4 ms·

I think they are missing an important detail. Online dating doesn't simply connect you to "new" people. It connects you to them privately. It is a setting in w

by Mz 9y ago

I think they are missing an important detail. Online dating doesn't simply connect you to "new" people. It connects you to them privately. It is a setting in which you and you alone need to judge this person and how suitable they are as a partner for you. I grew up in the Deep South. * I attended public school. I had non-white classmates. I knew guys who were Black or Hispanic who were interested in me. But, I had no path forward. In a racist environment, just talking to someone of color in a flirty way will get significant social push back. You have to be willing and able to stand your ground in order to pursue the relationship at all. People don't want to deal with something like that at the curiosity stage. Its very existence helps kill relationships before they can begin. It is just too much drama and makes it too hard to navigate the relationship. Online dating lets you talk to people without all that. It lets you say "Hi!" and flirt without deciding five minutes after you met them that standing down the entire world is a thing you are up for. No one in their right mind is up for that just to have coffee. You commit to that at the marriage stage, not at the making eyes at each other stage. If you have to make that decision before you can even chat them up, 99 percent of the time the decision will be to not chat them up to begin with. Edit: I will add that the privacy angle is likely a large factor in why online dating has been so popular for starting homosexual relationships. * A long time ago. Hopefully, it's better now.

