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> make the most of it by progressing deliberately in your social life Ironically the Bay Area is among the worst places on Earth for improving your social life

> make the most of it by progressing deliberately in your social life Ironically the Bay Area is among the worst places on Earth for improving your social life if you're straight and male. I noticed that you don't live in the Bay Area, you're married, you probably meant a much broader meaning of "social life", so your experiences are likely very different. But the typical clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful, male SWE in the Bay Area making $120K+ a year in his 20s or 30s, who should be a magnet for women, turns out to be living in one of worst places because of male-female ratios among singles (and some other cultural factors). My advice would be work hard, save your money, travel when you can to better locales to improve your social life, but with the eventual goal of permanently moving out when you've saved enough. If you pick your destination within the USA well, dating prospects will improve greatly, and if you look worldwide (and can overcome the language and immigration issues), it could improve dramatically.

NeverFade 7y ago
> But the typical clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful, male SWE in the Bay Area making $120K+ a year in his 20s or 30s, who should be a magnet for women, turns out to be living in one of worst places because of male-female ratios among singles (and some other cultural factors). Yes, it's quite simple: there are many more men in the Bay than women, so women have their pick, and they can afford to raise the bar far higher than $120k. Also, $120k can be a nice annual salary in much of the US, but doesn't go far in the Bay where median house price is over $1m. Consider just FAANGs in the Bay. There's probably not enough available single women just for every straight FAANG male employee (who would be making more than $120k/yr). Anecdotally, I know some women in the Bay, working in areas like recruiting and marketing, who are dating VCs and CEOs exclusively and consider dating "plain engineers" to be beneath them. Fair or not, your "male SWE making $120K+ a year" has become the "common guy" of the Bay. The number of women is small enough that most of them can aim higher.
- deleted 7y ago
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- whack 7y ago
  I've been away from the bay for a while, but it's amazing how bad the dating scene is, for exactly the reasons you described. I'm currently engaged to an amazing woman who has only ever lived in working-class suburbs and smaller cities. Her exes and her friends' husbands are shockingly anti-intellectual, didn't attend college, have some substance abuse issues, and/or make well under 6 figures. She keeps telling me how amazing I am as a partner, even though in my mind, I'm just being a decent human being. Engineers in places like SFBA severely underestimate how attractive they would be anywhere else in the country/world.
  - NeverFade 7y ago
    > Engineers in places like SFBA severely underestimate how attractive they would be anywhere else in the country/world. I agree completely. > Her exes and her friends' husbands are shockingly anti-intellectual, didn't attend college, have some substance abuse issues, and/or make well under 6 figures. Here's what happened: Guys who are intellectual, attended college, have good discipline, and stayed away from substance abuse and similar problems - they moved to the Bay to get that "six figure job". The Bay has thus become chock-full of these men. The few women who moved to the Bay can have their pick. What would be a rare find elsewhere, is commonplace and boring in the Bay. One of many anecdotes I could cite: A friend of mine is a 25yo female working in recruiting in the Bay. If you pitched a date as an "intellectual, college-educated man with a good life and a six-figure job" she'd literally laugh in your face. She had 2 different guys courting her at the time, a startup CEO and a VC. She once showed me her Tinder account. Just by swiping 30-40 times, she'd find at least one guy who is an exec or VC making 7 figures per year, and it would usually be a match. "120k/year"? You'd make her laugh.
    - TwoBit 7y ago
      Most startup CEOs don't make much. Are there really very many VCs out there?
      - NeverFade 7y ago
        > Most startup CEOs don't make much. Depends on the startup and what stage it is. If it's a successful startup, then the CEO is sitting on a pile of stock that will likely be worth millions. If it's also a later stage startup, then likely he is making at least as much as his senior developers on top of that. Either way, he's a much better bet if you want to be a millionaire's wife some day. Also, executives typically have expense accounts that afford them a very nice lifestyle _right now_, even if their salary isn't that high. You can be making a modest salary, but leading a jetset life on business expenses. > Are there really very many VCs out there? Yes there are. Here's just one random list of them: http://www.calstartuplawfirm.com/venture-groups.html http://www.calstartuplawfirm.com/venture-groups.html
- tomxor 7y ago
  > I know some women in the Bay, working in areas like recruiting and marketing, who are dating VCs and CEOs exclusively and consider dating "plain engineers" to be beneath them. That sounds more like bullets dodged than a loss (for the engineers that is).
  - NeverFade 7y ago
    Sure. If that appeals to you, you're welcome to move to the Bay. You'll dodge so many bullets, that you'll forget what a date with a woman is ;-) More seriously, while we'd love to impose moral views on reality, the simple fact is that when people can afford to be picky, they will be. I don't know what you value in a romantic partner, but for simplicity, let's assume it's looks. If you arrived at some magical island where it was just you and hundreds of women, and 50% of those were supermodels, would you ever date an average girl?
    - chrisco255 7y ago
      Maybe. If they were better at fishing than anyone else.
      - NeverFade 7y ago
        If hundreds of supermodels are competing for your attention, I'm sure many of them would become amazing at fishing, modern dancing, pottery-making, or whatever other random skill you find attractive.
        chrisco255 7y ago
        Obviously the point is that you still gotta survive on this island, and the reason why we have diversity in personality, physicality and intelligence is because different combinations of those things matter for survival. And it's unlikely that you would "date" at all in an island with such ratios.
