Matt_Simpson comments on Open thread, July 29-August 4, 2013 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: David_Gerard 29 July 2013 10:26PM

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Comment author: Prismattic 31 July 2013 02:02:38AM 30 points [-]

Ugh. I am generally in the unsympathetic-to-PUA thinking camp, so I offer the following not to bring up a controversial subject again, but because I think publicly acknowledging when one encounters inconvenient evidence for one's priors is a healthy habit to be in...

Recently I added the following (truthful) text to my OkCupid! profile:

Note, July 2013 -- I can't claim to be in a relationship yet, but I have had a couple of dates with a someone who had me totally enthralled within 30 minutes of meeting her. I'm flattered by the wave of other letters that have come in the past month, but I've put responding to anyone else on hold while I devote myself to worshiping the ground she walks on.

Having noted that I am a)unavailable and b)getting lots of competing offers, a high status combination, the result is... in three days, the number of women rating my profile highly has gone from 61 to 113.

Comment author: Matt_Simpson 31 July 2013 04:57:19PM 6 points [-]

Funny, I read your post and my initial reaction was that this evidence cuts against PUA. (Now I'm not sure whether it supports PUA or not, but I lean towards support).

PUA would predict that this phrase

...while I devote myself to worshiping the ground she walks on.

is unattractive.

Comment author: [deleted] 31 July 2013 05:26:23PM *  9 points [-]

I dunno, in the context it sounds clearly tongue-in-cheek -- though you usually can't countersignal to people who don't know you (see also).

Comment author: Matt_Simpson 01 August 2013 07:42:55PM 0 points [-]

Good point.

Comment author: Prismattic 31 July 2013 10:33:54PM *  0 points [-]

The irony is that the phrase was sort of serious, but in the context of a profile much of which is a lengthy exercise in countersignalling to people who don't know me, I can probably count on most people making the same assumption you did.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 August 2013 12:46:26PM 3 points [-]

More specifically: “I devote myself to worshiping the ground she walks on” is the kind of sentence you mainly say for its connotations, not its denotations. In isolation, the connotation would be ‘she's so much awesome than me’, which is low status, but in context it's ‘she's so much more awesome than you’, which is high status.