ams6110 9y ago
> just talking to someone of color in a flirty way will get significant social push back. This will be true in almost any public school anywhere.
- briga 9y ago
  Not really. I don't know where you live but this isn't true in Canada.
  - ShabbosGoy 9y ago
    As a counterpoint to your low effort dismissal, "yes really". As a man of color, I could not talk to white girls at the primarily white public schools I attended without significant social pushback. Even today, in 2017, I still have to watch my back if I'm seen walking with a white woman. And I live in one of the most liberal states in the US. Just because it never happened to you, or you never witnessed it personally, doesn't mean it can't happen. This response seriously disappointed me. Not only did you not provide data or citations of any kind, your tone comes off as morally superior/holier-than-thou. So I'll give some back to you, Canada sure seems like a swell place to live if it contains people like you.
    - briga 9y ago
      And apparently your experience in one part of the world is completely universal and applies everywhere. You're sure reading a lot into my reply.
    - Mz 9y ago
      Or maybe the Canadians are just saying that this is the internet and not everyone here is American? It may be generally true across the US. That doesn't make it automatically true "anywhere."
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      The GP merely said that it isn't a problem everywhere, disagreeing with the GGP. The GP didn't say that it isn't a problem anywhere. Overlooking that misunderstanding, I think you make a valid and important point. Lots of people here are speculating about things they have no experience with or knowledge about. I'm given to understand that as a primary cause of continuing racial discrimination - people don't experience the problems directly and therefore assume they don't exist. A great example is the problems black people encounter with some law enforcement - before the cell phone videos, much of the population didn't experience a problem themselves and assumed there wasn't one. Now even Newt Gingrich talks about it.
    - tremon 9y ago
      Not to diminish your experience, but the GGP specifically said any public school anywhere. A single datapoint is then enough to disprove that assertion.
    - moosey 9y ago
      I am half European/Mexican. I have a full beard and as a result of my heritage, I appear, for the most part, to be Iranian. I live in a city in a liberal state. I also have an adopted daughter who is almost 100% European descent, red hair and blue eyes. I cannot go anywhere with her by myself without being questioned by people on the street, or the person at the checkout lane, or a few random passersby, about who I am, who she is, how we are associated. It pisses off my wife, who is 100% European as well, to no end. To have her see this, or hear about what people asked me in any given day, has been a real eye opener. It's easy for people to put away casual racism (or just not allow it to surface) when some guy with dark skin and a beard shows up. That equation seems to change when I'm hauling around my daughter. If anyone thinks that this is normal, ask yourself: would you do the same thing if you saw a white man walking around with two black or hispanic children? The number of social disarmaments that I've had to my interactions with people since the turn of the century cause me anxiety and tension. People like to say "that wasn't the experience at my school", but repeated experiments have shown that even in highly liberalized areas with decent racial integration that in fights men with 'Hispanic' or 'Black' sounding names are thought to be more aggressive [1], and that black children receive more severe punishment at the school level, in CA and other non-southern states [2]. Toss in the fact that having a non-white name means that you are in the 50% reduced callback pile at work [3]... What I'm trying to say is that people who argue that your experiences with race are not true are either of European descent, or they grew up in some goldilocks zone of racial integration that I've yet to experience. They also deny evidence to the contrary, and there is a lot of evidence that even though I'm not beaten up or thrown in prison, we still get the shaft to some extent in our modern society. [1] https://www.vox.com/2015/10/9/9482537/implicit-bias-names https://www.vox.com/2015/10/9/9482537/implicit-bias-names [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/black-students-little-rock-punishment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/black-students-li... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/jobs-search-hiring-racial-discrimination-resume-whitening-callbacks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/jobs-search-hi...
- Kluny 9y ago
  Another Canadian here. Can confirm, white people dating people of other colors does not inspire any particular comment, in school or elsewhere.
  - ycombinete 9y ago
    It will be true anywhere where a difference in color can be expected to correspond with a large cultural difference in partners.
- dragonsky67 9y ago
  In Australia, I'd say that this type of behaviour would be very unusual. Our young people would have to be some of the most inclusive people you could find. This is not to say we don't have our bigots, but they tend to be very quiet and not that usual.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    What about the anti-immigrant laws there, which I assume must be politically popular because they have been sustained. The treatment of the refugees in the detention camps is horrific and criminal.
    - bwilli123 9y ago
      The issue wasn't immigrants per se but the method by which they arrived. They were described as "queue jumpers", which plays against an ordinary australian's notion of fair play. The numbers of legal immigrants (including refugees) are higher than ever but since the "stop the boats" policy, the number of "illegals" has been reduced to a trickle.
      - forapurpose 9y ago
        That was the rationalization. My understanding is that it was crafted to exclude non-white immigrants, like Trump's immigration policies or like election law in the U.S. south, which always works out to exclude non-white voters. Also, it doesn't address the treatment of the refugees in the camps.
    - glaugh 9y ago
      Here's a timely article about Australia's friendliness toward immigration: https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21730004-and-australians-still-them-australia-admits-more-migrants-any-other-big-western-country https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21730004-and-australians...
- ionised 9y ago
  Not where I grew up.
- stronglikedan 9y ago
  I went to high school in South Florida in the late eighties/early nineties, and interracial dating was quite prevalent. There was no significant social stigma about it at all. (A few loud mouth bigots don't count as significant.)
zo7 9y ago
This seems like a plausible theory, especially since the article notes that online dating is overwhelmingly popular among homosexual couples, but doesn't that theory start to fall apart when a couple is going out together? Unless their relationship is entirely secret I'd imagine they'd be seen in public eventually (especially at a school) and they'd probably still experience hostility for it (and probably worse than just flirting). I feel like this is still related to what the authors were claiming, that people previously only dated within their social connections. The schools I've been to were never overtly racist, but friend groups still seemed to contain mostly people of the same race/class. You'd have very few chances to meet someone outside your social group if your connections only consisted of your social group.
- Mz 9y ago
  but doesn't that theory start to fall apart when a couple is going out together? No. That is like saying "Don't babies spontaneously abort once your pregnancy starts to show if judgy people so much as look at your belly?" You need certain conditions conducive to establishing an initial connection. Once that connection is established, it takes more than a withering glance to kill it. It can still be killed by social disapproval, but not so effortlessly and casually.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > But doesn't that theory start to fall apart when a couple is going out together? If you're in an environment that isn't conducive to gay people being seen as people, you may choose not to go out. Or to work up the motivation to move.
- headcanon 9y ago
  That's true and it would still make life difficult, but at that point though you may be invested enough in the relationship to push through with it. Love/attraction is a powerful thing, but it needs to mature in order to overcome social boundaries.
fav_collector 9y ago
On the flip side, online dating allows people to be more racist with who they date. In real life, people give others of all races a chance to be 'charmed' through personality. It would be rude to shut down someone completely or not even entertain a conversation. With online dating, people discriminate solely based on a picture.
diogenescynic 9y ago
Or grow a backbone and date someone you want, regardless of what other think. Life's too short to worry about what racist morons think.
- Mz 9y ago
  I have plenty of backbone. During my divorce, most of my relationships were to men who were either not white, not American or both.* One of the reasons such climates kill interracial relationships before they can begin is because of the awareness that racism makes the personal commitment outsized and this does weird things to the relationship. Standing your ground publicly merely to flirt is a de facto signal of serious personal commitment. This makes it impossible to explore getting to know the person enough to decide whether or not you really want to make that kind of commitment. It requires you to de facto make a serious commitment on too little information. It is like being asked to sign a contract without reading it. I didn't comment on that aspect of it in part because I don't feel I can explain it very well. But, to give an example, people who have illicit affairs always feel this must be their True Love. (Unless they are chronic philanderers.) The very fact that they broke a taboo to get what they wanted convinces them that this person must be uniquely, highly valuable and special. The reality is that very few affairs lead to happily ever after. If the person actually gets divorced, the affair typically also ends within a year. The vast majority of affairs are only evidence that the primary relationship isn't working. But that isn't what most people conclude about their own life when they stray. They conclude this person must be super, duper special. That assumption fails to result in happily ever after in the vast majority of cases. It is a form of Sunk Cost Fallacy. FWIW, I do my damnedest to establish romantic relationships privately. I feel strongly that it is a decision "between me and my baby" and I feel the rest of the world can just butt the hell out. I don't like being rude to people in public but, no, I don't want to hear even casual comments about "Are you two serious?" or whatever. If you have to ask, it probably isn't any of your business in the slightest. My private life is not something I feel is an appropriate topic for casual chit chat from mere acquaintances. * http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/10/reducing-bias-in-dating-small-personal.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/10/reducing-bia...
- sctb 9y ago
  Please just leave personal attacks out of comments. They don't belong on Hacker News.

