Why do Women do this on Dating Sites?

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Considering I personally have difficulties interacting with people, mingling and initiating interactions I find this internet option to be a good way around that problem, takes out all those obstacles of meeting people but then still leaves the option of talking to someone and then meeting up in person....so I am not really sure its all that stupid for people who struggle with the things necessary to meet people IRL initially, seems similar to saying its stupid to use crutches or wheelchair if you have a badly broken leg.

^^^This.

As someone with social difficulties who met his fiance (who also has her own social difficulties) on OKCupid, I can tell you first hand there is plenty of value in it. Hell, my mom met her boyfriend online as well and she doesn't struggle socially but is very career and family focused (making it hard to get out there and mingle.) Most of the people who diss online dating in such a blanketed way simply haven't been able to get it to work for them or cant be bothered trying.

In human conversation, you do not need to spell out, 'this is invalid because of the source.' The disrespect for the source was pretty strongly implied. Don't be disingenuous.

again, two points: first, the dictionary is a relatively recent human invention. Second, I don't really care about the word.
As for backing up my statement, here's 30 seconds of google for you:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... id=1667480 (ooh, look, it even says "dictionary"!)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/1 ... rse-Racism
http://www.racismnoway.com.au/about-rac ... rstanding/ (from outside the US).
And here's a critical look at that definition from a left-wing perspective, for fun:
http://www.wetasphalt.com/content/why-r ... ems-racism

I find that profoundly naive. It's like saying, 'fighting is bad, so in the long-term interest of reducing fighting, I'm going to pretend that kid over there who's getting beaten to a pulp by five older boys is just as bad as they are if he tries to fight back (and I'm certainly not going to step in and help him).'


Sort of like 'meme' but without the baggage. Yeah.


Again, I think you're taking it too far. It's part of the defensive stance that women take all the time - it's not that you'll be judged poorly by most women absent proactive policing of other men, but neither will you be judged well. Most women are going to withhold judgment until they can figure you out.


...Isn't that basically what you said? How is it a straw-man?


I don't care if it gets challenged or not. I'm here because I enjoy arguing and having my ideas challenged, and if it wasn't that, it would have been something else. However, you could have fixated on a less semantic part of my argument to challenge me on. Wrt. my original statement, I agree with you that most (American) men do not cat-call, but that's not what I said; I said that most men act as though they are entitled to women's attention. That's not just cat-calling, that's feeling free to interrupt a woman when she's busy with something else; it's feeling free to approach strange women (which might be a simple differential in the lack of danger between strange men and strange women); it's how we are sociologically expected to pay more attention when a man speaks than when a woman speaks. Most importantly, it's the way men get stuffy, aggressive, and even dangerous when a woman does not give them the 'respect,' via positive attention, that they feel that they deserve.

Again, naming individuals is fairly pointless, unless you want to argue their specific claims. You want to claim that Dworkin is wrong on most things? Fine, I agree with you. I don't want to be associated with the Radfems, either, but at least they're not statistical outliers.


The radfems I've known in person tend to be "I have found the answer!" types - ie, patriarchy is the source of ALL of the world's evils, from war to decaf coffee, and if we 'smash the patriarchy,' then there will be a golden age and no one will ever suffer any more. And, simultaneously, there is often an element of simply switching one social dominance for another - ie, women should 'do to men what men have done to women (and in that, I do mean 'women' in general and 'men' in general. Women who disagree are seen as traitors, and men are seen as incapable of true feminism). A lot of radfems are also gender-essentialists who don't think that transwomen should be treated as women, regardless of whether they're pre- or post-op; a lot of them deny intersectionality, or think that it's unimportant next to patriarchy.

Privilege checking can be a useful tool, but sometimes it's just a strawman. 'You're white, and therefore your argument is invalid.' or 'You're male, and therefore your argument is invalid.'
If someone tells you to 'check your privilege,' I think it's good to do just that: to consider whether or not your opinion comes from ignorance of the other person's experience. But it doesn't mean that you will necessarily find that you are speaking from privilege or ignorance.
Sometimes it is, somtimes it isn't. There is an element of, for example, 'women shouldn't get drunk if they don't want to be raped,' which is pretty strongly related to the unofficial curfew. It's 'hard' to convince men not to take advantage of drunk women, so we should just treat them as unthinking forces of nature and expect women to take up the slack.
On the other hand, I've known some women to do things (with bad results) that just seem stupid in my mind. Getting drunk at a party where you know everyone and think they're your friends is one thing; getting drunk at a frat house full of strangers and football players is another entirely.

It can be useful when getting into the nitty-gritty details, the same way any jargon can whether it's medical, engineering, horticultural, or whatever. The problem comes when someone fluent in any jargon tries to communicate with someone who is not.

