Relsqui comments on Love and Rationality: Less Wrongers on OKCupid - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Relsqui 11 October 2010 06:35AM

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Comment author: mattnewport 15 October 2010 06:31:18PM 3 points [-]

This confuses me, because it seems to imply that men need to believe that a simple personality heuristic can be applied to all or almost all women. Why is it an unacceptable answer that some women like one thing, and some like another?

The prevalence of different personality types in the population is very relevant here and you seem to be glossing over it. If the number of women attracted to your personality type is relatively low (and especially if it is low relative to the number of other men similar to you) it will still be an obstacle you need to overcome in finding a partner even if you believe that there are women out there who would be attracted to you. Internet dating has probably helped with this a bit by making it easier to find potential matches but it can't overcome seriously unfavourable relative numbers.

Comment author: Relsqui 15 October 2010 06:48:06PM 2 points [-]

Certainly! If he'd said "women who might like me tend to also like ..." I'd have understood. My confusion was because there was no such qualification, or anything else limiting the population under discussion beyond "women," but the commenter seemed to expect consistency within that population.

The prevalence of different personality types in the population is very relevant here and you seem to be glossing over it.

This is what I thought I was saying. :)

Comment author: mattnewport 15 October 2010 07:07:15PM 4 points [-]

I assumed he was saying something like "the majority of women prefer a man more 'masculine' than the median man". By analogy, if it is true that "the majority of men prefer a woman who is slimmer than the median woman" it should be obvious that being overweight will make it harder for a woman to find a match even if there are men who prefer less slim women. Saying "men prefer slim women" is a slightly sloppy generalization but not an unreasonable one in this example.

Comment author: Relsqui 16 October 2010 10:36:56PM *  0 points [-]

We might be looking at different parts of the comment under discussion, because I've completely lost the correlation between what we're talking about and what I actually read. At this point I'd rather just drop it.