A real person, a lot like you
sivers.org
sivers.org
I've developed a nice thick skin while working at justin.tv, but in the early days I'll admit some of the contact I had with our users was pretty devastating. At times I was simultaneously trying to scale the chat server code to handle more and more users, fighting off a bunch of script-kiddie attacks, and replying to emails telling me I must be just about the most useless programmer in the world :)
My puppet has gotten through a couple of cheerful responses to emails which, if I had read them myself, would have left me unable to sleep for weeks.
My puppet also reports that the worst one had a follow-up "Thanks for getting back to me! Oh sorry I was so stressed yesterday lol." The puppet lols, too.
The point of a girl "rejecting losers" on a dating site has nothing to do with the losers and everything to do with reinforcing her self-image of "the kind of girl who turns down 10 guys a day". Same with the people who write long e-mails saying "you suck": if someone is looking for it, they can find a lot of evidence people around them suck. The point of writing e-mails about it is to build up one's own confidence, heal some hurt, or vent some frustration about some issue completely unrelated.
The stories are really about people creating a self-image and protecting an identity (call it "reflexive brand management", if you will). While I'll concede that they're narcissistic in their disregard for how their actions affect other people, I think both are natural and healthy in terms of their own psyche.
Plus, for a woman, being on a dating site is all about volume control. She probably only has time to go out with one new guy every week or month, so she picks the best guy out of the dozens of men who contact her every week. The rest are just noise. They're a boring and pointless part of her day. Calling them "losers" is unjustified, but none of them heard her, and she isn't obligated to spend an hour a day responding personally to every guy who emails her so he doesn't get his feelings hurt.
The point of her story, though, is that she deleted all the messages, and implied that she regularly deletes all the messages—she's not going out with any of them; she's fishing with no hook.
That also assumes that she chooses her dates exclusively from the guys who contact her, forgoing her right to contact any men proactively.
The better strategy is to always read the messages, filtering some out as irrelevant to your interests, and then putting the rest into a priority queue based on appeal. That way, a better guy will jump to the head of the queue, and be contacted the next week.
Come to think of it, is there a dating site that automates this? "Getting Things Dated?"
questioning why you're harboring beliefs that construct a self-identity that causes you to send "you suck" emails just cuz you're having a bad day seems healthier than practicing reflexive brand management.
call it "examined brand management" :)
The explicit goal of the user may be different, but shooting someone down for pleasure and tearing someone down to pull yourself up often look to be one and the same, and have many of the same side effects.
Would you be upset? But yet, this person is no less of a stranger to you than someone on a board on the internet, or anywhere else.
The fact that you don't see their face makes little difference.
It's nice to pretend that we're logical machines where we don't care about anything that doesn't materially affect us, but the truth of the matter is that we're all human, and when someone rails on us, even perfect strangers, it sucks.
Now, a healthy human being will pick themselves up and move on, but I don't think at any point it will simply not affect us at all.
In real life, there's an element of safety. If someone's hurling verbal abuse at my face, I'd be worrying that they're going to get physical. The same isn't true online unless they cross over into real life and come hunt you down.
If someone writes a ranting email/comment on here about how much I suck, I'd likely read it, see if it's funny or just boring, and move on. If you're going to rant, you should at least try and make it witty and clever.
Mainly boredom, apathy, reluctance to do any work, etc
Seriously though, the same applies to the positive - If someone posts a comment saying how awesome I am and how much they admire me, I'd just laugh and move on. I wouldn't suddenly be euphorically happy. It's just online banter - they could be deranged, they could be being sarcastic, they could be trying to get something, etc.
Anything said online/in emails etc shouldn't be taken that seriously.
I'd say 1 real life person saying something (positive or negative) is probably equivalent to about 100 online people saying the same.
Our online identity is becoming more important and people will increasingly rely on it for a part of their personal identity in the coming years. Hopefully, however, it means that as people invest more of their identity into their online interactions they will become more sensitive to the fact that others do as well.
OTOH, some people are just assholes.
Some people take these things hard. I'm one of them, some days. Developing a thick skin is important, but I would never view "stop caring" as a positive way to deal with anything.
sometimes you gotta cut your losses and remind yourself that some customers aren't worth servicing.
- - Lazarus Long
The only conceivable explanation is that these are people that have never been responsible for something public facing and hence have never been criticized unfairly.
And while I wouldn't be uncivil (or condone as much) towards "Bob," both sides of the conversation need to avoid dehumanizing each other. I wonder if the client in Derek's first example would have been such an ass towards Sara if large companies hadn't preconditioned us to expect mechanical, uncaring customer service.
However, my point was that in real life, lots of cute girl would think "huh loser" in her head and would just ignore you. As I said, I don't think it's right, but still, I don't see why if they act like that in real life, they would act kindly on internet.
I think the thing is that women start turning down propositions from horny guys early on in their lives, so that by the time they get into the age where dating sites make sense, they've become proficient at it... almost like second nature.
If us guys are looking for someone to blame, we first have to look at ourselves.
