Showing posts with label Dating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dating. Show all posts

Thursday, June 03, 2010

How To Date An Indian: Andrea Miller

This blog post by an Andrea Miller normally would not fall in tech and biz categories - technbiz.blogspot.com - except that she is an entrepreneur, and this blog has touched upon the world of online dating before. Besides, anything goes. And this post seems to be Miller's first and only post at The Huffington Post. She comes across as a fairly accomplished individual. Most people start at the collective level. Individual spark comes later. That is why so few of the relationships out there are cross-cultural, inter-racial, even in a diverse city like New York.

Online Dating Newsflash: Race And Religion Matter

Andrea Miller: Bio
.... founder and CEO of YourTango ..... a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School ..... positions with Goldman Sachs, ICF Consulting and Enron’s international finance team. While with Enron, Andrea was based in Mumbai, India for three years. ...... a frequent panelist and guest speaker in classes at Harvard University, Columbia University, Fordham University, The Wharton School and New York University. .... a licensed private pilot, and is a passionate karate practitioner ..... one of the original co-heads of the New York Chapter of 85 Broads, an independent global network of female professionals and students. She actively seeks to promote entrepreneurship among women; she is the co-founder of the Women Entrepreneurs Network, an active network of females who represent some of the tri-state area's most talented and promising young entrepreneurs.
Andrea Miller: How To Date An Indian
Indians are the true Chosen People .....There are obvious reasons one would want to date an Indian, such as how successful and professionally desirable they are. Indians dominate as engineers, doctors, lawyers, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. They make up a large proportion of our graduate students -- just walk around the campuses of Harvard, Columbia or Stanford or and you will see these incredibly attractive brown people all over the place....... Indian people tend to be really good looking. ..... According to Wikipedia*, "India holds the highest number of Miss World winners, only to be tied with Venezuela." ...... Most Indians are innately gracious, social creatures; they highly value friends and family and have a calendar filled with various holidays and occasions to celebrate, which they typically do with gusto. Those endless jubilant dance numbers in Bollywood movies pretty much channel the Indian soul. Moreover, Indian men love to dance. If for no other reason other than you want someone to dance with you (or without you for that matter), date an Indian. ....... learn seven things that should ingratiate you with them. The first five have to do with Bollywood. Indians take Bollywood and their celebrities very seriously. ....... If you bust out something like, "Yea, I loved Kuch Kuch Hota Hai," you are very likely to get a second date. .... Major bonus points if you suggest seeing a Hindi movie together. ...... Bhangra ...exhibit the right dance moves, i.e. patting an imaginary dog while screwing in an imaginary light bulb. ..... Indians love their food. Probably more than they love dancing. ...... Indians love when you speak their language. ..... there are several iPhone apps that will give you translations .... I hope Laxmi, Goddess of Prosperity, smiles on you as you endeavor to date one of her people. ..... one more big bonus when it comes to dating an Indian: communication with cabbies. Think I'm kidding? New Yorkers: Just imagine if you could stop a taxi during the 4pm transition time and your date could say, in Hindi, "Hey brother, will you please take us to Spring and 6th?"
Okay, so this blog post is not what I thought it might be. I came here hoping to get all defensive. But this is quite a flattering piece, and, I must say, hilarious to boot. This post is as entertaining as a Bollywood masala movie. The blogger's description of Bhangra is the most hilarious I have ever seen: "Bhangra ...exhibit the right dance moves, i.e. patting an imaginary dog while screwing in an imaginary light bulb."

The post is funny but she is curiously right in some ways. I guess it takes an outsider to get you some perspective. Bollywood movies were stuff you did not watch too much of when I was growing up: good students watched movies only moderately. I came to America and the Bollywood movies became my culture.

She is to the point about food. During my road trip across America I realized I missed Desi food more than my family.

"I hope Laxmi, Goddess of Prosperity, smiles on you as you endeavor to date one of her people." Hilarious. A college friend once said to me, it was a green card, gold card swap.

That cabbie part. I never thought that was an advantage. I mean, I am very much a subway person. But when you talk to a brown person, you might as well talk Hindi. They appreciate it. White guys similarly have advantages on Capitol Hill and Wall Street. Although I am not so sure about Wall Street. Goldman Sachs is one third brown. And we are about to send Reshma to DC, so we will be good there too.

Reshma 2010, Square, And Pro.Act.Ly

Okay, so this picture is me right out of high school. You can see I was trying hard to imitate Amitabh Bachchan's hairstyle. If you don't know who that is, you are an illiterate. He just so happens to be the most recognized face on the planet. You don't have to date an Indian to know that.



