Before EAGSF this year, (on Twitter) I mentioned putting this on your SwapCard profile as a way to prevent the scenarios above where people ask others for meetings because they are romantically interested in them. So, instead, they could contact them off-site if interested and EAGs would hopefully have more people just focused on going to it for career reasons. My thought was that if you don’t do something like this, people are just going to continue hiding their intentions (though I’m sure some would still do this regardless).
I was criticized for saying this. Some people said they have an uncomfortable feeling after hearing that suggestion because they now have it in their minds that you might be doing a 1-on-1 with them because you find them attractive. Fair enough! Even if you, let’s say, link to a dating doc off-site or contact info that they can reach after the conference. I hoped that we could make it more explicit the fact that people in the community are obviously looking to date others in the community and are finding that very difficult. Instead, my guess is that we are placed in a situation where people will set-up 1-on-1s because they find someone attractive even if they don’t admit it. I do not condone this, and it’s not something I’ve done (for all the reasons listed in this thread).
Personally, I do not plan to ask anyone out from the community at any point. Initially, I had hoped to find someone with similar values, but I just don’t think there is any place it seems appropriate. Not even parties. It’s just not worth the effort to figure out how to ask out an EA lady in a way that’s considered acceptable. This might sound extreme to some, but I just don’t find it worth the mental energy to navigate my way through this and just want to be in career-mode (and, at most, friendship-mode) when engaging with other EAs. And, more importantly, there’s too much work and fun mixed, and it just leads to uncomfortable situations and posts like this.
I’m not making a judgement on what others should do, but hopefully whichever way the community goes, it becomes more welcoming for people who want to do good.
Before EAGSF this year, (on Twitter) I mentioned putting this on your SwapCard profile as a way to prevent the scenarios above where people ask others for meetings because they are romantically interested in them. So, instead, they could contact them off-site if interested and EAGs would hopefully have more people just focused on going to it for career reasons. My thought was that if you don’t do something like this, people are just going to continue hiding their intentions (though I’m sure some would still do this regardless).
I was criticized for saying this. Some people said they have an uncomfortable feeling after hearing that suggestion because they now have it in their minds that you might be doing a 1-on-1 with them because you find them attractive. Fair enough! Even if you, let’s say, link to a dating doc off-site or contact info that they can reach after the conference. I hoped that we could make it more explicit the fact that people in the community are obviously looking to date others in the community and are finding that very difficult. Instead, my guess is that we are placed in a situation where people will set-up 1-on-1s because they find someone attractive even if they don’t admit it. I do not condone this, and it’s not something I’ve done (for all the reasons listed in this thread).
Personally, I do not plan to ask anyone out from the community at any point. Initially, I had hoped to find someone with similar values, but I just don’t think there is any place it seems appropriate. Not even parties. It’s just not worth the effort to figure out how to ask out an EA lady in a way that’s considered acceptable. This might sound extreme to some, but I just don’t find it worth the mental energy to navigate my way through this and just want to be in career-mode (and, at most, friendship-mode) when engaging with other EAs. And, more importantly, there’s too much work and fun mixed, and it just leads to uncomfortable situations and posts like this.
I’m not making a judgement on what others should do, but hopefully whichever way the community goes, it becomes more welcoming for people who want to do good.