How are they "likely" to be spoiled princesses with entitlement complexes? How do you know enough to make even a wild-ass guess as to their worth as people?
I understand your point about it hurting less, but I think it's an unhealthy track to walk down. Dehumanizing people is never healthy, regardless of the end goal. Not to mention by doing so you've sunk to their level.
Not to mention you'd be missing the entire point of this post: " A real person, a lot like you "
People have patterns - sure - but you don't really know this woman. You're writing her off as a spoiled, entitled princess after reading only a single, brief description of a single action.
It is the same as her writing off all of those men as losers without any examination.
It makes you feel better - I don't care if I'm judged by some spoiled, entitled brat, right? But how qualified are you to make this call? I'm inclined to think that any such judgments are really made for one's ego rather than based on rational observation. Now, if you've had a chance to actually talk with this woman for any substantial amount of time, and you come to the same conclusion, then fair enough.
I don't think I get it too bad, but I do get them. I wonder where people come from saying some of the things they do, even here.
Thanks, Derek.
I agree that it's best not to send these scathing emails to people without considering their humanity. I just have a hard time striking the balance between that and letting others take advantage of me.
The other side of the author's point is that you have to be careful not to take criticism of your work as criticism of you as a person.
I actually agree completely with what you said, especially after reading the thread he cited.
My immediate reaction is that you need to ditch your eternal beta and immediately offer a paid plan. Make the trial really limited. Talk (in person) to potential clients and really try to really sell this thing.
As long as it is in eternal free beta you have no real discernment between casual and paying customers. You have no money to make it worthwhile to you, you have no advertising budget and no credibility. Sure, turning off "free beta mode" is hard, but better to do it now than to work for years (has it been since 2007?) under the assumption that all you need is more features to make a profitable business.
It is a pity that you want to drop this product in its entirety. If I were you I'd either walk away from it to get a break or spend all your effort on the static sales pages, a billing system and advertising until you have some paying customers.
On the website front:
You really do have to get people to try out the dashboard for Timmy. You should have a really easy demo dashboard. If you want to do more coding you could add a Javascript test box where you can talk to Timmy on-line. Getting people to talk to Timmy using MSN is your first hurdle.
None of the features sound compelling. You need to isolate the one call to action that works for most of the potential customers you have personally talked with and put that on the front page. Right now it feels weak - no feature there calls to me. I can already track my time, so why use your solution (tell me). Instant communication and notifications sound like the features of MSN itself - come up with something that really is difficult to solve that Timmy can solve.
But thanks fo the great comment...
I support an iPhone app and occasionally get emails where the person is obviously not expecting a real person to read it.
Almost without exception, I write as nice an email back as possible, and usually people are disarmed. As I say, a great article, since it brings to light something that people won't generally see until they are supporting a web-page or app at arms length.
On OkCupid I was just told that I am an asswipe, that I have no personality, and no respect. Brought back some bad schoolyard emotions.
Thanks.
Ouch!
However, in this particular case, the scathing message was a response to a subsequent exchange, not the introductory. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Everything was going as planned, so I asked for her number. She didn't respond with her number. No big deal. I've wrung numbers out of girls on OkCupid before (read: assuaged their reluctance), with stuff like this:
I understand. You're likely a poor collage student who couldn't pay her phone
bill on time. Look, it's okay, you should've told me. I mean, I have extra
ramen packets and cans of beans.
This time it was something like: "WOW. Are you trying to be a dick? Blah blah blah. I'm independently wealthy due to my heritage asswipe blah blah blah and something about me having no respect and no personality."
I don't know what her deal was, being "independantly wealthy" must be a touchy topic. My feelers were injured.
Solution: provide some kind of clue to reassure her that you are, in fact, joking, and not turning into Mr. Hyde at the first hint of rejection.
Say I see this in a woman's profile: "I've mastered the art of unwrapping a Starburst in my mouth."
You can be sure you'll find something like this in my first message to her: "Awesome, I hear it takes ten years to master an art...." That actually has me cracking up right now.
So, it's not like this particular person had a precedent to conclude that I was more likely trying to be a dick, rather than having fun in accordance to my previous messages. Something made her completely miss the fun side of it.
And the few times this "unpaid phone bill" joke didn't get me the number, the woman was polite with something like: "sorry, it's too soon. I'm just not comfortable giving my number to a guy on the internet yet." Which is absolutely fine.
I know what this looks like (I'm an a-hole), but I also know how women generally respond to this stuff; I have empirical evidence that shows a strong correlation of success. Her response was not normal and pretty low-class, and really left me blindsided. She did say some pretty ridiculous stuff that wouldn't even be true of a dog with down syndrome. Quite unbalanced, even if you read my message at face value: with no evidence other than her not giving me the number, I was asserting she couldn't pay her phone bill on time, and that I was willing to share some of my raman.
Besides, I had never met a person who didn't think raman was funny in itself. Who hasn't lived off it for a few days? It's like an inside joke we all share.
I'm not going to abandon everything that actually works because one person got offended. It has worked before, and it is very likely that it'll work another 50 times before I come across someone who is even mildly offended by my general manner.
