So this guy thinks the whole "love languages" thing is bullshit, but then still pretends to be interested in it and generates fake questions and replies about the topic with ChatGPT just to sleep...
Jamil, 25, from Leicester, admits he’s a prolific Chatfisher but argues that AI is simply a workaround for what he sees as the coded jargon of modern dating. “Like, what do you mean ‘What’s my attachment style?’” he balks. “Every girl on the apps has this thing about ‘love languages’ – it’s just gibberish, but if you don’t talk about it, people are like, ‘Oh you’re a red flag.’”
So this guy thinks the whole "love languages" thing is bullshit, but then still pretends to be interested in it and generates fake questions and replies about the topic with ChatGPT just to sleep with someone? Yean, definitely no red flags here.
“So, for instance, someone said that if you start a chat with a girl by asking her a list of questions – favourite film, dream holiday, that kind of thing – then paste her answers into ChatGPT, it would craft replies that would make you sound like her perfect match.” It proved effective. “It got me a lot more dates than I was getting before.”
This is by the same guy. Wow. Alright, Mr. green flag.
Honestly, this article makes me much more upset about people like this existing than about the AI problem it's talking about. Some of the people in the article clearly used AI to help with some situations in which they didn't feel comfortable in their social skills, and then maybe got a bit too used to it. But this guy basically just straight up admits "yeah, I manipulate women for hook ups".
Manipulative relationships have obviously existed for a very long time, and it seems like LLMs just made those manipulations much easier.
It feels like a very large number of people (especially men, but not exclusively) absolutely cannot wrap their heads around the idea of dating as cooperative matchmaking. This guy, like many guys,...
It feels like a very large number of people (especially men, but not exclusively) absolutely cannot wrap their heads around the idea of dating as cooperative matchmaking. This guy, like many guys, seems to see the entire thing as a charade that only gets in the way of him getting "a girl."
Like, dude. If a woman you're talking to cares about attachment styles and love languages, and you don't, that's probably a bad fit for you. Don't you think you'll both have a bad time if, in your actual relationship, your partner has a completely different framing of what a relationship is than you do? Why are you attempting to trick this person into thinking you care about a thing they care about? If you don't care, find someone else who also doesn't care! You're gonna have a better time!
Except that some people don't have goals for dating beyond getting into bed quickly and then either continuing the relationship if it's easy, or moving on to the next hookup as quickly as...
Except that some people don't have goals for dating beyond getting into bed quickly and then either continuing the relationship if it's easy, or moving on to the next hookup as quickly as possible.
Not everyone is looking for a soul mate.
Telling lies to get sex has been a strategy some people use long before computers existed.
I don't really think this is in disagreement with what I said. Everyone is going to have a better time if both members of an engagement are on the same page about what they're looking for. Finding...
I don't really think this is in disagreement with what I said. Everyone is going to have a better time if both members of an engagement are on the same page about what they're looking for. Finding one night stands is still cooperative matchmaking. Viewing another person's romantic, sexual, and relationship preferences as an obstacle to overcome in order to get them to sleep with you is a deeply alarming and antisocial worldview.
I mean, this alone describes most of the problems with society. Those who do not care about others are a plague on civilization. Unfortunately, they are often in positions of power.
some people are profoundly selfish and amoral
I mean, this alone describes most of the problems with society. Those who do not care about others are a plague on civilization. Unfortunately, they are often in positions of power.
For guys like this it's a quantity over quality thing. They don't really care if they're a match. They just want to fuck as many women as they can who meet some arbitrary standard of physical...
For guys like this it's a quantity over quality thing. They don't really care if they're a match. They just want to fuck as many women as they can who meet some arbitrary standard of physical attractiveness. It's not about the sex. It's about the trophy.
They've internalized the idea that the more, and the more beautiful the women he has sex with are, the better he is as a man.
You know just to go into a personal space with myself. I don't want to get married or have children. It's never been a goal of mine, I've never imagined myself as a husband or a father. So yeah,...
You know just to go into a personal space with myself. I don't want to get married or have children. It's never been a goal of mine, I've never imagined myself as a husband or a father. So yeah, and I think that's more widespread than it used to be even 10 years ago. That being said hook ups gross me out, and it seems like a ton of effort to try to get people to sleep with you in this matter. I'm grateful I haven't had to try to do that. I understand why some guys feel the need to pretend and lie, but using ChatGPT is another layer of lazy lol.
I think it's pretty clear he was looking for hook ups/one night stands, since he judged the success of his tactic by the fact that he got "a lot more dates", and I really doubt that he means "a...
I think it's pretty clear he was looking for hook ups/one night stands, since he judged the success of his tactic by the fact that he got "a lot more dates", and I really doubt that he means "a lot more long term partner candidates" by that.
Which is totally fine, I think it's ok for people to look for casual sex, and many of the dating apps even optimize for that in some way. But it's fine to have casual sex with people who are also looking for it, instead of tricking people looking for a relationship by pretending to be looking for one yourself, only to cut ties after sleeping with them.
I'm sure there's enough hot people on dating apps looking for a one night stand, and getting in bed with those is definitely much easier than having to mislead people in some way. But I guess if you treat all your partners like trophies, tricking an unwilling party into having a hook up would just seem like a challenge to you.
This is gonna come across super not great of me. But in my experience, the women most likely to be okay with casual sex and hook-ups are less attractive. It doesn't work the same with guys but...
I'm sure there's enough hot people on dating apps looking for a one night stand, and getting in bed with those is definitely much easier than having to mislead people in some way.
This is gonna come across super not great of me. But in my experience, the women most likely to be okay with casual sex and hook-ups are less attractive. It doesn't work the same with guys but that's because there's different societal pressures in regards to sex when it comes to men. This is why I tend to just keep to myself though.
Yes I can see that being the case. It’s all anecdotal obviously, the attractive women I’ve spoken to who have had phases of one night stands and casual sex have spoken about it from the...
Yes I can see that being the case. It’s all anecdotal obviously, the attractive women I’ve spoken to who have had phases of one night stands and casual sex have spoken about it from the perspective that they were the ones in control and the “players”. Obviously they don’t approach the guys they just say yes, so I guess that helps give them a certain level of safety. Conversely, the less attractive women I’ve spoken to who have had that phase have the point of view of that being a form of validation.
I think I went way past the point but that’s what came to my mind.
Could be a bit of everything. But by nature of these large dating apps, we will mostly hear of the failure stories online. I'm sure attractive people wanting short or long term relationships (say,...
Could be a bit of everything. But by nature of these large dating apps, we will mostly hear of the failure stories online.
I'm sure attractive people wanting short or long term relationships (say, the top 20% or so) see these apps as a goldmine. Though they were also ones who probably never had trouble pre-apps anyway. It's also a great boon for LGBT communities to find each other if they aren't in a hotspot.
I don't know if that's necessarily true. However, it definitely is true that women more likely to be okay with casual sex with me are less likely to be attractive. Put yourself in the shoes of a...
I don't know if that's necessarily true. However, it definitely is true that women more likely to be okay with casual sex with me are less likely to be attractive.
Put yourself in the shoes of a beautiful women who wants to have casual sex with a man.
The only real determining factors are how good he looks, how good he is in bed, and how likely he is to kill you.
You have no real way of knowing the second two, so literally the only criteria that matters is how hot the guy is.
You're outnumbered 5:1 on most dating apps, and virtually all of the guys you match with would be totally fine with having no strings attached sex with you, even if they do want a relationship.
Who are you picking? The 6'5 hunk with a perfect jaw line, rippling abs, a beautiful full head of hair, and a winning smile, or me, who.... isn't that?
There are already more men than women in general on the apps, but there are far more men than women who are there looking solely for casual sex. That means there are plenty of hunks to go around.
I obviously have a ton of other great qualities that that other guy doesn't have, some of which may matter to a woman who is way better looking than me looking for a relationship, but if she's looking for a one night stand, why would she care about my karaoke skills?
I'm quite sure from the perspective of the hunk, there are quite a few very attractive women who are okay with casual sex.
Right. And I have experienced that but again I do think, just from women looking for causal sex, unattractive women outnumber attractive ones. I think in general people that tend to be more “sexed...
I'm quite sure from the perspective of the hunk, there are quite a few very attractive women who are okay with casual sex.
Right. And I have experienced that but again I do think, just from women looking for causal sex, unattractive women outnumber attractive ones. I think in general people that tend to be more “sexed up” (poly, multiple partners in short periods, rough and less mainstream sex) trend less attractive. I don’t know if it’s validation or something, but I really do think there is such a big discrepancy.
Why would you come here to repeatedly say this? This exchange is aggressive, offensive, and passes a judgement on several groups of individuals. I would encourage you to think more deeply about...
Exemplary
I think in general people that tend to be more “sexed up” (poly, multiple partners in short periods, rough and less mainstream sex) trend less attractive.
Why would you come here to repeatedly say this? This exchange is aggressive, offensive, and passes a judgement on several groups of individuals. I would encourage you to think more deeply about why you thought it was okay to share this statement publicly and why you thought it was okay to judge entire groups of people based on their bedroom activities or how "attractive" they are. Even assuming you were correct (there's plenty of literature which proves attractive people have more sex, so it's quite questionable), why would you need to disparage a group of people publicly, repeatedly? Have you considered that you might be projecting a need for validation on these individuals and have crafted a reality to fit a situation you genuinely don't understand? Also, have you considered what "attractive" even is - that is to say have you considered that some of the people you consider unattractive would also consider you unattractive?
