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Comment by tc | Hacker News Reader

This is cute. But word to the wise: don't actually do this.

You can create far more attraction in person within five minutes than this poor ("nice") guy did with untold hours of work. And no matter how much he liked learning WPF, spending those hours with an attractive and attracted other would surely have been more fun.

Edit: I'm suggesting that if wooing her was his ends (which seems clear), then the means he chose was predictably poor. Given the opportunity cost of his time, a plane ticket doesn't seem so unreasonable.

Your life will be happier if you don't follow this fellow's courting model.

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In the guy's own words, "it was a pretty fun way to learn WPF." So, you know, if the love thing doesn't pan out, he's at least gained another marketable skill.

In his defense, she does say that he is 14+ hours away. So it's not like he can be with her in person.

And she has edited her post to say that she is coming to him.

To be fair, while it's a cool present she's probably only going to see him because she posted it on Reddit and she felt pressure from all the people she'd told to make the flight.

If she hadn't posted it on Reddit she probably wouldn't be going.

Pressured by random Redditors?

Pressured by making statements in public and wanting to act consistently with him.

Robert Cialdini describes this in some of his awesome books on social psychology.

Basically, if you make a statement in public you are much more likely to act consistently with it.

So in this case:

1) She says that the gift is really cool on Reddit.

2) People say that she's evidently not sold on him, and she updates her post to say that she does like the guy. After all, she's received a cool gift. If she didn't like the guy, why would she think it was cool and not creepy?

3) She's now committed in public that a) she thinks the gift is awesome and b) she likes the guy. Under those circumstances making the trip is the consistent thing to do.

4) Hence she's now making a fourteen hour flight to see him.

On the other hand, if she hadn't posted it there'd be no pressure to assert that she liked the guy and no consequent pressure to make the trip. She'd probably think "neat gift, but he's fourteen hours away" and then find reasons not to go.

She considers herself a member of a community; according to the mores of that community there's a clearly favored course of action, although she might not have realized that before posting.

strongly disagree... he picked something in her field of interest and then made an effort for her, that's the best courting method there is. I mean are you even serious, she liked it enough to post this whole thing about it? You think him buying a plane ticket and showing up to try and get laid would provoke as positive a response?

Dude, he probably had more fun creating the magic file than he would've courting her in person.

Sometimes the journey is the destination.

If you read the edit:

In order to go see him right now I have to take a 14hr plane flight. Which means I would be staying a week, and I'm not sure I'm quite at that point yet.

Im guessing that's a fair thing; going to stay with someone for a week is pretty intense if you've only dated briefly.

(looks like the age old problem of not wanting to go too fast :))

Actually I think this is inaccurate. It really depends on the person. You're assuming that he can be charming in person. Some people definitely can, others cannot - they might get overly shy or stumble over their words. Some people are very good with written words and can win a person over in poem or prose. For others it may be thoughtful actions or deeds. Yes, there needs to be some attraction to begin with but some people can turn it to much higher levels through indirect interaction.

So even though he was somewhat limited in options by distance, even in general, I don't agree with your statement that "You can create far more attraction in person". It is dependant on the individuals involved.

When you start approaching romance with an ROI you've already missed the point.

"Your life will be happier if you don't follow this fellow's courting model." That's sad. I say be a hopeless romantic. Follow your heart.

If you're awkward in person you're going to have a hell of a time overcoming that with indirect interaction, just because at some point you have to physically be around the object of your affection.

Also from experience being really relaxed around someone remotely in no way makes you less shy when you're around them in person. (Awkward nerd reporting for duty).

I maintain that people communicate differently and some are much better in certain mediums than others. Some people express themselves better through written words, art, music, etc. Saying face to face communication is always the best way everytime for every person is wrong.

Even for the awkward nerd in all of us - maybe you talk to someone online and you're totally relaxed and being somewhat smooth and then you blow it in person by being a nervous wreck - you still got further through indirect communication than you would have had you just spent 5 minutes with them initially without talking online first, which is my point. I'm not saying being good at indirect communication is all you need, just that some people can get further with it than they can with direct interaction. The basics still need to be in place (general attraction to each other, ability to speak in the presence of a woman, etc).

I agree that some people are better at communicating in different mediums. However, in your example, I don't think that you really got much further. You still blew it at the "talking in person" stage. It's just that you took longer to get there.

Speaking from experience, in this example blowing it in person isn't as damaging, because you've already shown the other person what you're capable of. You come off as someone who's shy and nervous rather than someone one's strange and unapproachable. Shy and nervous can trigger the maternal instinct in a woman which will keep her around long enough for you to get past the awkwardness.

I agree with you. I think the most telling line in the post was, "In order to go see him right now I have to take a 14hr plane flight. Which means I would be staying a week, and I'm not sure I'm quite at that point yet."

When I got to this part I thought it was going to say something like, "quit my job" as apposed take a week of vacation.

The problem wasn't attraction -- they'd already managed that. The problem was that they lived 14 hours apart.

According to her "things didn't get very far" and she "wasn't leaning one way or the other". Oh, and he's "nice". That doesn't sound like attraction, that sounds like she's trying to put him in the friend zone without hurting him. As a permanent resident of the zone, I can recognize the signs...

Now she feels obligated to make much more of a commitment than she's comfortable with, and I wouldn't expect a fairytale ending.

I agree. You can geek out after you've secured the relationship if you like, like I did with my little birthday card website: http://happybirthdaytosarah.com

Point well taken, but it must be said that at certain times in ones life, time is more readily available than money. Plus if he was learning WPF anyway, why not do something fun and, uhm, I guess romantic?

I don't know...maybe the program was a test to see how the girl would react?

I know that if I did something like this and the person I sent it to reacted with "meh, that's cool", it would mean to me to stay the hell away from them, or at least keep them at arms length.

I think this is really, really cool. A friend of mine and I used to do this with each other; make puzzles and things and then trade them. It was really fun, and a really cool way of teaching each other new things we had learned.

I disagree. First, you need both attraction and comfort. Comfort basically means showing a woman that you're interested in more than just sex. At the very least, this present does that. Furthermore, I think this particular present also creates attraction by demonstrating positive value attributes of the guy like intelligence, curiosity, playfulness, etc.

Why would courting a woman need to be couched in terms like "creating attraction", and why would it need to be as efficient as possible?

Almost anything that humans seek to understand deeply and communicate effectively about results in useful jargon. The seduction community is a fascinating case of this.

The word "couched" has an unmistakable ring of judgement, so that may get in the way of an objective assessment. Nevertheless, tc's post is framed as advice, not poetry. Appropriate nomenclature for the former will be very different than that for the latter.

I strongly disagree. I think the means is excellent--spending effort on something that she would appreciate is really hard to beat.

1, He did something for the person he Love/have affection 2. he did something he likes to do (Programming)

I think sending a present to a person you love is a very personal matter and one should do what he feels like doing. It's not merely a means to an end right?. One suerly derives happines from doing it as well.

People also derive pleasure from how their present is received. If she'd been creeped out or something then he wouldn't be as happy.

That said, she seemed to think it was a cool gift and he had fun doing it so more power to him.

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