Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
This is hardly small-scale, as the problem has been a fundamental obstacle to my emotional well-being for 5+ years, but
How Do I Get A Woman To Turn Up For The Hinge Date She Said She'd Turn Up For?
It's not like online dating has ever brought me much joy in life. Twice now, back in 2016 and 17, I dated one person for a month or three who I wasn't crazy about, which I suppose is the normal baseline human experience. But just going on a singular date with someone every now and then at least made me feel like I wasn't being soft-blocked out of humanity. In 2019, though, I noticed an odd change; no one would actually turn up for a date. Way before the pandemic, I remember three women becoming mysteriously sick conveniently right on the day of the date we had planned. Another one who was a fellow zoologist "met a really great guy that weekend" so she had to cancel. Props to her for honesty, but it sure did make me hate my life.
Then, post-pandemic, every woman had apparently discovered a lifehack/This One Weird Trick; you can just say yes to a date, then not actually go on the date. You get all the validation of knowing a guy would go on a date with you, without all that icky tedium of having to meet them in person and probably getting assaulted or whatever. When the evening you're free comes up, just actually go on a date with the hottest guy out of the five(+) who've asked you out, and the other four sit at home wondering why they're no uniquely unlovable. Once, there was a woman who waited until she had confirmation that I was at the venue waiting for her before she unmatched me.
When it came out, I tried Facebook dating; it's location filters were utterly fucked; I kept getting likes from women a state away. But I did match with people who lived in the suburbs, a whole 30 to 40 minute drive distant. This meant scheduling was a bit more precise; I'd ask for a date on Sunday, she wasn't free until Friday, so I'd do the old-fashioned thing of trying to keep a conversation going. And FB dating in particular felt like OKcupid back in the day, I had several "real" conversations where I'd tell jokes or stories and ask her for book recommendations, then start reading that book. I was getting praise.
It would really ramp up. Then the day of the date they'd mysteriously have to work a double because someone called in at work. Or they got sick. Or had a headache. One woman had a kid, and three times in a row the ex-husband failed to take the kid on his day with it, which was apparently her only source of babysitting, so I got three cancellations before I took the hint and stopped asking. I got it into my head that they were giving themselves cold feet by building up what they thought were too-high expectations "Shit, I let slip that I like this guy a lot and now he's going to expect sex on the first date, better cancel to be safe." One time I had plans to meet someone who was moving into the city soon but visiting for the weekend; it was going to be a chill sunday evening at a cocktail bar. Then she asked to move it to saturday night. It turned out she was out clubbing or bar-hopping and wanted to meet up at such-and-such spot in the nightlife district, which struck me as hookup-y (she was recently single). I wait for her at the venue she indicated, get a vague text message or three from her, then abrupt silence, leaving me sitting there like a jackass on a saturday night surrounded by happy couples. The next day, I get an apology, something about her getting nervous and asking if we were still on for that night. I told her to fuck off.
This exact scenario happened again with someone I met while driving Lyft on the side; she was hispanic, so the whole ride it was like someone had a gun to her head telling her to keep talking; I'm just being my normal mildly-charming self, I'm not trying to hit on a 20something passenger. Then after I get a message in the app from about a lost phone; there was no lost phone of course, just her phone number in the notes along with a bunch of hearts and kissy-faces. Then I get paragraphs from her about how hot I am and the stuff she likes doing to guys. (I keep my replies non-explicit). Then the day of the date "Just so you know I hope you're not expecting sex because I'm on my period."
As far as I can tell, women think men are terrified of periods and mentioning it is trying to get the guy to cancel so he can be the bad guy (Who Only Wanted One Thing). If this tactic fails, they just escalate to ghosting, like she did on the day of the (stroll at the park) date.
I should mention here that I generally don't ask for high-pressure dates that imply a hookup; my highest aspiration is to make out with them at some point, maybe heavy over-the-clothes petting. Drinks on a weeknight. Comedy show. A walk in the park. Free live music on a weeknight. Tacos. Sometimes I'll provide two or three options for a date that each have different connotations, so she can pick the vibe and how likely it is to get intimate. Her picking live music of an evening over coffee of an afternoon is a useful signal.
All these little stories aren't exceptions, they're the norm. 90% of my arranged dates never actually happen, and I don't have very many arranged dates. Maybe one date actually happens every two months, wherein the woman is way fatter than her photos indicated, and I get a bunch of compliments about how decisive I was in asking her out and proposing an actual plan for the date when most guys just say "IDK, watever u wnt 2 do."
Oh, yeah. Hearing any woman talk about her experiences dating is infuriating to me; guys who start conversations with "Hey," or pressure them for sex, or ask zero questions. All things I don't do, and don't expect praise for, and if I did boast about not doing I'd get the "what do you want, a cookie? All that stuff is the bare minimum, ugh, typical Niceguy entitlement" response. I'm apparently just so much nicer and respectfuler and thoughtfuler than other guys, but also completely mediocre and sub-par and don't stand out at all and just about everyone is better than me, because these chicks are turning up for dates with someone.
My interactions with women via text become more and more begrudging, I offer less, don't bother to make jokes or give compliments, I just propose a time and place. My number of arranged dates doesn't change, nor does the rate of flaking/ghosting, so it seems what I say has zero effect.
Back in april I opened up Hinge after not touching it for months, saw I had one like, and sent the bare minimum of communication to arrange a date. She was plain-looking but not fat. She laughed at all my jokes, after a two-second delay, the time it took for her to realize what I'd said had been a joke she hadn't got. Everything I said went over her head. She drank a lot of vodka-soda, which I wound up paying for too many of. To this day, I don't remember anything she'd said to me, she left that little of an impression. We kissed a bit. A week later, we went out again, and every place I tried taking her to was closed despite their hours indicating they weren't closed, I was bored out of my skull, and the whole experience just reminded me of how much I missed Maggie, who I could sit for hours just listening to, who always said something unexpected or insightful, who'd catch fireflies with me and do weird bedroom roleplays and encourage me to write more. Someone who I was just in awe of, as a person. We met at a D&D table while she was still married; when I put out a public call for help moving, she turned up on my doorstep, recently-divorced. I distinctly remember the last time I was happy; October of 2019, right before she left me to go back to her abusive ex-husband.
I uninstalled Hinge.
I've lost a lot of weight over the past six months, I'm now under 200lbs. I'm a quarter-inch shy of 6ft. I'm apparently handsome. I'm a bartender, I've done stand-up, I'm an accomplished Dungeon Master, I can hold a conversation and be charming. I dress well. A guy friend said "I don't see how you could have any problem dating, dude, look at you." I know he was trying to be encouraging, but hearing it it just crushed me inside. I get less interest from women now than I did when I weighed 240lbs. Part of this is that I just became less outgoing over the past two years, because when I would try, I'd just have experiences that made me hate people. Women would start conversations with "Men are all such trash, amirite? Such-and-such media is So Queer, so-and-so film is Incel, what are your Pronouns? Astrology, Gaza, Orange Man, there's too many white people around here, I'm neurodivergent and asexual." The other week, some woman I'd spoken to before and been shot down by came over to me at my local bar and inserted herself into me and my friends' conversation, talked over both of us, then said she was going back over there, I could come join her if I wanted to. "There" was over by the guy she had come to the bar with. I didn't take her up on it, few things disgust me more than a woman flirting with me when she's already on a date with someone else.
Over a month ago, I tried going to speed dating. After the event, three of the cuter women I'd talked to were all chatting together and pulled me in. Apparently I was the most normal, non-creepy guy there who'd been the most fun to talk to. Some other guy had gotten handsy with all three of them, apparently he was a frequent flier at these events. I didn't match with any of them. Even when I'm the best guy in the room, I'm not good enough. At least this speed dating service doesn't require proof of vaccination or mandatory pronouns like that other one did, the one I got banned from for not writing down pronouns on my nametag.
Last week, I tried going to a Singles Board Game Night. There were 15 people there when there should have been 30+, the gender ratio was almost 2:1, and the only games on offer were Uno and Jenga. There was an older bro-y guy who did corporate sales who immediately started mechanically interacting with me, bought me a drink, warming me up, I recognized all the rote Networking behaviors. Turned out he was the organizer's boyfriend, and he was the designated wingman for the night, tried to get me to interact with an unfortunate-faced asian chick with zero personality who ignored me, then stopped talking to him when she realized he was a plant. I had brought Boss Monster, started taking out the cards, someone asked me about the game. I began explaining the premise, one girl got distressed when I said the goal was to "Kill adventurers," I looked around at the glazed expressions on the people around me, and just silently packed it back up mid-sentence and went to the bar. I do not belong here. Designated Wingman bothers me again, says I'll do great here, I have hobbies, I just have to bE mYsElF. It was an effort of will on my part not to blow up at him. Another woman arrives, wingman says "Ohh, there's one, do you want me to get her over here. Nah, you probably don't like black chicks, do you?" Before I can say that I actually don't mind them I just have bad experiences with the hipster ones who are way too into their Blackness, he's doing his bit on her. She's smart enough to notice something's off and is asking him if he works there or something. I lean in "He's a plant, he's trying to be everyone's wingman, just talk to me for a minute and he'll move on to someone else." We talk for a bit, I try to not be flirty, she's surprised that wingmaning is still a thing, I wind up explaining the theory behind it and why it doesn't work regardless. She's smart, but also not flirting with me, I suspect she's a therapist and switched into session mode. Some people have left at this point, making the gender ratio three to one, all at one table where the two remaining cute girls are where they've been all night, hedged in by a crowd of guys (all of whom are the most generic motherfuckers you can imagine). She gets me to join the table, where she sits down so the fattest woman in the room is between me and her, who is also black, so I suspect she herself is wingwoman for her fat friend. I look at the woman next to me, who's heavier than me, look at the Uno cards in front of me (I don't know how to play Uno). I look at the table with it's 3:1 gender ratio. I look around at the shitty bar basement private area with the too-loud generic club music, and the dudes in polo shirts, and I leave.
I have a few post-weight-loss photos of myself now. I could reinstall Hinge. But the prospect of going back to getting flaked on over and over and over and over and over just twists me up inside.
It sounds more like you have a regional culture problem than a dating app problem. Have you ever considered moving to someplace where the women like fishing, camping, and complaining about abortion?
No, because I've lived in places like that and there are literally no single women there, and I'm not interested in fishing or hearing anyone complaining about abortion.
Fair. I do think most people end up having to listen to their partner complain about politics a bit, whatver their cultural constellation of political complaints happens to be. What is your preferred subculture?
People will talk politics. Unfortunately, too many of the people I encounter regurgitate political slogans at each other as a form of social interaction, and I keep getting the urge to offer my actual opinion, which is typically not the Party Line.
My preferred subculture is Old Geek.
Ah, yeah, I do think that women are still wildly outnumbered in geek subcultures, even though it's not so socially damaging as it was, mostly just what people are drawn to, I think.
