Category: Concepts

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Dating and false negatives

The other day, a friend said something in a discussion group that really made me think about relationships and dating and how all of this even works.

I’m not an expert on dating. But I do have a lot of friends, and I read a lot of advice columns, and so I have started noticing a pattern.

Some people think that if they go on one date and it’s mediocre (not Bad, just Mediocre), if they’re not Feeling It ™️, then it’s not worth going on a second date with that person.

So.

While it’s fine for someone to adopt this strategy, it’s important to realize that it’s not going to give a high probability of getting together with someone for the long term. (Which is relevant if anything other than one-night stands is your goal! No shame at all to the ONS people, but you’re not my target audience here.)

Everyone has “off” days.

The dating profile is a paper-thin slice of who someone is. This is fairly well established, even though some people still insist on judging a book by its dating profile.

But even beyond that, the first date is a bologna-thin slice of who someone is. It’s still not very much data at all.

If you want to really see if someone is compatible with you, you will have to date them (not exclusively, you don’t need to be exclusive during this period, as long as you’re honest and clear) for a while. Otherwise you’re just gonna get a shit-ton of false negatives.

And sometimes, for some people, that’s what they want: some people are very risk averse, or have trauma, or similar things going on. It’s okay for them to say “I will take the false negatives in order to not put myself in danger.”

But it’s important to be aware that that is what you’re doing: piling up a bunch of false negatives in addition to the true negatives. This is an extreme strategy for extreme situations. It’s not a strategy with a good chance of success.

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How to Lie With Statistics

Many years ago, my uncle gave me a book called “How to Lie With Statistics.” It outlined a number of different ways that statistical data, while Technically Correct, can be used to misrepresent reality.

Explaining why “The numbers don’t lie” is an overly simplistic way to look at the world is even more important today, I think.

This morning, I saw this Instagram post about the red wine study, and how it missed (or deliberately ignored) the fact that many “non-drinkers” choose abstinence because of their health conditions, so they’re going to be a slightly unhealthier population to begin with. I’m sharing it here.

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The Just World Fallacy and a sense of control

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/vitamin-a-and-measles-what-the-data

This post, by Your Local Epidemiologist, makes a good point about people gravitating to nutrition and other solutions to infectious disease, rather than vaccination, because they want to feel a sense of control over their environment. It’s very difficult and scary for humans to accept the randomness inherent in the natural world; we’d rather have a way to say “I am controlling what happens to me,” and controlling what food goes into your body is a natural extension of that.

Vaccines are abstract (and still a numbers game; even 99% efficacy is still not 100% efficacy), and they don’t provide the soothing effect that “actively choosing your food every day” would provide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_fallacy

The Just World Hypothesis is comforting for that same reason of control. We want to feel like good things happen to us because we made good decisions; bad things happen to others because they made bad decisions; and bad things happen to us for reasons we could not control. Nobody wants to confront the harsh reality that sometimes, bad things can happen even to people who made all the right decisions.

Anyway, go read the YLE essay. It’s very good.

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Geek Social Fallacies Again

I’ve been thinking about the Geek Social Fallacies again, and about Ostracizers Are Evil (fallacy #1).

This Reddit post summarizes it pretty well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AbuseInterrupted/s/syogLYSwkV

It’s not wrong or evil or Just As Bad As The Bullies to ask someone to leave when they are being obnoxious.

People can, and do, learn and change and grow. But they’ve gotta DO those things.

And neurodivergence isn’t really an excuse; sometimes it’s barely even an explanation. Like they say about trauma: trauma isn’t your fault, but healing is your responsibility .

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Ask Culture vs Microaggressions

A contrast crystallized for me today: One place where Ask Culture falls apart is in the concept of Microaggressions. There are, in fact, times when it is not generally okay to Just Ask, They Can Always Say No.

I feel like documenting microaggressions is a whole separate post that I’m not really qualified to summarize right here; but the go-to example of a microaggression is asking a Black person (out of nowhere) if you can touch their hair. Do not do this thing. It is not an okay thing to ask, even under an Ask Culture mindset.

It can be hard to know where the invisible lines are. But this one is pretty easy! But it might not be easy for everyone; hence the post.

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Intersectionality video

This video by Taha was a good quick explanation of what Intersectionality means. He’s a person of color (Persian, I think? But don’t quote me on that) and also gay, and doesn’t always feel completely welcomed in either of those two communities.

A lot of people have weird misleading takes on what Intersectionality means. So I try to share information about it when I can.

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Citogenesis, starring Dostoyevsky

Here is the XKCD comic explaining citogenesis: the process by which a made-up “fact” gets cited and becomes widely believed.

https://xkcd.com/978/

And here is an Instagram video wherein a creator tries to track down the source of an allegedly fabricated quote attributed to Dostoyevsky.

I haven’t checked myself to see if the quote has been found; you should also treat this creator with skepticism.

But think hard about the things you quote, and the authority you lend them due solely to their alleged origin. A quote can be no less true or thoughtful or poignant for being attributed to Nancy Schmoe from Des Moines than to Dostoyevsky; but claiming that someone said something they did not say is a bad road to start down.

This already happens in spades to historical figures like Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln, leading to the great meme:

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

Abraham Lincoln

But we (mostly) know to be skeptical of it when it’s one of those two. Lesser known quotes, like the one from “A Canticle for Leibowitz” about being vs. having a soul, or the one from Chesterton about slaying dragons, are more likely to pass unchallenged.

Stay skeptical. Don’t be afraid to push back when people say things that don’t quite line up. Don’t be an asshole about it, sure, but it’s okay to say “huh, I haven’t heard that before! Where did you say it was from?” Or “Hey, did you know CS Lewis never said that? It’s actually Walter M. Miller Jr!”

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Disentanglement

A few years back, I read this essay about “The Most Skipped Step” (when opening up a monogamous relationship).

The post itself is specifically about the context of Non-Monogamy or Polyamory. However, I find it useful even for monogamous contexts, because it’s very important for the members of a couple to retain their autonomy and identity as individuals, even when they are exclusively having sex and romantic relationships with each other and no one else.

Our society prioritizes and elevates sexual and romantic relationships above all else; but our platonic connections with our friends are also important, and can be just as (or more) important than our romantic/sexual ones. If you fall ill, your spouse is likely to be your primary caretaker; but caregiving is hard work, and should never fall on just one person. This is where The Village comes in. And having strong loving friendships is so important for that kind of resilience and endurance.

So, without further ado: the essay!

https://medium.com/@PolyamorySchool/the-most-skipped-step-when-opening-a-relationship-f1f67abbbd49

I have been informed that the author of this essay is Problematic. I do not know the details; I’m just noting this as a reminder that we should read everything with a critical eye and really try to analyze it, not absorb it uncritically. (I expect you all to read my posts critically as well.)