
Five Years That Changed Dating - lnguyen
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/12/tinder-changed-dating/578698/
======
stared
Side note - does anyone know why did OKCupid get "tinderfied"? I mean:

\- requires real first name (bad if you name is too common or too rare; also,
it was cool and a great discussion starter) EDIT: real names by default

\- messages only after likes (it changes the dynamics a lot; before I got much
more interesting discussions)

\- option to swipe (fortunately, still it is possible to search)

Vide:

\- [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-these-women-are-
quitti...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-these-women-are-quitting-
okcupid-after-it-required-daters-to-use-their-real-names-on-the-
site-2017-12-26)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/7pv9mp/ladies_of_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/7pv9mp/ladies_of_okcupid_how_are_you_liking_the_recent/)

\- [https://theblog.okcupid.com/why-okcupid-is-changing-how-
you-...](https://theblog.okcupid.com/why-okcupid-is-changing-how-you-
message-f14d492e7853) (may make sense for some mainstream, basing their
judgments of appearance... but then - why not Tinder? plus, it is easy to
filter too short or repetitive messages, so if OKC only wanted to solve that,
it would be a piece of cake)

My two cynical guesses are:

a) there is a Tinder mole in OKC

b) since they are owned by the same group, there will be a post showing it was
natural to join two (effectively killing OKC)

~~~
jessriedel
> messages only after likes (it changes the dynamics a lot; before I got much
> more interesting discussions)

I believe the idea is to reduce to number of messages women receive from guys
they have no interest in. This benefits guys as they are less likely to spend
time composing a long message that is wasted. More generally, you want to
encourage a dynamic where there is a progressive ladder of investment sizes by
each party, so that no one makes a large unilateral investement.

~~~
mattnewton
I have never used an online dating app, but I have to imagine that requiring
mutual likes based on a public profile eliminates the strategy of guys who
have a really good pitch tailored to a specific woman. They have only one
public blurb and a picture, so I could imagine it devolving to a filter that
only selects for profile pictures in practice.

Not saying that’s not worth the trafeoff though, I don’t have a better idea to
fight spam.

~~~
jessriedel
I sort of agree, although I'm skeptical of how prevalent it ever really was
for a guy to make an unsolicited pitch tailored to the woman that was accepted
even though the woman would have declined based only on his profile. After
all, women look at the profile when they receive and unsolicited messages,
often before they even bother to read the message (especially the long ones).

~~~
knopyPusher
I can only speak from personal experience, but all my messages are tailored.
When I do get a reply, I'd say only around 50% of women look at my profile
before replying. For the rest, the message is good enough to get started.

~~~
jessriedel
> I can only speak from personal experience, but all my messages are tailored.

It's clear that all messages need to be tailored to expect a reasonable reply
rate; otherwise the woman has no way to tell you've put in any effort (so it
might be copypasta spam). That doesn't mean that women are replying to
unsolicited messages from men who they wouldn't even swipe right on.

> I'd say only around 50% of women look at my profile before replying.

How do you know? What app are you talking about? I estimate that >95% of women
on mainstream apps look at a guy's profile before replying to a message.

------
robertAngst
EDIT: Married since 2012 here:

At first glance, Tinder sounded like some end game dating opportunity.

While its first users were embarrassed to say they were doing online dating, I
reassured them- Its fine! Find your SO!

Years later, it seems to have turned into a world of unmet expectations.

When its incredibly easy to find a date, people don't seem to try as hard to
make things work. They find flaws and compare. The worst offenders never seem
to be happy.

Admittedly, it might have also further shrunk the pool of "the good ones",
where the only people left have bad jobs, drug problems, and incredibly high
expectations.

On another note, I'm wondering how it has changed Sex. It seems sex has never
been easier to have due to these dating apps. I wonder if people will be able
to settle down.

~~~
e40
All the articles I've read say people are having less sex. I don't know if
they are true, but it definitely seems to fly in the face of the readily
available dating apps.

I can tell you, as a lurker in some of the dating subreddits, it seems lots of
guys complain they never get matches, or rarely do. And, a lot of the women
complain about a constant stream of terrible matches with men.