    - tomxor 7y ago
      I have no idea what your point is... i'm talking about avoiding women who are only interested in money or power, i.e gold diggers - that's not a healthy relationship for anyone.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  >Anecdotally, I know some women in the Bay, working in areas like recruiting and marketing, who are dating VCs and CEOs exclusively and consider dating "plain engineers" to be beneath them. No matter ones income, it's better not to go anywhere with that kind of women. Also life tends to adjust this pretty quickly: they can be that picky until their early 30's, maybe even late 20's. After that available options narrow down substantially.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > it's quite simple: there are many more men in the Bay than women I’m in Manhattan. The single sex ratio is reversed. (More single women than men.) Male FAANG employee rants about how they should be magnets for women, but can’t find a date because something is wrong with all women, are equally prevalent here. They’re all (a) the same rant and (b) as boring as the last one. There’s a selection effect among well-paid software engineers at large tech companies that explains more of this than local statistics. That or these jobs turn interesting people into those who believe they should be magnets for the opposite sex, which tends to be a turn-off for most people.
  - xapata 7y ago
    It's interesting how co-occurrent some genetic/behavioral traits are. I read an article about a study of domesticating foxes. After many generations selecting for propensity to come forward when a human puts out food, the semi-domesticated offspring showed a wide array of physical traits associated with dogs in addition to the behavior that was selected for. Yet... as computing becomes more popular, I expect this stereotype to become obsolete. It roughly applies to myself and many of my friends. My wife calls me a robot. But hey, somehow most of us managed to find a spouse.
  - nixarian 7y ago
    It's not like that. I understand your instinct is to be condescending towards men, which is sad - and to be honest, I agree, the rant is missing the point. Chances are those women are all having casual sex with a smaller number of attractive/high status males. Those lonely men typically want to "date", while the women - if the man isn't high status, wealthy, AND displaying the mental fitness which is counter-indicated by these 'rants' - would much rather sleep around with men who are far more attractive than them (or, younger!) but never have a real relationship.
  - wmil 7y ago
    > That or these jobs turn interesting people into those who believe they should be magnets for the opposite sex, which tends to be a turn-off for most people. Tech selects for people who are object focussed as opposed to people focussed. Most women prefer to date men who are good at wooing and entertaining them. Which means more people focussed than object focussed. The tech men are frustrated because they are basically their best selves -- financially and professionally successful, able and willing to support a family. Traditionally that would be enough to make them a catch. But dating women with careers limits the value of their financial support. And they don't have the skills to wow the women socially. Realistically they can't develop those skills easily. This is probably going to sound incredibly cynical, but the best advice I've heard for NYC techies is to try to date ballerinas. They're beautiful and disciplined. But they retire before 30 and have to decide to either start a family or open a studio to start teaching. At that point most of the men they know are married or gay. So likely to be more willing to overlook the social weaknesses of tech men.
- segfault42 7y ago
  Galaxy brain: maybe the same qualities that make a guy more valuable in the professional marketplace and qualify them to be VCs and CEOs instead of entry level SWEs (interpersonal skills, superior judgement, long-range vision, managerial skills, identifying win-win solutions and building consensus for them, etc) also make them better romantic partners. So the salary is a correlation with an underlying shared root cause, not a direct causation.
  - zelly 7y ago
    Not that I disagree (what you said is almost certainly true) but it's funny how both sides can unite on this Randian take. Horseshoe theory.
- zelly 7y ago
  Idk, $120k is still a lot. You are still begging the question that money even matters. There's an elephant in the room: Basically men have vastly overestimated the importance of wealth. A chart of the importance of wealth would drop off a cliff as you go from third-world conditions to a non-starvation civilization. Then it approaches zero as you get to NYC/SF where literally everyone is rich or else they wouldn't be living there. Guys who get mail order brides are basically arbitraging this (probably temporary) geographical difference in the importance of wealth.
  - heavenlyblue 7y ago
    >> Guys who get mail order brides Are not usually exactly the winners in life.
ahs1 7y ago
> My advice would be work hard, save your money, travel when you can to better locales to improve your social life, but with the eventual goal of permanently moving out when you've saved enough. If you pick your destination within the USA well, dating prospects will improve greatly, and if you look worldwide (and can overcome the language and immigration issues), it could improve dramatically. The Bay Area will seem like a bad dream. I just created my HN account to emphasize this point. After 4 years in the Bay Area, I've come to the same conclusion. I've been saving money for 9 years now & should be at the $1,000,000 mark within 2 years. First 5 years of saving in Los Angeles got me to $200,000, and the last 4 years have pushed me to $700,000. Assuming Trump is re-elected, my portfolio should hit the $1,000,000 mark within two years. A million bucks isn't much here, but its a sizable nest-egg in most places in America. Saving money in the Bay Area is much easier to do than anywhere else. I plan to move to a rural state as soon as I get to a million. The misery of living here has to end at some point.
- peteretep 7y ago
  Move to South East Asia instead. Burgeoning tech scene, some incredible nature, dating is considerably easier, both with locals and other expats, health care is first-rate and a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper ... "a rural state" sounds like all the worst bits of living in the US.