I ask all of these questions because you jumped into a conversation with a disparaging take on large swaths of people and repeatedly doubled down when anyone engaged in conversation. This reads like bait and less of a conversation than you needing to validate your own feelings on something at the expense of others.
There's an "ick" factor for me in engaging in any sort of attractiveness rating and think people make a lot of assumptions about other people's choices and reasons for them- I disagree with...
There's an "ick" factor for me in engaging in any sort of attractiveness rating and think people make a lot of assumptions about other people's choices and reasons for them- I disagree with choosing the "hot" ripped, tall guy for a hookup, in my experience they're the least enjoyable in bed, for example - but I suspect that people who are less constrained by social norms when it comes to gender roles and sex, monogamy, kink, etc. are also less constrained by feeling the need to conform to societal standards of beauty. Which may simply fall outside of what you find attractive, but IME my best and longest lasting partners (of whatever sort, FWB or relationship) have not been the "conventionally" attractive. And for a hookup I want someone I'll have fun with, not the hottest person I can find.
(And they didn't treat me like shit for not responding to them immediately or declining a date immediately which is how most of the bad conversations ended.)
Can confirm. As a rule of thumb, the more one night stands a guy is having, and the more conventionally attractive he is, the less satisfying the experience. And it makes sense: women tend to be...
I disagree with choosing the "hot" ripped, tall guy for a hookup, in my experience they're the least enjoyable in bed
Can confirm. As a rule of thumb, the more one night stands a guy is having, and the more conventionally attractive he is, the less satisfying the experience. And it makes sense: women tend to be geared towards longer term connections even if not as many guys are, so someone who is a great lay will be snatched up by a woman sooner or later. The remaining ones are either interested in improving or not. If they are, they eventually graduate to the "good lover" category.
The ones who are awful in bed and stay that way will have to develop exceptional pick-up skills because no one will want to sleep with them a second time, so their only option is someone who doesn't yet realise how disappointing they are. I guess that's where the conventional attractiveness comes in handy.
I don't personally do hookups but sometimes I look for a FB/FWB, and outside of basic stuff like hygiene and grooming, looks are not a factor in the equation. The same would go for hookups too.
Those aren't entirely independent factors. The highly-attractive guy with all those other good qualities is also more likely to be in a relationship and therefore not seeking hookups, so...
The only real determining factors are how good he looks, how good he is in bed, and how likely he is to kill you.
You have no real way of knowing the second two, so literally the only criteria that matters is how hot the guy is.
Those aren't entirely independent factors. The highly-attractive guy with all those other good qualities is also more likely to be in a relationship and therefore not seeking hookups, so conditional on being on the app attractiveness is possibly negatively correlated with skill in bed and positively correlated with murder.
The app turns it into a competition. And if you engage like it's a competition, your goal of course is to "win". Like many aspects of life, we see the ramifications of turning it into a game. But...
This guy, like many guys, seems to see the entire thing as a charade that only gets in the way of him getting "a girl."
The app turns it into a competition. And if you engage like it's a competition, your goal of course is to "win". Like many aspects of life, we see the ramifications of turning it into a game. But whatever lines the shareholders' pockets, I suppose.
Don't you think you'll both have a bad time if, in your actual relationship, your partner has a completely different framing of what a relationship is than you do?
People would rather put on a mask and get someone around them than be themselves and potentially remain lonely, I suppose. The app also excacerbates this behavior, seeing all those swipes that won't even give you a reply back. Add in the "loneliness epidemic" and you may legitmately have some young adults with zero support network.
Sadly, in some ways a "mate" might be easier to form than a genuine friendship. I use "loneliness" in quotes, but there are some real effects being had on Gen Z that aren't really being addressed anywhere.
The apps are rife with this type of lad, one reason for why there are way less women than men on them. Most women find it too off-putting that they have to wade through an army of dicks to uncover...
I manipulate women for hook ups
The apps are rife with this type of lad, one reason for why there are way less women than men on them. Most women find it too off-putting that they have to wade through an army of dicks to uncover one decent individual. (I'm not, and I think that's because a compatible partner has always been very rare and hard to find for me - even in real life - so from a young age I've gotten used to putting in a lot of effort.)
The other large group is simply people who don't want to make any effort - they won't try to deceive others but they also won't do anything to help others get to know them. An extreme example being someone who doesn't have a single photo of himself and whose bio is something like: "Just ask".
Both groups are of course going to jump on the LLM train if even a tad technically inclined, or have already done so, making things even worse for the rest of us. But I'm sure some part of this fairly large consumer base is willing to pay for the service, so here we are.
Oh my goodness, I forgot about the "just ask" people! I was always baffled how putting up a single grainy photo of yourself and your ex (with their face blacked out) and a two-word profile seemed...
Oh my goodness, I forgot about the "just ask" people! I was always baffled how putting up a single grainy photo of yourself and your ex (with their face blacked out) and a two-word profile seemed like it was going to be successful dating strategy. All of those signs to me were major red flags of "this jackass can't be bothered to take a photo of themselves, they put in no effort to talk about themselves, and they expect me to do all the work." Classic.
With all the generative technologies at their fingertips now, they could in theory create a whole new person with photos and videos instead of actually trying to be forthcoming!
In theory, yes. I'm hoping that even that would already be too much effort for them to go through. At the moment there's an avalanche of (likely) scammers with generated profiles that might pass...
With all the generative technologies at their fingertips now, they could in theory create a whole new person with photos and videos instead of actually trying to be forthcoming!
In theory, yes. I'm hoping that even that would already be too much effort for them to go through.
At the moment there's an avalanche of (likely) scammers with generated profiles that might pass my initial vibe check but don't pass my "must have written an exceptionally descriptive bio in a creative way" requirement (which most humans don't even pass). Out of curiosity, and to check my perception, I've chatted with a few of them. They have for example a cute but grainy, natural looking selfie "taken" in their apartment and when I ask what art they have on the wall, they have absolutely no clue. Don't know the artist, don't even know if it's a photo or a painting. But they're absolutely a huge lover of art (I'm an artist and I say so in my profile).
I heard that some scammers are in fact victims of human trafficking and are doing their job in some shitty foreign country while being held captive. As if using these apps wasn't already emotionally challenging enough.
There was a quote by Stavros Halkias on a clip from his podcast a while ago that I think about all the time and I think is the root of so much male shittiness and manipulation in dating. "He's...
There was a quote by Stavros Halkias on a clip from his podcast a while ago that I think about all the time and I think is the root of so much male shittiness and manipulation in dating.
"He's trying to have sex with women for very gay reasons"
What he meant was about some guy who was trying to have sex with women not because he actually wants to have unsatisfying, underwhelming one night stands, but he wants to get another notch on his belt so he can tell his friends about it. He's essentially only having sex for the approval of other men.
It's the only thing that explains this kind of manipulation. Sex is great with someone you're attracted to that you have a genuine connection with. Most people who have had one night stands can attest to the fact that they're usually underwhelming, awkward, not particularly satisfying, and not usually worth the effort.
So why do so many guys spend so much time and effort, and employ obviously immoral tactics to get it? Why spend so much effort on a deception that will be discovered within an hour of meeting, and which obviously is a horrible starting point for any sort of ongoing relationship?
Because they're trying to have straight sex for very gay reasons. They're doing it so that they can brag to their friends about how much sex they have.
People are really shitty to people they're trying to date for lots of different reasons, both men and women.
It seems to be men that are uniquely shitty for this specific reason though. Women don't usually brag to their friends about how many guys they've had sex with, and other than maybe groupies at concerts, I've never heard of a woman having sex with a guy solely to say they did it.
I hope that one day we don't assign a person's worth to how much or how little sex they've had; and this particular strange incentive to be a shit head is eliminated.
I think the disparity between men and women for "trophy sex" for lack of a better term, mainly comes from longstanding societal expectations. And to be clear I dont hold any of the following...
I think the disparity between men and women for "trophy sex" for lack of a better term, mainly comes from longstanding societal expectations. And to be clear I dont hold any of the following beliefs, this is just my theory for why this disparity exists.
For most of history and still to this day, women with multiple partners have been shamed, called whores or sluts, and generally looked down on, even socially amongst peers of the same gender. Its ingrained in a lot of folk, at least in my country, that if a woman sleeps with lots of men, she is lesser and loses some sort of inherent value. Whereas men are rewarded and looked highly upon for being players and having many notches on the proverbial bed post, especially so amongst their peer groups of the same gender. Im sure from a pure evolutionary lense, this is rewarded for being someone who successfully propogates more of the species, but for modern sensibilities is unnecessary and distasteful.
From a lense of societal evolution, this seems to me like a symptom of longstanding patriarchy. Men were generally free to fuck as they pleased, barring sparse and infrequently enforced infidelity laws, but women were "property" of a man, and therefore would lose value if they engaged in the same behaviors, and draw the ire of emotional man children who dont want others to have had something that they feel should have been exclusive to them. Because if a woman has already been "soiled" "deflowered" "used up", how could she really be called yours? This often came with fatal consequences for the women involved too.