Also, and I feel really bad mentioning this, she is one of the lesser looking girls I've spoken to with intentions of dating. I'm starting to think the whole thing was because she had less experience with jolly bantering. But, this may be me unjustly rationalizing.
Thank god for nested comments. Waaaayyyy off topic.
Instead of fuming that you have to phone up to get your phone account cancelled, rather than click a button online, it's amazing what you can achieve if you put on a positive outlook and remember the other person is just like you, but working some shitty call centre job to pay the rent. Since I had this "eureka" moment (and I find it awful that I had to have one in the first place), I've had much better experiences - negotations, discounts, amazing customer service, etc.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
(Sure, arguably, dating sites are less anonymous and have less of an audience than the video game in question, but the gist is the same: "I don't need to take responsibility for my tomfoolery, so here goes nothing!")
By the way, I feel compelled to mention again--as I do on almost every post from sivers.org--that Derek Sivers is a total badass, and we should all endeavor to have our heads on as straight as he does. Thanks, Derek!
She said, “Ugh. Losers. I get like ten of these a day,” and clicked [delete] on all of them, without replying."
While his thesis might be true, this is not a good example of it.
Those guys undoubtedly sent off many such heartfelt messages each day. They're playing the law of averages, and their chances are much better if they indicate they read her profile.
And like she said, she gets 10 of those messages everyday, so she can afford to be choosy. If she answered every one of them back, they would all e-mail her back, and get their hopes up, and she'd have to e-mail back... It's a waste of her time to bother.
It's not callous, it's a reflection of the reality that men are much easier than women, making women a comparatively rare commodity.
This happens in real life all the time, and the only thing that's different online is that men can send such messages without having to overcome their shyness. So women get many more messages, and have to be comparatively more selective with them.
Despite what so many people believe, no such reality exists. But it's easy to console oneself by thinking so.
The situation was summed up quite well by a (female) friend long ago: "it's easy to find a guy to sleep with. The much harder part is finding a guy you'd want to sleep with a second time."
I've known a wide variety of people (intimately speaking) and I don't believe that men are easier, it's just that we're socialized to be the initiators and women the receptors. Many, many, many women would love to be the initiators (my friend above certainly), but societal pressures inhibit most of them. Thankfully that seems to be changing, but I'm married now, so lot of good it does me :-)
Okcupid has the data, and men are more likely to message women than vice versa. Whether or not it's innate is irrelevant to this conversation.
But since you like anecdotal evidence so much, here: http://www.wetherobots.com/comics/2008-01-07-Misinformed.jpg
Whether or not it's easy to find a good man is an entirely different question.
TMI on a first contact is not a good idea!
Whether it's true or not isn't what concerns me. What I find puzzling is that these are considered negative things. Sometimes totally self-reliant people can come off, to someone else, as needy. It's silly to make snap judgments like that without even speaking to them.
I adore people who are open. Openness is a quality that I think some people mistake for "neediness." I consider openness to be a very valuable quality. I think this would be a much better world if it was OK to be open.
The other day a guy walked up to me during a fair and said, "Oooo, damn, look at those legs." He was referring to some girl. I thought he sounded like an idiot, and could have said, "Excuse me, I have to run." Instead, I carried on a conversation and ended up speaking to him for over 2 hours. Discovered that I, a liberal, borderline hippie could easily converse with a former soldier who just came back from Iraq, on various political topics no less!
It was because we were both immediately open with each other, we were able to get along and have a great conversation despite each of our flaws (his gawking, my arrogance).
If someone writes you a sincere letter, I don't care how many of those you get, I hope you have the decency to reply, even if it's just to say that you're not interested. If you can't handle it, then what, may I ask, are you doing on that dating site in the first place?
Anyway, what your response tells me is that you are willing to invest more time in people before making decisions about them. That's fine, but don't expect most people to be like that, especially on a dating site with thousands of members.
Anyway, as a guy I don't see any reason for you to respond if you are not interested. Your response will result in iPhone push notifications and emails that will trigger positive emotions only to be swept away the moment the message is read. It's really not constructive or beneficial to either party.
Thank you for that bit of information, but like you, I too have a penis between my legs. My apologies if I gave the wrong impression. :-p
I would just add a bit: she seems to be saying "I'd never date anyone who would want to meet me in a dating website". The thing is, some people do think that dating websites are for losers, and this includes people who go to dating websites.
I agree, in this case since she has no interest in them, it would be a waste of everyone's time to write back. She could write a "sorry, not interested" message back, but it's really not necessary.
That being said though, what got me about that example was "Ugh, losers" - it's not so much the fact that she ignored the message, but rather that she has judged these men who have (insofar as we know) shown no such indication, and from what we know wrote well-penned, thoughtful messages.
Apparently, it is not just karma I am burning. It is human feelings!
I think, to an extent, this is what's gone wrong with online communication and political discourse - when did civility become something we simply wear when it's convenient?
But like clockwork, someone does it to me every few months.