Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
Taym posted the news that first dates is coming to Manchester.
Of course I have already applied to first dates but a Manchester one would be preferred. It makes sense too, as Manchester is the 2nd biggest city of singles in the UK and of course most say its Englands 2nd city.
2.5 hrs on phone w @cubicgarden discussing his @TEDxManchester #TEDxMCR talk tonight. Looking forward to it! 🙂 https://t.co/HBvd2T2GkX
— Herb Kim (@herbkim) February 7, 2016
Normal blogging will resume after this weekend. Honest!
The Lovegrumps is finally back, with a critical eye on dating apps. Ideal 2 weeks before I stand on stage at TedXManchester and talk about online dating and much more.
We’re back after almost a year of silence, this time to talk about those new fangled dating apps… with Ian, Hwayoung, Tom and David..
Mpeg3 and Ogg on Archive.org
February 14th is always known for valentines day, well this year get yourself down to Homemcr. How can you get more romantic? Don’t worry I’ll make sure there is enough love for everybody…
TEDxManchester is back, and it would be fair to say I’m involved after talking at TedxManchester2 and arranging TEDxManchester originally with a bunch of great collaborators in 2009!
TEDx events were created in the spirit of the TED conferences’ mission: ‘ideas worth spreading’. They are designed to give communities, organisations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at a local level. TEDx events are a worldwide phenomenon with thousands of events popping up from San Francisco to Sydney. Following on from the first TEDxManchester in 2009 at the BBC, and subsequent editions at Cornerhouse and University of Manchester Student Union, we’re excited to have the first HOME edition of TEDxManchester in 2016!
The final tickets will go back on sale Thursday 14th January at noon, don't miss them! #TEDxMCR pic.twitter.com/MQlvrEiNbm
— TEDxManchester (@TEDxManchester) December 16, 2015
One day I’ll meet Sarah Ryan, as she gives some great advice, this one included. The last point resonated with me .
Just Say Hello There is a chance, dare I say it, that you may come across someone dashingly handsome or delightfully beautiful in your local coffee shop or whilst picking up a loaf of bread at Waitrose. What is the worst that can happen if you just say hello, ask for the time or ask where they purchased an item they are donning? It may seem like a daunting task but we can not hide behind our laptops & iphones forever in dating- we do have to tackle the human element to make a relationship work. Top Tip: Try saying hello to someone new everyday, wherever, whenever. You never know who you might meet!
Absolutely…!
Sarah is right, the thing which mainly stops people is the fear of rejection. I was showing my blog about myself to a colleague a while ago and they asked me, what goes through my mind when I do the things I do?
I said, I do have that level of fear which naturally comes to everybody but I dampen it down quickly and not let it fester in my mind. I feel the longer you let it fester, the more likely you won’t act or so anything.
But on the same point, the opportunities and experiences I have had, make it even easier to do it again and push myself even further.
The other day I was in North Tea Power with my headphones off as usual, working away on visual perceptive media. I heard a women next to me talking on the phone, but she happen to say….
“Things would be so much easier if there was one ontology for everything….“
After she finished, before the fear crept in, I repeated back to her the statement and added a question mark to it (aka raised my voice at the end) From that moment we were off talking for about 20mins. Learned a lot about her and she may have learned a lot about me. Such a lovely conversation we had…
Funny enough (on a related note) Sherry Turkle has been popping up here and there recently…
I bought her excellent book Alone Together and haven’t started on the new one, reclaiming conversation.
I was listening to the Tech news today #1418 special with her and happen to tweet it, when Martin pointed out she was on Radio 4 at that exact moment (the beauty of serendipity and being open to it)
Just catching @STurkle on technewstoday, a must listen! https://t.co/kX9tedOVMR
— Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) January 6, 2016
@cubicgarden @STurkle on Radio 4 right now too 🙂
— Martin Bryant (@MartinSFP) January 6, 2016
So I checked it out, BBC Radio 4 today,. Interesting stuff… Expect another blog entry about this and more Sherry Turkle thoughts soon..
Lauren’s blog always tends to catch my eye (specially the #ocadoandchill one) when reading through my RSS feeds. Unfortunately the feed doesn’t quite work as it should but her cheap date ideas got me thinking instantly…
6 Cheap London Date Ideas
Maybe I should do one for Manchester too?https://t.co/C9vowtkXT6— Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) January 9, 2016
How about 7 Cheap Manchester Date ideas? (got to be one better that London)
I didn’t mention parks, the pennies, bury market, weekend brunch, football, the underground tours, graffiti tours, shopping, cycle tours, etc… I’m sure many others have ideas, and all without mentioning netflix and chill.
