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Comment by FooBarBizBazz | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I'd never date at work, but it really is a problem that nearly 100% of the typical American's time is now spent in environments where sexual advances are inappropriate. The beneficiary of this situation is Tinder et al, but what they have created is a wasteland.

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Not sure what you're trying to imply with this comment. Outside of the workplace, I don't think anyone considers it inappropriate to get chatting with someone (read: NOT a coworker, especially not one you have power over) and later ask them out on a date. This happens probably millions of times in various settings every single night.

Ok. Say it's a Python conference and you've never met them before.

That seems a lot like a work event, where people are there in a professional capacity.

That's the convention now. But before that battle got fought, you might have thought it was a hobby. Like the local under-35s $LIGHT_RECREATIONAL_SPORT meetup, which people treat as a recurring singles event.

Sexual advances should be inappropriate in most places? I think at least half of the population (and hopefully most of the remainder) would disagree that proscribing sexual advances from shared places without an expectation of such has a _negative_ effect?

Your sentence has a lot of negatives so I'm not sure what you're exactly trying to say but I don't think there are that many people that are happy with the state of dating and coupling right now, except perhaps very attractive heterosexual men.

Yeah that wasn’t very clear. I was trying to say that I think most women probably don’t share GPs view.

Most women don’t have an enjoyable experience of being approached because too many of the men approaching them do not meet their attractiveness bar. You’ll find that many women who say “don’t hit on women at the gym” won’t mind at all if George Clooney does it.

sexual advances have always been inappropriate at work.

Inappropriate yes, but the big difference is they are no longer tolerated. In the old days the worst a guy might expect is getting slapped on the face or maybe an aside from the boss telling them to knock it off. These days you get fired and blacklisted. The stakes are much higher.

This seems like a positive to me?

I didn't mean to come across like this is a bad thing. I was just pointing out that the world has changed and not everybody has realized it yet.

I would agree with that if we could change one phrase in the parent post: If instead of saying "It" (with "sexual advances" being the antecedent), the post had said "sexual harassment", I'd have been on board.

This sounds like nitpicking but it isn't. People use "advances" and "harassment" as synonyms. They should not be.

What about school?

I'm not just talking about disrespect. Disrespect is bad in almost almost all contexts.

Because, I have to be clear: Asking someone on a date is a sexual advance.

Nobody is getting fired for asking someone if they want to go out for drinks after work. The people who got fired are the ones who couldn't take "no" for an answer and got weird/creepy about it.

I think Andrew Cuomo would disagree. Granted, he's a political target.

Cuomo's alleged behavior goes well beyond asking an employee out for drinks.

Last I heard, people were going after him for sending jocular texts about "mingle mamas" going to Las Vegas, and asking a staffer if she'd ever consider a relationship with an older man. He wasn't exactly Comrade Beria.

If you stand by the door asking every woman who walks by if they'd like to go out with you (no, I'm not making this up. It actually happened in college), I'd say that's a bad idea and not going to end well.

If you see someone who's attractive and you managed to strike up a few conversations with them and it seems that they like you, then I'd say that asking them out is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

On the contrary, it is a pretty effective tactic that ends well for many people.

The variation I am more familiar with is going around a party and telling people strangers you have a condom that is going to expire and you don't want to waste it. I know a few people who have gotten laid this way.

Not all environments are safe spaces where sexual advances are inappropriate, nor should they be. People should however be polite and take no for an answer.

It's not something I'd do, but I admit that it's a more amusing approach and I could see it being effective.

Charitably, their point is that we all work too much.

That's a big part of it. And that the sphere of "professionalism" has expanded too far outside of work, even when you're not actually working.

Isn't "at work" the #1 top place where couples meet in real life?

(Used to be for the 1970s generation, now it's "through friends" and then "at work")

https://www.bustle.com/p/the-most-popular-ways-people-are-me...

I think the empirical change you find there is a direct consequence of what I'm talking about.

Sure. That doesn't change the surrounding factors that make this situation more likely.

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