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Comment by I-love-india | Hacker News Reader

No, you just to treat women with respect. The issue here is intention. The intention here is not about teaching or learning in the class. But its using that pretence in fact distrupting the intention of the class and people there. How do you like your intention distrupted? How about by unattractive slobs who are objectifying you and trying to be "helpful" and trying tricks they found on internet If someone is trying to come to terms with complex mathematics it just not appropriate to distract or give them the feeling of having to deal with a situation of someone coming onto them.

How do people not get this? It's about basic respect. Isn't it totally distracting to you if someone you're not attracted in is looking at you and commenting on you and trying to "help" you?

Maybe you'd like unattractive specimens distrupting your coding process by hanging around and offering to be "helpful"?

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You've assumed a great deal more about their behavior than was written. The professor even states "no unwanted advances are taking place", contradicting your characterization. Indeed, your extra assumptions would qualify as 'disruption', and I imagine the professor would be well within her rights to expel such students.

But merely offering, not pushing, assistance, or even less "showboating", letting students in search of help come to them if they want to, isn't disruption or even untoward.

> No, you just to treat women with respect.

We've really come to a point where even the purest romantic intentions (the post talks of wife material, not one night stands) are "disrespectful", have we?

Rule 1. Be attractive.

Rule 2. Don't be unattractive.

It's not a joke.

While this is true, you have a lot more control over this than you may realize. Especially if you're a male seeking a female. Most men think they same physical characteristics they're interested in will be appealing to the opposite sex. There are many physical traits that women prefer but they're less shallow than us men.

Confidence and the ability to talk are huge. You're social status among your peer group. How well you dress. Do you look after yourself physically. All of these things can be developed.

Oh I'm plenty aware. I wish someone had explained it to me when I was 16 though.

"There's truly nothing you can do today to change her mind. All the things that would have made her say 'yes' are things you had to start working on 2 years ago. Today you can start working on who you will be in 2 years and persuading the girl you meet then to say 'yes'."

I disagree that guys will only see results from self-improvement in two years; there are behavioral changes that should be mastered immediately. Learning to treat women with proper respect and still come across as attractive to them can be highly beneficial, and is not exactly something that society strives to teach. The earlier you master this, the better.

>Learning to treat women with proper respect and still come across as attractive to them

The unfortunate thing is that not only is this totally opaque, but society actually gives instruction that doesn't work, i.e. bad advice. That's how we get 'nice guys' and pickup artists. Young men have an overwhelming need for intimacy that they're driven to satisfy and there. are. no. guides. on how to obtain it.

I do pretty okay in that department now, but only from 20 miserable years of trial-and-error. Looking back, I had no opportunity to learn the things I know despite desperately looking for them. Felt like I was playing a game where everyone but me and my friends knew the rules. An older brother or maybe a coach might have been a help, but that's all I can think of.

I might agree that the situation 20 years ago was this bad; but things have changed quite a bit. We now know a whole lot more as to how women generally relate to this sex and relationships thing - because they've been telling us first-hand! We have not exactly come to a general realization throughout society that there is such a thing as behaving and relating to others in a more attractive way, but we're not far from it either.

And we also know a lot more about what doesn't work. As it turns out, nice guys simply have no need to gaslight or bamboozle others into doing things they don't actually want, quite unlike the males in OP's story; they have way better things to care about. And the best part is that women can tell; these are not things you can fool anyone about for very long.

There are different types of nice guys. One group is the one that has been told to "be nice, and respectful" and tries to do that but goes over the top to the point of simping and being creepy in a hard to describe way.

They aren't trying to be creepy, they are just misguided and lost.

> There are many physical traits that women prefer but they're less shallow than us men.

> Confidence and the ability to talk are huge. You're social status among your peer group. How well you dress. Do you look after yourself physically. All of these things can be developed.

So, "fit smooth-talking alpha guy"? I'm not sure I agree with it, but your description seems _very_ shallow TBH.

I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from.

What traits, that are found attractive, would you describe as less shallow?

> What traits, that are found attractive, would you describe as less shallow?

You got it backwards - my point was that your description of "many physical traits that women prefer but they're less shallow than us men" is as shallow as "hot lustful babe with big tits" or some other stereotypical horny teenager's dream partner that you probably meant by "shallow".

Also, you know that "gender X is less shallow than Y" is sexist statement, right?

