Yeah, well, now try it if you're gay. Divide the world population in half, and then multiply that by (latest estimate) 4%. Also, remember that every other gay guy is a potential rival as well as a potential match. Every day I think about how lucky I am to have met the guy I am with, now 15 years ago.
I'm not into guys but I got hit on by a guy with a pretty good pick-up line which I would probably use if I were gay. I was standing at the finish line of a race and a guy standing next to me said, "There's a lot of cute guys here, huh?" At first I started to respond, "I... guess..." and then I realized he was hitting on me. Pretty smooth way to ferret out whether a guy is open to other guys.
I'm not sure that would work too often. I'm also not gay but I notice when I've caught the eye of someone who is; it's subtle but very obvious.
I imagine if I were gay it would be very likely I'd be more attuned to this than I am now. So, I doubt there's a need to be so brazen?
And of course, he forgot to take into account selection effects. You don't meet and go on dates with random people, you meet and go on dates with people similar enough to you to be in your social circle.
Or whoever swipes right (left? I don't know) on Tinder, or whoever emails you on dating websites. Going on dates with random people that exist outside of your social circles feels like it's more normal than perhaps it once was. At least in areas that are populous and transient enough that you don't have that two to four degrees of separation factor that you get in small towns and college campuses.
> Let's make the rather conservative assumption, then, that a girl would go out with someone if and only if they were at least one standard deviation above her idea of average
At least he's not that picky about how picky his girl friends should be.
The author has missed the key point: He is trying to find someone who operates like him, from a different gender. I'm all for gender-equality but the different genders operate differently.
Once you grasp that and accept that women do no operate, think and behave like male; your success with them will sky rocket.
In my experience, that's true for all humans, not just for humans of the opposite gender. Don't assume they are like you just because you share some similar biological appendices.
I think grouping people by gender is not very helpful. There are always exceptions and usually quite a few. But maybe that is just so in my social circles.
>I think grouping people by gender is not very helpful. There are always exceptions and usually quite a few. But maybe that is just so in my social circles.
Isn't it pretty well-known that mating behavior is different between genders in humans (well-know == observed scientifically in this case)?
If 60% of men exhibit mating behavior x and 60% of women behavior y, that's a clear statistical difference but there are so many exceptions that it's not useful in daily life.
No, they are normally distributed. Men are just attracted to the top 1% (or even 0.1%) of women. It just happens that most women are not that physically attractive which is an important trait for both genders.
Once you realize this and figure out how much you are worth (sexually), dating will really become easier.
They are critical, but not unrealistic. From that blog:
"As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable."
The data doesn't show that. It shows behavior on okcupid sites. Presumably. I don't understand why we blindly believe this data given many known issues about psych and sociology studies.
It's no big secret that women are often bombarded by messages and other overtures on dating sites. Perhaps the "viewing males as more unattractive than they might otherwise" just stems from being primed for pickiness, especially on the Internet.
If you meet someone at a party, maybe he's a friend of a friend, you talk to him for a while, you might think "He seems like a reasonably handsome guy!" You see the same guy as a profile picture, out of a sea of 20 others messaging you at the same time, and you're just mentally primed for reasons to reject people, rather than accept them. You're more likely to think "Ugh, stupid haircut. 1/5 stars. Would not date"
So I don't think that women have unrealistic expectations of beauty, in general everyday life, it's just that the motivations and mindset is so much different on dating sites.
Yeah, I also fell into the "someone who operates like me, but of the opposite sex" trap.
For years I was looking for another engineer (I have a bachelor's in general engineering, masters in SE), or at least someone mathematically/scientifically inclined. Ambitious, constantly working on personal projects, likes to travel, go to conferences, pick up new hobbies, etc.
Now I'm married to a social worker who's had the same job for 12 years, dropped out of music school, didn't have a passport (never even considered getting one), doesn't know math beyond basic algebra, often sleeps until noon, and generally doesn't have any hobbies besides "hanging out with friends."
But you know what? I love my husband, I think we work really well together :) He was really the first guy I ever dated after I decided to get out of my bubble and stop looking for "male versions of me" and I wouldn't change anything for the world!
I was lucky in that when I met the woman who became my wife, neither of us was looking for anything other than to get laid. Sounds crass, but I think it helped me avoid the "look for a female version of me" thing, because we are nothing like each other.