Translate this down generations upon generatons, and people, even women, still hold some of these beliefs, even subconsciously. They might not view women as property, but they might view a sexually active woman as lesser. So women dont tend to compete or show off the same way as men do. No data to back this up specifically, just conjecture, but I think its interesting to dig into.
As I was reading this, all I could think is that it’s like one of those sitcom episodes we’ve all seen a million times where the guy is too scared to talk to a girl he likes. So his friend hides...
As I was reading this, all I could think is that it’s like one of those sitcom episodes we’ve all seen a million times where the guy is too scared to talk to a girl he likes. So his friend hides in the bushes and tells him what to say (“The hedge, Allison. Allison, the hedge.”) but it’s just ChatGPT.
On the one hand, it’s extremely sad that someone feels they can’t make a connection with another person without the help of ChatGPT. On the other hand, it’s extremely shitty to basically pretend to be someone else just to lure a person in to a relationship.
I have read about this and I've read of two people using ChatGPT to communicate with each other. So essentially two ChatGPT accounts were dating each other. I really don't understand this. I can...
I have read about this and I've read of two people using ChatGPT to communicate with each other. So essentially two ChatGPT accounts were dating each other.
I really don't understand this. I can understand uploading stuff, or inputting into ChatGPT about an interaction you've had and have it analyze it. But why do you need it to form connection. When I was a teenager (and I mean like 13) I would chat with women in their 20s and 30s and was able to convince them that I was like 21. It can't be that difficult to catfish someone.
That's because you're the kind of person who can generate two paragraphs of coherent, insightful and relevant text on a whim. Some people really do suffer from inability to carry on a text based...
That's because you're the kind of person who can generate two paragraphs of coherent, insightful and relevant text on a whim. Some people really do suffer from inability to carry on a text based conversation beyond "yup" and "ok". As the dating landscape move from .... whatever it was before , to one where women carefully vet men for the ability to communicate, to show wit and empathy, and some level of emotional vulnerability and intelligence, we have a bunch of people who didn't grow up fostering that skill set.
I think the people using it as a tutor to learn how to better communicate will do fine. The differentiation will be between those who use their tutor to learn the material, vs those who are hoping their tutor writes their entire papers.
Except it makes the process worse for everyone else. The best case scenario here is that these idiots pasting AI answers into chats get detected as more of the dating app users wisen up to this...
The differentiation will be between those who use their tutor to learn the material, vs those who are hoping their tutor writes their entire papers.
Except it makes the process worse for everyone else. The best case scenario here is that these idiots pasting AI answers into chats get detected as more of the dating app users wisen up to this new system. And it will suck for everyone who turns into a false positive in the process. I don't get why people use dating apps, but I'm also not the typical target audience. This will ruin the apps even further for those for whom they function well right now.
The realistic scenario is that the chats will go well and the first date will flop. That's still a massive waste of time of everyone involved. And the person lying and using AI to get to that first date will have learned nothing, and in the process wasted everyone else's lifetime.
Yeah it's kind of like job interview sites and how it keeps getting worse and worse for both parties But the cat is out of the bag now, there's no going back
Yeah it's kind of like job interview sites and how it keeps getting worse and worse for both parties
But the cat is out of the bag now, there's no going back
The thing that is troubling is that a lot of anecdotes in the article start as "I used it for one thing early on...and before I knew it, I ran every line of the convo through ChatGPT." It seems...
The thing that is troubling is that a lot of anecdotes in the article start as "I used it for one thing early on...and before I knew it, I ran every line of the convo through ChatGPT." It seems that a sizable proportion of people want to use it honestly and responsibly, but as the stakes rise, they feel like they need to depend on AI tools more, and so they go down the slippery slope. What a mess!
It's really more akin to social media addiction. You get instant gratification, but, ChatGPT tells you what you want to hear. I brought up entering a scenario and having ChatGPT analyze it, but if...
It's really more akin to social media addiction. You get instant gratification, but, ChatGPT tells you what you want to hear. I brought up entering a scenario and having ChatGPT analyze it, but if you phrase it in a way that indicates the answer you want it'll give it to you. So you end up being right in every argument, you're considered the most attractive most intelligent person that's ever lived. There was a woman on TikTok who went viral a few months ago, because she was convinced that her therapist was in love with her. What made her come to that conclusion? ChatGPT giving her the answers she wanted.
That's really addicting. It's basically like having a yes man with you wherever you go.
I'm sure that's true, but in the article, a lot of the context seems to be more asking ChatGPT what to do next. "This guy is so hot, I really want to make it work! What should I do?!". And then...
I'm sure that's true, but in the article, a lot of the context seems to be more asking ChatGPT what to do next. "This guy is so hot, I really want to make it work! What should I do?!". And then the model gives a few options, which the human can then select. In these cases, it seems more like a helpful and infinitely patient all-knowing assistant to one's incompetent executive.
Reading some of the horror stories on here, though, I'm sure there are cases where these models could get really dark and inappropriate, which is also concerning.
Except that it's not? LLMs have no internal logic, the fundamental basis of how they generate text is probability. That's why the training sets are so huge, it's just looking for something...
In these cases, it seems more like a helpful and infinitely patient all-knowing assistant to one's incompetent executive.
Except that it's not? LLMs have no internal logic, the fundamental basis of how they generate text is probability. That's why the training sets are so huge, it's just looking for something similar. This is why LLMs have a weird response to being asked about seahorse emojis, for example, because a lot of people from the original training set data were not sure.
The thing is, to an uneducated user, they generate sensible appearing strings of text and can occasionally be helpful with simple queries. But they're sycophantic to a fault in a way that can be dangerous.
To be fair, the typing part isn't difficult. But this advent of online dating made dating life even more of a... well, dating sim. Less about "just be yourself" and more about "can you say what...
To be fair, the typing part isn't difficult. But this advent of online dating made dating life even more of a... well, dating sim. Less about "just be yourself" and more about "can you say what they want to hear?". There's so much competition out there and just getting to the first date is so hard to begin with. Some people may feel like there's no real choice here.
the cat is out of the bag now, there's no going back
There's plenty of time to go back. But society's been pretty horrible thus far in reversing the Black Mirror dystopia tech has, so I'm not too confident. I'll just keep going my own path and staying genuine.
From everything that I've seen, it's not that there's more competition it's just that people have opted out. There's been much said about the "male loneliness epidemic" but I don't think it's male...
There's so much competition out there and just getting to the first date is so hard to begin with. Some people may feel like there's no real choice here.
From everything that I've seen, it's not that there's more competition it's just that people have opted out. There's been much said about the "male loneliness epidemic" but I don't think it's male specific, I think it's both genders. Younger people don't go out, they don't drink, they don't do drugs, and they don't have sex (by and large). It's a smaller pool of people that do that, and the people that do tend to have other personality quirks that makes it harder for the people who don't to get along with them. So we're just in a fucked up state mostly thanks to the pandemic.
That's all true, but I think the real issue is that we've given our matchmaking up to algorithms controlled by powers who have a vested interest to keep you around as long as possible. It only...
That's all true, but I think the real issue is that we've given our matchmaking up to algorithms controlled by powers who have a vested interest to keep you around as long as possible. It only takes one look at Match.com's subsidaries to see that good ol' private equity has long invaded the aspect of dating. This lonliness is partially manufactured for that reason.
There's a lot of other issues to address these days, but this supposed "redpill" community really should be looking at the house dealing the cards instead of blaming women for their bad plays here. People have seemingly long forgotten that that term was used to uncover the true masterminds pulling the strings, not being edgy for edgy's sake.
But to more directly answer your comment, these are indeed issues that make it even harder (and dating apps stickier). A lot of it is economic to begin with; we definityely need to fund proper public transportation, build up proper third places, and encourage community. Everything is getting more expensive and Gen Z is only falling more and more behind. But the youth need to go that last mile as well and reach out to what resources we do have at the moment. You can't meet people if you're stuck inside.
As for male vs. female: from my readings it does affect both but males are disproportionately affected for cultural and even community reasons. You'll see many kinds of special interests groups if you look online, but many "men's clubs" have gone the way of the boomer. There's definitely questionable behavior promoted by such groups, but it's yet another channel that's stagnated as a place to just "be a man".
On a personal level, there are some great groups for my hobbies, but they really don't meet up enough. The pandemic relgated them all to monthly, and I don't know if that's enough contact to not be "lonely". I wish I could find more weekly stuff, even if they only met for an hour or so. Repetition matter more than how long the actual gathering is.
I think that's the thing. We didn't hear about this crisis when Millennials were our age and were dealing with the fallout of the financial crisis. So economic factors are possible, and probably...
You can't meet people if you're stuck inside.
I think that's the thing. We didn't hear about this crisis when Millennials were our age and were dealing with the fallout of the financial crisis. So economic factors are possible, and probably account for some of that, but it's a shifting culture. GenZ is more into self-improvement, alcohol is really bad for you, trad living, etc. But! It's really an addiction to scrolling your phone. People rather scroll their phones all day than do anything that takes effort.
As for male vs. female: from my readings it does affect both but males are disproportionately affected for cultural and even community reasons.
Has that not always been the nature of romantic pursuits. Women tend to be the ones that can choose and men are the ones that pursue. That being said, I don't think the effects of MeToo helped this dynamic. I think a lot of guys that came of age during that felt like approaching a woman was akin to sexual harassment. People tend to deny this, but there were so many internet posts from women effectively saying "don't talk to us, we don't like that, we didn't come out to meet a guy." So guys internalized that and decided just to opt out. I don't think that's redpilled that's the opposite, it's giving up. Blackpilled if anything.
