[disc/adv] Adjusting standards

[nearly_takuan]

A recent (note: some language patterns regulars here tend to object to) comment on Paging got me thinking.

(In case you want to skip past what he wrote: he links to a xojane article, the book Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented in Today's Church, a DateHookup thread, a thread on AskMen, and Jezebel, because of course Jezebel.)

I was also not-that-long-ago involved in a discussion Over There about how I don't want to filter out all those people who are (to summarize it bluntly) just racist enough that I don't count as an entire male human / potential partner. It's frustrating sometimes, because that choice is made for me. But, there's another group that I am filtering out on purpose: women who feel that way about virgin men. And other than the aforementioned lack of control, I'm not sure what the difference is. Probably there shouldn't be any. Which is why the question rattling 'round in my head right now is how to make myself more comfortable with that prejudice. (On paper, they're even similar prejudices: they're everywhere, lots of people deny they exist / are significant problems, and there's a sense of resignation around actually trying to do anything about it.) Not that that's what folks are "required" to focus on in this thread; it's just the thought that sparked this thing.

But...yeah. My OLD profile is (and generally has been) very up-front about my lack of experience. Women who ask (and there have been a bunch) get a straightforward answer (and I don't know which of us is more disappointed). I must've decided, at some point, that if anyone was uninterested in me based solely on that, then I wasn't interested in them. Browsing the OLD sites, I ran into loads of such people, and in pretty much every case my previously-favorable assumptions about their intelligence, awareness, and compassion sharply fell. But...not when they're only racist?

I can't even say it's not deliberate, at this point. After reading Harris' latest book, I went and cleared my OKC questions again and this time answered only the gimmes (where exactly one of the possible answers was an actual problem) and the "deal-breakers" (where I actually cared about someone getting a "wrong" answer). Ended up skipping almost all questions about race because they're badly written and provide almost zero information other than what a person thinks is supposed to be the "right" answer. Skipped questions about kids because they always make it really unclear whether they're talking about biological childbirth, how far in the future, etc. But I answered every question where I had the opportunity to mark myself as a !!VIRGIN!! and/or mark Judgy answers unacceptable. I didn't know it was that important to me....

So it's a double standard. I don't like doubled standards, and particularly don't like having them myself (probably unavoidable, I know, but I still don't like being conscious of 'em!). The only difference I can point to is that racism that affects me is ongoing background noise and the effects are often indirect and subtle; whereas the only time I get to be aware of prejudice against virgins is when it's blatant. But that's a difference in how I personally experience it, not a difference in what it is, nor the degree of the effect (to the extent that such things are measurable in the first place).

And there seems to be a fairly compelling case that filtering out that "type" is filtering out a lot of people. From the assumption that (additional) filtering is something that it's in my best interests to avoid, it seems to follow that I ought to start turning my blinder eye toward certain comments....

Anyway, right now I am in a place of trying to be less judgy and loosen up my search criteria a bit. Maybe a lot. But, I can't modify my profile until I can actually believe that's the right way to go about it. Just kinda how I am. Meanwhile...anyone else have thoughts? Past experiences trying to expand "standards" or interrogate preferences?

[Werel]

Gosh, reading most of the comments you linked was like what I imagine a hardline religious conservative must feel upon stumbling into a Savage Love comments section. "Who ARE these people?! How could they possibly think these insane things??"

(context for whoever doesn't know: virgins are a Big Thing for me, sexually)

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I do have some ideas about why it might feel different, even though that's not the main thing you're asking about here:

- There are plenty cultural narratives about racists becoming less racist, often through transformative personal experiences with a person of the category they were racist towards. Similar stories are increasingly common around LGBTQ issues. Not so many narratives like that re: people who hold sexual-experience prejudices; maybe less easy to envision those people changing their outlook through interaction and reflection.

-Overt racism is something that (hopefully!) rarely infiltrates your intimate friend groups, whereas it sounds like there's plenty of virgin-shaming even among your friends. Might be easier to be sensitive about the latter because it feels like there's nowhere you're safe from it, even among people you otherwise trust.

