Umm. The purpose of dating is to find someone you’re compatible with. “Expanding your dating pool” to include personality types you don’t like defeats the whole point.
Unless your current idea of what personality types you’re compatible with is too limited, or your judgment of other personality types that makes you not like them is prejudiced. The purpose of dating is also to find out what types of people you are compatible with empirically. See also my response to SarahC.
“Doesn’t play culturally-common status games socially-inexperienced people don’t know how to handle” is not a reasonable way for nerdy people to determine compatibility with potential mates (or friends). The filter is too broad, and it will exclude people they might actually be compatible with if they understood status games better and how to handle them.
A big part of the reason that nerdy people don’t like status games is because they don’t understand the psychology behind them, and consequently give the other person an unfairly negative assessment. Since they aren’t accustomed to status games, their hackles may go up, particularly if the status ploy triggers issues for them, like memories of past bullying by higher status people. Yet once one attains some understanding of status games and skill at playing them, then the hackles no longer go up, and there is no reason to ascribe such a negative judgment to the other person and exclude them as a potential mate or friend.
Of course, there are valid reasons for nerdy people to find certain types of status games annoying and undesirable, even after understanding them. Yet the best way to get a sense of what kinds of status games are fun, what kind are OK with you, and what kind are intolerable, and what kinds of people play these kinds of games, is to have experience playing them with people.
Except that you may find that you’re compatible with someone that you never expected would be compatible with you. Especially when you’re talking about stereotypes like “people who go to bars” or “nerdy women” or “people who engage in shit-testing,” which are broad enough to include many different types of people
Not to mention that there are many purposes of dating: not all relationships are about long-term compatibility.
Many kinds of educated guesses about compatibility increase the probablity of finding the right person or the right relationship, because time is finite, and time spent dating a born-again Christian fundamentalist is time not spent dating an atheist librarian (or not studying Pearl or Jaynes ;-) ).
I’ve never dated a religious fundamentalist; I almost certainly never will. And I think that is the rational choice, even though it seems “limiting” in a sense. In reality, though, I don’t think it is limiting at all, because time is not infinite, and dating opportunities are not fungible with respect to time. It’s only limiting if you ignore the probability of successful outcomes based on what you know of yourself and other people, but what is a decision theory worth that ignores the probabilities altogether (and differing payoffs too)?
Edit: what holds regarding religious fundamentalists also holds to a lesser degree regarding various subsets of the average, neurotypical women that are the subject of this thread.
On the other hand, cargo-cult free-thinking can be, at least for me, far more obnoxious than just plain religious close-mindedness. And in that regard, an atheist librarian may well be much worse than a regular churchy girl (or guy).
I agree with your underlying point, but you brutally twisted my message in order to make your point.
I said “religious fundamentalist”, not “close minded” or “regular churchy girl (or guy)”, so you’re talking about something other than what I was talking about. There is a world of difference between a fundamentalist who thinks (for example) that the Earth is 6,000 years old and the bible is the literal word of God, and the average church-going person.
time spent dating a born-again Christian fundamentalist is time not spent dating an atheist librarian (or not studying Pearl or Jaynes ;-) ).
There’s more to life than intellectual activity and rationality. What about occasionally enjoying light-hearted conversation or sex with a born-again fundamentalist, just as a form of recreation? I understand your point about not wanting a serious relationship with someone with very different values, but not everything has to be about a serious relationship.
Edit: what holds regarding religious fundamentalists also holds to a lesser degree regarding various subsets of the average, neurotypical women that are the subject of this thread.
A much lesser degree, especially for intelligent extraverted women who might enjoy socializing for fun sometimes in bars, as well as more abstract pleasures.
I agree with the point about everything not having to be about a serious relationship, but the reality is that many of us are looking for a serious relationship, and we need the other person to be somebody that we can have interesting conversations with and whom we can respect and be challenged by intellectually.
I also agree on the much lesser degree point, but I do think that somebody who is extremely introverted and intellectual is not necessarily making a big mistake by limiting their romantic pursuits to people who aren’t extreme extroverts, for example, or limiting themselves to people with the intellectual equivalent of a college education and an ongoing passion for learning.
. What about occasionally enjoying light-hearted conversation or sex with a born-again fundamentalist, just as a form of recreation?
Born-again fundamentalist light-hearted sex? That does not compute....
For me, the reason I don’t do casual relationships is because my personality type does not do casual very well. Either I’m really into someone or I don’t really care.
