I first hear about “date me” docs a few months ago, when someone I followed on Twitter shared his. Today, Tyler Cowen wrote a brief note about them and pointed to another one, from a (female) acquaintance of his.
As someone who’s been in a stable relationship for 14 years this month, I count my blessings every day that I don’t have to think about dating, in the US, in the 2010s and now the ’20s. And for the reason why, look no further than the ridiculous dating apps, and now “dating docs”, which remove all exploration, randomness, and surprise — which is to say everything human — out of the process of finding a partner. Serendipity Which was surprise in a prior version of the post but serendipity is a much better word; thank you, dear reader. in particular is underrated by those who think these documents are a good idea, both in finding out you have common interests with someone you were interested in, and in discovering new things that you wouldn’t have considered before.
Don’t get me wrong, it obviously works for someone — probably people who think a trustless financial system is a good idea — but it is clearly not for me. More worryingly, a portion of kids these days seems to enjoy eliminating everything Dr. Who At least every Dr. Who up to and including David Tennant — things started getting depressing during the Capaldi years and I drifted away from watching…liked about humans. Which is an interesting thing to be happening at the same time when algorithms are starting to “hallucinate”, “lie”, and — let’s call it what it is — bullshit, which have for better or worse been typically human traits.
I shall now grab my walker and shuffle off into the sunset.