This evidently didn’t bother me a few years ago when I wrote this post, but I want to say that if all of your interactions with women are like this, you are doing something wrong. It may be that the society around you is the main culprit for doing stereotypes wrong, but as a woman I still find this attitude frustrating.
I’m tempted to inject a ‘speak for yourself!’ here, or at least a caveat that the (subjectively asserted) mistake must include “or you are choosing to interact with the wrong women” in it somewhere.
Some people of a certain kind of social disposition (yes, more female than male from what I can tell) do mostly have interactions that would be classified as emotional rather than informational according to the inferred intent of the labels. Having that preference and style works well for them and others declaring that they are doing it ‘wrong’ is invasive and irrelevant. Similarly, when interacting with someone in the style that works best for interacting with that person and someone else declaring that you are doing it wrong is out of place.
I also note that much of what is labelled (and sometimes dismissed) as ‘emotional’ is itself information. Just information in a different, insufficiently nerdy, format.
I’m tempted to inject a ‘speak for yourself!’ here, or at least a caveat that the (subjectively asserted) mistake must include “or you are choosing to interact with the wrong women” in it somewhere.
Me too, but then I thought that “interacting with the wrong women” is one possible case of “doing it wrong”, if the latter is to be interpreted at all charitably.
Noted. I was not being very specific/using sufficient disclaimers in this discussion.
Disclaimer: if you are interacting this way with women on LW or interested in rationality, I am >90% sure that you are missing out on some valuable interesting/intellectual conversations.
Hypothesis: if you are interacting this way with women who aren’t interested in rationality (who you don’t think are interested), it may be contributing to a self-fulfilling prophecy that women aren’t interested in rationality. (Disclaimer: I’m probably guilty of this for both genders, in that I don’t introduce enough of my potentially interested friends to LW ideas, period.)
I’m tempted to inject a ‘speak for yourself!’ here, or at least a caveat that the (subjectively asserted) mistake must include “or you are choosing to interact with the wrong women” in it somewhere.
Some people of a certain kind of social disposition (yes, more female than male from what I can tell) do mostly have interactions that would be classified as emotional rather than informational according to the inferred intent of the labels. Having that preference and style works well for them and others declaring that they are doing it ‘wrong’ is invasive and irrelevant. Similarly, when interacting with someone in the style that works best for interacting with that person and someone else declaring that you are doing it wrong is out of place.
I also note that much of what is labelled (and sometimes dismissed) as ‘emotional’ is itself information. Just information in a different, insufficiently nerdy, format.
Me too, but then I thought that “interacting with the wrong women” is one possible case of “doing it wrong”, if the latter is to be interpreted at all charitably.
Noted. I was not being very specific/using sufficient disclaimers in this discussion.
Disclaimer: if you are interacting this way with women on LW or interested in rationality, I am >90% sure that you are missing out on some valuable interesting/intellectual conversations.
Hypothesis: if you are interacting this way with women who aren’t interested in rationality (who you don’t think are interested), it may be contributing to a self-fulfilling prophecy that women aren’t interested in rationality. (Disclaimer: I’m probably guilty of this for both genders, in that I don’t introduce enough of my potentially interested friends to LW ideas, period.)