I'm not sure about the political sloganeering. I don't much care for it, but also y husband and I often slide into complaining about culture war stuff from our respective message boards. My mom was always listening to conservative talk radio in the car as she drove us places (literal Rush Limbaugh), but I suppose it's a good sign if you offer your actual opinion, and she reciprocates without too much moral indignation? Almost my first conversation with my now husband was him criticizing the president of Georgia, who had made a program I joined and liked, and me being irritated about it, because I was grateful for the opportunity. I'm a bit confused by whatever current feminism is going around, but sometimes I read conversations here, or have encountered very conservative families, and have some sympathy. I'm not sure where the thoughtful centrist women are looking for men these days, unfortunately, but it seems like the where is probably the bigger question -- it doesn't seem to be on dating apps, and they're also concerned and frustrated about not having an obvious place to meet good men.
Well, the problem seems to be that a huge proportion of the women in geek subcultures have become woke leftists who view straight men as defective gay men. They snarl and seethe at anything and everything.
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If you are autistic I think this is critical information to understand your situation. You're probably not the standard guy, so the standard woman on dating apps is not into you, and you're not interested when she does show up.
I would recommend doing the trick 'every app is a dating app'. Instagram obviously, but linkedin, X, pinterest(?) or any other app where people genuinely interact.
Figure out what you're interested in, and if it's 100% male-centric, find the closest connected interest that [some] women would actually be interested in talking about. If you're obsessed with history, find yourself an art history woman.
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The solution is simple, grasshopper.
Now a couple of safety warnings
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Congrats on the weight loss. I second another poster and encourage getting into lifting more. Not so much for dating as just feeling better overall.
You are taller than I expected based on some of your past dating posts. I assumed you were getting typical short guy treatment from the apps, but I would figure (wrongly, it seems) it wouldn't apply to someone who could plausibly claim 6'.
Your woes remind me of my brother's, although he had fewer flakes to deal with. He went on many dates and most were so terrible that I wish they had been recorded by hidden camera. He was making $$$ and living just outside a decent-sized city with a weak economy, so I figured that plus being in shape, 6', and handsome enough would work wonders. Not at all. Every PMC woman expected him to be a frequent world-traveler and outdoor sport enthusiast to an extreme level (how exactly all these women were affording their jetsetting outdoor lifestyles remains something of a mystery since they all had jobs paying far less than his), and the non-PMC women were unbelievable train wrecks. I don't know if it applies to Chicago, but some places are just have terrible dating scenes (or at least only terrible candidates download the apps).
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I can't see any big difference between your approach and my own, and the closest I've come to being stood up was when I arrived at the agreed place, texted my date to let her know I was there, and she texted back with something about how she was busy, and had forgotten, and it was late, and she had an early start tomorrow, but she'll grab her coat and meet me for one quick drink anyway. Maybe it's the extra quarter inch of height that does it.
More often it was myself trying to back out of a date that I inadvertently set up by messaging women I wasn't interested in while I was drunk and the brakes were off, or women I talk to where we have a great rapport online but who live too far away for meeting up to be feasible. All the same I'd never flat out stand them up or ghost them.
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You know, sometimes when I read accounts of dating by other men I feel like I'm reading text from an alternate universe.
That goes for the successful ones as well as the unsuccessful ones. First dates that end in sex are as strange and alien to me as a first date that ends in a proposal of marriage. I don't know that I've ever been on a first date where sex afterwards seemed countenanced, like something that would even make sense in the context. First dates in my world are a "getting to know you" kind of experience, like "is there chemistry here, can we have a conversation that we enjoy together?" Generally, they've ended with a warm hug and a promise of future engagement, typically one that has either gone forward or been closed off by my own choices. I've never kissed someone on a first date. It's just never seemed to be the appropriate thing to do, a reflection of what the date was about. The second date is where you kiss them romantically under the stars. My romances have been slow burns. Good burns. But slow burns.
Actually, I've never paid for a woman's drink on a first date -- but I'm more of a coffee shop kind of guy, and the one time I offered to buy ice cream for someone on a third date they declined it, and then bought me a soda at the end. Wining and dining is not really my style, and I can't say that anyone I've dated has ever expected it to be.
I do recognize things in your history that I've experienced. I've been stood up before. The "Excited to see you tomorrow!"/BLOCK chain is very familiar. But that's also a minority of cases in my experience. Far from 90%. Most women I've dated have shown up. Some definitely haven't. And I've had a few times where I cancelled last minute based on nerves or disinterest -- I'm not proud of it, but I've done it. People are flaky in general, and I've been stood up more times by friends I was supposed to meet up with than by dates I was supposed to see. But the shape of what you're describing is very real to me, and I believe you. The fact that it's almost everyone has to sting a lot, especially after the feeling that they projected such excitement about you.
I want to emphasize the word "projected." What strikes me about your accounts is how front-loaded the excitement in your matches and connections have been.
after texting someone is, to put it politely, an extraordinary amount of certainty about someone you haven't met. They don't know enough about you to think you're "so funny," or "so sweet" -- you said some things that were funny or sweet, but so little of a person's personality comes through text that it strikes me these women were perhaps more excited by the idea of you than by the possibility of you. I mean that: sometimes the mental image and validation of a handsome, 5'11", funny guy who gives you compliments is more compelling than the possibility of a future with him. The first date is where the mental image has to meet reality. And also, where your mental image of her does, and for some of these women that might have been the scarier part.
Sometimes the problem with being a bartender is that a bartender gets left at the bar.
You suggest something close to this yourself:
And yeah, I think you might be right. Sex on a first date is pretty intimidating, particularly for women, and it does sound like many of these women felt that was within the realm of possibility, including on her side, and those kinds of stakes are scary, even if it's never been your intent to project them. But for many women even "heavy petting" sits on the "sex" side of the ledger.
When I think of the times I've been cancelled on last minute or stood up, almost all of them followed the development of real sexual tension or body-forward flirting (hence, no first dates with sex). When I think of the times I've had a pleasant first date, almost all of them followed personal curiosity, interests-work-and-hobbies conversation, and warmth. What stands out to me in your account -- and again I can't see all these situations in their entirety, I just see how you describe them -- is that your engagement with these women, on both sides, is almost entirely unpersonalized. "I get paragraphs from her about how hot I am and the stuff she likes doing to guys" is, like, the most generic sense of flirting possible. Nothing in that was about you, about anything unique to you, about something that would plausibly make someone specifically want to see you, and not Unidentified Male #9.
And, of course, "the bare minimum of communication to arrange a date" is not exactly a personalized level of flirting, either, and neither is generic "I am a Charismatic Man" banter. I know this is a degradation of what you've done before, and it must get so exhausting putting personalized and thoughtful messages out there when the world sends you so little back. But there are costs to the degradation, because like a coin flip or hiring a lawyer, past results do not guarantee future outcomes, and every new person could be the one who deserves your best.
All this is part of the reason, by the way, that women talk about "love bombing" as a problem, and why many are highly suspicious of "you're hot" sexual compliments as a flirting strategy. Both flirt without really seeing the person first. "Hot" describes someone as an interchangeable sexual commodity that can be dropped at a moment's notice ("just actually go on a date with the hottest guy out of the five(+) who've asked you out" is an analysis of this phenomenon from the male side), and "you're so sweet and funny and amazing and wonderful and I'm soooo excited to see you," to someone you don't know (or barely know), almost by definition can't be based on a fully accurate experience of reality -- it has to be based on a projection.
Projections can be well-intentioned or ill-intentioned, but they aren't a good foundation for a relationship that can take root and grow. The seed that falls in shallow earth sprouts quickly, but is soon scorched and withers.
I don't know that you're responsible, entirely, for the outcomes you've had. None of us are. And your experiences do strike me as a string of bad luck.
But I do notice some things about the way you describe your dating history that stand out to me.
The first is that you actually seem to have had a few good experiences, but you have some reason to describe them as bad. A woman goes on a date with you every few months, but she's "way fatter than her photos indicated," she compliments you for your decisiveness, and you treat the date as though it's nothing. Not even, "attraction isn't there, glad I found out," but "too fat." I guess it's hard for me to understand the visceral disgust a lot of guys express for fat women; I can understand the lack of attraction, but the disgust is hard to fathom. I've been on good dates with fat women, and bad dates with thin ones. And even when the attraction isn't there, I feel good that I got out of the house and got to talk to someone who was interested in learning more about me.
Another time, a woman who laughs at all your jokes, kisses you, and agrees to a second date gets described as "plain-looking but not fat", not getting your jokes, leaving no impression, and "being bored out of [your] skull." You realize this is kind of a jerky way to describe a woman you went on a date with, don't you? You didn't even explain how the second date, the one where everything was closed, ended! You pivot in your retelling immediately to your ex, almost as though this woman, who genuinely did more in your telling than 90%+ of women to show interest and treat you with respect, never even deserved the closure of being described fully in the time she chose to spend with you.
The personalized-vs-generic dichotomy shows up here, too, of course. The feelings you had for Maggie seem like the real deal. "Someone who I was just in awe of, as a person." She doesn't get "plain-looking but not fat," she doesn't get "pretended to get my jokes," she doesn't get a story about buying too many drinks on your tab. Maggie's the only woman in your story who appears as more than just "gender/parenthood status/attractiveness/BMI." Your feelings for her were personal, embodied, not generic, not simply erotic charge. And you didn't meet her for vodka-sodas or "music late in the evening," you met her, married, at a D&D table, possibly the least likely place to meet someone you'd fall in love with.
It must have destroyed you when she left, and I'm so sorry.
I keep thinking of the essay Scott wrote on LessWrong about how people self-select so profoundly that sometimes their experiences of the world are almost irreconcilable.
I believe in your experience of the world. And I believe a lot of things about men's bad experiences with women -- I've seen shades of game-playing, inconsistency of interest, shit testing, the works, enough to believe they're real, and the flap of a butterfly's wings would expose me to a lot more of it.
In some ways, I feel a bit like the feminist Scott describes in the article: "The woman I quote above mentions that she’s a feminist who believes discrimination is a major problem – which has only made it extra confusing to her that she never experiences any of it personally." (I guess for me it's not a never thing, but the ratios are off.)
I also need you to believe in mine, because mine is the evidence that yours isn't the only kind of experience you can have with women.
Sex on a first date genuinely confuses me. Heavy petting on a first date confuses me. Agreeing to meet someone in the middle of a Saturday night out confuses me. Receiving paragraphs of explicit sexual texts from a woman I met in passing confuses me. I don't disbelieve you. But it does feel like our worlds might as well be alternate universes.
(I'd say tending bar confuses me, but I grew up in an evangelical teetotaler household, and still even after leaving the denomination that preached against alcohol, I still don't drink but once a month, if that.)
This isn't disapproval, necessarily. But it's confusion, like being handed a dessert menu when reporting for jury duty.
And it's temperament, the same way I can't go to bed before 2 AM and am so resistant to nap that my father had to pick me up from preschool before naptime. I'm wired for slow burns, and I'd be wired that way in any culture, under any incentives, against the gradient if it has to be.
