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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.
This is just a symptom of a larger problem. The problem isn't with her though, it's with mottizens.
While she's not to my personal tastes, she's an attractive woman with a few things that are not preferred on the dating market. In fact, she's actually above average in looks for her age, she just doesn't wear much makeup and wears frumpy clothes. While her age, polyamory, and mental health issues will reduce her popularity, so she's taking some efforts to mitigate that, and she's aiming a little high. Good for her.
Let's flip this around, and imagine her male counterpart, a short mottizen on the spectrum who wishes his software engineering job was more attractive to women. He decides he's going to work out, dress better, and put himself in social situations to improve his lot in the dating market, and he's aiming a little high. Would he be the target of derision here? Of course not.
Chances are that's exactly what she'll catch. She lives in the best dating environment in the world for women like her, doesn't seem the usual hangups about height, age, or race, and certainly doesn't demand the infamous sixes. Six months to a year from now she'll be in a serious relationship with a shortish, nerdy, tech guy with a few million in RSUs. They'll go on to IVF, have three children, and form a happy family. Good for them.
I don't particularly like where this thread went either, but what are you talking about? Where's the part where she hit the gym, started dressing better, and practicing social skills that will make her attractive to men?
I have to admit, I don't get what everyone is talking about in this thread. Katja looks plenty attractive to marry and 36 is not disqualifyingly old, unlike the 42yo on HackerNews a few months ago. She probably did miss the boat. Katja's prospects, on the other hand, are quite good given her industry.
That said, I also don't see this as a case of a lost soul improving herself? I imagine the equivalent low SMV male posting a classified seeking applications for girlfriend would also get eyerolls. The "I'm willing to consider monogamy" part in particular stands out as comparable to "I'm willing to consider getting a steady job" for a guy.
Yeah the people saying she's not attractive are insane. I'm certainly willing to agree that she's not the hottest woman to ever grace the planet. But to say she isn't attractive at all says way more about the person making that claim (and none of it good) than it does her. She's reasonably pretty.
How is she attractive? She looks like an average 36 year old American woman IMO but that's not necessarily attractive. Is she more or less attractive than the computer-generated 'average woman' of most countries? I think less. I'll admit that attractiveness is difficult to define and depends on where you are. Even so, would a man's eyes linger on her in a crowd? I doubt it.
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As someone who consumes a lot of HBD/physiognomy-related content, I’ve seen these “composite photos of the average woman in [X] country” posts so many times, and I have an honest question for you: does the average adult female you see walking around in public in your country honestly look like this? How about the average woman in just your city alone? I can say pretty definitively that the average woman where I live - which is a coastal city that’s far healthier and less obese than the vast majority of locales in America - does not look this good. Hell, the average woman of the age range depicted in these photos doesn’t look this good.
I’ve never been to any of the countries reflected in this image - although I’ll be visiting the UK in a couple of weeks, so I can report back my findings soon - but I would be very surprised to find that the average French woman looks like the woman in that picture. Demographics, of course, are the big elephant in the room; the average young French woman, at least in major metropolitan areas of the country, is probably several shades darker, and the average ethnic French woman is probably at least ten years older than what’s in that picture.
So, no, the woman in OP’s post does not look as attractive as a speculative, fictionalized, idealized composite image, but I think she’s objectively above-average in an American context, given that she’s not overweight, she’s white, and she doesn’t appear to dress like a slob.
OK, let's ditch the average photos. I was looking for some kind of yardstick to measure from. That's clearly very difficult.
I think you have to be more than 'not overweight, non-white or slobby' to be attractive.
For example, take another real image, this time of the US's 1999 world cup soccer team. All but one of these women fulfills your triple criteria. Are they all attractive though? 9 is attractive IMO, followed by 11 and maybe 6. That's 2.5 or 3/11. The others aren't really attractive, though I'll concede that the camera angle isn't flattering.
My base assumption is that few 36 year old women will be attractive. Young people are more attractive than older people. Not everyone's going to get an attractive partner, that's life.
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