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wedrifid comments on Call for Anonymous Narratives by LW Women and Question Proposals (AMA) - Less Wrong
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Actually, I have run into enough guys who treat me like I'm the last woman on earth because I'm a female nerd that I've developed an aversion to anything resembling that type of behavior. I was understanding about their enthusiasm at first, because I want a nerd, too, but it just doesn't work to date someone when they're acting like you're their last chance. They want to move too fast, they create expectations, they become biased and won't hear me when I talk about things that may be incompatibilities. That intensity throws a wrench into the process of getting to know someone. I grok their sense of necessity about being careful in how they present themselves, and I approve of this thread (There are a lot of things I wish I could say to guys - we need to communicate, and I have been wishing for an opportunity to do that), but on the individual level, I am easily spooked by signs of early attachment, overly optimistic probability estimates about us working out, and impatience to see signs of an established connection. I go on the alert for these signs of irrationality if a person treats me "like a celebrity" or similar. For the record none of the questions in this thread (so far) have bothered me.
As for whether it feels empowering, no. First of all, my sense of self-worth is not connected to my attractiveness. I am more than my ability to attract a mate. Secondly, being one of the few nerdy women has only served to highlight the fact that dating between nerds is pretty dysfunctional. At first, it was fun to have so much attention (other nerd spot) but it quickly became obvious that more attention does not convert into a larger ratio of real romance opportunities. There are a lot of incompatible guys trying to make me like them and hoping they can magically "make it work", and the ones who do seem good have problems like the above, and I feel a need to cut it short to prevent dysfunction. I think the crazy male-to-female ratio among nerds has caused more damage to my dating life than anything - so that's what I usually think of when I am reminded of it, not how "empowered" I feel.
I can certainly understand how these behaviors would be incredibly unattractive, as well as representing 'red flags' indicating potential future complications in any relationship that is formed.
A corollary from a male perspective is that someone strongly predisposed from past experience towards seeing these signs of desperation and supplication can themselves make dating a drag. If ambiguous situations (or sometimes arguably non-ambiguous situations) are likely to be interpreted as motivated by weakness/low status/desparation/worship then avoiding such outcomes requires running far more strict, aggressive and constrained 'game' just to break even. Ultimately that lack of respect is just a huge turn off for me and one of the first things that'll make me think 'next' and move on to the next option.
You really made me think, Wedrifid. I chose not to respond to you right away because I wanted to avoid jumping to the conclusion that I'm doing everything right. So, I made myself go think it over.
Before you said this, I thought I was being patient enough with ambiguous "signs" and tolerant enough of harmless lapses in social skills. I've done a lot of emotional support for people who have problems, so I'm pretty confident that my tolerance of harmless social mistakes (as well as my ability to spot false positives on my creep radar) is well beyond adequate for dating nerds and misunderstood gifted people.
But signs only seem ambiguous to me if I realize that they're ambiguous. Are the signs that I think are unambiguous actually ambiguous? I don't know... I think the best approach is to develop a greater tolerance for them. So, I've got a goal now of "Be strong enough that even when guys do these things, I don't feel stressed out." Of course, tolerating these problems endlessly would lead to doing a lot of hand-holding, which would be draining, and that's not emotionally sustainable for me, but maybe a three strikes rule would be a good idea for me. That'd probably give a functional guy enough time to gain my trust in his sanity. Patience... yeah, I think I could use more.
And, you know, even if I have adequate patience and my tolerance of eccentricity is very high and I'm doing a good job of telling the difference between ambiguous and unambiguous signs of dysfunction, if guys are expecting me to be impatient, intolerant and judgmental, that's no good. I could lose a lot of opportunities because of their baggage due to the skewed gender ratio. I'm not sure what to do to counteract this.
You know, maybe we just need open communication. Like "Hi, I know there's a gender ratio issue, it's stressing everyone out when we try to date each other, why don't you and I just talk openly about these problems as we get to know each other?" That seems counter-intuitive on the one hand: there would be less of that sense of mystery and magic that people seem to expect but I'd really prefer bare reality at this point.
You have given me a lot to think about in your comment, Wedrifid. Thank you. (: