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MIRI Researcher Don’t be a Quokka Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE).
Katja Grace posts “date me” document. Asks everyone to share.
I originally posted a similar link in the small-scale-questions thread in response to Tyler Cowen linking to the doc on MarginalRevolution. What I didn’t know at the time is that Katja apparently wants this to be spread everywhere?!?!?
Object-level thoughts: I quite liked it. The document makes a compelling case that will appeal strongly to a certain demographic of men. It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect from “mid-30s Bay Area rationalist woman ready to settle down and have kids,” expanded out into a full dating profile. It certainly caught my attention.
Meta-level thoughts: OH NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING? You can send out something like this to your blog readers. They’ll know how to interpret it, and they’re the kind of people you’d be interested in anyways. You can’t toss it out into the black void that is Twitter and expect to come out unscathed. She even dropped her personal email address at the end. Guess who’s going to need a new Gmail account next week?
Protip: If you are a woman, do not ever put something like this in your dating profile. This will be used as an excuse for some weirdo on the edge of sanity to stalk you.
I feel bad for her getting dragged in the quote tweets, but like, what did she expect? Why, in response to getting a negative reaction, is she intent on spreading it even further? That’s the opposite of what she should be doing. Everyone who would be compatible with her has already seen it.
She can very easily get a partner without resorting to such artifaces, all she has to do is be realistic about what her value as a 36 year old woman like her is. The odds of that happening though, even for a rationalist woman, aren't particularly good.
Once again this isn't all (or even mostly) her fault, but rather it is a fault of the society and milleu she lives in that her (inflated) hopes and dreams are about to go splat on the ground and this is one final desperate attempt from a struggling soul to avert doom.
They say that disappointment is caused by the difference in expectations vs reality, and by sending expectations for middle aged women to the moon without doing anything to change the reality on the ground modern Western culture claims for itself another victim.
What she is able to get and keep lies on a cline between the 21 year old incel and the 60 year old functioning alcoholic, the time to find a long term partner was 10 years ago for her. Had she been told at 26 that if she left it until 36 she'd only be able to get the dregs of society to commit to her there is a very good chance that she'd be happily married today. Instead her society which looks down on inflicting short term pain for long term gain has now condemned her to far greater suffering, probably for the rest of her life.
I've learned to phase out and stop caring about such cases, much as we've all phased out to the massive hunger and suffering going on right now in Africa.
I don't get where this meme comes from. The idea that "women" as a group have "high expectations".
Plenty of absolute loser men manage to get laid and get married all the time. No money, unstable employment, obese, criminal record. They still find a way. Nondescript men too, men who are average and unremarkable in every respect. I've seen instances of every type of case. Clearly, the women that these men are dating don't have high expectations, at least not in the way that's typically thought of on this forum.
Perhaps men need to reexamine their own expectations? If every woman you're interested in is, in turn, only interested in millionaire VCs, what does that say about you?
I can agree with the 'get laid' part. With regard to the 'get married' part, I'm not so sure. I think the statistics on marriage rates among the lower class and underclass prove this, although I honestly can't be bothered to try digging them up right now.
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Might it be a matter of age, as the common wisdom is? Women age like milk and men age like wine and all that. Not that I’ve really agonized over this much, but I think it’s plausible that women have a perceived upper hand in the dating market initially (which might translate to more women trying to go for broke), and this slowly gets reversed to a clear male advantage in middle age or so. I think part of this is the reason for the perception in unfairness, since early adulthood is seen as when people “should be” dating and starting to settle down, and that’s when women are perceived (by themselves and by men) to have greater bargaining power in the dating scene.
What are the demographics of the men who are complaining about women having high expectations, actually? I honestly am not sure, I haven’t really exposed myself to the dating scene much. I’ve only dated two women lifetime and they’re both better catches than I think I am.
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Because lack of willingness to commit is a masculine signal of high value genetics. He can have his pick and he knows it.
This would be a real problem for women in a world in which less-exciting, more-committal men refused to raise the children of the first type once those women have 'gotten serious'. But generally those guys are happy enough with sloppy seconds, the companionship of a woman who still isn't too unappealing, and occasional obligatory sex, maybe even a kid or two of his own.
Culture can tune for this.
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So, basically, Batman. (OK technically speaking Batman is not a hereditary title)
I think Mr. Darcy is who we're looking for. But then maybe Zoro is Mexican Mr. Darcy so Batman still counts.
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I feel like some of the various writers of the comics and the TV shows kinda wanted that, though.
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but they did not necessarily start this way, for example, couples gaining weight during relationship due to age. Having a criminal record is not disqualifying at all though, but being short not uncommonly is.
There are lots of short auto mechanics who have never been in shape on their third wife.
It seems very possible that PMC women are as a group unrealistically picky, but men marrying down is an age old phenomenon.
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