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PaperclipPerfector  17d ago (text post)   1913 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for April 17, 2024

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Had a second date today. She's great. I mean, great. Just objectively an obscene number of things in common, but different enough to be interesting, and the chemistry was there. Never felt this way really, although one other time was in the ballpark (...and then I moved out of state).

Unfortunately, she learned today that she's "definitely" leaving the state for work related reasons, permanently, in a month. If I had any sense, I'd've walked away when she gave me this news, early on in the date, along with the suggestion that I do so. Instead, I'm going to just ignore this fact, I guess, despite my dating goal being "a very serious relationship at a minimum" - next date Saturday. Why ignore this fact? Well:

  1. there's some reasons (omitted for anonymity) to believe it's more "probably" than "definitely"

  2. genuinely enjoying the dates

  3. market research

And it's not even a "well, let's at least get laid" kind of thing (or I'd just text my ex instead of being back on the apps...). I wouldn't be shocked if we do sleep together, but I might actually try not to, in the interest of not getting hurt more than necessary. Might, anyway.

At a minimum, I think I've just found the bar by which future secretarial interviews will be judged. At a maximum, hell, I work remotely and make rash decisions sometimes - maybe I leave the state, too. I "definitely" won't do that. Even if she stays, I think long term she leaves, but by that point it'd be not crazy to imagine following.

I do in fact realize the above is rashly strong, I really do. The saner takeaway here is that I should approach dating more seriously, more optimistically, and with higher standards - women like that do exist. But damn, if not for the atomization of society, the tendency of high achievers to move around so much; if we'd met in some small town before the internet, the outcome would, with reasonable probability, be the obvious and happy one.

I did some napkin math. With 3.5M people in my greater metro area (~1 hour driving radius), I estimate 22 potential matches (though she clears a bar more than a bit higher):

| constraint  | frequency | dating pool |
|-------------|-----------|-------------|
| human       |           | 3500000     |
| female      | 2         | 1750000     |
| 25-34       | 5         | 350000      |
| 99% iq      | 100       | 3500        |
| attractive  | 3         | 1167        |
| attracted   | 3         | 389         |
| politics    | 2         | 194         |
| single      | 3         | 65          |
| personality | 3         | 22          |

I can't decide if 22 is good news or not. I lean "good news" but finding 'em is a bit elusive.

22 is fucking terrible. Way too many filters.

  • Lower IQ filter down to >120 (80thp) as opposed to ~135(99p).
  • Attractive.. okay keep this one, but don't be a k-drama protagonist about this
  • Politics - For the most part, drop this.

Also I doubt this woman meets all these filters. I mean what are the odds right? You have rose tinted glasses on.

Lower IQ filter down to >120 (80thp) as opposed to ~135(99p).

I really don't think so. It's easy living in a bubble of smart people to forget what p80 intelligence looks like. The least smart person I've ever dated was a first grade teacher, and presumably she was at least above average, leaving not a ton of room, if any, from her to p80. I really wanted to believe it wouldn't matter, but it just did. My real preference is probably steeper than p99, and Ms. Definitely clearly is past there. I'm fairly sure she's smarter than me, and I know I'm comfortably past p99. It doesn't hurt that often, and in this case, IQ correlated with gainful employment.

Attractive.. okay keep this one, but don't be a k-drama protagonist about this

I'm really not trying to be, with my factor of 3 on that. Note that I didn't put "top 1/3" attractiveness - the intention is to filter out some at the top, filter out more at the bottom, and aim for some objective notion of at least modestly above average. She easily is, and fits a number of my specific preferences that are neutral to most people. She could be a fair amount less attractive and it wouldn't have changed my reaction.

Note also that by "attracted" (factor of 3), I meant "attracted to me" not "I'm attracted to her". I'm alright looking, but appearance certainly isn't my top selling point.

All that said, I think there may be some redundancy between these two factors, and between them and everything else. I.e. women who are smart, age appropriate, personality match etc are more likely than random women to be attractive/attracted to me.

Politics - For the most part, drop this.

I put a light factor here (2) intentionally. I don't need her to be a Mottizan, just not to hate me for having weird opinions on things from time to time. This also filters out e.g. strongly religious people.

Also I doubt this woman meets all these filters. I mean what are the odds right? You have rose tinted glasses on.

Rose tinted glasses in general, entirely possible. As to the specific factors, I think they're all there, but it's possible she misses on "attracted to me" (I don't think so, but hard to say, and these things take time especially for women sometimes), "politics" (we've gotten into it some, but not that much - the lack of it coming up is in itself actually almost enough to check this box) and "personality" (I don't think so at all, but don't know her that well just yet). There's zero doubt that she's within an hour drive, human, female, age appropriate, highly intelligent, attractive, and single.

first grade teacher

Based only on this, aren't the average elementary education majors IQ's 108 based on the old SAT data? The gap between 108 and 120 is still pretty healthy.

120 (80thp)

Am I messing up the IQ quantile conversion, or was there an error up-thread? Using a normal with mean 100, and SD 15 I get:

|  IQ   | p     |
|-------|-------|
| 140   | 0.996 |
| 135   | 0.990 |
| 120   | 0.909 |
| 112.6 | 0.800 |
| 110   | 0.748 |
| 108   | 0.703 |

So a relaxation to a requirement of 120 would only be a 10x wider filter rather than 20x.

Yeah I dun goofed, I came up with those off the top of my head.

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