[agumonkey]

No offense but think about the other side. I'm very lightly kidding here, I remember making a female account on a website to assist some girl (say an ancestor of tinder) and remember being washed by a torrent of messages from guys. It was a shock, I never ever imagined it was possible to get so much "attention" in so few. I understood a thing or two about girl's life all of a sudden. I also realized how our world were different, because at that time, on a myspace like website, I honestly wrote hundreds of long and fun message to women and maybe got 3 answers total. Men are frustrated, women are harassed. It's an absurd situation in a way.

ps: my story is very slightly related to the thread and your example as I was not a minor nor made a minor female profile. Strangers annoying young girls should be stopped immediately.

[Ewigkeit]

Men are frustrated, girls and women fear for their lives. Most of the negative attention I received came from much older men, with the exception of one walking up to me at a train station at midnight and putting his hand on my shoulder while his friends cheered from his car and I had to aggressively push his hand away and walk away quickly hoping he didn't follow.

[mirimir]

Maybe learn some karate?

Many years ago, I was walking with a female friend, and some random guy slapped her ass. She kicked out one of his knees, and he went down hard. We didn't kick the piss out of him, though.

[0x8BADF00D]

Have you considered purchasing a firearm? It is your 2nd amendment right and may come in handy when you are harassed or stalked. There are a lot of training programs as well, teaching the basics of storing a firearm, when to use it, how to use it, etc.

[Ewigkeit]

I haven't yet pulled the trigger and actually bought one yet, but I have taken safety classes and done some target practice. Unfortunately I live in an area where concealed carry is not legal.

[farazbabar]

With the exception of chicago (and a few other cities like newyork), concealed carry is usually granted. And I say this as someone whose paperwork for the application got lost by the department performing background check, twice (because of my name). Even in new york city and most of california, it is possible, just takes some doing (speak to an attorney that specializes in this) and don't forget the training.

[vict00ms]

I live in Chicago and concealed carry permits aren't difficult to procure, they're issued by the state of Illinois.

[jfk13]

A can of mace might be less likely to end in tragedy and trauma of another kind.

[jimmaswell]

I'm consistently flabbergasted people put forth getting a lot of messages on dating sites as some difficult situation that's hard to deal with. It's metaphorically like they want some cheese so they go to the cheese store and are so overwhelmed by all the cheese selection and free samples that they run out screaming without buying any cheese, somehow expecting me to feel sympathy for them and accept that I was in the privileged position starving in a cold wet cardboard box not having had any my whole life despite searching far and wide trying as hard as I could, not being able to get my first nibble of cheese until the age of 24 while they got pallets and pallets of free cheese offered to them their entire life.

[peterwwillis]

This comment is like if someone said they watched their parents burned alive in a house fire and it changed the person for life, and someone else replied "yeah, but think about the other side, my brother is a firefighter and he works so hard..." Sure, let's minimize the first thing and talk about something different.

[adventskalender]

No it is not nearly at the same level as "parents burnt alive".

[matz1]

That's the point, reading alternative perspective open up my mind.

[agumonkey]

nonono I didn't meant to put 'both sides' on the same level, especially in the streets.

[generalpass]

> This comment is like if someone said they watched their parents burned alive in a house fire and it changed the person for life, and someone else replied "yeah, but think about the other side, my brother is a firefighter and he works so hard..." Sure, let's minimize the first thing and talk about something different.

No, it isn't like that because the discussion is regarding the same environment. within your analogy, both discussions would have to be about parents. So the one person provides the stated example of watching their parents burn to death while the other explains that their parents locked them in a 48" x 48" x 48" cage and tortured the person for 18 years. (I'm going very extreme here to demonstrate the point.)

[rayhendricks]

Made a okcupid account back in the day with some random pictures I found on non-English internet of a decently attractive woman. Holy shit, within a week there were tens of unread messages and likes.

What is the lesson there? Go meet women in person. Online/tinder/okc is for schmucks. Women have it so easy.

Also this article is submarine pr for bark. Honestly bark sounds like something that would be awful for parents mental health. Do you really want to know what your kids are doing? At 10-15 we (girls included) we were trying to be as offensive as possible on the internet.

[saagarjha]

> Women have it so easy.

I would not categorize having to dig through online harassment as “easy”.

[rayhendricks]

The comment was directly referring to likes and direct messages received in an online dating profile.

In a platform such as an online dating app/game this in no way would be considered “online harassment”, if anything they world be considered validation.

[mirimir]

If that amuses you, you'll love rfjason's "Craigslist Experiment": https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Sex-and-the-Cit...

[robocat]

> Women have it so easy

I find that offensive:

a) young or attractive will get attention; a large number of woman do not get attention (perhaps even when seeking it).

b) “easy”? The whole point here is that it isn’t easy at all dealing with bad attention.

[ixacto]

Cool be offended. But I would still disagree with your attempted rebuttal of my original points.

a) Not just Young or attractive women will get attention. There are a lot of older/non conventionally attractive women that use online dating too. Who knows since we are thinking in hypotheticals would you deny them male attention if they wanted it? What about a younger man who wants to meet older/bbw/non conventionally-attractive women?Tinder et al. are great for that, and I would not dissuade anyone for trying to find someone they are sexually attracted to.

b) The point that I was making, and that you have created a straw man argument out of....is that yes women have it easy in regards to receiving validation and invitation to dates/encounters/sex in the form of likes and messages on online dating services. There may be undesirables/creeps out there but it is trivial to unmatched so it would arguably be easier than swanking with bad attention in in the real world.