Here's a thought: maybe focusing purely on looks (like Tinder does) isn't a
good recipe for sexual compatibility.

~~~
hopler
Tinder promotes the ancient practice of polygamy, very effectively. The
highest status males are having sex with many many women , and the major of
males are having less than their peers of the last did. Women hold mostly
steady but are more like to part of a "harem" than a monogamt relationship.

~~~
bb611
Is there data to support this argument?

~~~
ransom1538
I don't agree it makes it a "harem", but an interesting stat:

"It was determined that the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are
competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing
for the top 20% of men."

I knew (Anecdotal) this was true watching a female friend using dating apps.
Her inbox, full of hundreds of unread messages. Any guy would have read each
message 3 times.

[https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-
ii-g...](https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-
unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting-
your-2ddf370a6e9a)

------
stared
The lack of kindness on Tinder is a know problem - so many female friends
showed me outright rude screenshots, especially after these women said they
are feminist, or turned down some sex offer. But... why not introduce some
rating? (As in Uber or so.)

I know it sounds Black Mirror-ish, but if it would penalize rude guys, it
would be a win for everyone (incentive + filtering + hetero-women more
interested in using this app.)

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
I guarantee you it would be used to penalize unattractive people and people
who they decided they just weren't interested in.

It's the "downvote for disagreement" problem.

~~~
stared
True, but there are workarounds.

Sentiment analysis or event a simpler solution - requires to highlight a
sentence. In virtually all abusive messages showed by female friends of mines,
it was plain obvious.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
As technologists, it is tempting for us to try and solve fundamentally social
problems with technology, but consider the old saying: "When all you have is a
hammer, every problem looks like a nail".

------
village-idiot
First: I think that dating apps are fantastic for small sub populations that
might otherwise have a hard time meeting each other. Grindr, JSwipe, MuzMatch,
etc.

But for the larger population, I’m not sure that apps like Tinder are a good
idea. For every few positive stories, including the ones in the article, there
seems to be dozens of stories of misogynistic rants, unsolicited dick picks,
and worse. Men appear to suffer pretty bad on the match ratio with the vast
majority of matches going to a minority of men, while women appear to suffer
the majority of the abuse.

It seems pretty inefficient, and I’m kind of amazed that everyone seems to
have an unspoken agreement to keep using these apps.

~~~
lr4444lr
But why did they spring up in the first place? Trends such as increased youth
labor mobility expectations, more frequent job changes, and the decline of
social interaction opprtunities (not at the bar) have really unmoored a lot of
people socially.

~~~
throwawayasdfgh
Tinder was originally Grindr, and it was meant to solve the double problem gay
people had when finding a match, which is both the smaller dating pool and the
risk of stigmatization. In this respect it was a huge boon to the gay
community. One can imagine plenty of other such communities where such an app
could be beneficial.

~~~
pseudalopex
Grindr obviously influenced Tinder, but they were produced by different
companies.

------
blakesterz
These comments are pretty interesting, especially the "80/20" and the "top x%
of men". Assuming those are both at least partially true... I can't help but
think the rankings change within 5 years of being married. That is, what women
(probably men too) want when they're dating (or browsing potential matches on
apps) changes quite a bit after they're married and have kids.

That is to say, things that match you on apps don't keep you happy for the
next several decades. Maybe an example would be something like "he's cute and
has a good job" is boyfriend material, but ten years later "all he does is
work" really gets old fast.

Not meaning to generalize at all with this, just some thoughts based on what
I've seen around my social groups.

------
bachmeier
As someone that has been married for 16 years (and not looking for someone for
considerably longer than that) this sounds like a giant leap for mankind. A
market of other people who signal that they are also looking, but whom you are
unlikely to ever interact with again if it doesn't work out.

~~~
village-idiot
I’m in the opposite corner. Watching my single acquaintances try and fail with
dating apps is kind of depressing.

~~~
nradov
Why do you think they're failing?

~~~
village-idiot
I can only speak for the male side, since said acquaintances are male.

