Used to attended wide variety of Meetups and used Couch Surfer too. It’s pretty obvious when people are attending or using a platform for dating, though they rarely say so. For example, hosts that only host attractive females on Couch Surfer. Or meetups where attendees leave if there’s no attractive female that are in attendance or only talk to the attractive females. Even females that are interested in dating are easy to spot too in my experience. — Very rarely are people that are interested in dating taking a friends first approach, it’s time consuming, and to my knowledge no platform that enables users to build a “friend reputation score” based on users rating them.

Also relatively easy to spot hosts like this if you know how — though platform oddly doesn’t actively ban users doing this.

Honestly, I don’t think a lot of users understand how potentially dangerous some online services are or for that matter, how to manage or recognize risks; not to mention platforms generally hide their risks, since it impacts user engagement.

Not really true, but is true that it’s highly random and takes a large sample in my experience to actually find someone.

In my experience, all the event types mentioned are largely attended by single people looking for dates. Even the language exchange groups, which have a highly specific and functional intent, tend to be single oriented.

On the flipside, if platform attempted to enforce maintaining 50/50 balance of user base that’s single or not single and explicit forbids users mentioning dating unless they are above a predefined “friend score” — it would remove a lot of people that are not interested in relationship attributes.

You haven't argued that it isn't well-poisoning, just that you believe the well-poisoning is justified.

Agree. Most obvious example being people’s self evaluation of attractiveness relative to their evaluation of another person’s attractiveness. That said, pretty easy to tell if someone humble, pragmatic, etc — just by engaging them.

I concede that was not a good rhetorical point to make, and I should have checked what Google summarizes as "the answer."

Here's a karma point.

No, vast amounts of people that see being open minded as a negative predictor of a desirable attribute. If I had to guess, your sampling is biased. For example, someone dating in a rural region would have much less success sharing that they’re open minded, since it’s not a cultural norm.

Yes, I concede that was not a good rhetorical point to make.

My reaction to the parent comment came from my feeling that men expecting their girlfriends to never confront them or disagree, especially in public, is a much more common, and generally accepted, dynamic.

The fundamentalist interpretation, as I understand, is that husband and wife should be devoted to each other but the husband's authority is final, and a kind of tie breaker in a disagreement.

But yeah, at scale its probably an edge case.

> When you buy a car, what is your first filter to narrow the market?

Price

Choosing what facts to present, when to present them, and to what audience, is itself a judgement. Pretending its not is deceptive.

Exactly. Who cares where the data came from. Data is data.

It's a date, not a lifetime commitment. And who knows, maybe the fat woman is worth knowing?

Do you post on liberal sources "Disclaimer: this comes from a liberal source" too? If you're not doing it uniformly, regardless of bias, then yes, you are poisoning the well.

Maybe I'm not explaining myself well.

If you are having a date looking to have a long-time relationship, you want someone attractive. And if you are having a date looking to hook up, you want someone attractive. So it makes no difference at all.

Unless you are looking for a friend. But then "date" is not the word that I would use.

You're not wrong that dating platforms are like that (Tinder, I think being the most obvious) -- and you seem to have direct experience with this -- but suggesting that people start platonically is very ... Sunday church style.

I guess everyone is different, but for me relationships that start out platonically...end up platonic. If nothing happens in the first 3-5 dates...nothing ever will really. I realize that's part of "dating" culture too -- but there is also something behind it -- if I'm REALLY attracted to someone, I'll put the moves on earlier (or they will etc).

What I have had good success in -- and there is something to this I believe -- is meeting romantic partners in similar interest social circles that appeal to both (or however many there are now) genders. You meetup with others of similar interest for a couple of hours once a week, natural attraction forms, if both are interested the independent romantic meeting will happen naturally. The dating nature of it is all -- hidden (and in fact I didn't go into these meetings planning to date anyways).

It's hard to bottle that up exactly into an app though.

They're not less important, they're table stakes. Is there wiggle room, sure. Maybe sometimes people are capable of being a little more flexible on these things than they realize.

But for example, I think this is true of just about everyone: there's an age range that they're willing to date within, and outside of that range, everyone is a hard pass.

I wouldn't date someone who was twice my age, no matter how great their personality was, it's an absolute no.

Similarly if we use BMI as a proxy for attractiveness. This one may be a little more controversial but I suspect just about everyone has a BMI range they are comfortable with, and if someone is far enough outside of that range, there is no chance, no matter what anyone says, that you are going to date them.

I agree that most dating platforms are hostile to their customers but I think the issues there run much deeper. They all have incentives to _keep you engaged with their platform for as long as possible_, that is how they make the most money. They don't make money by finding you a partner. They are really just social media that can charge a monthly membership fee.

You’re right, so jaded by whole dating within an existing social group that I responded just based on that.

Also, I agree, the whole love at first sight is for sure a very real pattern, and uncommon for friendships to develop into something more. That said, in truly long term relationships, vast majority of those types of feelings significantly fade after the “honeymoon” phase of a relationship. Further, if someone is with you for example financial reasons, it’s much less likely they’ll stick around if financial hardships are experienced or they find someone else with significantly more financial resources.

My thesis is not so much to grow friendships into non-platonic relationships, but that relationship attributes are predictable among platonic and non-platonic relationships and that by requiring someone build a “relationship reputation” first, then when engaging other users in the context of going on a date, there’s a much higher chance that they’ll actually have relationships skills.