After spending the first few months pretending that we weren't, in fact, falling for each other, we gave into it and 15+ years later, still working on staying together :-)
IMHO this is the best way to go, never expect anything and you'll never be disappointed; it doesn't prevent you from getting some great surprises.. Also, any relation i had with someone i thought was the 'feminine versions of me' went to shit pretty quickly.. Although being (at least somehow a little bit) different pushes you way further forward.
Funny, but he does not need to go through 3493 dates to meet one of his 18,726 viable bachelorettes. Its probably in the double digits.
You don't meet random people within the general population, you meet random people within your environment. If you are above the normal for intelligence its almost certain that your environment is going to be filled above normal intelligence women, and to a lesser extent its likely the same in terms of attractiveness.
Also his standards are too high (especially on physical attraction - yeesh!)...
Exactly! You can rationalise any assertion akin to that by broadening your sample space. Your sample space isn't the world's population, it's your environment.
I think it's rare to find a software company where all of the employees are software engineers. They are usually outnumbered by designers, marketers, salespeople, support staff, finance, accounting, etc. There is generally a similar number of men and women working in these fields.
Yeah, two standard deviations is too high, even if attractiveness could be modelled as a normal distribution. That's the top 2.5%. Even one standard deviation is the top 15.5%, which is very picky. I don't think the average person is all that terrible.
One standard deviation for intelligence is probably ok. IQ scores are actually based on the normal distribution, where the mean is 100 and one standard deviation is 15 points. So while I don't think 115 is a very high bar, you probably shouldn't ask your date to do an IQ test.
TLDR: He's looking for someone who's two standard deviations above the median in beauty, one standard deviation above the median in intelligence, and is trying to find this mythical unicorn by going on one blind date every week. That makes about as much sense as Google trying to find its next CEO by interviewing every single applicant it gets, without any filter, at a rate of 1-interview-per-week.
We also don't know socially valuable he is, only that his looks are average - he's heterosexual so looks likely aren't as important to his mate as they are to him.
Is Tristan Miller well known? Is he a leader in his field? Is he wealthy or otherwise successful?
Thank you! Honestly, comparing this to a job screening is a great move because it reveals his analysis to be pretty silly. This guy is looking for "intelligence" and "beauty" as universally agreed traits whereas even businesses who are screening for "intelligence" are able to forced to search for specific and industry-relevant information. It would be like hiring a CEO with only an IQ test.
It's also the same with "beauty". Even industries that hire primarily based on beauty (modeling, acting etc) have widely differing criteria based on their own niche in the marketplace. American models are quite different to British models, for e.g. The French magazines require a different look to, say, German magazines. Catalogue models vs editorial models. Throughout Europe, various markets require different heights, different looks and different personas. That doesn't even take into account racial differences across the world.
> This guy is looking for "intelligence" and "beauty" as universally agreed traits
No, he's not. From the article: "beauty is a purely subjective trait whose interpretation may vary from person to person. Luckily it is not necessary for me to define beauty in this essay except to state that for any given beholder, it will probably be normally distributed amongst the population."
He's assuming a normal distribution but he's not assuming a universal agreed standard of beauty.
Finding above average beauty and intelligence isn't as hard as it sounds.
As they say, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Some like women curvy, some like them slim. Some people prefer Roman noses, others prefer snub noses. My wife is beautiful; some might disagree but their opinion doesn't matter.
Above average intelligence is even easier to find. That's partly because many men are intimidated by smart women, and partly because "above average intelligence" often just means "common interests". You want to find a woman who can hold an interesting conversation with you on topics you care about.
Using standard deviations sounds like he's using an objective standards, though. How do you define standard deviations for something that is a distribution only you can decide?
If the goal is simply to find "above average" beauty, I agree. After all, even 51st percentile is above average. The problem is that this guy is looking 2 standard deviations above the average, which eliminates something like 97% of the girls out there. And of the remaining 3%, he's eliminating another two-thirds based on his intelligence criteria.
It's true that people's aesthetic tastes may differ in some ways, but they do converge in most ways. There's a reason why supermodels are almost universally considered attractive. So not only is this guy ruling out 99% of the girls out there, he's competing with almost everyone for the remaining 1%.
But that's not even the main point of my comment. Even if he was only willing to date girls in the "top 1 percent", that might still be achievable if he used a filtering process that can semi-reliably identify girls in that group who are single and potentially interested in him. But that's not what he's doing. He's going on a blind date with a completely random girl, once per week. If you're extremely selective in what you're looking for, but are relying on a low-frequency completely-random-sampling strategy, of course that's never going to work.