- Not everyone has been Asian; it might be comprehensible that people could harbor racism stemming from a failure of empathy/similar experience on that front. But everyone has been a virgin at some point; maybe you're not wrong to judge people's compassion fails more harshly when the fail is towards a category they once belonged to.

-I'm having a hard time phrasing this without really foot-in-mouthing as a white person, apologies, but: is it possible that there are more social support structures available to help prepare people to deal with racism vs. sexual prejudice? I imagine that there are numerous moments when a parent will tell a child "don't listen to that bullshit about your race, it is groundless, we/you should be very proud of our heritage" and the same message (along with tons of conflicting shitty ones) is received from teachers, media, etc. There's (hopefully) a chorus of voices available in one's head saying "we got your back on this, the racists are wrong." Rarer is the parent/teacher/social structure, I think, who gives that same pep talk about sexual inexperience; might feel harder to confront those attitudes because you've had less external corroboration of "they are wrong to believe stereotypes XYZ; do not listen to them."

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Apologies if this is a stupid or offensive question--please set me straight--but wouldn't "requires a sexually experienced partner" sort of preclude "open to an asexual partner"? That is, why would people who are open to dating an asexual person hold any of those no-virgins opinions? If the most common reasoning behind not wanting to date a virgin is, as expressed in some of those threads you linked, "I want someone who's knowledgeable about sex," wouldn't that imply "...because I want to have a bunch of good sex with them"? People who're open to dating an ace ought to be the least virgin-judgy of all since sex, and sexual experience/skill/knowledge, are presumably not at the top of their priority list. Or do you think there are ace-friendly people out there who... just want to date an ace who's tried it? Is that who you're trying to expand your standards to include?

It doesn't sound like you're entirely sure yet whether you want to broaden your standards to include people who have Judgy No-Virgins stances. It's legit to feel wary of people you think might do/say something hurtful because of a group you belong to, regardless of whether you're unequally wary of racism vs. sex-shaming for whatever reason. But if you do want to give "no virgins"-leaning people a shot, would it be useful to mentally unpack what might underlie their preferences? If you could, say, sympathize with "I don't want the massive responsibility of teaching someone about sex--what if I do it wrong and scar them?" or "I'm terrified of someone becoming emotionally dependent on me*" or "I am not turned on by anything other than absolute self-assurance in bed," would it be easier to humanize those stances instead of "bad person bad bad judgy bad"?

*One of the most baffling stereotypes to me-- dudes are supposed in mainstream culture to be largely emotionally distanced from sex, unless it's the first time they've done it, in which case they are fragile emotional honeysuckles, ready to latch onto the first trellis forever and ever?

PS. I hate that Jezebel post.

[Perlandra]

I haven't read the article you're discussing, and you didn't link to the Jezebel or AskMen columns that you mentioned it links to.

I agree with Werel that it seems surprising that anyone who would be open to dating someone who is ace would have an issue with you being a virgin.

With that said, there are a lot of possible reasons for someone being concerned about dating a virgin, but that don't treat virgins as less than human, or objects of ridicule. As I brought up to Wisp a week or two ago, some women are genuinely concerned that someone who is a virgin will be a bit klutzy or overenthusiastic in ways that can be physically uncomfortable or painful. They may feel you are less likely to be able to read their body language, which also affects the flirtation stage. They might feel awkward about having to give Ikea directions to how their body works, and trying to put their desires into words can pull them out of sexy headspace.

I've dated a couple of guys who were virgin or had very limited experience, and didn't have those issues. However, I'm very patient, enjoy helping people explore new things (not necessarily sex, BDSM and dance are a couple of other areas that have some similar dynamics), and we did lots of stuff before actually leading up to intercourse where they were able to get a feel for how my reactions work, and I could have more faith in their self-control.

[Bumble]

I'm having a hard time following what's going on in this thread but..

Is non-attraction to Asians really racism? Maybe Asian men are just an unfortunate victims of society's masculinity standards.

Not sure what being Asian or virginal has to do with asexuality. If someone is willing to date you because they aren't that interested in sex anyways that seems pretty terrible.

