15 ms·

The Agony of Eros: Dating

169 points by jger15 5y ago

gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
> you can be very attractive and therefore have a wide range of people interested in you but not have the social skills/psychological acuity to translate initial interest into a successful relationship. I feel that. It took me probably until my mid 20s to realize that anyone found me attractive. Now I notice girls checking me out, and a cashier straight up said about my band shirt “I listen to them in my bedroom…” Still a major sperg, but I did find my person, so I avoided much of the minefield of modern dating.
t0bia_s 5y ago
I honestly thing finding partner online is damaging relationships. Attraction to someone should be based on real interaction, not virtual profiles that are far away from reality.
mrfinn 5y ago
Terrible agony: Wait for when you have kids.
- ge96 5y ago
  I wonder about this. It's a crazy commitment/years to deal with. I just look back to my own childhood/what my parents dealt with. On the other hand part of me feels sad thinking I will be the "last me". Maybe get genome sequenced/publish books of my face and put it sealed in a landfill somewhere for preservation. Actually rocks last a long time so probably a statue made with a rock.
  - chromanoid 5y ago
    It feels like having your heart outside of your body and it's running around recklessly. Having children changed my outlook on the future quite a bit. First, I feel much more repsonsible and interested in the ecological future, because I intensely love people who will have to deal with the consequences in the future. Second, I hope I will be able to have a natural look into the problems of future generations, when I am old - there is a "strong bond into the future" for me. Third, while I don't feel it's a "future me" that I talk into sleep every evening, it feels like my human legacy. Considering my current reality, my children are probably the biggest impact I can have on the future. BTW I guess all this is true regardless of genetic bonds.
    - the_doctah 5y ago
      And in an ironic twist, the more people we bring into this world out of our own ego, the worse off it becomes.
      - chromanoid 5y ago
        As far as I know, it's less about how many and more about how they live. There is this myth of overpopulation (afaik this is well documented), in reality it's the egoism of the few rich countries who run the world down. And here I hope my children will participate in changing things.
  - jdrc 5y ago
    Just leave some hair somewhere... In the future, kids will clone us and keep us for pets in their garden
- spicyusername 5y ago
  Kids are very likely the most rewarding and enjoyable thing you can possibly do in your life. You just need to have a solid partnership with your significant other before having them. Many of the points in the article are exactly the kinds of things you want to cultivate with your partner (e.g. self-awareness, good communication, etc) before having kids. If you have a good relationship with your partner, having kids is very manageable. Our generation is too cynical on kids and it's to their own detriment.
  - mrfinn 4y ago
    Oh no, I'm not blaming kids at all. I'm blaming the biological need of sharing them with a completely independent adult that I thought was a solid partnership and now often decides to use them, in ways I never dared to imagine, to achieve the desired goals.
deepstack 5y ago
The fact that someone would write this on a blog give me the sense that he/she is over analysing this dating thing. Analysis works for accounting and engineering, it does not work for dating. So stop analysing and go have some fun in life.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  ignorance is never the superior tactic
  - deepstack 5y ago
    It is true, however ignorance and analysis are not mutually exclusive. Just because one analyse it doesn't mean one can avoid being ignorant. Certain things are just not meant for analysis. Dating, Love fun are in those things for my personal experiences.
    - Brian_K_White 5y ago
      One can run all day and still not travel a mile. One can not travel a mile without travelling a mile. The fact that you can run in circles does not mean therefor running produces nonresults and the only way to travel is to rely on the luck that you magically land where you want, even though that does happen to a few people.
  - CipherThrowaway 5y ago
    Being knowingly ignorant is less ignorant than being unknowingly ignorant. Over systematization of dating creates illusory knowledge that impedes connection. I've seen how the obsessive-analytic mindset fares in dating. I'll take bumbling along any day.
    - Brian_K_White 5y ago
      This article specifically decries systems. The advice not to over-analyse is itself an analasys and a piece of wisdom, which you and anyone you tell it to is better off for knowing. You have improved your and any readers life by becoming less ignorant. Your analasys is actually merely about optimization, specifically over-optimization or mis-directed optimization. And that is just one of the many thhings that are valuable to know, and which you can only know by thinking about it. Maybe you're a thoughtless person and you only get it after years of unthinking miserable victimhood. Maybe you're a thoughtful person and this understanding occures to you on your own before you waste your life. Maybe you have the good fortune to have a parent that doesn't think ignorance is bliss and they imparted the wisdom to you. But one way or another, to have the understanding, you had to think about it, it had to be a tbought that existed in your head. But you know who really does advocate for ignorance? Predators.
ggm 5y ago
Not being in need of this solution space, but interested in the massive dynamic shift from my time across the 70s and 80s. I don't think modern dating is nice. I don't just think that's technophobic thinking, I think it's too introspective and risky. Things were different when it was landline phone calls and note passing. We were less concerned to be helped by friends, it was normal. Nowadays there is a strong tendency to keep relationships private until ready. "Warts and all" is hard through a lens.
mothsonasloth 5y ago
The article was well written but I think it falls victim to bubble of anecdata in the dating and social media world online. What I mean is the people online who are dating and talking about dating online are more likely to be experience the agony of Eros. Than those who are dating or in a relationship but not sharing about it online. Sort of like a signal to noise ratio that is highly squeued towards the love fails than love wins. Love will never be solved, regardless of classical theories or modern day ones. Just go for it and don't think to much about the theoretical
- liminvorous 5y ago
  I think you’re just saying “I am not in the intended audience for this article”.
varjag 5y ago
We expect more from our partners than ever before—we want them to be our true love, our best friend, our coparenting partner, and the person we combine our finances with. Curious what is their idea of 'before'. Unless they mean pre-industrial societies.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  True love is a very modern concept that used to be restricted to fairytales.
  - varjag 5y ago
    Fairytales are also pre-industrial. My point is exactly that it's not quite appstore-modern.
    - eternalban 5y ago
      Quite a few of these are in fact cautionary tales or allegories. (Obsessive romantic) Love in many cultures was considered a sort of madness. Only the elite subset of society had time for romantic amusements in pre-industrial societies. A lot of these issues (and preoccupations with romance) go out of the window when people are struggling to survive, as most did in pre-industrial societies.
      - arunprakash01 5y ago
        [flagged]
    - smackeyacky 5y ago
      The modern conception of true love is very modern. Nobles used to marry to accumulate property and fairy tales were little more than the glammed up version the hoi polloi consumed. Like the Kardashian thing, tabloids etc where the story is a fabrication. I think what gets lost is that long term relationships have been more utilitarian than anyone likes to admit. Who doesn't love a love story, or want to feel the rush of first attraction? The problem is that it isn't enough to build a life out of. You need a practical, working partnership to raise a family and app dating isn't geared to that goal. The apps give a monstrous illusion there might be something better on the next swipe, and it just isn't true.
librish 5y ago
I find the discussion of ghosting interesting. If I've gone on a bad date or two I don't specifically tell the other person I don't want to see them again unless they ask me. This allows for a lot more saving face if I run into them in the future (we can both pretend it just fell through the cracks) and is exactly how I want to be treated. While I appreciate the honesty I do find it a little condescending when someone messages me "just so you know, I don't want to see you again" after a bad date. But some people consider not doing this to be the equivalent of going from daily messaging to total radio silence out of nowhere after dating for months.
- deepstack 5y ago
  there is nothing to talk about ghosting. They just don't want to see you, get that as a valid communication and move on.
- djbebs 5y ago
  Tbh ghosting isn't as bad as saying one thing and then making excuses to not go through it. I've been on dates where I thought it went well, I got the "let's do this again", and then whenever I suggested "let's do it again on X day?" I get excuses. If they don't want to that's fine, they don't even have to say no just don't reply! But the leading on is annoying...
  - fxtentacle 5y ago
    That might also be a communication mismatch. I've seen this situation a few times: Woman says "let's do this [going shopping as friends] again" and then later they are surprised when the Man suggests "let's do this [going on a date as potential partners] again". The [] part is implied and never said, which is why the miscommunication happens.
    - omniglottal 5y ago
      It's pretty clear to see that such miscommunication rises from a person's responsibility to be honest. "Let's do this again!" implies intent. If that intent does not actually exist, focus should be on such a lie and, by extension, the liar. While such (mis)communication becomes cultural, that still doesn't make it effective. Defending it is about wise as justifying the previously predominant signalling of women playing "hard to get" with someone they actually wanted to "get" them, and saying "no" while meaning "yes", yet being surprised at the subsequent rise in rape culture.
fxtentacle 5y ago
