Well, this made me think about many things, but I forgot most of them before I got to the end of the article.
I had a few bad memes in my brain when I was younger; they hurt my dating life a lot. Where is the proper place to complain about that? I notice that people who complain publicly about the culture that brought them the bad memes, get attacked by that culture in turn, so it is probably individually smarter to shut up. For example, the thing you call “numbers game”—and I agree about that—in the environment where I grew up it would be used as a proof that men are shallow beasts who only think using their penises. You are not supposed to think about women as numbers, ever! Et cetera. I have already overcome most of that, but it cost me years of time.
Using an artificial intelligence to match people could be quite interesting. If I tried to design a website, it seems like I would have to choose among a few options, each of them coming with certain disadvantages: a dating document cannot be processed automatically (to find the best match among potential thousands, assuming that everyone would start writing the docs); answering thousands of mandatory questions would be a lot of work (and often it would feel like the answer you chose is not really true, but no better option was available); and if the questions are optional, most people will skip the ones that are important to you. -- Perhaps a competent AI could navigate people through this process, for example by letting them speak freely and extracting the answers to questions from what they said; also, if it could adaptively prioritize the questions that are most important (provide most bits of relevant information) for people who already match you based on what you already said about yourself, and would ask you those questions directly.
To put it cynically, the right time to consider going poly is when you have at least two available potential sexual partners at the same time. Not when the actual number is zero.
The “chat for all people you were/are dating” suggestion seems like a textbook example of XKCD “Drama”. I can imagine explosive spirals of hate between exes writing shit in each other’s channels, each one reading the latest update of the other and then adding a few words to their own. Also, the usual problem of matching the reported data with truth: what if one person denies having dated the other? On one hand, some people definitely would report non-existent dates, either because of a delusion, or tactically (stalkers). On the other hand, an option to block those would be abused to deny inconvenient exes. A possible solution is that the other person has to confirm the date; not confirming would need to be treated as a huge red flag.
lots of guys i knew in college [...] had no trouble dating. [...] they dated hot girls, found wives the real difference seemed to be that they were conservatives and hadn’t taken on board these poisonous ideas about “toxic masculinity”
Jason: Fact: If you listen to Jordan Peterson [...], you will remain alone.
As usual, when people offer you advice, different people offer contradictory advice. (Though if you listen carefully, you might notice that one is supported by anecdotal evidence, and the other by saying “fact”. Make your own Bayesian conclusion about their relative strength.)
To put it cynically, the right time to consider going poly is when you have at least two available potential sexual partners at the same time. Not when the actual number is zero.
I disagree with this. If you want to go poly, you need to look for lovers who also want to (or at least agree to) be poly. “Opening” a pre-existing monogamous relationship is much more fraught and often goes poorly even when the other side agrees. Waiting until you can ask out two people at the same time also makes little sense, because it requires too many stars aligning.
Ofc going poly reduces your dating pool by a lot. But, in the large N limit it doesn’t matter because your competition is also proportionally smaller. I say “in the large N limit” because if you live in some backwater which hardly has anyone poly at all, it can matter. Even if it will make finding a lover harder, it might still be worth it: only you know how important it is for you.
Myself, I went poly around 5 years ago and never looked back. Mono is just not for me.
Well, this made me think about many things, but I forgot most of them before I got to the end of the article.
I had a few bad memes in my brain when I was younger; they hurt my dating life a lot. Where is the proper place to complain about that? I notice that people who complain publicly about the culture that brought them the bad memes, get attacked by that culture in turn, so it is probably individually smarter to shut up. For example, the thing you call “numbers game”—and I agree about that—in the environment where I grew up it would be used as a proof that men are shallow beasts who only think using their penises. You are not supposed to think about women as numbers, ever! Et cetera. I have already overcome most of that, but it cost me years of time.
Using an artificial intelligence to match people could be quite interesting. If I tried to design a website, it seems like I would have to choose among a few options, each of them coming with certain disadvantages: a dating document cannot be processed automatically (to find the best match among potential thousands, assuming that everyone would start writing the docs); answering thousands of mandatory questions would be a lot of work (and often it would feel like the answer you chose is not really true, but no better option was available); and if the questions are optional, most people will skip the ones that are important to you. -- Perhaps a competent AI could navigate people through this process, for example by letting them speak freely and extracting the answers to questions from what they said; also, if it could adaptively prioritize the questions that are most important (provide most bits of relevant information) for people who already match you based on what you already said about yourself, and would ask you those questions directly.
To put it cynically, the right time to consider going poly is when you have at least two available potential sexual partners at the same time. Not when the actual number is zero.
The “chat for all people you were/are dating” suggestion seems like a textbook example of XKCD “Drama”. I can imagine explosive spirals of hate between exes writing shit in each other’s channels, each one reading the latest update of the other and then adding a few words to their own. Also, the usual problem of matching the reported data with truth: what if one person denies having dated the other? On one hand, some people definitely would report non-existent dates, either because of a delusion, or tactically (stalkers). On the other hand, an option to block those would be abused to deny inconvenient exes. A possible solution is that the other person has to confirm the date; not confirming would need to be treated as a huge red flag.
As usual, when people offer you advice, different people offer contradictory advice. (Though if you listen carefully, you might notice that one is supported by anecdotal evidence, and the other by saying “fact”. Make your own Bayesian conclusion about their relative strength.)
I disagree with this. If you want to go poly, you need to look for lovers who also want to (or at least agree to) be poly. “Opening” a pre-existing monogamous relationship is much more fraught and often goes poorly even when the other side agrees. Waiting until you can ask out two people at the same time also makes little sense, because it requires too many stars aligning.
Ofc going poly reduces your dating pool by a lot. But, in the large N limit it doesn’t matter because your competition is also proportionally smaller. I say “in the large N limit” because if you live in some backwater which hardly has anyone poly at all, it can matter. Even if it will make finding a lover harder, it might still be worth it: only you know how important it is for you.
Myself, I went poly around 5 years ago and never looked back. Mono is just not for me.