I spend time at a community space. I recently found a laminated sign while cleaning up that says, approximately "Do not ask people out. If they are here it's because they feel safe and if you ask...
I spend time at a community space. I recently found a laminated sign while cleaning up that says, approximately "Do not ask people out. If they are here it's because they feel safe and if you ask them out they will not and will leave. It doesn't matter if you have strong feelings for them." Which obviously feels like something someone made a while ago because of a specific incident they experienced. There are other less aggressive signs still on our walls. This sign in particular I have left in a drawer.
Now, it is completely reasonable to not want to be approached romantically. And this space does tend to attract a wide variety of people, including some emotionally needy men who are a nuisance to me - a man - and I'm sure are worse to attractive women. But I can absolutely see men reading it who are not part of the problem getting the idea that they should never approach a woman in public. It's not really possible to put on a sign how to read if someone is interested in you, how long is enough to feel things out, how long is too long, how to flirt, how to accept a rejection, etc. People really should figure all that out as teenagers. But it's sad if someone hasn't figured that out and they are prematurely beat down.
It wasn't as talked about, no. But essays and arguments like Bowling Alone have been around as early as the 90's (and made into a book in 2000) and it speculates about this decline going back as...
We didn't hear about this crisis when Millennials were our age and were dealing with the fallout of the financial crisis.
It wasn't as talked about, no. But essays and arguments like Bowling Alone have been around as early as the 90's (and made into a book in 2000) and it speculates about this decline going back as far as the 50's. So this impact didn't necessarily start as soon as the internet enabled it.
But the internet is a major catalyst; it sped up effects already in motion. Gen Z having their entire life with such tools were hit much harder, but the collapse of communities could be felt with millennials and even Gen X.
The phone issue is a chicken and egg situation, I suppose. if phones disappeared for a week or month, would those addicted to scrolling try to go out? They still can't afford multiple bar trips just to meet up with people. Malls won't be rebuilt nor would any issues with parks/libraries be properly resolved. But if we did relieve them of economic/structural issues they would still likely be set in their habits. There won't be one magical issue to fix this issue.
don't think the effects of MeToo helped this dynamic. I think a lot of guys that came of age during that felt like approaching a woman was akin to sexual harassment.
It's definitely had some impact, yes. There's no real place to make romantic approaches IRL anymore, so it just doesn't happen among younger people. Small talk is also less and less a thing as well, so no ice broken even in small encounters. Pushing more and more to apps to provide these solutions (only to be ignored many more times).
There's definitely some conversational skills not passed down that keeps peers at a distance. So many issues to work through.
posts from women effectively saying "don't talk to us, we don't like that, we didn't come out to meet a guy." So guys internalized that and decided just to opt out. I don't think that's redpilled that's the opposite, it's giving up. Blackpilled if anything.
I'd say less "opt out" and more "de-prioritized". I'm sure many people may want a partner, but the effort required is higher than ever. But there's so many other things you need to do these things as well.
On a personal level (note that I'm a younger millenia), it'd be nice. But my current priorities are trying to find a job in this hellhole of a job market, and then paying off my debts. When I'm more secure I can focus on improving myself physically and then seek out hobbies that aren't male dominated (as right now, most gatherings for tech meetups are also doubling as networking opportunities). Economic relief would definitely help for me think more of dating.
Wow, I feel really torn about this. On one hand, I would be livid if someone who is a one-word texter used AI tools to "outsource" their dating habits; when I used to do the online dating thing, I...
Wow, I feel really torn about this. On one hand, I would be livid if someone who is a one-word texter used AI tools to "outsource" their dating habits; when I used to do the online dating thing, I would think really carefully about the other person, and try to write thoughtful responses. The way some of the anecdotes in here sound, it's like trying to fluff the language to get a better deal at the local market. Gross. On the other hand, I really appreciated the perspective of the autistic person who said it helped them decode their date's behaviour - that does seem like a really useful tool, and especially when there's so much stigma around neurodivergence, I could see that being a helpful way to get to know someone initially without them being judgmental in a reactionary way.
As a happily married person, I hope to the bottom of my heart that I will not have to deal this myself ever, but Dan Savage's advice of "go meet them in person as soon as possible" rings very true! Don't fall in online like with someone, only to be terribly disappointed by the reality upon meeting them in person. As if online dating didn't already suck, the addition of AI makes it sound so so so much worse.
This may work for some guys, especially when it comes to filtering out bots and scammers (those obviously won't be into meeting you any time soon). But for women who get a lot of attention, it's...
Dan Savage's advice of "go meet them in person as soon as possible" rings very true!
This may work for some guys, especially when it comes to filtering out bots and scammers (those obviously won't be into meeting you any time soon). But for women who get a lot of attention, it's bad advice.
There is a very limited number of first dates I can go on before I start getting fatigued. Accurately gauging people's personalities, some of whom will be lying to you as much as they can possibly get away with, while still making it a fun situation for both, conveying your authentic personality and communicating appropriate boundaries, is an extremely taxing undertaking. Before I agree to do that, I have to ascertain that the person on the other side is worth investing that amount of energy in getting to know.
Were I going about it in a more nonchalant way, I'd essentially be doing the same I'm now doing in the chat box: vetting a bunch of people with the full assumption that most of them aren't going to be a good fit, which would lead to my having a very non-serious attitude on the dates. I don't believe that this would be ethical. And it would still take up a lot of my resources when it comes to setting the dates, clearing out my calendar for them, getting ready, then dealing with the aftermath.
If you've ever seen people complain about dating fatigue, that's why it's happening. It can make you jaded enough that you won't even recognise a good potential partner if you do happen to end up on a date with one.
I strongly believe in vetting properly before the first date, which results in a small number of very high quality dates, usually several with the same person, and very often leads to at least making a good friend if not a romantic partner.
At the moment I'm still able to weed out the LLM-generated profiles without having to even chat with the person, but I dread the future where they may become indistinguishable from something that could be a real person.
Everything you describe I think is why people hate online dating in particular. Dating sucks, and it sucks even harder online. When I was in the online dating pool, my last boyfriend had been an...
Everything you describe I think is why people hate online dating in particular. Dating sucks, and it sucks even harder online. When I was in the online dating pool, my last boyfriend had been an abusive jackass, and I was still reeling from that relationship (although I didn't totally realize it at the time). I went on a date so bad that I cried when I got home, and my misery increased when he asked to see me again. Looking back on it now, I don't think there's any way I would have dated him had I known him in real life first, which is why Dan Savage recommends it - there's a lot you can learn about a person by spending ten minutes with them in a public place, which no amount of online chats are necessarily going to reveal to you. I agree that it's completely exhausting, and it's not particularly appealing for people with social anxiety (like me!), but if you find someone you like, the idea is to go talk to them in person as soon as you can to look for any red flags. Dating still sucks, and will still suck, even if you find people who seem worth talking to.
It took me a while after I first started online dating, but I developed a way to chat with people that lets me avoid bad (and even just uninspiring) dates altogether - as long as I take my time...
It took me a while after I first started online dating, but I developed a way to chat with people that lets me avoid bad (and even just uninspiring) dates altogether - as long as I take my time and don't rush out to meet them. I'm sure that the same doesn't apply to everyone, so maybe meeting people quickly works better for others.
I'm glad that I've spent some time dabbling with LLMs even though I'm not interested in using them in any serious capacity for work, because I'm at least a little better equipped to recognise when someone is using one to chat with me. I'll have to see how long my chatting protocol still lasts me until LLM users start getting through. I'm already considering adding a mandatory synchronous element because that'll at least make it harder for them to run the conversation through an LLM.
(I didn't read the article yet, but I want to say something about this.) This would be my worst nightmare. I'm someone whose behaviour is frequently misunderstood, not because I'm misleading...
On the other hand, I really appreciated the perspective of the autistic person who said it helped them decode their date's behaviour - that does seem like a really useful tool, and especially when there's so much stigma around neurodivergence, I could see that being a helpful way to get to know someone initially without them being judgmental in a reactionary way.
(I didn't read the article yet, but I want to say something about this.)
This would be my worst nightmare. I'm someone whose behaviour is frequently misunderstood, not because I'm misleading people or even leaving out key info, but because no matter how much info I give about myself, there will always be gaps when getting to know a new person. And people fill in the gaps using their prejudiced ideas of a) people, b) women. And I happen to be very far outside of both boxes.
I usually get better along with people with some type of neurodiversity, because they tend to have less prejudice and give connections more breathing room. Someone like that using an LLM to do exactly the same thing to me that everyone else is already doing? Kill me now. All that's going to do is hinder the authentic connection we could have formed if they were putting themselves on the line, the same way I'm doing.
As well, if you use an LLM to interpret someone in a way that you yourself won't be able to do in a real life situation, let alone a full-blown relationship, even if the results are initially positive, you're still setting yourself up for failure. At least with that person. I can see how it can benefit someone in learning about human behaviour the same way I have done on online forums for years (paying attention to people's reactions when I say this vs. that and going through a lot of trial and error, then finally arriving at a code of conduct for myself that I can be happy with). But using others as learning props when the idea is to find a life partner, and your connection with the other person is effectively restricting their ability to connect with others, is unethical.
