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Comment by hapless | Hacker News Reader

Sexual love is a human need as fundamental as food and shelter.

In America's individualist society, friendship is a "nice to have."

Dating sites get over the hump of "oh my god this is creepy" because their users are desperate. It also doesn't matter how well they work: desperate users will pay money for hope, even if their hope is unfounded.

Without that driving desperation, I don't know that a friend-making site would ever get traction.

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Dating sites get over the hump of "oh my god this is creepy" because their users are desperate.

I think to imply that the general users of dating sites are "desperate" is not only judgmental, but completely inaccurate. Of couse there are SOME desperate users, but they are far from the majority.

I tried out Match 4 years ago because I was out of college and just moved to a new city, both factors which make it much harder to meet men I'm compatible with. I thought that by looking at profiles online, I could efficiently choose people to date who had the exact qualities I was looking for. My boyfriend (who I met on Match) used the site for the exact same reasons. I know at least a dozen other couples who are also normal, social people who met the same way. They certainly weren't desperate, nor were most of the people they went on dates with. Because so many non-desperate couples have met through online dating sites, the number of non-desperate users must be a pretty large pool.

"Sexual love is a human need as fundamental as food and shelter."

That's preposterous. Which one could you live without?

If you are going to nitpick about this: as long as you procreate, you could die the next day due to lack of food and shelter and humanity would continue to evolve in this manner as it has been for thousands of years.

That wouldn't particularly affect me, would it?

It does, unless you somehow escaped the influence of thousands of years of human evolution...

Lots of people live long, happy lives without ever once making babies. That's not true of food, water, or shelter.

In fact, you could probably live a long happy life without even fucking. But food, water, and shelter are still necessary.

Tibetan monks can survive in 40 degree environments just by meditating.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html

Does this mean that shelter and clothes are unnecessary? No. Just because a handful of people are able to cope with extreme conditions without X doesn't mean X isn't a fundamental need.

Fundamental != you will die without it.

You're turning this into a semantic argument. The original discussion began with the question "Which one could you live without?". Whether or not sex fulfills some other evolutionary function is not the point.

Uh no. What you quoted was the reply. This is the original discussion.

Sexual love is a human need as fundamental as food and shelter.

Yes--sex is less fundamental a need than food and shelter. You can go without sex for years at a time, but it's hard to go more than a couple weeks without food or shelter.

Maybe it is __less__ fundamental, but the point of this discussion (which you are confused about) is that it is __still__ fundamental.

Maybe you won't die, but humanity wouldn't exist without it. And don't pretend that most people don't have a primal urge to have offspring, or at the very least, a sexual relationship.

No, the point of this discussion is the claim that "sexual love is a human need as fundamental as food and shelter". That's an exact quote. "As fundamental as" is a comparative phrase which means sex is on the same level of fundamentality as food and shelter in the hierarchy of human needs. Since food and shelter are necessities for survival on a daily basis and sex is not a necessity for survival at all, it follows that food and shelter are more fundamental needs, hence the statement under contention is false.

I was arguing using your incorrect assumption that the topic of the discussion was "which one could you live without", and tried to explain that the necessity to live was not the sole criteria for measuring the degree of fundamentality.

I myself believe it is just as fundamental as food and shelter, as some people are willing to give up both food and shelter to attain it.

I've tried match, harmony, yahoo, friendfinder, and tickle. okcupid actually has compatibility testing & matching that seems to work and that does not suck. No one else I've seen has been able to do that. The problem with okcupid, is that it seems that women would rather interact on the site instead of meeting.

"The problem with okcupid, is that it seems that women would rather interact on the site instead of meeting."

I met with a few women that I met on OkCupid, which was usually not preceded by long times of messaging. So far, a high match percentage usually meant we would get along with quite well. I didn't notice a "difference" between 80% and >90% matches in real life though, but it's a good indication to find people you might like.

Disclaimer, I'm located in Germany, and most women don't have the "replies very selectively" label here.

Edit: spelling

"The problem with okcupid, is that it seems that women would rather interact on the site instead of meeting"

That's a problem with you, not okcupid.

When I go out to events and parties, I get their digits and a date. Perhaps it's my profile.

The vibe in your profile or your messages, yes.

"The problem with okcupid, is that it seems that women would rather interact on the site instead of meeting."

Use crazyblinddate instead of OKCupid. It's down now but hopefully it'll be back online in the next year or so.

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