I think you're wired that way too, and I think your own post proves it.
Run Maggie through the hunter rules. She was married when you met her. There was no flirtation window, no escalation timeline, no enthusiastic messaging to evaluate. A system designed like clockwork to convert matches into notches would have filtered out the one woman who it sounds like you genuinely loved. You didn't run her to ground. She turned up on your doorstep because of who you'd been at the table for months. You don't grieve a "plain-looking but not fat" woman with a ranking out of 10 for five years, you grieve a person. Everything in your post says your actual type isn't a body specification; to use your own words, it's being in awe of someone. Which means the hunt was never your game, and becoming a better hunter won't fix your problem.
But look at who you've been pursuing, and how.
A woman who dropped, unprompted, paragraphs about "the stuff she likes doing to guys" -- but obviously didn't have the courage to say anything to your face, an unstable interaction from the moment she used a fake lost-item report to turn a passing encounter into explicit fantasy. A date you can't remember a single sentence from, despite there being a second one. Women who appear in your own retelling as a weight, a look, a rating, a political vibe, because that's genuinely all that was ever exchanged.
You're seeking the most personal thing that exists in the least personal register that exists, and then you're experiencing the interchangeability, and its attendant disposability, as betrayal.
But I understand why the personal angle might hurt, too. I think I recall you mentioning another girl in an older post, the one who kissed you on her birthday and got very mad at you about it. That seems like the only time in your recent history where you got close to the kind of feeling you had for Maggie, and then everything came crashing down. This strikes me as a time when, maybe, there was some level of miscommunication, mis-signaling, that caused you both distress. Maybe she ended up perceiving your kissing as a physical escalation designed to drive more physical escalation, reading your desire as predatory before reading your love as real, because of the implication. Or maybe she was just inconsistent, or her own flirtations with asexuality made her confused about her intentions as much as yours.
Maybe Chicagoland is like this. I come from Jesusland; Peace be with you. And I do wonder, just a bit, if the differences in culture explain a lot of the divergences in our accounts. Most of the women I've dated have been Christian in background, even if presently secular, and more than a few have come from rural or small-town backgrounds. Casual sex was not a big happening at my school, though I heard about some such reputations later on, and when I went off to a major party school for college, I was struck by how different the vibe was romantically and sexually. And it was there that I first encountered the game-players, and one woman, in particular, who insisted after a first date that she "wasn't really ready to date right now," and then followed this up, two weeks later, by inviting me to her dorm and seemingly expecting some kind of a move. I don't deliver escalation to the inconsistent, and if you're not really ready to date, I'm not really ready to fuck. I'm not a booty call.
My own "why are all the women like this?" experience is I have a strange penchant for pulling the inexperienced, from my teenage years (where this is statistically the norm) to adulthood, and if all of my dates had a common theme it would be "introverted, doesn't get out much, haven't dated much before." I can only imagine that whatever unconscious vibes I broadcast have something to do with that, though it's hard for me to see how, or why.
This is wild speculation, so take it with a grain of salt. But I wonder if part of your unconscious self-selection, the part neither you nor I can see from your posts, is that your vibe broadcasts something you're not actually pursuing.
You're a bartender. You've done stand-up. You dress fashionably. You're handsome, you've lost weight (and things have gotten worse since then!). Your default register is charge, banter, performance, charm. That register reads, to a lot of women, as sexual pursuit, which would explain the strangest pattern in your account: women preemptively negotiating sex with a guy whose actual ceiling is making out.
That would explain the period texts, the "hope you're not expecting anything," the nerves, the hookup-coded nightlife meetups. Those women were responding to an intent you say you don't have. If that's right, it's the most fixable problem in your whole post, because nothing about you would need to change except the signal. You're not broadcasting "looking for another woman like Maggie." But by your own account, that's the only broadcast you've ever actually meant.
It might be worth one experiment before you write off the apps. Run the D&D table version of yourself inside Hinge. Answer the weird prompt, ask the question only she could answer, don't propose a date until you're actually curious about a specific person. And if curiosity never comes, don't propose one at all. See if genuine warmth or personal curiosity exists for you in text. It might not. But you've never actually tested it. You've been testing charm, which is a different vibe altogether, and it's not the one that gave you Maggie.
We went to live music at a bar, I put my arms around her for a while. She kinda stood there passively. The date ended with her getting on her train and never speaking to me again, and me $75 poorer.
You're advising me to penpal more. This seems like bad advice.
That just seems like a bad idea for a second date in general. You're still trying to get to know the person; the last thing you want is an event where you stand next to each other and have to scream to be heard, if you're even supposed to be talking at all during these things.
This was after I realized she wasn't much for talking. It's called a date with a boring person.
Then why did you ask for another date? I can understand not having many options and wanting to give someone a second chance, but it seems like you were setting yourself up for failure by intentionally sandbagging. If you don't want to talk go miniature golfing or do something else where pauses in conversation aren't uncomfortable.
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I'm not in Jesusland, but my experiences are similar to yours, so I don't think it's a regional thing. I think it's that there's two general groups which I'll call Type A and Type B. Type A people generally are who they say they are, are generally honest, and are trying to make meaningful connections. There is always going to be a certain amount of bad behavior and game playing, but it's minimal, understandable, and manageable. Looks are obviously important here, but personality, intelligence, and compatibility are more important factors in overall attractiveness. Aside from certain ingrained cultural norms like the guy proposing the first date, etc., men and women tend to act similarly. Type B people see relationships and dating primarily as an extension of some kind of seduction game. Hookups are common, cheating is common, suspicion is common, possessiveness is common. Physical attractiveness is an overriding factor. The men are aggressive and the women capricious.
Generally speaking, people date within their lane. If a Type A guy sees a Hinge profile of a Type B girl, there are subtle hints that direct him to the skip button, and if this system fails and he sends a like anyway, there's a backstop in that the subtle hints on his profile will prevent her from matching. If the mismatch goes any further, and a Type A guy ends up on a date with a Type B girl, it usually ends up in the "Funny Dates from Hell" story archives. The problem arises when Type A people inadvertently send Type B signals and invariably end up on a tragic series of dates with Type B people, causing them to become disillusioned with the process. With men it usually results in their friends remarking that they sure know how to pick 'em. With women it results in a series of loser boyfriends whom their male friends never accept into their circle and who snigger at him behind his back. With men it's easy to write this off, at least for a while, because there's an implication that the guy made a conscious decision to prioritize sex over anything else, though after a while people start to suspect that he might just have bad luck. Women get more sympathy, usually along the lines of "She's such a nice girl; it's a shame she always ends up with such bad boyfriends. If only I knew a nice guy to fix her up with."
I blame bad dating advice. By which I mean most dating advice. Romantic problems aren't exactly uncommon, so there's a vast universe of books, internet articles, Reddit posts by unqualified morons, and other stuff out there, in addition to what is reinforced by TV and movies, that purports to reduce romantic success to a series of easy-to-follow tips. While generalized advice isn't necessarily bad, once you start closely following the rules of the game, the only people who are going to follow along are those who know how to play. And Type A people don't play games. This may sound odd coming from my because I gave out Hinge advice a while back, but Hinge itself is an app and totally is a game and I can tell you how to filter for and attract Type A people. But I made it clear then that once she walks through the door and sits down, you're on your own. At that point you're no longer trying to outcompete some guy on an app but you have her undivided attention, and it's all on you.
Consider the below advice that the guy should send sexualized messages between setting the date and the day of, and to unmatch if a favorable response is not received. Now, I have neither sent such messages nor received any, but I have a lot of Type A female friends who have and say it's a turn-off. I have no desire to send such messages, and if I were to receive one I'd consider it a red flag. If I already had a date planned I wouldn't cancel it due to principle, but I wouldn't go into it with high expectations. Then again, I'm probably already filtering for women who wouldn't send unsolicited sexts to strangers. It's worth keeping in mind that women can follow similar rules if they want to. In fact, there was an entire movement around it in 1996 called The Rules, a thin book of dating advice by two women who would tout its supposed advantages on Oprah and other such shows.
Though the authors never stated it explicitly, The Rules were driven by a strong undercurrent that feminism had been a disaster for women's dating prospects and that what was needed was a good dose of old fashioned traditionalism.
The truth is that nobody is qualified to give advice on how to obtain a long-term relationship. If you're looking for a wife, would you take advice from a guy who's been married five times? If your goal is to simply find a wife, then this guy is evidently good at convincing women to marry him, but few would say that he's any good at relationships. A lot of people on this site would find that idea appealing. What they wouldn't find appealing was the actual rules themselves. They suggested that women should play hard to get, that men should always pay for everything, and that women should basically play all kinds of games designed make the guy practically beg for their attention and should be prepared to cut bait the minute he got a little out of line. In other words, they're basically the female equivalent of the rules @SSCReader gives below. The book was absolutely savaged by feminists, not only because of its retrograde nature but because it treated men like toddlers who are only interested in a toy that somebody else is playing with.
What both positions boil down to is basically fear. Yes, it's true that the person who is less invested has more power in a relationship, and it's also true that some people don't appreciate what they have until faced with the prospect of losing it. What these sets of rules do, though, is see these things as ends in themselves that are to be exploited. On the one hand you have a guy who is in constant fear that his girlfriend isn't that interested and is on the verge of leaving him. On the other hand you have a woman who is only acting the way she is because she is secretly terrified that her boyfriend will dump her if he finds out she actually likes him. Does this sound like the foundation of a healthy relationship? If rules like this have any value, it's that they prevent interaction between members of the opposite sex who are playing by similar sets. A Rules Girl will never have to worry about the SSCReaders of the world, and the SSCReaders will likewise never run into any Rules Girls. But that's as far as it goes. Intelligence isn't reverse stupidity, and landing the kind of person who has nothing better to do than sit by the phone waiting for your call isn't exactly triumph.
Actually my wife is Type A girl. My "rules" only really work for online dating and are there to short circuit the sheer volume of matches and interest women get, to ensure you are able to keep interest romantically not platonically. No sexting involved just sexually charged flirting. Those are very different things. If you were aiming just to hook up you wouldn't need those rules at all.
Its only useful for a Type A man trying to keep the interest of a Type A woman who is getting potentially hundreds of matches and messages.
I was dating to find a wife not to hook up and indeed succeeded. I aggressively filtered out women who were not seriously looking for a long term relationships (Type B's in your parlance I guess).
I would give very different advice for non online dating. Its a high volume platform by nature, so you have to adapt. Someone who is not messaging you much when interest and mystique should be at there highest right at the start is sending you a signal.
All i can tell you is that almost all my dates were with what you call Type A women. Witty sexually suggestive flirting works pretty well.
I was reluctant to call you out by name specifically because I didn't want to make any untoward implications, so to the extent I may have done so, I apologize. With that out of the way, yes, I understand you're competing with hordes of other guys on these apps and your general desire to not waste your time pursuing women who aren't really that interested. I'm not going to criticize anyone's personal strategy if it works for them. My concern is more that the OP presented a specific problem and, from the 10,000 foot view at least, following your advice doesn't do anything to address the problem. The only one that does is telling him not to overmatch, which is fine on its face, but if the problem is with his selection criteria that's not going to help much. For example, if he's swiping primarily based on hotness, telling him to be more selective just means his match totals will go down and he'll have the pleasure of having hotter women flake on him.