Finally, to the OP, maybe you needn't be so up front about your virginity. People do have all sorts of damaging ideas about virgins so why make that the first thing they learn about you? Why not let them see your other characteristics first and then you can tell them about your virginity when they have more context? They still might run off like that xojane contributor but I think you're chasing away women who might still accept your virginity but don't want to see it plastered all over your dating profile.

[nearly_takuan]

I do have some ideas about why it might feel different, even though that's not the main thing you're asking about here:

All four points make a lot of sense. In certain sub-circles of certain groups I associate with there seems to be some implicit bias that "racism against Asian-Americans isn't real", but at least nobody denies racism is (or would be) morally wrong. (And that's another thing, I guess; it's difficult for me to justify a moral argument about sexual-history-bias because it mainly affects the unpoliceable realm of dating, and consists of arguments that are...not entirely unfounded.)

Apologies if this is a stupid or offensive question--please set me straight--but wouldn't "requires a sexually experienced partner" sort of preclude "open to an asexual partner"? That is, why would people who are open to dating an asexual person hold any of those no-virgins opinions? If the most common reasoning behind not wanting to date a virgin is, as expressed in some of those threads you linked, "I want someone who's knowledgeable about sex," wouldn't that imply "...because I want to have a bunch of good sex with them"? People who're open to dating an ace ought to be the least virgin-judgy of all since sex, and sexual experience/skill/knowledge, are presumably not at the top of their priority list. Or do you think there are ace-friendly people out there who... just want to date an ace who's tried it? Is that who you're trying to expand your standards to include?

I agree with Werel that it seems surprising that anyone who would be open to dating someone who is ace would have an issue with you being a virgin.

Heh, I hadn't even really thought about that. No, really not a stupid or offensive question, IMO. Though, I guess the impression I get from AVEN users and all those youtube "documentaries" on asexuality, or dating as an ace, is that most do it anyway. Some folks find out they're asexual because they've had sex. But to the extent that "wants a non-virgin" implies "wants their partner to be someone who gives lots of good sex", that...probably is a good indicator that they wouldn't be happy dating an asexual.

And while "should I disclose that" and "does it matter if they're initially 'ace-friendly'" are also things I've been pondering, it does seem like I should at least draw the line around people who could never possibly be happy with the things I could actually offer.

It doesn't sound like you're entirely sure yet whether you want to broaden your standards to include people who have Judgy No-Virgins stances. It's legit to feel wary of people you think might do/say something hurtful because of a group you belong to, regardless of whether you're unequally wary of racism vs. sex-shaming for whatever reason. But if you do want to give "no virgins"-leaning people a shot, would it be useful to mentally unpack what might underlie their preferences? If you could, say, sympathize with "I don't want the massive responsibility of teaching someone about sex--what if I do it wrong and scar them?" or "I'm terrified of someone becoming emotionally dependent on me*" or "I am not turned on by anything other than absolute self-assurance in bed," would it be easier to humanize those stances instead of "bad person bad bad judgy bad"?

With that said, there are a lot of possible reasons for someone being concerned about dating a virgin, but that don't treat virgins as less than human, or objects of ridicule.  As I brought up to Wisp a week or two ago, some women are genuinely concerned that someone who is a virgin will be a bit klutzy or overenthusiastic in ways that can be physically uncomfortable or painful.  They may feel you are less likely to be able to read their body language, which also affects the flirtation stage.  They might feel awkward about having to give Ikea directions to how their body works, and trying to put their desires into words can pull them out of sexy headspace.

Even though the previously-quoted stuff has kinda swayed me back toward continuing to filter those traits anyway, this does help with trying to not feel resentful or judgy about people (including friends) when they make remarks about sexual experience. And, well. Last night a friend drunkenly invited me to what I understood as a pseudo-date (other friends were already going to go with). Turned her down, because that sounded like a day of doing things that would only remind me of what I'm "never" going to be able to have in my own life. Only then realized the similarity between that and her piece of shit ex-husband who'd always resented that he could (paraphrasing a second-party retelling) "never fuck hotter women".

I haven't read the article you're discussing, and you didn't link to the Jezebel or AskMen columns that you mentioned it links to.

