[spadros]

Online dating may make women more vain and entitled. It’s still her responsibility to recognize that bias and work against it. If she truly wants a partner, at least. Otherwise it’s hard to have sympathy for someone inundated with choice who has rejected people for liking Starbucks and Marvel movies. Especially when she herself has been divorced twice and already has kids. She isn’t exactly a prime fruit, but she seems to expect a perfect man in return. If she had some empathy, gratitude, tolerance, and non-judgement, I’m sure many of those 100+ men would have been great partners.

[fwlr]

Applying the same reasoning to casinos: “Casinos may make gamblers more impulsive. It’s still their responsibility to recognize that bias and work against it. If they truly want to financially secure, at least.” It seems a little heartless to me. Casinos are big powerful institutions with lots of resources to spend on crafting psychological exploits to make gamblers more impulsive, and we don’t fully blame gamblers for this - we regulate casinos pretty intensely, provide services to help gambling addicts, etc. The problem is more acute in this domain too, since dating apps have more of a monopoly on dating than casinos have on money.

I do agree with you that if she did have less judgment, some of those 100+ men would have been great partners. She mentions a French economist she dated who said “if he was going to be sent to a deserted island and had to choose between me and “someone gorgeous,” of course he would choose me, because I would be more interesting to talk to forever and he could still have sex with me too. But in the real world, surrounded by other people who’d be looking at him-with-me, he knew he would feel ashamed of me because he could have been with a more beautiful woman.” This mixture of acceptance and rejection may have just been his way of softening the blow of his rejection of her, but it may have also been his awkward unromantic way of saying “I will settle for you”. Willingness to settle like that might be the model we have to adapt to survive a dating market warped by high-powered dating apps.

[spadros]

I think comparing OLD to big Casinos is incredibly reductive.

I also think you’re bending my words into a straw man. If I had to play this game, the better answer would be “it’s an addictive gambler’s responsibility to keep out of casinos, or set a limit and stay within it”.

An addict has problems with alcohol. It’s their responsibility to deal with it. The fallout in their life is their responsibility to handle, nobody else’s.

A bipolar person can’t control their moods. It’s still their responsibility to deal with the fallout of manic episodes and try to stabilize their mood. Eventually most bipolar have the ability to recognize that they are at the centre of the broken relationships in their life and act upon that knowledge for the positive.

She’s either already vain and entitled or became repugnantly vain and entitled through OLD. It’s her responsibility to deal with that. The article reads like someone trying to bury the fact that they are at the centre of their suffering.

I agree tolerance and willingness to settle are key attributes to a happy and long lasting relationship. She seems to have neither in spades.

[fwlr]

I don’t mean to be reductive or try to absolve the individuals of responsibility; ultimately, responsibility must bottom out with the individual, there’s nowhere else for it to go.

Regarding the casino comparison: casinos are an established institution that we might categorize as “mildly exploitative”, and we have a mature moral/ethical framework around permitting them to exist, judging people who they exploit, etc. (Like, we DO permit casinos to exist, we say things like “enjoy them responsibly and expect to lose because the house always wins”, we would respect someone who refuses to attend casinos because they know they have a gambling problem, and so on.) I think the casino comparison is valuable mostly because we currently DON’T see dating apps as mildly exploitative pickiness-inducers, and we probably should.