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0 pointszbentley8mo ago0 comments

> blunt every aspect of your personality that may be an “ick.”

That’s not what was meant and you know it.

Ten years into a relationship, I sometimes leave my dinner dishes in the sink and wash them in the morning. Had I done that early on in my relationship—or had those dishes in a photo on a dating site—I’d sabotage my chances with a lot of people.

The same is true for interests. Maybe you really like guns: marksmanship, customizing them, restoring them, and so on. If you have guns front and center in your dating app pics you are going to alienate a lot of people. Plenty of those same people would enjoy being introduced to that hobby once you are in a relationship! But guns being a photographed part of your dating-site-identity is not going to help your chances. The people who swipe left are avoiding gun nuts, misogynists, etc. Putting guns in your picture only sabotages yourself.

That’s not “I have to totally be someone I’m not and remove every single thing someone might find objectionable”. That’s basic social awareness and understanding that there’s a time and a place for presenting different parts of yourself.

0 comments

cedws8mo ago

>That’s not what was meant and you know it.

I believe the zoomer interpretation of "icks" refers to childish/petty reasons to give up on perusing someone, not something like lack of cleanliness.

const_cast8mo ago

The zoomer interpretation of "ick" is just an extension of patriarchal attitudes. It means "anything that does not perform masculinity to an adequate degree". Fruity drinks, splitting bills, wearing strange colors or patterns, even having well-groomed nails.

It's childish, it's petty, and it's self-defeating. Most women I know are in a vicious cycle of misogyny because they actively optimize for misogynistic men without knowing it. They then come to the conclusion that men must suck, so they tighten their "standards", which inadvertently results in even more misogynistic men going for them.

We often hear about gen-z men becoming more conservative but anyone who is paying attention knows that gen-z women are also becoming more conservative. And, a lot of the conservatism in men is in response to growing conservative attitudes in women, and vice-versa. We have trad wives and bio-essentialist ideology because conservative men exist. And they exist because they meet our arbitrary patriarchal standards, even the small ones, like paying for the bill.

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