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Comment by chime | Hacker News Reader

Wow, it's like everything that I used to fear about the dating world put into one shiny app. Had this been out years ago when I was single, it would've definitely given me a lot of anxiety. Having been happily married for 5 years, all I can say to single folks is that if someone actively rates people on apps/sites like this, they are most likely not the kind of people you want to be with in the long run.

As for the startup/app itself, it's the natural evolution of taking HotOrNot ratings + OKCupid profiles + Fuckedcompany gossip and building it into a neat package. There is certainly a demand for apps like this in the market but if you're a user, try to be nice even if you don't like someone. People can become really mean when anonymous.

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Not to mention, female privilege lets them call men "creepers" or "perverts" without question. I've pressed female friends about this and they just answer with "I didnt like the look he gave me" or "we just didnt click."

So instead of understanding that most people are not compatible, we're now building a db to slander them based on purely emotional reasoning?

If women are using this then it says a lot about the woman. I imagine the women drawn to this are difficult anyway. This problem kind of solves itself. I doubt this app can help them and its a symptom of a very negative attitude toward dating and, frankly, socially acceptable misandry.

It's like a bait for the bad ones. Now, if only you could find out which people you knew used the app...

Until we, as a society, can stop blaming women for their rapes (she was so sloshed, what did she think would happen when she got into bed with him?) women are going to be EXTREMELY conservative about these kinds of things.

When it's your fault if he rapes you, you put "creepy" on a hair trigger.

so now a socially awkward attempt to start a conversation with a woman means you're a rapist...

No, not what the GP said. Simply put, women are overly cautious when evaluating men because they know that they are not very well protected by the law (in as much as the threat of punishment acts as a deterrent, an idea for which the jury is still out) when it comes to rape, so they have to protect themselves by using any little indicator to hint that they are in the presence of a pervert. This is not particularly fair to most men, but I don't know that asking women to assume more risk so that you have an easier time getting laid is very fair either.

Just in case you are unaware of this, most women I know and have discussed this with agree that social awkwardness in men is often correlated with inappropriate sexual behaviour, so yes, if you make an awkward attempt at conversation, you are probably going to get negatively labelled. May I suggest working on your social skills if this bothers you?

That is a very subjective measure. Would be interesting to see a study about whether women actually correlate social awkwardness with inappropriate behavior or unwanted behavior. If the guy is super charming and does the same thing, do they still consider it inappropriate?

I've known a number of women that tend to avoid the socially smooth guy because they see it as a mask for other sexual behaviors. I'm sure much of these types of judgments come from personal past interactions regardless of which direction they tend. Yay for anecdotal evidence!

I don't disagree with what you're saying, though I think that only picking on social awkwardness goes too far. For the benefit of any guys who read this and feel bad about themselves, here are some other behaviours that frequently correlate with inappropriate sexual behaviour:

- playing on a sports team (I'm Canadian, so I like to pick on hockey players, but this happens in other sports as well).

- working on oil rigs.

- abusing heavy drugs.

- working in sales.

- being too smooth.

- practicing that moronic "treat girls like your sister and insult them" pick-up method.

Long story short, there are many, many indicators of inappropriate sexual behaviour.

being too smooth.

Too smooth? What is the right amount of smooth?

Maybe you didn't mean to use that example, but I think your point is kind of defeated if you say when women are simply being conservative or cautious and append that to a very non-cautious act. Getting sloshed is not the cautious way to go about something whether you are male or female. Your chance of being a victim of a crime (not just sexual crimes) goes up when you get drunk.

Before anyone jumps the gun, I'm not saying that someone raped while drunk is at fault. Only that this is a bad example of someone acting cautious at all. Caution and being protective (or the lack there of) != fault.

Yeah, but women want to have fun. So the solution is get drunk, but be careful about who you hang out with. Thus the hair-trigger creepiness detectors.

You're being disingenuous. There are thousands of rape convictions a year regardless of whatever cherry-picked anti-women sentiment you think exists. Some of which are purely on hearsay and men go to prison with little to no physical evidence. Brian Banks is a good example.

