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The Real 'Stuff White People Like'

Here's an interesting and funny look at 526,000 OkCupid users, divided into groups by race and gender and all the the things each groups says it likes or is interested in. While it is far from being definitive, the groupings give a glimpse of what makes each culture unique. According to the results, white men like nothing better than Tom Clancy, Van Halen, and golfing.

17 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. The female responses . . . by SlappyBastard · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've had a long-standing belief that the heavy preference for outdoorsy crap in women's profiles is their way of engineering the males they receive responses from. The basic idea is to frame yourself in an athletic manner, thereby driving off the lazy, the fat and the unambitious. In practice, I'd expect this to torpedo a lot video gamers, guys who live at home, geeks and low wage earners. In essence, it's a type of razor wire that kills off all the guys no woman wants to talk to.

    --
    I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
    1. Re:The female responses . . . by rubies · · Score: 4, Interesting

      More that our external representations of ourselves rarely match the actual. Look at the crazy pictures people put on Facebook for their profiles - 40 year olds with some photo from their mid-twenties before they got fat. Listing a bunch of interests you rarely participate in (unless bumping into your dusty huffy n the garage counts as cycling).

    2. Re:The female responses . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

      Oscar Wilde

    3. Re:The female responses . . . by Steauengeglase · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'll have to agree with that one. Some of my outdoorsey friends have had problems with women using that as a filter and then treating them like fixer-uppers. Granted they were also to blame. If she says that she enjoys fishing and camping, don't say yes when she asks you about fine dining and shopping. Just be honest.

    4. Re:The female responses . . . by antifoidulus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, executives make all the money while doing nothing useful(they spend more time trying to figure out how to enrich themselves than they do the company). Case in point, over the past 10 years executive pay has skyrocketed in the US while stocks are, at best, stagnant. This is why I always laugh whenever the Republicans complain about taxing the richest 10% is placing an unfair "burden" on the most "productive" people. Beyond a certain point the relationship between salary and productivity is tenacious, at best. Case in point, pretty much every single major bank in the US.

  2. Re:white men? by Wrexs0ul · · Score: 4, Funny

    How dare you think that as a Canadian I don't like Van Halen!

    Now, where'd I put that mullet...

    --
    --- Need web hosting?
  3. Anybody for a small wager? by hyades1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I bet if the site allowed you to keep part of your profile private, with access reserved only for your buddies, a certain multi-ethnic theme would emerge. A predilection for BJ's would cross all cultural barriers and leap to number one on the list of things most guys like.

    High fives all 'round. Woot, woot!

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  4. Re:white men? by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's not fair. It's hard to tell Canadians from really boring white people.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  5. Race? by agm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    White is not a race and neither is black.
    Just saying.

    1. Re:Race? by guyminuslife · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As someone who took a semester of Sociology 101 years ago, I am here to snobbishly inform you that race is a social construction and that you can divvy it up however you wish.

      (Actually, as I vaguely recall reading---I took more than just the 101 course---there's a wealth of fascinating legal history about the construction of race in this country other than the typical White/Black/Native American issues, mainly due to naturalization law. I think I remember something about Indians arguing that they were white once science caught on to the genesis, but were ruled nonwhite because they had darker skin. And a Japanese guy who argued that he was white because he had light skin, but was ruled nonwhite because...I forget. Slanty eyes, maybe.)

      --
      I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
  6. Above everything else... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    White people love reading lists about what white people like.

    1. Re:Above everything else... by mjwx · · Score: 5, Funny

      White people love reading lists about what white people like.

      Actually I like reading lists about what Asian women like,

      From today I'm a simple person and mechanical engineer who enjoys noodles, cricket and basketball.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  7. 100 Cats? by VirginMary · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, I think 100 is a bit excessive, but how about 1 or 2? I used to live with 2 cats but now only have one and think it is wonderful but what really makes my life enjoyable is the 40k comic books that I own. And no, I don't see anything wrong with being a nerd! I feel that I have been a happier person than most other people and my "secret" is to simply do what *I* enjoy and not giving a damn whether other people do the same thing and/or approve of it or not!

    --
    When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
  8. Uhhh... by tool462 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    According to the results white men like nothing better than Tom Clancy, Van Halen, and golfing.

    I'm pretty sure this should be categorized under "The Wrong Kind of White People".

  9. Like many nerds, you are over analysing by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Such stuff is an ADVERTISEMENT. The woman is trying to sell herself, so she lists stuff that she thinks make her attractive to others.

    Normal people don't spend all their time thinking everything through as if it is a move in a chess game.

    Think of it as going to an exotic location on holiday just to bake in the sun. You want to world to see you as an exciting person who has seen the world, when all you really want to do is not do anything at all.

    Really, the reason nerds often do bad with women is because they overthink it all. STOP. If women were complicated, jocks wouldn't be able to deal with them.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  10. Re:white men? by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Funny

    How dare you think that as a Canadian I don't like Van Halen!

    That wasn't an extremely polite way of saying that... admit it, you're not actually Canadian, are you? You're from New York! Nice try, NY, but -real- Canadians would apologize for being Canadian and liking Van Halen, and then would invite AC to have a beer.

  11. But false advertising hardly seems the answer by Moraelin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But false advertising hardly seems to be a way to start a relationship you'll actually enjoy.

    For a start there's the aspect that you're essentially starting your relationship with a lie. It's not a way to say "let's trust each other" in the long run. Once you're aware that she lied her ass off to land what she thinks is a prize male, what else is she lying about? It's not even a way to boost confidence, as basically if she was after a generic prize male and not after someone actually matching or anything, you're nothing more than a fungible commodity.

    But that's not even the most important part.

    The more perverse part is that it's selecting someone whose personality is pretty much guaranteed to not match hers. A guy who's actually into camping and going fishing and traveling to exotic locations, is going to want to actually do that. That's what he's interested in, and that's what makes him happy. But if she really hates those, only put those in to seem more attractive, and is actually into watching soap operas and shopping... that's not going to be all that good a match, is it? At some point down the line it's either going to mean a lot of being alone on weekends for her and whining about how men are so insensitive as to go fishing and leave her alone, while the guy is still doing his activity solo in spite of having been mistakenly thinking that he found a girl to accompany him. Or it's going to mean her freezing her ass off in a tent on some mountain and hating every minute of it, just because she lied about it before. Or various other variants of essentially not being particularly happy with what the other's actual interests are.

    On a site designed for matching interests, why not, you know, actually try to actually match interests?

    If your interests are shopping for clothes, why not put that down and maybe find a guy who's also into shopping for clothes? Granted, he'll probably be gay, but still... ;) Or at least someone who knows up front what he's getting into, and is prepared to resign to that fate.

    Essentially, I'm reminded of The Beauty And The Beast. It's apparently actually a story which can cause women to stay in an abusive relationship, because they learned that eventually they'll change the beast. (At least according to one study.) Or even essentially look for the most fashionable beast on the block, because, hey, you can change him later. Except the beast never changes, and nagging him will just get you to see a bit more of the beast part. Usually coming at high speed at you.

    In this case she's choosing to attract the kind of person which is pretty much guaranteed not to actually like the real her. It's just fishing for a different kind of beast. And if anyone is thinking that either beast will change, they're still going to have a funny surprise down the road.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.