So I'm dubious of everything you say after that because, if you are indeed only dating Type A women, then they probably would have shown up for the date regardless of what you did. As I mentioned in another comment, I never had a problem with cancellations, but I have no tricks to offer other than "assume people will show up to things they agreed to show up for". Beyond that, I understand that you aren't willing to waste your time with people who aren't showing a ton of interest, which is fine, but I don't know that it works as a universal rule. Maybe they aren't that interested. Maybe they aren't that interested now, but will be once the guy they're talking to the most stops talking to them. Maybe they've been having bad luck, are burned out, and just aren't checking for messages that often. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I understand that the nature of these apps encourages bad behavior, and I'm willing to give people a little more leeway than I would IRL. The way I figure it, even if I think the chances are slim, while I wouldn't get my hopes up, cutting bait only takes them to zero. But then again, neither of us are complaining about any of this.
Here's the only point of serious contention I have. One of the benefits of online dating is that you don't have to worry about sending the wrong signals. It's not like some girl you meet at a party who ends up friendzoning you because you never showed any explicitly romantic interest; it's abundantly clear to both parties that the only reason you're even talking is because you're looking to date each other. If you're trying to differentiate yourself, suggestive flirting doesn't seem like the way to do it, since flirtatious guys are a dime a dozen. For a lot of them, it's pretty much their entire bag of tricks. I can't find any real data on it, but it's my understanding that the vast majority of guys either don't send messages with likes at all or don't send anything of substance. I have seen stats that suggest that the average message response time for guys is longer than for women. Some women showed little to no interest from the beginning, and I didn't expect much. But of the others, the ones that didn't end up with dates are ones where I wasn't entirely engaged, procrastinated sending messages, or wasn't very thoughtful with them, and they eventually stopped responding. I probably could have converted a decent chunk of these just by putting the work in.
For the record, I select against hotness. I don't waste likes on people out of my league. Or on normies. Actually, fuck it, here's my list of Icks: More than one mention of sports Generic "Travel" Leftist and/or any demands that I also be Leftist The word Intersectional Demands that I be Christian (_______) Energy Guys way hotter than me in their photos. Truecrime (it's just a tone-deaf thing to waste space talking about, the female equivalent of Warhammer Lore Videos. I can just assume you watch Truecrime, and I have as little interest in that as you do in the Dark Angels Legion. Gods, I hate how generic people have become)
The main thing I keep an eye out for is any mention of nature or wildlife, especially bugs. And arts&crafts hobbies.
Three days active now. Zero matches.
I hate to be this presumptuous, but I think I've figured out your problem. When you say "Leftist", do you mean actual political comments or simply self-identification as a liberal? If it's the former I can understand but if it's the latter then you're eliminating about 60% of women right off the bat. Galup studies show that 40% of women aged 18 to 29 self-identify as liberal, but when you break it down to specific issues they identify with liberals over age 30 closer to 80% of the time. I have reason to suspect that women on Hinge are more likely to be liberal, so I think my 60% estimate is in the ballpark. Pretty much all the profiles you describe as being in your wheelhouse are going to be from single women. I have seen very few conservative profiles, and the vast majority of them were generic and involved girls who were aiming for a performative kind of Fox News-style hotness. There were also some who were obvious rednecks, but few of these came across. The number of interesting profiles from conservative women was vanishingly small to the point that I honestly can't tell you if I ever even came across one. I have seen interesting profiles from moderates and apoliticals (people who simply don't list anything are more or less uninteresting by default), but again, these are a minority of profiles, and interesting women are more likely to be liberal.
If you're not dismissing these women right off the bat and are sending likes to them, that also explains the problem. Even if a woman doesn't performatively mention politics on her profile, it doesn't mean that they're not important, or even a dealbreaker. Since you're presumably not advertising yourself as liberal, and distinguishing yourself on these apps is of critical importance, why would any of these liberal women date you when there are plenty of liberal men out there? This is going to be a tough pill to swallow, but, depending on what you're actually doing, your politics are eliminating somewhere between 20% and 60% of potential matches. While it's good to be selective and not overmatch, this one criterion is correlated with the others such that the women who meet all your other criteria are more likely to be liberal.
The bigger problem, though, is that you're actively trying to screen out normies. I looked through your post history, and it appears that IRL you've surrounded yourself with a crowd that is more than a little offbeat. You describe certain character types as people that you come across regularly who, while I may have run into someone fitting the general description from time to time, it isn't often, and never anyone in my actual social circle. And I have a pretty diverse social circle. The criteria you set forth don't sound particularly bad in theory (none of those are things I personally look for), but I don't know how you're actually putting this into practice. My guess is that you're unconsciously selecting for weirdos, and weirdos act, well, weird. The thing about normies is that they act normal. 95% of normies don't flake out on dates, or ask about pronouns, or do any of the things I see you describe. I hate to give advice, but start going after the normies. Don't worry about sports, or generic travel references, or true crime podcasts. You may think these people are boring, but it turns out that they have basic social skills. It sounds like the problem isn't that you're overmatching but that you're being too selective, and at that in the direction of the flakiest cohort.
I wouldn't worry. When I first used Hinge it took about a week to get anything, but after that I was consistently getting enough matches that I stopped looking for new ones. There's a weird feast or famine aspect to it, and while some would attribute that to the algorithm intentionally fucking with you, I think it's to be expected; it would be more suspicious if you were consistently getting the same amount of action. If I were going to theorize, I would suspect that people who have been using the free plan for a while and having success aren't likely to start paying any time soon, so they try to get new users paying early. And the best way to do that is to show them profiles they aren't likely to match with early so they get desperate and start paying, thinking that paying will get them better matches. And in a certain percentage of people, the paying does correlate with getting matches, except they were matches they were going to get anyway, had they waited. But that's just a conspiracy theory that I don't think is true. What is true is that if you make changes to your profile it will give you a little boost. Hang in there for another couple of weeks and see how things go before drawing any conclusions.
Leftist as in specific use of the word Leftist (or communist) in their own prompts, not just listing "Liberal" which is what I'm listed as anyways, I just don't have any political prompts. Normie means sports and mimosas. Normies flake even moreso than "weirdos." My first experience of using Hinge in chicago was a normie who flaked on dates three weeks in a row before I took the hint and stopped asking. It felt like Charlie Brown going after that football.
And once more, its not about liking Truecrime, its about putting that in your dating profile in lieu of literally anything else. I listen to RedLetterMedia and very long film podcasts made by a welshman, an aussie, and southerner, but I recognize that this isn't attractive to the opposite sex and also doesn't usefully define me, so I do not mention it in my dating profile. It's the female equivalent of holding a fish.
Today I passed on a "Marxist Feminist" profile. I don't like/match with anyone who self-describes as leftist.
I realize three days isn't enough to give up hope, that was just an update.
I don't know what to tell you. For what it's worth the women I've dated through the app have all been in their 30s, so whether it's a demographic issue, or a geographic issue, or a generational thing is beyond me. But I find it hard to believe that things are so different that I'd never experienced any of them is beyond me. It's clear that either your profile isn't attracting women who are serious, or there's something off with your selection process. I can throw out suggestions about what the problem might be, but if you keep insisting that what I suggest isn't the problem, then there's nothing I can do to help you.
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Oh no offense taken, I'm somewhat tickled if anything that you think my serial monogamist self was like that. I'm going to tell my wife as soon as she gets home from work!
I married my first wife at 19, and stayed with her till she passed from cancer when I was in my 40's. Then raised my kids to adults then moved to America and started online dating in my 50's. Met my now-wife and don't intend going anywhere else.
I think maybe the disconnect is that while you would hope that indeed by being on Tinder or Hinge or whatever is a strong signal you are both looking to actively date, this does not in fact seem to be the case. So you do have to sort the wheat from the chaff (and the wheat and chaff is different for men and women), lack of messaging interest is in my experience highly correlated with lack of interest in actually dating. There are also many reasons as you point out the woman may not be putting a lot of effort into replying, but fundamentally, to the guy on the other end, he can't tell the difference. So either you must hang on to them all, spreading your attention thin, or move on. You might get lucky of course, but that's not really a strategy.
Like fishing, it might be the fish will start to bite after lunch, or there might be a pike under your boat and they aren't going to bite all day. Given you can't know which, moving on to try and find somewhere the fish are biting is a good option. Unless you are just fishing to drink beer and fall asleep in the sun which is the equivalent of people just swiping for fun with no intention of actually dating I suppose.
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Well, if roystgnr nominated me for an AAQC, I nominated you. While I'm not certain the difference between players and connectors is completely discrete, they probably do cluster bimodally. And of course players aren't immune to long-term commitment for the right person, though I do worry about the foundation that game playing lays for the future of a relationship.
Perhaps that goes to explain my own experiences at the party school. Where, of course, I ultimately met my match (that sounds more ominous than I intended), but not before feeling confused and played by the young woman I talked about in my first comment. When I look back on things, I think she was surprisingly honest, but presumed physical closeness without an invitation of intimacy functioned as one. You could think of this as a shit-test, but perhaps more truly it was a Type-B signal that my Type-A brain read correctly as loading all the risk in my direction, because that's how the Game is played according to the Rules.
On the other side of the fence, one of the strange problems of being a geeky Type-A man dating geeky Type-A women is that, through whatever correlative associations (autism, neurodiversity in general?) drive it, geeky women are often not merely demisexual but asexual. Or they may be confused about their sexuality, which may be a little weird, in the same way in which male geeks are just a little weird.
But an "I'm totally autistic, I have way too many hours in Baldur's Gate 3, my life goal is to pet as many cats as I can, my hobbies include making my own cosplay, I geek out over anime and manga" girl who decides the cutest pic of herself consists of her in a piano-keys themed skirt -- yes I'm thinking of someone I know in particular here -- well, that kind of girl exists, and sometimes she would like a man to have sex with her. (And sometimes girls like that write tentacle porn fanfiction, but we're not going to talk about that right now.) And if Skulldrinker could become legible to her not just as charming bartender but as geeky charming bartender, I'm hopeful.
Often a girl like that is chubby, though. It comes with the territory. "Doesn't get out much, plays video games all day, not outdoorsy, not into foreign travel"... this kind of person would be described as "having a sedentary lifestyle," and the medical literature describes that as a pretty strong correlate of metabolic disorder. The only people I know like that who aren't at least a little chubby have a medical condition or some kind of eating disorder. So it really, really narrows the pool to focus on weight to the exclusion of personal compatibility, and bland dates with thin people who do nothing for you can often be the result.
