It seems like your dating form allows males to request dates with you. I’m pretty sure you said you had tried that and it went badly. Care to explain?

the-real-seebs:

osberend:

sinesalvatorem:

First off, dating =/= going on a date with =/= having sex with. The form is for #2. I have done numbers 1 and 3 with men and had it go badly. I have never gone on a date with a man, because I’ve almost never gone on dates, for the reasons explained before.

I would not expect going on a date with a man to go wrong for me, because it would be the same as leaving home to hang out with a guy for a while (in a delightfully gendered setting). I would expect going on a date with me to not be fun for the guy in question, though, because friendzone right out the gate. It’s not progressing toward a dating relationship or sex, so what’s the point?

The reason the form has options for guys is for completeness reasons, though. It would be weird to have a form that didn’t have buttons for a man to press if he showed up. However, I don’t expect anyone to press them, because I don’t expect anyone of the relevant gender to want to. In the strange event that one wanted to take me out for no reason, you totally could.

I can easily see a reason, or rather, several.

The simplest (and one whose universal applicability I wish to emphasize, lest it be overwhelmed by the flood of text about more narrowly-applicable reasons below) is general enjoyment — why not arrange to spend a block of time interacting with someone you expect to (a) be at least somewhat physically attracted to and (b) find unusually conversationally stimulating in, as you put it, “a delightfully​ gendered setting.”

Which leads into reason number 2: Gender euphoria doesn’t just apply to trans people. There are an awful lot of cis dudes out there (and probably disproportionately many of them in the rationalist/adjacent community) who don’t get a lot of opportunities to consciously embody male gender roles in a meaningful and positive way. Having a girl say “Click here for a guaranteed chance to ‘treat me very female’ and have me be happy about it” is an opportunity not to be missed, especially given that …

Reason 3: It’s (almost) zero-risk practice/exposure therapy. A lot of guys with little history of romantic or sexual success are terrified of screwing up their One Chance at Happiness, and will as a result (a) just never ask a girl out, at all (either because they’re paralyzed by anxiety or because they need to craft the Perfect Proposal, that will have no possible chance of going wrong), (b) One Tree on the Hill their way into fucking things up far worse than they possibly could have if they hadn’t been freaking out over the possibility of fucking things up, and/or © just be incredibly, interest-killingly dull, because they’re afraid to say or do anything that might cause a negative reaction.

From this perspective, going on a date with a girl who they have zero chance of actually getting into bed and/or a relationship with, for about the most ego-preserving reason possible, is perfect. They don’t have to worry about blowing an opportunity that was never there to be blown.

(To the extent that part of the point of this exercise is to practice not making an ass of themselves (and thereby confirm to themselves that this is actually a thing that they can do, in a romantic context), the fact that you’re a black (assuming a non-black Interested Male, because rationalist demographics; delete if inapplicable), gay, trans, immigrant Jew (okay, so rationalist demographics make that last one less likely to be relevant, but still) is arguably a bonus: If they can manage to go on a date with you without devouring their own feet, well then! Surely going on a date with a cishet, native-born, same-race, gentile girl should be Easy Mode, right!?)

And the value of low-risk practice is likely to be further increased by …

Reason 4: Given your whole Moderate Social Competence thing, combined with general rationalist/adjacent social norms, there is a vastly increased chance that if they do something unusually good or notably bad, you’ll actually tell them, and thereby improve their ability to attract women who are interested in dating men.

So, Teal Deer: There are lots of excellent reasons for men to be interested in going on a date with Alison sinesalvatorem, including but not limited to the expected enjoyability of the experience.

Sometimes some of the dating stuff is fun. Like, if my spouse or I are too tired or stressed to even consider sex, that doesn’t rule out going on a “date”. It might rule out going on a “date” that wasn’t sitting around the house.

So that sounds actually pretty reasonable.