That said, me analyzing the heck out of what is obviously a humorous post, is probably not helping me achieve any of my life goals either.
An entertaining article but his intelligence and beauty requirements (1 and 2 standard deviations above the norm respectively) are rather silly. Unless he's actually rich and handsome to make it match. Especially so given I'm not convinced about the distribution, variance might be lower than he assumes.
The logic is similar to the old idiom: If you have to say you are a lady, you are not a lady. With dating, you have be sought after, and not chase after others. Trying to tell people that are lonely about this is, unfortunately, useless; the heart wants what it wants and we can do little to change it. For anyone out there that is male, I would suggest these posts (linked in article) to help alter the equation so that you are sought after and are not the seeker: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/03/31/the-3-ps-of-manhood... . Remember that being a real man is not the opposite of being a woman, but rather in not being a child.
Also available in this book series:
"Why I will never be Happy/Lucky/Content"
"Why I will never be a <Important Sounding Title>"
"Why I will never have a <Expensive Luxury Item>"
You might also like from this author:
"Mastering navel gazing, and justifying your paralyzing inaction"
Your love is one in a million
(One in a million)
You couldn't buy it at any price
(Can't buy love)
But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other loves
Statistically, some of them would be equally nice
(Equally nice)
Or maybe not as nice but, say, smarter than you
Or dumber but better at sport or tracing
I'm just saying
(I really think that I would)
Probably
(Have somebody else)
Not only is Tinder's schtick super cringey, using it requires sharing extremely intimate details about yourself and life with Facebook. Some people might not regard it as being worth the moral hazard and information leak.
On the other hand, if you're already publishing cringey articles about your love life, perhaps the calculus shifts.
Tinder only works if you are in the top 10% of males. If you are short (anything under 6 ft nowadays), a minority, fat, etc using tinder is an invitation to get your self esteem crushed.
There's no place for the average or below average men in the dating scene anymore. It's all about height,Wealth,penis size and overall looks.
I don't believe in soulmates or perfect matches. Relationships are about working together, generosity, and graciousness. My wife and I could have made it work with other people, but we chose to make our relationship work, which is what makes it special. And we never forget that we have to keep working on it every day.
It's not a matter of settling. Perfection in relationships is a wrong concept. (If someone projects one on Facebook, it's to cover their insecurities) They take work. Even when you find the right person.
Ah, this sounds so right taking into account 'perfect' means a finished process, compared to the ongoing progress that a relation is (and live in general).
Edit: Further, careless and secura are antonym homonyms modulo literal translation.
Agreed. It's like finding the perfect job that's perfect for 40 years. Never gonna happen. It's great to find a good job, that keeps your interest, respects you, treats you well, grows with you, is loyal, and gives back; but you're never gonna find a perfect job.
Some people find what seems like a perfect job, then after a few years, they get bought out and aren't so perfect anymore.
I played the field until I was in my mid 30s, then settled down. Never been happier. I hope it lasts, and I think it will.
Also, beauty fades pretty quickly. Not only in the object, but in the eye of the beholder. The person is much more important. Also, it sucks when everyone hits on your girlfriend / wife all the time.
Let me rephrase it. When you were looking for a relationship, did you have a set of expectations that you ultimately gave up on fulfilling? Or did you try to set out with no expectations at all?
Not the author of the comment, but once your ego gets humbled enough, you "settle" without feeling like you are settling. Perfection is the enemy of human.
> I don't believe in soulmates or perfect matches. Relationships are about working together, generosity, and graciousness.
It just sounds like a bad cost/benefit ratio to me. But then again, I don't like people in general and I don't seem to be as dependent on social contact as the average person. I might value the benefits much lower than others.
That's why some people have a lot of relationships, because they get great value (emotional benefit) from them. Others don't, so it's not worth their time.
Forget men vs women, you know what people like? They like it if you're actually interested in them and listen to them and don't have a hidden agenda and aren't silently judging them.
You can apply this to a lot, not just romance. I mean, there are other approaches to making yourself desirable (like be really rich, ridiculously good looking, famous &c) but it's notable that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both seem to be actually interested in what their wives think.