And yeah, they're often politically liberal. But sometimes not. The more common configuration is politically moderate, doesn't like Trump, cares more about treating people well than solving political problems. Liberal women are what they are, and it is humorous if a little alarming to hear a date say "I would never trust a white man" while she's staring into your white-ass eyes with longing, and even funnier when she subsequently makes a joke about something looking like Trump's hair and then apologizes for getting too political, as though making fun of Hair Force One is more controversial than racial bias.
For what it's worth, I think the tension between Type-A women and Type-B men is what contributes to a lot of the "I'm trying to avoid the redpill creeps" stuff you hear from young women nowadays -- it really is not a fun time to end up attached to a strategically withholding seducer as a basically honest person looking for a meaningful connection.
But the challenge, as always, is that people with a large enough amount of power -- and the attractive, dashing, and beautiful have a great deal of power within their sphere -- are always tempted to play by the rules of the game by which they win, and it strikes me as a real fact about the dating world that the most attractive cohort of people are more likely to withhold and hold out for a 'better deal.' I've never had specific interest in the 'hot girls', but maybe my impression that they're not looking for something meaningful says more about my place in the looksmatch pyramid than any inherent fact about the attractive.
Every piece of relationship advice suffers from survivorship bias. "Just be yourself" became such a big piece of advice for two reasons -- first, that putting on an act, while possible, is extremely psychologically expensive, and if you're trying to reassure someone nervous, telling them to stop looking at themselves from the outside and instead try to inhabit the moment from the inside is a much more fruitful piece of advice that might actually result in chemistry and charisma. And second, because the best and happiest relationships result from connections where "just be yourself" really is the method of making an impression. Someone who finds you charming for who you are is far more likely to find you amenable over the long term, and history is written by the winners.
Unfortunately, women like that who are still single are the sort who made my 20s miserable by constantly complaining that men speak to, look at, or exist near them, and every second sentence they speak makes it clear they have absolute contempt for all the men they supposedly share a subculture with.
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Obviously AAQC, so please forgive my focusing on the only bit that doesn't make sense to me:
One time, decades ago, I had been tempted to "cancel" (early afternoon blind date planned, and I got stood up, then she contacted me to say she overslept and begged to reschedule for that evening), and it wouldn't have been the end of the world personally if I had bailed (near zero chemistry, and there was no way I was going for a second date), but it was still a chance to meet and talk with an interesting new person, not a bad way to spend a couple hours.
I'd just been assuming that these stories of cancellations were due to double-booking - a girl accepts a date for evening X, then someone she thinks is more attractive asks her out for that same evening, and she doesn't want to have to explain why she's busy or risk him not agreeing to reschedule, so she cancels or ghosts on the first guy. Selfish, but not self-destructive. (I'd have wondered if this had been what happened to me, except that my date did in hindsight seem like the sort of person who could oversleep into the mid-afternoon...) I guess "disinterest" would make sense too, if someone managed to throw up a real red flag in between the planning and the date. But nerves? I was a scared little geeky kid way back when (fought the Ur-Quan when SC1 was new!) so "she's throwing me signals but I still can't work up the courage to ask her out" is a painfully familiar idea for me, but I still can't imagine working up the nerve and then backing out!
I came pretty close on my first date with my wife. The only reason I actually showed up was because it would've been a dick move to bail after we had made plans. Otherwise, I was a bundle of nerves to such an extent that I felt like my heart was going to stop, and I desperately wanted to turn back and go home. Obviously I'm glad I didn't.
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This is why if I'm talking to someone and the conversation has reached the point where I'd normally ask them out, I ask them out, even if I suspect that it's not going to work. I could think of worse ways to spend a couple hours than having drinks with an attractive woman, and I don't know that you can really learn too much without actually meeting someone, so even if I'm pessimistic I'll give them a chance in person. I should add that unless I'm really uninterested I will always try to keep the conversation going long enough to get to that point (which isn't that long), for the same reason; ie that it's always worth actually meeting someone. I don't know that anyone's time is really so precious that they can't spare it, and this comes from someone who typically doesn't leave the office before 7 pm. If I have legitimate commitments that make it difficult to schedule things I actually feel bad about it, though I'm not skipping something I've been looking forward to for a first date that isn't likely to go anywhere.
I can catalog exactly 4 times in my life that a Hinge date has cancelled on me. 2 of them were rescheduled right away and went off shortly thereafter. One went off a year later (long story), and one offered to immediately reschedule but I turned her down because I wasn't that interested. There was also one who agreed to a day but not a place before telling me she ended up deciding to move in a couple months and didn't want to waste my time. In retrospect I should have told her that since I already had the night open I was just going to go to this bar anyway and she could feel free to join me, because I think she might have taken me up on the offer.
You never know. I went out with one woman who was figuring on a summer fling before I moved away for grad school; it ended up going long-distance before she moved out to join me. Years later I went out with another woman who was planning to date for only 6 or 12 months before she'd break up for a planned move across the country; our 17th anniversary is this year.
I've done the long distance thing before and I'm disinclined to do it again, if it would even be an option. Eventually it gets to the point where a decision has to be made, and it's not a fun decision to make.
That's fair. It worked out well enough for me under "we'll see each other for 3 or 4 months out of the year, never more than a couple months at a stretch apart" circumstances, and in another case it worked great for me under "we'll see each other every weekend" circumstances (I didn't even think of this one as a LDR, despite us living too far apart to meet up on weekdays, until I talked to someone who complained about a slightly shorter distance), but I've never attempted anything rougher than those. A friend was long-distance with his fiance for a year due to education and work conflicts, I think separated for more than a few months at a time during that, and they're happily married decades later but I know that year was awful for both of them. I also have more depressing stories but all of those feel too personal to tell, even anonymized, behind the backs of the people involved.
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It's a social anxiety avoidance thing, and I've done it for general hanging out, not just dates. I've gotten better at it, and the "regardless of whether it goes well, it's a time to meet someone new" attitude has become more comfortable for me as well.
I guess the nerve of asking out and the nerve of actually going on a date are different. I feel fight or flight the day of a date, like can't sleep, shaking, staring at the clock, extremities going cold because of a rush of blood to the core. One of the two options there, of course, is flight, and "the unbelievable relief of cancelling plans" is a meme among late millennials and zoomers for a reason.
And with online dating, the asking and the going have moved even further apart -- it's much, much easier to say, "Let's go on a date" to a Greece travel picture over text than it is to actually show up, face the risk of awkwardness or embarrassment, and take a chunk out of your vegetative TikTok time to encounter someone who might judge you. I genuinely believe most last-minute cancellations are of this type. Most women simply aren't as strategic as the dual-mating discourse makes them out to be, and the current crop of young people are, by every measurement we can find, more anxious than any other cohort we've measured.
An uncomfortably large proportion of "why is my girlfriend doing this?" behaviors that men often complain about (silent treatment, inconsistency, asking a question like "would you still love me if I were a worm?" and then reacting seriously to the answer, reassurance seeking) are just anxiety behaviors that are painfully familiar to me from the inside. They aren't good, and they certainly aren't healthy, but they're very rarely strategic, and if they accomplish something for the person they do so in the short term, the way all maladaptive behaviors persist. Avoiding long-term beneficial behaviors for short-term benefits is the failure mode of anxiety. Some of our female posters have talked about avoidance being a huge part of young people's socialization problems. That's very much the case.
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My wife and I met online about 7 years ago, which came after 5 years of my trying online dating on and off because I lack the social awareness to avoid being awkward and/or creepy, but am self-aware/self-conscious enough about it to avoid hitting on anyone unless I am unambiguously allowed to (ie, online dating).
We have never officially gone out on "a date", in terms of going out and sitting down at a restaurant or movie and having it be a thing. Both of us are introverts, both of us are frugal, and we lived 3.5 hours away by car, so didn't meet in person for quite some time. We spent several weeks chatting, and then did video calls, and then found some co-op games to play on Steam together. I half-ironically credit the foundation of our relationship to Gloomhaven for being a fantastic game with a ~200 hour campaign. We did eventually meet up in person, but it was 4 months after we had been talking and playing games together and she sent me the address to her apartment and I drove the 3.5 hours there. She's not going to not show up: she lives there.
But this came when I finally met someone who actually liked me and wanted to interact with me, and someone I thought was actually worth spending time with and stepping out of my introvert shell for, after years and hundreds of failed conversations prior to that.
So... I'm not quite sure what advice to give other than "get lucky". If you go through a few hundred stupid people you'll eventually encounter some in the top 1% in terms of mutual likability (you like them more than other people like them, and they like you more than other people like you). But my other advice, which may vary in actionability depending on your hobbies and preferences, is to try to enable yourself to filter out the stupid people with less effort than setting up a date and getting stood up at it. Find someone who is fun to talk to and do things together with online. Write poems, tell stories, get to know each other. Do all the things you're supposed to do on a first date on the internet by typing on a keyboard, and drop anyone who isn't both interesting and interested in you. Maybe even do a video call as your "first date". This is going to massively filter out a lot of people who might be turned off by this sort of dynamic. I consider that a good thing, because I didn't want someone who wasn't interesting and interested in talking to me, and good with words (and spelling and grammar). But if this isn't the kind of person/experience you're looking for then my only advice is to try to figure out other ways to minimize your cost per person. Because it is a numbers game and you are going to have to go through a lot of people before you find someone actually good.
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If it helps any, in my experience Hinge dates aren't worth going on. I was on Hinge for a while, got my share of matches, went on plenty of dates, and they firstly aren't particularly enjoyable, and secondly are not what you want if you're looking for a serious, long-term relationship. I did eventually quit and uninstall the app because it was obvious that the app is not supposed to help you find a relationship, much less a personal connection or even love. It's a device for setting up lots of short-term 'dates'.
You're really not missing much. Long-term relationships are good, and absolutely worth seeking out, but I don't think Hinge will lead you to one.
I never really got the point of complaining about Hinge, or of these apps in general. There are probably improvements that could be made, and there's definitely a gamification aspect of it, but in the end all any app can really do is put you in a position to meet people you wouldn't otherwise meet, in a situation where it's clear that you're both single and looking. People compare it unfavorably to the old dating sites from 15 years ago where you'd get to build a profile with a lot of information and a ton of pictures and get to really dig deep to see if you wanted to talk to someone, but that had its downsides, too. I never used one of those sites, but a friend of mine who did said that the profile effectively became the person, and that it took several dates just to get to the point where you felt like you weren't dating the profile (and vice versa). Hinge profiles seem to provide the right amount of information to make a decision about whether you want to start talking to someone, but leave plenty of unexplored territory for conversation. If you're getting dates but aren't finding them enjoyable, my only thought is that you're not being selective enough.
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I guess you have a not-that-attractive face (perhaps the fat?), and come across as kind of awkward and autistic. Reasons for suspecting you're a bit on the spectrum: (1) you post here; (2) you started talking about "theory behind wingmanning" with a girl.
So, the way to get a girl to show up is probably: to lose even more fat and build some muscle to become more attractive; and to maybe learn what to talk about and what not to talk about, so that you don't come across as awkward and unattractive.
Well thanks, yes I am autistic, but my face is probably my best feature, and I wasn't trying to flirt with her, and she asked me about wingmen.
