Well, what do you expect when it's called "Amazon"???

I laughed out loud reading the woes of a (very) single writer at Salon.com.  She complains that 'Amazon is killing her sex life'.

As technologist and writer, Jeff Reifman, pointed out ... Amazon, which is located less than a mile from my house, has had a huge, awful impact on Seattle’s dating scene. He estimated that in the 25–44 age group, Seattle “has 119 single men for every 100 single women, slightly better than San Francisco at 121—but equal if you add in the impact from nearby Bellevue, which is an awful 144.”

Many of those men are coming here for Amazon: Reifman estimated that Amazon had hired 15,026 new employees since April 2010. These guys—and as Reifman pointed it out, it’s very nearly always guys (75 percent of Amazon’s workforce is made up of dudes!)—are making $80K or more a year for their second or third job out of college, and their presence was driving the rents up in Seattle to near New York City numbers.

But Reifman’s post confirmed that as Amazon grows, the number of (boring) men grows too. The gender disparity is bad enough in San Francisco that one company, The Dating Ring, has resorted to flying women into San Fran from other cities.

Hold the Champagne, girls.

You might think an abundance of men is a great thing, but as a wise woman once said, “The odds may be good, but the goods are odd.”

“I’ve lived in Seattle for seven years, single most of them,” Annie Pardo, a 31-year-old freelance event and communications consultant in Seattle, wrote in an email. “The only thing that has changed is the increase in men I’d never want to go out on a date with.” She added, “Can’t believe they actually strap on those new employee book bags.

For Reifman, the number of men versus women presents a challenge for guys like him—he can’t seem to get a date or hold the attention of the women he’s courting because, presumably, he’s got so much competition. But the reality is that all he has to do is have a personality. I’m serious.

The exact same scenario has been playing out in San Francisco for the last few years.

. . .

One woman, Bridget Arlene ... said that she was once contacted by a Microsoft programmer on OKCupid who required that she read Neuromancer before “he would consider taking me out on a date. He was not joking.”

In Seattle, it has been easy to hook up, but hard to find anyone really interesting or worthwhile for the long term. The majority of the guys who are moving here for companies like Amazon seem to be their late 20s or early 30s, and they are new and exploring the city. And that means they are exploring the city’s women.

There's more at the link.

I'm sorry for her angst, but this is really too silly for words.  What she's saying is that men have to satisfy her criteria.  She doesn't seem to have the slightest interest in giving them what they want - her focus is the opposite of that.  Has she ever heard of give and take?  If they don't fit her interests at all, fair enough - look for someone else.  On the other hand, if there are points of contact (apart from the obvious ones), why not explore how to expand them and work together on building a relationship?  That's the way it was when I was younger, anyway.

(Of course, when I first ran into Miss D. I was pretty sure within a couple of days that I didn't have to look any further.  I was right . . . and thankfully, she felt the same way about me.  The Seattle author might, however, sympathize with Miss D.'s 'complaint' that she had to marry me "because I annoyed her in all the right ways"!)

Anyway, if I recall correctly the original Amazons were all single anyway, except once or twice a year for fleeting moments.  Looks like not much has changed in that respect . . .




Peter