2:57:55 PM Katja Grace: Maybe there is a dating site for smart ambitious nerds somewhere
OkCupid seems adequate for that purpose. At least, I seem to find more nerdy ambitious girls in my area than I want to make time for and I imagine it would be even easier for a girls finding guys.
One problem, however, is that confessing a nerdy ambition of saving the world is, in general, the wrong thing to do in a dating profile. Many nerds may have reluctantly conformed their signalling to something more appropriate.
Many nerds may have reluctantly conformed their signalling to something more appropriate.
From my OKC profile (written prior to seeing this comment, and actually the starting point for the quoted conversation with Katja):
I’m working with the Singularity Institute for AI, a non-profit dedicated to promoting clear and critical thinking about the far future and humanity’s place in it.
I’m curious about your indication that you don’t want to get married until gay marriage is legal in your state. Not that it’s not a fine sentiment, but do you have reason to believe that this makes any of your friends feel better, or that it’s going to speed up the overturning of Prop 8, or otherwise accomplish anything other than leaving you a bachelor until said overturning? I had been aware of the existence of straight/bi people with this stance before but have not had the chance to quiz one, so—you’re it!
Honestly? My family has a fair few conservatives, and I suspect they care when/whether they get to see me get married. Call it extortion of you like, but I do anticipate that change on this scale gets things done.
Fascinating. What an interesting idea for promoting change from the ground up. More information about an organized national campaign here for anybody else like me who hadn’t heard of this as a strategy.
This prompted me to write about the related situation in my country. It’s something I’ve had occasion to feel strongly about (my two best friends got married last month), but isn’t related to ordinary LW discussions. (This thread feels a lot more open than the “official” Open Threads :-)
I live in Israel. The law here forbids “mixed marriage”, i.e. miscegenation. Citizens have an “ethnicity” listed in their state IDs, and must be married (and divorced) by a priest from the matching brand of religion. My ID card says “Jewish”; that means I can only be legally married by a Jewish priest recognized by the state, an Orthodox rabbi—Reform and other Jewish communities not being recognized. I must marry under the Orthodox marriage code, which means I can only marry another state-certified Jew.
There are other rules. Some are painful for those who have to deal with them: the pair being married must not have ancestors known to be bastards; a man named Cohen (a common surname literally meaning ‘priest’) cannot marry a divorced woman. Other rules are mere nuisances: a woman cannot marry within some days of her monthly period...
So I can’t marry at least one third of the woman citizens of my country. This includes not only the different ethnic communities (Arab, etc) but many recent immigrants who have come here mostly for economic reasons. And of course there is no same-sex marriage.
The practical solution? The state recognizes any heterosexual marriage registered in a different country. There is a flourishing local industry that lets people fly or sail to the nearby island of Cyprus, register a marriage act, and be back the same day for the wedding party. These people have the same legal status as any other married couple. (But if the couple couldn’t marry in Israel by the rabbinical laws, their descendants will also be unable to marry in Israel, or in any other Orthodox ceremony worldwide.)
Additionally, the state recognizes self-declared partnerships which are somewhat inaccurately called common-law marriages in English. Such couples have most but not all of the legal rights granted to married couples. In recent years, even same-sex self-declared pairs have been getting some few legal rights, one supreme court hearing at a time.
There’s little chance of ever changing the marriage law, but it’s plausible that the various alternatives will eventually be granted all the relevant legal rights. In another decade or two, the only real difference might be the name of the law applied. Of course there’s always racism and discrimination to deal with...
Getting back to the original subject; I’ve always thought (and said) that unless the law is changed, I would rather not be married, or at least I would marry abroad in Cyprus. To which my parents always replied: you’ll feel differently when you have a girlfriend who wants to marry. I thought they just weren’t taking me seriously.
But now that I know about Hansonian signaling and related matters, I see that my declarations of opposition to marriage are simply signals of association with some socio-political opinions. They’re cheap signals for me, because no-one currently wants to marry me. I really won’t know myself how important this is to me, until I have to make the actual decision.
A public and ritualized commitment to this position might well help. I’m not aware of any widespread symbol for this here in Israel.