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Maybe it's time to join a church or something.
I fail to see what relevance that has to dating, online or otherwise. I don't want to hear about how great jesus is any more than I want to hear about how bad orange man is.
So everything points to an issue with your text game between matching and the first date.
I've never had an online date ghost me and here are my 8 simple rules i always followed.
Don't over match, be picky.
If they are not responding promptly, unmatch.
Decide if you are interested after no more than 60 minutes of conversation.
Ask on a date. Don't ask for input, you choose where.
No more than 3-5 days delay for the date. If they hedge unmatch.
Communicate every day up til the date. Flirt aggressively but wittily, You want them hot under the collar. You should have them thinking about you sexually before you meet. If they aren't receptive unmatch. You are dating not finding friends.
Be assertive, on the day of the date, don't ask if they are still coming, tell them you're looking forward to seeing them later so you can see if they can keep up with you, like they have been saying over text.
Promise them you won't have sex with them on the first date even if they beg.
After the date if it went well get their number if you haven't already and call them the next day to arrange a second date. Maintain pressure. This is a hunt, just like your ancestors, you must run your prey to ground. No later than date 3 have sex with them and decide if you want to continue, if so tell them you want exclusivity immediately. If they refuse ditch them.
Do not give a chance for other hunters to snare your prey. Do not give them a chance to get bored. Move quickly. Move with purpose. You are the hunter, and you are valuable. Do not hesitate to unmatch if you are not getting enthusiastic messaging. It won't get better. Cut bait (to mix our hunting metaphor with a fishing one).
Women have huge amounts of choice particularly in online dating so you must be swift and certain and aggressive. Be borderline blunt if necessary.
I was online dating for a year. 15 women, all converted to first dates 13 to 2nd, 10 to 3rd. In all cases I was the one who ended it if i wasn't feeling it. Of those 10 i ditched another 5 after the 4th date, 4 after a couple of months and the 5th is now my wife.
I did a ton of online dating (80ish first dates in a year before I met my now-wife) and I think I had my game pretty downpat. There's just always gonna be flakes, and I know female friends who are terminal flakes in their own online dating escapades. I agree your 8 dotpoints are fine (though 8 is kinda weird but depends your personal social dynamic), but a lot of women are on the apps for egoboost more than they are for actually finding somebody. For what it's worth I was only stood up once, and it seemed like a genuine mistake on their end (they thought it was Sunday instead of Saturday) since we ended up meeting the day after for the same thing.
I do definitely agree that getting stuck at penpal stage is never great. You're either selecting for women who aren't intending to actually do anything, or you're leaving yourself open to get pipped.
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I already do most of that. I don't know what you mean by 60 minutes of conversation, I typically get (scant) replies the next day.
None of the above stops them from flaking, though.
Mentioning not having sex with them sounds like it'd get them all pissy at my assumption of their sluttiness, something something toxicity, something something entitlement.
That explains a lot. With the obvious exception of this sentence, you should probably stop taking advice from strangers on the internet. If you follow a set of rules to attract women, the women you attract will be the ones who play by those rules.
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If you are getting scant replies cut bait. Interest should start high on their part. If they are not communicating freely that an indicator of non interest. Take the indication and move on.
The sex part is about playfully and aggressively flirting so if you have them warmed up and they complain about entitlement they failed your test and unmatch. Be selective.
But look out for mild pushback that is designed to be overcome. Tell them you aren't saying they are easy, just you know you are hard to resist. Be playfully arrogant.
I bet you'll get fewer calls of entitlement than you imagine if you have properly escalated aggressive flirtation.
Remember shit yests are just tests of compatibility and you should have your own bars for women to overcome. If they do not, politely turn them down.
You are in control.
I think all this depends on size of the metro area/prevailing cultural conditions. Some places are just not gonna have enough people to sustain a solid experience.
Yeah, i was about an hour from a large city and I did have to extend my range to include the city.
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Couldn't have said it better.
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Sarker was referring to the community aspect of church moreso than the religious one. Though the former doesn't work super well without the latter, so if you aren't religious then it's true church isn't much of a help. But perhaps there are other community organizations you could join in order to meet people? I have no idea what options exist in Chicago, and they might be just as politicized as the examples you mentioned in your post, but I think those are going to be your main option apart from dating sites.
I tried volunteering to clean up the local park.
It was mostly trannies.
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I've been told that people meet women at church.
How long do you spend texting these women before meeting up?
Well, I don't meet up with them, that's the whole problem, but typically a day or three, with the date itself set within the same week as matching. Two exchanges of messages per day at most.
Also, I thought the problem these days is that too many men go to church and they're all too trad. Also, since I'm a catholic atheist, not really my scene.
Out of curiosity, how many dates have fallen through since 2019 and how many have actually successfully taken place? Is there any possibility that you are giving them the ick in between the time the date has been set up and the date itself?
I don't keep a spreadsheet. 90% cancellations/flakes/ghosting/stood up is my best guess. This applies to people met IRL too. Unless "looking forwards to seeing you today" gives the ick, I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
I think it must simply be the case that you are saying something you shouldn't or not saying something you should. You said there's usually a few days of texting, presumably you aren't just repeating "looking forward" every day.
Asking a question, a picture of whatever thing I'm doing that day, like cooking or walking my dog. One time, a picture of my dog at the beach was apparently so offensive she stopped replying. This was a Wednesday, with a date scheduled for Friday, which obviously didn't happen. I don't send photos anymore.
I don't know what it is I'm supposed to say via text to a person I don't know that will keep their fickle interest for the two days between setting the date and the date happening, especially when they reply to open-ended questions with yes/no/idunno, lol.
As I said, having a long conversation where they start spontaneously complimenting me has the same result as silence: getting flaked on or ghosted.
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"Forward" instead of "forwards" would be a very simple solution if this is indeed the case. Mispelling ick!
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Recurring 'how to fix dating [sites]'
How about a bounty hunting dating site? Kind of like one of these prediction market websites. Is that already a thing?
Person puts up a profile with a $$$ reward for providing h[im] with a date with an eligible mate. Obviously tiered-rewards that are only unlocked under certain conditions. Maximum reward if you actually end up dating, minimum reward if [s]he shows up on the date.
Proposed dates would have to be vetted with a minimum of parameters. For example, while submitting the bounty, if one of the parameters is 'BMI<20', the website should simultaneously indicate how much of the prospective population is available to fulfill the bounty. Then the service would also indicate what an appropriate amount would be for the bounty, given how attractive the target vs recipient is, as a proportion of the population.
One of the issues I have with trying to play matchmaker, is that if I know a single woman, I don't know if she would be a good fit for the guy, and I don't want them to get indignant at me for a rotten deal.
Ideally, with such a service, people who are good at fulfilling bounties will gain recognition, and there will be more trust that they're not just trying to scam or setup the usual ghosting. Kind of like reviews on online sellers.
Step 1: be an attractive girl with a low BMI
Step 2: hire a guy to be your matchmaker
Step 3: the guy manages your dating schedule with the biggest whales
Step 4: PROFIT
I think I recognize this plan. Does the manager also apply violence if the whale doesn't want to pay? And perhaps hold onto the woman's money so she doesn't spend it on foolish things?
No, and he doesn't have to dress extravagantly either. Modern technology has obviated the need for such exploitative forms of workplace interaction in the more upmarket segment of this market niche.
Once again, modern tech has obviated working class job.
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Woah that's intense reminds me of that one tv show based on a Houellebecq novel.
I think faced with such overwhelming circumstances, drastic action could be taken.
If you're looking for more 'interesting' characters, hanging out outside of mental asylums could be the trick. You could also get into the drug dealing business, I hear these guys do well with the ladies.
If that's not up your alley, I recommend systematically engaging in undermining current society.
Malware that shuts down some social media or dating app for a glimpse?
Engineered pandemic to remind everybody of their fleeting mortality?
Marketing some kind of new insecurity and selling the cure?
Something with AI, it really gives a lot of women the ick.
Alternatively you could go to therapy and/or join a monastery.
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Does anyone use Tinder or Bumble where you live?
Its Chicago. I assume they do, I just get even fewer matches on Tinder than on Hinge. I have never, in my entire life, gotten a date via Bumble. I'm also not interested in people saying "Hey" to me as an opener. Hinge is supposed to be the perfect dating app with the most actual relationships that everyone uses and it fixes dating so why use anything else.
Getting unmatched the moment I confirmed I was waiting at the venue, and getting stood up after she changed the day/place, we're both from Tinder.
I think we've talked about Chicago before, but it's a tough city when it comes to dating. If you're looking for a tradwife type (under 300lbs) you're SOL. My strategy for assembling a roster in Chicago was pretty simple: decent photos, signal class/exoticism, hide all hoe-scaring interests, take her to a wine bar near a park on the first date, go "stargazing" in the park after, kiss her, have a line to get her back to your place with a modicum of deniability. If you want a girl who isn't extraordinarily boring, swipe on service industry girls or wannabe art hoes. Establish rapport and then quickly move to date logistics, never talk politics or sperg out, brush aside any of that with jokes.
That's already what I try to do and what my handfull of dates already look like, but, as I said previously, they never actually turn up for the date anymore.
Then my guess is that you're scaring the hoes in your logistics messaging somehow. But, also, women are just inherently flakey, and luck blows hot and cold in all aspects of life. Sometimes it'll be a string of "haha something came up sorrrrry", sometimes you'll get a "lol im so drunk can i just come over" and sometimes it'll be "lol im so drunk can i just come over" and she comes over and loses her hearing in one ear mid-makeout and you have to take her to urgent care at midnight because she has a pierced eardrum. This shit's weird, man, all you can do is dial in things on your end - including uncomfortable reflection on your technique - and then ride the waves as they come.
None of the latter two things you said have ever happened to me.
It's a numbers game, modulated by the attractiveness of your pictures and your standards for looks.
Yes, except that I used to have much less attractive pictures yet somehow women would still turn up for dates before 2020.
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Just give up. I'm sure you can think of things to do with your time that are more enjoyable than romance.
Embracing a life of solitude is something @ToaKraka seems to be serious about, but he should be ignored because it is bad advice for most people, including autists posting on the motte.
I think you meant to post this comment in response to Skulldrinker's comment, rather than in response to my comment.
I was hoping @Skulldrinker would read my comment attached to yours. (Mild) autism in men is usually unappealing to women, so it takes a bit more effort to get in a long term relationship. After a long term relationship is established it isn't a detriment to the woman's satisfaction, so rather than giving up he should just keep trying.
Skulldrinker is a bit mentally damaged by his ideal woman who returned to her ex, but if he keeps at it he may find a better partner.
Specifically, I would reccommend changing his physical location to a different part of the country or another country altogether.
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Edit: Found it, https://www.themotte.org/post/3652/friday-fun-thread-for-march-27/425409?context=8#context
Trying this again here:
A few months (maybe more than a year at this point) ago someone here posted 10 Fermi-estimation type questions (maybe LLM generated?) along the lines of 1. How many cars are there in the world, 2. How many man-made satellites are current orbitting earth, etc. With the goal to guess within the correct order of magnitude, does anyone remember the post or who posted it?
