Man flips out at woman asking "what do you do" on dating app, gets banned from app

[gollygee]

http://www.upworthy.com/why-it-matters-that-this-dating-app-took-a-stand-for-one-of-its-users

It didn't exactly go well. Connor took offense to Ashley's question, "What do you do?" and it escalated from there.

Put off by the (pretty standard) question, Connor tore into Ashley, accusing her of "shamelessly attempting to pry into [his] career" and his earning power.

(If you follow the link, you'll see an image of the conversation here.)

Woah buddy! Later in the conversation, he called her an "entitled, gold-digging whore," and accused her of pushing "this neo-liberal, Beyonce, feminist cancer which plagues society" on him before putting her down for presumably making less money than him.

According to a 2013 Pew Research survey, 42% of women on online dating sites reported receiving "uncomfortable or bothersome" messages. Bumble tries to make this better by requiring that women send the first message. In doing this, they hope to sidestep some of this sort of harassment.

[LanternWaste]

1. He seems like an accurate illustration of the pan paniscus genus of MRAs.

He seems like an accurate illustration of the pan paniscus genus of MRAs.

[Warpy]

2. Whoa, buddy, is right. Things changed in the 80s

Instead of "what's your sign?" it became "do you have a job?"

Apparently Connor does not.

[snooper2]

3. Why is this a story? Oh, and it is unreadable at the link LOL

I just LOVE how in 2016 every little random fucking thing that happens on social media can be a story....

Twitter killed the Journalism Star

[gollygee]

4. Because of the harassment women face online nt

[hfojvt]

10. except that it is not online

it's a phone program.

And it is one person in one incident. I could tell a similar story about a dating site. Exchange a few messages with this girl, who lived about 400 miles away (so why I bothered is a mystery, but you take what you can get) So before I go further, I want to meet this person - for one thing so I can know that she is real and not a couple of bored teenagers playing a prank or something.

She basically went berzerk and saying all kinds of nasty crap.

Is that one incident supposed to prove "how women are" or "how men are mistreated" or something?

Is this one guy supposed to be a typical single guy or something? That he did something that happens all the time?

If that was the case, this "app" would be banning a good portion of its customers and probably would not be very useful with 8,000 women trying to connect to the 14 guys who hadn't been banned.

[MindPilot]

20. Happen to me once too.

I have no idea exactly how it got started, but I found myself in an online scrap with a woman on a dating site. Suddenly it occurred to me "I have just burned up two hours of my only day off fighting with someone I don't even know."

[hfojvt]

26. well these things ARE important

If you are arguing with somebody about who the coolest X-man is you cannot just walk away from somebody who does not appreciate the awesomeness of The Beast.

I did not spend a lot of time on this "argument" just a brief rebuttal with a good-bye.

I probably would not keep a fight going myself, although I did sort of have the last word with a guy I was exchanging emails with. First, we were arguing about various political things, he being a libertarian pastor and me being a tax and spend person. At one point, after about four emails I asked something like "why do you have to insult me to try to make your argument"

at which point he responded with an insult laden email where he denied insulting me, and also said "I am done talking to you". But I could not let that go. I sent back an email where I quoted things from his previous emails that I took to be personal insults. (that pretty much anybody would take to be personal insults). There was a good list of perhaps seven of them.

At which point he replied with an email that said "I have no more time for you."

Well, I did not have time for him either, but I kind of expected a decent person to apologize when confronted with the evidence or at least reply with something like "well that was more harsh than I meant it, but I think you have some insecurities that are causing you problems ..." Something semi-conciliatory, but perhaps that was a lot to ask.

[gollygee]

24. A phone app isn't online?

You and I must have different ideas of what "online" is.

[hfojvt]

5. I hate that question myself

I try to say "I work for the city".

But that never works.

They always follow with "What do you do for the city?"

People, puh-lease, if I had a job I could be proud of, I would have said that from the beginning - I am a systems engineer, I am a CFO, I am a department head...

Can we talk about my hobbies instead of my stupid job?

[gollygee]

8. I'm not a fan of it as an intro question

But it is a common way to start a conversation, and his response is way out of line.