I believe this very nicely ties in with "No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31143279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31143279 We have turned sexual partners into an affluent commodity, thanks to apps. With a bit of paid boosting, you can show your profile to 1000+ potential partners and surely a few of them will have a favorable first impression. We've also successfully reframed being sexually promiscuous as not being limited by religion / social norms / the patriarchy. Plus we've all but eliminated potentially negative consequences with birth control. And our entire society celebrates a "hustle" and "fake it till you make it" culture. The article's complains "men signal emotional seriousness that they don’t actually feel" which I'd say is "fake it till you make it" combined with very low investment due to oversupply of partners. "you’ll likely be terrified the person you like will meet someone else they like more, or likes you but doesn’t like you enough to commit" also just means that there's a high level of competition, due to oversupply of partners. And lastly, the article nicely points out that everyone wants a "quick fix", which is why you can buy tons of books and guides on how to behave, i.e. imitating the correct gestures, but very few people put in the effort to actually learn to become a good communicator. But the article also has one huge oversight in my opinion: Pheromones and genetic compatibility. People can smell if their offspring will be healthy pretty quickly, but it's impossible to screen for this with apps. That's how people end up with so many dates where they should like the other person, but for some reason they don't. I believe this is also why some people ghost each other after the first intimate contact. "I didn't like his/her smell" is a common reason to stop dating, after all. We as a society need to accept that not everything can be fixed and improved with self-help courses. Some people just won't match on a genetic level and there's little you can do to fix that.
- ge96 5y ago
  > People can smell if their offspring will be healthy pretty quickly That's so interesting, it's not BO right or some bad perfume/cologne.
  - fxtentacle 5y ago
    No actually females can typically "smell" (for lack of a better word) out of the sweat of males if the immune system markers are different enough to protect potential offspring from getting the same sicknesses as mother or father. "In several species, including rodents and fish, it has been shown that the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) influences mating preferences" "This study thus supports the hypothesis that the MHC influences mate choice in some human populations." https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000184 https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/jo...
verisimi 5y ago
'Modern Dating' is where corporations intermediate your interactions with the other sex... and its not working out well? Well, what a surprise! People have lost all sense it seems to me - we have been trained to have technology do everything for us. This really means the corporations behind the tech are meant to do everything for us. Good god. The mega-trend - IMO - in all this is a fostered neoteny (extended juvenile period) where our expectations are that someone should service our desires. Its such an irresponsible and weak position - it doesn't even register as a possibility to the younger generation that they should be able to sort things out on their own - benevolent tech companies should do it instead. Even a date is too much apparently. Humanity is being softened into a warm puree. PS If corporations are involved in the dating business (which they are) think about it from their point of view. They do not actually want you to succeed! They want you to fail but keep using their services. The more you fail the better! The more unhappy you are the more you will spend in your date-death spiral. Like we don't have a health industry but a managed illness industry, the dating industry would be better called a managed loneliness industry, cos loneliness and unhappiness opens the purse strings as you try to resolve your unhappiness with all the other crap corporations have to offer.
- l33t2328 5y ago
  > 'Modern Dating' is where corporations intermediate your interactions with the other sex... This seems to be the overwhelming sentiment when this topic comes up here, but I had to wonder: how much are you people relying on Tinder et al. ?
- m000 5y ago
  > The mega-trend - IMO - in all this is a fostered neoteny (extended juvenile period) where our expectations are that someone should service our desires. Its such an irresponsible and weak position - it doesn't even register as a possibility to the younger generation that they should be able to sort things out on their own - benevolent tech companies should do it instead. Even a date is too much apparently. Sorry, I don't buy this. Even working in the tech field, buying a house with your salary is really tough. And it only goes downhill for other types of jobs. So this "fostered neoteny" is just young people not feeling financially secure to start a traditional family. You can't possibly sort out generational financial insecurity on your own.
MezzoDelCammin 5y ago
Is it just me, or does this article really overthink way too much? IMO, dating is ultimately not a subject that could be analyzed by logic. At least not on on the personal / self-help level (of course sociology / statistics still work). Trying to find some kind of generally applicable "rules of the game" that would work for everyone (or even most) people seems somewhat "not even wrong". It's simply trying to use the wrong tool in the wrong place. A date an encounter of two individuals trying to assess and explore their compatibility. This "should" (at least in my opinion) always be subject to their own morals and ethics. The question isn't "what do most people want / do", but "what would I / You want / do".
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  I found it interesting. Being an older person in a long term relationship with someone I met in high school, the online dating stuff seems much harder for a lot of reasons. Firstly, meet someone when you are young they are more likely to be of a similar socio-economic group and share a lot of values by default. Second (and I realise this is controversial) if you fall in love when you are young and stupid, the pair of you will become adults together and that shared experience will get you through shit that would turn your hair white. I thought the article provided some insight into how you are supposed to replace the older model of dating when the tech side of things offers too much pressure to do things quickly i.e. assess and cast off, or move straight to sex in a week. So to me it seemed like an assessment of things you should consider to slow things down, be honest with yourself and prospective partners. Not overthinking, properly thinking.
  - freedom2099 5y ago
    I totally understand your point… like you I married my high school sweetheart (I am 37 and to date I have being in one continuous monogamous relationship for 20 years). We did grow up together… changed together.
  - doix 5y ago
    I am 30(ish) and have managed to avoid the online dating scene. I just met people doing the hobbies I like and traveling. I feel like now it's easier than ever to do that. COVID has made a lot more people travel (anecdotal data ofc) after they felt stuck for a while. And remote work means that you can travel while working. You can go somewhere, meet someone, and then travel around together. If things stop going well, just stop traveling together. Stay at hostels, work at co-working spaces, look for 'expat groups' on Facebook (had to reactivate my Facebook account for this one). Get some hobbies and move to places that you can do them (live in a ski resort for a season or a surfer town and go snowboarding/surfing everyday). The person you meet will most likely be doing the same thing you're doing, so at least you have something in common (hobbies/traveling). The best part is, even if you don't meet someone, you probably had fun doing stuff rather than sitting at home and swiping on tinder. The only downside is the environmental impact of traveling around :(.
beebeepka 5y ago
I cannot relate with the whole "dating" thing one bit. It's not just that I am old now. All I hear is "apps" and silly comments on "how we this and that". I'd go as far as saying avoid people who spew things like "we" on the internet. It's crap. They don't know you, and you don't know them. Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love. Don't fall into this app dating thing. It's a trap. Why else would they be tripping over to promote it?
- curiousgal 5y ago
  > Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love. Are they though? I mean When I meet people through apps I know exactly what they're looking for. But approaching people I've met in person for the first time leads to a whole spew of issues mostly due to me not knowing what they're looking for (as most people tend not to be communicative about that as the article describes).
- erfgh 5y ago
  Dating by apps is terrible but bars are arguably even worse.
- astrange 5y ago
  > Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love. Surprisingly this may still be true (I thought people didn't drink as much these days) but it's significantly less common than apps for couples now. https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1908630116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1908630116 Also not very popular for lesbians. https://www.graphext.com/post/how-couples-meet-and-stay-together https://www.graphext.com/post/how-couples-meet-and-stay-toge...
  - Mezzie 5y ago
    I'm a lesbian who despises dating online. I've just accepted I'm going to be single.
    - astrange 5y ago
      I heard you're supposed to meet someone in a bookstore then get married on the second date.
ceilingcorner 5y ago
Interesting that at no point does anyone stop and think, “Gee, maybe tearing down every institution and social obligation in the name of individualist consumerism wasn’t a good idea? Perhaps our ancestors and their thousands of years old traditions concerning marriage and dating weren’t outdated idiots after all?” Nope. The solution is always more dating apps, more self-help books, more targeted algorithms to find your perfect match and fulfill your individualist desires for pleasure and purpose. If you aren’t happy with your dating situation, it’s because you aren’t knowledgeable or hard-working enough.
- jdrc 5y ago
  Sure people stop and think. traditionalism does not have a lot of potential for commercial exploitation so you see more of the other. You can't stop it, but you can at least let people know that the whole romantic ecosystem from hollywood to PUAs is basically a marketing scam.
jdrc 5y ago
at some point one realizes that people like to make up dramatic situations in their own minds and then live in that reality, and that's a form of self-gratification. According to Brave New World, we should have gotten over this neo-religion of romance that hollywood preached.
jll29 5y ago
