> torschlusspanik

What an awesome word! TIL that it's German for 'gate-shut-panic', [1] or 'fear that time is running out' apparently. Literally the feeling that medieval peasants had when the castle gates were closing for an upcoming onslaught by enemies.

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Torschlusspanik

Interesting, because the modern usage is more from the perspective of the onslaughting invaders, panicking that the gate may close before they arrive.

Sounds like a whole lot torschlusspanik. But you've already pointed that out. Look, you've got a lot going for you except your outlook on how you think the dating world is going to perceive you. I've never really understood why apps like Tinder are labelled shallow, when in actual fact they mimic life more accurately than, say, OKC for example. IRL,I imagine, that you like the way somebody looks before saying hello to them, then you start talking to them until they do something weird that disqualifies them or they do something that you really like and you take it further. I think Tinder captures this model of interaction perfectly. In real-life 3D interactions, nobody is walking around with a bio with their hobbies,likes, dislikes and pet-peeves. Tinder may be scary because it so perfectly captures reality in it's raw unfiltered form. Anyway, I don't think I'd be able to convince you that you would probably do quite well in the dating world and that there really is nothing to be so besorgt about. I don't think people's views on dating have shifted that much even though the method of introduction has. You should go out and just test your assumptions and find out that many of them are really quite unfounded.

Dating has always been annoying. For guys, pre-internet dating heavily, heavily favored the outgoing and macho. Does this sound like you? Finding single women was at least as much of a chore then as now, and unless you were something of a pickup artist, it was just as awkward actually initiating a relationship out of the context of a few circumstances where introductions are easy (parties, a bar scene, etc.).

Also, consider how scripted and industrialized the quest for "serendipity" actually was - for most people, it amounted to an otherwise boring trawl through bars often devoid of anyone attractive to you.

I can't really comment. I hate traditional parties and bars and just don't go to them. Small parties with friends who are verifiably not loud and obnoxious are good, and so are dinner parties. Basically most generic group interaction modes are just loud and dumb. No thanks.

I go to quiet cafés when I want to think or relax, and mentally I'm not in the headspace of evaluating mates. I guess I'd be open to a woman who made the first move in that situation, but I don't expect it. Even when I go to concerts, it's generally (shock) to listen to music, and I try my best to tune out the existence of the crowd.

The point of serendipity is that it happens when you're not trying to make it happen. By definition, if something is industrialized and scripted, it's not serendipitous. Trawling bars or going to a party with explicit goals to evaluate potential mates is totally the opposite of what I'm talking about, and things like Tinder, while reducing some up front costs (you don't have to physically go anywhere, you don't risk in-person rejection, etc.), are like hyper mega on-steroids version of trawling with explicit mate evaluation goals.

I'm not sure I agree about the macho comment either. In my experience, trying to win the affection of intellectual women, humor is by far the most critical thing.

Here's a DFW quote that has meant a lot to me regarding my modern understanding of the personal importance of serendipity:

"Both destiny's kisses and its dope-slaps illustrate an individual person's basic personal powerlessness over the really meaningful events in his life: i.e. almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of Psst that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer."

>Even when I go to concerts, it's generally (shock) to listen to music, and I try my best to tune out the existence of the crowd.

Haha, this reminds me of a concert I went to in Manhattan a couple of years ago, for a German metal band from the 80s. It was a pretty small venue, the total crowd was less than 500 (I think the fire marshall's sign said max capacity of 450), and as you might expect for a German metal band, the crowd was overwhelmingly male. So I stood near the back (since I like to do that, I'm not into mosh pits) and saw two women come in together. Unlike the men who were obviously all there to actually see the band, and who were using their phones to take pictures of... the band, these two women took selfies of themselves with the band in the background, then promptly went over to the bar to troll for men. None of the men seemed too interested in them...

> Small parties with friends who are verifiably not loud and obnoxious are good, and so are dinner parties.

Seems reasonable. I'm all about being as committed to my personal life as my work and I make those dating apps WORK for me. I am talking 1-2 dates a week when I'm in search mode.

But I met my current SO after I went climbing with my friend and he invited his housemate along. Within a day I knew I was at least somewhat interested, but there was another man partially in my friend group I was interested in. Within three weeks the other man had done something that killed my interest and the climbing man had consistently impressed me.

So I made a move. Tada, two years later we're living together and happy as clams.

There's something to be said for the pre-filter of friends that I find can't be matched yet with online algorithms.

I agree that friend networks can be a good pre-filter. Unfortunately for me, I live pretty far away from my closest friends, and I may be moving even farther away, so it has been hard. Once I am settled, I will have to invest in finding more friends in order to have the network. It's easy to let the salience of online dating seduce you in this kind of situation though ... but really it's like going for a candy bar when you need a meal.

I find your wording very cute: "the climbing man had consistently impressed me" -- I'm imagining some kind of Tarzan character who happened to be out with you when all sorts of freak occurrences happened that were perfectly suited for climbing: getting a cat out of a tree, getting a ball back for some children, getting back into an apartment when you've locked yourself out.