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One of the lesser-talked about aspects of the World Cup is the forced stadium rebrandings due to FIFA's unwillingness to allow reference to any corporate names that aren't official FIFA sponsors. In many cases, this just involved covering up signage around the stadium, although some cases were more extreme.
For anyone who works in or around this industry, is this commonly-accepted practice for anyone outside of FIFA? I can't imagine spending millions of dollars on a stadium sponsorship, and being too pleased with having all my branding covered. While I'm sure there was some sort of contractual fine print that allowed for this, I'd still be pissed.
It also led me to wonder: could this be extended to other sectors of the economy? Say, Google Maps decides not to reference any corporate sponsorships that don't do enough AdWords business, or channel 5 news blurs out corporate logos unless they pony up. Seems like you could quickly fracture the entire landscape of corporate sponsorships.
The O2 in London was called the North Greenwich Arena for the duration of the 2012 Olympics because O2 didn't pony up for Olympic sponsorship. So the IOC, as usual, are engaged in the same forms of obnoxious greed as FIFA.
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This drove me nuts because it isn't "Levi Santa Clara Stadium", its just "Levi Stadium" so the rebranding confused me. To the extent which it matters, but for things like trying to figure out when traffic might go nuts it was a minor annoyance for me until I figured out what was going on.
For me, thé confusion was ‘Dallas stadium’ as opposed to ‘cowboys stadium’(or ‘Jerry world’ as most people call it). Nobody used ATT stadium in casual reference.
I still think NYNJ was the most hilarious.
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I am somebody who is very much intrigued by 00s vBulletin forums and 90s Usenet newsgroups. I know that the rationalist movement was pioneered by Robin Hanson with the Overcoming Blog and Yudkowsky's Sequences around 2006. Where did the proto-rationalists hang out prior to that?
I can't speak about the rationalist community, but growing up with Usenet was wild as were Dialup BBS's. It was the real frontier. You had people openly sharing Ted style manifestos (Bundy or Kaczynski, take your pick), protohacking guides (phreaking, wardriving, whatever) and early tradecraft guides like MIT's lockpicking guide and the Anarchist's Cookbook. There was other stuff too that is pretty much completely relegated to the darkweb nowdays like barely stealthed CSAM. No guardrails whatsoever.
To stumble across all of that as a teenager probably changed my life trajectory to a degree. Just in having an early understanding of what the human mind was capable of in both positive and negative ways.
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The immediate precursor to Overcoming Bias was the Shock Level 4 mailing list, and the precursor to that was the Extropians mailing list. Eliezer met Robin on Extropians; he is cited in Hanson's 1999 "Comments on Vinge's Singularity" page.
For those of you that don't know what a mailing list is, it's basically the ancient equivalent of a subreddit; e-mails sent to the group's address would be forwarded to all subscribers. I'm not old enough to have ever used one; I cut my teeth on internet forums similar to Data Secrets Lox.
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I remember spending a lot of time in the orbit of Eric S. Raymond (ESR).
ESR traces a lot of pre- and proto-rationalist influences here, but they're mostly works rather than communities: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qc7P2NwfxQMC3hdgm/rationalism-before-the-sequences
https://www.lesswrong.com/w/history-of-less-wrong covers the pre-2016 history, including the SL4 mailing list.
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So, what are you reading?
I'm still attempting Taylor's A Secular Age without much progress. Have been reading a lot of Theodore Dalrymple essays.
I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski, by Bill Green, Ben Peskoe, Will Russell, and Scott Shuffitt.
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The Screwtape Letters from C.S.Lewis. Even though wokepedia calls it "Christian apologetic" and I am not a Christian, it is a very illuminating and though-provoking work for me. Written in 1942, but so far I have encountered nothing that sounds out of date.
I mean, it is. It's also wonderfully written, both enjoyable and enlightening.
It is and it isn't. I mean, in some sense it most certainly is, but it's more than that. For one, it doesn't even mention Christ anywhere so far (I'm about half through, and not once), and neither does it discuss any specifics of the religion. It could be as well applied to any deistic religion (and if it didn't personalize God, some non-deistic ones too). I'm not writing it as a criticism, but rather to say the bucket of "Christian apologetic" is way too small for it, it's like saying Hamlet is a "murder mystery". Technically, yes, but...
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Claw of the Conciliator. Really impressive in a way I find hard to explain.
It’s like…I’ve been reading Brando-Sando-styled mechanistic fantasy for long enough that it’s a surprise when characters are out of their depth with regards to the fantastical elements. When Dalinar sees a god you know he’ll try and negotiate, or at least to hit it with a sword. Okay, it’s not fair to pin this on munchkin fantasy; go back to Tolkien and characters only acknowledge the sublime in order to compare it to the mundane. Hospitality like no other. A face more beautiful than any in Middle-Earth. Extraordinary versions of normal things.
Wolfe’s Urth is studded with total out-of-context experiences. Characters see things and have no idea how to fit them into their paradigm. Or worse, they know exactly how they fit in, and it’s not flattering. So the reader will get a confused, alarmed description and remain unsure if this is business as usual or something downright eldritch. Usually it’s the latter.
Makes for a damn good reading experience.
I will echo sarker and Book of the New Sun deserves to be mentioned alongside every great American novel ever written. Possibly the best book written in English between 1950-2000, and it might be the best book of the 20th century.
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The Book of the New Sun is legitimately a masterpiece that probably deserves a volume of similar size for exegesis of all the layers involved.
It's stupid good. Extremely active reddit community on /r/genewolfe
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Gilley's The Case for Colonialism, which I'm finding tedious. I've spent too much time in spaces like this, there's only so much examination of the culture of free speech, or lackthereof, on campus that I care about compared to the object level question.
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Still reading de la Rochefoucald's maxims. A few I took photos of on my phone:
(In recent weeks, a man tried to scam me into letting him use my parking space without paying for it. Another man punched me in the face. For the reasons outlined above, I was far angrier about the former.)
“Absence makes average passions decrease and great ones increase,” I think.
Thank you.
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Wrapped up The Worm Ouroboros. Overall liked it a lot, but not sure that I am interested in the spiritual sequels at this point.
Now on Dostoyevsky's The Gambler. I'm finding it useful to ask Claude about some of the historical context around the Polish-Russian wars. It's not key to the story but there's a few references to it that add a bit of depth. With LLMs it's like having a very knowledgeable friend on call who's read everything about everything and knows how they're related, so I no longer have an excuse to not bother figuring out the references.
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Still on Reverend Insanity. The translation is somehow getting worse. Still hooked. At the current pace, expecting to finish sometime in winter.
It's kind of interesting because you can't tell how much is just the author largely ignoring prose after a certain point and how much is the translator. And then there's the weirdness of the language itself, there's a lot going on in Chinese names that we barely even get to see since 'Feng Jin Huang' is just meaningless to us.
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Can you not run it through an AI for cleanup?
I try to avoid AI outside of work.
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I don't think running a bad translation through an LLM makes much sense, since the LLM may fix bad English but cannot fix mistaken meaning and inconsistencies between chapters.
Running the original Chinese through an LLM has been briefly discussed previously (1 2).
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Dalrymple is like AC/DC in that they only write and play one song with a thousand small variations, but what a song!
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Has anyone managed to switch from "problem solving" mode to "problem setting?"
I've gotten pretty good at solving problems in my line of work, but I find that I end up hyper focused on particular parts of the whole and frequently lose perspective on the overall situation. I work with a lot of people much smarter than me, but it seems that their advantage over me doesn't come from being better at solving a problem that's in front of them but rather from coming up with new projects that significantly improve the overall situation. They seem to have a kind of big picture view that allows them to say "we're missing X" or "we should do X instead of Y" in a way that reframes the problem or picks up on something people were ignoring.
My default suspicion is that these people just have the stuff that I'm missing, but I'm curious if someone here has managed to reframe their thinking along these lines.
sounds similar to the transition from senior software engineer to staff engineer, and at a lesser level from SWE to senior SWE. I highly recommend https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes/ to anyone to see what kind of staff they would be, if your company support you being even better at problem solving and there's a career path for that, "The Solver" archetype is not necessarily bad.
As for the distinction between "problem solving" vs "problem setting", I think it's just opening your mind up to the kinds of problems that can be solved and that one would have agency on, problems are problems no matter whether they are technical, social, or political. https://www.noidea.dog/glue (Being Glue) might give you some insight on the direction of this.
Personal anecdote, I think one moment in which my boss noticed that I am senior SWE and not just SWE was once in a meeting when my boss boss (so my skip) was essentially harshly criticizing someone else, I stepped in and pointed out that the person was ill-equipped to handle the situation, and seeing as there is lack of time and resources to get them up to speed, the problem should be handled by someone else, namely a different senior SWE or me and that we can work on the post-problem docs afterwards. The temperature dropped almost immediately. My boss did a 1-1 with me afterwards and was especially thankful of how I was able to gracefully handle that. This is obviously not a staff-level contribution (it was more just matching the right technical person to the right problem and the comfortableness to speak up), but that's the kind of direction in which I am growing.
Thanks, that guide has a lot of helpful stuff.
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At least in my career, the difference between problem solving and problem setting seems to come down to recognizing that multiple problems are actually one problem, and that the problem in question is usually a political one rather than a technical one.
I mostly recognized that by staying at one place for long enough to catch on. There might be shortcuts.
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I would say that I began my career doing more problem solving, and I try to retain some of that, but I do a lot more problem setting now. Do you have any specific questions?
Not being sure what you're looking for, I'd maybe say, "You can just do things." Nothing is really stopping you from thinking deeply about the "why" of what you're doing. The scope of your thinking may be limited by the number of folks you can influence into working on the problems you think should be set. There are more formal ways to be able to exert such influence (e.g., you're given some sort of formal authority over resources/people who pretty much have to follow the direction you set), but informal methods work pretty well, too (e.g., you persuade others over time that they should pay attention to the concerns you pose, especially as they see examples of how you posed a problem and it led to important results).
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What are some of your predictions for the five years, and why do you think you're going to be right?
Hard mode engaged
I'm confident that low waisted jeans are going to make a raging comeback in the next couple of years. Not only is the cyclical nature of fashion heading in that direction, but the prevalence of GLP-1 products and will negate the unspoken reason that high-waisted mom jeans got popular.
Oh fashion, interesting! I don't think we are returning to heroin chic. It takes a ridiculously low weight to look good in those jeans and think of the horror Ariana Grande got for her weight loss, not praise. I think the ethnic thickness trend of the 2010s (kardashian) has had a permanent adjustment upward (although you are right that GLP has shaved off the plus size can be hot trend, which I doubt many people believed anyway, they were just trying to be "inclusive").