This post gets it wrong already in the headline. At least if your happiness (instead of short-term satisfaction) is your objective, it's not about love but about love. Let me explain: the headline mentions "eros" for love, which is one of several (Greek) words for love, but focusing on physical erotics (lust). Nothing wrong with lust per se, but lust considered in isolation can be a selfish thing. Now "agape", another (Greek) word for love, focuses on the aspect of unselfish act of loving a person (the way that one loves a child, parent or friend, or a partner that is also a best friend), to want the other to be happy, to want all the best for them, even at the cost of substantial personal sacrifice. As long as people treat "dating" as some an online shopping for erotic pleasure, a form of cattle market to get cheap sex, they will just keep browsing and comparing, and quickly get bored and move on. True love can only be found if it's not all about eros, but also agape, and to know someone well enough that the latter can grow takes considerable time, and a willingness to understand a person deeply. Related post (not mine): 4 types of "love": https://fromerostoagape.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/eros-romantic-love-and-agape-unconditional-love/ https://fromerostoagape.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/eros-romant... I wish all readers of this post that they find their true love if they haven't done so yet.
- jdrc 5y ago
  Eros did not just represent lust but also love. Agape is a context more limited to christianity, which kind of has anti-sexual overtone. But there were many Erotes representing all kinds of desire and attraction > Anteros ("Love Returned"),[1] Hedylogos ("Sweet-talk"), Hermaphroditus ("Hermaphrodite" or "Effeminate"), Himeros ("Impetuous Love" or "Pressing Desire"), Hymenaios ("Bridal-Hymn"), and Pothos ("Desire, Longing," especially for one who is absent)
  - xupybd 5y ago
    Really there is Greek specific to Christian use? That's interesting. I'll have to look into that. It makes sense that different groups used different worlds. There are English terms like sanctification that you don't hear outside Christian circles.
    - 5y ago
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immigrantheart 5y ago
Looks like the commoditization of love/dating apps and social media begins to show its ugly tail. Stories from my circle of friends/families: - Girls obsessed over their physiques. Going skinny to the point it wrecked their hormones. - People who are married just shy over 2-3 years are thinking on divorce, or have girlfriends/boyfriends. - People having open relationships. - Girls randomly make out in club with some random strangers they just met. - Guys obsessed on having model-like girlfriends. - Girls are doing nose/face/boob job more. - Girls have Excel sheets that track potential guys according to some criterias (i.e, high paying jobs like law, medicine, graduated from an Ivy league, height, body type, etc) Or maybe its just my circles are messed up lol.
- akhmatova 5y ago
  I see you're getting at with the other points -- but what's not to like about these two? - People having open relationships. - Girls randomly make out in club with some random strangers they just met.
- antihero 5y ago
  What exactly is “messed up” about open relationships and making out with strangers?
  - the_doctah 5y ago
    What part about it is healthy, both physically, and emotionally, to you?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikevm 5y ago
    An open relationship is an abusive relationship, even if on the surface it doesn't look like one. You cannot love a partner without fearing of losing them - there has to be some kind of an investment. If you let your partner be intimate sexually with other people then that is definitely bound to happen. And if that doesn't scare you, then you don't really care about him/her. In most cases this is pretty much cuckoldry under a neutral or "hip" label, as women can get laid without effort and men have to work pretty hard for sex, so the woman has her fun with the myriad of choice she has on dating apps (she doesn't even have to pay for dinner), while the guy is barely getting any.
meerita 5y ago
The author clearly didn't studied the matter and she's speaking from personal and enviroment-she-can-perceive point of view, no offense with this part. After reading the entire post, I can see she's biased with her own perception on the matter. Reading other articles, who are also biased just make it worse. When you look at the data, you realize the dating world for men is close to doom. Only a small fraction of men will traspass genes and most women compete for the top 20% men. The rest of the men are invisible. 1/3 of americans males, from 18 to 30 are virgins and it's climbing. Less marriages, more divorces initiated by women, and the list of stats goes on. Also, among all the sexual dynamics that benefit women, you have the services, which are done in order to milk the men who aren't attractive (not only good looking) for women. These men sustain Tinder economy, for example, as all the algorithms are made just to milk men money just to land some opportunity of attractions. Anyone interested should start reading papers, studies, and it will be surprised instead watching TikToks, tweets, etc.
- durnygbur 5y ago
  > These men sustain Tinder economy, for example, as all the algorithms are made just to milk men money just to land some opportunity of attractions. This goes even lower and darker. As a man pays for gold, platinium and gains infinite swipes, one discovers it's mostly profiles of scams, outright asking for money, proposals of findom, some women or fake profiles toying with you purely for their entertainment. A man doesn't even get sex for the money.
  - id 5y ago
    >A man doesn't even get sex for the money. What makes you think paying for Tinder gold entitles you to sex?
    - durnygbur 5y ago
      Why otherwise would I insert coins into this bloody app? What makes women think that a mere using of dating app entitles them to find a partner for "serious relationship"? Paying for it makes me slightly frustrated or even entitled, yes.
enw 5y ago
Hot take: men don’t want promiscuous women as long-term partners, fundamentally people desire long-term partners, and the commoditization of sex contributes to weak relationships and broken families.
- Supermancho 5y ago
  > men don’t want promiscuous women as long-term partners Men don't think in those terms. Promiscuous means quicker (and easier) to filter. > fundamentally people desire long-term partners Why? Because 2 people are stronger than one and as you get older, you start to be painfully aware of that. If you can find a best friend who shares your short term goals, long term goals, life standards (like cleanliness, similar views on drug use, gambling, etc) AND is also interested in you sexually, you probably have a good long term partner.
- jdrc 5y ago
  Hotter take: men don't want long-term partners period, monogamy is social conditioning because it leads to stable and more successful settlements.
  - tgv 5y ago
    Then you define "want" in a very narrow sense, and there definitely is no evidence to show that it's "social condtioniting", nor that it's a desire shared by (nearly) all men.
  - fxtentacle 5y ago
    monogamy != long-term partnership Genghis Khan had 6 long-term wives. Most likely, the women were forced to be monogamous, while he obviously wasn't.
  - numerik_meister 5y ago
    I guess I'm a martian then.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    Wouldn't that mean that "mate guarding" behaviors would have to be assumed to be wholly due to social conditioning? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_guarding_in_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_guarding_in_humans Don't some behaviors like that also happen amongst other mammals or other animals in general?
xupybd 5y ago
I skipped all this being religious. I knew my wife for years. Over a year we started to hit it off and got to know each other as good friends. I asked her out and proposed one week later. Four months later we were married. It's old fashioned but our emotional and physical involvement was proportional to our level of commitment at every stage. It won't be the way most people want to go but it seems to have saved much of the heart ache modern dating appears to cause. Just one data point from someone that did it a little different.
- raxxorraxor 5y ago
  The vast majority of married couples I know never used any dating app or even went dating at all. They mostly came together by chance. I don't think this is unusual and almost none of them are religious at all aside from keeping some traditions (mostly u-boat Christians that surface once a year to Christmas). There seem to be huge socioeconomic differences here though and some groups tend to dating apps far more than others. An exception of people in public or media personalities who also deviate here the most.
- bell-cot 5y ago
  So long as both partner's actual wants and feelings aren't too far off script (which sadly can be difficult, dangerous, or impossible to voice in many religious contexts), that is a vastly more efficient system. In many ways, I see the huge, oft-miserable mess that we have now as a reaction to the too-often simplistic and callous imposition of that old religious system.
- fellowniusmonk 5y ago
  Similar experience, opposite conclusions. There is a reason religious areas (in the U.S.) have higher divorce rates. Turned out my first wife didn't want intimacy of any sort. She wanted marriage but not a relationship beyond the superficial. 10 years later and about >40k in therapy and I divorced her after she admitted she just was never that "attached" to me. I would never advocate a person getting married before sex. Sex is only some life altering emotional thing because of it's scarcity and how people have been inculcated to believe a common animalistic imperative has cosmic spiritual significance. Happily married now to someone with a similar story, they did everything right and their partner just didn't want to be with someone of the opposite sex any longer. It takes two to tango but it only takes one person to pick up their ball and go home. Advice to any kids I ever had would be, have casual sex and relationships until you've developed a better understanding of other people (and also yourself), no marriage until after proof your potential partner is capable of holistic intimacy.
ecmascript 5y ago
Modern, online dating is horrible for all men and we have the statistics that proves it. While every girl has a smörgåsbord of guys, most men have a ghost town as an inbox even if they have an easy time IRL. Sometimes I wish I lived my life before the internet, where friday nights people would go out dancing because there was nothing to do at home. Today, you could go clubbing but I firmly believe it's not the same thing. When you go out socializing most people pick up their smartphones anyway. I hate social media, it's the worst part of the modern society.
- jdrc 5y ago
  Maybe that's why Zuck is pushing the metaverse. Since people can't be glued off their screens, create a party inside their screens and remake their friday night through faithful facsimiles to force them to party again like it's the 70s.
hycaria 5y ago
I loved this article but I can't like it without an account. > The real thing people should be actively looking for is strong emotional connection, as in: to what degree can I share who I am with this person, do they get it, how interested are they in who I am, my feelings and thoughts, can we accommodate each other’s preferences, are we good at talking. I am in an hopefully now lifelong relationship, that almost failed at some point, but what brought us back together is this. So very true. We just "got" each other, from pretty early on, and although it can be crafted through years, it's just a bliss when it's spontaneous. And finding that level of connection (of course strengthened through the years together) again looks impossible. (And if they stalk my account, I love you :) )
