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Unbelievable. This "dying in sand is just like dying in water" meme is a bad analogy and people should use their brains for a second before parroting it in the

Unbelievable. This "dying in sand is just like dying in water" meme is a bad analogy and people should use their brains for a second before parroting it in the dating context. Just because it sounds like an ancient wisdom proverb doesn't mean it fits in this context. Having an oversupply of (even mediocre) potential partners is way better than a chronic shortage of potential partners. Would you also tell the chronically unemployed person that you being flooded with job offers all day you can't keep track of, means you're dying just like him, but in water instead of sand? No, you're not dying, you're just overwhelmed with supply, which is still better than having zero supply.

healsdata 2y ago
Maybe you didn't realize this, but the "dying in the ocean" is analogy is because ocean water isn't drinkable. So while, on the surface, it seems great to be surrounded by water when you're thirsty, it doesn't help if that water isn't drinkable. That's the exact problem this article discusses for women -- being surrounded by "un-dateable" men. It's why moderation tools are mentioned repeatedly in the article.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Yes, i know ocean water is undrinkable but the analogy is still incredibly stupid since you can't tell me with a straight face that absolutely all men on dating platforms are undatable(the undrinkable ocean water). It's more accurate that women on dating apps are far too picky and have far higher standards online (it's been well documented by percentile of sipes) and therefore in their eyes see most men as undatable even if that's not the case (someone might not have the most exciting or handsome profile but he could still be a fun date or a great dad and yet never get any dates). But women being too picky online is a completely different issue to not being any datable men out there, which can't be true, and the fact still stands that they have the oversupply which lets them be choosy, which is still better than men having an undersupply issue which is the life of men online dating. So the more accurate "water analogy" would be that online dating women are surrounded by loads of drinkable water but they refuse to drink it because most of it is average tap water which they see as undrinkable, as they all go online looking for the VOSS/Evian water which is indeed in short supply not just online but also IRL, except IRL they're more aware of it and mostly go online looking to find what they don't have IRL.
  - 331c8c71 2y ago
    > It's more that women on dating apps are far too picky. Not only that but I guess many of them are there for ego boosting pusposes and such rather than dating.
  - godelski 2y ago
    The point is that it's difficult to differentiate salt water from regular water. I think you also misunderstand. If given the choice, I'd rather die of dehydration in the ocean than in the desert. They both suck but that one seems better (having spent significant time in both regions). You'll get sunburned in both but in the desert there's nothing to cool you off. You'll be much more likely to survive longer in the ocean than desert, even if we ignore food availability. So you're giving a really unfair interpretation because no one is saying they're equally bad. They're (I'm) just saying that you're going to die in both situations As with anything in language, remember that your job is to figure out what the person means, not what they say. The words they use are a signal but it's compressed and fuzzy (especially on the Internet where we have many cultures -- big and small -- interacting with many different expected commission and decompression expectations). It's always possible to gravely misinterpret anything anyone says, no matter how carefully they say it.
    - megadal 2y ago
