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Silicon Valley Singles Are Giving Up On the Algorithms of Love (washingtonpost.com)

The Washington Post: Melissa Hobley, an executive at the dating app OkCupid, hears the complaints about the apps [being unable to find good matches] regularly and thinks they get a bad rap. Silicon Valley workers "are in the business of scalable, quick solutions. And that's not what love is," Hobley said. "You can't hurry love. It's reciprocal. You're not ordering an object. You're not getting a delivery in less than seven minutes." Finding love, she added, takes commitment and energy -- and, yes, time, no matter how inefficiently it's spent.

"You have a whole city obsessed with algorithms and data, and they like to say dating apps aren't solving the problem," Hobley said. "But if a city is male-dominant, if a city is known for 16-hour work days, those are issues that dating apps can't solve." One thing distinguishes the Silicon Valley dating pool: The men-to-women ratio for employed, young singles in the San Jose metro area is higher than in any other major area. There were about 150 men for every 100 women, compared with about 125 to 100 nationwide, of never-married young people between 25 and 34 in San Jose, U.S. Census Bureau data from 2016 shows. That ratio permeates the economy here, all the way to the valley's biggest employers, which have struggled for years to bring more women into their ranks. Men make up about 70% of the workforces of Apple, Facebook and Google parent Alphabet, company filings show.

19 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Here I am reading slashdot at 5:30 PM Saturday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not surprising. Here I am reading slashdot at 5:30 PM Saturday night.

  2. 70% male? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Wow, it is almost like there is some kind of unknown factor where males are more likely to seek out these types of employment and invest the time and energy while having a greater aptitude for it. I heard that is the sort of thing that gets a person fired though so it must not be true.

    It is obvious that slashdot editors must be lying about the 70% male ratio, if that were the case then reality would be completely out of whack with political correctness and thats just not possible right?

    1. Re:70% male? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Wow, it is almost like there is some kind of unknown factor where males are more likely to seek out these types of employment

      The factor isn't unknown. It's basically avoiding people like you.

      And now you can't find a girlfriend. Wonder why. It's probably the girl's fault, right?

  3. Expectations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Can apps help you find "love"? No. Can apps help you find sex? Yes.

    The complainers don't understand the difference between love and sex. That's why they fail.

    1. Re:Expectations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wasn't Tinder originally meant for quick hook-ups, and not for making marriages like some people use it now? Just imagine the conflict when some people send dick pictures with "how-abouts" while others want to find the true, romantic love. It's like somebody didn't read the fucking manual, literally.

  4. Trying to ignore the actual issue? by Nemyst · · Score: 5, Insightful

    None of this is even remotely of the same magnitude as the core issue of online dating: men outnumber women on all these sites by a factor of 10:1, if not worse. Women get overwhelmed by the number of messages they receive and either drop out of the service or become extremely picky. Men end up with an extremely low positive response rate and so turn towards a "shotgun" approach of just sending identical messages to dozens or even hundreds of women, further exacerbating the issue.

    As long as the gender imbalance isn't solved, online dating is going to remain a game of chance and a mess for both genders. Right now, all it's doing is taking the already fairly dated (but still very widespread) social norm that men should be the ones initiating romantic advances (and therefore take on the numerous refusals and the emotional toll that goes along with them) and push it to a ridiculous limit.

    1. Re:Trying to ignore the actual issue? by jareth-0205 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You are exactly correct. It's a horrendous experience for everyone. The men who have any self-awareness (ie most decent people) get very quickly disillusioned, the repeated effort to make contact and get nothing back eats away at the ego. Rather quickly these men give up and leave. The ones that stick it out are the ones where this treatment doesn't bruise their ego - the ones that don't care and will behave in any manner.

      The women on the site get tens of messages per day, and a good number of those will be from the men who have no shame and will say fairly inappropriate things. Words do matter, and that constant stream of unpleasant things means they don't have a good reason to hang about either.

      It's bizarre that the new technology actually takes us backwards in male-female heterosexual interaction. The social norm that men approach women, in real life is tempered by the fact that women have multiple ways in communicating their interest without doing the main approach - through looks, touch, etc., in a way that is ambiguous and deniable. You can negotiate interest without actually breaking the 'order'. On the internet everything is formalised so much that it is impossible to have any ambiguity. Someone presses the 'like' button first. Someone sends the message first. So that is left for men, who have to do it without any information about whether they will be welcomed. Women have to handle many inappropriate advances, men have to approach without any idea whether it's appropriate.