Gatsky 5y ago
Tldr: Be honest and self-aware to suffer less in relationships. This is good advice. I would add that romantic relationships are one place where you can benefit from displaying some self-interest and diminishing your charitable instincts. Forgiveness is for enemies, not lovers.
cassepipe 5y ago
I wish Eva Illouz had less success. She is mostly a philosopher, that is someone who says what's goes through her head, and a not a social scientist. I think her idea of the commoditization of love has a lot of success because it seems obvious to our moral oriented minds but the "commodization of {some aspect of life} in the modern society is a commonplace of lazy social analysis, and she is far from alone doing that, and by far not the worst. Marital strategies have always existed, they just adapt to the economic system they are in. So far so good, but she claims it is the source of modern emotional misery and that people before knew how to love. That is I believe totally wrong, maybe they were more romantic types but they still exist today and that is besides the point when studying marital relationships. People did not know how to love better, they had less options, but their strategies varied. Far more interesting is I believe, in "post-indutrialized" societies, the effects on human psychology on the internalization of gender roles that are the remains of an older economic organization clashing with the fact that they are not economically enforced anymore.
- twic 5y ago
  Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word thrown around by those who claim intellectual descent from Marx, with a meaning something like "corruption". Marx used the term (well, "commodification") with a very specific sociological and economic meaning, where some object with a natural "use value" (you can wear a coat to keep warm) is assigned a somewhat artificial "exchange value" (you can sell a coat for money) by the operation of our economic system. I can't for the life of me see how that applies to any of the usual complaints about love in the 21st century.
  - Supermancho 5y ago
    > Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word I've never heard this much less entertained the idea, since it makes sense in these contexts. Commoditization still means treating a thing (which can include a relationship) like it has an inherent relative value that can be traded for other things of relative value. Commodity (a raw material that has a market value) + ization (the conversion of).
  - 5y ago
blfr 5y ago
> You learn about shared interests, job, which college they went to, their friend group. This is the prime mistake I see my friends make. As a guy, there are pretty much only two things that will seriously and negatively affect your dating life: being short or boring. Talking about your college, job, and friends is usually boring. In fact, even funny stories from these contexts are often boring for your dates to hear because they don't know the people involved (yet) and don't care about them. This is how you, as a dude, end up with > you can be very attractive and therefore have a wide range of people interested in you but not have the social skills/psychological acuity to translate initial interest into a successful relationship Initial dates are primarily entertainment. Which is why they used to involve going to the cinema, a good meal, etc. You can go for a coffee, drinks, walk but come in with enough material to carry a conversation for these 1-4 hours.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > come in with enough material to carry a conversation for these 1-4 hours Wow you need a whole multi-part Netflix special just to go on a first date.
  - blfr 5y ago
    Kinda but not really. First, you can reuse and even steal material heavily. Second, you can rely on props, whatever happens around. Third, you don't need to be that good: you're competing with six other boring dudes she went out with and her uncle, not Tim Dillon. Finally, after a while she will pick up and start talking herself. Then you can bounce off that, tease, make fun. This is the best anyway since anything about her is by default interesting.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > Second, you can rely on props I’ve clearly got no idea how people are dating these days…
      - eternalban 5y ago
jawarner 5y ago
A lot of comments here missing the point of the article. People are quick to blame apps for dating pain. Reading the article, very few of the author's points are caused by the app-ification of dating. It is easy to blame "the corporations" for social issues. Let's get specific about what is happening. The article does offer good insight, which I'll highlight here: 1. The root of many dating issues is a lack of communication: > When I was in my late teens or early 20s I would sometimes be in the early stages of dating someone and feel like there was a glass wall between us, I just didn’t really get them, I didn’t know what they wanted from me, and it was so hard for me to have any clarity about who they really are. 2. Most people in their decision-making around relationships are reacting to social pressure rather than following their self-awareness. As an example: > Most people turn to frameworks: either I’m religious, so I’ll wait until marriage, or I don’t think sex is sacred, so I guess I’m open to casual sex 3. In modern dating people tend to have more options, and this magnifies the need for (1) open communication and (2) honest introspection.
- derbOac 5y ago
  I do think apps have something to do with it. Not saying they're evil, but I do think they contribute to the objectification of people. Maybe more importantly, I think they shift the focus in relationships to initial appearances, and onto the evaluation of the other person rather than ones self. I think a lot of this is subtle and not limited to dating. A lot that's too much for me to put in an HN comment from my phone. A lot gets lost in treating dating similarly to how you'd buy a pair of headphones, and it has consequences. Figuring out what exactly is lost is hard, and addressing it would help a lot of people.
  - jawarner 5y ago
    Yes, and your point makes of the OP article's take on "the list" of requirements for a partner. A lot of people do get trapped into an unduly logical mode of thinking about prospective partners. I could see that dating on apps would encourage this way of thinking. I strongly agree with the article's take: > For ex: someone might say, what I want is a guy who’s athletic, has a stable job, wants to have children, good relationship with his family, is funny and emotionally aware. I don’t think lists like that are helpful, because you’re probably subconsciously filtering based on those qualities anyway. The real thing people should be actively looking for is strong emotional connection, as in: to what degree can I share who I am with this person, do they get it, how interested are they in who I am, my feelings and thoughts, can we accommodate each other’s preferences, are we good at talking.
acjohnson55 5y ago
I'm fascinated by the dating app world, because it's a part of the culture I missed out on, as someone who has been in the same relationship since before the iPhone. But the way the author describes it is almost exactly the same as what being single was like 15+ years ago. I didn't have apps for doing intros, so there was more friction for that, but other than that, it doesn't seem like much has changed. From many of my friends, it sounds like navigating the electronic correspondence is as frustrating as trying to make spontaneous physical world connections, especially if your goal and/or the goal of the people you're corresponding with is to find potential relationship partners.
bradlys 5y ago
This article speaks a lot from a position of privilege and mostly from a straight woman’s view. The aspect of dating a lot in their 20’s is something most relegated to the most attractive men and most women these days. If you want to have stable relationships - you need to commit to people who are actually interested in you. The reason many women have these bad experiences with men is because they’re all dating the same guy. Literally. In many instances, women are all dating the same man. They’re all optimizing for the superficial and hoping the deeper and lasting parts appear later. (But they never do - because they optimized for the superficial) So while many women disparage all men because they keep dating the same guy who has way too many options and no interest in committing (and essentially has a harem on tap) but it’s really on them for that scenario they’re in. If you keep going for something that doesn’t want you then it’s on you. I find it weird we are blaming men for these things when it’s clear that most men are just not having sex in their 20s anymore and clearly not even getting dates. Men are very lonely these days. The 4x self-inflicted death rate compared to women should be evidence enough. If we want to fix this and have a more meaningful relationship then women need to stop chasing the one guy who will never settle down with them.
- jawarner 5y ago
  > The 4x self-inflicted death rate compared to women should be evidence enough. This seems like a manipulative use of mental health statistics. Need I remind you that women attempt suicide at a much greater rate than men? Regardless everyone is responsible for their own emotional well-being at the end of the day. It's not right to blame women for male loneliness. After all, I can just as easily flip the script. If your claim is that heterosexual men are miserable due to a lack of dating prospects, then there are an equal number of frustrating heterosexual women unable to find a good relationship. Don't they also feel loneliness? The truth is that dating is hard, and it can be painful for everyone, men and women. Women also encounter a unique set of problems when it comes to dating, e.g., violence, that is experienced less by men.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    Women attempt at a higher rate because they're often not looking to actually die - they're making a plea for help. Men don't attempt like that because no one is going to come knocking or respond to a plea for help - they just end it. The thinking of 1:1 is where you go wrong. First off - more men exist below 40 than women. Men are born at 105-107:100 ratio, NATURALLY. If it was equal - why are the stats on male sex so much more grim than for women? Oh, that's right - because again - multiple women are sharing one man. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-americans-not-having-sex-has-reached-record-high/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame... I really wish we'd get away from this narrative that violence or abuse is only something that women encounter in relationships. Figured the Depp vs Heard trial would make that more obvious to everyday people out here but guess not. I know many men who were abused by women - it is not often reported or talked about because it is - again - incredibly shameful to a degree that makes other people question the survivors "manliness" and worthiness of being a "man". It's also not taken seriously at all. I still think women suffer more often at physical abuse but mental abuse - idk - not clear on that one.