I wish people started conversations differently, but this is how it is, and you don't harass people over it.

[NickB79]

12. Just be upfront and say you work a job that's not glamorous but pays the bills

And use that as a segway to discuss how you find more joy in life from your hobbies than from your career. IE, "I work to live, I don't live to work, because I feel that basing your self-worth on what you do for money doesn't accurately represent who you are as a person. I make enough to be comfortable, and use my free time for more meaningful things, like my hobbies, friends, feeding the homeless, nursing baby kittens back to health, etc"

Then blow them away with your most awesome hobbies and any cool stories related to them

[hfojvt]

22. baby possums, not kittens

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7893819

a cat, after all, is a nuisance animal. My dogs will tell you that (of course, they don't like possums either, except with lots of ketchup).

The trouble, or two, is that we live in a society that sees me as a loser because I could not get a good job. Especially for a man with TWO college degrees.

The other trouble is that I tend to agree with that assessment.

My hobbies are kinda boring except for people who share similar interests. "I discuss politics and society on an obscure message board where I am widely reviled and routinely disparaged" or "I have a database with 200,000 of my ancestors and their descendants in it".

You see the problem? I, myself, think it is kinda cool to be related to Shirley Jones, and Thornton Burgess and Tomas Masaryk (the last two only by marriage, but still ...) and Mark Dayton and Frederick Law Olmstead. But any reasonably informed person who gives it a little thought, knows that the whole human race is related anyway, so for me to waste time finding these connections is of limited interest.

[gollygee]

25. Lots of people are interested in genealogy.

You could also say "I studied X and Y, but I don't work in either of those areas." It still tells a bit about your interests and what you could talk about with someone else.

I don't like "what do you do" as a conversation starter, but people do need to talk about something. I don't think people generally mean it as a way to size people up (though that ends up being an effect regardless.) I think it's an attempt to find common ground for conversation.

[hfojvt]

28. true enough

and I am getting that question in non-dating scenarios since I have not had a date in this millennium. So it is a common "getting to know you" or "making conversation" type question.

My own perception (paranoia, excuse or something) though is that a woman usually DOES want her significant other to have a good job. Like I said, I can see why two types of guys would not like that question.

But normally it is a fairly minor unpleasantness and you move on.

[msongs]

6. perhaps rephrase that question to be more specific nt

[boston bean]

7. Toss that fish back in the ocean, pronto. He's the type that's a domestic abuser.

small minded, petty, cruel, insecure. Not a good mix.

[whatthehey]

9. Sure he's a dick, but it's a pissant question revealing deep neurosis

Because that question isn't about what a person feels or thinks or acts but how they stand in the juvenile rankings of money and prestige and authority. It's a question that is either confusingly vague or differently slanted in most other countries, but speaks volumes about our pre-enlightenment puritanical inability to distinguish between a "k" and a "th" on the end of "wor", where we are expected to live to work instead of the other way round.

I have not the slightest clue whether the woman involved meant it consciously that way, and I can't personally see any gender context or even difference in how the phrase is understood, but that's what our volklsgeist demands as an early and vital piece of information used to pigeonhole and segregate our fellow humans and it is frankly a shallow and vulgar consideration.

Obligatory obviation of inevitable wrong assumptions: I personally "do" pretty well on all the implied scales that question elicits, but it's such a trivial and irrelevant part of what makes me, or anyone else not committed to that same Puritan neurosis, a living breathing individual that I detest it as a question too, and anyone asking that in a first or even first few encounters with me goes down quite a few steps in my estimation. I was until fairly recently part of a trivia team with a very interesting and well-informed middle aged chap for about 4 years, speaking to him at least weekly for several hours. I haven't the slightest clue how he made his income and doubt he knew the same info about me either.

[Warpy]

11. As a conversation starter, "What do you do with the majority of your waking hours?" is valid.

Face it, questions about religion, philosophy, or emotional health can be off putting if they're the first ones.

I suggest she's not the one with the deep seated neurosis.