  - tlrobinson 7y ago
    Out of curiosity, where specifically in SE Asia would you consider living (or actually do live)?
    - maneesh 7y ago
      Bali and Thailand (Chiang Mai and Bangkok) are fantastic. Medellin in South America as well
    - odiroot 7y ago
      Singapore is a great choice.
wpietri 7y ago
I guess I've only lived in the bay area 20 years, but this strikes me as quite dramatic. I know literally dozens of men in tech happily raising families in the Bay Area. It's true the male/female ratios are worse (although we should certainly adjust for the large gay male population). But when I talk to friends who are dating, it's the women who seem to be struggling to find anybody decent, not the men. Perhaps the problem is in thinking those things mean a guy "should be a magnet for women". I regularly get an earful from women about guys who think they're God's gift to the populace. And one of the first hits for "Bay Area dating as a woman" confirms that: https://violetfog.com/dating-in-san-francisco/ https://violetfog.com/dating-in-san-francisco/ In a section about what she hates most, she writes: "The number of guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement and attitude towards dating. THAT was annoying. Often they’re the ones getting such great praise (and pay) at work that they think it translates into them being hotshots outside of work as well. Like they are too good or something. What sucks about these bad apples is that they often come off as charming at first. But alas, the arrogance and shallow attitude always reveals itself eventually. So just run when you suspect that big-paycheck-big-ego persona thing going on. Don’t walk, RUN."
- NeverFade 7y ago
  > It's true the male/female ratios are worse The fact that there are way more men than women in the Bay is a statistical reality, which you admit yourself. Then you bring an opinion blog-post by a single woman as counter-evidence. Ironically, all these complaints about "guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement" just go to show how picky she is, and can afford to be, in San Francisco. Nothing in GP's post exhibits an arrogant attitude. He makes the simple observation, that the sort of guys who would be considered attractive and desirable in most other locations, are struggling to get dates in the Bay. This is easily explained by the high male/female ratio, which we already established as a fact. Given this fact, no amount of hand-wringing will help: if there are far more single men then women, then the women would set a very high bar, and the men below that bar would have to remain single. There are simply not enough women for all the single men in the Bay. No spectacular feats of mental gymnastics, nor nice-sounding dating tips, nor seeking to blame men for being "arrogant", will get around this reality. As a final anecdote, I did know women who dated executives and VCs in the Bay. Some of these guys had mammoth egos. Curiously, that didn't prevent them from having far better dating lives than any engineer I knew.
baby 7y ago
> male SWE in the Bay Area making $120K+ a year in his 20s or 30s, who should be a magnet for women here's your problem
- meken 7y ago
  Agreed. Money is a step function. You need to make enough to live comfortably. But after that, having good interpersonal traits is everything.
glangdale 7y ago
I like how a guy earning a fairly unremarkable-when-we-adjust-for-cost-of-living salary with a bunch of fairly unimpressive table-stakes credentials: "clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful" (whaddaya want? a cookie?) is meant to be a Amazing Pussy Magnet. One of the major factors - aside from the gender ratio - behind tech guys not finding partners is this weird expectation that if they shave, clip their fingernails, and don't act like an outright dirtbag that women will flock to them, regardless of whether they have any personal appeal or not. A lot of dudes in tech are just bores with zero interests and a outsized sense of entitlement to the opposite sex (talking about the het guys, don't know how it works on the other side of the fence). Just to top it off, they expect to be magnets to interesting women, too - these guys are the first to sneer at gold-digging women who are, frankly, their appropriate mirror image. That is, if the only thing you can say about yourself that isn't table-stages normal person stuff is that you're "a SWE making $120K+ a year" who exactly do you think you're going to attract? Bonus points: deciding that the one thing that's missing from the above picture is being swole, and filling in any extra time not spend being a "respectful male SWE" with incessant iron pumping.
- look_lookatme 7y ago
  You doing ok glangdale?
  - glangdale 7y ago
    Username checks out. Did you have a point, or are you just here to offer content-free snark?
- X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
  Totally agree. Being interesting as a human and working on yourself is so much better than trying to get credit for being "respectful". That's like saying: "look I shower every day!" Be interesting.
  - philosopher1234 7y ago
    What do you personally do to be interesting?
cultofmetatron 7y ago
This applies to males in general in the bay area. Not just the white ones. I got fed up with the loneliness and left the country entirely. Had a girlfriend a month later after picking from several whom were interested.
cffddjkkbtdhjv 7y ago
hahahahahahahhahaha are you fucking serious? /r/niceguys
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> the Bay Area is among the worst places on Earth for improving your social life if you're straight and male Why does social life only mean dating? There are tons of social circles in the Bay Area. Hobbyist groups, aficionados of all stripes, non-profits galore and strange entertainment options. There is a diversity of bars and restaurants, and California’s unique outdoors are close. Perhaps it would be more rewarding to focus on those, and be a little more passive when it comes to dating while you build up your interests.
himinlomax 7y ago