I haven't seen this in reality, so I have to think that you're exaggerating. In medicine, we have to have consent to treat - but we don't have to have 'signed and notarized' consent. Someone saying, 'yes,' is fine, as is someone holding out an arm (for example) for a blood draw without saying a word. I've never heard of any proposals for affirmative consent that asked for more than that sort of thing.

It's funny, rapists get more 'due process' than pretty much any other criminal. The reporting rate is lower, the prosecution rate is lower, the conviction rate is lower, and yet we still get protestations for 'more due process.' The false rape claim rate is about the same as false claims for any other crime, but you don't see people saying (for example), 'How do we know he really stole your money? He says it was consensual. You've been known to give money away before.'

Well, yes. It is

I feel like the OP actually needs to figure out what he wants. He claims to desire a girl who is straightforward and honest but when a girl dares to be that way on her profile (fairly innocuosely and easy to justify, I might add) he considers it a dealbreaker. I'm willing to bet his profile is built up like a "relationship resume" rather than an actual honest profile of himself.

"All must be perfect........ for I am high quality....... therefore thier profiles need to be polished up like mine to be worth bothering with!"

He's hardly the first guy on here to treat dating like a job interview with a set of rules, rather than the complex and unpredictable social function it truly is. Hell, based on what I've seen on this board, I'd say it's one of the primary reasons why otherwise kind men have trouble getting anywhere on dating sites. If they are actually a good fit, you shouldn't have to try too hard to impress your date.

Not treating a date like a date (i.e. two people hanging out and conversing) will almost certainly ensure no follow up date. One wouldn't treat a job interview like a date then expect to get a call back, would they?

LKL, thanks for the support, but I'd consider just disengaging your discussion with Dox47.

I was considering responding but it was clear that he's more interested in derailing the discussion based on what he wants to think I meant rather than anything I actually said. I would never judge all men based on Dox's behavior, and frankly I think it's a stretch for him to draw such a conclusion. For someone who thinks sexism is an overhyped problem, he sure likes to use that card a lot.

So interesting you should say that. I was just thinking that dating is so difficult, why can't it be more like finding a job? (I had applied for a job that day, so that's what got me thinking down that road).

The thing is though, this whole not trying too hard thing is difficult to work out. I feel like I'm not making enough effort, so maybe men don't notice that I like them. Or is it that they are just not interested in me? But then why are they all not interested in me? What can I do? Try harder seems like the right answer. Why is it that I'm always the one who organises to meet up with they guy and he hasn't bothered to ask me to do anything with his friends. That would at least be something, it doesn't have to be a proper date, just a bit of interest would be nice, to be included.

Meh, I dunno how this crap works. I usually don't mind, but every so often I meet someone I kind of like and it never goes anywhere and I get hurt again.

Rules-based dating? I like it?you leave less room for ambiguity and confusion.

No, there aren't any more "rules" in dating than there are in any platonic relationship. It's just that some of us do better when things are carefully spelled out for us. So I think in dating, some decoding is necessary to demystify it for those of us who just don't get it.

I think of dating more as a process?a means to an end, or a journey. Some people just need a clear roadmap, that's all. For me, it makes sense to make it a numbers game--if you ask 100 people out and only get 1 date, then ask 200 and get 2 dates?twice as good as what you had. If you've torn through an entire population and got nothing, which I consider a highly unlikely scenario, then move.

The reason she did it is to put off all the guys she doesn't want and attract the guys she does want.

I'd say she'd still be having a fair bit of luck with some very decent guys. Most guys will look at it like "Okay, she's got a backbone and she isn't afraid to stand her ground. I like that."

Just because YOU don't undertstand it doesn't mean that other guys won't. So she's abrasive. At least you know that before you get involved.

I'm replying a bit selectively, I don't know about you but two rounds of fisking is about all I can do before the quote tree gets too muddled, and there's only a handful of things I really feel like arguing about, so don't think I'm trying to duck anything, I'm just a bit low energy at the moment.

I'm not being disingenuous, I make no effort to disguise my disdain for certain liberal arts programs and their cultures, but, I explained my reasoning for rejecting the idea independently of my sneering at the source, my own editorial commentary if you will. You're verging on a fallacy fallacy here, trying to disqualify my opinion by claiming a fallacy that isn't even there.



Ludicrous mischaracterization of my argument; an accurate analogy would be that I would equally punish a rich kid who picked a fight with a poor one and a poor kid who picked a fight with a rich one, as I see fight picking as universally bad no matter who is doing it. My view is based on the perspective of the victim, for whom the political optics of being punched don't make it hurt any less one way or the other.



That's not what I said at all, I attacked the idea that this was something that a majority of men do, I didn't comment on the magnitude of the problem in any way, and the insinuations about derailing and motive are completely projected. I should add the Geekonychus has been disciplined for making personal attacks on me in the past, and likes to pop up and snipe from time to time, which may add a bit of context for you.