  5. Re:Not Scaleable or Quick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I used a dating service to find my wife. We get along and rarely argue.

    She laid it out for me what women want. Strength to support them when they are balling their eyes out. Not 'oh I am there' but actual sympathy. Not but maybe I can get some if I act interested. But actual strength. The 'bad boys' that most men fail out to women like because those losers project that strength. But women quickly find out it is a facade.

    The service I used laid out the odds. For every 100 people you meet 25 or so you may like you. They called it 'chemistry'. Out of those 10 will get along with you. Out of that maybe 5 you can get along with short term. Out of that 1-2 you can get along with long term.

    'bad boys' play the odds. They match out to lots of people. My sister played this game in college. She hit the bars and probably went through about 20-30 boyfriends. I didn't as more than that because I didnt want to know. But she had an easy test. Commitment. She would invite me over to meet them. Suddenly most would ghost out. One she wanted me to meet and I did meet him started crying in a bar about how I hated him (I had just met the guy and bought him a beer and basically said 'hi'). Instant turn off.

    Friend zoned guys are trying too hard to be friends. Women have dozens of those. They want strength. Not fake strength but actual "I can help you" strength.

    The "I want someone who can make me laugh" is just them matching out for chemistry. Do you get along and have things in common. Like actually in common.

    Do not be fake. Women can sniff out fake. A lot of their friends are that. They live it and breath it. Men are amateurs at it compared to they BS they put up with from other women and 'bad boys'.

    Women are looking for safety. Then a friend. Dont be fake. Meet those needs and your in. Remember they are people too. Treat them as such and you might find someone you like and they may like you back.

  6. Re:I turned 18 in Seattle in 1982... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In Silicon Valley they just want someone that showers regularly, doesn't "code" 14 hours a day, and can hold a conversation about something other than their shitty blockchain startup written in node.js. I live here and it's pretty fucking obvious why most of these socially stunted retards can't get dates.

  7. Their algorythms don't work because they are BAD. by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It has nothing to do with love being hard, it's because their algorithms SUCK. Mainly because they look for "desireable" traits rather than excluding 'deal breakers'.

    This a 'one night stand' mindset - you end up finding the desirable/attractive but damaged people, not the acceptable ones.

    Example:
    OKCupid asks people if they have cats or dogs. Then they let you look for someone that already owns a cat or a dog. They do NOT let you exclude people that have cats or dogs.

    That is a one short term relationship system. If you only date people that already have a cat or a dog, you are looking for someone that won't have to change their life style to fit with yours. Perfect if all you want is a couple of months of fun.

    However, let's say you want to get married. If they love you, they will grow to love your cat or dog. It will not be a 'deal killer'. But if you are allergic to a cat or a dog, you NEED to exclude those people. You can't ask them to give up their pet just to date you. If you tried that, your success rate plummets.

    Same thing with many other such factors. If you are a short man WITHOUT a complex, then you are perfectly willing to date women, regardless of their height. You have no problem asking out someone a foot taller than you. That's healthy, non-discriminatory thinking. But if you try to ask out most tall women, you will be wasting your time, because most such women only want to date tall men.a

    The truth is short men do not want to search for short women. Short men want to search for any woman that is willing to date men their size. Guess what - OKCupid knows which women are not willing to date short men but OKCupid will not let you exclude those women from your search..

    The dating web sites are all seriously flawed by their 'show me a 10' mindset, rather than a "no deal breakers" mindset.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  8. Re: Best way to get laid in Silly Valley by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I dunno, I think I'd have more cognitive dissonance pretending to approve of SJW nonsense at work in order to not get fired than debating Reactosphere types. Ironically the Reactosphere is more tolerant of diversity than the SJWs.

    On the Alt Right

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  9. Re:Hmmm by arth1 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's not just about how picky people are if there aren't enough women to go around. If there are 150 hetero males for every 100 hetero women, there will be 50 males that can't get any women no matter whether they drop all requirements to zero.

    And to make it worse, women are even more picky. If you're neither tall nor powerful, most women just won't be interested, and would rather be alone.

  10. Re: Hmmm by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In fact, the traditional belief that men are more promiscuous than women can't actually be correct, due to basic maths. if you have e.g. 100 men and 100 women, and each man has dated 3 women on average, then each woman must have dated 3 men on average as well, out of mathematically necessity.