> respectful Serious question: why do you think being "respectful" has any positive correlation with being a magnet for women? I can't prove the "chicks digs bad boys" cliché is scientifically accurate, but as the only convict I personally know is both objectively ugly AND a magnet to girls half his age, I am pretty sure the converse is wrong.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  https://pipubs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/The-Dark-Triad-Personality-1.pdf https://pipubs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/The-Dark-Triad... The Dark Triad personality: Attractiveness to women It has been suggested that the Dark Triad (DT) personality constellation is an evolved facilitator of men’s short-term mating strategies. However, previous studies have relied on self-report data to consider the sexual success of DT men. To explore the attractiveness of the DT personality to the other sex, 128 women rated created (male) characters designed to capture high DT facets of personality or a control personality. Physicality was held constant. Women rated the high DT character as significantly more attractive. More- over, this greater attractiveness was not explained by correlated perceptions of Big 5 traits. These findings are considered in light of mating strategies, the evolutionary ‘arms race’ and individual differences.
alkz 7y ago
Or maybe changing your own notion of being a "magnet for women" because you have a job might improve your social life, just saying
WWLink 7y ago
I saw this circle jerk and have to say: I and the vast majority of my friends grew up in the Bay Area. The vast majority of those I went to college with (and studied CS or EE or whatever) ended up working in the Bay Area. Almost all of them have girlfriends/fiancees/are married. None of them are CEOs of hot startups lol. None of them are unnaturally attractive either. Just regular ole average programmers. :) I dunno what's going on but I will take the circlejerk with a giant mountain of salt lol.
pyuser583 7y ago
My own observations of the Bay Area dating culture is that: 1. Lots of people in their early to mid 20s who aren’t interested settling down. 2. Lots of people who are career focused and not interested in settling down. 3. Lots of people who are students and not interested in settling down. 4. Lots of people who are already settled down. Long term, stable relationships are very common. Marriage, less so, but not uncommon. 5. A higher than average population who will have their parents arrange a marriage back in India. Honest the whole social situation feels like an extension of college - not much opportunity for match making. People don’t move to the Bay Area to find a spouse. They move there for career opportunities.
- non-entity 7y ago
  I see a lot of the opposite in the south. So many people want to settle down relatively young. I'm got shit to do with my life first.
masukomi 7y ago
there are many ways to improve your social life that do not involve dating. Don't limit yourself.
lhridley 7y ago
Really? My advice, stay in the Bay Area until you get your head screwed on straight. If you think you are a "magnet for women" that very attitude repels any woman with enough self-respect to see through the bravado. Concentrate on liking yourself enough that being single doesn't bother you and next thing you know....bam....there she'll be. Or not, in which case like the person you see in the mirror each morning. Get there and the rest is easy. Sincerely, Single by choice (Female) Software Development Manager in the Southeast US.
phlakaton 7y ago
Here is my advice, as a married engineer, for those who are having difficulties in this area: 1. Your fatalistic attitude about m/f ratios (or whatever sexual orientation you fancy) is the least helpful and accurate response you could possibly have to dating travails. This is not a game. Nobody's keeping score. Statistics by itself won't land you the relationship you crave. 2. On the flip side, finding a relationship isn't just a test you need to hack. There's no formula to success. Stop thinking that a good salary, or being clean-cut, or avoiding substance abuse, are what you need to land a date – regardless of where in the world you look! For one thing, people date against these types all the time. For many other potential partners, they're table stakes at best. 3. You will have the best luck if you think of your potential romantic partner not as an automaton to be gamed, nor as a resource you ought to be entitled to, but simply as a human being with interests and needs that may align with yours, or not. Forget salary. Forget trying to look interesting. Be genuine, and care, and look for partners who appreciate that. 3a. (corollary) If you think of potential partners as only interested in some Scandinavian ideal that is tall, blonde, good-looking, and makes way more than you, then you are almost certainly projecting your own shallowness and anxieties onto them. You are failing to engage them as human beings. Stop doing that. 3b. (corollary) If you think female software engineers are just not cut out for this engineering stuff as a whole, you are probably going to have a really rough time trying to court them -- to say nothing of how miserable you are likely to make them. It will be nigh impossible for you to engage them as human beings with interests that deserve your full respect and support. 4. If you can't find the partners you want on Tinder, or in the marketing org at work, then (and it kind of dumbfounds me that I should have to explain this) don't look for a date on Tinder! Or in the marketing org at work! Get out in the world. Make connections. Join clubs. Have friends introduce you to friends. Stop thinking like a Silly Valley hacker, and start thinking like a human being. 5. Stay far away from Jordan Peterson, MRA, red pill, and all of that. It's not that there isn't a good idea or two in there somewhere, but it's all drowning in a toxic stew of entitlement, self-loathing, and objectification of women that won't get you where you need to go. If you can't discern between the good stuff and the bad stuff, best to steer clear altogether. Go read some Anne Lamott or something and flush that stuff out of your system. 6. If it doesn't work out, move on. Do not come crying to HN about how tough engineers in Silicon Valley have it (because facts!). Do not obsess over them and hope they'll turn their eye later on. C'est la vie! Be the troubadour who sings about their romantic woes with a twinkle in their eye.
henryaj 7y ago
This is the basic premise of Dateonomics [https://www.amazon.com/Date-onomics-Dating-Became-Lopsided-Numbers/dp/076118208X https://www.amazon.com/Date-onomics-Dating-Became-Lopsided-N...] - the author looks at dating through the lens of gender ratios of college-educated people in different cities. Outside of SF though, the situation is likely reversed - many more women than men are graduating college, and people tend to want to pair off with people of similar educational achievement.