Men almost never get matched back. Even moderate to moderate good looking men
in stable careers get matched back ~10% of the time, and get fewer dates
still.

~~~
ryandrake
If the number is as high as 10%, then they just need this automatic right-
swiping device [1]. At 10% they wouldn't even need to run it overnight.

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaoDfOaYF4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaoDfOaYF4w)

~~~
pseudalopex
Users report that swiping right too often decreases your swipe limit and how
often other users see your profile.

~~~
village-idiot
Makes sense, they’d want to dissuade this exact behavior.

------
whateveracct
The way HN talks about the macro-"economics" of dating and marriage skeeves me
out. A very impersonal way of talking about a very human and personal topic.

~~~
InGodsName
Yea, I'd agree with you.

After passing their initial filters, they are not very critical of your
qualities.

But before passing their filters, your qualities absolutely play a role if you
were not already in their circle

HN people are brainstorming the before the latter thing

------
rococode
I think the 80/20 problem - the top 80% of women matching with top 20% of men
[1] - is a major issue preventing dating (not hookups) with current apps. Most
of my guy friends who use Tinder swipe right very generously because they
don't match frequently, while my girl friends swipe conservatively since they
match pretty much every other guy (or when they need a bit of an ego boost,
they can just spam right swipes for a string of matches).

I believe the key problem is the high visibility of profile pictures, which
makes it easy to stick to unrealistically high expectations for the physical
attractiveness of people you're willing to talk with. This is reinforced by
the constant stream of pictures - when you're swiping right on the couple of
really attractive people every 15-20 profiles, it's much easier to swipe left
on people who aren't unattractive to you, but just don't reach that level "ok
this person is super hot". In other words, "super interesting and decent-
looking", while traditionally a good combination, probably doesn't do
particularly well on dating apps.

The 80/20 problem, then, comes from the fact that guys swipe right more often
than girls, so girls end up matching with a ton of top 20% great-looking guys
and feel no need to swipe on the other 80% of guys even though they often
never have conversations that go anywhere (at least that's my impression from
seeing the smokin hot dudes that my girl friends match with). To be honest,
this seems fine for hookups, where you mostly care about physical appearance /
attraction. But for longer relationships, I think there's a real lack of
effective "modern" options.

What I'd like to see is an app where you don't get to see any pictures until
you've initiated a conversation (of some minimum length) with a person. So
while browsing profiles, you just get a short bio and some demographic
information. I also personally think it'd be nice to filter for certain broad
categories (education - for example, same school for college-age folks,
income, ethnicity, etc), because intuitively I think people tend to end up
with people from similar overall backgrounds - but I can see how that could
cause problems. Regardless, I think an app where you at least don't see photos
of the person you're talking to until a certain amount of conversation would
be great. It would deal with a number of issues:

1\. the 80/20 problem with respect getting any kind of conversation going is
largely solved, as I believe that stems from people having profile pictures to
quickly decide yes/no

2\. by showing photos at some point, you still take into account the
importance of physical attraction, but this time a person's image is backed by
some level of existing rapport

3\. you make a higher commitment to each person you talk to since you have to
talk a certain amount to see what they look like

4\. you're more likely to match with people who have shared values and
interests since you have to actually talk with them

5\. people are more likely to send messages since without pictures, there's
never a feeling of "oh this person is out of my league, no point sending a
message"

It's not perfect but I think it'd be a good start for non-hookup dating apps
compared to the current choices. (if you agree with my thoughts and have some
spare time pls feel free to make something like that haha)

[1] [https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-
ii-g...](https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-
unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting-
your-2ddf370a6e9a) (not really a rigorous study but the reasoning makes sense)

~~~
orangeeater
> What I'd like to see is an app where you don't get to see any pictures until
> you've initiated a conversation (of some minimum length) with a person

I doubt many people would use this app. Physical attraction is too important.

If I was going to design a dating app, I would restrict people to having 1-3
(needs testing) likes/conversations at a time. If you start a new
conversation, you drop your oldest one, and the person you dropped would be
informed.

The idea would be to encourage users to be more discerning and invest more in
conversations.

More generally, I reject the "soul mate theory of dating" \- I think most
people could be happy with most of the people they find interesting/attractive
off the bat (and some of the people they don't). But the multitude of options
discourages users from investing in a conversation or meeting up and
encourages flash-in-the-pan dating strategies. These strategies rarely
translate into the long-term relationships that most users claim to be looking
for.

I'm not convinced that this idea would be popular. Admittedly it mainly
appeals to my sensibilities (I've never been comfortable with "casting a wide
net").