Just double-checked and...I'm pretty sure I did? The Jezebel link is via unvis.it though, as it was in the original comment. I'm having trouble getting this donotlink to render, but maybe you'll have better luck with that?

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I'm having a hard time following what's going on in this thread but..

Sorry. Stuff I'm dealing with is kind of inescapably complicated, but I'll try to give a recap in the future. Such as: I'm a mid-twenties Japanese-American who identifies as asexual, and has been actively trying to go on dates for a few years now, without success (success being defined as "go on a date").

Is non-attraction to Asians really racism? Maybe Asian men are just an unfortunate victims of society's masculinity standards.

So... without getting too far into a discussion of what is or is not "really" racism, if Asian men are specifically affected by "society's masculinity standards", despite having made every reasonable effort (and then some) to assimilate ourselves into your culture, it seems like at the very least there is some implicit bias in play that has to do with race. Yes?

Not sure what being Asian or virginal has to do with asexuality.

Not much! They're really very separate concepts. The trick is (as you alluded to above) that society's perception is otherwise. Asian men aren't seen as sexual beings (nor Asian women, but that "doesn't matter" because of way grosser prejudicial assumptions in Western society). Virgins are assumed to be sexually frustrated, sexually incompetent, or both. My [ambiguous place on the] asexuality [spectrum] kind of compounds both problems, because I can't put a lot of distance between those stereotypes and myself; "eh, almost" is a lot less radical and surprising than "not only is what you believe wrong, but the opposite is true!!"

If someone is willing to date you because they aren't that interested in sex anyways that seems pretty terrible.

I'm not really sure what you are saying here. Would you be willing to try rephrasing?

Finally, to the OP, maybe you needn't be so up front about your virginity. People do have all sorts of damaging ideas about virgins so why make that the first thing they learn about you? Why not let them see your other characteristics first and then you can tell them about your virginity when they have more context? They still might run off like that xojane contributor but I think you're chasing away women who might still accept your virginity but don't want to see it plastered all over your dating profile.

Well, it's written exactly nowhere on my actual self-summary profile thing (though I'm currently up-front about being "somewhere on the asexuality spectrum"). I went out of my way to plaster it all over my "match percentage" questions because conventional wisdom seems to be that you should focus your answered questions on deal-breakers and that's the biggest actual deal-breaker I can think of.

[celette482]

Yeah, someone who's cool with asexuality probably isn't going to have a big problem with virgin status. Maybe because physicality isn't huge for them, maybe because they have an expansive view of "sex" that involves a lot more than what society deems "virgin". But either way, the few women I know that have a preference on the male virgin-not virgin scale (and there are very few) are: A. all virgins themselves and B. want a slightly more experienced partner because they want to maximize the chance that their first time won't be as painful.

Most people I know do not care. There's a conventional girl wisdom out there that the more partners a guy's had, the worse he is in bed (because if you've racked up a lot of numbers, it suggests you haven't taken that much time to actually cultivate skills/one night stands are rarely enough time to really learn the ins and outs of a woman's body.) Men put a lot of weight on male virginity, but what most women worry about is someone who is going to be too focused on his own pleasure to take her pleasure or even comfort into consideration, and that's a problem that crops up across the spectrum of sexual experience, unfortunately. Male virgins could definitely be selfish in bed and generally goal-oriented, but that's not a quality inherent in male virginity, based on the number of "cockmasters" out there who are pretty much useless in bed.

And yeah, the social stereotype of Asian men as.... well less masculine (except John Cho, holy jeebus), that intensifies the virgin pressure.

BUT, I think the ace part is the most crucial aspect of your difficulties. That's gonna be a dealbreaker for a lot people, particularly at first blush. It's telling that a lot of members on AVEN discovered they were ace in the context of a sexual relationship. What people might consider a Hard No at the beginning of a relationship, discovering in the context of an already established relationship might lead to some mutual workings out. BUT, I think you're right to be upfront about it, because that mutual workings out would probably be painful all around.

