
Why I will never have a girlfriend (1999) - bartkappenburg
https://logological.org/girlfriend
======
SmkyMt
Reminds me of punchline from a joke about a man who finally, after 30 years of
searching for "the perfect woman - found one:

"Unfortunately, she was looking for the perfect man."

In my experience, an overlooked part of finding a good mate is making yourself
into a good candidate for _your_ side of that partnership.

[edited for grammar]

~~~
Balgair
The logic is similar to the old idiom: If you have to say you are a lady, you
are not a lady. With dating, you have be sought after, and not chase after
others. Trying to tell people that are lonely about this is, unfortunately,
useless; the heart wants what it wants and we can do little to change it. For
anyone out there that is male, I would suggest these posts (linked in article)
to help alter the equation so that you are sought after and are not the
seeker: [http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/03/31/the-3-ps-of-
manhood...](http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/03/31/the-3-ps-of-manhood-a-
review/) . Remember that being a _real man_ is not the opposite of being a
_woman_ , but rather in not being a _child_.

------
cagrimmett
I don't believe in soulmates or perfect matches. Relationships are about
working together, generosity, and graciousness. My wife and I could have made
it work with other people, but we chose to make our relationship work, which
is what makes it special. And we never forget that we have to keep working on
it every day.

~~~
hueving
>I don't believe in soulmates or perfect matches.

So did you feel like you "settled" so to speak? If so, did you ever stop
thinking that?

~~~
mathattack
It's not a matter of settling. Perfection in relationships is a wrong concept.
(If someone projects one on Facebook, it's to cover their insecurities) They
take work. Even when you find the right person.

~~~
Clubber
Agreed. It's like finding the perfect job that's perfect for 40 years. Never
gonna happen. It's great to find a good job, that keeps your interest,
respects you, treats you well, grows with you, is loyal, and gives back; but
you're never gonna find a perfect job.

Some people find what seems like a perfect job, then after a few years, they
get bought out and aren't so perfect anymore.

I played the field until I was in my mid 30s, then settled down. Never been
happier. I hope it lasts, and I think it will.

Also, beauty fades pretty quickly. Not only in the object, but in the eye of
the beholder. The person is much more important. Also, it sucks when everyone
hits on your girlfriend / wife all the time.

~~~
gf263
Not really, I think its funny :)

------
tmorton
> ... for a girl to be considered really beautiful to me, she should fall at
> least two standard deviations above the norm

> ... [in intelligence] I will settle for someone a mere one standard
> deviation above the normal

Yeah, that would do it. Nothing to learn here.

~~~
empath75
Annoying, unattractive nerd sets standards too high, news at 11.

~~~
Aaargh20318
I don't see the problem with setting your standards high if your fine with
either outcome.

------
protocow
Yeah, well, now try it if you're gay. Divide the world population in half, and
then multiply that by (latest estimate) 4%. Also, remember that every other
gay guy is a potential rival as well as a potential match. Every day I think
about how lucky I am to have met the guy I am with, now 15 years ago.

~~~
insickness
I'm not into guys but I got hit on by a guy with a pretty good pick-up line
which I would probably use if I were gay. I was standing at the finish line of
a race and a guy standing next to me said, "There's a lot of cute guys here,
huh?" At first I started to respond, "I... guess..." and then I realized he
was hitting on me. Pretty smooth way to ferret out whether a guy is open to
other guys.

~~~
dazc
I'm not sure that would work too often. I'm also not gay but I notice when
I've caught the eye of someone who is; it's subtle but very obvious. I imagine
if I were gay it would be very likely I'd be more attuned to this than I am
now. So, I doubt there's a need to be so brazen?

------
moomin
...because you're completely self-obsessed.

Forget men vs women, you know what _people_ like? They like it if you're
actually interested in them and listen to them and don't have a hidden agenda
and aren't silently judging them.

You can apply this to a lot, not just romance. I mean, there are other
approaches to making yourself desirable (like be really rich, ridiculously
good looking, famous &c) but it's notable that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg
both seem to be actually interested in what their wives think.

------
kelvin0
Also available in this book series: "Why I will never be Happy/Lucky/Content"
"Why I will never be a <Important Sounding Title>" "Why I will never have a
<Expensive Luxury Item>"

You might also like from this author: "Mastering navel gazing, and justifying
your paralyzing inaction"

------
Question1101
Personally I just have way too high standards while no person that can fulfil
these would ever like me. I can't lower them. I can't settle for someone I
don't really find attractive like I can settle for a cheaper car. Because a
car has a practical purpose. Even if I wish I could have a cooler car the
cheap car still gets me to places. But with a partner is different. I don't
have to have one. I can be alone. Sometimes I think nothing is better than
something. Solitude is better than an unsatisfying relationship.