I hear you, but I'd like to think most people won't use it quite that way. I can see how someone might get sucked into using LLMs in a way where they could filter the entire world through it and...
I hear you, but I'd like to think most people won't use it quite that way. I can see how someone might get sucked into using LLMs in a way where they could filter the entire world through it and lose the delightful nuances of human connection in the process (and you would notice it in real life by watching them use their phone obsessively). But I remember, in the long decades before LLMs, sometimes being baffled by conversations and texts I had with men I was romantically entangled with in real life, and then sending texts and chats to friends so we could parse what was happening. Usually the best advice was always "just ask him", or, if he continues to be cryptic and lacking a backbone, "don't bother with his jackassery". But I'm a bit amused to see that in some ways, asking an LLM to help you understand someone's behaviour is a modern interpretation of asking friends for advice.
This is both unsurprising and depressing. AI is a very powerful tool. Lots of people have been realizing this and picking up that tool to use it for various purposes. Naturally, manipulation and...
This is both unsurprising and depressing.
AI is a very powerful tool. Lots of people have been realizing this and picking up that tool to use it for various purposes. Naturally, manipulation and deception would be one such use.
Welcome to a whole new age of weapons we will need to adapt to and harden ourselves against (like when the first 'Nigerian Prince' scam email came into existence).
I'm kind of hoping that this ends up being a good thing over time. I have a friend who's been doing a lot of online dating lately, and the amount of texting prior to meeting up is insane to me....
I'm kind of hoping that this ends up being a good thing over time. I have a friend who's been doing a lot of online dating lately, and the amount of texting prior to meeting up is insane to me. Texting is way too impersonal and different from how people act in person, so having a protracted text conversation prior to meeting in person is just setting yourself up for some sort of disconnect, even if you're meeting someone who's a great fit for you. I feel like texting has been too normalized as a default form of communication, rather than speaking in person or even through a phone call. If people come to distrust text communications due to the existence of LLMs, maybe they'll be more inclined to think of it more as a channel to enable a meet up in person. This is higher effort and therefore can be more disappointing, but that's how things worked through most of human history. Unfortunately, one downside might just be that distrusting text communications will cause fewer in-person connections overall, as the old ways of meeting people seem to be withering away.
While I agree with you about texting in general being too normalised, and an inadequate way to form real connections, I disagree when it comes to meeting new people. I chat with people for a while...
Texting is way too impersonal and different from how people act in person, so having a protracted text conversation prior to meeting in person is just setting yourself up for some sort of disconnect, even if you're meeting someone who's a great fit for you.
While I agree with you about texting in general being too normalised, and an inadequate way to form real connections, I disagree when it comes to meeting new people.
I chat with people for a while to determine the following:
Did this person write his bio himself? (The bio is why I'm interested in getting to know him, so this information is important to me.)
Are there any dealbreakers on either side that would result in an impossible situation even if we otherwise hit it off really well?
How self-aware is my chatting partner? What kind of relationship experience does he have and has he been able to learn from those experiences? (Many people simply blame their former partner without realising how their own behaviour influenced the dynamic.)
Does he have healthy levels of patience wrt my response frequency and style? Someone who gets offended when he can't summon me to chat with him at any time, or that my responses are emotionally in line with how well we know each other (meaning I'm not acting like his girlfriend yet) is not someone I want to meet in real life. These people are often the same ones who see nothing wrong with texting as a way to build a relationship.
Is the conversation balanced? Are both people curious about each other and is there enough overlap to be able to build on what the other person is saying, both ways?
How does he talk about sex?
If someone is super reluctant about chatting first, it can seem like they put a lot of emphasis on things like chemistry and physical attraction and don't really care about structural/psychological compatibility. I care more about the latter, and I've never not experienced chemistry with someone I was genuinely interested in after chatting for a while. Obviously, it's important to realise the initial chatting doesn't convey people's full personality and refrain from becoming overly excited based on incomplete information. But that's a learnable skill.
I honestly don’t have much to contribute to this discussion cause I’ve simply never been in the dating pool, but the more I read about it the more glad I am I’m not suitable for it lol Silver...
I honestly don’t have much to contribute to this discussion cause I’ve simply never been in the dating pool, but the more I read about it the more glad I am I’m not suitable for it lol
The "solution" seems simple. Don't text for days, go on dates. It seems like 90% of complaining about dating apps is due to people using them wrong. I also don't know if you can really assign a...
The "solution" seems simple. Don't text for days, go on dates. It seems like 90% of complaining about dating apps is due to people using them wrong.
I also don't know if you can really assign a moral failing to doing this. Seems pretty in line with constructing a dating profile in the first place. The competitive environment is such that you practically have to use your best photos, best moments, best aspects to craft an attractive image - lest the person on the other side just moves on to their next option.
Naturally it's really stupid to do this if you are incapable of having a conversation in person - much like regular catfishing. But ultimately I think a dose of "don't hate the player, hate the game" is appropriate here.
I do wonder if there's going to be an arms race between polish and human touches coming through, where humans strive to use appropriate shibboleths that the machines haven't yet integrated as a...
I do wonder if there's going to be an arms race between polish and human touches coming through, where humans strive to use appropriate shibboleths that the machines haven't yet integrated as a way of conveying their true suitability? Like the moths of industrial revolution era England changed their coloration to adapt to the soot on everything, how will technology change our dating habits this time?
I'm just here to salute the term "chatfishing."
Until you pointed it out I didn't realise they coined this. Bravo
Such a good turn of phrase.
So this guy thinks the whole "love languages" thing is bullshit, but then still pretends to be interested in it and generates fake questions and replies about the topic with ChatGPT just to sleep with someone? Yean, definitely no red flags here.
This is by the same guy. Wow. Alright, Mr. green flag.
Honestly, this article makes me much more upset about people like this existing than about the AI problem it's talking about. Some of the people in the article clearly used AI to help with some situations in which they didn't feel comfortable in their social skills, and then maybe got a bit too used to it. But this guy basically just straight up admits "yeah, I manipulate women for hook ups".
Manipulative relationships have obviously existed for a very long time, and it seems like LLMs just made those manipulations much easier.
It feels like a very large number of people (especially men, but not exclusively) absolutely cannot wrap their heads around the idea of dating as cooperative matchmaking. This guy, like many guys, seems to see the entire thing as a charade that only gets in the way of him getting "a girl."
Like, dude. If a woman you're talking to cares about attachment styles and love languages, and you don't, that's probably a bad fit for you. Don't you think you'll both have a bad time if, in your actual relationship, your partner has a completely different framing of what a relationship is than you do? Why are you attempting to trick this person into thinking you care about a thing they care about? If you don't care, find someone else who also doesn't care! You're gonna have a better time!
Except that some people don't have goals for dating beyond getting into bed quickly and then either continuing the relationship if it's easy, or moving on to the next hookup as quickly as possible.
Not everyone is looking for a soul mate.
Telling lies to get sex has been a strategy some people use long before computers existed.
I don't really think this is in disagreement with what I said. Everyone is going to have a better time if both members of an engagement are on the same page about what they're looking for. Finding one night stands is still cooperative matchmaking. Viewing another person's romantic, sexual, and relationship preferences as an obstacle to overcome in order to get them to sleep with you is a deeply alarming and antisocial worldview.
I don't approve of it.
But some people are profoundly selfish and amoral when it comes to dating.
I mean, this alone describes most of the problems with society. Those who do not care about others are a plague on civilization. Unfortunately, they are often in positions of power.
For guys like this it's a quantity over quality thing. They don't really care if they're a match. They just want to fuck as many women as they can who meet some arbitrary standard of physical attractiveness. It's not about the sex. It's about the trophy.
They've internalized the idea that the more, and the more beautiful the women he has sex with are, the better he is as a man.
You know just to go into a personal space with myself. I don't want to get married or have children. It's never been a goal of mine, I've never imagined myself as a husband or a father. So yeah, and I think that's more widespread than it used to be even 10 years ago. That being said hook ups gross me out, and it seems like a ton of effort to try to get people to sleep with you in this matter. I'm grateful I haven't had to try to do that. I understand why some guys feel the need to pretend and lie, but using ChatGPT is another layer of lazy lol.
I think it's pretty clear he was looking for hook ups/one night stands, since he judged the success of his tactic by the fact that he got "a lot more dates", and I really doubt that he means "a lot more long term partner candidates" by that.
Which is totally fine, I think it's ok for people to look for casual sex, and many of the dating apps even optimize for that in some way. But it's fine to have casual sex with people who are also looking for it, instead of tricking people looking for a relationship by pretending to be looking for one yourself, only to cut ties after sleeping with them.
I'm sure there's enough hot people on dating apps looking for a one night stand, and getting in bed with those is definitely much easier than having to mislead people in some way. But I guess if you treat all your partners like trophies, tricking an unwilling party into having a hook up would just seem like a challenge to you.
This is gonna come across super not great of me. But in my experience, the women most likely to be okay with casual sex and hook-ups are less attractive. It doesn't work the same with guys but that's because there's different societal pressures in regards to sex when it comes to men. This is why I tend to just keep to myself though.
It might also be that society makes it supremely unsafe for attractive women to broadcast okay-ness with one night stands.
