The Difficulty in Dating Good Men | Hacker News Reader

The Difficulty in Dating Good Men

aella.substack.com

19 pointsjger1513 comments

> It feels pretty good to be alone. Maybe if I didn’t feel so good, I’d be less alone.

After a certain amount of trying, you may eventually land on the conclusion that you are the problem and that’s why it feels so good. In this regard, I can totally relate.

Early adulthood is about finding out whether we can love and be loved, according to [0], so it feels like purgatory to not graduate with our peers.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson's_stages_of_psychosoci...

The right partner is like a recession: hard to predict and only evident upon looking back.

Great writing, was a joy to read.

(40-50% of first marriages end before death, the percentage rapidly increases for second and third; relationships are hard and much work, and no one wants to think they settled)

I didn't think Aella of all people would put out a bounty. She must be looking for a wealthy man. As another commenter here said, it's two circles as far as the overlap goes for what she seems to seek - which I think is pointed out by how all the men she does know that meet her criteria are incompatible on some other fundamental level with her. (Not uber rich, not poly, not available)

What's funny to me about seeing the bounty at the end was that I had a similar bounty to friends and peers. I offered $50k then $100k then $250k then $500k... Eventually I started asking people, "I don't want to seem ridiculous here but guys... even at $500k none of you have even attempted. Do I really say $1m to get a single introduction?" I stopped even bringing up the bounty a long time ago. The more I told people of what I'd offer and their immediate refusal to even try to introduce me to anyone solidified just how much all the people I have in my circle thought I was destined to be alone due to my lack of physical attractiveness. They would mention they knew no one or that everyone they knew would not find me attractive in the slightest and it was futile for them to even bother anyone.

In all that time, only one gay man I had only talked to a handful of times set me up on two blind dates and I didn't ever prompt him about anything. Just told him I had been in NYC for a couple years and still had never been on a single date. The women who showed up didn't know what I looked like and neither did I for those women. I was just given two phone numbers and a couple names - so I arranged the dates and they showed up. Of course, it was a complete failure. The women saw me on first sight and were like, "Well, I guess this is what I get for trusting a gay man's sense of taste..."

I hope I never have to write a substack to find a partner. I want to completely forget these miserable years of being single and have a loving family to make it all fade away.

the quality of the writing is just so great, reminds me of Miranda July.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFSrxSBrgSc (aella on lex)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aella_(writer)

What a basket case this lady sounds like. The venn diagram of people who are OK with a relationship with a polyamorous sex worker who brags about getting gangbanged for her birthday, and the group of stable, emotionally secure, successful men that she would be interested in, might as well be two circles. Best of luck to her looking for a possibly nonexistent needle in a haystack.

Maybe it's the other way around. She's saying that her body isn't responding to "good men" probably because her experiences have miscalibrated her body.

Women: Our true quest is for raw unobtanium.

I am generalizing, don't worry about it.

C’mon. Everyone wants unobtainium.

I once held it, in my hands. But it banished me forever to this place. Now I am cursed to guide others to a treasure I cannot possess.

Well, there are treasures but the extraction cost would be exorbitant [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43696592

I don't understand your reference. Care to explain?

My mention of the Red Skull speech is referring to the blog post. It is sort of a "guide to good men", and has that soul sacrifice thing all over the text, and it is spoken in a poetic gloomy doomy tone.

She could have the soul stone anytime she wants, but she must lose that what she loves most. C'mon, it's hilariously prophetic.

Stuff from the "weird head box," those systems which aren't immediately computable but can be expressed in analytic form: culture, occult, and the sort, but through that "techie lens." Even if it's made up, those proper nouns become game mechanics in the right systems.

As for the original post, here's one that seems relationally adjacent: Sometimes the Reason You Can't Resonate with People You Meet is Because... - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43776790 - 3 hours ago (3 points, 0 comments).

Sometimes similar submissions come in that are like contrasting "replies" to an older submission, a kind of meta-response.

I know creative fan fiction has been tapped for free for a long time now. My "head" is already opened and was fed to myself many times over.

Nothing I say is actually legally binding, we all know I can't charge a price for it and there is nothing I can do. It is cute that you tried to make fun of it by thinking that by "unobtanium" was referring to myself.

It is even more cute that you think I had a secret love that I lost. What I lost is related to the feeling of love, but damn, you are so mistaken about what it is or what it means.

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