Also, this app is to rate men. Its not an anti-rape app. Stop playing the rape card to defend every lousy idea.

And when it's your fault for being a "creeper" when you just try to talk to a woman, you learn not to bother. Blaming women for their rapes is of course absurd and unjust, but indiscriminately second guessing all men everywhere is not the solution.

"Creepy" means "he made me feel threatened and unsafe". It's valuable information for women to share within their social group so that they can avoid uncomfortable situations.

Though it is not at all appropriate to share such information on a public online forum.

Unattractive guy dared to look at me or ask me out, what a creeper. Onto the shit list he goes.

In theory, yes. I've seen more than one woman "confess" that creepiness was more a factor of attraction - that the same behavior from two men was considered creepy, unless the woman was attracted to one, in which case it was considered acceptable, even positively (and though I'm wary of ascribing fiction as another anecdote - witness female-oriented fiction, such as Interview With A Vampire, Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey as being heavily tinged with behavior that, if there wasn't attraction, even if unexplored / unannounced as yet, would be unacceptable).

The problem with such terms as "creepy" is that they could apply to anyone, depending on circumstances.

- Did the hot date you were kind of into try to touch your boob without asking you? Creepy! (acceptable)

- Did the ugly guy two tables over compliment you on your looks when you were both trying to get a drink at the bar? Creepy! (not so acceptable.)

- Did the guy you were dating for a few months ask you for a 5' in-person conversation after you decided to break up out of the blue over SMS? Creepy! (that one happened to me and I felt personally threatened by this woman's implicit threat of slander)

It's also interesting how prevalent the notion of "creepyness" is in the US. Whereas in other cultures the same guy would be considered annoying, inconvenient, misguided or justifiedly threatening, here a blanket term is applied and everyone accepts it. The same principle applies to a lot of emotional stuff, where Americans apply very coarse "pattern matching" to behaviors that other cultures are way more nuanced about.

Well, the classic sketch http://www.break.com/usercontent/2007/5/7/more-sexual-harass... is a bit exaggerated but it does have some truth in it.

It only solves itself if the users are non anonymous. Otherwise, how do you know if a creeper posts to the site after your date?

> purely emotional reasoning?

That's a contradiction in terms.

Indeed. This would become the first question I asked a woman when trying to date. If she's childish enough to use something like this, I'd have no problem saying sayonara. There should be some expectation of maturity and general couth in any relationship.

Ask them if they use it?

Indeed. If you decide to stop dating someone because of an application on their phone, you are the mature one and they are the child.

His point was that it's indicative of a childish and immature mentality, which is a judgment of a person, not a judgement of their phone.

Yes, it does. I have standards for the people I choose to involve myself with. In a similar vein, I would likely not even befriend anyone that uses it, or anyone that supports this type of application (either directed towards men or women). A big part of maturity is having personal integrity in all dealings. This means, for me, an automatic rejection of anyone who would use something like this. Similarly, I do not befriend constant gossips or complainers, and call my friends out when they do it. Certain people are a waste of relationship effort.

Exactly. As offensive, shallow, and demeaning as Lulu might be it really isn't anything new. Trashy people of both sexes have used Facebook for gossipy purposes such as this for years. By now we should all have learned how to prune our relationship tree and unfriend, avoid, and block people who do this sort of thing. Anyone who would use a site like Lulu is not worthy to be a friend, much less a significant other.

To add to the anxiety that some men are probably feeling about this app, Lulu obnoxiously uses a homepage photo in which the women look like they're acting at best mischievous and at worst downright evil. Personally, the app does not cause me any anxiety, but I can tell from the comments that for some it does, and the homepage photo choice is a blatantly unapologetic statement about how Lulu hopes the app is used. The photo choice on the homepage does not mesh well with the text in the About page.

I don't really have much to hide in terms of being a "bad" guy, but I will openly admit I have several minor forms of neurosis. I could see several guys being needlessly embarrassed by an app like this. What I choose to share on the interent is one thing, what others choose to share is a bit different.

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