Aziz Ansari & Eric Klinenberg have a story in Nautilus, She'll Text Me, She'll Text Me Not, which looks into the modern-technology challenges of making romantic contact.
Modern romance is stressful—especially when it comes to texting, which is on course to be the new norm for asking someone out. In 2010 only 10 percent of young adults used texts to ask someone out for the first time, compared with 32 percent in 2013. And so, more and more of us find ourselves sitting alone, staring at our phone's screen with a whole range of emotions. But in a strange way, we are all doing it together, and we should take solace in the fact that no one has a clue what's going on. So, I decided to look into it myself, but I knew that bozo comedian Aziz Ansari probably couldn't tackle the topic on my own, and so I teamed up with New York University sociologist Eric Klinenberg. We designed a massive research project during 2013 and 2014, which involved conducting focus groups and interviews with people worldwide, and also interviewing eminent researchers who have dedicated their careers to studying modern romance. We learned a lot about finding love today, including what to do once you fire off a text or receive one.
One area where there was a lot of debate was the amount of time one should wait to text back. Several people subscribed to the notion of doubling the response time. (They write back in five minutes, you wait 10, etc.) This way you achieve the upper hand and constantly seem busier and less available than your counterpart. Others thought waiting just a few minutes was enough to prove you had something important in your life besides your phone. Some thought you should double, but occasionally throw in a quick response to not seem so regimented (nothing too long, though!). Some people swore by waiting 1.25 times longer. Others argued they found three minutes to be just right. There were also those who were so fed up with the games that they thought receiving timely responses free of games was refreshing and showed confidence.
What technique(s) have you tried and how did they work out for you?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Saturday February 13 2016, @10:59AM
I rather like the idea of delaying the reply by doubling the time. This encourages us to have an actual conversation - which one would assume is the whole point of having a relationship, no?
People that get themselves embroiled in "SMS dating" are living in a fantasy world of their own concoction. They are building novels around a one-liner reading thus: "lol :-)". What they should be doing is picking up the phone, pressing "dial" and saying "hey babe, see you in fifteen minutes".
Relationships where people won't make time to spend with each other, refuse to pick up the telephone, spend "together time" immersed in social media, or play games by delaying responses are not the kind of people I'd want to be in a relationship with. So on that note, since it's Valentine's Day this weekend: if any of you out there are intending to ask someone out... have the balls to do it to their face and not via text message. Happy hunting!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:14AM
lol :-)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:30AM
Maybe glad I am old enough now that it does not make that much difference to me if I have a girlfriend or not. Never did get married. Came close a couple of times, but I guess I am kinda picky. Ornery too. Probably best I not get mixed up in this.
I hate all this phone stuff. I'd much rather be taking a walk or picnic somewhere than messing with the phone. Nor do I like social venues like nightclubs, bars, coffee shops, whatever. Noisy places. Usually have some musician in there making so much racket my ears will be ringing for weeks. Way too many distractions.
I'd rather be alone with her watching the grass grow. Driving aimlessly through the desert just seeing all the rock formations. Or through the forest to see the trees and animals. Following a brook.
Sorry, the high falutin' high-tech nightlife is not for me. I am way too simple minded for it.
I seem happiest in the middle of nowhere in my van, tending my plants and animals, or designing and laying out circuit board.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by Demose on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:48AM
Will this increase social mingling or just leave people lonely? Cost of life is pretty high here in the states which means working long hours just to get buy. When you've just worked a 16 hour day the only thing you have energy for is texting.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:10AM
friendly reminder that contacting prospective gf before the cellphone era involved calling a land line where you were usually prescreened by her mom pop and older siblings.
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:13AM
-virgin with rage
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:47AM
Romance and love are overrated. They're almost entirely the product of chance and circumstance. The suspension bridge effect, getting to know the other person on a deeper lever, science has had quite a bit of love figured out; you can quite reliably manufacture love, as it were.
Now, back on topic, digital love. Well, as long as you're hitting the right psychological buttons, it's the same thing. Overthinking the time between your partner's SMS responses is the same as overthinking the time between your partner's visits, back when transportation was a significant barrier. Maybe the other person is busy with other things? Maybe they don't love you? Maybe they're playing hard to get? It's a game for a fool. A love-sick fool, that is.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:51AM
SMS delay? Download Tinder today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @04:27PM
Romance and love are overrated.
Yes, romance is overrated. This desire to be loved and "romance" was manufactured so that people would wait for the "right one" before committing. Therefore people look for the right one and do not settle for what comes along. Most times the one that comes along is the right one. Waiting for the right one is a failing battle, which is designed to let you down.
All this was forced into people's minds so they would keep searching for the impossible and not get anything accomplished. That is the goal of those who set us up for failure. We're the happy mice being experimented on, tortured endlessly and disemboweled.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Saturday February 13 2016, @08:02PM
Sort of. Previous to the invention of romance, the, "right one" was whomever your parents assigned you to and before that it was basically whichever woman you could keep away from the other men long enough to mate with.