[nearly_takuan]

Well...okay. Still open to ideas on how to identify or handle factors I might actually have some control over, though. Or implicit preferences/biases I might not be aware of that I could nuke in order to expand the pool a bit.

[Wondering]

I agree with what celette says.

My husband was a virgin (at 28) when we met. I didn't know this right away, until we'd been dating a while, but it was before we had sex. I didn't care. But I think I would have cared if he had been announcing it loudly. Not because he was a virgin but because it would have indicated it was such a big deal to him. To me, that would have given the impression he was insecure and/or goal-oriented, and that would have turned me off from wanting to date him.

So, I think maybe the impression you're giving isn't the one you're trying to or think you're giving with your question answers. You might be able to expand the pool by toning that down?

I also agree with celette that the asexual aspect is the most crucial part, not the virginity.

[eselle28]

This one's a little awkward. Before I reanswered my OkCupid questions last year-ish, I had answered at least one question relating to sex by marking "I'm a virgin" as an unacceptable answer. And seriously, if you'd rather quit reading right there, I can understand.

Spoiler:

Given some of the reasons behind my own responses, I do think there are women who are not very open to dating virgins whose objections may not have much to do with sex. I would say that, as with racial bias, it's very much up to you whether you're interested in meeting someone who holds those biases and attempting to confront them. I don't think this question needs to have the same answer as that about racial bias.

[celette482]

I mean, everyone's gonna have people who are automatically turned off because "Dude likes Tarantino" or something.

Without knowing every single question you've answered, I can't say for certain "Aha, this is the thing and if you didn't answer this question, you wouldn't have unnecessarily closed off your options."

But, I really think asexual has you fighting with both hands tied.

A lot of people aren't familiar with asexuality, and even among asexual people, their comfort levels with sex varies. So most allosexual people want a sexual relationship of some sort (most, because religion or medical issues or psychological issues can make allosexual uninterested in sex as a practical matter) and it's hard to see at first blush whether an ace person is completely anti-sex or just take it or leave it or what. So even an allosexual person who is aware of asexuality as a thing isn't necessarily sure what to think about that, and I guarantee you most allosexual people have no idea what the hell to make of asexuality. And an OKC profile is NOT the place to have a nuanced discussion about consent and desire.

Personally, i WOULD remove all references relating to my sexual experience or lack thereof including all questions that would lead someone to make assumptions one way or another. It's been such a long time since I was on OKC, I don't remember how those questions go, exactly, but sex in general is a nuanced discussion that is better had in person than on your personal ad (which is basically what OKC is)

EDIT: I'm editting to add a TL;DR: sexuality, sexual experience, what you're looking for in a sexual relationship, is a thing that is too complex for an OKC profile unless it's just casual sex and that's all you want. Those, wherever you stand on the spectrum, are a series of conversations not a drive-by ad. So virgin or not, you're gonna want to talk about that, in person, not on the profile.

[Bumble]

I'm not really sure what you are saying here. Would you be willing to try rephrasing?

I hadn't realized you were asexual so I was confused when asexuality started being mentioned that's all.

So... without getting too far into a discussion of what is or is not "really" racism, if Asian men are specifically affected by "society's masculinity standards", despite having made every reasonable effort (and then some) to assimilate ourselves into your culture, it seems like at the very least there is some implicit bias in play that has to do with race. Yes?

Yeah.. I guess I wrote that because I'm half Japanese myself, but since I grew up in the US I don't really come across as "Asian" right away. At the same time I'm guilty of Asian stereotypes such as passive/small which I think hurt my appeal to women but it's just because of those traits rather than being Asian since I don't come across as being very Asian. That said if I was like completely Asian and grew up in Asia I could see myself experiencing the racism you speak of so I guess you're right.

[reboot]

I think the main way mentioning asexuality might hurt you is that, as others mentioned, people do not know much about it and people may even erroneously believe that asexual also means aromantic and wonder why someone is on a dating site. Others may struggle with the idea of being with a partner who cannot sexually desire them since so much of our notions of attraction place a high value on sexual desire. The thing is, the people who have these notions might still hold them even after they know you better, so it is really whether you are going to be able to handle being rejected by people you might have developed an attachment to vs being ignored by these folks. It might be worth the risk since kt could allow you hit it off well enough with someone that they might be flexible with their notions.

