>In a nutshell, you inspire me when something that you share makes me want to share something, too. Notice the word "want" in that definition. Inspiration does not make your partner feel obligated to share. It makes them want to share.
This is the part that I've been stuck at for years. And I imagine other technical people hit this roadblock as well. Being able to talk with people when you have little in the way of common interests is a skill in and of its itself. Finding intimate relationships becomes particularly difficult when you can't achieve the inspiration since most young women aren't exactly excited to talk about code, or tech, or any of the things HN types tend to dedicate our lives to.
I don't think any of these self help references can really solve this problem, short of advising one to be "more open", which really means force interest in uninteresting topics.
"since most young women aren't exactly excited to talk about code, or tech, or any of the things HN types tend to dedicate our lives to"
This is an open invitation to you to ask questions. "What are you really fascinated by? Do you have a thing that you dedicated all your free time to?"
And as for talking about code, don't talk about code - talk about why it's fascinating to you. What do you see there that makes it this spectacular thing?
And don't see it as "finding intimate partners", but "finding interesting people". If you're both interesting to each other, there's a much better chance of intimacy. (But still far from guaranteed)
It's not guaranteed to succeed, but "tell me about you" is a pretty good invitation, and "tell me about what motivates you" is good inspiration.
(And, as a side bar: It's worth finding one or two things outside code. Not to be more interesting, but because having a single focus is a good way towards burnout some years later)
It does take effort, but open-mindedness here could pay off. Lots of topics may look boring on the surface, but when you really ask someone who's into them, they can drill down into a million subtle complexities. It could be Nascar or baking or romance novels or whatever. Sounds super boring to me, but if someone is passionate about them, I can ask questions and be curious and it's often a really interesting conversation.
So I just would avoid dividing the world into "interesting = my life/hobbies, uninteresting = other" and starting from the standpoint that tons of topics are interesting once you dig in, and being determined to find out why the other person finds this topic interesting. Hope this helps.
I know it is different for everyone and this is a side thread but I felt that for a while I was just trying to follow money and my career was about tech giving me money no matter where.
I always enjoyed tech but couldn't connect to the businesses in a bigger level than it is a job and I want it to succeed.
I then ended up in visual effects for big projects and it is incredible how excited / passionate I am about it despite the tech. The tech is just a means to solve issues in an efficient way so that the movies can happen but...
The creative process, the digital artists, the work they do and the lives these creations touch is truly incredible. They are all so passionate as well.
An artist told me the story on how some mother had hers autistic children talking for the first time with a digital creature he created. He always tears up on this story and how his digital creature gave emotions to this mom.
I don't pursue money anymore, in fact I have declined interviews with companies saying they would double my salary. There's more to life than money and tech for tech's sake.
> I don't think any of these self help references can really solve this problem, short of advising one to be "more open", which really means force interest in uninteresting topics.
It isn't all about you.
Are there any topics that are uninteresting when it's something that's of interest to a person you care about? The answer may be yes and that's fine. In that case if you care about that person you are still going to want to encourage and support their pursuit of that interest. Diversity of interest is a healthy thing.
I've found that just about anything is pretty interesting once you peel back the surface and try to understand how it works.
I feel like this is an obvious answer, but everyone has things in common with everyone. Maybe you have a different job, different hobbies, or watch different TV shows, but those are not the only topics of conversation that exist. You live in the same city - talk about the neighborhood you live in and what you like about it. You grew up in different places - ask about that. The weather has been shit recently - complain about that together. Do they have pets? Do they have kids? Are they big cooks or love a certain type of food? What is there family like?
And you can talk about things that you don’t have in common too. You can still talk to someone who knows nothing about tech about your job or personal project. Talking about your job or code at a high enough level that anyone could understand is a great skill - hone it! And are you showing an interest in their job and hobbies that aren’t tech-related? Conversation is a two-way street and you can (and should) ask them about their jobs and try to be interested and listen even if what their passionate about isn’t what you are passionate about.
SO many people I know in the tech community talk about how hard it is talking with people outside of the tech community because those people aren’t into tech. Let me tell you me and my boyfriend are both software engineers and have a big interest in tech outside of work. We spend almost none of our time together talking about tech.
It doesn't really help that "HN types" are (a) largely uninterested in much of anything other than "code or tech" and (b) mostly regard anything that they are not interested in as completely unimportant and unworthy of any time that might be wasted on it (the "sportsball" effect).
(Regarding the discussion of sexism below, does the shoe feel any better on the other foot?)
> since most young women aren't exactly excited to talk about code
This may reflect your subjective experience, but I have had a different experience and would (kindly) give you the heads up that this is a borderline sexist generalization. I've met women in the industry that are just as capable as nerding out over new tech as I am - even if it hasn't been very common (in my experience).
>would (kindly) give you the heads up that this is a borderline sexist generalization
No, it's an explicitly sexist generalization, based on the reality that interests tend to be heavily gendered across disciplines and across societies. I also think it's absurd that we're supposed to dance around this fact in the name of politeness when it's right in front of our faces and affects almost every social interaction we have in life.
Yo OP. My intent here was to help avoiding anyone taking on the assumption that "women don't want to talk code". I didn't mean to throw you or your comment under the bus as sexist - which is why I said "borderline".
Obviously, most women don't code, because most people don't code. The likelihood of bumping into a woman randomly and her being able to nerd out about the latest NodeJS framework with you is about as likely as being able to bump into anyone and discuss the pros and cons to some new breakthrough in materials science - most people just aren't experienced in the field...
My goal is to share a friendly word of hope to guys out there that might think there aren't ladies who will want to nerd out about code with them. There certainly are. You just need to put yourself in the right environment to meet people who have similar experience. Your local bar (unless you're in a very software heavy town), likely isn't the best place. Conferences, meetups, etc, might be worth checking out for meeting like-minds.
Though, generally speaking, if you're looking for a conversation topic for a date, code wouldn't be my first suggestion. It's like talking politics. You might land yourself in an opinionated argument really quickly - fighting about the tradeoffs to upgrading to python3...
If you don't have any other interests to talk about with a partner besides code, I highly suggest expanding your horizons. Learn to cook, or snowboard, or get into a popular TV show. Anything to diversify your personal experiences. It'll at least give you some fuel for more interesting conversations.
The numbers don't add up though, with around 80% in the industry being men you'd expect there to be 4 nerdy men going after every nerdy woman even if they have exactly the same ratio of people who loves talking about code.
Most people don't want to talk code. Thus, given a demographic breakdown that relates neither positively nor negatively with talking code, one can assume the general pattern applies.
Most old people don't want to talk code.
Most young people don't want to talk code.
Most left handed people don't want to talk code.
None of these are discriminating. They are stating that a pattern true of the general population also applies to a demographic partition of the population.
Because making broad assumptions about 50% of the population isn't a cool thing to do. Especially given the excessive amount of nonsense women in tech (and not in tech) have to deal with on a daily basis. Talk like this leads to women feeling excluded from the tech community.
Also, specifically calling out "young women" as not being interested in tech really makes a lot of assumptions. Generally, people will talk about most topics - even if they aren't passionate about those topics themselves. Most women I know will happily talk about tech stuff with me, so maybe your approach is wrong.
>Because making broad assumptions about 50% of the population isn't a cool thing to do.
Is it that those assumptions are not cool to make about 100% of the population either? Is it wrong of me to assume that the average person does not want to talk about code?
Because if it isn't wrong to make the assumption about the average person, but it is wrong to make it about some subset, then isn't that, at its very core, treating that demographic different than the average?
>Generally, people will talk about most topics - even if they aren't passionate about those topics themselves.
Yes, most people will engage in enough conversation to be polite. But there is a significant difference between talking about something a person cares about and them politely carrying on a conversation they aren't interested in. These are not the same behavior and do not generally result in the same outcome . And none of this has to do with gender as I notice this when talking with friends of either gender.
> Because if it isn't wrong to make the assumption about the average person, but it is wrong to make it about some subset, then isn't that, at its very core, treating that demographic different than the average?
No it is not in any meaningful way since the statement is true about both subsets as well as the average person set. The claim is no meaningful distinction is made by specifying the subset of women from all people. In fact I've found every generalization I have ever made about women or men on second thought has been true, and more meaningfully true, for all people (though it may apply differently to men or women).
Anyway all the women I've met in tech are exceptional though I guess it's caused by them being exceptions in a system that treats them as exceptions amongst exceptions. Which is the real reason to minimize talking about women as a subset since whatever causes anyone in a subset to identify with a group is roughly the same cause as the majority in the group.
>The claim is no meaningful distinction is made by specifying the subset of women from all people.
Unless the person was making the claim because that was the subset they were interested in dating, which is how I read the original statement. It was a generalization of all people, but in this case they were only concerned with how it applied to the subset of people they were interested in dating.
They could have avoided the whole problem by instead specifying "people I'm interested in dating", but one has to wonder the cost of having to take that level of care with one's words and the effect of this level of care being discriminatory in where it has to be applied.
I actually think most people do want to talk code. Specifically, how coding might work, or might not work. Whenever I bring up my software dev job, at least one person asks me what my day to day looks like, am I familiar with ML, do I know what blockchain is, etc. And then when I explain it, it comes off almost like revealing the man behind the curtain.
Technology touches everyone. Of course they want to know about how it works!
This has largely not been my experience. Most people I interact with don't care about under the hood and just want it to work. If you have managed to find a place in life where most people enjoy understanding how the things they depend upon work (IT tech or not), then count it as a blessing.
You can find your answer earlier in the same sentence:
> Finding intimate relationships becomes particularly difficult when you can't achieve the inspiration since most young women aren't exactly excited to talk about code, or tech, or any of the things HN types tend to dedicate our lives to.
they are talking about their personal dating life (or lack thereof).
[Edit] One of the neat things about formal reasoning is that it forces you to be explicit about your assumptions. In this case, the original comment seems to be making the assumption that most HN types are heterosexual males and homosexual women, single and with poor social skills.
I took it to be a more personal statement, that they themselves fall into that classification and are thus making the statement from their own perspective.
While most people are not programmers, most programmers are not women. It's a subset of a subset, seems pretty accurate. It's worth noting though that most men aren't interested in discussing programming either. People in our field are few and far between :(
I dare you to go to an average bar or club and try to talk about code with most young women. It's not happening. Most people don't code, and most coders are male.
Even in certain parts of SF, which I'd argue is the most engineer-dense part of the US, you can go into an average bar or club and discover that most of the men aren't interested in talking about code either.
Because lots of programmers loves to talk about code?
> A shared niche interest is not sufficient basis for a good relationship.
Then what is a good basis for a relationship? A shared interest in ubiquitous interests like food, blockbusters or travel? I don't think that is much better.
> I’m a woman in tech and I don’t necessarily wanna talk code on a first or second date, I’ve got professional development figured out on my own time.
Good for you, not everyone feels like that though.
The presumption was that it's sexist to assume you can't talk code with young women. I don't want to talk code with anyone 99% of my off time. But to say the reasoning is sexist is untrue.
Same. Though I do have to admit the gender ratio is skewed a bit at my company you can count on one hand the amount of female engineers while there is 100+ male ones. They even changed the female bathroom to be 2 male ones but left us a couple fancy individual ones which I'm fine with.
the wording was sort of clumsy, but this is not a very charitable take. most people (men and women) really don't want to talk in depth about code or any other of your specific interests.
Replying here to kempbellt, allovernow, and mcguire:
They were interested in "intimate relationships" with women. If I'm wanting to date a woman, I never bring up my tech knowledge. I tell them I'm an inventor who works on things that help people get things done, stop bad folks, etc. I tell them the goals in terms of what effects it has on people with no details. Women like that since non-technical ones see its value and more-technical ones still focus on people effects a bit more than guys. If woman wants tech details, I give them that. Virtually never happened outside tech-focused places like HN or Lobsters.
I talk abstractly about it because the second I mention code I get tuned out, friend-zoned or some association with Hollywood's nerd characters (eg Big Bang Theory or some nerd on cop show). That's how most of them think across the tens of thousands I've interacted with in customer-focused jobs, parties, and public places. You don't even have to come onto them or anything to find out: just bring up tech in a 3rd-person way... 3rd person to separate it from yourself in their perception... and watch how they tune out, cut it down, or otherwise mentally shift gears.
I stay on what they're likely to be interested in, be my fun/somewhat-bad self, etc. Once they know and like me, I drop some of that tech stuff in there. If anything, they just nod like it's some weird hobby I have, a nice thing to do on the side, sometimes just confused about a useless thing I do, or whatever. There's no strong connection most have to it that would benefit me in the slightest. I'm just telling them about it to be more honest at that point. Then, I usually move onto other topics with most people, esp women, often forgetting I even do tech. That's intentional given I lose opportunities with most people due to that association.
It's rare that anybody outside tech areas thinks that stuff is neat or important. And those are almost always married. (sighs) Well, they still make good friends and coworkers. I tell them that, too. Always gets a smile or laugh out of them. Meanwhile, it's a hard fact that most women aren't into guys that engineer, code, or secure things.
Epilogue: Funniest part is that most people talking about sexism in coding will tell you all kinds of ways society keeps women out of it. The actual sexism keeps women uninterested in deep, hands-on tech while reinforcing their interest in other things. Then, some of you talk about how it's sexist to think most women aren't going to be interested in tech or tech workers. I mean, it's a natural effect of both womens' interests in general and sexism that pushes women away from tech. Be consistent people.
"I've met women in the industry that are just as capable as nerding out over new tech as I am"
Adding this in there just in case anyone misreads my reply. In industry or tech-anything, we should ask open-ended questions to get to know each other instead of assuming anything. Folks will definitely meet others super-interested and capable in tech that they might not have expected to meet. There will be plenty of women along that path since they went to those places specifically because they were interested in tech, were nerds, and so on. This gets us back to don't judge people in general until you've had a chance to meet them. Look at meeting each person as maybe opening up opportunities for who knows what.
The person I responded about was talking dates and meaningful relationships outside work, though. That's a different thing altogether. That's what my comment addressed.
There are many other topics besides your job, which most lovers won't share with their SO anyway. Talk about music, history, science, outdoors, travel, there are literally thousands of engaging conversation topics on all manner of experiences. We could talk also about childhood, friendships, space, time, the afterlife, and crazy hypotheticals, not just Earthly, humanities type subjects.
Another strategy I sometimes use is to pick a letter, then discuss something beginning with that letter. That or just be zany and come up with random hypotheticals.
I think the assumption that it's OK to only want to talk about your own interests is incorrect. Besides for the value of developing a wider range of interests yourself, it's really worth learning how to talk to others about things they're passionate about but you're not. If it excites them, there must be something in it worth appreciating.
Say for example you're talking to a woman who's really interested in fashion, beauty and makeup. (Sorry to double down on the gender stereotyping, I just wanted an extreme example.) Without knowing anything about it, here are some things off the top of my head you could ask her:
- How did you get interested in it?
- How big is the global industry? Would you be interested in working in it, maybe starting your own brand?
- How do you keep up with things? Instagram? Blogs?
- If I wanted to learn the basics how long would it take me?
- Is personal style inherent or learned?
And the same applies with woodworking or snowboarding or rugby or knitting or anime or cooking or kabuki or classical guitar or pets or anything you can think of. Siloing yourself among people with common interests is so wasteful when you could open up to the great variety of the world.
Do you have any hobbies outside of tech? You could try talking about those. If not, just about everyone listens to music, so "what kind of music do you listen to?" is a decent opening question that might take you somewhere interesting.
If you're having trouble finding an interest in something your conversation partner is talking about, try asking them what they like about it -- it could help you find the topic more interesting.
At a surface level it may seem that others don't share the same common interests as me. Underlying their differing interests, however, are feelings and needs that all humans share in common. I try to connect to those underlying feelings and needs when talking. For instance, I'll ask what they enjoy about a particular activity, or if it gives them a sense of fulfillment, etc.
This is the part that I've been stuck at for years. And I imagine other technical people hit this roadblock as well. Being able to talk with people when you have little in the way of common interests is a skill in and of its itself. Finding intimate relationships becomes particularly difficult when you can't achieve the inspiration since most young women aren't exactly excited to talk about code, or tech, or any of the things HN types tend to dedicate our lives to.
I don't think any of these self help references can really solve this problem, short of advising one to be "more open", which really means force interest in uninteresting topics.