by Mz 9y ago

ams6110 9y ago

> just talking to someone of color in a flirty way will get significant social push back. This will be true in almost any public school anywhere.

briga 9y ago
Not really. I don't know where you live but this isn't true in Canada.
- ShabbosGoy 9y ago
  As a counterpoint to your low effort dismissal, "yes really". As a man of color, I could not talk to white girls at the primarily white public schools I attended without significant social pushback. Even today, in 2017, I still have to watch my back if I'm seen walking with a white woman. And I live in one of the most liberal states in the US. Just because it never happened to you, or you never witnessed it personally, doesn't mean it can't happen. This response seriously disappointed me. Not only did you not provide data or citations of any kind, your tone comes off as morally superior/holier-than-thou. So I'll give some back to you, Canada sure seems like a swell place to live if it contains people like you.
  - briga 9y ago
    And apparently your experience in one part of the world is completely universal and applies everywhere. You're sure reading a lot into my reply.
  - Mz 9y ago
    Or maybe the Canadians are just saying that this is the internet and not everyone here is American? It may be generally true across the US. That doesn't make it automatically true "anywhere."
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    The GP merely said that it isn't a problem everywhere, disagreeing with the GGP. The GP didn't say that it isn't a problem anywhere. Overlooking that misunderstanding, I think you make a valid and important point. Lots of people here are speculating about things they have no experience with or knowledge about. I'm given to understand that as a primary cause of continuing racial discrimination - people don't experience the problems directly and therefore assume they don't exist. A great example is the problems black people encounter with some law enforcement - before the cell phone videos, much of the population didn't experience a problem themselves and assumed there wasn't one. Now even Newt Gingrich talks about it.
  - tremon 9y ago
    Not to diminish your experience, but the GGP specifically said any public school anywhere. A single datapoint is then enough to disprove that assertion.
  - moosey 9y ago
    I am half European/Mexican. I have a full beard and as a result of my heritage, I appear, for the most part, to be Iranian. I live in a city in a liberal state. I also have an adopted daughter who is almost 100% European descent, red hair and blue eyes. I cannot go anywhere with her by myself without being questioned by people on the street, or the person at the checkout lane, or a few random passersby, about who I am, who she is, how we are associated. It pisses off my wife, who is 100% European as well, to no end. To have her see this, or hear about what people asked me in any given day, has been a real eye opener. It's easy for people to put away casual racism (or just not allow it to surface) when some guy with dark skin and a beard shows up. That equation seems to change when I'm hauling around my daughter. If anyone thinks that this is normal, ask yourself: would you do the same thing if you saw a white man walking around with two black or hispanic children? The number of social disarmaments that I've had to my interactions with people since the turn of the century cause me anxiety and tension. People like to say "that wasn't the experience at my school", but repeated experiments have shown that even in highly liberalized areas with decent racial integration that in fights men with 'Hispanic' or 'Black' sounding names are thought to be more aggressive [1], and that black children receive more severe punishment at the school level, in CA and other non-southern states [2]. Toss in the fact that having a non-white name means that you are in the 50% reduced callback pile at work [3]... What I'm trying to say is that people who argue that your experiences with race are not true are either of European descent, or they grew up in some goldilocks zone of racial integration that I've yet to experience. They also deny evidence to the contrary, and there is a lot of evidence that even though I'm not beaten up or thrown in prison, we still get the shaft to some extent in our modern society. [1] https://www.vox.com/2015/10/9/9482537/implicit-bias-names https://www.vox.com/2015/10/9/9482537/implicit-bias-names [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/black-students-little-rock-punishment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/black-students-li... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/jobs-search-hiring-racial-discrimination-resume-whitening-callbacks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/jobs-search-hi...
Kluny 9y ago
Another Canadian here. Can confirm, white people dating people of other colors does not inspire any particular comment, in school or elsewhere.
- ycombinete 9y ago
  It will be true anywhere where a difference in color can be expected to correspond with a large cultural difference in partners.
dragonsky67 9y ago
In Australia, I'd say that this type of behaviour would be very unusual. Our young people would have to be some of the most inclusive people you could find. This is not to say we don't have our bigots, but they tend to be very quiet and not that usual.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  What about the anti-immigrant laws there, which I assume must be politically popular because they have been sustained. The treatment of the refugees in the detention camps is horrific and criminal.
  - bwilli123 9y ago
    The issue wasn't immigrants per se but the method by which they arrived. They were described as "queue jumpers", which plays against an ordinary australian's notion of fair play. The numbers of legal immigrants (including refugees) are higher than ever but since the "stop the boats" policy, the number of "illegals" has been reduced to a trickle.
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      That was the rationalization. My understanding is that it was crafted to exclude non-white immigrants, like Trump's immigration policies or like election law in the U.S. south, which always works out to exclude non-white voters. Also, it doesn't address the treatment of the refugees in the camps.
  - glaugh 9y ago
    Here's a timely article about Australia's friendliness toward immigration: https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21730004-and-australians-still-them-australia-admits-more-migrants-any-other-big-western-country https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21730004-and-australians...
ionised 9y ago
Not where I grew up.
stronglikedan 9y ago
I went to high school in South Florida in the late eighties/early nineties, and interracial dating was quite prevalent. There was no significant social stigma about it at all. (A few loud mouth bigots don't count as significant.)