~~~
evrydayhustling
One challenge with this mechanism is leakage to "out-of-band" relationships...
Your app can successfully promote a high-investment approach to dating, but
users can still try a more promiscuous approach on another app - diluting
trust about mutual investment on your app. Starts to sound like some pretty
traditional social conflicts about dating cultures!

------
hutzlibu
What I think is very interesing is how Onlinedating is percieved in different
groups:

While other groups of people I know everybody is on tinder, but in my local
area(germany) a friend of mine is actually ashamed to admit that he met his
new date through tinder..

And well, I do not think it is something to be ashamed of, but persanally I
also think, that you meet dates in real life.

~~~
grecht
Germany is notoriously slow at adapting "new" things. Think credit cards,
internet speed, ...

~~~
hutzlibu
Think renewable energies, green technology ...

~~~
grecht
Things that are widely recognized as "good". Who could say no to that for the
sake of minimal change? Also, this doesn't affect life in a way that dating or
the hassle of having to carry cash with you to buy bread do.

Of course Germany's a leader in a lot of things. But Germans do have a
tendency to be cautious and sceptical about innovations that would impose a
change to their (everyday) life.

------
booleandilemma
All women are going after the same top x% of men, so most men miss out. Men
are a lot less picky, but the women they’re interested in are too determined
on being with the top x% to be interested in them.

I think all problems with dating and finding love in general can be shown to
stem from this.

The obvious solution is to send the top x% of men off to war. Sorry guys ;)

~~~
lkrubner
It is difficult to reconcile your theory with the stat that 90% of women have
married at least once by the time they are 40 years old. Assume 4% of women
are lesbian or queer, and that 5% have either congenital disabilities or long
term illnesses, and 1% have served long prison terms, and you end up with the
fact that very nearly 100% of healthy non-criminal heterosexual women get
married to a man. So in what sense are women being picky? They marry all kinds
of men.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I would think the population being affected by these changes hasn’t yet
reached age 40 yet.

~~~
lkrubner
Can you suggest a test for the hypothesis that dating apps are driving
changes? What percentage of marriage do you expect at age 30, and how do you
account for the negative economic circumstances following the crisis of 2008,
which must have pushed the marriage rate down somewhat for those who are
currently 30?

I think we all understand that social systems are multi-variate and so it is
difficult to assert absolutes. But you must have in mind some statistics that
you expect to see in the evidence, and if you don't see them you'll agree that
the theory is probably disproven?

I've previously emphasized economics over dating apps. Following the theory
that males wages, relative to rent/mortgage, have a big impact on the
formation of heterosexual couples, please see what I wrote in "Do men become
warlike if they do not have women?"

[http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/do-men-become-
warlike...](http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/do-men-become-warlike-if-
they-do-not-have-women)

~~~
michaelt

      how do you account for
      the negative economic
      circumstances following
      the crisis of 2008
    