Yes I can see that being the case. It’s all anecdotal obviously, the attractive women I’ve spoken to who have had phases of one night stands and casual sex have spoken about it from the perspective that they were the ones in control and the “players”. Obviously they don’t approach the guys they just say yes, so I guess that helps give them a certain level of safety. Conversely, the less attractive women I’ve spoken to who have had that phase have the point of view of that being a form of validation.
I think I went way past the point but that’s what came to my mind.
Could be a bit of everything. But by nature of these large dating apps, we will mostly hear of the failure stories online.
I'm sure attractive people wanting short or long term relationships (say, the top 20% or so) see these apps as a goldmine. Though they were also ones who probably never had trouble pre-apps anyway. It's also a great boon for LGBT communities to find each other if they aren't in a hotspot.
I don't know if that's necessarily true. However, it definitely is true that women more likely to be okay with casual sex with me are less likely to be attractive.
Put yourself in the shoes of a beautiful women who wants to have casual sex with a man.
The only real determining factors are how good he looks, how good he is in bed, and how likely he is to kill you.
You have no real way of knowing the second two, so literally the only criteria that matters is how hot the guy is.
You're outnumbered 5:1 on most dating apps, and virtually all of the guys you match with would be totally fine with having no strings attached sex with you, even if they do want a relationship.
Who are you picking? The 6'5 hunk with a perfect jaw line, rippling abs, a beautiful full head of hair, and a winning smile, or me, who.... isn't that?
There are already more men than women in general on the apps, but there are far more men than women who are there looking solely for casual sex. That means there are plenty of hunks to go around.
I obviously have a ton of other great qualities that that other guy doesn't have, some of which may matter to a woman who is way better looking than me looking for a relationship, but if she's looking for a one night stand, why would she care about my karaoke skills?
I'm quite sure from the perspective of the hunk, there are quite a few very attractive women who are okay with casual sex.
Right. And I have experienced that but again I do think, just from women looking for causal sex, unattractive women outnumber attractive ones. I think in general people that tend to be more “sexed up” (poly, multiple partners in short periods, rough and less mainstream sex) trend less attractive. I don’t know if it’s validation or something, but I really do think there is such a big discrepancy.
Why would you come here to repeatedly say this? This exchange is aggressive, offensive, and passes a judgement on several groups of individuals. I would encourage you to think more deeply about why you thought it was okay to share this statement publicly and why you thought it was okay to judge entire groups of people based on their bedroom activities or how "attractive" they are. Even assuming you were correct (there's plenty of literature which proves attractive people have more sex, so it's quite questionable), why would you need to disparage a group of people publicly, repeatedly? Have you considered that you might be projecting a need for validation on these individuals and have crafted a reality to fit a situation you genuinely don't understand? Also, have you considered what "attractive" even is - that is to say have you considered that some of the people you consider unattractive would also consider you unattractive?
I ask all of these questions because you jumped into a conversation with a disparaging take on large swaths of people and repeatedly doubled down when anyone engaged in conversation. This reads like bait and less of a conversation than you needing to validate your own feelings on something at the expense of others.
There's an "ick" factor for me in engaging in any sort of attractiveness rating and think people make a lot of assumptions about other people's choices and reasons for them- I disagree with choosing the "hot" ripped, tall guy for a hookup, in my experience they're the least enjoyable in bed, for example - but I suspect that people who are less constrained by social norms when it comes to gender roles and sex, monogamy, kink, etc. are also less constrained by feeling the need to conform to societal standards of beauty. Which may simply fall outside of what you find attractive, but IME my best and longest lasting partners (of whatever sort, FWB or relationship) have not been the "conventionally" attractive. And for a hookup I want someone I'll have fun with, not the hottest person I can find.
(And they didn't treat me like shit for not responding to them immediately or declining a date immediately which is how most of the bad conversations ended.)
Can confirm. As a rule of thumb, the more one night stands a guy is having, and the more conventionally attractive he is, the less satisfying the experience. And it makes sense: women tend to be geared towards longer term connections even if not as many guys are, so someone who is a great lay will be snatched up by a woman sooner or later. The remaining ones are either interested in improving or not. If they are, they eventually graduate to the "good lover" category.
The ones who are awful in bed and stay that way will have to develop exceptional pick-up skills because no one will want to sleep with them a second time, so their only option is someone who doesn't yet realise how disappointing they are. I guess that's where the conventional attractiveness comes in handy.
I don't personally do hookups but sometimes I look for a FB/FWB, and outside of basic stuff like hygiene and grooming, looks are not a factor in the equation. The same would go for hookups too.
I know a handful of poly people and they're all fairly attractive.
Those aren't entirely independent factors. The highly-attractive guy with all those other good qualities is also more likely to be in a relationship and therefore not seeking hookups, so conditional on being on the app attractiveness is possibly negatively correlated with skill in bed and positively correlated with murder.
The app turns it into a competition. And if you engage like it's a competition, your goal of course is to "win". Like many aspects of life, we see the ramifications of turning it into a game. But whatever lines the shareholders' pockets, I suppose.
People would rather put on a mask and get someone around them than be themselves and potentially remain lonely, I suppose. The app also excacerbates this behavior, seeing all those swipes that won't even give you a reply back. Add in the "loneliness epidemic" and you may legitmately have some young adults with zero support network.
Sadly, in some ways a "mate" might be easier to form than a genuine friendship. I use "loneliness" in quotes, but there are some real effects being had on Gen Z that aren't really being addressed anywhere.
The apps are rife with this type of lad, one reason for why there are way less women than men on them. Most women find it too off-putting that they have to wade through an army of dicks to uncover one decent individual. (I'm not, and I think that's because a compatible partner has always been very rare and hard to find for me - even in real life - so from a young age I've gotten used to putting in a lot of effort.)
The other large group is simply people who don't want to make any effort - they won't try to deceive others but they also won't do anything to help others get to know them. An extreme example being someone who doesn't have a single photo of himself and whose bio is something like: "Just ask".
Both groups are of course going to jump on the LLM train if even a tad technically inclined, or have already done so, making things even worse for the rest of us. But I'm sure some part of this fairly large consumer base is willing to pay for the service, so here we are.
Oh my goodness, I forgot about the "just ask" people! I was always baffled how putting up a single grainy photo of yourself and your ex (with their face blacked out) and a two-word profile seemed like it was going to be successful dating strategy. All of those signs to me were major red flags of "this jackass can't be bothered to take a photo of themselves, they put in no effort to talk about themselves, and they expect me to do all the work." Classic.
With all the generative technologies at their fingertips now, they could in theory create a whole new person with photos and videos instead of actually trying to be forthcoming!
In theory, yes. I'm hoping that even that would already be too much effort for them to go through.
At the moment there's an avalanche of (likely) scammers with generated profiles that might pass my initial vibe check but don't pass my "must have written an exceptionally descriptive bio in a creative way" requirement (which most humans don't even pass). Out of curiosity, and to check my perception, I've chatted with a few of them. They have for example a cute but grainy, natural looking selfie "taken" in their apartment and when I ask what art they have on the wall, they have absolutely no clue. Don't know the artist, don't even know if it's a photo or a painting. But they're absolutely a huge lover of art (I'm an artist and I say so in my profile).
I heard that some scammers are in fact victims of human trafficking and are doing their job in some shitty foreign country while being held captive. As if using these apps wasn't already emotionally challenging enough.
There was a quote by Stavros Halkias on a clip from his podcast a while ago that I think about all the time and I think is the root of so much male shittiness and manipulation in dating.
"He's trying to have sex with women for very gay reasons"
What he meant was about some guy who was trying to have sex with women not because he actually wants to have unsatisfying, underwhelming one night stands, but he wants to get another notch on his belt so he can tell his friends about it. He's essentially only having sex for the approval of other men.
It's the only thing that explains this kind of manipulation. Sex is great with someone you're attracted to that you have a genuine connection with. Most people who have had one night stands can attest to the fact that they're usually underwhelming, awkward, not particularly satisfying, and not usually worth the effort.
So why do so many guys spend so much time and effort, and employ obviously immoral tactics to get it? Why spend so much effort on a deception that will be discovered within an hour of meeting, and which obviously is a horrible starting point for any sort of ongoing relationship?
Because they're trying to have straight sex for very gay reasons. They're doing it so that they can brag to their friends about how much sex they have.
People are really shitty to people they're trying to date for lots of different reasons, both men and women.
It seems to be men that are uniquely shitty for this specific reason though. Women don't usually brag to their friends about how many guys they've had sex with, and other than maybe groupies at concerts, I've never heard of a woman having sex with a guy solely to say they did it.
I hope that one day we don't assign a person's worth to how much or how little sex they've had; and this particular strange incentive to be a shit head is eliminated.
I think the disparity between men and women for "trophy sex" for lack of a better term, mainly comes from longstanding societal expectations. And to be clear I dont hold any of the following beliefs, this is just my theory for why this disparity exists.
For most of history and still to this day, women with multiple partners have been shamed, called whores or sluts, and generally looked down on, even socially amongst peers of the same gender. Its ingrained in a lot of folk, at least in my country, that if a woman sleeps with lots of men, she is lesser and loses some sort of inherent value. Whereas men are rewarded and looked highly upon for being players and having many notches on the proverbial bed post, especially so amongst their peer groups of the same gender. Im sure from a pure evolutionary lense, this is rewarded for being someone who successfully propogates more of the species, but for modern sensibilities is unnecessary and distasteful.