I say less shallow as they are personality traits not purely physical. I'm interested in knowing what you would consider less shallow. Unless your point is that attraction is shallow. That I could see.

>Also, you know that "gender X is less shallow than Y" is sexist statement, right?

I strongly disagree. It's like saying women on average prefer people and men on average prefer things. It's not a judgment just an observation.

> I say less shallow as they are personality traits not purely physical.

Majority of things you mentioned are not personality traits.

> Unless your point is that attraction is shallow. That I could see.

Yes, obviously.

> It's like saying women on average prefer people and men on average prefer things. It's not a judgment just an observation.

Your anecdotes are not statistics.

> Majority of things you mentioned are not personality traits.

Here are the things I listed:

    Confidence and the ability to talk are huge
    You're social status among your peer group. 
    How well you dress. 
    Do you look after yourself physically.

Lets break them down.

"Confidence and the ability to talk" is absolutely a personality trait.

"You're social status among your peer group" this happens as a result of your personality. If you are a jerk you will not be well liked and will not have very good standing amongst your peers.

"How well you dress" this is an external reflection of who you are. Do you put effort into picking clothing that fits and looks good. This has a massive impact of how other people perceive you. It's the first insight someone gets into your personality. Does this person care enough to put effort into their external appearance. Do they value the perception others have of them.

"Do you look after yourself physically" women and men are looking for life partners. Often people to have a family with. If you want to stick around for long enough to do these things you're going to have to maintain some level of a healthy lifestyle. That desire to maintain health is a personality trait. It doesn't need to be that you spend 2 hours in the gym each day. Just that you haven't let yourself go to the point that you need a mobility scooter and a cpap machine.

> Your anecdotes are not statistics.

Sure if you'd like data please refer to these papers.

Sex differences in sexual attraction for aesthetics, resources and personality across age https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8133465/

Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interests

https://sci-hub.ru/10.1037/a0017364

> Lets break them down...

This is quite a reach. Sorry, I'm not going to argue any longer why "has a six pack" or "dresses nicely" are not a personality traits.

> Sure if you'd like data please refer to these papers.

Thanks for the links.

>This is quite a reach. Sorry, I'm not going to argue any longer why "has a six pack" or "dresses nicely" are not a personality traits.

No they're evidence of personality traits.

Confidence - falsifying your personality. Social status. Yeah, not shallow at all.

>Some of the young students in my class take up these offers, and this further demoralizes other female students seeing this happen (i.e. only attractive women being offered tutoring sessions). This is further compounded by the condescension involved (i.e. one self-admitted user of the app told me "this material that others struggle with is so easy for me, and I'm doing it for laughs and phone numbers.").

This suggests otherwise. I personally would be very upset if someone helped me purely because they thought I was attractive.

Don't want to make you mad, but odds are someone has done something positive for you at some point solely for one trait about you that they coveted, be it money, your network, your sense of humor, the way you dressed that day, or yes, possibly even the physical shape of your face and/or body.

Why be upset about the sky being blue?

Emotions aside, why are we not allowed to discourage bad faith behaviour here? It doesn't have to be a legal rule, a social rule seems to exist already. We do the same for many other actions.

On HN? Or in this scenario?

Either way I think you're allowed to discourage whatever you want (assuming you do it in a civil way). Not everyone's going to agree though.

Some people are going to think/do things that you/I don't like. And sometimes there doesn't have to be some kind of resolution that comes out of it, some kind of trial and adjudication. Life can just go on regardless.

>Either way I think you're allowed to discourage whatever you want (assuming you do it in a civil way).

Yeah I think this is a good way to approach this. Absolutist views tend to be problematic. Society functions by breaking a lot of rules.

> I personally would be very upset if someone helped me purely because they thought I was attractive.

What if they helped you because you were funny, or kind, or intelligent, or any number of traits that are primarily related back to your genetics or upbringing?

This is how humans interact. It's rarely a concious consideration of the reason we help others, but it's almost always based on our perception of them.

> marriage

> purest romantic intention

>he purest romantic intentions (the post talks of wife material, not one night stands)

Sure, using academic data to statically enter the easiest class with most chicks exudes pure romanticism. I'm sure the upperclassmen playing professor in a lab or doing the work of women they find attractive is totally helping the students learning. No unwanted advances are taking place is code for "no forced touch or stalking is happening".

> You've assumed a great deal more about their behavior than was written. The professor even states "no unwanted advances are taking place", contradicting your characterization

where did I say anything about unwanted advances?