As for the virginity thing, the most commonly voiced concern I have heard is that the man might get too attached. But remember that my friend pool is heavily slanted towards women who are not looking for LTR any time soon or ever again, so salt accordingly.

As for race, this is the hardest to deal with because the people that will not give you a shot because you are Asian are narrow minded. I am betting that OLD is not the place for many to be more open minded, so meeting people IRL would be the only way to get around this. People can develop attraction to individuals that they would not pick from a list of potentials.

[Kaz]

Okay, I may have just totally misread you here, but...

I don't think you should feel obliged to make yourself more comfortable dating acephobic/virgin-shaming women just because you're not as uncomfortable dealing racist women. Sure, it's a double standard, but when it comes to what sort of hurtful behaviour and bad attitudes *directed towards you* you're willing to tolerate - in a dating partner, even - I think you're allowed to be as arbitrary as you like. Maybe some attitudes hit sorer spots than others, maybe you have experience that people more easily change their minds in some ways than others, maybe you can't explain it but a specific thing is just an absolute NO for you - doesn't matter.

Ex: I have very, very little patience for people saying dumb things regarding my stutter, much less than I do re: asexuality or autism. I really can't explain why, especially since I'm sufficiently confident about it that most shitty remarks will basically slide off. Doesn't matter. I don't think I have to justify why I am willing to tolerate certain types of shitty behaviour and not others. As a matter of fact, I view *any* tolerance of shitty behaviour as a gift on my part which the people behaving in shitty ways are not entitled to and which can be withdrawn at any time.

All this of course is irrelevant if you want to broaden your criteria in order to e.g. get a bigger dating pool or the like. But I'm getting this whiff of "since I don't disqualify people from my dating pool for being racist in X way, I shouldn't disqualify them for being acephobic in Y way because otherwise it's unfair" and that makes me flail.

[nearly_takuan]

Yeah.. I guess I wrote that because I'm half Japanese myself, but since I grew up in the US I don't really come across as "Asian" right away. At the same time I'm guilty of Asian stereotypes such as passive/small which I think hurt my appeal to women but it's just because of those traits rather than being Asian since I don't come across as being very Asian. That said if I was like completely Asian and grew up in Asia I could see myself experiencing the racism you speak of so I guess you're right.

Oh, interesting.

Actually, I grew up in the US and am half-Japanese as well (fourth generation; my Japanese grandpa enlisted on "our" side in the Second World War). But, maybe I look slightly more Asian or we're in different parts of the country? I live in a city where close to everybody my age is white or Hispanic, and random strangers in Thai restaurants will sometimes assume I have any more idea than they do how one is supposed to pronounce the menu items.

And yeah, I have a somewhat passive personality and was raised with what seems like a somewhat different approach to hospitality than many of my white friends.

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This one's a little awkward. Before I reanswered my OkCupid questions last year-ish, I had answered at least one question relating to sex by marking "I'm a virgin" as an unacceptable answer. And seriously, if you'd rather quit reading right there, I can understand.

Ah, sorry. Rereading my first post, I think I spoke more harshly than I could've.

Spoiler:

But, I really think asexual has you fighting with both hands tied.

I agree, but...d'you mind if we move the discussion away from that? It's not something I can change or fix, much as I'd like to, so it seems like the most I can do with this information is try harder to not get frustrated about total lack of apparent progress while I try to identify other things that I could work around.

And an OKC profile is NOT the place to have a nuanced discussion about consent and desire.

Personally, i WOULD remove all references relating to my sexual experience or lack thereof including all questions that would lead someone to make assumptions one way or another. It's been such a long time since I was on OKC, I don't remember how those questions go, exactly, but sex in general is a nuanced discussion that is better had in person than on your personal ad (which is basically what OKC is)

EDIT: I'm editting to add a TL;DR: sexuality, sexual experience, what you're looking for in a sexual relationship, is a thing that is too complex for an OKC profile unless it's just casual sex and that's all you want. Those, wherever you stand on the spectrum, are a series of conversations not a drive-by ad. So virgin or not, you're gonna want to talk about that, in person, not on the profile.