From a lense of societal evolution, this seems to me like a symptom of longstanding patriarchy. Men were generally free to fuck as they pleased, barring sparse and infrequently enforced infidelity laws, but women were "property" of a man, and therefore would lose value if they engaged in the same behaviors, and draw the ire of emotional man children who dont want others to have had something that they feel should have been exclusive to them. Because if a woman has already been "soiled" "deflowered" "used up", how could she really be called yours? This often came with fatal consequences for the women involved too.
Translate this down generations upon generatons, and people, even women, still hold some of these beliefs, even subconsciously. They might not view women as property, but they might view a sexually active woman as lesser. So women dont tend to compete or show off the same way as men do. No data to back this up specifically, just conjecture, but I think its interesting to dig into.
As I was reading this, all I could think is that it’s like one of those sitcom episodes we’ve all seen a million times where the guy is too scared to talk to a girl he likes. So his friend hides in the bushes and tells him what to say (“The hedge, Allison. Allison, the hedge.”) but it’s just ChatGPT.
On the one hand, it’s extremely sad that someone feels they can’t make a connection with another person without the help of ChatGPT. On the other hand, it’s extremely shitty to basically pretend to be someone else just to lure a person in to a relationship.
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be.
It's always so weird when people talk about this trope without ever knowing who Cyrano is
I have read about this and I've read of two people using ChatGPT to communicate with each other. So essentially two ChatGPT accounts were dating each other.
I really don't understand this. I can understand uploading stuff, or inputting into ChatGPT about an interaction you've had and have it analyze it. But why do you need it to form connection. When I was a teenager (and I mean like 13) I would chat with women in their 20s and 30s and was able to convince them that I was like 21. It can't be that difficult to catfish someone.
That's because you're the kind of person who can generate two paragraphs of coherent, insightful and relevant text on a whim. Some people really do suffer from inability to carry on a text based conversation beyond "yup" and "ok". As the dating landscape move from .... whatever it was before , to one where women carefully vet men for the ability to communicate, to show wit and empathy, and some level of emotional vulnerability and intelligence, we have a bunch of people who didn't grow up fostering that skill set.
I think the people using it as a tutor to learn how to better communicate will do fine. The differentiation will be between those who use their tutor to learn the material, vs those who are hoping their tutor writes their entire papers.
Except it makes the process worse for everyone else. The best case scenario here is that these idiots pasting AI answers into chats get detected as more of the dating app users wisen up to this new system. And it will suck for everyone who turns into a false positive in the process. I don't get why people use dating apps, but I'm also not the typical target audience. This will ruin the apps even further for those for whom they function well right now.
The realistic scenario is that the chats will go well and the first date will flop. That's still a massive waste of time of everyone involved. And the person lying and using AI to get to that first date will have learned nothing, and in the process wasted everyone else's lifetime.
Yeah it's kind of like job interview sites and how it keeps getting worse and worse for both parties
But the cat is out of the bag now, there's no going back
The thing that is troubling is that a lot of anecdotes in the article start as "I used it for one thing early on...and before I knew it, I ran every line of the convo through ChatGPT." It seems that a sizable proportion of people want to use it honestly and responsibly, but as the stakes rise, they feel like they need to depend on AI tools more, and so they go down the slippery slope. What a mess!
It's really more akin to social media addiction. You get instant gratification, but, ChatGPT tells you what you want to hear. I brought up entering a scenario and having ChatGPT analyze it, but if you phrase it in a way that indicates the answer you want it'll give it to you. So you end up being right in every argument, you're considered the most attractive most intelligent person that's ever lived. There was a woman on TikTok who went viral a few months ago, because she was convinced that her therapist was in love with her. What made her come to that conclusion? ChatGPT giving her the answers she wanted.
That's really addicting. It's basically like having a yes man with you wherever you go.
I'm sure that's true, but in the article, a lot of the context seems to be more asking ChatGPT what to do next. "This guy is so hot, I really want to make it work! What should I do?!". And then the model gives a few options, which the human can then select. In these cases, it seems more like a helpful and infinitely patient all-knowing assistant to one's incompetent executive.
Reading some of the horror stories on here, though, I'm sure there are cases where these models could get really dark and inappropriate, which is also concerning.
Except that it's not? LLMs have no internal logic, the fundamental basis of how they generate text is probability. That's why the training sets are so huge, it's just looking for something similar. This is why LLMs have a weird response to being asked about seahorse emojis, for example, because a lot of people from the original training set data were not sure.
The thing is, to an uneducated user, they generate sensible appearing strings of text and can occasionally be helpful with simple queries. But they're sycophantic to a fault in a way that can be dangerous.
We are in complete agreement on this front, I was just trying to describe how users in the article were treating the model.
Ah! Okay, my bad.
To be fair, the typing part isn't difficult. But this advent of online dating made dating life even more of a... well, dating sim. Less about "just be yourself" and more about "can you say what they want to hear?". There's so much competition out there and just getting to the first date is so hard to begin with. Some people may feel like there's no real choice here.
There's plenty of time to go back. But society's been pretty horrible thus far in reversing the Black Mirror dystopia tech has, so I'm not too confident. I'll just keep going my own path and staying genuine.
From everything that I've seen, it's not that there's more competition it's just that people have opted out. There's been much said about the "male loneliness epidemic" but I don't think it's male specific, I think it's both genders. Younger people don't go out, they don't drink, they don't do drugs, and they don't have sex (by and large). It's a smaller pool of people that do that, and the people that do tend to have other personality quirks that makes it harder for the people who don't to get along with them. So we're just in a fucked up state mostly thanks to the pandemic.
That's all true, but I think the real issue is that we've given our matchmaking up to algorithms controlled by powers who have a vested interest to keep you around as long as possible. It only takes one look at Match.com's subsidaries to see that good ol' private equity has long invaded the aspect of dating. This lonliness is partially manufactured for that reason.
There's a lot of other issues to address these days, but this supposed "redpill" community really should be looking at the house dealing the cards instead of blaming women for their bad plays here. People have seemingly long forgotten that that term was used to uncover the true masterminds pulling the strings, not being edgy for edgy's sake.
But to more directly answer your comment, these are indeed issues that make it even harder (and dating apps stickier). A lot of it is economic to begin with; we definityely need to fund proper public transportation, build up proper third places, and encourage community. Everything is getting more expensive and Gen Z is only falling more and more behind. But the youth need to go that last mile as well and reach out to what resources we do have at the moment. You can't meet people if you're stuck inside.
As for male vs. female: from my readings it does affect both but males are disproportionately affected for cultural and even community reasons. You'll see many kinds of special interests groups if you look online, but many "men's clubs" have gone the way of the boomer. There's definitely questionable behavior promoted by such groups, but it's yet another channel that's stagnated as a place to just "be a man".
On a personal level, there are some great groups for my hobbies, but they really don't meet up enough. The pandemic relgated them all to monthly, and I don't know if that's enough contact to not be "lonely". I wish I could find more weekly stuff, even if they only met for an hour or so. Repetition matter more than how long the actual gathering is.
I think that's the thing. We didn't hear about this crisis when Millennials were our age and were dealing with the fallout of the financial crisis. So economic factors are possible, and probably account for some of that, but it's a shifting culture. GenZ is more into self-improvement, alcohol is really bad for you, trad living, etc. But! It's really an addiction to scrolling your phone. People rather scroll their phones all day than do anything that takes effort.
Has that not always been the nature of romantic pursuits. Women tend to be the ones that can choose and men are the ones that pursue. That being said, I don't think the effects of MeToo helped this dynamic. I think a lot of guys that came of age during that felt like approaching a woman was akin to sexual harassment. People tend to deny this, but there were so many internet posts from women effectively saying "don't talk to us, we don't like that, we didn't come out to meet a guy." So guys internalized that and decided just to opt out. I don't think that's redpilled that's the opposite, it's giving up. Blackpilled if anything.
I spend time at a community space. I recently found a laminated sign while cleaning up that says, approximately "Do not ask people out. If they are here it's because they feel safe and if you ask them out they will not and will leave. It doesn't matter if you have strong feelings for them." Which obviously feels like something someone made a while ago because of a specific incident they experienced. There are other less aggressive signs still on our walls. This sign in particular I have left in a drawer.
Now, it is completely reasonable to not want to be approached romantically. And this space does tend to attract a wide variety of people, including some emotionally needy men who are a nuisance to me - a man - and I'm sure are worse to attractive women. But I can absolutely see men reading it who are not part of the problem getting the idea that they should never approach a woman in public. It's not really possible to put on a sign how to read if someone is interested in you, how long is enough to feel things out, how long is too long, how to flirt, how to accept a rejection, etc. People really should figure all that out as teenagers. But it's sad if someone hasn't figured that out and they are prematurely beat down.
It wasn't as talked about, no. But essays and arguments like Bowling Alone have been around as early as the 90's (and made into a book in 2000) and it speculates about this decline going back as far as the 50's. So this impact didn't necessarily start as soon as the internet enabled it.
But the internet is a major catalyst; it sped up effects already in motion. Gen Z having their entire life with such tools were hit much harder, but the collapse of communities could be felt with millennials and even Gen X.
