Date Me Doc

For matchmaker friends and interested strangers. (what is this thing?)

George Wang
30 / male / 6'1"
Location: Austin, but flexible
Kids: Probably not
Relationship type: Straight, monogamous

My pronouns are he/him but they could be all/yours :)

About me

• One of my more load-bearing beliefs is that the world is fundamentally malleable to our actions. That the world can be a better place, that we have the power to improve it, and that we should try.
  • The main way I currently relate to this is through technological progress. I think AI is going to make the next decade really weird, and not all in good ways. As soon as I was convinced this was true, I dropped what I was doing to focus on making this societal transition safer. This was a difficult decision with various sacrifices, the most legible of which was a ~75% pay cut (I'm lucky to have financial stability from some earlier successes), but I think this was the right thing to do and don't regret it.
• Another of my defining values is growth: I see myself as a constant work in progress. This means many things to me — being a better friend, a better partner, a better citizen. It means being a sharper scientist as much as it means healing old emotional wounds, and it means developing better habits as much as it means figuring out how to relate to my existential angst.
• The way I move through and understand the world is fairly Bay Area rationalist coded, which sometimes makes me seem like a system-2-robot kind of person, but I think I have at least as much system-1-hopeless-idealist in me.
• If I were a DnD character, my alignment would probably be Lawful-Something (but the strongly-adheres-to-internal-compass kind, not the lawful-stupid kind). I take commitments seriously, which might come off as "reliable" to some people and "annoyingly conscientious" to others.
• The world is full of side quests and I regularly get nerd-sniped by them. I've built an automated arbitrage bot for MtG:O (and eventually got banned 😬), dabbled in sports betting, made a couple of small games, and occasionally drop everything I'm doing to chase down alpha in financial markets.
• In case it's not obvious yet, I'm a bit of a dork and love games. One of my favorite framing of games is as art working in the medium of agency. I see games as a place to be playful, to be creative, to laugh, to cry, to feel both joy and fear, to compete, and to face challenges and overcome them.
• If you like my writing, you'll probably like talking to me. My favorite piece so far (which also has the most clickbaity title) is My PhD cost me $1.17M (but I'd do it again).

About you

These are things I'm fairly sure I want:

• You have strong values. We don't have to share all of them, but there are things that matter to you that you'd defend (they don't have to be grand, world-shattering things).
• You're proactive about shaping your life. When you run into problems or see opportunities, you jump in.
• You're kind and empathetic towards others. You try even when it's hard, including those you might not personally like or agree with.
• You're deeply curious about the world. You care about what's true and want to learn together.
• You're playful! Fun is a terminal value :)

(To be clear, I'm not perfect at all of these myself!)

About... us? 👉👈 

Early dates might be activities where it's easy to talk at the same time: hikes, bouldering, board games, cooking dinner together, etc. A lot of early bonding happens through talking and texting for me.

After we're a bit more comfortable, we might hang out more frequently, stay the night regularly, and text throughout the day about increasingly mundane things (live-tweeting your life to someone is a real love language, fight me). I also enjoy just being in the same room, so if you also work remotely, we might cowork together often.

I have an okay amount of social energy but am more introvert than extrovert and have decided that I mostly don't enjoy activities that involve lots of noise and not much personal space (concerts, clubs, etc). There are some exceptions, but in general I wouldn't expect this to be the kind of thing we regularly do together.

I do like trips outdoors and would love to camp / hike / climb together!

Possible dealbreakers?

• I don't think I want kids. I could imagine worlds where this changes, but I generally feel fairly sure of this.
• I don't politically identify as far left or far right. Socially, I tend to be more progressive, but otherwise I have somewhat scattered political positions.
• I'm not religious. I respect those who have deeply held religious beliefs, but this probably means we understand the world in very fundamentally different ways.
• I lean towards lower thresholds for sensitivity to disgust. The kinds of compromises I try to aim for seemed to generally be fine in past relationships (and at least one partner was more germophobic than me), but if you have particularly high thresholds for disgust, this might generate friction.

What next?

This is a fairly curated window into who I am, and reality is always more complicated. I don't know what the right discount factor is, but you should apply at least a little.

If you still feel interested, then reach out! Yes, you reading this doc. If you're not sure, please err on the side of getting in contact, that's what this thing is for! The downside might be a small time cost, and the upside is hugely positive for both of us. Don't leave that +EV on the table.

Email me, message me on Twitter, or ask a mutual friend to introduce us.