Additionaly, the state recognizes self-declared partnerships whose name translates roughly as ’publically known [as partners]”. (There’s probably a more usual English translation of which I’m unaware.)
Yes, and the Wikipedia article on C-L marriage says that’s what we have. With the obvious caveat that CLM couples here do not get the same legal rights as married couples.
Interesting. If I may ask, what sort of results are you getting (in terms of responses, females contacting you, and dates from the website)?
When I first constructed my OkCupid profile, I deliberately minimized my intellectual interests because I want to avoid getting stereotyped as a “nerd” before someone even knows me. I’ve been thinking of adding them in and see if it lowers the female attention I receive. I did recently add in that I “make computers do my bidding” and that I “build websites” (avoiding the word “programmer”).
It’s my theory that stereotypically nerdy guys are primarily going to be limited to nerdy girls. Yet nerdy girls (in my observations) seem to date all types of guys as long as the guy is smart. So if you come across as say, a smart jock, then you can date nerdy girls and sporty girls. If you come across as a smart artsy guy, then you can date nerdy girls and artsy girls. Of course, I don’t have any degree of certainty that this theory is correct, but it’s plausible enough that I try to not get immediately pigeonholed as a nerd.
Adding successive elements to someone’s perceptions of you is not a commutative operation: order matters.
My profile (link in your inbox) is full of signaling, of my qualities which I think may be most attractive. And I do get some decent results (I’m currently seeing a nerdy girl from the website). I wonder how intellectual and world-saving I could actually afford to go.
I was on OkCupid, originally listed as bi, and I got flooded with responses from dudes. Immediately. Swarms of dudes. Even though I wrote in my profile I was only interested in women at this time. From this I extrapolate that any girl within the 5-7 range of attractiveness is getting a lot of attention.
On the other hand, one of my intelligent (nerdy) male friends has successfully acquired about 5-6 dates from Okcupid within about a 3-4 month period.
more intelligent is mostly playful challenging. I want my next gf to be at least roughly on my level intellectually for essentially the same reason that a skilled dancer might prefer to date someone else who can dance well: it’s one more way for us to have fun together =)
OkCupid seems adequate for that purpose. At least, I seem to find more nerdy ambitious girls in my area than I want to make time for and I imagine it would be even easier for a girls finding guys.
One problem, however, is that confessing a nerdy ambition of saving the world is, in general, the wrong thing to do in a dating profile. Many nerds may have reluctantly conformed their signalling to something more appropriate.
From my OKC profile (written prior to seeing this comment, and actually the starting point for the quoted conversation with Katja):
I’m curious about your indication that you don’t want to get married until gay marriage is legal in your state. Not that it’s not a fine sentiment, but do you have reason to believe that this makes any of your friends feel better, or that it’s going to speed up the overturning of Prop 8, or otherwise accomplish anything other than leaving you a bachelor until said overturning? I had been aware of the existence of straight/bi people with this stance before but have not had the chance to quiz one, so—you’re it!
Honestly? My family has a fair few conservatives, and I suspect they care when/whether they get to see me get married. Call it extortion of you like, but I do anticipate that change on this scale gets things done.
Fascinating. What an interesting idea for promoting change from the ground up. More information about an organized national campaign here for anybody else like me who hadn’t heard of this as a strategy.
This prompted me to write about the related situation in my country. It’s something I’ve had occasion to feel strongly about (my two best friends got married last month), but isn’t related to ordinary LW discussions. (This thread feels a lot more open than the “official” Open Threads :-)
I live in Israel. The law here forbids “mixed marriage”, i.e. miscegenation. Citizens have an “ethnicity” listed in their state IDs, and must be married (and divorced) by a priest from the matching brand of religion. My ID card says “Jewish”; that means I can only be legally married by a Jewish priest recognized by the state, an Orthodox rabbi—Reform and other Jewish communities not being recognized. I must marry under the Orthodox marriage code, which means I can only marry another state-certified Jew.
There are other rules. Some are painful for those who have to deal with them: the pair being married must not have ancestors known to be bastards; a man named Cohen (a common surname literally meaning ‘priest’) cannot marry a divorced woman. Other rules are mere nuisances: a woman cannot marry within some days of her monthly period...