~~~
david38
"standards are too high" is the most common excuse people give when really
they themselves are akward, solitary, etc.

You admit these impressive women would never like you. Perhaps, but then
improve yourself.

Choosing to go without if you can't have the very best is an excuse. Do you
live in the street because you don't have a mansion? Do you die because you
can't afford to dine like the upper crust? Why is it that for a partner you
suddenly need the very best?

~~~
projektir
This is the one discussion where insulting the party you're replying to is
considered perfectly acceptable. You can always say someone you disagree with
is <insert undesirable qualities here>, and nobody wants to admit that they're
<insert undesirable qualities>.

Most people work to improve themselves, yet we do not expect anyone to be
perfect, except here. Most people have faults. Some faults make them less
dateable than other faults. Some they may not care that much about or don't
know how to fix. After all, the average person falls short of many standards
up until they die, despite all the attempts at improvement. It should surprise
no one that a subset will always be that falls short, or they choose a
different set to focus on. Yet we demand that such a subset does not exist
when the subject of dating comes up?

> Why is it that for a partner you suddenly need the very best?

I don't know, maybe because a partner is one of the most influential people in
your life and they can absolutely make or break it? They don't have to be the
very best, but I don't understand why, in effectively every other area, people
are often commended for being picky, but here, you are perceived better if you
have anyone, anyone at all, even if it crashes and burns and results in some
ruined lives one is responsible for (children).

Dating is not special. It doesn't get a pass. Some people just don't like the
risk. Some don't assess well or don't know how. In any other area, we consider
that the person's prerogative.

This all smells of giving the dating scenario incredibly heavy weight for no
other reason but that nature programmed us to feel that way. I would like to
think we can think beyond that, and also get rid of all the surrounding
vitriol, judgment, and gossip.

You'll certainly do better in the self-improvement department if you avoid
falling into the trap of: "I don't fit a certain arbitrary and hard to assess
requirement, therefore I suck". I don't agree with the author's, err,
parameters, but this is the one part I agree with, and I wouldn't be surprised
he's happier for it. Nothing good ever comes out of thinking like that.

------
ourmandave
Reminds me of Tim Minchin's _If I Didn 't Have You_

 _Your love is one in a million (One in a million) You couldn 't buy it at any
price (Can't buy love) But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other loves
Statistically, some of them would be equally nice (Equally nice) Or maybe not
as nice but, say, smarter than you Or dumber but better at sport or tracing
I'm just saying (I really think that I would) Probably (Have somebody else)_

------
germinalphrase
Brian Christian did a Long Now Foundation talk about algorithms that you can
apply to life. One point he made was (roughly) to find a good life partner
follow this advice: until the age of 26 date as many people as you can (as in,
have a relationship - not just Tinder dates). After the age of 26, marry the
next person you date that is better than the best person you dated before 26.

I don't think I agree with it - but it seems like far more useful dating
advice than what this guy is trying to achieve. Select from the pool of people
who are also attracted to you - not all people.

~~~
niij
You might like this TED talk on the mathematics of love:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N37x4GgDVBM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N37x4GgDVBM)

------
a_humean
Funny, but he does not need to go through 3493 dates to meet one of his 18,726
viable bachelorettes. Its probably in the double digits.

You don't meet random people within the general population, you meet random
people within your environment. If you are above the normal for intelligence
its almost certain that your environment is going to be filled above normal
intelligence women, and to a lesser extent its likely the same in terms of
attractiveness.

Also his standards are too high (especially on physical attraction -
yeesh!)...

~~~
mooseburger
Software companies are filled with women (even of average intelligence) now?.

But yeah, two standard deviations for physical attraction is too high.

~~~
luckystartup
I think it's rare to find a software company where all of the employees are
software engineers. They are usually outnumbered by designers, marketers,
salespeople, support staff, finance, accounting, etc. There is generally a
similar number of men and women working in these fields.

Yeah, two standard deviations is too high, even if attractiveness could be
modelled as a normal distribution. That's the top 2.5%. Even one standard
deviation is the top 15.5%, which is very picky. I don't think the average
person is all that terrible.

One standard deviation for intelligence is probably ok. IQ scores are actually
based on the normal distribution, where the mean is 100 and one standard
deviation is 15 points. So while I don't think 115 is a very high bar, you
probably shouldn't ask your date to do an IQ test.

------
DonaldFisk
The topic reminds me of the lyrics to Ana Ng by TMBG:
[http://www.metrolyrics.com/ana-ng-lyrics-they-might-be-
giant...](http://www.metrolyrics.com/ana-ng-lyrics-they-might-be-giants.html)

There's a whole area of maths devoted to finding the ideal partner and related
topics, called optimal stopping theory. The Secretary Problem is particularly
relevant:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem)

~~~
novia
That is my favorite song!

"I don't want the world, I just want your half."

------
javipas
I wonder if 17 years later statistic have triumphed or not.