NeverFade 7y ago

> But the typical clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful, male SWE in the Bay Area making $120K+ a year in his 20s or 30s, who should be a magnet for women, turns out to be living in one of worst places because of male-female ratios among singles (and some other cultural factors). Yes, it's quite simple: there are many more men in the Bay than women, so women have their pick, and they can afford to raise the bar far higher than $120k. Also, $120k can be a nice annual salary in much of the US, but doesn't go far in the Bay where median house price is over $1m. Consider just FAANGs in the Bay. There's probably not enough available single women just for every straight FAANG male employee (who would be making more than $120k/yr). Anecdotally, I know some women in the Bay, working in areas like recruiting and marketing, who are dating VCs and CEOs exclusively and consider dating "plain engineers" to be beneath them. Fair or not, your "male SWE making $120K+ a year" has become the "common guy" of the Bay. The number of women is small enough that most of them can aim higher.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
whack 7y ago
I've been away from the bay for a while, but it's amazing how bad the dating scene is, for exactly the reasons you described. I'm currently engaged to an amazing woman who has only ever lived in working-class suburbs and smaller cities. Her exes and her friends' husbands are shockingly anti-intellectual, didn't attend college, have some substance abuse issues, and/or make well under 6 figures. She keeps telling me how amazing I am as a partner, even though in my mind, I'm just being a decent human being. Engineers in places like SFBA severely underestimate how attractive they would be anywhere else in the country/world.
- NeverFade 7y ago
  > Engineers in places like SFBA severely underestimate how attractive they would be anywhere else in the country/world. I agree completely. > Her exes and her friends' husbands are shockingly anti-intellectual, didn't attend college, have some substance abuse issues, and/or make well under 6 figures. Here's what happened: Guys who are intellectual, attended college, have good discipline, and stayed away from substance abuse and similar problems - they moved to the Bay to get that "six figure job". The Bay has thus become chock-full of these men. The few women who moved to the Bay can have their pick. What would be a rare find elsewhere, is commonplace and boring in the Bay. One of many anecdotes I could cite: A friend of mine is a 25yo female working in recruiting in the Bay. If you pitched a date as an "intellectual, college-educated man with a good life and a six-figure job" she'd literally laugh in your face. She had 2 different guys courting her at the time, a startup CEO and a VC. She once showed me her Tinder account. Just by swiping 30-40 times, she'd find at least one guy who is an exec or VC making 7 figures per year, and it would usually be a match. "120k/year"? You'd make her laugh.
  - TwoBit 7y ago
    Most startup CEOs don't make much. Are there really very many VCs out there?
    - NeverFade 7y ago
      > Most startup CEOs don't make much. Depends on the startup and what stage it is. If it's a successful startup, then the CEO is sitting on a pile of stock that will likely be worth millions. If it's also a later stage startup, then likely he is making at least as much as his senior developers on top of that. Either way, he's a much better bet if you want to be a millionaire's wife some day. Also, executives typically have expense accounts that afford them a very nice lifestyle _right now_, even if their salary isn't that high. You can be making a modest salary, but leading a jetset life on business expenses. > Are there really very many VCs out there? Yes there are. Here's just one random list of them: http://www.calstartuplawfirm.com/venture-groups.html http://www.calstartuplawfirm.com/venture-groups.html
tomxor 7y ago
> I know some women in the Bay, working in areas like recruiting and marketing, who are dating VCs and CEOs exclusively and consider dating "plain engineers" to be beneath them. That sounds more like bullets dodged than a loss (for the engineers that is).
- NeverFade 7y ago
  Sure. If that appeals to you, you're welcome to move to the Bay. You'll dodge so many bullets, that you'll forget what a date with a woman is ;-) More seriously, while we'd love to impose moral views on reality, the simple fact is that when people can afford to be picky, they will be. I don't know what you value in a romantic partner, but for simplicity, let's assume it's looks. If you arrived at some magical island where it was just you and hundreds of women, and 50% of those were supermodels, would you ever date an average girl?
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    Maybe. If they were better at fishing than anyone else.
    - NeverFade 7y ago
      If hundreds of supermodels are competing for your attention, I'm sure many of them would become amazing at fishing, modern dancing, pottery-making, or whatever other random skill you find attractive.
      - chrisco255 7y ago
        Obviously the point is that you still gotta survive on this island, and the reason why we have diversity in personality, physicality and intelligence is because different combinations of those things matter for survival. And it's unlikely that you would "date" at all in an island with such ratios.
  - tomxor 7y ago
    I have no idea what your point is... i'm talking about avoiding women who are only interested in money or power, i.e gold diggers - that's not a healthy relationship for anyone.
cosmodisk 7y ago
>Anecdotally, I know some women in the Bay, working in areas like recruiting and marketing, who are dating VCs and CEOs exclusively and consider dating "plain engineers" to be beneath them. No matter ones income, it's better not to go anywhere with that kind of women. Also life tends to adjust this pretty quickly: they can be that picky until their early 30's, maybe even late 20's. After that available options narrow down substantially.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> it's quite simple: there are many more men in the Bay than women I’m in Manhattan. The single sex ratio is reversed. (More single women than men.) Male FAANG employee rants about how they should be magnets for women, but can’t find a date because something is wrong with all women, are equally prevalent here. They’re all (a) the same rant and (b) as boring as the last one. There’s a selection effect among well-paid software engineers at large tech companies that explains more of this than local statistics. That or these jobs turn interesting people into those who believe they should be magnets for the opposite sex, which tends to be a turn-off for most people.
- xapata 7y ago
  It's interesting how co-occurrent some genetic/behavioral traits are. I read an article about a study of domesticating foxes. After many generations selecting for propensity to come forward when a human puts out food, the semi-domesticated offspring showed a wide array of physical traits associated with dogs in addition to the behavior that was selected for. Yet... as computing becomes more popular, I expect this stereotype to become obsolete. It roughly applies to myself and many of my friends. My wife calls me a robot. But hey, somehow most of us managed to find a spouse.
- nixarian 7y ago
  It's not like that. I understand your instinct is to be condescending towards men, which is sad - and to be honest, I agree, the rant is missing the point. Chances are those women are all having casual sex with a smaller number of attractive/high status males. Those lonely men typically want to "date", while the women - if the man isn't high status, wealthy, AND displaying the mental fitness which is counter-indicated by these 'rants' - would much rather sleep around with men who are far more attractive than them (or, younger!) but never have a real relationship.
- wmil 7y ago
  > That or these jobs turn interesting people into those who believe they should be magnets for the opposite sex, which tends to be a turn-off for most people. Tech selects for people who are object focussed as opposed to people focussed. Most women prefer to date men who are good at wooing and entertaining them. Which means more people focussed than object focussed. The tech men are frustrated because they are basically their best selves -- financially and professionally successful, able and willing to support a family. Traditionally that would be enough to make them a catch. But dating women with careers limits the value of their financial support. And they don't have the skills to wow the women socially. Realistically they can't develop those skills easily. This is probably going to sound incredibly cynical, but the best advice I've heard for NYC techies is to try to date ballerinas. They're beautiful and disciplined. But they retire before 30 and have to decide to either start a family or open a studio to start teaching. At that point most of the men they know are married or gay. So likely to be more willing to overlook the social weaknesses of tech men.
segfault42 7y ago
Galaxy brain: maybe the same qualities that make a guy more valuable in the professional marketplace and qualify them to be VCs and CEOs instead of entry level SWEs (interpersonal skills, superior judgement, long-range vision, managerial skills, identifying win-win solutions and building consensus for them, etc) also make them better romantic partners. So the salary is a correlation with an underlying shared root cause, not a direct causation.
- zelly 7y ago
  Not that I disagree (what you said is almost certainly true) but it's funny how both sides can unite on this Randian take. Horseshoe theory.
zelly 7y ago
Idk, $120k is still a lot. You are still begging the question that money even matters. There's an elephant in the room: Basically men have vastly overestimated the importance of wealth. A chart of the importance of wealth would drop off a cliff as you go from third-world conditions to a non-starvation civilization. Then it approaches zero as you get to NYC/SF where literally everyone is rich or else they wouldn't be living there. Guys who get mail order brides are basically arbitraging this (probably temporary) geographical difference in the importance of wealth.
- heavenlyblue 7y ago
  >> Guys who get mail order brides Are not usually exactly the winners in life.

