
The Stanford Undergraduate and the Mentor - sgustard
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-stanford-undergraduate-and-the-mentor.html 
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chakkop
Here's what's scary: both could be right. Each interprets and constructs
meaning from various gestures, actions, words, etc., through their own lens,
especially retrospectively.

For example, guy and girl go out to dinner, have a great time, have a couple
of glasses of wine. Girl goes back to guy's apartment; they are both light-
headed, and end up having sex. Months later, after a breakup, the girl
legitimately believes she was taken advantage of ('The asshole was using me
all along; he plied me with wine and raped me'), while the guy legitimately
believes that what happened was 100% consensual. It is obvious why after a
tough break-up the girl may (choose to?) think this way. Also, she IS on some
level right: the guy DID want to have sex with her, and the dinner and wine
weren't a completely innocent gesture. But guess what: this is what
relationships are like, and these situations are virtually impossible to
avoid. Every relationship I've been in has had similar 'open to
interpretation' moments.

Anyway, this is one reason why relationships today are sometimes an absolute
hell; we live in a culture that encourages us to treat everything as means
rather than end, including people, and at the same time we are obsessed with
ourselves--obsessed with protecting our beautiful, world-deserving self, and
are terrified that we might be being used, or that we might be using or
accused of using others.

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GuiA
I'm surprised to haven't seen this mentioned yet, but based on the article and
skimming the emails linked to, the woman was very religious, and the guy not
at all (but went along with it anyway).

I'd argue that if you're an atheistic person, then the worst case scenario of
dating a very religious person is something like that story. The amount of
cognitive dissonance and self-imposed guilt and shame in religious people,
especially when they're still young, is very likely to lead to messy
situations like the one described. Young people are full of hormones and
impulses that they want to act on, but the religion in their head tells them
to feel bad about it. This can lead to absolutely absurd situations, where
they're very happy to have sexual relationships but feel very guilty after
them.

I dated a religious girl, and the emails exchanged by those 2 reminded me of
my own relationship 7 or so years ago. Fortunately my story wasn't as messy as
this one, but there were definitely a couple of hard earned lessons and very
uncomfortable moments. Some of the stories that girl told me about her earlier
life were quite unreal to me- for example, she and her ex boyfriend would have
sex, then she'd feel guilty and go confess at church, and a day later they'd
have sex again, etc. (if you're a priests, you must get to hear a lot of
intimate stories from impressionable confused young people. And of course all
priests are men... connect the dots as you will)

It's hard to draw any conclusions based on the article and material available
- but to people that have found themselves in similar relationships, some of
the interactions described aren't surprising. The lesson for me was, date
people with world views similar to yours.

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adminprof
Nice way of writing the article -- the narrative in the first half makes us
believe Clougherty's side, while the second half shows the other side of the
story.

~~~
forrestthewoods
The author paints the therapist, Keith Saylor, in a really bad light imo. The
whole piece flips so hard at that moment. The relationship seems mostly
positive and normal, seemingly with evidence. Things get rocky then a
therapist quickly encourages and hard reinforces an much different and
extremely negative picture. It almost feels unethical to reinforce such a tale
without a police investigation. Couple this with the recent NYTimes article
about fabricated memories and therapist could make anyone honestly believe
anything they wanted to. That's scary.

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hackaflocka
Steve Jobs met Laurene in a very similar fashion. Everyone knows that. He saw
her during a class visit, and invited her out (although she was a graduate
student).

Upon reading the emails from the plaintiff and her mother available at
[http://joelonsdalestatement.com/](http://joelonsdalestatement.com/) , one
gets the general impression that they were trying to throw themselves to JL.

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aliston
As a 29 year old male myself, the of idea of dating a college undergraduate is
just plain weird... particularly in this case, where there is such an obvious
power imbalance. The outcome (though perhaps not the severity) should have
been apparent from the get go.

~~~
kelukelugames
People who are wealthy or extremely good looking have more options than us. If
I were rich enough to realistically date young models then it might not be
plain weird anymore.

Look at Patrick Stewart. How many 70 year olds would marry a woman in their
30s if they actually could?

~~~
eru
What do you mean by, `than us'? Confront it, people working in the software
industry are generally wealthier than the average Joe. We do have more
options. (Of course, there's always a bigger fish.)

~~~
littletimmy
The gap between billionaires and the average software engineer is so large
that it makes any such "confrontation" meaningless.

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littletimmy
"Your kindness, integrity, and desire to make the world a better place..."

That insipid disgusting phrase. "To make the world a better place." It is so
devoid of meaning and so emblematic of the meanest circle jerk in silicon
valley that it should probably be outlawed.

~~~
patzerhacker
Every time I see the phrase "make the world a better place", my brain
automatically adds "for me" at the end of it. It tends to enhance the truth of
the statement.

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comrade1
There are so many sad broken people in Silicon Valley. Maybe it's a matter of
people not being socialized well as they grow up and a somewhat insular
community that feeds off itself.

I left about 10 years ago but still have strong ties (business and friends) to
the area. Some of the stories from my friends dating are shocking, disturbing,
and hilarious at the same time.

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aaronbrethorst
I'm happy to see this on the front page instead of flag-killed(?) like it was
earlier today:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9036698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9036698)

~~~
ottertown
Ah so that's what was happening. I was trying to post it yesterday with no
luck.

I wonder why the mods would block this link. I'll admit the article seems more
intent on telling a sexy story than commenting broadly on the state of Silicon
Valley gender issues.

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rrrrtttt
As a tangent, I was appalled to read that Stanford undergrads can major in
"management science". What happened to the high academic standards for which
Stanford is famous?

~~~
comrh
"self-designed major in management science and neuroengineering" I would guess
it is one of those programs where you kind of make up your title and path. Is
neuroengineering more to your liking?

~~~
rrrrtttt
Adding in neuroengineering makes it sound even more pretentious and fake.