Good points.

Since I don't know what I'm looking for, though...I'm at a loss for what other types of questions I can even answer. As it was I had to skip 700 questions to find 120 worth answering. I just don't care (yet) what comparison a potential partner would want to make between themselves and salmon, or whether they've questioned their sexuality, or how much they care about the result of me questioning my sexuality, or whether or not they would want me to call myself a "genius" in a personal ad. And O'Malley has managed to (finally) convince me to stop caring about people's answers to "what did 'wherefore' mean four hundred years ago" or "do you spend enough time per question to touch your fingertips together and think about what that means". Just another reason OLD ain't for me, I suppose, but it seems Real Life isn't either so....

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Okay, I may have just totally misread you here, but...

I don't think you should feel obliged to make yourself more comfortable dating acephobic/virgin-shaming women just because you're not as uncomfortable dealing racist women. Sure, it's a double standard, but when it comes to what sort of hurtful behaviour and bad attitudes *directed towards you* you're willing to tolerate - in a dating partner, even - I think you're allowed to be as arbitrary as you like. Maybe some attitudes hit sorer spots than others, maybe you have experience that people more easily change their minds in some ways than others, maybe you can't explain it but a specific thing is just an absolute NO for you - doesn't matter.

Ex: I have very, very little patience for people saying dumb things regarding my stutter, much less than I do re: asexuality or autism. I really can't explain why, especially since I'm sufficiently confident about it that most shitty remarks will basically slide off. Doesn't matter. I don't think I have to justify why I am willing to tolerate certain types of shitty behaviour and not others. As a matter of fact, I view *any* tolerance of shitty behaviour as a gift on my part which the people behaving in shitty ways are not entitled to and which can be withdrawn at any time.

All this of course is irrelevant if you want to broaden your criteria in order to e.g. get a bigger dating pool or the like. But I'm getting this whiff of "since I don't disqualify people from my dating pool for being racist in X way, I shouldn't disqualify them for being acephobic in Y way because otherwise it's unfair" and that makes me flail.

Ah, you're right.

It's a little of both, I think? Like, yes I'm trying to broaden my criteria. But one of the things that makes me think Y is a candidate for criteria I could punt far away is that I am already (theoretically) willing to tolerate X.

[nearly_takuan]

I mean, everyone's gonna have people who are automatically turned off because "Dude likes Tarantino" or something.

Without knowing every single question you've answered, I can't say for certain "Aha, this is the thing and if you didn't answer this question, you wouldn't have unnecessarily closed off your options."

Here's where I'm at now....

(I wonder if having a 0% "enemy rating" makes people suspicious. Maybe I should secretly answer a "wrong" thing on purpose, too.)

[Werel]

Oh my hell takuan that spreadsheet is one of the funniest things I've read all week. Several real life lols.

[Enail]

OMG, yes, it's a shame you can't just post that spreadsheet as your dating profile

[reboot]

I should not have read this because laughing makes my stitches hurt

[celette482]

There needs to be room for commentary, clearly.

[nearly_takuan]

Thanks.
And I guess it was helpful for me to vent some annoyance with the site, too.

[Perlandra]

I doubt that'd be helpful, though I don't really know how "enemy ratings" work.  I guess I just don't really see how widening your criteria in this area will help you, if it is that important to you.  At the same time, I think you are assuming things about other people's concerns that aren't valid, either.  As a few other people have mentioned, announcing your inexperience (even in the questions) can come across as very "I want someone to fix that with, and don't care who they are" or otherwise negative, even if they don't have a problem with your virginity per se.

I agree the spreadsheet was pretty hilarious! I think you might be able to link to it in your profile, actually, and that might be a good idea!

[nearly_takuan]

Dunno if it translates as well without the full context, and the "joke" in several of those comments has mostly to do with desperation...But I'll think about it.

[Nerdator]

I should probably be the last person to say this, but some of the grey comments in the spreadsheet betray an arsehole, and it's probably good that there is no way to show them.

