Comment by araneae | Hacker News Reader

Comment by araneae | Hacker News Reader

"I felt for those guys. Each one pouring out his heart, projecting his hopes onto Valerie, hoping she'll reply with equal enthusiasm, hoping she might be the one that will finally see and appreciate him.

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.

> "It's a waste of her time to bother."

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.

it's a reflection of the reality that men are much easier than women

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 :-)

it's just that we're socialized

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

How does that prove that men are "easier" than women? It only indicates that within Okcupid's membership, men are more likely to initiate communication with a potential partner. Perhaps women are no more selective than men, but simply typically prefer for men to initiate the conversation, as your parent post claims.

I think maybe you misunderstood what "easy" means in this context. It means casual and unrestrained in sexual behavior. In other words, your friend's quote confirms this. If you want more examples, try Chatroulette.

Whether or not it's easy to find a good man is an entirely different question.

Hmmm. No i think it's mostly equal in the real world. Chat roulette is probably a bad example.

I don't know why she branded them all losers, but it sounded like the old "I would never join any organization that would have me as a member joke" to me. In other words "I would never date anyone who would want to date me".

Possibly the way they came across. It's best to be somewhat restrained the first time you contact someone online before you know how they react to things. The guys' heartfelt messages could very likely come across as being needy and that's a definite turnoff.

TMI on a first contact is not a good idea!

This entire concept of "coming off as needy" and "TMI on a first contact is bad" is just depressing to me.

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?

See, I find it puzzling that appearing to be needy can be anything but negative and I can't fathom how it can be confused with openness.

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.

That is a classic pickup line, you know? Walk up to a girl and compliment another equally beautiful girl. This usually triggers a bit of jealousy and the guy seems increasingly attractive out of competition with the other girl.

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.

> That is a classic pickup line, you know? Walk up to a girl and compliment another equally beautiful girl. This usually triggers a bit of jealousy and the guy seems increasingly attractive out of competition with the other girl.

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

Haha, now I have absolutely no idea how to interpret your story.

Funny, that was almost exactly what I was going to write in reply to potatolicious' comment above.

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.

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