I think the body standard is going to stick at Sidney Sweeney / Sabrina Carpenter for a while. But then I'm a blonde so that could be a self serving prediction. (Not that I follow jeans fashion anyway, I am never giving up skinny jeans for when I care and have boxy (expensive) jeggings.) I in general think that gen-z will be sad they spent their hottest years in beige boxes.
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As per my recent post a big 2008-type crash, possibly conveniently timed for an election, and this possibly leading to my long-predicted downfall of Elon, and tech-libertarianism.
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I think we're going to see the end of suburbia as currently understood as a result of widespread availability of self-driving cars. The built form of suburbia is dominated by parking, and self-driving cars mostly remove the need for car parking near destinations - either your robotaxi drives off and finds another fare, or your privately owned robocar valet parks itself somewhere where the marginal cost of a parking space is negligible.
Assuming that cities can charge enough for road space that we avoid permanent gridlock, city life gets better with affordable taxis and the no-longer needed car parks either turned into human parks or built on. And actual rural living gets better if you don't need to drive yourself on minor roads in the dark. But I don't see who will want to live in the kind of place with a massive sunk investment in what is basically sheds on the edge of parking lots.
People still want 1k+ square feet per person, space from their neighbors, pleasant controlled outdoors, and distance from riffraff.
Suburbanites are literally happier than city people and changing the transportation equation isn't going to touch that.
If anything self driving cars make suburban life more desirable as there is no need to personally drive a work commute.
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As the world is becoming increasingly fragmented and less globalized, we are currently witnessing the end of tech companies with world-spanning monopolies. It just doesn't make sense to give another country that much leverage over you. Instead, every major economic power will have their own OS provider, their own equivalent to word, their own email hosting service and so on.
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I can imagine a big backlash against vaping, with legislation designed to make it harder for children to get their hands on them and heavy taxes on disposable vapes.
I can too, but it's a bit sad to me. My grandma quit nicotine with vapes by tapering down the nicotine over time. To me, it seems like it's on the whole less bad for your health, less bad for your wallet, and can be used for productive ends like quitting nicotine.
Not that I don't believe your account, but I'm curious if anyone's done a proper longitudinal study on the efficacy of vapes as a means of weaning oneself off tobacco. I've known more than one person who bought a vape for this explicit purpose, but after a few pints would inevitably get a craving and buy a box of fags. They'd just doubled up their nicotine intake.
I despise the environmental impact of disposable vapes, there's something profoundly unsightly about seeing discarded chunks of bright plastic on the side of the road. I particularly hate the way they design them to look like toys with rounded corners and bright eye-catching colours, a transparent and shameless effort to make them appeal to children. (Under EU law, cigarettes must be sold in plain standardised cartons using a colour scheme selected by graphic designers as the ugliest in the visual spectrum: by rights, this legislation ought to apply to vapes as well.) That goes double for vape shops themselves, which are invariably garish eyesores rightly derided as one of the most aesthetically displeasing aspects of the modern Yookay. And while Irish people have successfully internalised the idea that it's impolite to smoke cigarettes indoors unless given the express permission of the owner or resident, a lot of people seem to think that this basic common courtesy doesn't apply to vapes. I do not want my flat smelling like candyfloss any more than I want it smelling like John Player, thank you very much.
Doesn't seem like it would be too different this way from patches/lozenges, which I expect have been studied properly given that they are medical-type items?
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I live out in the middle of nowhere. I assume it'll take a year or two to make it out this far.
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The alcohol industry contracts hard, and fast. GLP-1s suppress alcohol cravings as a side effect, Gen Z was already drinking way less.
The college closure wave becomes a rout. Births fell off a cliff starting in 2008, which means the enrollment cliff arrived roughly last year and gets worse every year through 2031.
Young men keep flowing into high-demand, traditional churches while everything squishy keeps dying.
Physical media stages a real comeback beyond vinyl.
How do you think this will work in practice? Will we see renewed interest in Blu-ray or DVD players?
Yes, or just drives to connect to other devices.
I see lots of used / vintage gaming media at our local model / trading card shop.
Even BestBuy has Polaroid film.
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Five years- so I'm pushing to 2032 on this one(we are, already halfway through 2026). By the end of 2032 I predict- Confirmed breeding populations of the black and white tegu in Alabama. New world screw worm is now a continuing problem in south Texas. The NFL tries ad experimentum to add a non-US based team. Sika deer begin to expand around the Chesapeake proper. Oil production in northern south America comes online, stabilizing US gas prices for decades. Lionfish consumption goes mainstream.
I hope the lionfish one comes true, they're delicious and I wish I could get them cheap.
Going mainstream might increase the price.
I suppose in that the whole market might shift up through demand, though it's hard to imagine Walmart selling something for more than Whole Foods (the only place I find lionfish now) does today.
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Isn't each lionfish only about a pound or two? Hard to imagine it would be economical for meat.
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Is lionfish any good? Cleaning them seems like such a pain in the ass that I've never tried.
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You're about six years too late on this prediction.
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Video game industry will continue shift toward mobile and freemium. Movie studios will make deals with short-form video apps for the rights to “micro movies”. Vanilla WoW will remain the best mmorpg of all time. Someone will begin combining porn, lootboxes, short-form video (on the corner of the screen like a minimap) and flavored vapes into one singular video game product (they use Amazon Prime to mail you flavored carts relevant to your video game progression within 24hrs), a Gesamtkunstwerk of vice. Schools will try to teach language in schools not with phonics, but with ebonics, using rap-a-along content.
Article: The Vertical Revolution: How Microdramas Became a Multi-Billion-Dollar Global Phenomenon
I believe Red Letter Media discussed Quibi in one of its videos. I don't remember which specific video it was, but see also Vertical: An Immersive Theatrical Experience.
Article: Activists demand that Black English be pushed on kids in California preschools
Honestly I'm in favor of this. Ebonics has cachet as an ingroup argot that has the psychological function of separating and elevating speakers over nonspeakers. Teaching it to a bunch of white, hispanic, and asian kids will dilute its strength as a signalling mechanism and thereby render its speakers as less distinct from the mainstream.
And also we'll get a sudden upswing in nonblack kindergarteners saying the n word, which will be HILARIOUS.
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I think self-driving cars will become a massive new culture war battleground. Industries that stand to benefit from human drivers (e.g. taxi drivers, Uber drivers etc.) will be relentlessly pushing every story they can find about how dangerous self-driving cars are, and we will see "scientific" "studies" with the headline finding that self-driving cars actually get into more accidents than human-driven cars per mile driven (and then you dig into it and you find that the severity of the accidents in the former case is vastly lower than in the latter). Meanwhile, Waymo et al. (along with car insurance providers) will be relentlessly touting the safety of their own vehicles and pushing stories about other kinds of dangers associated with human drivers (e.g. expect to see a lot of stories about women getting raped or sexually harassed by Uber drivers).
Eventually some city will experiment by rolling out self-driving taxis and refusing to issue any new taxi licenses for human drivers. This city will have a vastly reduced rate of automobile deaths and insurance payouts compared to peer cities, and the battleground will be quietly ceded in self-driving cars' favour.
It's not fully clear to me that self driving cars are a net benefit to the car insurance industry.
It probably is a net benefit at some point in time to insurers, if it isn't already true. Humans are only getting lower IQ in western countries, and smartphone distraction makes driving worse.
Self driving cars can get slowly better with time due to better AI or programming.
But that's why I'm not sure it's a net benefit: insurance provides coverage against risk, if the risk is lowered, the market shrinks. Also, it moves ownership and liability from individuals to companies (ride-sharers, whoever is responsible for the self-driving software) who are more sophisticated and solvent, and have better negotiating power for rates, or might forego insurance altogether (via self insurance).
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I would say we don’t have this self driving car pushback from the groups you speak. A big reason is that no one views themselves as a member of the uber driver union except maybe some semi-legal immigrants. No one views it as a career versus something they just do for money which absolute kills the ability to unionize. Taxi-cabs had medallion investments which 10k or so people viewed as a huge asset to protect and gave them somewhat of a union.
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100% this, and the way they measure this will be the number of incident reports available in some database, where self-driving cars automatically and electronically send a report every time they bump someone even if there is no visible damage, including someone opening their car door into another car parked next to the, while human driven cars only count if there is a police report or insurance claim.
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I very nearly took a job with a self driving car startup a decade ago. After seeing a little about how the sausage was made, I've been happy to live so far out in the sticks that it'll be decades before self driving gets any traction.
Tell me more about this?
The NDA has expired, so what the hell.
The startup in question was heavily funded by a consortium of automakers. Unlike some of the other shops, their plan was to heavily geo fence their operating area and build models for individual cities. They also freely admitted during the interviews that this was never going to work well enough to work on its own, and the bulk of it was actually going to operate via regular nudges from a call center in the Philippines. They wanted to hire me to write the software for that part of the stack.
Some people here are probably going to reflexively say "well that's not a big deal - Waymo has a human fallback too*, but that's not what they were planning. The actual plan was to regularly have call center workers provide feedback and instruction during live rides "until the ML team can catch up". They figured that they could fake it until they made it, and everything would just work out in the meantime.
Jesus. Did they take the playbook straight from Amazon Go? I'm surprised the NDA wasn't longer.
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It will probably be very easy on a long-enough timescale to mostly eliminate driving. Your kids won’t want to learn. Governments will make licensure increasingly onerous. The economics will lead to many people selling their cars and giving up driving altogether. In certain places.
There will also be a geographical and class component here too. Self-driving cars that work well for urban commuters will not reliably serve rural folk with big trucks and cargo towed up on the back. Imagine the city folk who control all the laws trying to make it difficult for move your RV or boat between your house and your cabin. I expect there will be a lot of that.
I'm uninformed about youths these days. How do young men pick up women and go on a date in non-urban areas if not with a car they drive? Call an uber for a multiple pickup? Maybe the uber driver is like a third wheel?
I see. In my time, the girls who met me at a location instead of me picking them up weren't seriously interested in me. Things are different now I suppose. I feel that if the guy picks the girl up the start of the relationship it just feels more normal/correct, it's a sign of female interest and trust in the guy with her physical safety. How times change.
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From the rural perspective, it's all the "city folk" (well, suburbanites anyway) who actually have RVs and boats they transport between the house and the cabin. If anything, it'll be city folk mandating regulations forcing rural communities to spend even more money accommodating them while pricing the locals out even further.
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Hey, you said no politics!
I guess I could buy that in the "everything is political" sense, but what does that leave? Sports betting?
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What's the best way to get bubblegum residue out of trousers? Feeding it back to the antisocial asshole who left it on the bench is, sadly, not an option.
De-Solv-It. Worked on gum in hair, should work on gum in jeans
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I don't know if you can buy it in the UK, but we used to use a product called freeze spray to get gum out of carpet. Try searching for "gum remover spray" on Amazon.
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Goo Gone
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Freezing. WD40. Maybe talc or cornflour.
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I've never met a stain gasoline won't get out.
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Freeze them.
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I'm afraid you'll have to dump them.
I paid 15 quid for them on Vinted. It'll be me, them and a toothbrush I don't miss.
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