The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Gentlemen (and ladies), it is with great pleasure to inform you that it is Wellness Wednesday, and with mild displeasure to inform you that I am once again asking for your dating/romance advice.
I previously asked for suggestions on how to deal with being banned from Hinge. Quick recap of my situation:
3.6 roentgenexactly average height for an American male, somewhat nebbish-looking due to glasses)Since my previous post, I have started going to the gym 3 times a week. I can already see some improvements in my physique. On the social side, I've started reconnecting with friends more, going to more parties, karaoke nights, etc. and I've become a "regular" at a couple of good date spots. I've been off dating apps the whole time. In the past 6 months, I met 2 prospects IRL and got 1-2 dates with each, but was rejected both times thereafter.
Honestly, I want to try meeting folks IRL for a little while longer. I've forgotten how interesting "day game" can be, since I've been using dating apps for so many years. If nothing materializes by March or so, I might go back to using apps.
To that end, there are 4 things I'm curious about:
Location, Location, Location
I lived in Manhattan for 5-10 years but moved out of the city for tax reasons around the time of the pandemic. It's still a convenient 20 minute commute to get to Lower Manhattan, but perhaps I'd be more attractive to women, or have more opportunities to meet them, if I actually lived in (a desirable neighborhood of) Manhattan.
I really don't have a great sense of how important this is; as I said, I left Manhattan around the pandemic, so it's not clear whether my relative lack of success in meeting women IRL is due to leaving the city, pandemic-era cultural shifts, becoming less attractive, or something else entirely.
Clubs
I know nothing about the nightclub scene in NYC and to be honest I don't really see the appeal of being surrounded by strangers in a dark, sweaty room where it's too loud to even have a decent conversation. But there is one aspect of clubbing that, in theory, intrigues me: a literal market where dollars can be exchanged for status and sex. To what extent is that a thing?
My career is going well enough that I would definitely be willing to spend ~$50,000 in a single night if it would guarantee me sex and/or a 50+% shot at a long-term relationship with an attractive woman who is my type (see above). My gut sense is that it can't just be as simple as spending a ton of money at a club, at least not with my average-to-below average looks. I am also aware that the kind of women who would make a good long-term partners are, shall we say, unlikely to be hanging around clubs and putting out for anyone who spends enough dough; however, I would be fine settling for hookups/casual sex with good-looking women whom I encounter in such situations while I search for a higher-quality partner elsewhere.
How much benefit in terms of sex, dates, and relationships can be purchased in the NYC club scene? And operationally, how does this work; do you just book a table/bottle service and then the employees bring girls to your table? I am totally clueless here.
Drugs and Augmentation
I cannot in good conscience write a post in a rat-adjacent community without throwing a bone to the transhumanist crowd:
Testosterone/anabolic steroids. I don't believe I have a testosterone deficiency or anything, but T or steroids could give a boost to my physique, height (slightly), and confidence. Has anyone completely turned their dating life around using these? Curious to hear about your experiences.
Laser eye surgery. As mentioned above, I wear glasses. Probably this detracts from my attractiveness somewhat, though it's hard to tell how much (FWIW, multiple women have told me [during glasses-off pillow talk] that I have beautiful eyes and eyelashes). There's also the benefit of having better vision than I currently do, and without the mild inconvenience of carrying glasses everywhere to boot.
Limb-lengthening surgery. Could make me a couple inches taller, but I'd still be under 6'. Worse, I think my friends and family would find it really weird if I did this. Honestly I am just including this one for the sake of completeness; there is very little chance that I'd actually go through with it, unless someone can convince me that the results are so life-changingly good that the expense, loss of QoL during the long recovery period, risk of complications, and mild social stigma are all worth it.
Matchmakers/Outsourcing
I am aware that soliciting a matchmaker rather contravenes my stated preference to swear off dating apps for a little while longer. Nonetheless, I am fascinated by the ads I sometimes see for so-called "elite" matchmaking services. They always set off my bullshit detector, but I suppose there is a chance that they really do work as advertised. Do quality women actually use these services? What's their success rate like?
In all honesty, though, more than a matchmaker, I would be perfectly happy to pay for a service that constructs profiles for me on all the major dating apps, takes my preferences into account, and then goes through the long grind of swiping for me so that I don't have to. Literally just an API where my photos go in, and matches with attractive women come out. How is this not a startup yet? Call it "Cyrano", slap a cool logo on it, and you'll be rolling in VC cash.
Lasik is great, independently of the rest of it. I did PRK despite qualifying for Lasik, because it's better and how bad could the pain be for a week or two? Excruciating, as it turns out, but worth it to not have a flap in my eye
How'd you get banned from Hinge?
Could you literally hire someone to be your full time dating assistant/coach/fashion coordinator?
Well that one's definitely doable. In all seriousness, maybe a sugar baby? In addition to achieving the proximal goal, it could help you build confidence.
If you don't have a trainer, get one. Ideally get one who doubles as good practice interacting with women, if a lack thereof is part of your problem.
If your company is hiring remote employees, uh, DM me (faanger)
[Numbers spelled out because Markdown is hard and my multi-paragraph numbers mean the next number restarts it. Send help.]
One. It's pretty great, but does have downsides. Dry eyes, worse best-corrected-possible acuity, earlier nearsightedness with age.
Two. Wow that sucks. I'd be genuinely very sad if Hinge banned me (not that it's stopped me from thinking I'll work on my AI more when the ADHD monkey in my brain decides it's time for that again). I think trying to circumvent, or just contacting them, is worth considering.
Check out Jswipe (Jewish Tinder) or Lox Club (Jewish the League). There are probably also other ethnic apps, but those are the one's I've tried. Not a lot of tall people in any of the above, so that helps, and it's a pool that probably likes smarts and money more than tinder.
Three. If they can't produce results in 3 months, 6 if you're feeling generous, fire them. Let's say you paid them for two half days per week, at $100/hr. That's 10k/3 months, which is not much if I understand your preference model at all. Even if it takes trying four people before someone does anything useful, you're out 40k, and I struggle to imagine you can't find someone useful given that much effort. I imagine you're somewhat blocked psychologically on doing whatever you should do maximize your dating game, but when you make it someone's job, they don't have that guilt/etc, and you've selected them for being at least maybe good at it, so results really are plausible.
Raising the question: how do you find this person? The internet. I've hired a dozen housekeepers over as many years by just posting on craigslist. Sure, you get mostly weirdos, but there are great people out there if you're willing to do some phone screening. Stuff your pride down, write a post about what you want help with, and refresh that inbox. You could almost just use your original motte post.
Four. Nope, not legal. Easily twice as not legal as torrent sites, maybe twice and a half. Seeking Arrangement is the famous one. I don't know much about this, but poke around reddit to see people's experiences.
Five. If you're dedicated enough to lifting that you're doing it reliably/hard enough (e.g. Stronglifts 5x5 worth of effort/three days x 1-1.5 hours/week, with progressive overload) and seeing your numbers go up, trainer can probably be skipped at least until you're past noob gains. If you get to benching your body weight, you're solidly into "you may hurt yourself and/or stop progressing" territory without a trainer, unless you have great proprioception and hit youtube/etc pretty hard.
How do you find this person? So many trainers on the internet. See #3, but easier and less awkward. Any gym has trainers. Unless you are very advanced or have a medical problem, a mediocre trainer is going to be drastically better than no trainer. Try a few until you like someone.
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