The economics might have changed, but the biological clock for women who want
children hasn’t.

~~~
lkrubner
How do you reconcile "the biological clock for women who want children hasn’t"
with "All women are going after the same top x% of men"?

It seems that women marry all kinds of men. They marry men who drink alcohol,
men who've been to prison, men who use drugs, men who are poor, men who are
ugly, men who are known to engage in domestic violence. They marry all kinds
of men.

There is nothing in the data that justifies ""All women are going after the
same top x% of men".

------
throwawayasdfgh
I'd like to make a couple of comments to put things into perspective.

First, this is all US-based. Granted, Tinder is a thing here in Europe but as
far as I know the overwhelming majority of sexual encounters here still occurs
in meatspace. I do believe online dating only caters to a certain demographic
with a certain personality type and the market will be eventually saturated.

Likewise, 'dating' as most people know it is primarily an American concept.
Due to the cultural influence the US has over the world, this concept has been
imported/distorted here (to my dismay, but that's more of a personal view),
but the concept of repeatedly taking someone else out until things evolve or
devolve (first base, second base, whatever) is just not the norm everywhere in
the world. In many places people just hit it off first, then 'date' later.
There are also things like arranged marriages, 'debutante balls', and so on.

Also, it bears repeating that online dating, in its current implementation, is
a privacy nightmare rife with plenty of repulsive and shady practices [1].
There's plenty of research done about this, but what I find worrying is that
researchers may request access to _the entirety of everyone 's conversations
with everyone else_, complete with username and location database, as well as
the history of matches, dismissals, and so on. Likewise, Tinder execs harvest
all this precious and intimate data for advertisers with little concern for
security or privacy.

It also reveals worrying trends about society. Research has shown that "the
average woman’s desirability drops from the time she is 18 until she is 60.
For men, desirability peaks around 50 and then declines." Likewise with
education, "desirability is associated with education most strongly for men,
for whom more education is always more desirable. For women, an undergraduate
degree is most desirable; postgraduate education is associated with decreased
desirability among women." [2] As for ethnicity: "there is also a clear and
consistent dependence on ethnicity, with Asian women and white men being the
most desirable potential mates by our measures". Black women and Asian men
would be the least desirable. (For information, desirability is usually
computed by giving everyone a score, usually derived from a PageRank-like
method or something like an Elo rating.)

I get that people working behind the scenes are not trendsetters and only
follow what is currently the norm to maximize user engagement, but in this age
of reckoning about big tech and privacy, perhaps now is the time to imagine a
product that actually caters to people into dating instead of selling their
information, doing creepy data mining and compelling them to stay on the apps?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18713837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18713837)

[2] Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets
([http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaap9815](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaap9815))

~~~
jules
> For men, desirability peaks around 50 and then declines.

Perhaps within their own age group, but I don't believe for a second that a 50
year old man is more desirable than a 30 year old man. If that were true then
the 50 year old men would be able to date the most desirable women, i.e. 18
year olds according to your statement.

~~~
stared
Yep, 50 years is not correct.

See: [https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/07/03/ok-cupid-
da...](https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/07/03/ok-cupid-data-on-sex-
desirability-and-age/) and [https://theblog.okcupid.com/undressed-whats-the-
deal-with-th...](https://theblog.okcupid.com/undressed-whats-the-deal-with-
the-age-gap-in-relationships-3143a2ca5178) (tl;dr: women prefer men of a
similar age, or slightly older (when they are young) and slightly younger
(when they are old); for men it is constant)

------
emberdemonoid
I haven't seen anyone here put together, why women are so picky with online
dating. I admit that it's easy to say "well, because they can, d'uh", but that
is not what I see when I talk to women about dating men.

When men complain about bad matches, what they usually mean is that the woman
turned out to be boring or not as good looking, hell maybe she even had a kid
that she never mentioned.

I hardly hear women complain about that. What I hear is that they didn't want
to go on a date or maybe wanted to leave one and in response got insults,
threats of violence/murder, maybe even someone trying to get handsy if they
actually met in meatspace.

So the minor factor of "if a woman dates too many men, she's a slut" aside, if
women are not picky, they are in danger of getting physically assaulted. If
they just reply nicely online and don't agree to a first date, they "only"
risk getting insulted and threatened. And having someone stalk you because you
rejected them on Tinder doesn't happen often, but it happens.

So why on earth would they not be picky? What is their incentive to be open to
opportunities? Of course they wait until they have strong indicators that this
guy might be the right one or is at least worth the risk.

The image of a single woman floating in this sea of open opportunities that I
see here is very romantic. Sadly most of them feel like taking a swim in a
pond full of piranhas because they were promised, one of them is a cursed
prince.

Edit: Reading this again, I should mention, that I am aware that not every man
responds violently to rejection. I am aware of that. Sadly, it's not single
cases only either and a minority here is enough to make the situation scary.

------
amelius
I'm still waiting for an app that matches based on DNA, or scent (pheromones),
or both.