169 points by jger15 5y ago

> you can be very attractive and therefore have a wide range of people interested in you but not have the social skills/psychological acuity to translate initial interest into a successful relationship. I feel that. It took me probably until my mid 20s to realize that anyone found me attractive. Now I notice girls checking me out, and a cashier straight up said about my band shirt “I listen to them in my bedroom…” Still a major sperg, but I did find my person, so I avoided much of the minefield of modern dating.

t0bia_s 5y ago

I honestly thing finding partner online is damaging relationships. Attraction to someone should be based on real interaction, not virtual profiles that are far away from reality.

mrfinn 5y ago

Terrible agony: Wait for when you have kids.

ge96 5y ago
I wonder about this. It's a crazy commitment/years to deal with. I just look back to my own childhood/what my parents dealt with. On the other hand part of me feels sad thinking I will be the "last me". Maybe get genome sequenced/publish books of my face and put it sealed in a landfill somewhere for preservation. Actually rocks last a long time so probably a statue made with a rock.
- chromanoid 5y ago
  It feels like having your heart outside of your body and it's running around recklessly. Having children changed my outlook on the future quite a bit. First, I feel much more repsonsible and interested in the ecological future, because I intensely love people who will have to deal with the consequences in the future. Second, I hope I will be able to have a natural look into the problems of future generations, when I am old - there is a "strong bond into the future" for me. Third, while I don't feel it's a "future me" that I talk into sleep every evening, it feels like my human legacy. Considering my current reality, my children are probably the biggest impact I can have on the future. BTW I guess all this is true regardless of genetic bonds.
  - the_doctah 5y ago
    And in an ironic twist, the more people we bring into this world out of our own ego, the worse off it becomes.
    - chromanoid 5y ago
      As far as I know, it's less about how many and more about how they live. There is this myth of overpopulation (afaik this is well documented), in reality it's the egoism of the few rich countries who run the world down. And here I hope my children will participate in changing things.
- jdrc 5y ago
  Just leave some hair somewhere... In the future, kids will clone us and keep us for pets in their garden
spicyusername 5y ago
Kids are very likely the most rewarding and enjoyable thing you can possibly do in your life. You just need to have a solid partnership with your significant other before having them. Many of the points in the article are exactly the kinds of things you want to cultivate with your partner (e.g. self-awareness, good communication, etc) before having kids. If you have a good relationship with your partner, having kids is very manageable. Our generation is too cynical on kids and it's to their own detriment.
- mrfinn 4y ago
  Oh no, I'm not blaming kids at all. I'm blaming the biological need of sharing them with a completely independent adult that I thought was a solid partnership and now often decides to use them, in ways I never dared to imagine, to achieve the desired goals.

deepstack 5y ago

The fact that someone would write this on a blog give me the sense that he/she is over analysing this dating thing. Analysis works for accounting and engineering, it does not work for dating. So stop analysing and go have some fun in life.

Brian_K_White 5y ago
ignorance is never the superior tactic
- deepstack 5y ago
  It is true, however ignorance and analysis are not mutually exclusive. Just because one analyse it doesn't mean one can avoid being ignorant. Certain things are just not meant for analysis. Dating, Love fun are in those things for my personal experiences.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    One can run all day and still not travel a mile. One can not travel a mile without travelling a mile. The fact that you can run in circles does not mean therefor running produces nonresults and the only way to travel is to rely on the luck that you magically land where you want, even though that does happen to a few people.
- CipherThrowaway 5y ago
  Being knowingly ignorant is less ignorant than being unknowingly ignorant. Over systematization of dating creates illusory knowledge that impedes connection. I've seen how the obsessive-analytic mindset fares in dating. I'll take bumbling along any day.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    This article specifically decries systems. The advice not to over-analyse is itself an analasys and a piece of wisdom, which you and anyone you tell it to is better off for knowing. You have improved your and any readers life by becoming less ignorant. Your analasys is actually merely about optimization, specifically over-optimization or mis-directed optimization. And that is just one of the many thhings that are valuable to know, and which you can only know by thinking about it. Maybe you're a thoughtless person and you only get it after years of unthinking miserable victimhood. Maybe you're a thoughtful person and this understanding occures to you on your own before you waste your life. Maybe you have the good fortune to have a parent that doesn't think ignorance is bliss and they imparted the wisdom to you. But one way or another, to have the understanding, you had to think about it, it had to be a tbought that existed in your head. But you know who really does advocate for ignorance? Predators.

ggm 5y ago

Not being in need of this solution space, but interested in the massive dynamic shift from my time across the 70s and 80s. I don't think modern dating is nice. I don't just think that's technophobic thinking, I think it's too introspective and risky. Things were different when it was landline phone calls and note passing. We were less concerned to be helped by friends, it was normal. Nowadays there is a strong tendency to keep relationships private until ready. "Warts and all" is hard through a lens.

mothsonasloth 5y ago

The article was well written but I think it falls victim to bubble of anecdata in the dating and social media world online. What I mean is the people online who are dating and talking about dating online are more likely to be experience the agony of Eros. Than those who are dating or in a relationship but not sharing about it online. Sort of like a signal to noise ratio that is highly squeued towards the love fails than love wins. Love will never be solved, regardless of classical theories or modern day ones. Just go for it and don't think to much about the theoretical

liminvorous 5y ago
I think you’re just saying “I am not in the intended audience for this article”.

varjag 5y ago

We expect more from our partners than ever before—we want them to be our true love, our best friend, our coparenting partner, and the person we combine our finances with. Curious what is their idea of 'before'. Unless they mean pre-industrial societies.

smackeyacky 5y ago
True love is a very modern concept that used to be restricted to fairytales.
- varjag 5y ago
  Fairytales are also pre-industrial. My point is exactly that it's not quite appstore-modern.
  - eternalban 5y ago
    Quite a few of these are in fact cautionary tales or allegories. (Obsessive romantic) Love in many cultures was considered a sort of madness. Only the elite subset of society had time for romantic amusements in pre-industrial societies. A lot of these issues (and preoccupations with romance) go out of the window when people are struggling to survive, as most did in pre-industrial societies.
    - arunprakash01 5y ago
      [flagged]
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    The modern conception of true love is very modern. Nobles used to marry to accumulate property and fairy tales were little more than the glammed up version the hoi polloi consumed. Like the Kardashian thing, tabloids etc where the story is a fabrication. I think what gets lost is that long term relationships have been more utilitarian than anyone likes to admit. Who doesn't love a love story, or want to feel the rush of first attraction? The problem is that it isn't enough to build a life out of. You need a practical, working partnership to raise a family and app dating isn't geared to that goal. The apps give a monstrous illusion there might be something better on the next swipe, and it just isn't true.

librish 5y ago

I find the discussion of ghosting interesting. If I've gone on a bad date or two I don't specifically tell the other person I don't want to see them again unless they ask me. This allows for a lot more saving face if I run into them in the future (we can both pretend it just fell through the cracks) and is exactly how I want to be treated. While I appreciate the honesty I do find it a little condescending when someone messages me "just so you know, I don't want to see you again" after a bad date. But some people consider not doing this to be the equivalent of going from daily messaging to total radio silence out of nowhere after dating for months.

deepstack 5y ago
there is nothing to talk about ghosting. They just don't want to see you, get that as a valid communication and move on.
djbebs 5y ago
Tbh ghosting isn't as bad as saying one thing and then making excuses to not go through it. I've been on dates where I thought it went well, I got the "let's do this again", and then whenever I suggested "let's do it again on X day?" I get excuses. If they don't want to that's fine, they don't even have to say no just don't reply! But the leading on is annoying...
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  That might also be a communication mismatch. I've seen this situation a few times: Woman says "let's do this [going shopping as friends] again" and then later they are surprised when the Man suggests "let's do this [going on a date as potential partners] again". The [] part is implied and never said, which is why the miscommunication happens.
  - omniglottal 5y ago
    It's pretty clear to see that such miscommunication rises from a person's responsibility to be honest. "Let's do this again!" implies intent. If that intent does not actually exist, focus should be on such a lie and, by extension, the liar. While such (mis)communication becomes cultural, that still doesn't make it effective. Defending it is about wise as justifying the previously predominant signalling of women playing "hard to get" with someone they actually wanted to "get" them, and saying "no" while meaning "yes", yet being surprised at the subsequent rise in rape culture.

