[giantg2]

"One 19-year-old women says that she’s looking for mutual respect in a relationship and someone who approaches issues with an open mind."

And probably a dozen other things. Self reporting is very hard for this type of thing. Theynshould probably have surveyed ex-partners and prior dates to get both sides of the story. In my experience, most of the time when a woman says she wants you to have an open mind, it means she wants you to agree with her because her mind is already made up. Respectful disagreement is unfathomable because it could invalidate or compete with her position.

[O__________O]

As a counter point, having gone on 100s of dates and met 10s of thousands of people in real life, in my experience people that mention open mindedness as a desirable attribute tend to mean it, at least as it relates to those who do not mention it.

[giantg2]

Sure, the subset of people mentioning any trait is more likely to want that trait than the subset who doesn't mention it. But that doesn't mean the individual is accurately self evaluating what they want, especially when it comes to intangible things like open-mindedness. I assume preferenced on physical/tangible traits are more consistent between stated preference and reality.

[O__________O]

Agree. Most obvious example being people’s self evaluation of attractiveness relative to their evaluation of another person’s attractiveness. That said, pretty easy to tell if someone humble, pragmatic, etc — just by engaging them.

[soco]

Correct me if I'm wrong but pretty much everybody will list the very same desirable traits like open mindedness, humor... and you can go on.

[O__________O]

No, vast amounts of people that see being open minded as a negative predictor of a desirable attribute. If I had to guess, your sampling is biased. For example, someone dating in a rural region would have much less success sharing that they’re open minded, since it’s not a cultural norm.

[jdblair]

You do understand that this reasoning cuts both ways. It is much more likely (and mainstream) for the man in the relationship to not tolerate views from their partner that could invalidate or compete with his position, to paraphrase your words.

As an example, respectful disagreement with the man in a relationship is explicitly discouraged by conservative Christianity. Women are encouraged to have "loving submission" to their husbands. Just Google "biblical meaning of submission in marriage" if you want a citation.

[ulizzle]

Here's the first result when I googled "biblical meaning of submission in marriage":

"Submission in marriage means selflessness, service, accountability, and respect for your partner, which should be mutual; it is not slavery or a woman's call to lose her voice. The fundamental rubric on which The Christian marriage is built is love, and love is anything but the desire to control."

[jdblair]

I concede that was not a good rhetorical point to make, and I should have checked what Google summarizes as "the answer."

Here's a karma point.

[giantg2]

"You do understand that this reasoning cuts both ways."

I understand that.

How common is that form of conservative Christianity? Most Christians I know (who are not Amish, but they wouldn't use these sites anyways) do not follow that interpretation of the Bible, but rather believe the meaning of the stories to be that each person should be devoted to each other and listen to each other's perspective (the story mentions husbands treating their wives kindly, but the only way to really do that is to listen).

[jdblair]

Yes, I concede that was not a good rhetorical point to make.

My reaction to the parent comment came from my feeling that men expecting their girlfriends to never confront them or disagree, especially in public, is a much more common, and generally accepted, dynamic.

The fundamentalist interpretation, as I understand, is that husband and wife should be devoted to each other but the husband's authority is final, and a kind of tie breaker in a disagreement.

But yeah, at scale its probably an edge case.