So I can’t marry at least one third of the woman citizens of my country. This includes not only the different ethnic communities (Arab, etc) but many recent immigrants who have come here mostly for economic reasons. And of course there is no same-sex marriage.
The practical solution? The state recognizes any heterosexual marriage registered in a different country. There is a flourishing local industry that lets people fly or sail to the nearby island of Cyprus, register a marriage act, and be back the same day for the wedding party. These people have the same legal status as any other married couple. (But if the couple couldn’t marry in Israel by the rabbinical laws, their descendants will also be unable to marry in Israel, or in any other Orthodox ceremony worldwide.)
Additionally, the state recognizes self-declared partnerships which are somewhat inaccurately called common-law marriages in English. Such couples have most but not all of the legal rights granted to married couples. In recent years, even same-sex self-declared pairs have been getting some few legal rights, one supreme court hearing at a time.
There’s little chance of ever changing the marriage law, but it’s plausible that the various alternatives will eventually be granted all the relevant legal rights. In another decade or two, the only real difference might be the name of the law applied. Of course there’s always racism and discrimination to deal with...
Getting back to the original subject; I’ve always thought (and said) that unless the law is changed, I would rather not be married, or at least I would marry abroad in Cyprus. To which my parents always replied: you’ll feel differently when you have a girlfriend who wants to marry. I thought they just weren’t taking me seriously.
But now that I know about Hansonian signaling and related matters, I see that my declarations of opposition to marriage are simply signals of association with some socio-political opinions. They’re cheap signals for me, because no-one currently wants to marry me. I really won’t know myself how important this is to me, until I have to make the actual decision.
A public and ritualized commitment to this position might well help. I’m not aware of any widespread symbol for this here in Israel.
Common law marriage may be like this.
Yes, and the Wikipedia article on C-L marriage says that’s what we have. With the obvious caveat that CLM couples here do not get the same legal rights as married couples.
Thanks—I’ll update my comment.
Interesting. If I may ask, what sort of results are you getting (in terms of responses, females contacting you, and dates from the website)?
When I first constructed my OkCupid profile, I deliberately minimized my intellectual interests because I want to avoid getting stereotyped as a “nerd” before someone even knows me. I’ve been thinking of adding them in and see if it lowers the female attention I receive. I did recently add in that I “make computers do my bidding” and that I “build websites” (avoiding the word “programmer”).
It’s my theory that stereotypically nerdy guys are primarily going to be limited to nerdy girls. Yet nerdy girls (in my observations) seem to date all types of guys as long as the guy is smart. So if you come across as say, a smart jock, then you can date nerdy girls and sporty girls. If you come across as a smart artsy guy, then you can date nerdy girls and artsy girls. Of course, I don’t have any degree of certainty that this theory is correct, but it’s plausible enough that I try to not get immediately pigeonholed as a nerd.
Adding successive elements to someone’s perceptions of you is not a commutative operation: order matters.
My profile (link in your inbox) is full of signaling, of my qualities which I think may be most attractive. And I do get some decent results (I’m currently seeing a nerdy girl from the website). I wonder how intellectual and world-saving I could actually afford to go.
I would think “make computers do my bidding” comes across as far nerdier than “programmer”.
I was on OkCupid, originally listed as bi, and I got flooded with responses from dudes. Immediately. Swarms of dudes. Even though I wrote in my profile I was only interested in women at this time. From this I extrapolate that any girl within the 5-7 range of attractiveness is getting a lot of attention.
On the other hand, one of my intelligent (nerdy) male friends has successfully acquired about 5-6 dates from Okcupid within about a 3-4 month period.
Also relevant: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/09/24/atheism-bringing-the-sexy-back/
You want your next girl to be more intelligent than you? Interesting. I’m curious as to where this preference comes from.
more intelligent is mostly playful challenging. I want my next gf to be at least roughly on my level intellectually for essentially the same reason that a skilled dancer might prefer to date someone else who can dance well: it’s one more way for us to have fun together =)
Ahh. Now that I can understand.