There's degrees. Courting can be rather fun, but it's also a lot of work and most women are not worth the effort.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday February 13 2016, @05:11PM
No they're not random. Assuming you're not dealing with the picky princess type both love and romance are 100% about what you do and do not do. And really both of you.
What I've found personally is that most of the women I go out with are hopelessly stuck up in this area of their lives. They're awesome women, which is why I ask them out, but as romantic partners they're lazy and entitled. Hopelessly fixated on getting Prince Charming or Mr. Right and being completely unwilling to engage in any compromise or hold up their end of things.
Love is the inevitable consequences of investing your very real time and energy into the welfare of somebody else. Hence why women are the ones that initiate most of the divorces, I doubt very much that the ones that are initiating the divorces are really putting much into their marriages. In many cases they can't even be bothered to bring up the topic until they're on their way out the door at which point the poor guy is already at a huge disadvantage as she's already gotten an attorney and is getting legal advice on how to take him for everything he's worth.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:47AM
Right. Two people don't just fall in love. It's an invested mutual relationship. "Love" and "romance", as they're often used, just serves to hook two people up, which I say to be overrated in the sense that popular media and society tend to depict as "finding the right one".
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday February 13 2016, @09:21PM
Now, back on topic, digital love.
I love that track! [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @12:02PM
Hey phoenix, quoting the full windbaggy intro rambling in the summary is a total buzzkill. Wading thru it is akin to scanning Pickens' wall-of-text. Keep that out of summary. If it contains some important bit, a pithy paraphrasing would be sufficient and better.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 13 2016, @02:39PM
Feel free to invest 30 minutes of your time to do that. The most I am willing to give you is 3 minutes.
You get what you get, and you don't get upset.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @05:28PM
If you are not even reading the stuff you are sending in, you are simply spamming.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday February 13 2016, @12:27PM
I'm the last person who should be commenting on a puff piece filler Valentines article about love (if you read the thing, it's rambling nonsense), but the part about "sitting alone, staring at our phone's screen with a whole range of emotions" made me wonder about how people are creating unreal worlds layered inside each other like Russian dolls. People create an emotional world inside their minds about a once-removed digital world inside their phones which is a shadow of the real world. Is this a good idea? Maybe they need to swallow a hot ball of iron and realize there's a real world out there. That reality is less stressful than whatever modern romance is with its unreal worlds that insulate people from reality. Time to get into the present moment and drop all these unreal mental creations.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Saturday February 13 2016, @12:35PM
Sure, right after I'm done watching this VR video.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @01:38PM
Isn't this a bit sleazy by Soylent News standards?
I understand the scorn directed at 'SJWs', but if this kind of article is considered reasonable... perhaps they're onto something with their "tech is inhospitable to women" thing.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 13 2016, @01:46PM
I think you're reading a lot into it that isn't there...
"Techniques" is fine in this context, the distance created in relationships by cell phones is a legitimate subject, and one of the writers is a comedian.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 13 2016, @02:32PM
I dunno, guys, some news days are better than others. Sometimes you get epochal stories like LIGO's confirmation of gravity waves or the discovery of the Higgs Boson or water on Mars, other days you get Love in the Time of Texting or Robotic Vaginas. Tech touches many aspects of our lives, and not all of them are ponderous.
One solution is for people who aren't happy with what comes over the wires to chip in their own story submissions. Copy & paste the story title, grab a couple paragraphs that convey the gist and insert them in blockquote tags, throw in a link, and you're set. Takes about 2-3 minutes when you're rolling, and you won't be quite so aggravated as you would be if you thoroughly read and carefully summarized the story only to see it get 2 comments, half of which is a slam for the crappy job you did summarizing it.
Another solution is to skip over the stories that strike you as frivolous or whatever. Takes the least effort.
The least desireable option is to beat up on the people who give of their free time to make the community work, be they the coders, editors, submitters, moderators, or other commenters.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @03:54PM
Takes about 2-3 minutes when you're rolling,
But it takes so much more when you're trolling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @05:02PM
And I am taking my free time to tell you how to send in better summaries. I vote for better submissions, if fewer, than quantities of substandard ones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @05:46PM
Learn to skim or just skip. I personally don't mind the long summaries cause I can not read whatever doesn't sound interesting and usually I don't need to actually RTFA with a long summary. For volunteer efforts this place runs great.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @06:10PM
No. You know it's often the discussion that are supposed to be more interesting? Bettter summaries will lead to more RTFA and better discussion.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:01PM
Then write them. Nobody's stopping you. You can do it right now. Be sure to register a username so we can properly attribute your genius.
Believe me, you crank out the dozen submissions a day to keep the queue full and I will happily refrain from submitting my (according to you) substandard summaries to terrible stories like these. It might be fun to take a turn in your shoes, being a whiny ingrate.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 13 2016, @10:56PM
And I'm taking my free time to tell you to use your free time to submit the perfectly summarized stories you want to see. If something you didn't raise a finger to help with does not please you, then get off your butt and put in some time instead of whining like an entitled child. Or maybe you are an entitled child who does expect the world to spoon-feed him in exactly the manner he desires...?
