Comments

1
They're on the Moon!
2
Pretty hetero for The Stranger
3
Since Amazon expects its employees to devote their lives completely to their job, the only way single guys working for Amazon are going to find someone to date is if Amazon starts hiring more women. Realistically, though, no one who works at Amazon has time for a social life outside of Amazon. When I worked there everyone socialized with their coworkers (and most of the people I worked with were married).
4
In b4 SRoTU and whatever whine he'll be horking up *noogies*

But srsly, develop a life outside of your cow-orkers. Easier said than done, I know.
5
Aren't you assuming that all these Amazon male employees are straight?
6
and to make matters worse. the more on the technical side you are at Amazon, the fewer females there are.
7
Who likes interactive data viz? I'll just leave this here.
8
The odds are good, but the goods are odd.
9
@5 No, unless there are more gay men then there are lesbian women. (Is this a safe assumption to make? I actually have no idea!)
10
Groups like Code Fellows and AIDA (Appropriate IT Development Academy) are full of horror stories involving Amazon and women in STEM. Amazon actively drives technical women away to the point they do not bother applying for positions.
11
@5 Actually, it is assuming that male homosexuality is the same rate as female homosexuality in Seattle. If the rates are the same, then it doesn't really matter. But if male homosexuality is far more common, then it is less of an issue. If female homosexuality is far more common, this is more problematic than it looks. Clearly Amazon should either hire more women or hire more gay men.

But there is also bisexuality, which makes the math hard. But bisexuality does help. If there are even numbers of male and female bisexuals, and those bisexuals are equally romantically and sexually attracted to both males and females (look, that's much less of a simplification than a spherical cow, so just go with me on this), then it actually helps a lot. Because it'll be easier for women who are bisexuals to date men and easier for men who are bisexuals to date men. And everyone will be saved from a culture of awkward dating by the bisexuals. But that requires a sufficiently large pool of bisexuals who lack gender preferences.

I am not going to go into people who are genderqueer, because then it gets very difficult to calculate things. Just assume some massless, frictionless people and that all genderqueer people end up with other genderqueer people (highly unrealistic) and then we can simplify it all to not mattering - reality be damned.
12

Wow, after a decade of comments, you finally acknowledge my principal conclusion.

Seattle sucks (for dudes).

13
@5,

It's a pretty safe assumption that the vast majority of them are straight. Are gay men drawn to STEM fields in greater proportions than other fields? I haven't seen any particular evidence of that.
14
Hey Amazon, maybe exercise less gender discrimination when hiring workers? KTHX
15
Or [assuming you're a single straight male] you could, as @7's link suggests, stick it out until all the surplus men die off... *oh wait...*
16
@14 "KTHX"?

Amazon certainly needs to own some serious blame and play a part in the fix, but girls are increasingly under-represented in STEM as they grow older, meaning that there simply are not as many qualified women total or proportionately for Amazon and other corporations to simply stop being "bad" so this problem goes away.

We need to address this at every level here, throughout the county, and to some extent world-wide, due to the large representation of H1Bs employed in the field.
17
It would be interesting to see the demographic information about the straight single lady population and compare it to the single male population. I assume that many of the new males arriving in Seattle are Indians with HB-1 visas. Are straight single Seattle ladies into these Indian guys? I mean, some of them surely would be, but a significant amount of them I suspect would not be? I am not sure.
18
@17- Are you saying that "straight single Seattle ladies" are racist? Because that's what it sounds like you're saying.
19
Not only that, but women in Seattle are pretty fugly by any standard.
20
"Aren't you assuming that all these Amazon male employees are straight?"

I'm sure Amazon's work environment creates a few bull queers.
21
@18

I don't think there is data out there that would show single ladies are racist. However, I am assuming that the straight single lady population is much more white than the single male population (due to Indian immigration trends). Do you think that these overwhelmingly white single ladies would prefer to date Indian immigrant men or native born men (of what ever ethnicity) at the same rate? I assume they prefer native born men. I need to see data.
22
only for men like you who harass women at bus stops, bailo.
23
@21 oh ok, you just think the straight single ladies select who to date on the basis of nationality, then. I guess that's about half a point less offensive than being called racist, so it's an improvement.

Did it ever occur to you that it might be the Indian men who aren't into white women? Or is that just too crazy a thought?
24
Why no love for @8? Cracked me up!

@8 Wins this thread.
25
@8: Beat me to it.
26
And 1 top for every 6000 bottoms.
27
Wow, 26 comments and nobody has said the obvious:

It's raining men!
28
@23 you are correct. I do recall reading of scientific research suggesting all humans are more attracted to people of similar ethnicity/race. Not sure to what degree or if there are changes from culture to culture... For example perhaps media can influence attitudes and prejudices, or perhaps there are differences from communities that are more diverse and less diverse.
29
Hmmm my wording may be misleading... By all humans I don't mean absolutely each individual but across groups the trend continues. i.e. a Scandinavian is statistically more likely to be most attracted to other Scandinavians but individual Scandinavians may very well buck that trend and have a thing for Indian tech workers
30
A lot of those male tech workers are probably Aspies who don't date.
31
This little alarm ignores fact that Seattle is the gay-maliest city in the US, including SF. That probably evens the odds.
32
@12: It is not like if you went to another city women would want to have sex with you there either. The problem is you.
33
@28 That's probably true, statistically speaking. But don't you find it interesting that people often assume that white people would prefer not to date minorities? It's very rare to see a comment that assumes the reverse. Do people attribute more racism to white people, or do they just think that everyone would be happy to date a white person? I don't know which is more troublesome.
34
So, am I the only person who thinks all this Amazon growth is feeling a bit like a bubble that is going to collapse?
35
Has anyone else noticed the irony that Amazon needs women?
36
@35 I'm still not reconciled to Amazon as a name for a high-tech company, even though no other odd sounding tech nomenclature (Blackberry, Twitter) has long since been normalized to my ear.
37
Presumably these numbers equate unmarried with single? I know plenty of unmarried women but most are in established relationships.
38
Amazon discourages it's workers from having a life outside of Amazon. They prefer young, single guys to older people who know their legal rights and have families to support.

http://gawker.com/inside-amazons-bizarre…

http://gawker.com/i-do-not-know-one-pers…

http://gawker.com/working-at-amazon-is-a…
39
@33,

Statistics show that women of just about all races prefer dating white men. Among the least desirable in the dating world in the U.S. are black women and Asian men. While this is obviously the result of racial biases, individual people, of course, don't necessarily track with the statistics.
40
GeekWire asked me to respond, as both an online dating coach and a former Amazon contractor. I happily complied: http://www.geekwire.com/2014/online-dati…
42
Sounds like we need more poly women
43
Most guys I know that complain about Seattle dating arent complaining about the lack of options, they complain about the available options.

There does not seem to be a shortage of available women for straight men aged 21-40 in Seattle. Most of the complaints I hear are about the type of women that are single. I dont have any experience being single in Seattle, but every single guy I know whines about how all the 'cool' and 'date able' women are gone. There are plenty of options for sex, but not many for committed relationships. And the ones that are looking for committed relationships tend to have problems with fidelity or emotional intimacy. Then theres the complaints from 'e-dating' victims. If I had a dollar for every horror story Ive been given by a guy from a pof.com hookup in Seattle...well I wouldnt be rich, but I would have a hell of a lot of dollars.

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