I’m with Mr30NotSoFlirty... I’m down with confessions number 1 and 2 (except the man crush, I think the female wait staff is pretty lovely).
Confession no.1 – I do love a blind date
Confession no. 2 – over the last few years I’ve become addicted to First Dates on Channel 4 and I have a man crush on Maitre d’ Fred
Confession no.3 – I recently took the addiction a step further by being a background dater at the First Dates restaurant…. if you love reality TV, what could be better than stepping into the show you love
I’m not done step 3 but after reading the blog about Mr30NotSoFlirty’s experience. I registered my interest and signed up pretty much straight away on my phone in a Glastonbury cafe today.
Just applied to go on @Channel4 #firstdates following my new years resolutions & reading @Mr30NotSoFlirty's posthttps://t.co/XTO6vlmv2F
— Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) December 29, 2015
This fits with my 2016 new years resolution… Make some bold moves with my love life.
@cubicgarden You'd be brilliant! Looking forward to seeing Fred welcome you to the @FirstDates restaurant…
— Mr30NotSoFlirty (@Mr30NotSoFlirty) December 29, 2015
Bold or silly?
Who knows? But I look forward to seeing Fred and that lovely waitress.
Swipe left or swipe right… why not?
More and more the answers are getting more simplistic. There was something Douglas Ruskoff said recently in a chat while talking about present shock.
Its also something I’ve been thinking about, especially since installing Bumble and Plenty of Fish daring apps. Every dating app now includes the hot or not/swipe left or right mechanism; this for me is a bad thing…. I’m not the only one of course.
In the September issue of Vanity Fair, Nancy Jo Sales wrote an in -depth piece called, Tinder and the Dawn of “Dating Apocalypse.” It’s an eye-opener and validation of a woman’s worst fear. The guys are swiping right to hook up and it’s all just a game.
In the story, it’s reported that 100 million people are using mobile apps, with about 50 million on Tinder. The Tinder blog reports 25 million matches a day. The numbers are mind-boggling and enormous.
The VF story is really about sex and hookups. Mobile apps just happen to ramp up the numbers in a digital second, and singles in their 20s are buying into the hooking up program, I believe which ruins their chance at romance.
I of course wrote about the tinder breakdown here. But I find the pattern/ui decision/culture a little disturbing. I did look under dark patterns to see if it was included but couldn’t find it. Maybe I should submit it?
Whats wrong with the swipe? Don’t be a hater… I hear you say…
I boil it down to simplification of questions to a binary output/decision. Thinking like a computer...
Conrad Wolfram delivered a good talk at Thinking Digital around the exact same thing. I’ve said it a many times before but I’ll say it again, I do wonder/worry that the digital revolution seems to be driven by one group of people who may think alike and seem more comfortable with binary decisions that the fuzziness of reality.
In today’s touchscreen world, a “swipe right” is a quick, positive way to communicate interest. Alternately, a “swipe left” is the swiftest way reject something or someone. Whether it’s picking a date on Tinder or choosing a dress on Pinterest, technology brings immediate gratification to so many aspects of our lives.
This blog by nehrlich caught my eye which is somewhat related. The world is fuzzy and building up systems to block out the fuzz is in my opinion not great. We need to embrace the fuzz along side the binary.
I’ll say it again… diversity of people and thought just like nature.
Reducing a decision about something as fuzzy as a potential partner does irk me. Do I like the person in front of me or not?
Yes or No. In or Out, One or Zero.
No sense of maybe… Make a decision now….!
Plus you can’t move forward or go back. Its some seriously dark user interface voodoo. It seems so playful and fun but under the gamification there is something dark happening…. and its spreading like wildfire! This is certainly something which chimes against my new years resolution around thinking humanity…
Which leads headlong into the “I want it now, instant gratification, etc culture…” but I’m feeling too happy for that right now.
Angie reminded me of something I forgot to wrote about many months ago. She pointed at BBC’s you and yours programme.
People who use dating apps to meet potential new partners have told You & Yours that they’re concerned about their privacy, after finding that Facebook has gained access to the details of people they’ve been speaking to. The names of people they’ve been matched with on the dating apps are appearing in their “suggested friends” on Facebook. We investigate how social media sites access our personal information and how users give their permission.