ahs1 7y ago

> My advice would be work hard, save your money, travel when you can to better locales to improve your social life, but with the eventual goal of permanently moving out when you've saved enough. If you pick your destination within the USA well, dating prospects will improve greatly, and if you look worldwide (and can overcome the language and immigration issues), it could improve dramatically. The Bay Area will seem like a bad dream. I just created my HN account to emphasize this point. After 4 years in the Bay Area, I've come to the same conclusion. I've been saving money for 9 years now & should be at the $1,000,000 mark within 2 years. First 5 years of saving in Los Angeles got me to $200,000, and the last 4 years have pushed me to $700,000. Assuming Trump is re-elected, my portfolio should hit the $1,000,000 mark within two years. A million bucks isn't much here, but its a sizable nest-egg in most places in America. Saving money in the Bay Area is much easier to do than anywhere else. I plan to move to a rural state as soon as I get to a million. The misery of living here has to end at some point.

peteretep 7y ago
Move to South East Asia instead. Burgeoning tech scene, some incredible nature, dating is considerably easier, both with locals and other expats, health care is first-rate and a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper ... "a rural state" sounds like all the worst bits of living in the US.
- tlrobinson 7y ago
  Out of curiosity, where specifically in SE Asia would you consider living (or actually do live)?
  - maneesh 7y ago
    Bali and Thailand (Chiang Mai and Bangkok) are fantastic. Medellin in South America as well
  - odiroot 7y ago
    Singapore is a great choice.