    It's more about the distribution than the average. Say, in a group of 100 men you have 50 who have never dated, 25 who have 1 date, 15 who have had 2 dates, 5 who have had 3, and 5 who have had 50. Then in the corresponding female group you have 5 who have had 1 date, 20 with 2 dates, 25 with 3 dates, and 50 with 4 dates. The average is the same for both groups, but any random woman you select is likely to be more "promiscuous" than any random man.

    The same with cheating. If some men are cheaters, they must be cheating with someone, which implies female cheaters they're cheating with. Or, if they somehow are only cheating with single women, then some other single men must be getting *zero* partners to make up the difference. e.g. if married men are more promiscuous than married women, then single men must be less promiscuous than single women, which is a result that would seem to be contradictory to common sense: what's more likely is that married men and married women are equally likely to be cheaters.

    No that doesn't work. You're mixing promiscuity and cheating, which are two different things, so your conclusion simply doesn't follow from the rest of your argument. But, even ignoring that, it falls apart for the same reason I listed above; distributions matter more than averages.

    Besides which, if, say, 100% of men cheat, and 0% of women cheat, it's quite possible that there is a subset of women who service a large number of cheaters. Professionally. There might even be a name for sure a profession.

  11. Re:Their algorythms don't work because they are BA by gurps_npc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1) I didn't whine, I stated a fact - one you agree with (that short men are fine asking tall women out and that women are NOT OK with it.) You are the only person here whining.

    2) What would you think if someone said "jews are money grubbing bastards?" But you are fine attacking nerds as immature perverts.

    3) Stop being upset when people call you on your personal flaws. It's OK for women to complain about men being shallow pigs only interested in sex with thin women. It's also OK for men to complain about women being shallow pigs only interested in relationships with tall men.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  12. Re:Where are the missing women? by Average · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The key words in the story were "singles 25-35".

    There are a statistically significant surplus of single men 25-35. There is also a statistically significant surplus of single women 55-65.

    This visualization is fascintating. http://jonathansoma.com/single...

    Underlying factor--there are quite a lot of 25 year old women (especially those who are single moms already) willing to become a 45-year-old middle manager's second wife. There are exceedingly few 25 year old men (especially who would like to be fathers) who are willing to become a 45-year-old elementary school teacher's second husband.

  13. Re:Inferior Social System by Average · · Score: 3, Insightful

    At one level you might think it. But, I've talked about it with a number of Indian co-workers. At least, of the castes that end up working in America, there's some *stupidly* expensive wedding expectations, *stupidly* expensive rings and gold, and you'd f-ing well better have the house and car figured out before the wedding. Because your mother-in-law is moving in. These nice cricket-playing engineers were all working themselves silly over this stuff.

    When I suggest to them that they just elope and have a $50 civil wedding (like I did), they just don't even fathom how that's a possibility. Trust me, the Indian system sucks, just in different ways.

  14. Re:Best way to get laid in Silly Valley by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Dear Penthouse,

    I never thought that I would be writing one of these, but you know, sometimes life can get pretty crazy. When I wrote a memo "valuing" diversity I though my career was over. But then I decided to sue my company and go on the paid speaker circuit. You'll never velieve what happened! I met this alt-right blond hottie with rich conservative parents with a thing for skinny engineers...

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  15. Re:A lesson learned. by ghoul · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In a marriage someone has to marry up and someone has to marry down. Traditionally men have married down as women have not really had real jobs. That has changed. Now women have equally good jobs so now some women need to marry down. But women have been brainwashed that the perfect man will earn more than them, be handsome, a great father and help around the house. The fairytale cannot happen for everyone. Some women computer engineers will have to marry baristas. Its not because there is a shortage of men, its because now women have equally good jobs and given the silicon valley costs and lifestyles 2 bristas getting married cannot afford to live here and 2 engineers getting married would be too busy to run a household.

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  16. Re:A lesson learned. by deek · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually, he's not wrong. Most women do act quite entitled. He just failed to mention that most men also act that way as well.

    I call this phenomenon the natural population governor of the developing world. The more materialistic we become, the more choosy we are about our partners, the less we spawn. I've often thought that China didn't need a law for birth restriction. They just had to give them bling.