      > It's always possible to gravely misinterpret anything anyone says, no matter how carefully they say it. > So you're giving a really unfair interpretation because no one is saying they're equally bad. They're (I'm) just saying that you're going to die in both situations It is also possible for a person to simply contradict themselves. What you are saying is they are equally bad outcomes. You're also simultaneously implying that one is objectively worse than the other in every possible way.
      - godelski 2y ago
        There's no contradiction. Equally bad outcomes does not mean that they paths to those outcomes is also equal. As a clear example, in both these cases the outcome is "death" right? I think we all know we'd rather go out in our sleep that have our intestines ripped out. Both these have equal outcomes but I'd call you a liar if you didn't have a strong preference. You might say these don't compare. I'd say that they do. If we come to that conclusion, one of us must be misinterpreting the other.
tdullien 2y ago
How about a chronically unemployed mathematician that is flooded with job offers to work as a miner in a coal mine?
- megadal 2y ago
  Presumably this is versus a chronically unemployed mathematician that gets the occasional job offer to work as a coal miner.
ksplicer 2y ago
> Would you also tell the chronically unemployed person that you being flooded with job offers all day means you're dying just like him, but in water instead of sand? The analogy would be one person not getting any job offers while the other is only getting job offers with compenation that are too low to support their family.
- megadal 2y ago
  The thing is, in the scenario you described, I am pretty sure the person getting no job offers would trade places with the person getting offers, but the reverse is obviously not true.
  - godelski 2y ago
    Which would you rather die of dehydration in? Desert or ocean? I'm not sure why these are being treated as equally bad. To be one is clearly worse than the other, though both tremendously suck. You'd at least survive longer in the ocean, even if we ignored the higher availability of food.
    - megadal 2y ago
      Because the analogy you provided implies that the outcome in either end is inevitably death, and that there are no other options. That doesn't accurately reflect the reality though. You can adjust your standards to find a mate if you have options, if you have no options, there is literally nothing you can do. I would think "death" or "game over" is having zero moves left. Not having few favorable moves and a high chance of making an unfavorable one. It also implies women exclusively suffer from quality issues when dating. There are for sure just as many bad actors on the female side of dating apps as there are on the male side.
      - godelski 2y ago
        You're reading way too much into an analogy. I'm not sure how to tell you this, but analogies aren't... The full story. I don't know what you want, a book? And I hate to break it to you, the tortoise and the hare never actually raced. Nor can they talk. If you're going to focus in on details and the generalizations that are clearly for convenience and not actual, make sure you don't do this too. Because we both know that the type and number of bad actors that men and women face aren't the same. But I'm not going to hound you for it because that'd be in bad faith. It'd be a willful misinterpreting of what you meant.
TeaDrunk 2y ago
I think this is incorrect because it assumes the job offers are equal. My understanding is that it is much more like two chronically unemployed people: the first doesn't get an interview 99% of the time, the second one is 99% only offered MLM job interviews where they're expected to "invest in themselves first" by buying the MLM product aka scams.
- megadal 2y ago
  I think generally the quality of interactions both sexes have with the opposite sex on these apps is roughly equal. That said, even by this analogy, that would imply the 1% of the time the first person gets an interview, it is also likely a scam or a non-start 99% of the time. So the second person is still 100x as likely to find a job as the first person. The market just happens to suck for everyone.

