Comment by atleastoptimal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by atleastoptimal | Hacker News Reader

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That's true. The sad reality about dating is that, for 99% percent of people, the partner that would be ideal for their tastes is "out of their league" so to speak. Humans have dealt with this reality of dating acting somewhat like a marketplace via mores of commitment, dating within social classes, condemnation of promiscuity, etc., but the human nature is still there. 10's want 10's, but 5's don't want other 5's, they also want 10's.

The strategy most dating apps use has been to keep people in a perpetual cycle of heightened seeming possibility. You see the young, cool, attractive people, and perhaps one out of 100 times you'll strike out, and the unlimited options keep you feeling that such an opportunity could happen infinitely. For average hetero dudes, this obsession will drive purchasing premium, paying for swipes and super likes, etc.

I know it's controversial but I do believe that robotic/AI partners is the "ideal world" solution to this. You get someone who fulfills all your physical needs so you don't have to play the roulette in real life, or string along someone in your league because you believe you could get someone out of it. I'm sure in the future we'll see them similar to how we see sex toys today.

Strange analysis. Considering that what people want from dating apps is sex and partners, and that both are easier to obtain from people of matching attractiveness. As a former dating app user, the possibility is something I never cared about: I cared about a date, there is a marketplace and- while I will try to find someone acceptable- certainly I'm not wasting my time chasing people out of my league. That produces just waste of time and money, rejection and frustration.

I would rather say something different: dating apps have zero interest in making you find a partner- this means for them simply losing a customer. They would rather keep you in a cycle with some intermittent reward but preferably without losing you.

Finally there is an huge difference between different classes of users: at the very minimum by gender, attractiveness and purpose. Casual sex is a totally different use case than looking for a partner; high attractiveness allows using the app intermittently for immediate reward, while average people need to put much more effort and entirely different mode of use. But despite all this complexity, apps have converged to a single hyper-simplistic model that optimizes maybe intake of new 20 year old users but works much worse than it could for most people.

> I would rather say something different: dating apps have zero interest in making you find a partner- this means for them simply losing a customer. They would rather keep you in a cycle with some intermittent reward but preferably without losing you.

It sounds like you're agreeing with me. The apps benefit from people staying in the app, not partnered up stably. If the app only showed people they'd have the best longer-term prospects with, then it would likely show people in their attractiveness range as a rule.

> Considering that what people want from dating apps is sex and partners, and that both are easier to obtain from people of matching attractiveness.

But people don't have an accurate perception of matching attractiveness. The average person is a 5 who thinks they're an 8. And they've been looking at celebrities rather than average people, so if you match them with a 5 then they'll think that's a 3.

And yet the overwhelming majority of people of average attractiveness have mated and formed couples and married since forever. So that's possible. If an app is not able to match them, must be a failure of the app, not of nature.

> And yet the overwhelming majority of people of average attractiveness have mated and formed couples and married since forever.

This was true up until a few decades now, but the rate of all of that is now declining precipitously.

> If an app is not able to match them, must be a failure of the app, not of nature.

Or there is a broader societal problem causing a decline in all forms of dating, not just apps.

Ages ago, people had very, very limited dating options: generally only the suitable partners in their village. They didn't have porn to distract them, and they weren't allowed to just stay single because of social pressure and (for women) economic need. It was rare that anyone stayed single, and they were generally considered weird or "unmarriageable".

So basically, people took what they could get, even if it meant someone they didn't care about or worse, someone who was downright abusive.

The higher rate of singledom these days isn't necessarily a bad thing. Centuries ago, these people would have gotten married, had terrible marriages, and produced kids (remember, no contraception back then) that were neglected and abused and grew up to be awful people.

You're defining attractiveness like boomers handing out grades where in real life that's not how the 10 scale is used, it follows video game review rules where 7 is middling.

And this is right to happen with humans same as video games. It's not centered at average it's centered where 5 is "not quite unattractive." And because the typical human is attractive the average sits at around 7.

That's a lot of subjectivity. For me, an average human is 5 and not really attractive.

> And because the typical human is attractive

Most people where I live are overweight, and even higher if you're only looking at women (my dating demographic).

I don't think my standards are very high and I'd say 5 is high for the average woman I see, just because of weight alone.

I mean look you're attracted to what you're attracted to but this is such a sad comment. You're not like doing anything wrong but reading this it's not so surprising that 2/3 of women have disordered eating.

What if I stopped showering and women found me unattractive for it? And I started blaming them, saying it’s their fault I can’t bring myself to shower?

