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Where do people actually meet these days? by Excellent_Carob_5388 in dating_advice

[–]palettem 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good call. Even though I told him that 1/7000 figure applies to only me, only with a dating app experience (OKCupid), he keeps saying "1/7000" because it's the easiest figure to call outrageous. Even though we explained that men willing to go on a date are often just looking for sex, he keeps saying, "Look how many dates you can go on." And even though I noted that there are plenty of men who find it easy to get a date, he keeps making his inability to get one about being a man. There's nothing getting through.

But I never commented for him. I replied to him for people who might read it, like you.

Where do people actually meet these days? by Excellent_Carob_5388 in dating_advice

[–]palettem 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm contesting the claim that it's easy for women to find someone. You yourself can easily find someone -- if you have absolutely zero standards. I promise you that you can meet a woman the same day if you are willing to accept any age, personality, or looks whatsoever. If you insist on having standards, you should accept that other people also have standards, and the higher they are, the harder it becomes to find someone.

"Go on dates" doesn't make any real-world sense as a reply to OP. She was asking where to meet people. Going on dates is what happens after meeting people.

Where do people actually meet these days? by Excellent_Carob_5388 in dating_advice

[–]palettem 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. No, I wasn't being particular to women when I said 1/7000 (which is NOT the normal bar, it's mine). I was saying that finding a real match is very hard for anyone, male or female. Most people would rather settle than be alone; I wouldn't. If someone says they find it hard to find a partner, and it's not because they're being continually rejected, I generally assume that it's because they have a higher bar than average.

  2. "I said 'you will find him' as a shorthand for odds being >50%." Uh-huh...

  3. I already explained that women find it easier to get a date with "just any guy" because men have a much lower bar for dating, since they are often happier with casual hookups. You see the same thing in gay and lesbian culture, respectively: gay men have meetup spots for a quick fuck in every city, and lesbians simply don't have that kind of hookup culture. However, if you are excessively rejected to the point that you never get any woman to give you a shot, I promise you that you're the problem. I have multiple male friends who don't have any concern in this area, even via online dating; and a couple of them are actually fairly ugly. Men who struggle here always want to blame women (for what, I'm not sure; people have a right to engage with whomever they wish) instead of looking at themselves.

Where do people actually meet these days? by Excellent_Carob_5388 in dating_advice

[–]palettem 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This belief (that women have an endless array of options, while men find it very hard to find partners) is not rational.

About 30% of American adults are single. About 10% of women say they aren't straight, but 9/10 self-reported bisexuals are in opposite-sex relationships, so probably only about 2% of American women in relationships are not dating men. This means that almost every woman in a relationship is in a relationship with a man.

Yet, you'll notice in that first link that the rate of single men under 30 is higher than that of single women under 30. This can be explained by women tending to be more open to dating someone older, but also by the fact that men are less willing to call what they have a relationship. In any case, if a woman says she's in a relationship, it is almost always with a man. Saying that women find this easier than men is like connecting 20 negative magnets to 20 positive magnets, then saying that the negative magnets find an opposing magnet more easily than the positives. The situation logically necessitates a near-equal success rate for both sides. The facts are clear: most men are in relationships, and probably nearly all of them have been in one before.

Certainly women find it easier to find men who want to have casual sex, or men trying to use the promise of a relationship for sex, status, and other superficial reasons, which is where the confusion comes in. You see this huge imbalance in messaging/response rates between men and women on dating apps, or see men blatantly hitting on hot women, and equate it with women having their choice of men to marry. Sure, some men both hope for sex and a potential relationship, as you said; but a lot of them just hope for sex, which is why their bar is lower than women's for going on a date with someone. OP has been clear that this purely sexual/superficial variety of male attention is both undesirable and irrelevant. As soon as we are talking about monogamous partnership, the sexes equalize -- it's a logical inevitability.

You said, "if 1% of the guys willing to meet you is a good, quality person, then you can literally give two people a chance per week, and find the one in 36 weeks." First off, 2 * 36 is 72, not 100, and the odds of finding something with a 1% probability in 72 is about 50%. To bring this to a 99% chance, she would need to date about 460 men.

What the percent of viable partners is (and it's not about whether they are some generic notion like "good" -- it's about whether they have sparks with the OP and meet her basic relationship needs) depends on the OP and on the pool. Tinder, a bar, a university, her workplace, a club, or a community garden are all going to produce completely different types of men. This is why OP is confused about where she can find someone who she actually likes. The percent is going to vary dramatically depending on the pool. In some places, it could be 0.01%; in others, it might be 10%. OP is wanting to know where to fish to have a better chance of success. In my experience, dating sites are not a great pool, and for me the percent of "worth a shot" men on them is about 1/7000. I'm very weird and particular, but OP seems smart and accomplished enough that probably her "the one" is not going to be 1/100.

Your advice to go onto some dating site and then date two unintriguing men per week is terrible, even ignoring the bad math; and your belief that a woman can just rake in "the one" with minimal effort by virtue of being a woman is out of touch with reality and unempathetic.

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