Whole shared interests aspect is also a frequently sighted as a desirable aspect of a relationship, though rarely good predictor of relationships skills.

Gender is a social construct[0], it is not defined by biological sex, although due to societal norms it often correlates, and can be influenced, by biological sex.

What isn't scientific (as is, no longer valid in scientific consensus[0]) is the premise that gender and biological sex are synonymous, and that, as your comment implies, transgender or nonbinary identity is a denial of science.

Just in case you're going to jump on to the title of the third article i posted below, note that it says gender is not just a social construct, rather than that it isn't such at all. I'll quote an excerpt from that article:

    Evidence that gender has some basis in biology, though, in no way implies a strict gender binary, nor negates the existence of transgender and non-binary identities. Many biology-based gender differences originate from the hormonal environment within the womb, which is very different on average for boys compared to girls. But there’s a huge variation in these environments, says Alice Eagly, psychology professor at Northwestern University. “Within boys there will be a range and within girls there will be a range. To say it’s biological doesn’t mean it’s perfectly binary,” she says.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_gender_distinction

[1]https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/what-do-we-mean-by-se...

[2]https://qz.com/1190996/scientific-research-shows-gender-is-n...

I agree it's a human rights issue, but it's a very complicated one, and trans rights conflict with other human rights. Sometimes biology matters.

Allowing biological females to participate in separate sports without biological males, for example. Where do you stand on that? Don't you agree that biology (like testosterone level) matters sometimes?

Or in dating, do you think people have the right to want to know the biological sex of someone they date?

I acknowledge the lived experience of trans people but I don't think their desires outweigh the interests of all other people.

And of course, balancing those competing interests is absolutely political. It's just dishonest to claim this isn't political.

No one denies, as your source says, that "neither the health of women nor men is simply a product of biology but is also influenced by sociocultural and psychological experience". That's science.

But trying to dictate that people only use a word in a new way and never use its traditional definition is not science, it's (Orwellian) politics.

And pretending that biology doesn't matter is denying the very science you quoted.

Finally, the major questions about trans rights aren't about science at all, they are about values and why institutions exist.

Do we separate boys and girls in sports because of gender roles (sociocultural), or to give girls an opportunity to play sports without competing against people made stronger by high testosterone (biology)?

Do we separate men's and women's prisons because of gender roles (sociocultural), or to prevent sex and pregnancy (biology)?

Etc.

I'm comfortable being on the other side of the argument from anybody who says biological sex exists on a spectrum and compares the number of sexes to the set of complex numbers.

As to gender, well then it sounds like you're just describing another word for personality. So what exactly is the difference?

Acknowledging alternative perspectives has nothing to do with agreeing with them or for that matter, partaking in them.

Also, obviously aware that significant percentage of people focus on attributes that are a poor predictor of long term success in a relationship and have zero desire to engage that market; not to mention you falsely assume that your definition of an entrepreneur is same as mine.

Lastly, happy to be proven wrong, but majority of HN is neither a hacker or entrepreneur, but just people that are curious people interested in being around other curious people.

Sure, happy to clarify anything, including why I see engaging an existing social group with the intention of finding a long term relationship as problematic.

In my experience, way people act in a relationship long term is frequently is more comparable to how people act around strangers than within an existing social group. Common example of this would be if you’re on a date with a stranger and they just randomly leave, are mean to waiting staff, etc — though they would not likely exhibit that same negative behavior the date was from a existing social group because of the negative blow back.

So then what constitutes a gender now, and how many are there?

I agree, it's not a new phenomenon, language changes all the time.

But while some language changes rise from the people, others (like this one) are dictated by powerful institutions.

Orwell described it well about 100 years ago. Change the meaning of words to make disagreement impossible. Newspeak "designed to diminish the range of thought".

It means "I can't fruitfully discuss this topic with someone who is stuck in an ideological local maximum".

Transgender identity and acknowledgement of the fluid, multidimensional nature of gender IS NOT a conspiracy to take your precious bodily fluids. Don't believe me? Go to San Francisco and try meeting some of the "co-conspirators" -- transgender men and women on the skids, having to turn to professions like sex work, because they ran from their conservative families fearing for their FUCKING LIVES. Living on the edges of society and the law, having to develop their own biopunk parallel medical support because legitimate medicine won't treat them in the way that they need, all to survive in a society that simply wishes they didn't exist because them existing violates a false foundational premise of society: that gender is binary and corresponds to physical sex.

But I've said too much. eyeroll is all the response you deserve.

The author describers herself as a queer woman, married to a transman, to the left of Bernie Sanders, and a case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital.

If you won't even listen to her, dismissing her experience as "horrid crap", then perhaps you're "stuck in an ideological local maximum". Is there anyone you would listen to?

> You probably think you're supporting a good cause, but you're not

project much?

"horrid crap" was my term, you don't get to tell me what I mean.

It's transparently a drummed-up wedge issue, designed to demonise a vulnerable minority for political gain and distraction, and as such is utterly without merit and not worthy of more of my attention. And if allowed to continue, it won't end with that group.

You don't strike me as an instigator of this nonsense though. No, you seem more like you're carrying water for them, what Lenin called a "Useful idiot".

tl;dr: Eyeroll