This is some bullshit right here.
Edit: Turns out the email was confusingly written; See Comments.
Here is an excerpt from an email I received today in relation to the upcoming Poly Speed Dating event that (I think!) I am attending next week. Please note the "Demographic Limits" section.
( The excerpt in question )
Here is an excerpt from an email I received today in relation to the upcoming Poly Speed Dating event that (I think!) I am attending next week. Please note the "Demographic Limits" section.
( The excerpt in question )
1) It was implemented after I had already bought my tickets. It's one thing to have Terms and Conditions. I have no issue with people having fun that I am not invited to. The problem is, I *was* invited. Both generally and specifically. The offer to attend this event for a fee was made and accepted. Money changed (virtual) hands. I've had my tickets for the event for weeks and today is the first time this new condition has been mentioned. Which leads to...
2) It was announced six days before the event. People, ESPECIALLY Poly people, plan their lives a little further out than all that. Waiting until now to spring this on us makes it difficult for even the most socially connected Straight Male Poly person to comply, let alone the ones of us who come to these events specifically to widen our malnourished social circles.
3) It makes me responsible for their business model. "But it is a reality that the predominant demographic is straight male." I agree. This is something that the people holding the event need to account for. Since Speed Dating is an established thing in the world that seems to be working, presumably there are matching systems that can account for this, or targeted advertising, or something else that I cannot think of because I haven't spent more than five minutes trying to set up a system like this. But clearly there ARE solutions that don't transfer the balancing burden to a specific portion of the paying customers.
4) If "75% of the attendees were straight male and not everyone actually got to get set up with a speed date. How would you feel?" About the same as I do currently. With the conditions I set for my profile, I historically end up with 4-5 matches in a 15 round event. This is perfectly acceptable to me as I know I am extra picky and unmatchable, being a CIS-Gendered Straight Male.
Also I believe the premise of this statement is flawed. With a 15 round event each "Unicorn", be they a Straight Female or what have you, can be matched with 15 others. The extreme example of this is a 16 member event, with 1 female and 15 males (a 93.75% male attendence.) In this case each female would get 15 dates, and each male would get 1. At 75% (4 females to 12 males) each female gets 12 dates, and each male gets 4. (Which aligns with my own results.) Now if we increase the attendance values to a more reasonable level but leave the 75% value, say 64 attendees, then we can potentially match each female to 15 males and each male to 15 (Edit: 4 - I can't math) females with the females having the advantage of a larger pool for selection. Since the number of rounds is fixed, the percentages aren't the most important factor - attendance is. To quote the email "...more people equals better quality dates for everyone."
Obviously there are many complicating factors that can be argued. There are Females who only wish to be matched with other Females, there are kinks and preferences and a rainbow of other factors to consider. But I don't believe that any of those details undermines the point that attendance, not percentages, are the greatest factor in making successful matches until or unless we begin maxing out the event size and people who are NOT Straight Males are unable to attend because a Straight Male has taken the slot they could have had, which clearly hasn't happened yet since the solution the planners are looking for couldn't work either as it would tremendously boost attendance. If you were to magically remove ALL the Straight Males from the event, the remaining people would see either no difference, or fewer matches, or lower quality matches, depending on their selection preferences.
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