3 ms·
One of the problems with this idea is that it kind of paints you into a corner. It doesn't allow you to aspire to be the person you desire to be. It predicts th
by Mz 9y ago
One of the problems with this idea is that it kind of paints you into a corner. It doesn't allow you to aspire to be the person you desire to be. It predicts that who you are is static and then it helps make that a reality.
During my divorce, I intentionally sought to not allow past relationship data to influence whom I hooked up with.* I had been with four people. Three of them were blonde. Three of them were born within a few weeks of me. All four of them were either in the military at the time or joined it later (because we were both just 17).
I didn't hate the man I was divorcing. I didn't think I had missed by much on finding a great match for me. I was trying to figure out how to sort the wheat from the chaff.
For me, a dating app that said "You clearly like blondes. Here are all the blondes." would have been the exact opposite of what I wanted. I wanted to make personal connections that were not biased by shallow details of that sort. I succeeded in that goal and it was a growth experience.
So, to my mind, a dating app that would be this thorough is the dating equivalent of redlining colored communities and not approving mortgages there. I say that because one of the issues was that I had been molested as a child. So, my feeling is that if you limit future relationships based on passed behavior, you are saying that you are 100% fine with painting abuse survivors into a corner they can never, ever escape. And that doesn't sit well with me.
I generally like to give life room to surprise me. I have gone out of my way to let men surprise me with being better people than my bad past experiences led me to believe I could find in men. The last thing I want is someone or something essentially telling me "So, we hear you like abusive men who will shit on you. Here are your matches."
Yeah, no. I never asked for that. But finding my way out of it has been a long, strange journey because, seriously, society doesn't yet have a good play book for how on earth you do that. So, you very much have to roll your own.
* http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/10/reducing-bias-in-dating-small-personal.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/10/reducing-bia...
- irremediable 9y agoVery, very well said. This kind of thing risks turning dating into the filter bubble we see in online news -- but worse, because it's a more important part of life. It also ignores how attraction works. Sure, someone may find blond people attractive, but it's seldom a deal-breaker. These algorithms tend to select on characteristics that are easy to assess, discarding many potential partners who'd be more suitable in other ways.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]