Brian Christian did a Long Now Foundation talk about algorithms that you can apply to life. One point he made was (roughly) to find a good life partner follow this advice: until the age of 26 date as many people as you can (as in, have a relationship - not just Tinder dates). After the age of 26, marry the next person you date that is better than the best person you dated before 26.
I don't think I agree with it - but it seems like far more useful dating advice than what this guy is trying to achieve. Select from the pool of people who are also attracted to you - not all people.
125 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadI'd never thought of it that way before - thanks for the insight!
Also, not all gay people are monogamous! That makes things complicated if you are. Your dating pool dwindles smaller and smaller.
> Every day I think about how lucky I am to have met the guy I am with, now 15 years ago.
Good on ya. :)
Haha wow I never realized that aspect. Complicated! Ahwell it still all boils down to trust I guess :-)
> ... [in intelligence] I will settle for someone a mere one standard deviation above the normal
Yeah, that would do it. Nothing to learn here.
At least he's not that picky about how picky his girl friends should be.
Once you grasp that and accept that women do no operate, think and behave like male; your success with them will sky rocket.
I think grouping people by gender is not very helpful. There are always exceptions and usually quite a few. But maybe that is just so in my social circles.
Isn't it pretty well-known that mating behavior is different between genders in humans (well-know == observed scientifically in this case)?
Once you realize this and figure out how much you are worth (sexually), dating will really become easier.
[0] https://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dat...
"As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable."
If you meet someone at a party, maybe he's a friend of a friend, you talk to him for a while, you might think "He seems like a reasonably handsome guy!" You see the same guy as a profile picture, out of a sea of 20 others messaging you at the same time, and you're just mentally primed for reasons to reject people, rather than accept them. You're more likely to think "Ugh, stupid haircut. 1/5 stars. Would not date"
So I don't think that women have unrealistic expectations of beauty, in general everyday life, it's just that the motivations and mindset is so much different on dating sites.
This is a pretty bold assertion. On what do you base it?
Seems to me that the average woman is average looking.
I agree. Add to that list different cultures, societies, levels of wealth, occupations, upbringing, personality quirks, fetishes, randomness...
The expectation of finding someone who "operates" like you is tough to meet.
For years I was looking for another engineer (I have a bachelor's in general engineering, masters in SE), or at least someone mathematically/scientifically inclined. Ambitious, constantly working on personal projects, likes to travel, go to conferences, pick up new hobbies, etc.
Now I'm married to a social worker who's had the same job for 12 years, dropped out of music school, didn't have a passport (never even considered getting one), doesn't know math beyond basic algebra, often sleeps until noon, and generally doesn't have any hobbies besides "hanging out with friends."
But you know what? I love my husband, I think we work really well together :) He was really the first guy I ever dated after I decided to get out of my bubble and stop looking for "male versions of me" and I wouldn't change anything for the world!
I was lucky in that when I met the woman who became my wife, neither of us was looking for anything other than to get laid. Sounds crass, but I think it helped me avoid the "look for a female version of me" thing, because we are nothing like each other.
After spending the first few months pretending that we weren't, in fact, falling for each other, we gave into it and 15+ years later, still working on staying together :-)
You don't meet random people within the general population, you meet random people within your environment. If you are above the normal for intelligence its almost certain that your environment is going to be filled above normal intelligence women, and to a lesser extent its likely the same in terms of attractiveness.
Also his standards are too high (especially on physical attraction - yeesh!)...
But yeah, two standard deviations for physical attraction is too high.
Yeah, two standard deviations is too high, even if attractiveness could be modelled as a normal distribution. That's the top 2.5%. Even one standard deviation is the top 15.5%, which is very picky. I don't think the average person is all that terrible.
One standard deviation for intelligence is probably ok. IQ scores are actually based on the normal distribution, where the mean is 100 and one standard deviation is 15 points. So while I don't think 115 is a very high bar, you probably shouldn't ask your date to do an IQ test.
Is Tristan Miller well known? Is he a leader in his field? Is he wealthy or otherwise successful?
http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/a22977-girls-on-...
It's also the same with "beauty". Even industries that hire primarily based on beauty (modeling, acting etc) have widely differing criteria based on their own niche in the marketplace. American models are quite different to British models, for e.g. The French magazines require a different look to, say, German magazines. Catalogue models vs editorial models. Throughout Europe, various markets require different heights, different looks and different personas. That doesn't even take into account racial differences across the world.