Born-again fundamentalist light-hearted sex? That does not compute....
Heh, I thought someone might ask about that. Believe it or not, there are fundamentalists out there who take the attitude that since they know they’re already saved, they can do whatever they want.
Umm. The purpose of dating is to find someone you’re compatible with. “Expanding your dating pool” to include personality types you don’t like defeats the whole point.
Unless your current idea of what personality types you’re compatible with is too limited, or your judgment of other personality types that makes you not like them is prejudiced. The purpose of dating is also to find out what types of people you are compatible with empirically. See also my response to SarahC.
“Doesn’t play culturally-common status games socially-inexperienced people don’t know how to handle” is not a reasonable way for nerdy people to determine compatibility with potential mates (or friends). The filter is too broad, and it will exclude people they might actually be compatible with if they understood status games better and how to handle them.
A big part of the reason that nerdy people don’t like status games is because they don’t understand the psychology behind them, and consequently give the other person an unfairly negative assessment. Since they aren’t accustomed to status games, their hackles may go up, particularly if the status ploy triggers issues for them, like memories of past bullying by higher status people. Yet once one attains some understanding of status games and skill at playing them, then the hackles no longer go up, and there is no reason to ascribe such a negative judgment to the other person and exclude them as a potential mate or friend.
Of course, there are valid reasons for nerdy people to find certain types of status games annoying and undesirable, even after understanding them. Yet the best way to get a sense of what kinds of status games are fun, what kind are OK with you, and what kind are intolerable, and what kinds of people play these kinds of games, is to have experience playing them with people.
Except that you may find that you’re compatible with someone that you never expected would be compatible with you. Especially when you’re talking about stereotypes like “people who go to bars” or “nerdy women” or “people who engage in shit-testing,” which are broad enough to include many different types of people
Not to mention that there are many purposes of dating: not all relationships are about long-term compatibility.
Assuming you are incompatible with certain personality types without any experience of dating them seems unnecessarily limiting.
Many kinds of educated guesses about compatibility increase the probablity of finding the right person or the right relationship, because time is finite, and time spent dating a born-again Christian fundamentalist is time not spent dating an atheist librarian (or not studying Pearl or Jaynes ;-) ).
I’ve never dated a religious fundamentalist; I almost certainly never will. And I think that is the rational choice, even though it seems “limiting” in a sense. In reality, though, I don’t think it is limiting at all, because time is not infinite, and dating opportunities are not fungible with respect to time. It’s only limiting if you ignore the probability of successful outcomes based on what you know of yourself and other people, but what is a decision theory worth that ignores the probabilities altogether (and differing payoffs too)?
Edit: what holds regarding religious fundamentalists also holds to a lesser degree regarding various subsets of the average, neurotypical women that are the subject of this thread.
On the other hand, cargo-cult free-thinking can be, at least for me, far more obnoxious than just plain religious close-mindedness. And in that regard, an atheist librarian may well be much worse than a regular churchy girl (or guy).
I agree with your underlying point, but you brutally twisted my message in order to make your point.
I said “religious fundamentalist”, not “close minded” or “regular churchy girl (or guy)”, so you’re talking about something other than what I was talking about. There is a world of difference between a fundamentalist who thinks (for example) that the Earth is 6,000 years old and the bible is the literal word of God, and the average church-going person.
There’s more to life than intellectual activity and rationality. What about occasionally enjoying light-hearted conversation or sex with a born-again fundamentalist, just as a form of recreation? I understand your point about not wanting a serious relationship with someone with very different values, but not everything has to be about a serious relationship.
A much lesser degree, especially for intelligent extraverted women who might enjoy socializing for fun sometimes in bars, as well as more abstract pleasures.
I agree with the point about everything not having to be about a serious relationship, but the reality is that many of us are looking for a serious relationship, and we need the other person to be somebody that we can have interesting conversations with and whom we can respect and be challenged by intellectually.
I also agree on the much lesser degree point, but I do think that somebody who is extremely introverted and intellectual is not necessarily making a big mistake by limiting their romantic pursuits to people who aren’t extreme extroverts, for example, or limiting themselves to people with the intellectual equivalent of a college education and an ongoing passion for learning.
Born-again fundamentalist light-hearted sex? That does not compute....
For me, the reason I don’t do casual relationships is because my personality type does not do casual very well. Either I’m really into someone or I don’t really care.
Heh, I thought someone might ask about that. Believe it or not, there are fundamentalists out there who take the attitude that since they know they’re already saved, they can do whatever they want.