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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

The advice to boys/girls felt very real. And also, objectively not equal.

Girl: lower your standards.

Boy: pay a photographer to look nicer.

This double disadvantages women as I see it: Their standards are held to be unrealistic (downpoint) and they have to incur the dissatisfaction of beleiving it, and acting on it to lower their expectations. AND Boys are expected to glam up and project a demonstrably less real state of themselves, to get over this bar. So women have to accept lies, and tolerate reality.

(63, in a longterm 40y relationship, not using the apps and not judging individuals here)

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If the advice had been "Boys: lower your standards, girls: pay a photographer" I wonder if you'd have said "guys just get to be dawgs, women have to spend money to beautify themselves".

I very much might have. Everyone brings their own bias to the table.

But, remember the asymmetry in this space is large. The asymmetry of risk, of expectations, of outcome. It doesn't go to what you project as a hypothetical, it goes to the one I responded to. If you can show me a dating app with the right dynamics to demand the response you hypothesized, we can see how the numbers pan out. The one we have, it's the other direction of bias in expectation and behaviour.

Ask yourself why the asymmetry in hinge/bumble about who initiates contact exist.

With no intent of doxxing your bio page here says you're a social scientist. I'd welcome an understanding of if the current praxis in your field suggests the kind of cultural bias I projected isn't widespread, and if your field views this as "anti men" because I certainly didn't mean it to be, I simply think there is an inherent asymmetry to who has to act, and how they act, in the recommendations from this author in this space, which appears backed by data.

My view is it's mostly human nature not cultural bias. Sex differences in mating are cross-cultural (Donald Buss has done a lot on this). Whether either side can be said to be "disadvantaged" is a bit of a hard one. Compared to what hypothetical, and what's the measure of disadvantage? Having to hire a photographer seems like a bigger disadvantage than just lowering your standards: it costs money.

> Having to hire a photographer seems like a bigger disadvantage than just lowering your standards: it costs money.

The opportunity cost of entering a relationship with someone lower in your ranking system is to forego a relationship with someone higher in that system down the line. It makes sense to err on the side of picky if there's a tangible 'gain' to it, purely strategically speaking.

Yes, I also thought that. But once you've hooked your fish, the investment paid off. It feels like money trumps all other cost/benefit choices because it has strict numerics and orders linearly. "Lower your expectations $4.99" doesn't compute. "Take this temu boyfriend, the Amazon boyfriend is out of stock"

Men are judged more harshly. Men need to pay a photographer to have their picture taken.

> This double disadvantages ..women?

Sorry, I don't follow you.

Especially since women's unrealistic judgement is to blame. Women are, objectively, rating men all wrong:

https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/how-men-and-women-rat...

(I just pulled the first article that has the famous Okcupid graph.)

"blame" and "wrong" being words you brought to the table not I. So, in agreeing the bias exists, I don't cast the same emphasis as you in the situation. I see this as women demonstrably are being asked to accept lower standards than endogenously they seem as a set to believe in. To me thats a net cost on women, against their own beliefs. To you, they are to "blame" and they are "wrong"

I did say disadvantage. I own that word here. In fact, the situation disadvantages men just as much: either project an unrealistic version of yourself or be cast aside. But, thats the singular burden on men, because Women are being advised both to accept "less" and to believe the best they see, which is an artifact of professional portraiture. I've seen myself in candid shots and in pro shots and the pro shots are not me: I don't usually wear a shirt without food stains, and like George washington I am careful about my smile.

Life's not equal. This is the least of it.

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