Are you above average in looks and status? If yes, then whatever cues you are using will probably result in less false positives than an ole regular chap. My personal experience suggests that anyone romantically/sexually attracted to you will do anything to either see you, or reschedule to see you. There is, in my opinion, a 75% chance of someone being disinterested in you if they are “busy” when asking them to hang out. If they do not reschedule or make any attempt to reschedule there is a 98% of them being disinterested. This only works on guys/gals that you are not already familiar friends with because friends will turn you down because they know they will see you again.
I’d like to add a caveat (not just about romantic/sexual attraction, but about social interactions in general) to the idea of inferring how much someone likes you from how much time they want to spend with you: deontologists/theists/people from guess cultures (to point in the rough direction of an empirical cluster in personspace) sometimes will want to interact with you not because they think they would enjoy it, but because they think they have an obligation to.
(My parents both grew up in such a culture (I heard that in certain parts of Naples, rejecting someone’s offer of coffee was considered as rude as insulting them), so when I and my sister were growing up (and were extremely socially awkward) they constantly drummed into our heads the meme that when people (who are mostly from the consequentialist/atheist/ask culture cluster in personspace where we grew up) stood us up, it was their fault because they were assholes (which didn’t explain why they stood up us but not each other); they hardly ever hypothesized it was our fault because we just weren’t fun to be around. (On the other hand, I sometimes went to parties with people I found very boring because I just didn’t realize I was allowed to not go there.) I wish I had realized that much earlier. (Even today, my mother insists that I ought to offer private tutoring for free to a friend of my sister’s because otherwise she would cut a bad figure, that I ought to pick as my doctoral advisor the same professor who supervised my MSc thesis because otherwise he might be disappointed, and other crap like that.)
I guess about 70th percentile among males roughly my age I see around (though there may be selection effects in which males roughly my age I see around, given than in certain places (e.g. buses) I see many more ugly males (and ugly people in general) than in other places (e.g. dance clubs), and I’m not sure that my aesthetic judgement isn’t totally out of whack (given that I’m straight); OTOH I do seem to be cold-approached more often than the average male is, but I’m not actually sure how often the average male is cold-approached, either). I’m 90% sure I’m between 50th and 90th percentile.
and status?
Depends on how you measure it. On other hand, lots of people deeply admire me for my academic achievements, singing skills, and sense of humour; OTOH I’m somewhat nerdy (I scored 25 on the AQ test and 43rd/48th percentile extroversion in two Big Five tests—and I’m pretty sure I used to be much worse until a few years ago, and I’m useless at pretty much all sports). As a result, I think I achieve a high-variance strategy (as described here) whereby some people think I’m awesome and other people think I’m a freak. (Money-wise, I’ve never had economic troubles despite never having earned much due to having wealthy parents (though they don’t admit they are wealthy, as for some reason (too much TV?) they seem to only compare themselves to richer people and never to poorer people); but I don’t like to show off (because I don’t think I deserve money merely for being born from the right vagina), so I drive an old small car, wear cheap clothes, and when people notice my expensive smartphone I point out it was a graduation present from my father who had bought it second-hand.) (Not 100% sure the parentheses are balanced, but still.)
My personal experience suggests that anyone romantically/sexually attracted to you will do anything to either see you, or reschedule to see you.
Well. For some reason (not enough Hollywood movies?) I assumed that moving heaven and earth in order to see someone would come across as desperate and creep people out (both when deciding whether to do that, and when updating my beliefs when someone doesn’t do that). But now I see that I had no good reason to assume that. Will keep this in mind. (Also, as a result of the arrogance I got after hanging around on LW, I sometimes assumed it just hadn’t occurred to people that they could do $magic_trick if they really wanted to see me.) I’m thinking about who has gone way out of their way to see me and who hasn’t, and I can’t see anything obviously wrong with the answers.
This only works on guys/gals that you are not already familiar friends with because friends will turn you down because they know they will see you again.
Yes, I’ve used this particular thought pattern myself. (Of course it doesn’t always work because sometimes black swans happen before I get a chance to cash in the rain check, but still.)