> We've really come to a point where even the purest romantic intentions (the post talks of wife material, not one night stands) are "disrespectful", have we?

that's not what was said. read again. The romantic intention is fine and human, what's at point here is when its totally lacking empathy or any sense of the other person.

You want to know what's romantic?

Respect. Caring about another. Understanding. Doing selfless actions to support another (including by consciously doing nothing because it may be disruptive).

Or do you want to be just like all the other bros who think there's a "trick" and you kinda like have to 'do A, B + C' then you "get" someone? That's a creep who see's women as some sort of prize.

EDIT: I don't know what you've assumed about this post but I'm a guy. If you are actually interested in someone for who they are, try to do good stuff and try not to do bad stuff and respectful you won't have much trouble. Just trying to be a decent human is a universal turn on.

Taking a class, participating in labs and offering tutoring purely to find a partner is an extremely high effort attempt from a man. Men try less respectful and far more thinly veiled attempts on women all the time.

> Isn't it totally distracting to you if someone you're not attracted in is looking at you and commenting on you and trying to "help" you?

And what if they are attractive?

Why does the amount of effort make things better? By the same measure we would say spying on someone with binoculars is more acceptable than stalking their facebook page.

Effort is generally a pretty good proxy for respect. If this isn't a respectful attempt, can you explain what is a respectful attempt?

You go to a class, offer to help a girl and then at some point later (End of the class, etc) you ask for her number. If she says no at any point you leave her alone. What's disrespectful about that if you're genuinely helping her?

Of course if you're leering and won't leave a girl alone that's disrespectful, but taking a class and offering help to attractive girls isn't inherently disrespectful.

>Effort is generally a pretty good proxy for respect

My example above says otherwise.

>can you explain what is a respectful attempt?

One done in good faith. Which is a slippery and vague concept. The ambiguity would explain the state of this comment section.

>taking a class and offering help to attractive girls isn't inherently disrespectful

I, and others, would consider the crucial point here to be "taking the class" because there will be attactive girls there, to be the disrespectful part. It also matters that this is being done on a mass scale, so that many suitors are disrupting the studies of many students at the same time.

Generally.

If men have to pursue women in "good faith" and not purposefully try to position themselves then I have news for you, 99% of men are 'disrespectful'.

> I have news for you, 99% of men are 'disrespectful'.

I don't think this will be news to most women

This isn't exclusive to straight men. I know plenty of people who have pursued relationships in good faith.

EDIT: please cite a source for "99% of".

> If men have to pursue women in "good faith" and not purposefully try to position themselves then I have news for you, 99% of men are 'disrespectful'.

Bing bing bing! We have a winner!

> Bing bing bing! We have a winner!

Also these who are pursuing are the only ones who have a shot at relationship, pretty much.

So you are advising that _truly respectful_ males should just remove themselves from the gene pool. Great thinking.

> I, and others, would consider the crucial point here to be "taking the class" because there will be attactive girls there, to be the disrespectful part.

Wait until you find out why men go to nightclubs...

Damn you sound like such a clown.

"You don't get me Amanda, I'm stalking you because I just have so much respect for you. I'm one of the nice ones!"

"Well detective, I felt like we got off on the wrong foot because I kept a journal of her movements and social circle in a purely respectful manner, but she thought it was creepy. So then I thought, how much more respect can you show a woman than by carefully planning her murder and meticulously cleaning the scene and disposing of her body?"

I don't think that taking a class to get to know single women of your own age is disrespectful.

Do we know they are objectifying? The post said this was about finding a future wife.

It’s disrespectful because it ignores the fact that the women are not there to date, but to learn. The men are getting in their way by showing off and offering disingenuous tutoring.

I feel like (as an old person) trying to tell youngsters how to behave at college, seems, well likely to fall in deaf ears.

But I'm not sure your point holds water. If women want to date, they can. If they don't want to then they don't have to. These other students hold no power, assign no grades, and so on.

Perhaps the root issue is the demoralization of some not being offered dates or extra tutoring? But it's hard to see how that might be corrected.

I confess I don't see the actual harm here - those that want to learn can learn, those that want to date can date. I suppose those that want to date, but aren't getting any offers....?

Still, as an old man, I'm not sure I'm qualified to weigh in - but to me it sounds like kids being kids.