healsdata 2y ago

Maybe you didn't realize this, but the "dying in the ocean" is analogy is because ocean water isn't drinkable. So while, on the surface, it seems great to be surrounded by water when you're thirsty, it doesn't help if that water isn't drinkable. That's the exact problem this article discusses for women -- being surrounded by "un-dateable" men. It's why moderation tools are mentioned repeatedly in the article.

Rinzler89 2y ago
Yes, i know ocean water is undrinkable but the analogy is still incredibly stupid since you can't tell me with a straight face that absolutely all men on dating platforms are undatable(the undrinkable ocean water). It's more accurate that women on dating apps are far too picky and have far higher standards online (it's been well documented by percentile of sipes) and therefore in their eyes see most men as undatable even if that's not the case (someone might not have the most exciting or handsome profile but he could still be a fun date or a great dad and yet never get any dates). But women being too picky online is a completely different issue to not being any datable men out there, which can't be true, and the fact still stands that they have the oversupply which lets them be choosy, which is still better than men having an undersupply issue which is the life of men online dating. So the more accurate "water analogy" would be that online dating women are surrounded by loads of drinkable water but they refuse to drink it because most of it is average tap water which they see as undrinkable, as they all go online looking for the VOSS/Evian water which is indeed in short supply not just online but also IRL, except IRL they're more aware of it and mostly go online looking to find what they don't have IRL.
- 331c8c71 2y ago
  > It's more that women on dating apps are far too picky. Not only that but I guess many of them are there for ego boosting pusposes and such rather than dating.
- godelski 2y ago
  The point is that it's difficult to differentiate salt water from regular water. I think you also misunderstand. If given the choice, I'd rather die of dehydration in the ocean than in the desert. They both suck but that one seems better (having spent significant time in both regions). You'll get sunburned in both but in the desert there's nothing to cool you off. You'll be much more likely to survive longer in the ocean than desert, even if we ignore food availability. So you're giving a really unfair interpretation because no one is saying they're equally bad. They're (I'm) just saying that you're going to die in both situations As with anything in language, remember that your job is to figure out what the person means, not what they say. The words they use are a signal but it's compressed and fuzzy (especially on the Internet where we have many cultures -- big and small -- interacting with many different expected commission and decompression expectations). It's always possible to gravely misinterpret anything anyone says, no matter how carefully they say it.
  - megadal 2y ago
    > It's always possible to gravely misinterpret anything anyone says, no matter how carefully they say it. > So you're giving a really unfair interpretation because no one is saying they're equally bad. They're (I'm) just saying that you're going to die in both situations It is also possible for a person to simply contradict themselves. What you are saying is they are equally bad outcomes. You're also simultaneously implying that one is objectively worse than the other in every possible way.
    - godelski 2y ago
      There's no contradiction. Equally bad outcomes does not mean that they paths to those outcomes is also equal. As a clear example, in both these cases the outcome is "death" right? I think we all know we'd rather go out in our sleep that have our intestines ripped out. Both these have equal outcomes but I'd call you a liar if you didn't have a strong preference. You might say these don't compare. I'd say that they do. If we come to that conclusion, one of us must be misinterpreting the other.

tdullien 2y ago

How about a chronically unemployed mathematician that is flooded with job offers to work as a miner in a coal mine?

megadal 2y ago
Presumably this is versus a chronically unemployed mathematician that gets the occasional job offer to work as a coal miner.

ksplicer 2y ago

> Would you also tell the chronically unemployed person that you being flooded with job offers all day means you're dying just like him, but in water instead of sand? The analogy would be one person not getting any job offers while the other is only getting job offers with compenation that are too low to support their family.

megadal 2y ago
The thing is, in the scenario you described, I am pretty sure the person getting no job offers would trade places with the person getting offers, but the reverse is obviously not true.
- godelski 2y ago
  Which would you rather die of dehydration in? Desert or ocean? I'm not sure why these are being treated as equally bad. To be one is clearly worse than the other, though both tremendously suck. You'd at least survive longer in the ocean, even if we ignored the higher availability of food.
  - megadal 2y ago
    Because the analogy you provided implies that the outcome in either end is inevitably death, and that there are no other options. That doesn't accurately reflect the reality though. You can adjust your standards to find a mate if you have options, if you have no options, there is literally nothing you can do. I would think "death" or "game over" is having zero moves left. Not having few favorable moves and a high chance of making an unfavorable one. It also implies women exclusively suffer from quality issues when dating. There are for sure just as many bad actors on the female side of dating apps as there are on the male side.
    - godelski 2y ago
      You're reading way too much into an analogy. I'm not sure how to tell you this, but analogies aren't... The full story. I don't know what you want, a book? And I hate to break it to you, the tortoise and the hare never actually raced. Nor can they talk. If you're going to focus in on details and the generalizations that are clearly for convenience and not actual, make sure you don't do this too. Because we both know that the type and number of bad actors that men and women face aren't the same. But I'm not going to hound you for it because that'd be in bad faith. It'd be a willful misinterpreting of what you meant.

TeaDrunk 2y ago

I think this is incorrect because it assumes the job offers are equal. My understanding is that it is much more like two chronically unemployed people: the first doesn't get an interview 99% of the time, the second one is 99% only offered MLM job interviews where they're expected to "invest in themselves first" by buying the MLM product aka scams.

megadal 2y ago
I think generally the quality of interactions both sexes have with the opposite sex on these apps is roughly equal. That said, even by this analogy, that would imply the 1% of the time the first person gets an interview, it is also likely a scam or a non-start 99% of the time. So the second person is still 100x as likely to find a job as the first person. The market just happens to suck for everyone.