fxtentacle 5y ago

I believe this very nicely ties in with "No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31143279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31143279 We have turned sexual partners into an affluent commodity, thanks to apps. With a bit of paid boosting, you can show your profile to 1000+ potential partners and surely a few of them will have a favorable first impression. We've also successfully reframed being sexually promiscuous as not being limited by religion / social norms / the patriarchy. Plus we've all but eliminated potentially negative consequences with birth control. And our entire society celebrates a "hustle" and "fake it till you make it" culture. The article's complains "men signal emotional seriousness that they don’t actually feel" which I'd say is "fake it till you make it" combined with very low investment due to oversupply of partners. "you’ll likely be terrified the person you like will meet someone else they like more, or likes you but doesn’t like you enough to commit" also just means that there's a high level of competition, due to oversupply of partners. And lastly, the article nicely points out that everyone wants a "quick fix", which is why you can buy tons of books and guides on how to behave, i.e. imitating the correct gestures, but very few people put in the effort to actually learn to become a good communicator. But the article also has one huge oversight in my opinion: Pheromones and genetic compatibility. People can smell if their offspring will be healthy pretty quickly, but it's impossible to screen for this with apps. That's how people end up with so many dates where they should like the other person, but for some reason they don't. I believe this is also why some people ghost each other after the first intimate contact. "I didn't like his/her smell" is a common reason to stop dating, after all. We as a society need to accept that not everything can be fixed and improved with self-help courses. Some people just won't match on a genetic level and there's little you can do to fix that.

ge96 5y ago
> People can smell if their offspring will be healthy pretty quickly That's so interesting, it's not BO right or some bad perfume/cologne.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  No actually females can typically "smell" (for lack of a better word) out of the sweat of males if the immune system markers are different enough to protect potential offspring from getting the same sicknesses as mother or father. "In several species, including rodents and fish, it has been shown that the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) influences mating preferences" "This study thus supports the hypothesis that the MHC influences mate choice in some human populations." https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000184 https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/jo...

verisimi 5y ago

'Modern Dating' is where corporations intermediate your interactions with the other sex... and its not working out well? Well, what a surprise! People have lost all sense it seems to me - we have been trained to have technology do everything for us. This really means the corporations behind the tech are meant to do everything for us. Good god. The mega-trend - IMO - in all this is a fostered neoteny (extended juvenile period) where our expectations are that someone should service our desires. Its such an irresponsible and weak position - it doesn't even register as a possibility to the younger generation that they should be able to sort things out on their own - benevolent tech companies should do it instead. Even a date is too much apparently. Humanity is being softened into a warm puree. PS If corporations are involved in the dating business (which they are) think about it from their point of view. They do not actually want you to succeed! They want you to fail but keep using their services. The more you fail the better! The more unhappy you are the more you will spend in your date-death spiral. Like we don't have a health industry but a managed illness industry, the dating industry would be better called a managed loneliness industry, cos loneliness and unhappiness opens the purse strings as you try to resolve your unhappiness with all the other crap corporations have to offer.

l33t2328 5y ago
> 'Modern Dating' is where corporations intermediate your interactions with the other sex... This seems to be the overwhelming sentiment when this topic comes up here, but I had to wonder: how much are you people relying on Tinder et al. ?
m000 5y ago
> The mega-trend - IMO - in all this is a fostered neoteny (extended juvenile period) where our expectations are that someone should service our desires. Its such an irresponsible and weak position - it doesn't even register as a possibility to the younger generation that they should be able to sort things out on their own - benevolent tech companies should do it instead. Even a date is too much apparently. Sorry, I don't buy this. Even working in the tech field, buying a house with your salary is really tough. And it only goes downhill for other types of jobs. So this "fostered neoteny" is just young people not feeling financially secure to start a traditional family. You can't possibly sort out generational financial insecurity on your own.

MezzoDelCammin 5y ago

Is it just me, or does this article really overthink way too much? IMO, dating is ultimately not a subject that could be analyzed by logic. At least not on on the personal / self-help level (of course sociology / statistics still work). Trying to find some kind of generally applicable "rules of the game" that would work for everyone (or even most) people seems somewhat "not even wrong". It's simply trying to use the wrong tool in the wrong place. A date an encounter of two individuals trying to assess and explore their compatibility. This "should" (at least in my opinion) always be subject to their own morals and ethics. The question isn't "what do most people want / do", but "what would I / You want / do".

smackeyacky 5y ago
I found it interesting. Being an older person in a long term relationship with someone I met in high school, the online dating stuff seems much harder for a lot of reasons. Firstly, meet someone when you are young they are more likely to be of a similar socio-economic group and share a lot of values by default. Second (and I realise this is controversial) if you fall in love when you are young and stupid, the pair of you will become adults together and that shared experience will get you through shit that would turn your hair white. I thought the article provided some insight into how you are supposed to replace the older model of dating when the tech side of things offers too much pressure to do things quickly i.e. assess and cast off, or move straight to sex in a week. So to me it seemed like an assessment of things you should consider to slow things down, be honest with yourself and prospective partners. Not overthinking, properly thinking.
- freedom2099 5y ago
  I totally understand your point… like you I married my high school sweetheart (I am 37 and to date I have being in one continuous monogamous relationship for 20 years). We did grow up together… changed together.
- doix 5y ago
  I am 30(ish) and have managed to avoid the online dating scene. I just met people doing the hobbies I like and traveling. I feel like now it's easier than ever to do that. COVID has made a lot more people travel (anecdotal data ofc) after they felt stuck for a while. And remote work means that you can travel while working. You can go somewhere, meet someone, and then travel around together. If things stop going well, just stop traveling together. Stay at hostels, work at co-working spaces, look for 'expat groups' on Facebook (had to reactivate my Facebook account for this one). Get some hobbies and move to places that you can do them (live in a ski resort for a season or a surfer town and go snowboarding/surfing everyday). The person you meet will most likely be doing the same thing you're doing, so at least you have something in common (hobbies/traveling). The best part is, even if you don't meet someone, you probably had fun doing stuff rather than sitting at home and swiping on tinder. The only downside is the environmental impact of traveling around :(.

beebeepka 5y ago

I cannot relate with the whole "dating" thing one bit. It's not just that I am old now. All I hear is "apps" and silly comments on "how we this and that". I'd go as far as saying avoid people who spew things like "we" on the internet. It's crap. They don't know you, and you don't know them. Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love. Don't fall into this app dating thing. It's a trap. Why else would they be tripping over to promote it?

curiousgal 5y ago
> Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love. Are they though? I mean When I meet people through apps I know exactly what they're looking for. But approaching people I've met in person for the first time leads to a whole spew of issues mostly due to me not knowing what they're looking for (as most people tend not to be communicative about that as the article describes).
erfgh 5y ago
Dating by apps is terrible but bars are arguably even worse.
astrange 5y ago
> Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love. Surprisingly this may still be true (I thought people didn't drink as much these days) but it's significantly less common than apps for couples now. https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1908630116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1908630116 Also not very popular for lesbians. https://www.graphext.com/post/how-couples-meet-and-stay-together https://www.graphext.com/post/how-couples-meet-and-stay-toge...
- Mezzie 5y ago
  I'm a lesbian who despises dating online. I've just accepted I'm going to be single.
  - astrange 5y ago
    I heard you're supposed to meet someone in a bookstore then get married on the second date.

ceilingcorner 5y ago

Interesting that at no point does anyone stop and think, “Gee, maybe tearing down every institution and social obligation in the name of individualist consumerism wasn’t a good idea? Perhaps our ancestors and their thousands of years old traditions concerning marriage and dating weren’t outdated idiots after all?” Nope. The solution is always more dating apps, more self-help books, more targeted algorithms to find your perfect match and fulfill your individualist desires for pleasure and purpose. If you aren’t happy with your dating situation, it’s because you aren’t knowledgeable or hard-working enough.

jdrc 5y ago
Sure people stop and think. traditionalism does not have a lot of potential for commercial exploitation so you see more of the other. You can't stop it, but you can at least let people know that the whole romantic ecosystem from hollywood to PUAs is basically a marketing scam.

jdrc 5y ago

at some point one realizes that people like to make up dramatic situations in their own minds and then live in that reality, and that's a form of self-gratification. According to Brave New World, we should have gotten over this neo-religion of romance that hollywood preached.