[whatthehey]

18. But that's not what is asked.

I spend more waking hours reading than anything else, as my work has a variety of functions. Would I be expected to answer the question that way? "What do you do?" does not mean in social intercourse "what activities do you engage in?" but instead "how do you earn money, so I can judge how well paid, well-educated, and well respected I should asume you to be, and treat you accordingly before I take the trouble to know anything else?" If I answered "read" they would both think I am strange and assume I am a particularly bookish non-worker.

What would be wrong with questions about hobbies, interests, opinions on current affairs, cultural experiences, and the like? It's not that somebody need either ask me what my job is or ask me how exactly I'd solve the Middle East peace crisis. There's a whole freaking world of "safe" topics (and while we're on the subject, the automatic universal assumptions that religion and politics are not safe is also problematic. They are deep, defining, centrally important questions which people should consider far more worthy of discussion than whether I wear a shirt with a tie or one with a smiley name tag at work) between the two.

I just moved again, and the first couple my wife and I have started to bond a bit with started a conversation after initial banter about the pub quiz with "So, what do you think of Trump?" All of us are white, overtly middle class in a middle class-dominated bar. It would demographically be more likely I answered "Love him!", socially more acceptable if I answered with a noncommital comment on him being different, and conversationally more typical if I demurred and changed the subject. But luckily an unconventional opener intrigued me more than bothered me and I responded honestly (IIRC the words "dangerous idiotic loudmouth" were involved). It was also likely that it would have at least bothered the male part of the couple if not both, but turned out they agreed. Had they not, what would have been wrong in a civilized world with just discussing divergent opinions? Are we not adults that this should be possible without unseemliness? A few months later I know all about her work as she's just opening a store close to the bar, but I know far more about both their reading habits (pedestrian), their travels (extensive), their taste in music (terrible) and their politics (moderate). I think he's some kind of electronics guy but not sure. They know my employer but not my job. I just don't care enough about it to makeit a conversation topic, and fail to see why anyone else should care more than I do.

[hfojvt]

17. it is common though

still, I can see how it is gonna be bad either way.

Option 1 - the man does not have a "good" job, and feels "I am going to be rejected based on my job"

Option 2 - the man DOES have a good job, and feels "this woman is only interested (or primarily) in my money.

Those may be the outliers though - the 20% at the bottom and the 20% at the top. For the middle 60% it is less problematic/threatening.

Some people have probably been burned though and feel like "here we go again..."

[whatthehey]

23. And even here though the assumption is that this is a M-F question

I have had bottom 20% jobs, middle 60% jobs and top 20% jobs and it's not on that basis I dislike it, nor do I differentiate between a male or female asking it. Yes it's common but it's invested with such heavy social ramifications and importance in this work-obsessed culture and so little for me that it is far more bothersome to be asked that than religious or political questions, and it's just so damn easy and far more relevant to individuals to ask any one of a near infinite range of other open ended get-to-know-you questions.

[NickB79]

13. She just dodged a big fucking bullet

Imagine if he hadn't exploded in the first encounter and they'd gone on a date :shiver:

[RufusTFirefly]

14. It's a cultural thing. Stereotypically American.

Asking the same question in at least one European country I can think of is considered crass and, frankly, American.

[scscholar]

16. Like being in college and asking what's your major?

Of course, even then it's a condescending question.

[renate]

21. as a first question upon meeting someone, it's pretty tacky

I think you're right that it's considered crass in most countries, and (I think) rightly so.

Not to mention unoriginal. It's kind of like the rule of thumb I learned ages ago to never start a thank-you letter with "Thank you for...." Avoiding that cookie-cutter opening makes for a more interesting conversation.

[Lizzie Poppet]

15. I suspect this dipshit strongly associates sex with money...

...because that's the only way he gets any: when money changes hands.

[Eleanors38]

19. An Army of Beyonces! Take a number for surrender.

[Mendocino]

27. Guy claims he makes

$300,000 a year, finance degree from Notre dame and he's on a dating site? More likely a 19 year old in mommas basement when he's not out delivering sandwiches for Jimmy Johns.

[Aerows]

29. Thank all that is holy I am a lesbian. n/t