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GabrielDuquette comments on Personals, anyone? - Less Wrong
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Comments (31)
OKC is probably not a good venue for making friends since that's not what most people signing up for it primarily intend. The context of interaction is tainted with romance.
I've had terrifically good luck making friends on OKC. Of course, my definition of luck in this case is five or so really good friends (or potentially really good friends) that live really, really far away... after writing to 100+ people.
I know this sounds sarcastic, but it was totally, TOTALLY worth the effort.
...though these friendships aren't or wouldn't be entirely romance-free. I don't personally see the need to compartmentalize friendship and romance, or friendship and sex. The lines can and do blur.
I agree with you that its a false dichotomy, but I'm not entirely sure that I can become friends with a girl on OKC who is not otherwise attracted to me. In my mind, she's not here looking for friends, she's looking for potential suitors, and if I'm not one, she simply doesn't respond or responds in a perfunctory manner, and never invests the time that would be required to make a new friend. If she does, our friendship is tainted by the knowledge that I am attracted to her (otherwise I wouldn't have contacted her in the first place), and then we're in the age old question from countless romcom chick flicks.
Yes, it's possible, but if the objective is to maximize close friendships made per time spent socializing, OKC is not the most efficient way to do so. meetup.com is.
I haven't tried meetup.com at all, so I can't comment. I've looked at the meetup groups in my area, and nothing really caught my eye.
Eventually I'm going to have to face the fact that I'm in a suboptimal area for making friends.
I guess I never tried this. It would be weird though. How do I message another guy, for instance, without that guy thinking that I'm hitting on him?
Include the phrase "no homo" somewhere in the message. Actually, I've both messaged and been messaged by guys on OKC, and as far as I know, neither of us thought there was anything romantic going on.
Well, how do you message a woman without that woman thinking you're hitting on her?
I suspect many of the same techniques would apply.
Preface your message with "I'm not hitting on you." Not much more you can do than that.
The only problem with OKC, as I see it, is that sometimes you write to 10 people before one writes back, and even then you might not be able to keep them interested -- or you yourself might lose interest. Once you adjust to this being the norm, it begins to pay off.