wpietri 7y ago

I guess I've only lived in the bay area 20 years, but this strikes me as quite dramatic. I know literally dozens of men in tech happily raising families in the Bay Area. It's true the male/female ratios are worse (although we should certainly adjust for the large gay male population). But when I talk to friends who are dating, it's the women who seem to be struggling to find anybody decent, not the men. Perhaps the problem is in thinking those things mean a guy "should be a magnet for women". I regularly get an earful from women about guys who think they're God's gift to the populace. And one of the first hits for "Bay Area dating as a woman" confirms that: https://violetfog.com/dating-in-san-francisco/ https://violetfog.com/dating-in-san-francisco/ In a section about what she hates most, she writes: "The number of guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement and attitude towards dating. THAT was annoying. Often they’re the ones getting such great praise (and pay) at work that they think it translates into them being hotshots outside of work as well. Like they are too good or something. What sucks about these bad apples is that they often come off as charming at first. But alas, the arrogance and shallow attitude always reveals itself eventually. So just run when you suspect that big-paycheck-big-ego persona thing going on. Don’t walk, RUN."

NeverFade 7y ago
> It's true the male/female ratios are worse The fact that there are way more men than women in the Bay is a statistical reality, which you admit yourself. Then you bring an opinion blog-post by a single woman as counter-evidence. Ironically, all these complaints about "guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement" just go to show how picky she is, and can afford to be, in San Francisco. Nothing in GP's post exhibits an arrogant attitude. He makes the simple observation, that the sort of guys who would be considered attractive and desirable in most other locations, are struggling to get dates in the Bay. This is easily explained by the high male/female ratio, which we already established as a fact. Given this fact, no amount of hand-wringing will help: if there are far more single men then women, then the women would set a very high bar, and the men below that bar would have to remain single. There are simply not enough women for all the single men in the Bay. No spectacular feats of mental gymnastics, nor nice-sounding dating tips, nor seeking to blame men for being "arrogant", will get around this reality. As a final anecdote, I did know women who dated executives and VCs in the Bay. Some of these guys had mammoth egos. Curiously, that didn't prevent them from having far better dating lives than any engineer I knew.

baby 7y ago

> male SWE in the Bay Area making $120K+ a year in his 20s or 30s, who should be a magnet for women here's your problem

meken 7y ago
Agreed. Money is a step function. You need to make enough to live comfortably. But after that, having good interpersonal traits is everything.

glangdale 7y ago

I like how a guy earning a fairly unremarkable-when-we-adjust-for-cost-of-living salary with a bunch of fairly unimpressive table-stakes credentials: "clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful" (whaddaya want? a cookie?) is meant to be a Amazing Pussy Magnet. One of the major factors - aside from the gender ratio - behind tech guys not finding partners is this weird expectation that if they shave, clip their fingernails, and don't act like an outright dirtbag that women will flock to them, regardless of whether they have any personal appeal or not. A lot of dudes in tech are just bores with zero interests and a outsized sense of entitlement to the opposite sex (talking about the het guys, don't know how it works on the other side of the fence). Just to top it off, they expect to be magnets to interesting women, too - these guys are the first to sneer at gold-digging women who are, frankly, their appropriate mirror image. That is, if the only thing you can say about yourself that isn't table-stages normal person stuff is that you're "a SWE making $120K+ a year" who exactly do you think you're going to attract? Bonus points: deciding that the one thing that's missing from the above picture is being swole, and filling in any extra time not spend being a "respectful male SWE" with incessant iron pumping.

look_lookatme 7y ago
You doing ok glangdale?
- glangdale 7y ago
  Username checks out. Did you have a point, or are you just here to offer content-free snark?
X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
Totally agree. Being interesting as a human and working on yourself is so much better than trying to get credit for being "respectful". That's like saying: "look I shower every day!" Be interesting.
- philosopher1234 7y ago
  What do you personally do to be interesting?

cultofmetatron 7y ago

This applies to males in general in the bay area. Not just the white ones. I got fed up with the loneliness and left the country entirely. Had a girlfriend a month later after picking from several whom were interested.

cffddjkkbtdhjv 7y ago

hahahahahahahhahaha are you fucking serious? /r/niceguys

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> the Bay Area is among the worst places on Earth for improving your social life if you're straight and male Why does social life only mean dating? There are tons of social circles in the Bay Area. Hobbyist groups, aficionados of all stripes, non-profits galore and strange entertainment options. There is a diversity of bars and restaurants, and California’s unique outdoors are close. Perhaps it would be more rewarding to focus on those, and be a little more passive when it comes to dating while you build up your interests.

himinlomax 7y ago

> respectful Serious question: why do you think being "respectful" has any positive correlation with being a magnet for women? I can't prove the "chicks digs bad boys" cliché is scientifically accurate, but as the only convict I personally know is both objectively ugly AND a magnet to girls half his age, I am pretty sure the converse is wrong.