Yes, this isn’t new…! Dating apps like Hinge and Tinder use you as a matchmaker without your permission.
If you’ve got a robust Facebook friend list filled with single people who use dating apps like Hinge or Tinder, chances are you’ve appeared as a mutual friend between two different matches.
When your face appears as a link between people, you legitimize their connection. You become a topic of conversation, an “in” to launch a potential relationship.
Even if you don’t use these dating apps yourself, your personal information can still appear, because when your friends started using the apps, they gave the services permission to access their friend lists to display in-network matches.
There’s no way to avoid appearing as a mutual friend unless you unfriend everyone using these dating apps or delete your Facebook account. Even if your friend list is private, you’re still visible to these apps as a friend of a user who opted into sharing that information.
The potential consequences could be discomforting. Let’s say there’s a person on your friend list whom you added years ago and about whom you no longer know anything. If he matches with one of your good friends, she might decide to go on a date with him in part because of your online friendship, which can be misconstrued as approval from her social group.
The fact is Facebook has access to that data and when we install these apps, we are givng permission to them to do what they like with that data. Permissions is something which can add a bandaid to things but its not a permanent solution. I must find the bit in the FB EULA which says it basically snoop on and use the data requested from a 3rd party app. You didn’t think FB was doing it out of the kindness of their cold heart did you? Wake up and smell smoke. Its a harsh reality which I think people are still only just waking up to…. Linked data is still a concept which has really been picked up.
Did you see that couple on first dates? Season 4 episode 12
They started out like it was going to end in disaster.
She was a yoga instructor he had never really been to yoga. She was vegetarian he ordered the steak. Discussion was thorny to say the least. She spent ages (5mins) bad mouthing him in the toilet to another woman as he sat there wondering what was going on. She even considered leaving out the bathroom window (pretty sure that was more talk that anything).
Then in a moment of honestly it all turned around…
When they discuss how bad the date has been so far, she starts to write off the date. He says roughly…
I think you are trying to protect yourself by being horrible to me. You’re obviously nice but something may have happened in the past?
Not willing to show any vulnerability or be authentic and genuine is a common thing with dating in the 21 century.
You can see instantly how her face and body language changes. She suddenly realises there could be something here. Its like night and day the change around.
Its a good example of how he/she makes you feel which matters (or as I call it chemistry)… as datingsitereviews says.
Focus on how someone makes you feel. It’s impossible to date without judging. In a way, that’s what dating is about – evaluating people to determine if they’re a potential partner. Just make sure you’re judging the right thing. Picking apart someone’s clothes or hairline is superficial. Instead, focus on how they make you feel. Are you comfortable? Are you happy? Do you feel like the best version of yourself when you’re around them? Those are the things that really matter.
Here’s my clipped version, see how long it lasts on youtube for (I have previous on this)…
Fascinating to see it all happen (even if its slightly staged). Heck its for a better reasons than those I last time wrote about.
When Hannah sent me a link to the metro piece about one of the bloggers I follow a bit…
Basically person A meets person B, things don’t go so well on the chemistry front. Person A decides things to call it a night or go home. Person B goes away then a few days later, contact Person A wanting compensation in return.
Here’s the story as my date told me
My mystery into who pays on the first date stemmed from a journal I wrote on OkCupid when I went on a date with a previous woman. She had made a bit of a song and dance about paying and I kind of innocently wondered, out loud. I do wonder sometimes if I should wonder a little quieter. This time my post on OkCupid caused a small flurry of comments and discussion (and I guess more dates).
My date brought up who pays on the first date and we natter away about that date. However My date told me a story which literally made my chin drop for ages.
On her previous date, she had gone after a bit of chat back and forth. The man had come across quite strongly and My date decided to give him a chance anyway. On the date he wasn’t really make a good impression, and when the bill came she offered to pay half. The man didn’t think this was a good idea and insisted on paying for the whole thing. My date said again, she was willing to go dutch and split the bill. Again the man insisted to pay for everything. Feeling like she may have insulted his inner ego, she backed down and let him pay.
The man walked her to her bus stop and suggested another date should be on the cards. My date righly said maybe she will see. The next day he called her to see how she was and about the second date. She broke it to him nicely, there wasn’t any chemistry and there wasn’t going to be another date sorry. His answer back was frankly shocking…
He said WHAT? I couldn’t believe it… I felt like I had misheard My date in the low level buzz of Bakerie.
