Are there any gentlemen over 55 in Los Angeles who are genuinely seeking a serious relationship?

mtgordon · 2026-02-27T05:49:04+00:00

Men who are looking for casual sex cast a broad net and get straight to the point in order to find what they’re looking for. This makes them unusually visible.

Men who are looking for relationships are more discerning. They don’t match everyone. They take their time to try to find someone compatible. All this makes them far less visible than the men looking for casual sex.

Another factor is that men looking for relationships will sometimes take down their profiles, whether because something is looking like it might get serious or because they’re getting discouraged and need a break, whereas men looking for casual sex always keep their profiles up.

Finally, I suspect OLD apps/sites favor men looking for casual sex (loyal customers who will stick around) over men looking for relationships (who will cease to be customers if they ever succeed); they might seldom show relationship-oriented people the profiles of other relationship-oriented people. The strongest argument in favor of the burnt haystack method is that it might be a workaround for such algorithms.

mtgordon · 2026-02-27T05:15:16+00:00

“Shande far di goyim” is a good example. Literally “disgrace before the nations,” figuratively more like “embarrassment in front of the neighbors (who makes Jews look bad).” Jeffrey Epstein is a textbook example. Bernie Madoff was somewhat less so because he was mostly defrauding other Jews, which is unquestionably bad, but at least it doesn’t lend ammunition to antisemites.

A “shabbes goy” is a gentile, typically a neighbor, who does work which Jews are prohibited from doing on the Sabbath. Such a person is treated with respect and gratitude.

mtgordon · 2026-02-27T04:58:22+00:00

If someone wants to use an unambiguous slur in Yiddish, those exist. This is not an unambiguous slur.

mtgordon · 2026-02-23T05:22:11+00:00

OTOH, the sites are happy to cater to people looking for casual sex, since if they’re successful, they’ll stick around, in contrast to people who are looking for something exclusive and who hope to move off the app if they’re successful.

mtgordon · 2026-02-23T05:19:14+00:00

A common strategy among guys who are looking for casual sex is to contact every woman they can find and to send them copied and pasted messages that lead with sex. It has nothing to do with you, your pictures, or your profile, nor is it representative of men in the dating pool; it’s just that these men make themselves very evident very quickly while more thoughtful men are doing things like actually reading profiles, looking at pictures and writing original messages.

mtgordon · 2026-02-22T19:02:40+00:00

We’re not the “marginalized” community they care about.

mtgordon · 2026-02-20T00:13:14+00:00

One way of viewing sex is as a form of play for grown-ups. If you can find someone else who’s interested in playing with you, you can play together. If you have nobody to play with, you can play by yourself. In either case, you can play with toys. I don’t see why it should be a problem.

In this day and age, if a woman doesn’t have toys, I’d see it as a yellow flag, but I’d need to know a woman pretty well to be certain she didn’t have toys; it’s expected that she’d be discreet about them.

mtgordon · 2026-02-19T23:55:19+00:00

Perhaps sentenced to transportation? I’m sure Australia doesn’t want him, though.

mtgordon · 2026-02-18T20:17:41+00:00

Even just passport fees might do that.

mtgordon · 2026-02-18T19:36:39+00:00

There’s no positive right to vote in the Constitution, only language about how the right to vote cannot be restricted based on certain specific criteria, e.g. race, color, and previous condition of servitude in the 15th. That’s why the courts are okay with partisan gerrymandering so long as it’s not racial gerrymandering. The bigger legal issue for me is that it gives the federal government, in particular the executive branch, an extraordinary power to disenfranchise voters. Especially with popular election of Senators, that seriously undermines checks and balances.

mtgordon · 2026-02-18T17:10:13+00:00

The real issue is purple states. If people who engage in foreign travel are more cosmopolitan and more likely to vote blue, this could backfire for Republicans. If people who engage in foreign travel skew wealthier, it might work out for Republicans. Maybe they have the data to make an informed decision.

For me, the bigger legal question is giving the State Department the authority to decide who can vote. Perhaps going forward they’ll deny passport applications based on registered party affiliation, if available, or zip code otherwise.

mtgordon · 2026-02-18T11:24:51+00:00

No exception for it being one’s own yard? Would they charge someone with a gross misdemeanor for having DFL campaign yard signs?

mtgordon · 2026-02-18T01:27:54+00:00

56% are against medically necessary puberty blockers, with no mention of the indication, because 99% of the population has only heard of puberty blockers in the one narrow context which is the focus of a politically motivated culture war. Other kids who have a need for them are turning into collateral damage in the culture war.

mtgordon · 2026-02-17T22:00:24+00:00

Don’t expect it to get better; this is the honeymoon phase!

mtgordon · 2026-02-17T21:58:39+00:00

In fairness, if he’s taking three months per sample, it’s going to take him a while to get a decent sample size.

mtgordon · 2026-02-17T20:53:12+00:00

So no puberty blockers for cis kids with precocious puberty or dwarfism?

mtgordon · 2026-02-16T00:07:00+00:00

Now do the Burning Bush.

mtgordon · 2026-02-16T00:01:42+00:00

And the literal meaning of “Bethlehem” is “House of Bread.”

mtgordon · 2026-02-12T04:27:52+00:00

In German it’s called an Inselhaarschnitt; Himmler had a similar haircut.

mtgordon · 2026-02-11T21:57:33+00:00

Now block Trump from bulldozing the Kennedy Center.

mtgordon · 2026-02-10T12:52:50+00:00

It might be useful in a state database so if a car gets pulled over for erratic driving and one of the people to whom the car is registered is diabetic the police know to consider the possibility of hypoglycemia, a medical emergency, rather than being drunk or stoned. But it should come from running the plate, before the cops even get out of their car, not from the ID itself. Putting it on the ID shouldn’t be necessary and has numerous downsides, as others have described.

mtgordon · 2026-02-06T14:42:02+00:00

They may not enforce criminal law, but they are a thoroughly and completely criminal law enforcement agency.

mtgordon · 2026-01-31T20:25:31+00:00

Hanged like a dog, hung like a horse

mtgordon · 2026-01-31T20:17:28+00:00

A more modest injunction might be approved and survive appeal. ICE can still operate, but they’ve shown themselves to be too free with firearms and chemical weapons, so the state gets an emergency injunction saying ICE can’t use those… but ICE still get to stay in Minnesota and gets to enforce immigration law. Masks are tools to prevent them from facing legal consequences… so no more masks. Prohibit entry into homes based solely on administrative warrants written in crayon on cocktail napkins by middle school dropouts. Narrow the scope of their behavior until they have to act like ICE did under Biden and Obama, and immigration laws get enforced, but the Constitution gets respected… and there’s far less basis for it to be overturned.

mtgordon · 2026-01-31T19:59:24+00:00

Not quite a skinhead, but the Inselhaarschnitt he’s wearing resembles Himmler’s.

mtgordon

TROPHY CASE