Wow, this comment has grown much longer than I expected.
Are you above average in looks and status? If yes, then whatever cues you are using will probably result in less false positives than an ole regular chap. My personal experience suggests that anyone romantically/sexually attracted to you will do anything to either see you, or reschedule to see you. There is, in my opinion, a 75% chance of someone being disinterested in you if they are “busy” when asking them to hang out. If they do not reschedule or make any attempt to reschedule there is a 98% of them being disinterested. This only works on guys/gals that you are not already familiar friends with because friends will turn you down because they know they will see you again.
I’d like to add a caveat (not just about romantic/sexual attraction, but about social interactions in general) to the idea of inferring how much someone likes you from how much time they want to spend with you: deontologists/theists/people from guess cultures (to point in the rough direction of an empirical cluster in personspace) sometimes will want to interact with you not because they think they would enjoy it, but because they think they have an obligation to.
(My parents both grew up in such a culture (I heard that in certain parts of Naples, rejecting someone’s offer of coffee was considered as rude as insulting them), so when I and my sister were growing up (and were extremely socially awkward) they constantly drummed into our heads the meme that when people (who are mostly from the consequentialist/atheist/ask culture cluster in personspace where we grew up) stood us up, it was their fault because they were assholes (which didn’t explain why they stood up us but not each other); they hardly ever hypothesized it was our fault because we just weren’t fun to be around. (On the other hand, I sometimes went to parties with people I found very boring because I just didn’t realize I was allowed to not go there.) I wish I had realized that much earlier. (Even today, my mother insists that I ought to offer private tutoring for free to a friend of my sister’s because otherwise she would cut a bad figure, that I ought to pick as my doctoral advisor the same professor who supervised my MSc thesis because otherwise he might be disappointed, and other crap like that.)
I guess about 70th percentile among males roughly my age I see around (though there may be selection effects in which males roughly my age I see around, given than in certain places (e.g. buses) I see many more ugly males (and ugly people in general) than in other places (e.g. dance clubs), and I’m not sure that my aesthetic judgement isn’t totally out of whack (given that I’m straight); OTOH I do seem to be cold-approached more often than the average male is, but I’m not actually sure how often the average male is cold-approached, either). I’m 90% sure I’m between 50th and 90th percentile.
Depends on how you measure it. On other hand, lots of people deeply admire me for my academic achievements, singing skills, and sense of humour; OTOH I’m somewhat nerdy (I scored 25 on the AQ test and 43rd/48th percentile extroversion in two Big Five tests—and I’m pretty sure I used to be much worse until a few years ago, and I’m useless at pretty much all sports). As a result, I think I achieve a high-variance strategy (as described here) whereby some people think I’m awesome and other people think I’m a freak. (Money-wise, I’ve never had economic troubles despite never having earned much due to having wealthy parents (though they don’t admit they are wealthy, as for some reason (too much TV?) they seem to only compare themselves to richer people and never to poorer people); but I don’t like to show off (because I don’t think I deserve money merely for being born from the right vagina), so I drive an old small car, wear cheap clothes, and when people notice my expensive smartphone I point out it was a graduation present from my father who had bought it second-hand.) (Not 100% sure the parentheses are balanced, but still.)
Well. For some reason (not enough Hollywood movies?) I assumed that moving heaven and earth in order to see someone would come across as desperate and creep people out (both when deciding whether to do that, and when updating my beliefs when someone doesn’t do that). But now I see that I had no good reason to assume that. Will keep this in mind. (Also, as a result of the arrogance I got after hanging around on LW, I sometimes assumed it just hadn’t occurred to people that they could do $magic_trick if they really wanted to see me.) I’m thinking about who has gone way out of their way to see me and who hasn’t, and I can’t see anything obviously wrong with the answers.
Yes, I’ve used this particular thought pattern myself. (Of course it doesn’t always work because sometimes black swans happen before I get a chance to cash in the rain check, but still.)
Wow, this comment has grown much longer than I expected.