No, he's not. From the article: "beauty is a purely subjective trait whose interpretation may vary from person to person. Luckily it is not necessary for me to define beauty in this essay except to state that for any given beholder, it will probably be normally distributed amongst the population."
He's assuming a normal distribution but he's not assuming a universal agreed standard of beauty.
As they say, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Some like women curvy, some like them slim. Some people prefer Roman noses, others prefer snub noses. My wife is beautiful; some might disagree but their opinion doesn't matter.
Above average intelligence is even easier to find. That's partly because many men are intimidated by smart women, and partly because "above average intelligence" often just means "common interests". You want to find a woman who can hold an interesting conversation with you on topics you care about.
It's true that people's aesthetic tastes may differ in some ways, but they do converge in most ways. There's a reason why supermodels are almost universally considered attractive. So not only is this guy ruling out 99% of the girls out there, he's competing with almost everyone for the remaining 1%.
But that's not even the main point of my comment. Even if he was only willing to date girls in the "top 1 percent", that might still be achievable if he used a filtering process that can semi-reliably identify girls in that group who are single and potentially interested in him. But that's not what he's doing. He's going on a blind date with a completely random girl, once per week. If you're extremely selective in what you're looking for, but are relying on a low-frequency completely-random-sampling strategy, of course that's never going to work.
That said, me analyzing the heck out of what is obviously a humorous post, is probably not helping me achieve any of my life goals either.
Anyway, I think the author should talk to women more frequently, about things not related to work.
It is a silly place, I implore you not to visit it.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NF5XU-k2Vk
"Unfortunately, she was looking for the perfect man."
In my experience, an overlooked part of finding a good mate is making yourself into a good candidate for your side of that partnership.
[edited for grammar]
"Even if you found the perfect women, she'd certainly have no interest in you."
---
Speaking of perfect soulmates:
"If I didn't have you, I'd have someone else" by Tim Minchin https://youtu.be/Gaid72fqzNE
http://web.archive.org/web/20100214192633/http://www2.warwic... (seems like the original has been removed)
You might also like from this author: "Mastering navel gazing, and justifying your paralyzing inaction"
Your love is one in a million (One in a million) You couldn't buy it at any price (Can't buy love) But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other loves Statistically, some of them would be equally nice (Equally nice) Or maybe not as nice but, say, smarter than you Or dumber but better at sport or tracing I'm just saying (I really think that I would) Probably (Have somebody else)
On the other hand, if you're already publishing cringey articles about your love life, perhaps the calculus shifts.
Note the article's from 1999.
Tinder only works if you are in the top 10% of males. If you are short (anything under 6 ft nowadays), a minority, fat, etc using tinder is an invitation to get your self esteem crushed.
There's no place for the average or below average men in the dating scene anymore. It's all about height,Wealth,penis size and overall looks.
So did you feel like you "settled" so to speak? If so, did you ever stop thinking that?
Edit: Further, careless and secura are antonym homonyms modulo literal translation.
Some people find what seems like a perfect job, then after a few years, they get bought out and aren't so perfect anymore.
I played the field until I was in my mid 30s, then settled down. Never been happier. I hope it lasts, and I think it will.
Also, beauty fades pretty quickly. Not only in the object, but in the eye of the beholder. The person is much more important. Also, it sucks when everyone hits on your girlfriend / wife all the time.
Truth! After you have two kids, the character of your spouse matters much more than anything else. :-)
Let me rephrase it. When you were looking for a relationship, did you have a set of expectations that you ultimately gave up on fulfilling? Or did you try to set out with no expectations at all?
It just sounds like a bad cost/benefit ratio to me. But then again, I don't like people in general and I don't seem to be as dependent on social contact as the average person. I might value the benefits much lower than others.
Forget men vs women, you know what people like? They like it if you're actually interested in them and listen to them and don't have a hidden agenda and aren't silently judging them.
You can apply this to a lot, not just romance. I mean, there are other approaches to making yourself desirable (like be really rich, ridiculously good looking, famous &c) but it's notable that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both seem to be actually interested in what their wives think.
...
I will say that for a girl to be considered really beautiful to me, she should fall at least two standard deviations above the norm.
I don't think I agree with it - but it seems like far more useful dating advice than what this guy is trying to achieve. Select from the pool of people who are also attracted to you - not all people.
How long will it take until that happens? (I'm not asking for opinion, this is a math problem;-)