Comment by subjectsigma | Hacker News Reader

Comment by subjectsigma | Hacker News Reader

I honestly don’t really understand what point the author is trying to make. I simply note that in the current environment lots of the complaints she has for women actually dually apply to men as well.

> 20 years ago, when I was on the dating market myself, there were still rules of fair play. A young woman who naively dated a handsome man only to discover that he dated several other women simultaneously would be justified to blame him for being dishonest. Today, she would need to feel stupid because she didn't discuss the terms with him.

I distinctly remember having a conversation in like 2018 with my sister. We were both using Tinder at the time. I was operating under the assumption that once you started going out on dates with someone on the app, you stopped using the app and focused on getting to know them. To my chagrin I was informed that this was naive and stupid, and that my sister was currently going on dates with several men at once, and so were all the women on the app I was talking to, and that this was fine and even expected as long as it “wasn’t serious”. She made it clear that unless someone explicitly asked her to be “exclusive” (a high bar to clear) that she would continue to date as she pleased and not feel any obligation to even mention it to any prospective partner.

Women can’t expect fair play but neither can men. Seems like it’s a race to the bottom.

Overall it seems like the pressure is mounting on men to do more with less, but I could be biased in that regard.

I think you're both correct here to be honest.

Pre dating apps the norm in my part of the world would be to see someone approx 1-3 times. After that, if you continued dating, it would be taken as implicit that they are at least a front runner and the exclusive conversation wouldn't be far off.

Having said that, I don't think that dating apps are a good way to meet serious partners. The overlap between people who use Tinder and people who don't engage in casual sex is extremely low.

It's been a very long time since I did any dating, but I'm not sure what your sister said wrong (except for her taking the opportunity to insult you!). Surely having fewer assumptions and more explicit communication is a good thing?

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Edit - I see your point about whether this is different between men and women. But I do think it's weird to use the term "fair play" in this context!

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Sure, in theory there’s nothing wrong with more communication. But some people don’t prefer to date this way. I would prefer a single partner and that my partner would demonstrate care and respect for me by dating me exclusively or not dating me at all.

This group (I would expect) is a minority and (I would expect is) getting smaller. If you are this kind of person then more communication isn’t necessarily going to help you find a partner who you feel is truly invested in you. Your dating pool is still shrinking and you still feel left out of the cultural zeitgeist. People will just be more open about how they aren’t compatible with you.

I don’t know what the solution is, I’m kind of just rambling. I do know I’ve spoken with several friends about this and the general consensus is that dating apps are making it harder (not easier) for them to find partners by fundamentally changing the game.

Also, every time I post about this on HN (which has been a couple times now) people absolutely leap to tell me why I’m a bad person or something

Maybe people try to tell you you’re misguided because it sounds like you expect a date who respects you to not date other people. This is a silly expectation to have if it isn’t communicated explicitly.

I’m already dating someone long-term, so the point is somewhat moot. But, I wasn’t saying that they should never date anyone else ever. I was saying they should only be dating one person at a time. Again, referring to the OP - if this is so unreasonable or silly how come everyone thought this way only a decade or so ago?

Isn’t the old term “going steady” the equivalent of explicitly exclusively dating someone?

I’m not convinced a decade or so ago this was so different, but let’s say it was. If the norm is different now, then it’s unreasonable to expect dates to behave as if it isn’t. I’m not saying it’s unreasonable to ask for what you want, I just think it’s silly to feel disrespected when someone violates an expectation that’s not been communicated.

> if this is so unreasonable or silly how come everyone thought this way only a decade or so ago?

Conventions change, right? Ten years is doesn't seem like much but it's nearly half a generation. A lot can change from one generation to the next. The younger generations seem to be much more liberal when it comes to lifestyle choices, and much more explicit around communication and consent.

Wait, so you think the authors use of “fair play” or mine is suspect? If not both, then what’s the fundamental difference?

Sorry, to clarify: I think the author's use is suspect, and I assumed you were using it to mean the same thing.

"Fair play" means playing by the accepted rules. But it seems to me that the rules themselves are changing (arguably justifiably so).

>>I distinctly remember having a conversation in like 2018 [...]

20 years ago (a generation[1]) is very different from only 6 years ago. Your anecdote seems to reinforce the author's point.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation

What I’m saying is that paragraph was written as if dishonesty was a problem women had to face from men. It doesn’t explicitly note that men also face it from women (nor does it assert that this is only a female problem). Just pointing out it goes both ways. I’m not trying to say the author is wrong

It’s not considered dishonesty from either party. This has been true for 10 years at minimum with online dating.

But this is not a recent phenomenon - it's a poorly-publicized fact of life that naive young men of each generation keep have been rediscovering for decades, perhaps centuries. Example: I read the autobiography of a certain chemical engineer (the name escapes me, will look it up later) who, while growing up in Southern US in the 1940s, described that he was shocked to discover that it was completely normal for a girl to date multiple boys at the same time.

(Update for anyone still following the thread: the chemist's name was Max Gergel.)

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