throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

You answered the thing you feared to answer elsewhere :) Or perhaps there's more?

A lot of this makes sense. This seems consistent with my understanding of who you are. If your assessment of them was accurate, I'm surprised they left so readily. This makes me wonder what the 12 or so second dates would say.

I wonder if this suggests there were men you were even more interested in who you didn't go out with again because they seemed too perfect, because you felt you wouldn't be good enough.

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

You're absolutely right that much of the energy on a thread like this comes from those who have been rejected. Did you notice how much more pleasant your interactions with partnered men tend to be? That's likely has a multi-layered cause but it's easy to see why it makes your job on the dating market harder.

What's wrong with being judgmental? You've allowed yourself to be at various junctures but often seem to feel guilty about it later. I do sympathize: "Judgmental" doesn't have a great connotation. Yet decisive and discerning do and signify something similar.

As you've noted, it's not essential you discuss this with a universe of strangers. I do hope you're comfortable with your judgmental side with others you're closed to so you can get to the bottom of the misalignment between initial indicia of attraction and the factors that make a relationship with you successful in the long term.

This comment largely confirms my thesis about you: You're someone who has spent your life trying to be good in various senses and through various ways. You put a ton of pressure on yourself. A lot of good can flow from that for the people towards whom you direct your goodness and for yourself as you've developed a reputation as someone who does good things. It can also be costly because despite our conditioning, our striving to be higher purer beings, we're still animals with various needs some of which are more difficult to acknowledge. Sometimes we desperately want conflicting things.

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

I hope you’ll chat with a few friends about why you decided to write this to the few remaining stragglers.

I should do the same though I know why I’m a mess :)

Your response is heartfelt. It misconstrues the point many were making. None of us know the details of your fertility. We don’t know anything more about you than what you say. The points about your fertility were about its perception not about its reality. You seem like the sort of person who tries to avoid making quick judgments based on stereotypes. Most aren’t like that.

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

Huh! That makes sense. And is also confusing. It’s not problem solving; it’s reading stories from which you might glean some combination of hope and a technique or two to mimic.

If I wanted to solicit stories like that, I’d tend to post on Reddit rather than HN and ask something like, “How did those of you who went on dozens or even a hundred dates with little success find a life partner?”

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

I'm again impressed by your engagement.

I understand why you wanted the focus to be more generic. That's not how I or most other problem solvers I know approach solving problems. Certainly, one could write out a general theory of optimal mate selection that you would be able to apply to yourself without further back and forth. Crafting such a theory is several orders of magnitude more difficult than searching for a potential improvement in a given implementation.

With the disclaimer that I can't speak for others, I suggest that figuring out your rejection function isn't about deciding whether a given decision is good or bad and most certainly isn't an attempt to tell you who you should be attracted to.

There are a few intellectually interesting puzzles it presents: 1. Given some sense of what appeals to actfrench, where is she likely to find more such people? //You provided enough information to give a sense of this 2. Is there a discernible reason that the men she tends to accept tend to reject her? //I have a hypothesis but this is less clear 3. Is there some fundamental conflict between different aspects of what she likes? //Again, less clear 4. Are there reasons to filter someone out earlier in the process? //Again, maybe but unclear

As you note, you have no obligation to deal with any of this. But since you came back after a few days and decided to invest your energy in this, I'm giving you the perspective of one of those guilty of the aforementioned sin on why your psyche seems like a crucial part of solving the puzzle.

Ultimately dating is optimizing three things: 1. The utility of members of the candidate stream: P(Match) - Cost of discovery 2. The quality of rejection function which is a function of both information collected and discriminatory power 3. The probability that the candidate one most wants, wants you back

Anyway, yes, we can solve any problem in the world. One of us has to decide to build a new type of matching experience. I've toyed with doing so as I'm sure dozens of others here have. Sadly, the main constraint is time. Do we fix dating or healthcare or politics or education or just keep our little slice of industry functioning smoothly in exchange for the resources to live.

It will be solved. When and by whom remains unknown. In the meantime, cheers to special casing the problem and decrementing the target market size by one.

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

Why would a man be less interested in someone because his body learns that she can cause a unique pleasant sensation?

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

Out of the 120, how many were sweet and super nerdy? What was their second date rate?

Along a different dimension, what indicia of nerdiness appeal to you?

This comment along with your reactions suggests a theory. Let's see if it validates :)

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

You came back to a thread a day later to engage. That takes an unusual amount of dedication and patience.

An assortment of thoughts: I hope you read How to Win Friends and Influence People. And it's not because you need it to know how to communicate. While I'm sure you'd learn a few things about talking to others, I suspect you'll learn something about the way various styles of communication make you feel. You can see it in the variance of of your responses in this thread. I'm not convinced that this is a core issue but seeing the way a few different comments have elicited affection combined with your comment about wanting to feel seen makes me think it could explain why the men who attract you so often tend to disappear.

It might be interesting to ask your dates at what point during the thread they decided they wanted to get to know you. I can imagine a more analytical person finding you appealing enough from the intro. But if I had to guess, this medium works for two reasons. The non-scalable one is that humans care more as they know someone better. The thread is long and you get vastly more mental attention than through other means of introduction. The scalable ones are attributes that come through in your comments but not in your post: You radiate earnestness and ebullience at a level that's rare even in humans a decade younger; you're indefatigably engaged; you have the patience to try and reason with almost anyone yet occasionally lose your temper which is further evidence of complexity; in short you appear human.

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

There's a more charitable reading of the proper motive which aligns what you want: To be wanted for some essential thing about yourself.

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

As a man not much younger than you, it's helpful to hear that's a turn-off. What to ask when is tricky. I see several options:

   1. Estimate the odds of successfully procreating upfront; Downside: Can seem boorish and unromantic and ruin the chance of a potentially successful relationship.

   2. Keep getting to know each other and discuss once we're more comfortable with each other. If the answer is unfavorable:
  a. Be honest about the reason for ending the relationship; Downside: Cruel to one's partner and heartbreaking
  b. Fabricate an excuse for ending things; Downside: Dishonest and unfair to partner; guilt and heartbreak
  c. Stay anyway; Downside: Reduces likelihood of having children

All this to say, I worry that your gut reaction may be filtering out the men most serious about having children. If someone knows you as a multi-dimensional being beyond a dating prospect first the approach changes. So I'd add this as a reason meet people through others means.

Of course, you're doing that now. This has gotten so much attention that it I'd give you one-third odds of being married in 18 months to either someone who saw this thread or someone someone who sees this thread introduces you to.

This is the dilemma with so many things. In trying to figure out a generic way of solving the problem, you take an approach that works fabulously for you but is difficult to scale. A bit like the education problem...

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

This is fascinating. Describe that fit. What is it that drew you to him initially? What traits differentiate him from others you've met?

If your tastes are less aligned with typical as this suggests that bodes well for your prospects.

throw220702

4 năm trướcdiscuss

Your experience suggests you can solve your problem in one of two ways: Figure out how to interest the attractive men in commitment; figure out how to feel attraction to someone who will commit.

It might help to analyze what makes you feel attracted to someone. What were the moments, characteristics, or sensations that inspired you to conclude you were attracted to that 10%?