You're ignoring the magnitude. To make this a fair comparison it would have to be something like

"Women find men's musk so repulsive that men who struggle with controlling it due to their hormones, diet, or lifestyle are showering with so much chemical exfoliant to keep it under control that it's destroying their skin."

And in that world I think you have a case that women have to get over it.

You can be like "just lose weight" up to the point where it drives a super-majority of women have an unhealthy relationship with food and starve themselves to do it. It looks like the new weight loss drugs might finally just fix the problem in a way that satisfies everyone. I have an ED and I will be so happy if I live to see generation of women who don't ruin their mental health to chase the thinness expected of us -- but it still sucks that the solution is drugging women to lose weight and not growing to find "heavier" (i.e. women with a BMI higher than 20) women attractive.

It would not be a good thing for people to find indicators of poor health to be neutral or attractive. It would just perpetuate eating disorders generationally.

Astonishing mental gymnastics to think that others have to "grow" to find unhealthy, overweight women attractive rather than they themselves needing to improve themselves if they want to be found attractive. Prime example of externalizing blame.

Men and women alike have been achieving acceptable weight for thousands of years. You don't need drugs to be thin, those are a recent invention. Do you think I don't have to watch what I eat too? If I gave into all my cravings I'd also be fat and find myself gross. Others do not need to adapt to your failures.

Right we prefer our women unhealthy and underweight. Look at this point I don't know what else to tell you. There's clearly an experience gap we can't cross if you're equating disordered eating with watching what you eat. I wish you could see from a woman's perspective how horribly women treat their bodies to be thin -- it's not healthy.

By your own measure I'm incredibly successful. I'm not stupid and know how much better skinny women are treated in all aspects of life. I am of a socially acceptable weight for a woman in 2024 which means I get lightheaded if I don't eat for a few hours or stand up too fast, I'm always cold, I'm always tired, I can never eat to full, and sitting on hard chairs for too long hurts. So when I say grow I mean finding women at actually healthy weights attractive. There have been times in human history where it's happened.

Don't want to add fuel to this debate, but what you say sounds a bit strange to me. I am of thin build- slightly underweight- and never felt this gave me any problem. Granted, it's just how my body works so it's possible that if I had to make an effort to keep this weight this would come with some slight issues. On the other hand it's also not normal for a lot of people to be overweight, this has clearly to do with culture and food rather than innate needs. So it's strange that your body would give you negative symptoms for just keeping a natural weight.

So I think the dynamic here is that it's really common to consider women who are of a healthy natural weight to be overweight. I'm not out here defending women who are 5'7" and 200 lbs as healthy but what happens is that that 5'7" woman will be viewed overweight at 150, chubby at 140, and "normal" at 130. And may god help you if you're close to 160. Which is fine for folks who's natural resting weight is 130 but for everyone else it sucks, you end up fighting your body 24/7 to keep it that way and having to ignore/suppress your bodies natural signals.

It's no one person or group's fault that this happens but it's where we're at. I'm technically not underweight by the numbers but my body violently disagrees with that, I've learned to accept it. One of the most common experiences for women in late 20's early 30's is to ease off the constant dieting, gain 10-20 lbs because that's where their body always wanted them, and suddenly feel great -- more energy, less brain fog, regular periods, and suddenly it's not work to maintain it.

Yes, these numbers make the discussion a bit more concrete. But 5'7'' and 150 is definitely in the healthy weight range- girls can strive to be thinner than that but it's to fit some arbitrary idea of beauty rather than to, as you say, "be treated better in each aspect of life" (yes of course, attractive people in general are treated better- but it should be a negligible effect for the ranges we're talking about). In other words, I assumed that the user you were talking to was talking about much higher BMI indexes than these. Personally, as a male, I don't find the 5'7''/ 150 unattractive at all- though it also depends on how fit someone is.

If there's one thing this guy is not ignoring, it's magnitude

Your dating standards are high if weight automatically makes someone a sub-5 in your eyes. I’m not saying that’s morally wrong—you like what you like. But recognize that it’s a high standard and will make dating more difficult.

The idea that real world couples necessary match attractiveness is kind of incels invention. And then they get angry whenever they see a couple with one person super attractive and other .. normal.

I find the whole argument, especially with the grades, silly. But it is true that usually partners match each other by attractiveness- also keeping in mind that attractiveness is not exclusively physical and means different things for different people. Attractiveness is not a scalar, it's a vector.

A better, and tried and true solution, is ...

Alcohol. Helping ugly people reproduce for 10,000 years.

Funnier cos alcohol as a beverage is a solution in the chemical sense.

Drinking alcohol at home doesn't help.

It's likely the going out (and then drink alcohol) which helps. And people nowadays don't go out a lot.

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