jll29 5y ago

This post gets it wrong already in the headline. At least if your happiness (instead of short-term satisfaction) is your objective, it's not about love but about love. Let me explain: the headline mentions "eros" for love, which is one of several (Greek) words for love, but focusing on physical erotics (lust). Nothing wrong with lust per se, but lust considered in isolation can be a selfish thing. Now "agape", another (Greek) word for love, focuses on the aspect of unselfish act of loving a person (the way that one loves a child, parent or friend, or a partner that is also a best friend), to want the other to be happy, to want all the best for them, even at the cost of substantial personal sacrifice. As long as people treat "dating" as some an online shopping for erotic pleasure, a form of cattle market to get cheap sex, they will just keep browsing and comparing, and quickly get bored and move on. True love can only be found if it's not all about eros, but also agape, and to know someone well enough that the latter can grow takes considerable time, and a willingness to understand a person deeply. Related post (not mine): 4 types of "love": https://fromerostoagape.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/eros-romantic-love-and-agape-unconditional-love/ https://fromerostoagape.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/eros-romant... I wish all readers of this post that they find their true love if they haven't done so yet.

jdrc 5y ago
Eros did not just represent lust but also love. Agape is a context more limited to christianity, which kind of has anti-sexual overtone. But there were many Erotes representing all kinds of desire and attraction > Anteros ("Love Returned"),[1] Hedylogos ("Sweet-talk"), Hermaphroditus ("Hermaphrodite" or "Effeminate"), Himeros ("Impetuous Love" or "Pressing Desire"), Hymenaios ("Bridal-Hymn"), and Pothos ("Desire, Longing," especially for one who is absent)
- xupybd 5y ago
  Really there is Greek specific to Christian use? That's interesting. I'll have to look into that. It makes sense that different groups used different worlds. There are English terms like sanctification that you don't hear outside Christian circles.
  - 5y ago

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immigrantheart 5y ago

Looks like the commoditization of love/dating apps and social media begins to show its ugly tail. Stories from my circle of friends/families: - Girls obsessed over their physiques. Going skinny to the point it wrecked their hormones. - People who are married just shy over 2-3 years are thinking on divorce, or have girlfriends/boyfriends. - People having open relationships. - Girls randomly make out in club with some random strangers they just met. - Guys obsessed on having model-like girlfriends. - Girls are doing nose/face/boob job more. - Girls have Excel sheets that track potential guys according to some criterias (i.e, high paying jobs like law, medicine, graduated from an Ivy league, height, body type, etc) Or maybe its just my circles are messed up lol.

akhmatova 5y ago
I see you're getting at with the other points -- but what's not to like about these two? - People having open relationships. - Girls randomly make out in club with some random strangers they just met.
antihero 5y ago
What exactly is “messed up” about open relationships and making out with strangers?
- the_doctah 5y ago
  What part about it is healthy, both physically, and emotionally, to you?
- deleted 5y ago
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- mikevm 5y ago
  An open relationship is an abusive relationship, even if on the surface it doesn't look like one. You cannot love a partner without fearing of losing them - there has to be some kind of an investment. If you let your partner be intimate sexually with other people then that is definitely bound to happen. And if that doesn't scare you, then you don't really care about him/her. In most cases this is pretty much cuckoldry under a neutral or "hip" label, as women can get laid without effort and men have to work pretty hard for sex, so the woman has her fun with the myriad of choice she has on dating apps (she doesn't even have to pay for dinner), while the guy is barely getting any.

meerita 5y ago

The author clearly didn't studied the matter and she's speaking from personal and enviroment-she-can-perceive point of view, no offense with this part. After reading the entire post, I can see she's biased with her own perception on the matter. Reading other articles, who are also biased just make it worse. When you look at the data, you realize the dating world for men is close to doom. Only a small fraction of men will traspass genes and most women compete for the top 20% men. The rest of the men are invisible. 1/3 of americans males, from 18 to 30 are virgins and it's climbing. Less marriages, more divorces initiated by women, and the list of stats goes on. Also, among all the sexual dynamics that benefit women, you have the services, which are done in order to milk the men who aren't attractive (not only good looking) for women. These men sustain Tinder economy, for example, as all the algorithms are made just to milk men money just to land some opportunity of attractions. Anyone interested should start reading papers, studies, and it will be surprised instead watching TikToks, tweets, etc.

durnygbur 5y ago
> These men sustain Tinder economy, for example, as all the algorithms are made just to milk men money just to land some opportunity of attractions. This goes even lower and darker. As a man pays for gold, platinium and gains infinite swipes, one discovers it's mostly profiles of scams, outright asking for money, proposals of findom, some women or fake profiles toying with you purely for their entertainment. A man doesn't even get sex for the money.
- id 5y ago
  >A man doesn't even get sex for the money. What makes you think paying for Tinder gold entitles you to sex?
  - durnygbur 5y ago
    Why otherwise would I insert coins into this bloody app? What makes women think that a mere using of dating app entitles them to find a partner for "serious relationship"? Paying for it makes me slightly frustrated or even entitled, yes.

enw 5y ago

Hot take: men don’t want promiscuous women as long-term partners, fundamentally people desire long-term partners, and the commoditization of sex contributes to weak relationships and broken families.

Supermancho 5y ago
> men don’t want promiscuous women as long-term partners Men don't think in those terms. Promiscuous means quicker (and easier) to filter. > fundamentally people desire long-term partners Why? Because 2 people are stronger than one and as you get older, you start to be painfully aware of that. If you can find a best friend who shares your short term goals, long term goals, life standards (like cleanliness, similar views on drug use, gambling, etc) AND is also interested in you sexually, you probably have a good long term partner.
jdrc 5y ago
Hotter take: men don't want long-term partners period, monogamy is social conditioning because it leads to stable and more successful settlements.
- tgv 5y ago
  Then you define "want" in a very narrow sense, and there definitely is no evidence to show that it's "social condtioniting", nor that it's a desire shared by (nearly) all men.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  monogamy != long-term partnership Genghis Khan had 6 long-term wives. Most likely, the women were forced to be monogamous, while he obviously wasn't.
- numerik_meister 5y ago
  I guess I'm a martian then.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  Wouldn't that mean that "mate guarding" behaviors would have to be assumed to be wholly due to social conditioning? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_guarding_in_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_guarding_in_humans Don't some behaviors like that also happen amongst other mammals or other animals in general?

xupybd 5y ago

I skipped all this being religious. I knew my wife for years. Over a year we started to hit it off and got to know each other as good friends. I asked her out and proposed one week later. Four months later we were married. It's old fashioned but our emotional and physical involvement was proportional to our level of commitment at every stage. It won't be the way most people want to go but it seems to have saved much of the heart ache modern dating appears to cause. Just one data point from someone that did it a little different.

raxxorraxor 5y ago
The vast majority of married couples I know never used any dating app or even went dating at all. They mostly came together by chance. I don't think this is unusual and almost none of them are religious at all aside from keeping some traditions (mostly u-boat Christians that surface once a year to Christmas). There seem to be huge socioeconomic differences here though and some groups tend to dating apps far more than others. An exception of people in public or media personalities who also deviate here the most.
bell-cot 5y ago
So long as both partner's actual wants and feelings aren't too far off script (which sadly can be difficult, dangerous, or impossible to voice in many religious contexts), that is a vastly more efficient system. In many ways, I see the huge, oft-miserable mess that we have now as a reaction to the too-often simplistic and callous imposition of that old religious system.
fellowniusmonk 5y ago
Similar experience, opposite conclusions. There is a reason religious areas (in the U.S.) have higher divorce rates. Turned out my first wife didn't want intimacy of any sort. She wanted marriage but not a relationship beyond the superficial. 10 years later and about >40k in therapy and I divorced her after she admitted she just was never that "attached" to me. I would never advocate a person getting married before sex. Sex is only some life altering emotional thing because of it's scarcity and how people have been inculcated to believe a common animalistic imperative has cosmic spiritual significance. Happily married now to someone with a similar story, they did everything right and their partner just didn't want to be with someone of the opposite sex any longer. It takes two to tango but it only takes one person to pick up their ball and go home. Advice to any kids I ever had would be, have casual sex and relationships until you've developed a better understanding of other people (and also yourself), no marriage until after proof your potential partner is capable of holistic intimacy.

ecmascript 5y ago

Modern, online dating is horrible for all men and we have the statistics that proves it. While every girl has a smörgåsbord of guys, most men have a ghost town as an inbox even if they have an easy time IRL. Sometimes I wish I lived my life before the internet, where friday nights people would go out dancing because there was nothing to do at home. Today, you could go clubbing but I firmly believe it's not the same thing. When you go out socializing most people pick up their smartphones anyway. I hate social media, it's the worst part of the modern society.

jdrc 5y ago
Maybe that's why Zuck is pushing the metaverse. Since people can't be glued off their screens, create a party inside their screens and remake their friday night through faithful facsimiles to force them to party again like it's the 70s.