You know how I roll, if I think something is wrong, I'm going to point it out, I'll defend Hitler from a false charge and attack Gandhi on an honest one, I just get sick of the drip drip insinuations about my character and motivations that always get made when the topic involves feminism.



Uh oh... Really, a month or two ago you'd be on the receiving end of an all caps hysterical screed for saying something like that.



This kind of dovetails with my earlier exposition on feminist tropes, you see 'rape culture' and 'patriarchy' bandied about as if they're mainstream, widely accepted ideas instead of the rather niche concepts they actually are, to say nothing of garbage like 'mansplaining'. As I've said before, when I hear someone using this jargon, my internal reaction is very similar to that when I'm approached by a Jehovah's Witness, or what I imagine you'd feel if approached by someone in full Tea Party regalia.



Yeah, that's a bit of hyperbole on my part, but it's not far off, I'm not a fan of affirmative consent standards, and don't see much good coming from them.



I'm specifically referring to the pressure being put on universities through Title IX to adopt "preponderance of the evidence" standards when investigating sexual assault claims, and the way concerns about due process are hand waved with "false reports are rare", but I could easily expand it to the way many feminists talk about reforming sexual assault laws in ways that implicitly involve weakening due process and the presumption of innocence.

Well the female friends thing was just a suggestion, if she needs to let it out, that's one possibility if she has girlfriends. I don't have them myself, but I'm thinking the type of female who gets so inundated with unwanted contacts that she feels she has to try to prevent it rather than just filter them probably does have a network of female friends. Just a guess.

As for why should everything be aimed at attracting...I didn't mean one should try to attract EVERYONE, but definitely try to attract the RIGHT person. So, that may involve deterring unwanted people, by saying things that the right person likes.

Maybe she wants to attract someone who likes whingers...okay fine, in that case whinge away!

The makes sense, but when it comes to practical application then it doesn't work for me. I only ask men out if I already know them and think, "hey I like this man, I want to spend more time with him." The numbers game only works if you are approaching random strangers like a market researcher on the street. I don't want to do that.

See bold. The numbers game is only ONE way of getting there. And it's guaranteed to work because it depends on probabilities in a worst-case scenario. I don't believe in asking out random strangers. I believe in turning random strangers into good friends. Suggesting you hang out over coffee and cheesecake during your lunch hour one day would be something you do to get to know each other a little better.

Of course, generally this is really meant for someone who has no confidence in getting dates in the first place. If dating is something you do regularly enough, you're already doing what I'm talking about or you're confident enough not to worry about it. Usually when I suggest the numbers thing, it's a male audience, and I've kinda gotten used to that. There's no reason in this day and age it can't apply to women as well, though. I'll be honest?if a woman took the initiative to ask ME out, she'd be automatically hawt and I probably wouldn't care about looks or personality. Wouldn't necessarily pass the test of time, but she'd have my complete and total, undivided attention for a couple of hours at least.

have you forgotten to see how meeting people is? pills dont make anything better than being able to hide problems in the mind. i am losing my talking in this site forums.

Completely understood.

Ok, I'll give you that one - you did in fact clearly explain your disagreement, independent of the source of the proposed definition, after lifting your nose at the source.


No. If it were about a rich man vs. a poor one, then the analogy would be the state allowing both of them to hire their own lawyers, or providing the poor man with only over-worked attorneys while the rich one can pay for a hot-shot with nothing else on his plate. The fight is not fair to start with, and pretending that it is only entrenches the unearned privilege that is already there.

I don't even remember what that was about at this point, and I don't care enough to re-read the thread.

or guns.
;p

I don't think it's a bad idea. I've seen some polling of teenagers that are a little shocking in what they consider 'normal' (like the majority of teens at one high school agreeing with something along the lines of, 'it's ok for a guy to knock his girlfriend around if he sees her talking to another guy,' or something along those lines. Sort of the 'Twilight' syndrome - ie, Creepy Stalker Vampire Guy = ultimate romance. So I like the idea of affirmative consent at least 'getting out there' more. Not sure how I feel about legal enactment, though.


I don't know what the solution is, but more than a few universities have been getting into trouble for letting rapists become serial rapists, for effectively punishing raped women, and for misunderstanding (again) consent. Maybe the answer would be to just turn the whole thing over to the police.

That's what I think, that criminal offenses should be handled by the criminal justice system, but as you well know, sex cases are notoriously difficult to prove unless there are witnesses or overt signs of violence, so I think what is happening by putting the screws to the universities is actually a deliberate efforts to side-step the due process rights of people accused of sexual assault so as to be seen as "doing something", regardless of the collateral damage to the wrongfully accused. I'm sure you can see why I'd be opposed to something like that, and not because I secretly harbor some affection for rapists.

I don't understand why a rape case should be more difficult to prove than a theft case, though. Why should "She wanted it" be a better defense than "He gave it to me,"?