~~~
kowdermeister
Writing viral articles about your misery always helps improving your initial
chances. I guess he's alright now :)

------
brudgers
When I worked for my friend John (he was a VP and a stockholder at the firm).
John'd been married once and divorced in some matter of weeks and among his
complaints was that he'd had three VCR's (it was a while ago) but somehow his
ex wound up with all of them. Anyway, I was engaged and then newly married at
the time but John was always looking for a hot twenty-something (I was in my
early thirties at the time and John is a couple of years older than me).

So I switched jobs and for a couple of years I didn't run into him regularly
like when we worked together but we still lived in the same part of St. Pete
and one night I'm out walking my dogs and wind up in his neighborhood and
there's his house for sale...it was a Thursday night and I get home and call
(cell phones existed but had yet to become ubiquitous) him and am like "What
the hell is going on?"

And John had met a woman who had two kids and lived in Birmingham and was
getting married on Saturday and moving and taking a grunt position at a firm
in Alabama and that was almost twenty years ago and their third child is going
to college.

------
godzillabrennus
Wouldn't load for me so I used this:
[http://archive.is/d4J2P](http://archive.is/d4J2P)

------
csomar
The author has missed the key point: He is trying to find someone who operates
like him, from a different gender. I'm all for gender-equality but the
different genders operate differently.

Once you grasp that and accept that women do no operate, think and behave like
male; your success with them will sky rocket.

~~~
erroneousfunk
Yeah, I also fell into the "someone who operates like me, but of the opposite
sex" trap.

For years I was looking for another engineer (I have a bachelor's in general
engineering, masters in SE), or at least someone mathematically/scientifically
inclined. Ambitious, constantly working on personal projects, likes to travel,
go to conferences, pick up new hobbies, etc.

Now I'm married to a social worker who's had the same job for 12 years,
dropped out of music school, didn't have a passport (never even considered
getting one), doesn't know math beyond basic algebra, often sleeps until noon,
and generally doesn't have any hobbies besides "hanging out with friends."

But you know what? I love my husband, I think we work really well together :)
He was really the first guy I ever dated after I decided to get out of my
bubble and stop looking for "male versions of me" and I wouldn't change
anything for the world!

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I'm happy for you!

I was lucky in that when I met the woman who became my wife, neither of us was
looking for anything other than to get laid. Sounds crass, but I think it
helped me avoid the "look for a female version of me" thing, because we are
nothing like each other.

After spending the first few months pretending that we weren't, in fact,
falling for each other, we gave into it and 15+ years later, still working on
staying together :-)

~~~
Marinlemaignan
IMHO this is the best way to go, never expect anything and you'll never be
disappointed; it doesn't prevent you from getting some great surprises.. Also,
any relation i had with someone i thought was the 'feminine versions of me'
went to shit pretty quickly.. Although being (at least somehow a little bit)
different pushes you way further forward.

------
badthingfactory
Lest anyone suspect that my standards for women are too high, let me allay
those fears by enumerating in advance my three criteria for the match.

...

I will say that for a girl to be considered really beautiful to me, she should
fall at least two standard deviations above the norm.

------
Marinlemaignan
[https://logological.org/fan_mail](https://logological.org/fan_mail) The fan
mail he later received is amazingly crazy

------
kresimirus
He definitely needs to work on his strategy to find one of those 18726 girls.
I would propose to go with strategy widely know in database system, namely
using proper indexing. If you have a table in database and can create only one
compound index for your important query you would create it in a way that most
distinctive column end up on the first place of compound index. In this case
that would be beauty of potential partner (only ~2% match this). Second most
distinctive criteria would be to find girls who actually will like him. So
most optimal strategy would be to go to places with a lot of beautiful girls
that might like him (similar interests etc.) ...from there continue with
linear search.

------
stared
[http://www.alternet.org/story/129887/why_being_smart_won't_g...](http://www.alternet.org/story/129887/why_being_smart_won't_get_you_laid)
and point 5.: "By virtue (or vice) of being smart, you eliminate most of the
planet's inhabitants as a dating prospect" and "At this point, you have three
choices:

A) Loosen up

B) Do a very thorough search all over the planet and be prepared to move to
Duesseldorf OR

C) Join a monastery."

------
TheOtherHobbes
Am I the only one wondering if this is extremely dry humour?

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I thought it was at first, but by the end I was sure he's serious.

