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Comment by fchollet | Hacker News Reader

I always thought that the messaging asymmetry on dating sites was purely a reflection of the real-world asymmetry of dating, where females will almost never initiate a flirt sequence themselves. The universal expectation is that it is the role of the male to manifest interest in, and worthiness of, the female. Not that I agree with this, but it would be difficult not to observe it.

I remember reading somewhere that there were actually more female users of these dating sites. So the difference would be purely one of behavioral habits.

Thinking about it, I can't think of a single animal species where the female is the one seeking out the males. Then again, evolutionary analogies are very un-PC around here.

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> females will almost never initiate a flirt sequence themselves

POTENTIAL ROMANTIC PARTNER DETECTED

FEMALE FLIRT SEQUENCE INITIATED

EXCEPTION: HUMAN EMOTION FOUND

ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?

OKCupid's demographics skew male nearly 2:1, actually [1].

1: https://www.quantcast.com/okcupid.com#!demo

That being said, OkCupid has a HUGE male-seeking-male population (from anecdotal evidence, larger than it's women-seeking-women population).

"females will almost never initiate a flirt sequence themselves"

Maybe they don't with YOU.

I agree with you, I probably shouldn't have said "on OkCupid". This is far from the root issue, but it's also hard not to fall into uninteresting generalizations, like "the real issue here is the objectification of women in the western civilization" or "the real issue here is the place of woman in society".

    Thinking about it, I can't think of a single animal species where the female is the one seeking out the males.

I couldn't find anything either after a (quick) Google search, so you might be right about that. But it doesn't mean that we are bound to act forever the same, and I think that it's not the case in some (nordic?) countries (although it might be an urban legend, maybe someone can chime in with real world data / observations).

Sarah Hrdy (by way of Darwin) has another perspective:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

(See also tymero's comment below, and): http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111222124528AA...

As for females initiating courtship in human populations -- I don't think it's just a nordic thing, I think it's an equality thing. I'm sure you'll find (sub)cultures most places where women are more active -- and I'm guessing that on balance those are (sub)cultures that are in general more gender-equal.

But, as I've lived (and dated, pitiful as my exploits are) mostly in Norway -- I might be biased :-)

As a general rule, women don't "hit on" men here in Sweden either. Like everywhere else, they indicate interest in more subtle ways - sometimes unconsciously. The male who is able to pick up on (and then follow up on) these cues is the male who scores.

Also, the "slutty northern European women" stereotype just comes from the way they behave abroad, when they lose some inhibitions since nobody from back home is around to pass judgment on them.

> females will almost never initiate a flirt sequence

It's the opposite. In environments like parties and bars women subtly initiate most interactions. They maneuver closer and do the glance thing.

They do, but men don't notice that. Men initiate conversation regardless, or women go home wondering why no one responded to their cues.

> or women go home wondering why no one responded to their cues

Same reason they ignore certain men - lack of attraction.

Women generally don't go up to men and start talking or flirting. Glancing/maneuvering isn't overt initiation.

There's no analogue to that in online dating though.

except for intentionally visiting their profile multiple times until they notice and message you first which works in pretty much the same way as glancing, only with added bit of creepiness compound but hey. works anyway! might have learned this from personal experience, can't confirm.

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