It's funny, when I read "the climbing man had consistently impressed me" I had a completely different image in my head. Rather than a show-off, I imagined a polite and friendly man, that showed genuine interest in the poster, struck up conversations about interesting topics, etc.

It's quite weird to me that the unusual adjective 'climbing' had no impact on the way you pictured it. Of course your description is more likely the real outcome, but it's a very unlikely immediate picture to have when the person describing it is making use of a bespoke aspect of the person (that he climbs) as the primary means of identifying him.

I just realised that a bunch of people I like are into rock climbing, which might be the reason for the different association I had. Climbers are nice people, in my experience.

I agree, and a number of my grad school friends were into climbing. I would never have identified them as "the climbing man" or "the climbing woman" though, since it was just one aspect of their personality. If someone had introduced one of them to me as "the climbing man" then the climbing stereotype would have obviously had some effect on my perception.

>Within three weeks the other man had done something that killed my interest and the climbing man had consistently impressed me.

If you don't mind me asking, what exactly did the other guy to do kill your interest?

How do you spend your free time? Are you part of a community? I'm thinking of things like a charity, or a rock climbing group, or a choir, whatever interests you. Spending time in a social setting like that is a sure way to get to know new people, and I know many people who met their partners like this (and even if doesn't work, you'll spend your time doing things you like anyway)

I took a swing dancing class once on the advice of friends who said I needed to join some social group for the purposes of meeting women.

Most of the participants were men doing the exact same thing. Most of the remaining participants were married couples. Perhaps young, single women are aware of when they might be walking into an ogling trap?

The main thing I learned (apart from novice swing dancing) was that joining up in social groups for the explicit purpose (or even partial purpose) of evaluating potential mates is inefficient.

There is another aspect of this that I legitimately want to ask questions about: what do you do if all of your interests are male-dominated, and you're seeking a female partner with characteristics anti-correlated to those types of interests?

I'm not just talking about preferring some male-dominated things, and needing to try new things. I'm talking about already having tried lots and lots of things and learning that, after years of reflection, the only things you actually enjoy just so happen to be male-dominated. (Basically, I'm saying the excuse of "try something new" is not applicable in this case).

For me personally, one of my greatest recreational hobbies is to play very complicated, strategic board games. I love playing immersive games that take many hours to play and require fairly intensive level of thought and focus. I grew up playing competitive chess, and I have always just had a really deep seated fondness for this type of game, even from a very young age. I love the idea of having a partner who likes it as much as I do, but after years of going to board game meet-up groups, university game clubs, and playing with my extended network of friends, I have not ever met a female who enjoys these games anywhere close to the level that I do.

In terms of athletics, I mostly like to do long distance running and weight lifting, both because I tune everything out and have "introvert time" -- definitely something I don't want to share with a partner. I also love to play squash which is unfortunately a very male-dominated sport.

I love hiking and camping -- but what is so funny is that you can take an activity like hiking and just add one tiny variation to it to turn it into geocaching, and now suddenly it is a male-dominated "nerd" hobby with a very negative connotation when dating.

Hiking == good, rugged, self-reliant, healthy

Geocaching == dork, lame, anti-social, takes too long

Sigh, it's all about status.

I also enjoy recreational software development, which again is heavily male-dominated. Even the interests I have that skew on the more popular side of things, like Premier League football or certain obscure corners American humor, tend to be male-centric (e.g. how disappointing that the subreddit about Earwolf's Hollywood Handbook is so male-dominated!).

Yet I consider myself extremely willing to try new things. My interest in feminist literature was piqued once after reading a Slate Star Codex post, and I went off the deep end reading every highly regarded piece of feminist literature I could for months. I have gone through long patches of life when I am pseudo-religiously focused on yoga and meditation. Animals are a hugely important part of my life, particularly cats. I mentioned taking a dance class.

I'm not going to win awards for being the world's most well-rounded guy, but I try hard to challenge my perspective and explore new things. And even still, the God's honest truth about who I really am inside is that I just so happen to be most passionate about a bunch of hobbies that happen to be male-dominated.

Probably the singular interest I have that is widely shared with women is that I love cooking and spend a lot of time perfecting recipes and cooking unusual things. But I am vegan and a lot of that has been motivated by my desire to never sacrifice the tastiness or desirability of my food just because I am vegan -- and so even this makes people uncomfortable.

The uncomfortable truth as I have grown older and become more comfortable about understanding who I really am is that I just simply don't share hobby interests with very many women. I would prefer to meet and share relationship experiences with more women, but I have adjusted to accept that dating life for me means long periods of being single punctuated by opportunities to date those extremely rare women who happen to be interested in or at least curious and tolerant of my interests and personality. They have been amazing women ... but it's still not the ideal.