barry-cotter 7y ago
https://pipubs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/The-Dark-Triad-Personality-1.pdf https://pipubs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/The-Dark-Triad... The Dark Triad personality: Attractiveness to women It has been suggested that the Dark Triad (DT) personality constellation is an evolved facilitator of men’s short-term mating strategies. However, previous studies have relied on self-report data to consider the sexual success of DT men. To explore the attractiveness of the DT personality to the other sex, 128 women rated created (male) characters designed to capture high DT facets of personality or a control personality. Physicality was held constant. Women rated the high DT character as significantly more attractive. More- over, this greater attractiveness was not explained by correlated perceptions of Big 5 traits. These findings are considered in light of mating strategies, the evolutionary ‘arms race’ and individual differences.

alkz 7y ago

Or maybe changing your own notion of being a "magnet for women" because you have a job might improve your social life, just saying

WWLink 7y ago

I saw this circle jerk and have to say: I and the vast majority of my friends grew up in the Bay Area. The vast majority of those I went to college with (and studied CS or EE or whatever) ended up working in the Bay Area. Almost all of them have girlfriends/fiancees/are married. None of them are CEOs of hot startups lol. None of them are unnaturally attractive either. Just regular ole average programmers. :) I dunno what's going on but I will take the circlejerk with a giant mountain of salt lol.

pyuser583 7y ago

My own observations of the Bay Area dating culture is that: 1. Lots of people in their early to mid 20s who aren’t interested settling down. 2. Lots of people who are career focused and not interested in settling down. 3. Lots of people who are students and not interested in settling down. 4. Lots of people who are already settled down. Long term, stable relationships are very common. Marriage, less so, but not uncommon. 5. A higher than average population who will have their parents arrange a marriage back in India. Honest the whole social situation feels like an extension of college - not much opportunity for match making. People don’t move to the Bay Area to find a spouse. They move there for career opportunities.

non-entity 7y ago
I see a lot of the opposite in the south. So many people want to settle down relatively young. I'm got shit to do with my life first.

masukomi 7y ago

there are many ways to improve your social life that do not involve dating. Don't limit yourself.

lhridley 7y ago

Really? My advice, stay in the Bay Area until you get your head screwed on straight. If you think you are a "magnet for women" that very attitude repels any woman with enough self-respect to see through the bravado. Concentrate on liking yourself enough that being single doesn't bother you and next thing you know....bam....there she'll be. Or not, in which case like the person you see in the mirror each morning. Get there and the rest is easy. Sincerely, Single by choice (Female) Software Development Manager in the Southeast US.

phlakaton 7y ago

Here is my advice, as a married engineer, for those who are having difficulties in this area: 1. Your fatalistic attitude about m/f ratios (or whatever sexual orientation you fancy) is the least helpful and accurate response you could possibly have to dating travails. This is not a game. Nobody's keeping score. Statistics by itself won't land you the relationship you crave. 2. On the flip side, finding a relationship isn't just a test you need to hack. There's no formula to success. Stop thinking that a good salary, or being clean-cut, or avoiding substance abuse, are what you need to land a date – regardless of where in the world you look! For one thing, people date against these types all the time. For many other potential partners, they're table stakes at best. 3. You will have the best luck if you think of your potential romantic partner not as an automaton to be gamed, nor as a resource you ought to be entitled to, but simply as a human being with interests and needs that may align with yours, or not. Forget salary. Forget trying to look interesting. Be genuine, and care, and look for partners who appreciate that. 3a. (corollary) If you think of potential partners as only interested in some Scandinavian ideal that is tall, blonde, good-looking, and makes way more than you, then you are almost certainly projecting your own shallowness and anxieties onto them. You are failing to engage them as human beings. Stop doing that. 3b. (corollary) If you think female software engineers are just not cut out for this engineering stuff as a whole, you are probably going to have a really rough time trying to court them -- to say nothing of how miserable you are likely to make them. It will be nigh impossible for you to engage them as human beings with interests that deserve your full respect and support. 4. If you can't find the partners you want on Tinder, or in the marketing org at work, then (and it kind of dumbfounds me that I should have to explain this) don't look for a date on Tinder! Or in the marketing org at work! Get out in the world. Make connections. Join clubs. Have friends introduce you to friends. Stop thinking like a Silly Valley hacker, and start thinking like a human being. 5. Stay far away from Jordan Peterson, MRA, red pill, and all of that. It's not that there isn't a good idea or two in there somewhere, but it's all drowning in a toxic stew of entitlement, self-loathing, and objectification of women that won't get you where you need to go. If you can't discern between the good stuff and the bad stuff, best to steer clear altogether. Go read some Anne Lamott or something and flush that stuff out of your system. 6. If it doesn't work out, move on. Do not come crying to HN about how tough engineers in Silicon Valley have it (because facts!). Do not obsess over them and hope they'll turn their eye later on. C'est la vie! Be the troubadour who sings about their romantic woes with a twinkle in their eye.

henryaj 7y ago

This is the basic premise of Dateonomics [https://www.amazon.com/Date-onomics-Dating-Became-Lopsided-Numbers/dp/076118208X https://www.amazon.com/Date-onomics-Dating-Became-Lopsided-N...] - the author looks at dating through the lens of gender ratios of college-educated people in different cities. Outside of SF though, the situation is likely reversed - many more women than men are graduating college, and people tend to want to pair off with people of similar educational achievement.