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Comment by zinclozenge | Hacker News Reader

It also turns out, a lot fewer people are as into hiking as they claim on their profile.

Yes exactly, By including [hobby] here, you're able to weed out people you won't connect with for other reasons.

Going back to hiking as an example, you can weed out unfit people without having to actively filter them out, as they'll see your profile and your like of "hiking" and self select out. People do this with a lot of things on their profile, they don't seriously care about whatever that thing is just what it represents.

Imagine my surprise when 98% of all people I've ever seen claim to like hiking meant at most a hour or two walk up a hill, versus something that could take over a day with several thousand foot elevation changes.

Really soured me on that category.

If it takes over a day then its backpacking, not hiking. At least that's how I and most people colloquially understand the two.

Honestly, I love hiking. My family does maybe a dozen or so hikes per year - and every hike is under six hours, often under four. Perhaps we need a different word for the two activities.

I would say what you do is hiking and anything that takes over a day is “backpacking”. Then you can get into “urban” vs “backcountry”/“remote”/“wilderness”.

Anything over a day is not "hiking", that's "backpacking", as another poster said.

There's a reason that outdoor boots are divided into "hiking boots" and "backpacking boots". The two are significantly different.

https://m.xkcd.com/120/

My favorite Grindr profile text that I once saw was "Y'all can't possibly be into hiking as much as you say you are."

it's used as a proxy for fitness.

It's used as a proxy for "thin and not disabled."

As someone with a disability, this tracks lol. I don't outright disclose my disability on my profile (saved for dms, as some people can be creepy), but I say my idea of 'hiking' is more like a casual stroll in the local botanical gardens.

And people are not allowed to pick their partner based on that?

I'm describing a behavior not trying to be the partnership police.

they are, but I think it's interesting how people feel the need to hide this. it's not like only skinny people can go hiking.

That would also be interesting to analyze: which de facto attributes do people add because they think they're needed to pass an initial screening?

I’ve seen profiles which mention:

- God/faith in the first line of profile - credit score - homeowner status - have a job/career - vaccine status - political party (and demands for the partner’s party affiliation) - FlatEartherism and other outlier conspiracy theories - the “three sixes club” - Dan Savage’s “GGG”

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