I had an interesting encounter several days ago. A woman liked my profile on OKCupid; of course, heaven forbid she should actually write a message to me. Despite all their caterwauling about gender equality, even when given the opportunity to make the first move the vast majority won't, despite the clear indication of interest. But leaving that aside, I recognized this woman from her FetLife profile. It wasn't difficult; same glasses, same eyes, same hair. I liked her back, and because I'm the male I wrote to her first, and in my message I asked if she was the same person I recognized on FetLife. She wrote back, saying that it was creepy for me to put that in my first message because it was a "power imbalance." I instantly knew that this would end with her unmatching me, first because she's wrong and second because she can't stand to have someone disagree with her. And that's exactly how it occurred. I told her she was wrong, she unmatched me.
So, a few comments from this incident, or encounter, or however you want to conceive of it. The first is that I have a deep seated contempt for people who demand to be treated equally but then become offended when you actually do treat them equally. Don't wait for a man to make the first move; if you're a female and you're interested, don't be passive. Seize the initiative. The second is that I have an even deeper contempt for people who have no real understanding of what constitutes power; this frequently puts me at odds with my fellow liberals who believe that any asymetric knowledge imbalance, by itself, constitutes a power imbalance. It doesn't. It only constitutes a power imbalance when that knowledge can and is used to achieve goals in the face of opposition. Finally, if you don't want people to recognize you across platforms, don't post your face so that people can recognize you. Don't willingly expose what you don't want people to collect and collate.