There is Hindi, and there is English. There is Bollywood, and there is Hollywood. There is democracy, and there is democracy. We are breaking even. I am all for cross-cultural understanding. Peace and love.
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Monday, February 15, 2010

Online Dating Newsflash: Race And Religion Matter

There are some people who believe the Internet is supposed to have created the New Human. And, surprise surprise, that does not seem to be the case. The technology itself will not do it. Although it does help catalyze the processes that one hopes will lead to human betterment. But the good versus evil fight will continue with this technology as any other. Overall I think the Internet is a major force for good, something fundamental, I would even call it millenial, as in something this good only happens once every thousand years, maybe. But the Internet is as much a reflection of who we are as it is a reflection of who we can become. It is said of New York City that the most diverse city on earth is also the most segregated. We mingle and then go back to our own ethnic enclaves.

Plenty Of Fish: Online Dating King

I looked through the OKCupid numbers. My personal conclusion is, race matters, but not all that much. Get a haircut, work on your manners, say hello. And when there is no chemistry, respect.

"White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups’ reply rates to non-whites is terrible. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%."

Looks like The White Male's got it made! I know plenty of dorky ones, and meet even more. ;-) At this point, the whole thing descends into a sociological exercise.

When you mix race and religion, looks like if you are a white guy who is laughing about his religion, you are hot in online dating. That cocktail sounds weird.

If you are out to date an entire race or two, these numbers are alarming. But if you are looking for one person, these numbers are boring. That person is out there.

Conclusion: Macro matters, but micro is where it happens or not.

Seeking My Race-Based Valentine Online This Valentine's Day, more of us than ever will be looking for love online. And if recent studies are any guide, relatively few women on mainstream dating sites will bother to respond to overtures from men of Asian descent. Likewise, black women will be disproportionately snubbed by men of all races. ..... Behind computer screens and cutely coded user names, people clearly communicate things about race that few would ever say aloud in a bar........ lists 10 racial and ethnic groups users can select as preferred dates. Among the women, 73% stated a preference. Of these, 64% selected whites only, while fewer than 10% included East Indians, Middle Easterners, Asians or blacks....... a little different for the men, 59% of whom stated a racial preference. Of these, nearly half selected Asians, but fewer than 7% did for black women....... men's choices are influenced by the media's portrayal of Asian women as being hypersexual and black women as being bossy..... "racism is alive and well." ...... black women garnered the fewest responses of any female group. White women responded at much higher rates to white men than to men of color. Asian women's and Latinas' response rates showed even stronger preferences for white men

How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get despite what you might’ve heard from the Obama campaign and organic cereal commercials, racism is alive and well ..... When I first started looking at first-contact attempts and who was writing who back, it was immediately obvious that the sender’s race was a huge factor. ..... although race shouldn’t matter in messaging, it does. A lot. ...... Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder. ...... White guys are shitty, but fairly even-handed about it. The average reply rate of non-white males is 48.1%, while white guys’ is only 40.5%. Basically, they write back about 20% less often. It’s ironic that white guys are worst responders, because as we saw above they get the most replies. That has apparently made them very self-absorbed.
How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating Astrological sign has no effect whatsoever on how compatible two people are. ...... Jewish men, in particular, have an above average match percentage with every religious group. They even match Muslim women better than Muslim men do ....... Why, for example, Hindu men would match worst with Hindu women is a mystery....... Protestant Christians only truly match well with other Christians. Catholics have above average match percentages with Hindus, Jews, and even Agnostics. ...... The less serious you are about religion, the better liked you are, even by very religious people. ...... Muslims and Protestants tend to be more intense about their beliefs than the others, and Jews and Agnostics are by far the least serious. ....... If religion is a minefield, then race is a field that’s just one giant mine. ...... white people tend to be better liked, (or, if you want to think reciprocally, do more liking) than the other races, or that black and Indian men are less liked/liking, but, still, those differences are small compared to what we saw with religion ....... It’s not as simple as saying, Mary really likes hockey and Bob really likes hockey, therefore they are a good match—which is how many dating sites work. What if instead Mary really likes being dominated during sex? If Bob also needs to be dominated, and good sex is important to them, Bob and Mary are terrible matches. In bed, at least, they both want their opposites.....OkCupid is no more responsible for people’s match percentages than Microsoft Excel is responsible for their net worth.


In the Calculations of Online Dating, Love Can Be Cruel It is love in the time of ones and zeros, the rudimentary language of computers. In the digital age, everything must at some point be reduced to this basic construct of choice: One or zero. Yes or no. On or off.......“What everyone is looking for is chemistry,” she said, “and that’s not quantifiable.”
Three Steps to Demystifying Online Dating Pick someplace casual. Opt for a happy hour or a coffee shop — not a play or a four-course dinner. If the chemistry isn’t there, you’ll have an easy exit.....do not tell your date that you Googled them, even though you most likely have.


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