I kind of love it that guys like this exist. As a single man I can often really stand out by being charming, funny and flirty without having to talk about my junk in the first 30 seconds. Works wonders for getting dates.
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This is something that I really and honestly donāt know how to express, so please feel free to suggest how I can improve this.
I tried mentioning that I believed these women, and I was called out on it because I also suggested some can be false. I certainly donāt want to victim blame which is why I was trying to lend by statement of belief. Still, literally every day on BoingBoing, I see someone accused a astroturfing or sock-puppeting. We know people sometimes lie. How can I express that safely without making it an attack on a victim (which is certainly not my intention)? I mean, letās say you hate me, you make a fake dating profile with my info and say horrible verbal things to people. In this case, the female was still attacked by the horrible things said, but I was not to blame either, I was impersonated. Canāt this happen? How can I discuss this without making it an offensive attack on a victim?
I am genuinely asking for advice, because Iād like to change how I discourse online so I donāt alienate people Iād rather be working with.
edit: if possible if wrecksdart can reply too, since i specifically was called out by you, Iād like to know how I can express this without it being a fight in the future.
Undoubtedly, but I would submit that, using history as a guide, it is ever-so-common for women (and minorities) to be treated like shit because of something they didnāt invite, and even if they did (invite conversation), to be ignored or verbally abused when they make their views known that they donāt want that kind of contact. Itās just normal, sadly, and to explain it away as being a simple misunderstanding or a targeted framing is to ignore that it happens all the time. Hell, my female friends have no shortage of online horror stories about dick pics and the likeāitās still part of the culture, for whatever reason. Itās male privilege at its worst.
As for what we might do about it, well, Iām sure there are a host of suggestions, but Iād think we could start by trying to recapture some kind of fundamental civility in our communications. Would a petition system on tinder work? I havenāt the faintest, but keep in mind thatās putting the onus on the person who is being harmed in this case. Itās reactive, instead of proactive. I donāt have a better solution than the one featured above, except to say that when men are communicating online with women and one of those women has just turned him down, maybe donāt rush right to the most vile and hurtful language to convey the disappointment.
EDIT: I wanted to add this article about privilege but forgot to do so previously: Douchebagāthe white racial slur weāve all been waiting for".
SECOND FUCKEN EDIT: Figured this would be germane to @Diomedes question as to how tech can be leveraged to fix the herp derps of the world: GlennF on collaborative social blocking
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I was typing out a response, but wrecksdart beat me to it. While it basically subsumes my original post, I am generally against doxxing or other forms of online vigilante justice. As the article mentions, it is unclear whether publicly shaming these people is actually useful (in the context of getting them to reform) or just cathartic for the victims.
The proposal (also mentioned in the article) that dating services, such as OkCupid or Tinder, should have more robust filtering seems like a good one, but I have no idea how it would actually work in practice.
First, I want to really thank you for your reply. I wasnāt sure if I was inviting a bad scenario when I asked you, and I want to thank you.
See this is what I was trying to capture but I wrote it badly as you pointed out. I would believe that 99%+ of these cases are the guy is being a dick. I just acknowledge that a malicious tiny number of people may exist (the same scum balls who dox people, they do other bad stuff too). The US law is maybe a bad example, I donāt know, but criminal justice requires a measure of ābeyond reasonable doubtā which is not āstatistically likelyā nor āpreponderance of evidenceā. I donāt want to see people being treated unjustly even in a minority case ā¦ and thatās why I spoke up. But I feel bad suggesting this because I donāt want to marginalize the vast majority. I guess this is why I thought of moderation, because even if someone is the 1% falsely accused, the worst case scenario is they lose their tinder account, and that seems like an acceptable risk (in my mind at leastā¦).
Isnāt this shaming system also reactive? Or is it the hope to build a reputation system for future people to avoid problems?
Would that I could change other peopleās behaviorsā¦ I wonder if we could machine learn an algorithm to detect a hate put down and automagically rewrite it:
Jerk says: Iām super insecure with myself! [see original]
Or after you turn down a guy/gal if it would just place them on ignore. I donāt know much about how tinder works, if theyāre communicating through the app itself it seems possible, but if youāre off into SMS probably no shot at something cool like this.
Before I reach for a petition, I went to tinderās website and I found this:
Iāve sent them an e-mail linking them to this website and marking it as a product of an unmoderated populace. Iāve suggested a solution of moderation or karma. Iāll post back if I get a non-machine generated reply. Feel free to contact them as well, maybe itās a good first step to make them aware of the abuse.
Again, thank you for taking the time to reply to me.
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OKcreepsters often posts examples of good messages that they get.
I only have a very brief experience with dating sites myself, but as a woman I can say those āwholesome and acceptableā messages are often the ones that just consist of āhey hotty lolā and āHi whatās up?ā When you have 40 or so of those in your inbox, you donāt have much interest in replying to those, either. The rest of them were mostly guys who obviously hadnāt read anything Iād written, or didnāt care.
A message that was both wholesome and polite and actually mentioned something Iād said was a veritable unicorn. I went out with that guy. That. ONE. Guy.
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And?
Tell us more about @Mister44 !
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Pretty much any of these dating websites illustrate why you donāt get a āno thanksā. It sucks, for the person who writes a thoughtful message. But our experience leads us to believe that nothing good comes of even a āno thank you.ā Either weāre suddenly fat and ugly, or they want to argue about it.
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Well thatās unfortunate. The few people who did say something like that I actually thanked for the courtesy of a reply. I guess I am weird. Or maybe old. Or both. Well if you excuse me, I have to wash my windowless van before heading back down by the riverā¦
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Aye, that site is something of an exception. I sure wouldnāt say āoftenā, though.
Unicorns are abundant in comparison to the replies I get to my messages. Iād like to think theyāre wholesome and polite, but of course in the vacuum of feedback I have no particular way of knowing. I would try varying my approach, but I suspect thatās what inspired some of the messages on exposition.
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In my experience of years ago, you got many many more replies if your message included an email address to reply to. I assume that most people are not paying for the service and hence can receive but not send messages?
Also, as @manybellsdown says, I suspect women get tons of messages, most of which are dreadful, which might sour them on the whole idea? shrugs
[quote=ādaneel, post:33, topic:43963ā]In my experience of years ago, you got many many more replies if your message included an email address to reply to. I assume that most people are not paying for the service and hence can receive but not send messages?[/quote]You assume incorrectly. Sending and receiving messages on OKCupid and PlentyOfFish does not require payment of a fee.
I had a look at Geek2Geek once, which did require a fee, but even that allowed non-paying members to reply to messages sent by paying members, or so I understood. The local community on that one was too small to make it worthwhile. I think eHarmony is similar; in theory, the requirement of a fee is a barrier to those unwilling to take online dating seriously.
āIn short, consider you may be dealing with wounded animals in pain.ā
I hate to break it to you, but depending on where you live, there is most likely a surplus of well-though-out, polite messages from men in addition to a deluge of bad ones. The volumes are just incomparable. Women get more messages period. Most of those are probably shit, but baseline decency is not enough to elevate you above the rest.
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