gold, and you'd f-ing well better have the house and car figured out before the wedding. Because your mother-in-law is moving in. These nice cricket-playing engineers were all working themselves silly over this stuff.
When I suggest to them that they just elope and have a $50 civil wedding (like I did), they just don't even fathom how that's a possibility. Trust me, the Indian system sucks, just in different ways.
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They all seem happy regardless of how they met.
Where are the missing women? (Score:4, Interesting)
Notes:
1: Since I am in the UK and married I am asking where all the single women are purely out of curiosity.
2: My wife is from a different European country, so I don't see that there is a problem with dating someone in a different US state.
Re:Where are the missing women? (Score:5, Insightful)
The key words in the story were "singles 25-35".
There are a statistically significant surplus of single men 25-35. There is also a statistically significant surplus of single women 55-65.
This visualization is fascintating. http://jonathansoma.com/single... [jonathansoma.com]
Underlying factor--there are quite a lot of 25 year old women (especially those who are single moms already) willing to become a 45-year-old middle manager's second wife. There are exceedingly few 25 year old men (especially who would like to be fathers) who are willing to become a 45-year-old elementary school teacher's second husband.
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There is also a statistically significant surplus of single women 55-65.
Yeah, and they all make googly eyes at me when I'm dancing with them.
Fits my experience. (Score:2, Interesting)
I've had a very solid share of affairs and relationships within the last decade, fuled by a growning aged geek-perspective and the cool that comes with it, a "silver-back" bonus, social dancing and systematically practicing the mating game and doing some PUA research. It worked out very well. Awesome pr0n-style sex, all-out "let's just f*ck like there's no tomorrow" ONSes and all. ... Looking for something different I started to use Tinder last year (Oh the irony, I know). And while the effect in "time-to-b
Hang the DJ (Score:2)
obviously this is the answer, let a virtualized world figure it out for you.
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I graduated high school here in Seattle in 1973, and none of my technical friends have ever had a girlfriend. Some of them have had boyfriends, but that's a different story entirely. Girls don't want independent males.
Uh, how many dependent males are there? Like, guys with little to no education who couldn't get by on their own because they've been stay-at-home dads and housewi... househusbands? Is that even a word? Is there a market for sugarmoms? My impression is that most men can't stand women that are richer and more successful than themselves, it hurts their pride. I'm afraid I may have to give you some shocking news: It may not be the economic independence that is the reason why your technical friends are single. T
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It's not that he's afraid of her success, it's that she's an asshole
Which is also how people become "successful" in business in the first place. When the tables are turned, there's far too many women attracted to this kind of toxic personality.
Re:I turned 18 in Seattle in 1982... (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh, how many dependent males are there? Like, guys with little to no education who couldn't get by on their own because they've been stay-at-home dads and housewi... househusbands? Is that even a word? Is there a market for sugarmoms?
More than you might think at first. I know a *surprising* number of professional 40-something women (doctors, college profs) supporting educated but generally ne'r-do-well "indie filmmaker type" stay-at-home man-baby hubbies.
I think the reasoning is this. "I don't really have the assets/looks/personality that men above or even paralleling my social status want. If I marry someone a little below my station (university staff, male nurses, etc), there'll always be a lot of unspoken tension about that power imbalance. But, if I marry some good-looking 6'2" drifty-doofus who is good with kids, we both know where we stand".
Re: Ah, the p-word. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, if we backed up a century or two he'd have a good case. Nowadays, women can earn their own money and support themselves, so they don't have to put up with a guy just for money.
Re: (Score:1)
I'm sure you don't have any massive personality flaws or anything. Just bury your head in the sand and don't look inward at all. After all, it's not like there are hundreds of millions of educated males that are in perfectly happy relationships right now.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
In Silicon Valley they just want someone that showers regularly, doesn't "code" 14 hours a day, and can hold a conversation about something other than their shitty blockchain startup written in node.js. I live here and it's pretty fucking obvious why most of these socially stunted retards can't get dates.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're 64, you are entering a demographic that has an exceedingly favorable male-female ratio. Wanna meet lonely women? Offer to fix their computers.
Re: here is my experience, and it's not pretty (Score:4, Interesting)
Regardless of matching ages, the issue stands. Even OKC admitted it years ago when they did the first analysis of data: men with higher salary ranges on their profile got more responses and more dates.
The raw data is there, you CAN craft the perfect profile, it won't be PC but it's very well known what both men and women want from their first impressions in order to get a first date. I don't know if OKC still publishes the data, they used to when they first started and with some data mining you can make a good profile, initial message etc and your success rate skyrockets. I think my 'success rate' was like 40-50% in terms of responses and I would say about 10% in terms of dates, I still didn't meet my current partner there but I did a number of my previous partners, sometimes simultaneous.
Re: Which algorithm would find love for (Score:2)
Re: Being a single woman in SV... (Score:2)
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Well it is a chicken and eggs problem.
Women as a fact of cultural norms will not normally make contact with the guys profiles they are interested in. So the guy while actually looking for something more worthwhile have to initiate first. Making them seem like the same sleeze balls as the guys trying for a one night stand. So the woman will not answer the guys who contact first.
So the guys stay lonely and the woman stay lonely.
Re: (Score:2)
The welfare system severely punishes the poor for being married
The legal system severely punishes men for being married, which is one reason so many fewer are risking it.