hycaria 5y ago

I loved this article but I can't like it without an account. > The real thing people should be actively looking for is strong emotional connection, as in: to what degree can I share who I am with this person, do they get it, how interested are they in who I am, my feelings and thoughts, can we accommodate each other’s preferences, are we good at talking. I am in an hopefully now lifelong relationship, that almost failed at some point, but what brought us back together is this. So very true. We just "got" each other, from pretty early on, and although it can be crafted through years, it's just a bliss when it's spontaneous. And finding that level of connection (of course strengthened through the years together) again looks impossible. (And if they stalk my account, I love you :) )

Gatsky 5y ago

Tldr: Be honest and self-aware to suffer less in relationships. This is good advice. I would add that romantic relationships are one place where you can benefit from displaying some self-interest and diminishing your charitable instincts. Forgiveness is for enemies, not lovers.

cassepipe 5y ago

I wish Eva Illouz had less success. She is mostly a philosopher, that is someone who says what's goes through her head, and a not a social scientist. I think her idea of the commoditization of love has a lot of success because it seems obvious to our moral oriented minds but the "commodization of {some aspect of life} in the modern society is a commonplace of lazy social analysis, and she is far from alone doing that, and by far not the worst. Marital strategies have always existed, they just adapt to the economic system they are in. So far so good, but she claims it is the source of modern emotional misery and that people before knew how to love. That is I believe totally wrong, maybe they were more romantic types but they still exist today and that is besides the point when studying marital relationships. People did not know how to love better, they had less options, but their strategies varied. Far more interesting is I believe, in "post-indutrialized" societies, the effects on human psychology on the internalization of gender roles that are the remains of an older economic organization clashing with the fact that they are not economically enforced anymore.

twic 5y ago
Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word thrown around by those who claim intellectual descent from Marx, with a meaning something like "corruption". Marx used the term (well, "commodification") with a very specific sociological and economic meaning, where some object with a natural "use value" (you can wear a coat to keep warm) is assigned a somewhat artificial "exchange value" (you can sell a coat for money) by the operation of our economic system. I can't for the life of me see how that applies to any of the usual complaints about love in the 21st century.
- Supermancho 5y ago
  > Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word I've never heard this much less entertained the idea, since it makes sense in these contexts. Commoditization still means treating a thing (which can include a relationship) like it has an inherent relative value that can be traded for other things of relative value. Commodity (a raw material that has a market value) + ization (the conversion of).
- 5y ago

blfr 5y ago

> You learn about shared interests, job, which college they went to, their friend group. This is the prime mistake I see my friends make. As a guy, there are pretty much only two things that will seriously and negatively affect your dating life: being short or boring. Talking about your college, job, and friends is usually boring. In fact, even funny stories from these contexts are often boring for your dates to hear because they don't know the people involved (yet) and don't care about them. This is how you, as a dude, end up with > you can be very attractive and therefore have a wide range of people interested in you but not have the social skills/psychological acuity to translate initial interest into a successful relationship Initial dates are primarily entertainment. Which is why they used to involve going to the cinema, a good meal, etc. You can go for a coffee, drinks, walk but come in with enough material to carry a conversation for these 1-4 hours.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> come in with enough material to carry a conversation for these 1-4 hours Wow you need a whole multi-part Netflix special just to go on a first date.
- blfr 5y ago
  Kinda but not really. First, you can reuse and even steal material heavily. Second, you can rely on props, whatever happens around. Third, you don't need to be that good: you're competing with six other boring dudes she went out with and her uncle, not Tim Dillon. Finally, after a while she will pick up and start talking herself. Then you can bounce off that, tease, make fun. This is the best anyway since anything about her is by default interesting.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > Second, you can rely on props I’ve clearly got no idea how people are dating these days…
    - eternalban 5y ago

jawarner 5y ago

A lot of comments here missing the point of the article. People are quick to blame apps for dating pain. Reading the article, very few of the author's points are caused by the app-ification of dating. It is easy to blame "the corporations" for social issues. Let's get specific about what is happening. The article does offer good insight, which I'll highlight here: 1. The root of many dating issues is a lack of communication: > When I was in my late teens or early 20s I would sometimes be in the early stages of dating someone and feel like there was a glass wall between us, I just didn’t really get them, I didn’t know what they wanted from me, and it was so hard for me to have any clarity about who they really are. 2. Most people in their decision-making around relationships are reacting to social pressure rather than following their self-awareness. As an example: > Most people turn to frameworks: either I’m religious, so I’ll wait until marriage, or I don’t think sex is sacred, so I guess I’m open to casual sex 3. In modern dating people tend to have more options, and this magnifies the need for (1) open communication and (2) honest introspection.

derbOac 5y ago
I do think apps have something to do with it. Not saying they're evil, but I do think they contribute to the objectification of people. Maybe more importantly, I think they shift the focus in relationships to initial appearances, and onto the evaluation of the other person rather than ones self. I think a lot of this is subtle and not limited to dating. A lot that's too much for me to put in an HN comment from my phone. A lot gets lost in treating dating similarly to how you'd buy a pair of headphones, and it has consequences. Figuring out what exactly is lost is hard, and addressing it would help a lot of people.
- jawarner 5y ago
  Yes, and your point makes of the OP article's take on "the list" of requirements for a partner. A lot of people do get trapped into an unduly logical mode of thinking about prospective partners. I could see that dating on apps would encourage this way of thinking. I strongly agree with the article's take: > For ex: someone might say, what I want is a guy who’s athletic, has a stable job, wants to have children, good relationship with his family, is funny and emotionally aware. I don’t think lists like that are helpful, because you’re probably subconsciously filtering based on those qualities anyway. The real thing people should be actively looking for is strong emotional connection, as in: to what degree can I share who I am with this person, do they get it, how interested are they in who I am, my feelings and thoughts, can we accommodate each other’s preferences, are we good at talking.

acjohnson55 5y ago

I'm fascinated by the dating app world, because it's a part of the culture I missed out on, as someone who has been in the same relationship since before the iPhone. But the way the author describes it is almost exactly the same as what being single was like 15+ years ago. I didn't have apps for doing intros, so there was more friction for that, but other than that, it doesn't seem like much has changed. From many of my friends, it sounds like navigating the electronic correspondence is as frustrating as trying to make spontaneous physical world connections, especially if your goal and/or the goal of the people you're corresponding with is to find potential relationship partners.

bradlys 5y ago

This article speaks a lot from a position of privilege and mostly from a straight woman’s view. The aspect of dating a lot in their 20’s is something most relegated to the most attractive men and most women these days. If you want to have stable relationships - you need to commit to people who are actually interested in you. The reason many women have these bad experiences with men is because they’re all dating the same guy. Literally. In many instances, women are all dating the same man. They’re all optimizing for the superficial and hoping the deeper and lasting parts appear later. (But they never do - because they optimized for the superficial) So while many women disparage all men because they keep dating the same guy who has way too many options and no interest in committing (and essentially has a harem on tap) but it’s really on them for that scenario they’re in. If you keep going for something that doesn’t want you then it’s on you. I find it weird we are blaming men for these things when it’s clear that most men are just not having sex in their 20s anymore and clearly not even getting dates. Men are very lonely these days. The 4x self-inflicted death rate compared to women should be evidence enough. If we want to fix this and have a more meaningful relationship then women need to stop chasing the one guy who will never settle down with them.

jawarner 5y ago
> The 4x self-inflicted death rate compared to women should be evidence enough. This seems like a manipulative use of mental health statistics. Need I remind you that women attempt suicide at a much greater rate than men? Regardless everyone is responsible for their own emotional well-being at the end of the day. It's not right to blame women for male loneliness. After all, I can just as easily flip the script. If your claim is that heterosexual men are miserable due to a lack of dating prospects, then there are an equal number of frustrating heterosexual women unable to find a good relationship. Don't they also feel loneliness? The truth is that dating is hard, and it can be painful for everyone, men and women. Women also encounter a unique set of problems when it comes to dating, e.g., violence, that is experienced less by men.
- bradlys 5y ago
  Women attempt at a higher rate because they're often not looking to actually die - they're making a plea for help. Men don't attempt like that because no one is going to come knocking or respond to a plea for help - they just end it. The thinking of 1:1 is where you go wrong. First off - more men exist below 40 than women. Men are born at 105-107:100 ratio, NATURALLY. If it was equal - why are the stats on male sex so much more grim than for women? Oh, that's right - because again - multiple women are sharing one man. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-americans-not-having-sex-has-reached-record-high/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame... I really wish we'd get away from this narrative that violence or abuse is only something that women encounter in relationships. Figured the Depp vs Heard trial would make that more obvious to everyday people out here but guess not. I know many men who were abused by women - it is not often reported or talked about because it is - again - incredibly shameful to a degree that makes other people question the survivors "manliness" and worthiness of being a "man". It's also not taken seriously at all. I still think women suffer more often at physical abuse but mental abuse - idk - not clear on that one.