> These other students hold no power

A key point is that these students do have power because they already know the coursework. That is the whole reason that they chose these specific classes.

That's a pretty weak hand really. It's not like they're in competition with the other students. They're also offering to help pass on that knowledge in exchange for attention from women. That's not a power move.

The post describes students "teaching" labs as though they are TA's.

How is that not an attempt to take a position of power?

That's kind of a hall monitor position of power. Yeah, you appear to be in power but the first person to get annoyed with you is still going to stuff you in a locker. It shows these guys don't know what they're doing. You don't impress girls by showing off how much of a nerd you are. Been there tried that. It doesn't work.

Oh I totally agree haha, what the seniors are doing is a bit sad.

I hope they can figure out a better way of meeting someone

That's part of the problem. The other side has no viable suggestions for such young men, outside of them being already blessed with good looks, is tall, very charismatic, well built, popular, and/or wealthy. So, be the top 20% they are already clearly not, or just passively sit around doing nothing and hope to get randomly lucky.

Why do you assume the women aren’t as interested in dating as the men?

Seems pretty sexist frankly.

The guys mentioned opted to audit the class with the explicit purpouse of flirting.

I think we can assume that most freshmen did not share that explicit purpose for taking the class.

According to someone who isn’t them, correct?

I guess because they're complaining to the professor about it? Nice attempt to turn the table though, with social skills that subtle I bet you'd fit right with the bozos in this class.

One person complained, correct?

Any sizable group of people where there is fun occurring, will inevitably have someone complain because they aren’t included. It’s impossible to please everyone.

It also can happen if there are actual problems too!

But without looking at the situation, good luck figuring it out.

Nice personal attack though!

Modern feminism is very odd, and is the reason I no longer call myself a feminist. The gist appears to be that men - and anything associated with masuculinity - is not ok, unless you're attractive. In addition, women are independent but also need constant protection, assumedly from said attractive masculine men.

It's not hard to see how incel culture rose up and why people like Andrew Tate have so much support. Turns out chickens come home to roost.

It takes two to tango. If the service works, then clearly some of the women are there to date. Who are we to tell them they're wrong, if both parties benefit from the arrangement?

Obviously if the men are harassing the women, that's bad and they should be held accountable.

I suspect the problem is not harassment but social incompetence. If the young men are anything like I was their approach will be less than smooth. I can see how that would get tiring over time.

How exactly do you do disengenuous tutoring? This system of equations only works out if you're hot?

Oh come on. It's disingenuous because the motive is to place the women in situations where the tutor can make advances, not to impart knowledge or help. They may or may not be effective tutors; that has nothing to do with whether it's disingenuous.

The subtext here is that women should be able to exist in the world without "unwanted" sexual attention being given towards them. The question is whether this is reasonable.

Should men not seek dates? Should men not go where single women are to seek dates? Should men limit their efforts at getting dates only to "appropriate venues", where women's interest is explicit? How does the man's attractiveness factor into these constraints?

None of this seems reasonable at first blush. Obviously women don't want men they're not attracted to to engage them with romantic interests. Conversely, women generally do want men they are attracted to demonstrate romantic interests, regardless of venue (to a certain extent). But how can this constraint possibly be enforced in a reasonable way?

There is also no real way to signal interest in being approached. Personally I wear a rainbow watch band in an attempt to signal this but I'm not aware of any typical way a straight person signals interest without being somewhat outgoing and making the first move which seems to be deeply disturbing to the commenters here.

For some reason reading your username after reading your comment made me crack up. I think your personality lines up.

To me, the issue isn't that class is a totally inappropriate venue (for context, I'm a woman). I've been asked out in class when I was in college. I've also asked people out in class. It was never an issue. It does not interrupt class.

But that is so different than showing up to class with the intent of getting a date. It's disingenuous and, when you have multiple people doing it, it's disruptive and disrespectful to everyone there who wants to learn, especially women.

I'm not saying people never ask each other out in class. What people were doing usually do is fine by my book. But this is a situation where a difference of degree becomes a difference of kind.

Nonsense.

When I was in college, many women were there for their "Mrs. degree." Not most women but enough that it had a familiar jokey label. This was even joked about by those same women who were partner-hunting.

And investing time into an activity to meet someone is the opposite of disrespectful. It shows a willingness to at least commit something. I don't see how this is any worse than taking dance classes to meet people. As long as they're not interrupting dance class.