------
ValentineC
This reminds me of a slightly more viral paper:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20100214192633/http://www2.warwic...](http://web.archive.org/web/20100214192633/http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/phd_students/backus/girlfriend/why_i_dont_have_a_girlfriend.pdf)
(seems like the original has been removed)

------
amelius
That exposition looks an awful lot like the Drake Equation :)

Anyway, I think the author should talk to women more frequently, about things
not related to work.

~~~
fao_
Maybe Earth should try looking for partners in its orbital circles instead :^)

------
ajeet_dhaliwal
An entertaining article but his intelligence and beauty requirements (1 and 2
standard deviations above the norm respectively) are rather silly. Unless he's
actually rich and handsome to make it match. Especially so given I'm not
convinced about the distribution, variance might be lower than he assumes.

------
threepipeproblm
He also didn't take into the account the effect of publishing this article on
his chances of getting a date.

------
jl6
It's been 17 years. I think we need to know: did he ever find a girlfriend?

------
slantaclaus
Move to LA, be rich. That will get you reaaaally long way.

------
Acalyptol
Your beauty criteria incurs a 1/65 loss. This is why.

~~~
cuckcuckspruce
This is why I listen to Jimmy Soul[1] for all of my life's decisions./s

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NF5XU-k2Vk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NF5XU-k2Vk)

------
koonsolo
It's 2017, get a Tinder account.

~~~
fspear
[http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/a22977-girls-
on-...](http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/a22977-girls-on-tinder-do-
smash-a-lot)

Tinder only works if you are in the top 10% of males. If you are short
(anything under 6 ft nowadays), a minority, fat, etc using tinder is an
invitation to get your self esteem crushed.

There's no place for the average or below average men in the dating scene
anymore. It's all about height,Wealth,penis size and overall looks.

~~~
aianus
I bet most men on this site are in the top 10% of incomes (it's only about
$100k) so they're fine.

------
projektir
One of these days I'll figure out why intelligent people care about appearance
this much.

~~~
aianus
I can fulfill the rest of my social needs besides sex through family and
friends and the part of my brain that likes sex doesn't care much about
personality or intelligence or compatibility.

------
goodJobWalrus
I wonder whether Tristan has found that girl by now, or is he still looking to
this day.

------
whack
TLDR: He's looking for someone who's two standard deviations above the median
in beauty, one standard deviation above the median in intelligence, and is
trying to find this mythical unicorn by going on one blind date every week.
That makes about as much sense as Google trying to find its next CEO by
interviewing every single applicant it gets, without any filter, at a rate of
1-interview-per-week.

~~~
jorgemf
You forgot to say he is also average.

~~~
fspear
To women almost every man is average or below average in looks nowadays.
Women's standards keep rising and rising.

[http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/a22977-girls-
on-...](http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/a22977-girls-on-tinder-do-
smash-a-lot)

~~~
jorgemf
Or attracting men are lowering standards. Any of them lead to the same
results.

------
sauronlord
Sounds like an asperger's MTGOW to me. Next

~~~
antisthenes
It's MGTOW, not MTGOW.

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
One suspects the real reason he's incel is that he's the kind of dude who
would write this kind of article.

~~~
cuckcuckspruce
I find that most people who apply the "incel" label are the most rampant
misanthropic/misogynist people I've ever interacted with.

~~~
ionised
What does the word mean?

~~~
hueving
"Involuntary celebecy". reddit.com/r/incel

It is a silly place, I implore you not to visit it.

~~~
fspear
It is also the reality of A LOT of frustrated young men that need a little
more empathy, not contempt or ridicule.

~~~
hueving
This is true, but that subreddit is filled with sexist generalizations that
don't help them at all.

------
znpy
I wonder in what partition would the author fall if the gender he's after
applied similar reasoning.

Also: the world is big and "there is plenty of fish in the sea": usually, if
you don't get to have a SO, chances are that there is something wrong with
yourself too.

But whatever...

~~~
projektir
I never understood the view. People are not fish, and are not just looking for
any fish. Getting an SO is not that difficult. Getting the right SO is a whole
different story. Some people get the right SO. Most people get an SO and stick
with them, and it works out or not. Some don't want to settle for any SO they
came across, and stay single. The idea that everyone should always have an SO
at all times strikes me as really, really strange, and it would seem to lead
to all sorts of issues.

"there's something wrong with you" is such a generic statement to make that
doesn't really say anything about reality and just causes neurosis all over
the place. Plenty of absolutely abhorrent people have SO's, and I've met
plenty nice people who can't get SO's or just don't really want them. There
are some factors that affect likelihood of having an SO and they're not really
aligned with the "something wrong" scale.

The issue with the OP isn't his refusal to hate himself, because that's
pointless. It's his odd standards for the other gender, but, hey, maybe he
just refuses to settle for less, it is his prerogative.