Example:
Do you often make jokes that offend more uptight people?
Yes Probably a racist
No Wimp

'Wimp', seriously?

Plus, there are some, where your reasoning for not responding does not make any sense, like here:

For you personally, is abortion an option in case of an accidental pregnancy? For me personally, I'm never going to be pregnant so it isn't up to me.
Yes
No

Yeah, but is it important for you to know how the person whose profile you're looking at responded to this?

I mean, there are a shitload of terrible OKC questions, with false dichotomies, leading questions and just good-old brainlessness and insipidity, but, here, I see the 'meh, fuck that' attitude smeared all over everything.

[nearly_takuan]

I mean, there are a shitload of terrible OKC questions, with false dichotomies, leading questions and just good-old brainlessness and insipidity, but, here, I see the 'meh, fuck that' attitude smeared all over everything.

Y'aren't wrong.

I am basically trying to interpret every answer in the least-charitable light I can imagine, because honestly who knows what's in other people's heads when they're marking what's acceptable and what's not. I am willing and able to participate in lewd humor, but answering "yes" would lose me points with those who do interpret this question as "are you unapologetically offensive?" more than it'd win me points from people who think playing Cards Against Humanity is edgy. (Yes, I remember the mascarpone; a comparison would not be lost on me.)

What's in my head is: if I mark three out of four answers as "Acceptable" and then say the question is Very Important to me, then 75% of the possible answers to the question raise my "score" with them by sqrt(50+x), where x is 0, 5, 10, or 50, depending on the importance they assigned the question and whether or not I answered "correctly". Even if I answer "wrong", it's at worst 50/50 if I rigged it so everyone else's answer "right" and marked the question Very Important. The catch is if I mark all possible answers "acceptable" then the "importance" of the question to me gets automatically set to zero, and now the best and worst cases are in the hands of people who aren't trying to metagame this thing and are instead just clicking whatever they happen to be thinking about at the time. (Which is what I'd been doing before, too.)

So I'll only answer "totally unimportant" questions if I want to be matched with people who specifically value the thing I am answering the question with. And otherwise, I'll only answer questions if there's at least one answer such that I don't want to meet the person who clicked it.

And nope, not really important to me if a hypothetical person I may be interested in personally believes abortion is an option they'll consider; for one thing, it's potentially a very different question from their political stance about whether it's okay for other people. If I was going to put down a real answer, I would say, "yes," but what I would mean is "yes, the pregnant person has the option to choose one way or the other" which is not necessarily how everyone else reads it and in any case would count as the "wrong" answer for someone who is (say) pro-choice but very attached to the idea of carrying all of her own children to term regardless of the risks. (This was my grandmother's stance, until she realized not having an abortion was more likely than not to kill her and make life a lot harder for her daughter and husband.)

Meh; I feel like I've tried pretty much everything else I could with OKC, and aside from learning about a couple of nifty webcomics and blogs run by women who happen to live in my approximate area...I haven't gotten much out of it. Certainly not what I'd initially dared to hope I might find when I signed up three years ago.

It's anyway already pretty clear that I'm garbage in photos and several significant, immutable parts of my life and self don't look good on paper, so at this point my "best" hope is to meet a single woman who's single (ha) and doesn't figure saying nice things to me wouldn't appear threatening to her boyfriend (after having just been warned not to seem like she's trying to make him jealous) because, duh, it's not like I was ever an option in the first place. Not betting odds, incidentally.

[Werel]

Haha, Nerdator, you're one of the last people I'd expect to see poo-poohing letting one's asshole flag fly with flair.

Honestly, I found those answers to be in like the 95th percentile of charming shit I've ever read on OLD profiles. The bite is both actually funny and largely directed at ideas vs. (other) people, and there is some of that rare self-deprecation done right. The "wimp" bit I interpreted as a dumb cynical voice A vs. equally inaccurate B as a self-loathing joke about the uselessness of one's own internal chorus of reactions when it comes to helping author make good choices.

All completely, 100% subjective, though, which is why if you're trying to keep your pool as large as possible, go with Nerdator and never show anyone.

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