The phone issue is a chicken and egg situation, I suppose. if phones disappeared for a week or month, would those addicted to scrolling try to go out? They still can't afford multiple bar trips just to meet up with people. Malls won't be rebuilt nor would any issues with parks/libraries be properly resolved. But if we did relieve them of economic/structural issues they would still likely be set in their habits. There won't be one magical issue to fix this issue.
It's definitely had some impact, yes. There's no real place to make romantic approaches IRL anymore, so it just doesn't happen among younger people. Small talk is also less and less a thing as well, so no ice broken even in small encounters. Pushing more and more to apps to provide these solutions (only to be ignored many more times).
There's definitely some conversational skills not passed down that keeps peers at a distance. So many issues to work through.
I'd say less "opt out" and more "de-prioritized". I'm sure many people may want a partner, but the effort required is higher than ever. But there's so many other things you need to do these things as well.
On a personal level (note that I'm a younger millenia), it'd be nice. But my current priorities are trying to find a job in this hellhole of a job market, and then paying off my debts. When I'm more secure I can focus on improving myself physically and then seek out hobbies that aren't male dominated (as right now, most gatherings for tech meetups are also doubling as networking opportunities). Economic relief would definitely help for me think more of dating.
Wow, I feel really torn about this. On one hand, I would be livid if someone who is a one-word texter used AI tools to "outsource" their dating habits; when I used to do the online dating thing, I would think really carefully about the other person, and try to write thoughtful responses. The way some of the anecdotes in here sound, it's like trying to fluff the language to get a better deal at the local market. Gross. On the other hand, I really appreciated the perspective of the autistic person who said it helped them decode their date's behaviour - that does seem like a really useful tool, and especially when there's so much stigma around neurodivergence, I could see that being a helpful way to get to know someone initially without them being judgmental in a reactionary way.
As a happily married person, I hope to the bottom of my heart that I will not have to deal this myself ever, but Dan Savage's advice of "go meet them in person as soon as possible" rings very true! Don't fall in online like with someone, only to be terribly disappointed by the reality upon meeting them in person. As if online dating didn't already suck, the addition of AI makes it sound so so so much worse.
This may work for some guys, especially when it comes to filtering out bots and scammers (those obviously won't be into meeting you any time soon). But for women who get a lot of attention, it's bad advice.
There is a very limited number of first dates I can go on before I start getting fatigued. Accurately gauging people's personalities, some of whom will be lying to you as much as they can possibly get away with, while still making it a fun situation for both, conveying your authentic personality and communicating appropriate boundaries, is an extremely taxing undertaking. Before I agree to do that, I have to ascertain that the person on the other side is worth investing that amount of energy in getting to know.
Were I going about it in a more nonchalant way, I'd essentially be doing the same I'm now doing in the chat box: vetting a bunch of people with the full assumption that most of them aren't going to be a good fit, which would lead to my having a very non-serious attitude on the dates. I don't believe that this would be ethical. And it would still take up a lot of my resources when it comes to setting the dates, clearing out my calendar for them, getting ready, then dealing with the aftermath.
If you've ever seen people complain about dating fatigue, that's why it's happening. It can make you jaded enough that you won't even recognise a good potential partner if you do happen to end up on a date with one.
I strongly believe in vetting properly before the first date, which results in a small number of very high quality dates, usually several with the same person, and very often leads to at least making a good friend if not a romantic partner.
At the moment I'm still able to weed out the LLM-generated profiles without having to even chat with the person, but I dread the future where they may become indistinguishable from something that could be a real person.
Everything you describe I think is why people hate online dating in particular. Dating sucks, and it sucks even harder online. When I was in the online dating pool, my last boyfriend had been an abusive jackass, and I was still reeling from that relationship (although I didn't totally realize it at the time). I went on a date so bad that I cried when I got home, and my misery increased when he asked to see me again. Looking back on it now, I don't think there's any way I would have dated him had I known him in real life first, which is why Dan Savage recommends it - there's a lot you can learn about a person by spending ten minutes with them in a public place, which no amount of online chats are necessarily going to reveal to you. I agree that it's completely exhausting, and it's not particularly appealing for people with social anxiety (like me!), but if you find someone you like, the idea is to go talk to them in person as soon as you can to look for any red flags. Dating still sucks, and will still suck, even if you find people who seem worth talking to.
It took me a while after I first started online dating, but I developed a way to chat with people that lets me avoid bad (and even just uninspiring) dates altogether - as long as I take my time and don't rush out to meet them. I'm sure that the same doesn't apply to everyone, so maybe meeting people quickly works better for others.
I'm glad that I've spent some time dabbling with LLMs even though I'm not interested in using them in any serious capacity for work, because I'm at least a little better equipped to recognise when someone is using one to chat with me. I'll have to see how long my chatting protocol still lasts me until LLM users start getting through. I'm already considering adding a mandatory synchronous element because that'll at least make it harder for them to run the conversation through an LLM.
What a world.
(I didn't read the article yet, but I want to say something about this.)
This would be my worst nightmare. I'm someone whose behaviour is frequently misunderstood, not because I'm misleading people or even leaving out key info, but because no matter how much info I give about myself, there will always be gaps when getting to know a new person. And people fill in the gaps using their prejudiced ideas of a) people, b) women. And I happen to be very far outside of both boxes.
I usually get better along with people with some type of neurodiversity, because they tend to have less prejudice and give connections more breathing room. Someone like that using an LLM to do exactly the same thing to me that everyone else is already doing? Kill me now. All that's going to do is hinder the authentic connection we could have formed if they were putting themselves on the line, the same way I'm doing.
As well, if you use an LLM to interpret someone in a way that you yourself won't be able to do in a real life situation, let alone a full-blown relationship, even if the results are initially positive, you're still setting yourself up for failure. At least with that person. I can see how it can benefit someone in learning about human behaviour the same way I have done on online forums for years (paying attention to people's reactions when I say this vs. that and going through a lot of trial and error, then finally arriving at a code of conduct for myself that I can be happy with). But using others as learning props when the idea is to find a life partner, and your connection with the other person is effectively restricting their ability to connect with others, is unethical.
I hear you, but I'd like to think most people won't use it quite that way. I can see how someone might get sucked into using LLMs in a way where they could filter the entire world through it and lose the delightful nuances of human connection in the process (and you would notice it in real life by watching them use their phone obsessively). But I remember, in the long decades before LLMs, sometimes being baffled by conversations and texts I had with men I was romantically entangled with in real life, and then sending texts and chats to friends so we could parse what was happening. Usually the best advice was always "just ask him", or, if he continues to be cryptic and lacking a backbone, "don't bother with his jackassery". But I'm a bit amused to see that in some ways, asking an LLM to help you understand someone's behaviour is a modern interpretation of asking friends for advice.
This is both unsurprising and depressing.
AI is a very powerful tool. Lots of people have been realizing this and picking up that tool to use it for various purposes. Naturally, manipulation and deception would be one such use.
Welcome to a whole new age of weapons we will need to adapt to and harden ourselves against (like when the first 'Nigerian Prince' scam email came into existence).
I'm kind of hoping that this ends up being a good thing over time. I have a friend who's been doing a lot of online dating lately, and the amount of texting prior to meeting up is insane to me. Texting is way too impersonal and different from how people act in person, so having a protracted text conversation prior to meeting in person is just setting yourself up for some sort of disconnect, even if you're meeting someone who's a great fit for you. I feel like texting has been too normalized as a default form of communication, rather than speaking in person or even through a phone call. If people come to distrust text communications due to the existence of LLMs, maybe they'll be more inclined to think of it more as a channel to enable a meet up in person. This is higher effort and therefore can be more disappointing, but that's how things worked through most of human history. Unfortunately, one downside might just be that distrusting text communications will cause fewer in-person connections overall, as the old ways of meeting people seem to be withering away.
While I agree with you about texting in general being too normalised, and an inadequate way to form real connections, I disagree when it comes to meeting new people.
I chat with people for a while to determine the following:
If someone is super reluctant about chatting first, it can seem like they put a lot of emphasis on things like chemistry and physical attraction and don't really care about structural/psychological compatibility. I care more about the latter, and I've never not experienced chemistry with someone I was genuinely interested in after chatting for a while. Obviously, it's important to realise the initial chatting doesn't convey people's full personality and refrain from becoming overly excited based on incomplete information. But that's a learnable skill.
I honestly don’t have much to contribute to this discussion cause I’ve simply never been in the dating pool, but the more I read about it the more glad I am I’m not suitable for it lol
Silver lining and all I guess.
The "solution" seems simple. Don't text for days, go on dates. It seems like 90% of complaining about dating apps is due to people using them wrong.
I also don't know if you can really assign a moral failing to doing this. Seems pretty in line with constructing a dating profile in the first place. The competitive environment is such that you practically have to use your best photos, best moments, best aspects to craft an attractive image - lest the person on the other side just moves on to their next option.
Naturally it's really stupid to do this if you are incapable of having a conversation in person - much like regular catfishing. But ultimately I think a dose of "don't hate the player, hate the game" is appropriate here.
I do wonder if there's going to be an arms race between polish and human touches coming through, where humans strive to use appropriate shibboleths that the machines haven't yet integrated as a way of conveying their true suitability? Like the moths of industrial revolution era England changed their coloration to adapt to the soot on everything, how will technology change our dating habits this time?