The 15 Stages Of Trying Online Dating For The First Time
http://www.buzzfeed.com/trysomelove/the-15-stages-of-trying-online-dating-for-the-firs-i4ea
How many creepy PMs have you received over the AF PM system?
If the answer is zero, I’ll know for sure that Frankie is dead.
RIP Frankie… whoever that was
That’s a shame. I’ll send you one sometime.
No you won’t 
Found a funny site with creepy/funny PMs from dating sites. I liked this one the best:
“Your skin looks very smooth:):):):):)”
“Wat?”
“YO SKIN BITCH”
“LOOKS SMOOTH”
LOL
They found each other
I clearly missed this thread. Yet, I still want to mention that IMO the happiness/prosperity ranking from Forbes is ridiculous, and one just needs to glance at the methodology to find that out. I think better data can be assembled from stuff such as suicidal rates or questioning how many times a person has laughed today/yesterday. Once we start looking for things that are more directly related to happiness, the nordic countries get smashed by places such as very unsafe and undeveloped Jamaica.
I’m not that current in the research, but most stuff I’ve read points to happiness as something intrinsic. If I’m happy, I’m happy no matter what. The only way for me to be unhappy would be to get worse and worse disappointments, so I can never adapt to that. By the same token, an unhappy person may get a short boost from winning the lottery or having amazing sex, but that will be short lived as well.
Extreme lack of food or safety can mess people up. Asides from that, I usually see poor people having as much or more fun than rich people (and a poor brazilian is like a Darwinian character compared to what US labels poor).
As for extrinsic variables, the powerful ones are probably 1) weather and 2) cultural heritage. Weather is pretty obvious. For cultural heritage, unhappy parents often have unhappy children and there was ever a recent article from the Economist commenting on how the french are depressed no matter they live - that’s some food for thought.
And I’m probably having a bad day, but I hated the article as well. Keep looking for happiness by finding the right neighborhood? The author will die one day like everybody else, with a life just as meaningless or meaningful as the guy in the example. At least the guy enjoyed his days with friends at the pub, sex with the girlfriend and being proud of his good work. It seems much better than to be always looking for a mythical perfect neighborhood that can solve all your problems.
I get the decent part of the message - don’t settle, live to the fullest, yadda yadda. That’s as good as it is obvious. Still weak IMO.
The Forbes survey is not perfect, but the results are quite sensible - the happiest countries enjoy high GDP, public services, and overall good standards of living, while the least happy countries suffer from poverty, political instability, and lack of basic amenities. While I agree that people can get desensitized towards external stimuli, surely, there are some uncontroversial ways to measure the quality of our environments. I would probably be less happy in a world where I am constantly stalked by lions, compared to a world that is the same but without lions.
Of course, the self evaluation of personal happiness will be affected by culture. Two different people in the same environment will record different happiness levels. So maybe the problem is that “happiness” is the wrong word to define what is measured by this study. Perhaps “environmental comfort” or “goodness of the place you live” would be better descriptions.
Leo thought he found it in “The Beach”.
Agreed. Of course, “environmental comfort” doesn’t sell that many magazines. Another way to frame this is that these studies are more about the reduction of suffering than the pursuit of happiness.
As far as reduction of suffering, the developed countries are top-notch. Food, hygiene, health and personal safety are easier to attain for most people.
As for happiness, once basic needs are fulfilled, it gets very personal. As an example, one of my happiest friends lives on about 6k a year - in Brazil this buys him food, cheap rent and a pizza with friends from time to time. Of course he may regret some lack of ambition if his health deteriorates or if he decides to have a kid, but even the violence and the sloppy public health services barely have any effect on his daily life. On the other side, I have a friend with good health and f*ck-you money that doesn’t know what to do with his life and seems pretty miserable right now. Both have the bare basics and, for the most part after that, happiness comes from within.
I’d wager that a good part of GDP is pretty meaningless as far as happiness is concerned. Iphones, Google glasses, Netflix and Teslas don’t add that much to happiness. Small personal stuff just as smiling to other people seem much more powerful.
Or does anyone here think our childhoods were much worse because we didn’t have access to 257 cable channels and the Playstation 4?
As far as public policies are concerned, the reduction of suffering should be the main goal. You can’t truly be happy when dying of Malaria. For individuals that have their basic needs fulfilled, searching for mythical neighborhoods and what not will often be just a deflection. Happiness is much more personal, and changing attitudes is often more important than changing cities, jobs or hobbies.
Edit: I understand that gadgets and “stuff” may add to happiness indirectly by creating jobs and etc, but that’s not the main point here
When I find that I’m living my life by default – i.e. with a sense of complacency or auto-piloting – I decide to take a few days off, go on vacation, and figure out the things that are most value-add in my life. I can do this best when I’m away from my normal surroundings and don’t have someone trying to get a piece of my attention all the time. I then hope to come back with a renewed sense of purpose.
No one has left as much an impression in such a short time than Frankie. Not Bchad, not JDV, not BS.
He is mentioned at least once a week here. He barely has a few hundred posts and hasn’t shown any sign of life for over a year now. He is the Sandy Koufax of AF!
Admittedly, I haven’t really followed this thread. Since I got my new job, I’ve spent a whole lot less time on AF than before. But two things come to mind.
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When the author says people are choosing the same path as the majority of others, maybe that’s just because most people actually WANT that life. (Married, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, etc.)
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The article seems like it was written by a liberal arts intellectual freelance journalist who really doesn’t have anything better to do that sit around and think about stuff, because he has no real job.
^ You can’t deny there are lots of people that are unhappy and bored. There is a market out there and he is reaching out to them.