~~~
aqme28
How would DNA matching work, and why? Do you want someone with similar DNA to
you? Vastly different DNA? This sounds like a terrible idea at the outset.

~~~
amelius
Well, you have to look at it from a big-data perspective. E.g. train a
classifier on a large number of successful and not so successful marriages (or
non-partners), using DNA as the underlying data. Now use this classifier to
suggest partners in a dating app.

Regarding pheromones, there's a lot of scientific research [1]. For example:

> Individuals rated those of the opposite sex as more attractive if they
> preferred the individuals pheromones odour.

Now I suppose that preference for pheromones is (at least partially) encoded
in DNA somehow. So you can see what I'm getting at.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_odour_and_sexual_attracti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_odour_and_sexual_attraction)

------
qqn
The absolute best thing about this piece is learning that there's a woman out
there somewhere named Holly Wood.

------
fromthestart
>Dating apps originated in the gay community; Grindr and Scruff...launched in
2009 and 2010, respectively

This is just untrue. Plenty of Fish launched in 2003. Okcupid in 2004. Both
clearly listed on wikipedia. What is going on with modern journalism? I'm
supposed to put faith in the rest of the article, when the author can't get
basic facts straight?

What I'd really like to see is a piece on how dehumanizing the online dating
game is for men. Yeah, women complain about being sex objects, but all men
online are treated with a heavy suspicion of wanting only sex.

I think there's a greater developing problem in Western society with
hypergamy, but no one is paying any attention to the bottom 20-30% of men who
are involuntarily single, and it's only going to get worse, as the idea of
male privilege breaks further into the mainstream while ignoring the relative
difficulty that modern men increasingly have with romantic fulfilment.

Romantic companionship is part of Maslow's Heirarchy for a reason. Having a
substantial proportion of the populous lonely and depressed because of
unfulfillment of a basic need can't be good for society.

And this isn't as easy as simply working on oneself when hypergamy is shifting
female standards further and further out of reach of the average male.

Perhaps it is time for women to start checking their own privilege.

~~~
pseudalopex
The author mentions dating sites as predecessors to dating apps. Plenty of
Fish and OkCupid launched their apps after Grindr. Also, they were basically
mobile websites with notifications.[1] The mobile-first, photo-first
experience of online dating today seems to have originated with Grindr.

[1]
[https://www.datingsitesreviews.com/article.php?story=OkCupid...](https://www.datingsitesreviews.com/article.php?story=OkCupid-
Launches-a-iPhone-App)

------
jarmitage
Perhaps you should educate yourself about the fallacious logic and death cult-
ism of incel:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0)

~~~
fromthestart
So, one can not criticize the dating experience, and recognize that it is
biased in favor of women, without being slandered as an incel?

Why do you think more men are turning to such extremism? You think they are
perpetually frustrated and bitter by choice?

Remember when we used to call these men "geeks" and "nerds"? Why won't anyone
acknowledge the validity of their involuntary suffering? These men are
marginalized and exist on the outskirts of society for reasons beyond their
choosing.

Attractiveness is a continuum, and there's only so much one can do to raise
ones percieved value to meet the standards of others. It isn't a secret that
apps like tinder tend to make women even more selective.

~~~
empath75
> These men are marginalized and exist on the outskirts of society for reasons
> beyond their choosing.

I can assure you that the reason that most self professed incels are on the
outskirts of society is that they’re fucking creepy. I mean have you read
their subreddits. They make my skin crawl. And I have no idea what any of them
look like.

~~~
fromthestart
Inceldom is an extremist manifestion of a growing epidemic of loneliness.
Frankly, they have nothing to do with this actual discussion, and stifle
discussions around male loneliness.

>is that they’re fucking creepy.

That's the point. They're different. What does creepy mean? Difficulty with
social norms? Unusual interests? Physical unnatractiveness? You think these
are choices? Incels are just especially self aware and bitter "geeks" and
"nerds" of yore, back before those terms were coopted by the mainstream.

I think these men are bitter because they exist with the same needs for
romance that you and I do, but have no realistic way of actualizing these
desires. Their pain is involuntary and real. Look past the vileness of their
rhetoric and understand that they are suffering.

