How to find a mate when you have really specific tastes:
Think about the kind of fiction your ideal mate would want to read.
Write that kind of fiction.
Start a website compiling your fiction. Hire someone off DeviantArt to illustrate it.
Once you’ve got a decent fanbase, post a message on your website saying that you are looking for a mate.
Read emails from fans who say they want to be your mate.
Why I think this will work: A while ago I posted a romantic/erotic story to Reddit (which is 3⁄4 male). I hadn’t seen the fantasy represented in any romance/erotica I’d ever read, so I figured I was alone in desiring it. Imagine my surprise when two women sent me unsolicited PM’s asking me to role-play.
This works better when some of the MOTAS who read the fiction have also met you in the flesh (N=2). Also, having at least one protagonist who shares some of the more prominent features of your personality (i.e., your warped sense of humor if you’re liable to inflict that on your mate) might be more effective at selecting on the audience (if they like the protagonist, they may be able to tolerate your own twisted humor) but here I haven’t tried it your way for comparison.
Why I think this will work: A while ago I posted a romantic/erotic story to Reddit (which is 3⁄4 male). I hadn’t seen the fantasy represented in any romance/erotica I’d ever read, so I figured I was alone in desiring it. Imagine my surprise when two women sent me unsolicited PM’s asking me to role-play.
But on the other hand, writers are routinely surprised by the audiences their material finds—and don’t find. So you need some way of evaluating your current audience to see if your ideal mate is actually likely to be in it, or if your cute pony show turned out to have many nerdy male fans instead...
If nothing else, the ‘unexpected’ fans are reducing your yield and may be driving out potential matches.
(If you were into little girls, would you be happy or unhappy about bronies? If you wanted money, maybe happy, if chicks maybe unhappy because on the margin, little girls may be skeeved out by bronies and not become regular readers. You know what, I should’ve chosen a better example for this topic than MLP.)
Any fiction writers want to chime in? The fact that I accidentally successfully used this strategy is one data point. And then you look at amateur fiction websites, and see a lot of poorly written work that nonetheless has fans is another.
I write fanfiction set in the Mass Effect universe. My work is probably “amateur” as I make no claims of being a writer. It’s all just for fun for me.
I wouldn’t try this technique personally, as I’m not interested in meeting people who I’m compatible with, but geographically isolated from. The odds that one of the people responding would be from the same city as me seem pretty slim.
What I can tell you about my traffic stats is that I get about a thousand unique views every time I post a new chapter. Of the people who add my story to their favorites or set an author alert for my work (so that they are emailed every time I post new content), the majority seem to be people identifying as women on their own profile pages. (My fanfiction includes a popular “ship” meaning that romance is an important focus in it.) I get anywhere from two to around six written replies to each chapter I post. The majority of people who write to me identify as men, however, while less women write to me, I would rank the average quality of correspondence higher among the women who do choose to write than the men. I’ve actually become very good friends with a woman who I met through fanfiction, but I’ve never met her in person as she lives in Germany and I in the States.
I think Yudkowsky has said that HPMoR was a factor in getting together with most of his girlfriends, though he did not actually meet them because of it.
How to find a mate when you have really specific tastes:
Think about the kind of fiction your ideal mate would want to read.
Write that kind of fiction.
Start a website compiling your fiction. Hire someone off DeviantArt to illustrate it.
Once you’ve got a decent fanbase, post a message on your website saying that you are looking for a mate.
Read emails from fans who say they want to be your mate.
Why I think this will work: A while ago I posted a romantic/erotic story to Reddit (which is 3⁄4 male). I hadn’t seen the fantasy represented in any romance/erotica I’d ever read, so I figured I was alone in desiring it. Imagine my surprise when two women sent me unsolicited PM’s asking me to role-play.
This works better when some of the MOTAS who read the fiction have also met you in the flesh (N=2). Also, having at least one protagonist who shares some of the more prominent features of your personality (i.e., your warped sense of humor if you’re liable to inflict that on your mate) might be more effective at selecting on the audience (if they like the protagonist, they may be able to tolerate your own twisted humor) but here I haven’t tried it your way for comparison.
But on the other hand, writers are routinely surprised by the audiences their material finds—and don’t find. So you need some way of evaluating your current audience to see if your ideal mate is actually likely to be in it, or if your cute pony show turned out to have many nerdy male fans instead...
I think most MLP fans are in the intended demographic. Teenage male fans are simply more salient than grade-school female fans.
If nothing else, the ‘unexpected’ fans are reducing your yield and may be driving out potential matches.
(If you were into little girls, would you be happy or unhappy about bronies? If you wanted money, maybe happy, if chicks maybe unhappy because on the margin, little girls may be skeeved out by bronies and not become regular readers. You know what, I should’ve chosen a better example for this topic than MLP.)
What is the fanbase of a median fiction or fanfiction? Probably somewhere between 0 and 1, including the author and their mother?
Any fiction writers want to chime in? The fact that I accidentally successfully used this strategy is one data point. And then you look at amateur fiction websites, and see a lot of poorly written work that nonetheless has fans is another.
I write fanfiction set in the Mass Effect universe. My work is probably “amateur” as I make no claims of being a writer. It’s all just for fun for me.
I wouldn’t try this technique personally, as I’m not interested in meeting people who I’m compatible with, but geographically isolated from. The odds that one of the people responding would be from the same city as me seem pretty slim.
What I can tell you about my traffic stats is that I get about a thousand unique views every time I post a new chapter. Of the people who add my story to their favorites or set an author alert for my work (so that they are emailed every time I post new content), the majority seem to be people identifying as women on their own profile pages. (My fanfiction includes a popular “ship” meaning that romance is an important focus in it.) I get anywhere from two to around six written replies to each chapter I post. The majority of people who write to me identify as men, however, while less women write to me, I would rank the average quality of correspondence higher among the women who do choose to write than the men. I’ve actually become very good friends with a woman who I met through fanfiction, but I’ve never met her in person as she lives in Germany and I in the States.
My mom has never read my story.
Thanks for your input! It’s interesting that most of the people who favorite your work are women, but most of the people who write to you are men.
I think Yudkowsky has said that HPMoR was a factor in getting together with most of his girlfriends, though he did not actually meet them because of it.
Beware of these.
They’ve sent me photos, their comment history checks out and one of them showed me her Facebook page. I’m pretty sure they’re legit.
Well, that’s good. Back in the day, I followed a USENET newsgroup that was trolled by a guy pretending to be a girl...
Yes, and the chance that any of the two live near you?
My ideal mate would hardly read any fiction at all; and I don’t write fiction. So I’m already two steps ahead! ;-)