Personal Ads and what actually matters.

So...I'm guessing you all have heard of eHarmony.

And of course other dating sites that do pretty much the same thing, if not at least you've probably heard of personal ads in newspapers.

Before I get into why that's relevant to what I'm saying, I just want to make a point.

Labels, for the most part, are very...silly.

I could explain myself to you in the vaguest terms while seeming to look like I'm being specific.

I could tell you I'm a leftist, a democrat, a liberal, a social progressive, I'm pro liberty, I'm pro-freedom, and I like learning new things.

But what did I really just say about myself? I could have said a whole bunch of different things just in that one description. saying I'm a leftist means simply that I'm not on the right. Whatever the hell that means. It doesn't tell you to what degree, it doesn't tell you what specifically about leftist ideologies I like, it doesn't tell you anything substantial about myself. Same with democrat, same with liberal, same with social progressive, and especially true when I say I'm 'pro-liberty' or 'pro-freedom'. You have no idea what that means, but they seem rather intuitive so your mind will simply fill in all the blanks. But what your mind fills into those blanks might in fact have little to nothing to actually do with me.

Personal ads, for me, are a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

It's easy to parody a personal ad because they're a complete fiction. They are precisely, in the most important ways...disconnected from a real human being. People in general don't really like long walks on the beaches. People in general don't really like pina colodas. All of these things are simply an advertisement saying, "If you date me once, I will put these things around you in order to seduce you." Even if I describe what I look like: 6 foot, 200 odd pounds, that's not who I AM, that's just what you get to sleep with. That's what I mean when I say that these ads, and descriptions we give ourselves are disconnected in the most important way with what should really be what we're trying to get across. Especially to find a partner for instance.

If I were to write a personal ad, here's what I would say:

I don't like most things that are fun. I take things way too seriously a lot of the time. I usually prefer my own company to everyone else's, I will almost certainly hate all of your friends, I have strong opinions, and i'm a creature of habit(I smoke, for instance).

And while that would make me unattractive to most people, it says FAR more about me than 90% of the ads you'll find, and it's the truth too.

So I pose this question to fakku.

Would you prefer someone to give you some labels and body measurements and vague interests you're not sure if they really have when you're looking for someone to date or be with or communicate with on a friendly level?

Or would you prefer to know all of the true, yet unpleasant things about that person to get all the surprises out of the way, and know this person far better than in the former condition?

And something I think can spark interesting conversation as well: What do you think of labels? Are they too vague to use to describe yourself? Do you like them? If not, why not? If so, why?

Let's admit it , if you're low enough to go a dating site , the description doesn't really matter , you'll take almost anything , description is irrelevant in my oppinion . But to actualy answer the question if i would hypoteticly go on a dating site i would answer ; truth , which you don't find on a dating site , that's why i don't use them .

And yeah , fuck labels , they are so irrelevant , instead of saying i'm this or that , i just explain my oppinion and ideas on the subject .

[color=#2e1a6b]I actually agree with you. Labels are quite silly, and can easily be used to inaccurately describe someone. There are 2 main problems with labels. First, they lead people to make false assumptions:

Person has X attribute
Label has X and Y attributes
Therefore, Person has Y attribute

This is Obviously fallacious logic, yet it gets used very often. For example, people might observe that this person supports welfare and social programs; that person will probably be labeled a democrat. People will assume that he supports minimum wage and unemployment because he's a democrat, even though they have no basis for this assumption. Someone might claim that Obama's birth certificate was forged, and then some asshole will label him a birther, and assume he makes claims that other people under that label make.

The 2nd problem with labels is that they rarely have precise definitions. As a result, People will have different opinions as to what defines each label. Someone might think that "conservative" means christian values, while others might think "conservative" means limited government. When we use labels to describe ourselves, it will probably be interpreted differently by the listener.

EDIT: is this an example of fallacy of division?

As Lelouch said, this can't be happening: I agree with you :D. Labels, stereotypes, etc do not tell the fabric of a person and therefore, I at least frown down upon them. And people making assumptions based off a vague position or a personality statement, etc is just silly. Precisely because they don't have precise definitions.

To answer the question, I'd rather know all of the details, including the ugly of a potential partner I'm with. If there's a girl I like, and it turns out she's a kinkster, that'll please me in more ways than one.

But if a girl posts an ad purporting kinkism and then has a very conservative, no-nonsense approach to the bed and life, it's like buying an item: Ya got ripped off.

So yeah, Biglundi this is FTW. Excellent Post.

It's funny, I post something my nemesis' actually agree with me on, and I still see I've gotten 2 rep, and minus 2 rep for the post, there seems to be a war going on to make sure every post I make is neg repped. I really must have gotten to someone.

As some of you know I have a youtube channel. And recently on youtube this very issue came up with the word "christian." an atheist on youtube found out another user was a christian, and then began to assign him a whole bunch of fundamentalist beliefs, called him a nazi, a child murderer, a racist, all the worst things you cvan think of because, "It's in the bible!"

His poor reading of the bible aside, this made me and many others rather uncomfortable. Simply because one has a label doesn't mean you get to ascribe all of the most fringe beliefs of that label to that person and then insult them for holding those beliefs when they don't even have them.

[color=#2e1a6b]I think most of Fakku hates you...

:D


[color=#2e1a6b]Not sure what you're talking about. I unsubscribed after your rant about me being a fucking cocksucker

Not sure why...



[color=#2e1a6b]Not sure what you're talking about. I unsubscribed after your rant about me being a fucking cocksucker[/quote]

Yeah...I think I overreacted just a smidge.

I'm too lazy to look into it but, isn't eharmony one of the services that use an extensive questionare to try and more easily/accurately match people? if so, wouldn't the limited discription be much more effective based on users assumption that they are already a fairly close match to the profiles they're viewing?





that you never will know, is why they hate you.

They go according to interests. But if everyone puts down the same vague interests that in reality have little substantial meaning, then people are probably not going to be very well matched up.



that you never will know, is why they hate you.[/quote]

Meh, good for them. I couldn't care less to be honest. It's funny though, almost every other week I get a private message going, "Why is your rep so low? You seem reasonable enough..." It's funny to me.