~~~
watwut
Most of the incels discussion gives vibe of people who are completely socially
isolated - not even really having friends or other regular social group which
I would see as prerequisite to girlfriend. If there is no one the guy can get
along with, it is unlikely he will be able to get along with a single girl.
Additionally, quite a lot of them gives vibe of someone who is dangerous to be
dated, plain as simple.

If this is how they act from not having partner frustration, what they will do
when a girl disagree with them over something important, when she has simply
bad mood, when there are serious money or sickness problems affecting
relationships, when his and her career clash, when they are sleep deprived due
to baby etc? Answer: likely badly.

I think he means creepy on scale that Elliot Rogers was creepy. Complaining
about not dating hot girl while thinking about her mostly as status item to be
admired by other guys. Finding it unfair throwing fit when ugly guy has a
girlfriend. while not being able to hold conversation with _anyone_ without
becoming agressive for petty reasons. Seeing all the other guys as assholes.

Finding it unfair that nice cloths and money did not magically made him
girlfriend. All the while he was talking about how he is supreme gentleman.

~~~
dictum
> Most of the incels discussion gives vibe of people who are completely
> socially isolated - not even really having friends or other regular social
> group which I would see as prerequisite to girlfriend.

You've stumbled on a circular dependency, but your proposed solution is the
equivalent of "just fix it". (The joke in social-anxiety support circles is
that all advice boils down to "just be yourself", which turns out to be...
unwise.)

 _What_ makes these men _creepy_? Is their behavior innate, or acquired in
response to other stimuli? If so, from whom? What have they gone through?

I have a quibble with the word _creepy_ , similar to the word _toxic_ : there
are people who give off _creepy_ vibes, there are people with _toxic_
behaviors, but the words are used in place of more specific, clearer
adjectives.

Card-carrying incels do exist, but the whole debate overvalues their
political/ideological platform, completely ignoring men who go through
loneliness, mental health issues, alienation and cultural disconnect but
haven't made it into a political meme. Men and women experience all these
problems, but they may experience it in different ways. When the subject of
incels enters the conversation, everything is reduced to Elliot Rodgers.

~~~
watwut
I have no idea what made them who they are nor how they interact irl. I know
that I always kept away from guys who talk and behave like those on forums,
because I see that as red flag for potentially being hit or being insulted in
argument or otherwise not being respected. Largely because that is how they
they treat and talk abou other people in their lives. Ultimately, in the long
term, girlfriend is going to be treated the same.

What I am saying here is that my safety and self respect beats his need to
have girlfriend.

I was not trying to give advice here. I can't and abatract general advice is
likely to not fit all that many people even if good.

Girlfriend won't and can't fix mental health issue, can't fix alienation nor
cultural disconnect. She just can't, the same way boyfriend won't fox the
above for a girl.

~~~
fromthestart
You're judging people based on a charicature. Your percieved red flags are
nothing of the sort. And, in your continued obliviousness, you miss the fact
that these people are alienated by shunning like yours.

People are cast off for being "creepy" when this really amounts o ften times
to falling outside norms; then you retroactively rationalize your coldness
with vague associations of physical danger.

If you want to go by stereotypes, people drawn toward inceldom typically don't
have the build, coordination, or practice to be violent. And the scary part is
how hard it is to shake such an image if you find yourself on the verges of
society, exactly because of nonsensical fears like yours. This isn't any
better than racism or sexism, except it is socially acceptable because we have
recently come to view men as privileged in the west.

The bottom line is that you, like much of society, like many in "popular"
social circles, are biased by an irrational aversion to otherness, except this
particular form of tribalism is socially acceptable.

~~~
watwut
They were not having weird hobbies nor failed eye contact nor had odd phrasing
nor are ugly.

The norm talked about here is hating most people, being overly angry over
petty issues, crossing into abusive language easily and expecting other people
to conform to overly detailed ideas of what exactly they should do. It is not
talking about potential partners as about individuals.

Hitting other people does not require coordination or build. It requires
belief that it is your right to punish partner or uncontrolled anger.

------
golemotron
How are OkCupid and Tinder preventing trafficking on their platforms?

Even of a loose reading of FOSTA makes them a target for federal action.