At my local university, there is a salsa dancing group that meets every week, and goes on outings to clubs regularly. There seem to be 4 girls for every guy. The guys have to timeshare across different girls, and of course girls end up dancing with each other much of the time.

OK. I've seen this work so often, but it could be that this is not efficient if you are actively looking.

I think I understand your dilemma with male-dominated hobbies. Most of the things I do are male-dominated as well. I met my girlfriend in high school, and for a long time it annoyed me that she showed little interest in my stuff. Until at some point I realised that it's not necessary to like all the same things. It doesn't matter that we are different in many regards; over the years we've still found a lot of things we both like, and deep down we seem to have a similar world view despite being superficially completely different.

So maybe you should stop looking for women that are similar to you, and accept that your future partner will not care about the majority of your interests. At least in my experience that's really okay; as long as you have respect for another.

I don't mind looking for women who are different from me. Some of my previous girlfriends were very different from me and we got along very well.

I wrote my reply based on the claim that I should join some social groups or something to heighten the chances of randomly meeting someone new.

If you assume that is the way to do it, then the dilemma is (a) it's not very efficient because most people doing the activity aren't really a good match and are just trying to do the activity, and (b) all the activities that actually make me happy are male-dominated and even anti-correlated with popular depictions (depictions that are borne out in the data too, e.g. when OKCupid posts their data) of what women want in a man.

If you disregard the suggestion of needing to use social hobbies as a means for finding a date, then I agree with you, and finding people who are different from me has been the primary way in which I have had previous relationships.

Maybe if you like yoga, try pilates. Only one time in my pilates class has there been a guy. I've also heard barre is pretty these days and I think that's also mostly women and maybe similar to yoga.

If you like hiking, there's a ton of meetup.com groups for that which seem to basically be singles' mixers.

Huh, kind of OT, but I had no idea that it's spelled Torschlusspanik. In Switzerland all I ever heard was Torschusspanik (as in "die Angst, den Ball rechtzeitig ins Netz zu bringen", which incidentally also makes the same kind of sense). Well, TIL.

Which part of Switzerland? -- I might actually be relocating to Switzerland for a job. If I do, I would be relocating to the St. Gallen area. Do you know if this is a reasonable area for a dopey American with extremely limited German abilities to get by OK? Is St. Gallen a reasonable place for a young-ish adult to live, or extremely boring? And how do you people in Switzerland get anything done on Sunday when everything is closed?

i'm 32m. in my mid-late 20s i spent 4-5 years online dating - i really put in the effort and time, and i got laid a lot. however, in the end, i found that i'm not really the relationship type. and getting laid a lot, once you get over the initial novelty and thrill of it, is kind of boring. it just becomes a giant blur of faces and nights out.

it's just too much work, for not enough payoff, and i'm also too picky about my mates. i found that the women i attracted really didn't add much into my life, nor did the actual companionship. i found it to be much like a 2nd job to maintain a relationship and the expectations that go along with it. i already have a job, i don't need a second one. maybe that's my problem, but it is what it is.

i plan on retiring somewhere cheap and warm in my 40s or early 50s and not really bothering with mortgage or family or anything.

personally i think a lot of guys are like this, they just don't talk about it because the social expectation of career/family/mortgage is too strong.

Similar feelings here, although I've been married for a number of years. It took me a long time to figure out that "that's just what you do" (dating and marriage) maybe didn't always mean it was the best thing for each individual.

Although relationships are very difficult, I think it's probably beneficial for me to have a wife since she keeps me from entirely isolating myself from all human contact and also creates "excuses" for me to experience things I otherwise wouldn't (like, let's go to this play or that ballgame, where just me I'd never just go myself). Plus we can be there for each as we get older.

I applaud you though for being able to see through social pressure and figure out what you want in life. I think you're right about people not talking about it.

Have you looked into the MGTOW community? You sound just like them. They are smart guys, but they get a lot of shit because they push back against those exact social expectations that you talk about.

i've read all the same material as everyone else. i wouldn't label myself anything specific though.

"Why do my eyes hurt?"

"Because you've never used them before..."

Amen to your post beachstartup!

>but I imagine the same would be true for females, except that it seems likely that a higher proportion of male Tinder users are seeking casual sex.

No, this isn't true at all for females (I have no idea about males, I don't look at men's profiles). Women who are 30+ on Tinder are NOT looking for casual sex. source: looking through probably thousands of women's profiles in the 30-45 age range.

I'm really getting sick of these meme about Tinder being for hook-ups. It's only the 18-25 crowd that's like that. Stop generalizing the entire adult population based on what college kids are doing.

"The thought of women swiping (either direction) in response to some fleeting half-glimpse mostly based on how well I could choose photos that overstate my attractiveness is seriously a distressing idea."

If you like having lots of women around, this same concept works outside of apps, in the physical world.

Yes, it is distressing if you aren't interested in doing that. People eventually want the luxury of not being judged this way while having the emotional attachment to someone.

For most people, it's far more difficult to successfully fake substance in the real world than on Tinder.