I feel like that does not line up with whats in the post, though. Women are complaining. The guys aren't even fully enrolled in the class, they are auditing. It's the opposite of genuinely investing time - it's all some charade.

> It’s disrespectful because it ignores the fact that the women are not there to date, but to learn.

Well, if they're dating in that class, then you're obviously wrong; those women who date in that class are there to learn and (obviously) open to dating as well.

Who are you to tell women who they may or may not date?

I don't think most of the women in the class are dating. It's clear that a lot of them are uncomfortable. And frankly, we should privilege the interests of people who go to class to learn over those who do not. Even if just say 10% of people found this disruptive to there education, I do think that would make it a bad thing.

> I don't think most of the women in the class are dating. It's clear that a lot of them are uncomfortable. And frankly, we should privilege the interests of people who go to class to learn over those who do not. Even if just say 10% of people found this disruptive to there education, I do think that would make it a bad thing.

Just to be clear, you're advocating that we should take steps to prevent two consensual adults meeting because if they date it offends some other people???

Really? What sort of regressive primitive viewpoint is this?

Didn't we fight for decades to ensure that consensual adults can do whatever the fuck they want to even if some people find it offensive, disgusting and/or immoral?

The whole point is about people seeking out a class just to get a date. Like, if you were interviewing someone for a job and they said they were interested in your company because they wanted to date your coworkers? Would you hire them?

I wouldn’t, because that’s not the point of work.

That doesn’t mean you should stop people from dating their coworkers at all.

If I’m teaching or participating in a class it’s reasonable to expect that everyone shows up with the same primary purpose: learning. Doesn’t mean you need to ban people from dating. But these men are showing up and ignoring the whole point of the class.

My wife told me when we started dating that she picked math in university to find a STEM boy (who was expected to get a high paying job. No math grad school for me). And yes, I helped her with her homework and with studying only because I was attracted to her and dating her. We're both happy with how that turned out.

Honestly assuming we send our kids to college (it's looking like a house and a trust fund will be cheaper by the time they're 18 if we're trying to be financially optimal), we'll definitely be telling them that finding their spouse is going to be the most important thing they could possibly do while there. Almost all of our two social groups are not married, and we probably wouldn't be either if we hadn't met in university (I almost certainly wouldn't be). It is probably the best opportunity for one of the most important events to set the course of your life. Absolutely people should treat it that way.

> My wife told me when we started dating that she picked math in university to find a STEM boy (who was expected to get a high paying job.

The situation that we are dealing with in many societies, is the attempted demonization of heterosexual males by certain groups, which ends up being destructive and a net loss.

That a woman would purposely choose to pick a class to find "better dating options" is fine or even a woman's privilege. If a heterosexual male does so, then it's distorted into being a type of crime or abuse, that certain elements feel it demands punitive school administrative actions or to be criminalized

> It is probably the best opportunity for one of the most important events to set the course of your life.

Not only have many known this for a long time, that college is often the best time and place to find a husband, but statistics bear this out. Many highly educated women who have got married, found their husband during college. When they don't, many regretted it and had severe struggles later on, or the clock ended up running out on their fertility and dating prospects.

So your wife copped to seeking out someone based on expected lifetime earnings? I'd be pretty pissed, personally.

As opposed to what? A great jawline or a minimum height level? If anything it's probably relatively mature at that age to even consider what your long term life trajectory would look like with someone.

Taking an art class to meet different people is one thing. You at least have to grapple with the material. You are on equal footing with other students.

Showboating, or "offering to help" in something you have already learned thoroughly is disruptive to others learning.

The "unattractive slobs" bit seems a bit excessive to me, but I absolutely agree with your main point: the issues are indeed respect and intention. As the professor describes it, it sounds like the perpetrators of this "prank" are turning this class into their own romantic playground without regard for their classmates' wishes. Their "help" comes under false pretenses. They seem to think their dating lives are more important than the education of their classmates. There's a fundamental disrespect and a bit of -- sorry to say it -- misogyny there.

An extreme example, I know, but I can't help but think of the movie Audition.

> Isn't it totally distracting to you if someone you're not attracted in is looking at you and commenting on you and trying to "help" you?

That would be the "unwanted advances" that the complainants claim did not happen.

You clearly don't treat men with respect; why should men respect you for being a woman?

I mean, "unattractive objectifying slobs", really?

Why do you assume all these people are unattractive?

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