What interventions will I judge to be the most successful at improving my dating life?
Basic
28
Ṁ489resolved Oct 13
50%17%
learn how to flirt (express interest nonverbally)
33%15%
get a hobby where you're forced to interact with many new people
17%10%
Fall in love more
4%Other
1.7%
Create a "date me" doc
4%
Spend 15m a day on dating apps (likely Hinge)
2%
Spend more time climbing (consistently 3x a week)
9%
Put up a large financial bounty for referrals
6%
Switch to being poly
1.4%
Try FetLife
1.5%
Lower your standards
0.4%
Do less
1.2%
Dancing
2.0%
Upgrade wardrobe
0.2%
Sign up for cryonics
1.9%
Go on blind dates with the women your parents have been talking about
0.7%
Make Manifold into a billion dollar company
2%
Gain 20lbs of muscle mass
1.2%
Take HRT
2%
Bi-hack (if you aren't already)
Inspired by Vlad's market.
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@Alex "modifying yourself to be more bisexual" (and thus open to a larger pool of partners).
in general, I find that thinking through the positive aspects of your less-favored gender can reveal latent attraction to aspects of them. Maybe you find penises repulsive presently, but actually like facial hair (or vice versa). Maybe rough hands aren't appealing in the same way as dainty ones, but maybe they hold their own appeal and strong suits. I'm not sure how viable this is for someone who's kinsey 0 or 6, but I think it can move 1s and 5s a long way towards the middle and I think relatively few people are kinsey 0 or 6. I think a lot of people report themselves as entirely heterosexual or entirely homosexual because it's socially simpler that way, it's normative, and they may not have thought about it that deeply.
@Austin underexplored approach to maximizing quality-adjusted wife years / micromarriages. Excited about this.
@Austin Most likely I'd be bearish on this.
The meta that makes the most sense to me is that _character count limits_ make reasonable selection algorithms nearly impossible to implement, pointing to OkC as a solution. However, the meta that makes the most sense to my friends is that _top-down design of selection effects totally doesn't work_ and a vague heuristic like "if the profile is non-boring enough for me to notice" really can create true love! I don't know which of those sides you should take (it's a hard problem, and all solutions _suck_).
Based on the above, I find that hinge's _marketing_ ("designed to be deleted") is not sync'd with it's _design principles_ (steep character count limits).
But to be clear, the part I'm bearish on is _dating apps_ in general, not hinge in particular, because dating apps as we all know are horrid, no good, evil, and ineffective.
Finally, just want to say _it's a stochastic process and has very little to do with meritocracy_, the hard part is keeping a good attitude and not getting sucked into doomerism, but if you do that the rest is just grinding it out at the casino.
Pumping this one. It’s way more sane than “bi-hack” or “become poly” (ick). Specifically, pick an activity that’s not skewed against the gender you’re romantically interested in.
Though a lot of this depends on what you’re looking for in terms of your dating life. Might be worth you adding that to the description, as I suspect that would greatly affect the interventions suggested.
E.g. would you consider getting into a single, stable, monogamous relationship to be an “improvement”? Or would you consider it as a detraction, because it prevents you from dating around more?
@Adam I think there's a prisoners dilemma view where if two people mutually decide to cooperate and fall in love then their relationship will be stronger and better as long as they continue to cooperate in that way.
So the twenty questions, kissing, sex, couples counseling, marriage, all good mutual strategies in that game.
But as a one-sided strategy, it feels like it could backfire with missed opportunities or a sub-par match.
I'd endorse something like cultivating a general sense of compassion and love for all humans.
@JoyVoid this self-hacking ("this person is awesome, this person is awesome") is seriously powerful. It's really easy to make many things work this way (and not in the "power of positive thinking" way; the technique won't make your relationship better or the person kinder or your business more successful; it will only change your emotional valence about it. So, y'know, careful, heh)
@Austin Generally for social situations, I learn best by noticing what friends and acquaintances are doing and the responses they get, and then copying what seems helpful. This is especially hard with flirting (and I myself am dreadful at intentionally flirting), but maybe if you have friends in a new relationship, you can notice how they act around each other?
@JoyVoid yay! I'm glad I helped - if you find some excellent resources/research please share it back here :)
@IdaMayer I feel like nonverbal communication has an untapped potential in my life in general and I feel dumb for not having checked it. Thanks a lot for suggesting this. I'll look into it/studies done about it
@Austin I dunno! We should talk, I'm sure everybody's different. If you want resources I'd specifically go find general resources on nonverbal communication. Do not go find resources specific to flirting it will be full of toxic nonsense.