“He said he wanted his money back!”
Yes the man My date had last dated wanted his money back after My date had offered to have pay half orginally.
My date must have sat there looking at my face of shock and horror for about 5mins. Every once in a while I would repeat her words again… “he wanted his money back?”
Both are pretty shocking to be honest even in the face of Dating awkwardness.
As nobaddatesjustgoodstories says,
I don’t come with a money back guarantee. Dates aren’t commodities.
I actually felt angry, because as you’ll know if you read this blog often, I am a massively big believer in women always offering to pay for dates.
His response is just beyond me!
Absolutely… I can not even imagine what it must be like to be treated like this.
However my date had a very good reply, one that was genius…
After a while we broke up in laughter, when it had all sunk in and I could ask what happened next?
My date was a strong willed woman and I just knew that couldn’t be the end of the story. It wasn’t… She told me.
She explained how hurt she felt but she thought on her feet and told him, to send his address to her and she will send him a cheque for the exact amount of the money to the penny.
Oh my date was good! I commented to her… Yes she continued. And I have not heard anything from him since.
I pretty much fell back and clapped my hands, attracted a few glances around the Bakerie environment. “Amazing!”
My date was amazing, and what a story. I thought my dates were bad but she had taken the biscuit, put cheese on top and eaten it whole.
This is only one chapter out of a collection of stories in a book/blog keep meaning to make public… Maybe its about time?
I know most of my friends have heard me rave on about the state of dating in the 21st century, but this Sunday after your Halloween parties on the 31st October. Why not grab some brunch in the Northern Quarter and then head to the Royal Exchange in Manchester, to hear a whole hour of me talking about the affect of the internet on mating and beyond.
Its a totally free event and what better place to discuss the future than the Royal Exchange theatre in central Manchester.
It starts at 2pm and if you had enough of me talking about dating, fear not theres a great talk from Amber about the Mafia and what you think we know.
Hope to see you all there on Sunday, with or without your Halloween costumes…
The next few weeks are going to be pretty busy…
As usual its kinda of stressful but ever-so exciting!
Remember First dates? and remember when I thought about going on Channel4 first dates?
Well I’ve always wondered when there was going to be bust up about who pays since I learned the whole dates are not paid for by Channel4.
@cubicgarden not this again.
— v1.0.0.betta.2 (@cbetta) October 17, 2015
Yes Crisitano this once again… after the ignite talk, radio debates, presentations, polls, etc, etc
Blame Tony who sent me the link to Mashable, where they cover the difficult exchange about payment for the meal and drinks.
Things seemed to be going okay until right at the very end of the date when the subject of paying for the meal came up — and everything suddenly got very awkward, very fast.
“Oh, we need to pay the bill,” said Elle, before moving the paper over to Mark’s side of the table.
Mark then asked if she was giving the bill to him, and Elle replied by saying: “Of course I’m giving it to you. I never pay on dates, why would I?
Finally I watched the whole episode myself and frankly I’m firmly shocked at her behaviour. In my mind he did little wrong and frankly he went in with the right idea of splitting the bill or going dutch.
Now I’m fully aware TV has a massive habit of slicing and dicing footage to make/add drama or make somebody look a certain way. But in this case, it could be the drink talking but I would have cut the date short. Aka no shots of tequila and certainly no after party.
But I still reject the notion that money shows interest. Aka the idea that I would pay the bill if I wanted to see the person again.
@C4FirstDates you pay the bill if you actually like the person and it has potential…… No potential, money grabber….. Split the bill!
— lisa davidson (@yayadavidson) October 15, 2015
But I will say there is no doubt this was a painful date and highlights the different way people think about how this should work. This is why I prefer to just take it off the table by both paying half.
Its been about 6 months roughly since I was involved in the MOSI experiment around speed dating. It was the most scientific thing I have done till I took part in the Horizon dating experiment (blog is written but I can’t publish till the TV show goes out – next year)
Just did the most interesting scientific speed dating experiment at @voiceofmosi #sexology. The science of popularity in dating…
— Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) March 11, 2015
But I was wondering what was the results of the MOSI experiment? I haven’t heard anything but to be fair I did go on the date with one of the woman I met through the speed dating. She was nice and there was quite a bit of common interest but I got the feeling it wasn’t to be when we split the bill.
Oh well…