zo7 9y ago

This seems like a plausible theory, especially since the article notes that online dating is overwhelmingly popular among homosexual couples, but doesn't that theory start to fall apart when a couple is going out together? Unless their relationship is entirely secret I'd imagine they'd be seen in public eventually (especially at a school) and they'd probably still experience hostility for it (and probably worse than just flirting). I feel like this is still related to what the authors were claiming, that people previously only dated within their social connections. The schools I've been to were never overtly racist, but friend groups still seemed to contain mostly people of the same race/class. You'd have very few chances to meet someone outside your social group if your connections only consisted of your social group.

Mz 9y ago
but doesn't that theory start to fall apart when a couple is going out together? No. That is like saying "Don't babies spontaneously abort once your pregnancy starts to show if judgy people so much as look at your belly?" You need certain conditions conducive to establishing an initial connection. Once that connection is established, it takes more than a withering glance to kill it. It can still be killed by social disapproval, but not so effortlessly and casually.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> But doesn't that theory start to fall apart when a couple is going out together? If you're in an environment that isn't conducive to gay people being seen as people, you may choose not to go out. Or to work up the motivation to move.
headcanon 9y ago
That's true and it would still make life difficult, but at that point though you may be invested enough in the relationship to push through with it. Love/attraction is a powerful thing, but it needs to mature in order to overcome social boundaries.

fav_collector 9y ago

On the flip side, online dating allows people to be more racist with who they date. In real life, people give others of all races a chance to be 'charmed' through personality. It would be rude to shut down someone completely or not even entertain a conversation. With online dating, people discriminate solely based on a picture.

diogenescynic 9y ago

Or grow a backbone and date someone you want, regardless of what other think. Life's too short to worry about what racist morons think.

Mz 9y ago
I have plenty of backbone. During my divorce, most of my relationships were to men who were either not white, not American or both.* One of the reasons such climates kill interracial relationships before they can begin is because of the awareness that racism makes the personal commitment outsized and this does weird things to the relationship. Standing your ground publicly merely to flirt is a de facto signal of serious personal commitment. This makes it impossible to explore getting to know the person enough to decide whether or not you really want to make that kind of commitment. It requires you to de facto make a serious commitment on too little information. It is like being asked to sign a contract without reading it. I didn't comment on that aspect of it in part because I don't feel I can explain it very well. But, to give an example, people who have illicit affairs always feel this must be their True Love. (Unless they are chronic philanderers.) The very fact that they broke a taboo to get what they wanted convinces them that this person must be uniquely, highly valuable and special. The reality is that very few affairs lead to happily ever after. If the person actually gets divorced, the affair typically also ends within a year. The vast majority of affairs are only evidence that the primary relationship isn't working. But that isn't what most people conclude about their own life when they stray. They conclude this person must be super, duper special. That assumption fails to result in happily ever after in the vast majority of cases. It is a form of Sunk Cost Fallacy. FWIW, I do my damnedest to establish romantic relationships privately. I feel strongly that it is a decision "between me and my baby" and I feel the rest of the world can just butt the hell out. I don't like being rude to people in public but, no, I don't want to hear even casual comments about "Are you two serious?" or whatever. If you have to ask, it probably isn't any of your business in the slightest. My private life is not something I feel is an appropriate topic for casual chit chat from mere acquaintances. * http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/10/reducing-bias-in-dating-small-personal.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/10/reducing-bia...
sctb 9y ago
Please just leave personal attacks out of comments. They don't belong on Hacker News.