It's not my job to spoon feed you a thing. Especially when you're coming in as an AC, without the guts to register a username that could, gasp, be anything you want that isn't actually connected to your offline life.
Man up, register a handle, pitch in to build the community. Then maybe the rest of us will consider your mewling.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday February 13 2016, @05:49PM
I reply as soon as convenient (which very well might be within moments of receiving a text).
Then again, I prefer a dialouge over playing pointless games.
(Score: 5, Funny) by GungnirSniper on Saturday February 13 2016, @06:12PM
Online dating is a lot more fun if you play it like an RPG. Your online profile is your character creation, and Lawful Good works best for attracting stable women. True Neutral will help you attract more casual partners. Your slightly-photoshopped pictures are your avatar builder. Your stats should always be slightly inflated. Most women can't tell if you're 5-11 or 6-1 in person unless they're that tall themselves. The real key though is to not let the ignored messages bother you. It's not a rescue-The-Only-Princess game but more like GTA. The more hoes, the more points. If you happen to actually like one of them, you've still racked up a ton of vagina points by then.
1) If the main profile photo for a woman features herself and another woman, you can safely assume the less attractive one is the profile owner.
2) Your date will never look like the best photo she posted, and occasionally like the worst one posted. Tap her anyway and level up.
3) Find out what her father is like and be a bit more like him than you are. If her father is a plumber, her fantasy probably involves a man with dirty hands.
4) STFU and let her talk. Hens love to crow about themselves. Ask questions about her tales so you can get some tail. You should talk only about 40% of the time, and that includes asking about her. Less than 1/3 should be your words about you.
5) Text back as you want. Just don't be an overeager forsaken hobgoblin answering every text immediately. You're not on call.
6) A woman who pays or offers to pay for anything on the first date is preferable to a woman who expects you to pay for everything. Again, no princesses.
7) Any woman who mentions Star Wars, Star Trek, or the abominable Dr. Who in their profile will probably be worth talking to. Firefly nuts need not apply.
8) Don't even try to find her social media profiles or college fluff pieces about her. These will over-inflate your opinion of her. You should never idealize a woman you haven't met yet. No pedestals.
9) Cosbypolitans are cheat codes, and you could get a years-long ban for using them. Just don't. There will be an easier woman tomorrow.
10) Never date single moms. They've already got a #1 to take care of, and you will never take that child's place. This is even more true if she has a bad relationship with the baby daddy, and triply true if she uses the child to collect public assistance.
11) Have at least one non-main photo of you with a furry creature. Women love men who show their kind, good-father potential, even if they're militantly set on being barren. Remember, women are more selective because child code-compiling is a months-long and life-threatening process.
12) Remember it's a numbers game. You can message 100 tens and maybe get two replies. Aim lower and improve your response rate. Or become a surgeon with a sports car.
13) If you manage to get a suitable wife-creature to develop feelings for you, don't keep tossing the dice. Your own market value declines precipitously after 30 without boosters like wealth and advanced degrees.
14) Should you ever decide to get married, have both a pre-nup and a term limit on the marriage with the asset division decided up front. Generally marriages provide little benefit to men with significant downsides.
15) Relationships eventually decline sexually, so no matter what, keep your hand game strong.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @08:29PM
14) Should you ever decide to get married, have both a pre-nup and a term limit on the marriage with the asset division decided up front. Generally marriages provide little benefit to men with significant downsides.
Men? Oh, you mean whiners with junk! Sad puppies! Well, if you think marriage is about sex, you probably are not really a man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:52AM
7...Firefly nuts need not apply.
Sad little king of a sad little hill.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday February 13 2016, @07:12PM
One area where there was a lot of debate was the amount of time one should wait to text back. Several people subscribed to the notion of doubling the response time. (They write back in five minutes, you wait 10, etc.) This way you achieve the upper hand and constantly seem busier and less available than your counterpart. Others thought waiting just a few minutes was enough to prove you had something important in your life besides your phone.
Reading this reminded me of a pattern I used when arguing with Slashdot trolls. ACs don't quite get the joy of email notifications when one responds so you can do stuff like that.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DonkeyChan on Saturday February 13 2016, @08:35PM
None of this is acceptable to me. Starting a relationship with power plays leads to a terrible relationship.
(Score: 2) by rondon on Monday February 15 2016, @02:57PM
Really? I've found that starting the relationship on an equal footing is actually incredibly conducive to a lasting relationship. Of course, I wouldn't necessarily call these things power plays, but establishing that the potential mate isn't immediately the most important thing in my world has been a good thing (for me and for the relationship).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @09:28PM
A human needs significant time to compose and type a text message. Thus we need to add delays when we simulate this. Also, when two software agents are in communication with each other, the delay time serves to limit bandwidth consumption, thereby avoiding adverse action by the telecommunications provider.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @09:31PM
What technique(s) have you tried and how did they work out for you?
"Would you like to see my etchings?"