Babies receive positive reinforcement every step of the way as their speech patterns develop. There's a reason why they are happy when moms and dads are delighted when all of that goading with "can you say 'ma-ma!??'" or "can you say 'da da!??!'" finally gets an imitated response as early as 6 months. Cognitively though, while they can utter those items that early, they have no idea what they mean. Research suggests that at that point, it's unlikely they comprehend much more than their name and some onomatopoeia-ic vocalizations (NO! - a short, sharp sound indicating to stop what you're doing, similar to the tsh! sound made by cats and lots of other species) up until around 12 months.What drives them to develop so fast is lots of imitation and positive reinforcement from their parents and everyone they interact with. Trying to say that animal communication can be disregarded because of reinforcement or imitation disregards that almost all communication in the socially accepted manner develops based on reinforcement and imitation. All communication begins as mimicry, but given time all evidence points towards cognition developing. It's been seen in parrots, dogs, gorillas, dolphins, chimps, and more.

I think you're understating what parrots are actually able to do. It's easy to generalize as "polly want a cracker," but the very well established case study of Alex the parrot shows they're able to do significantly more AND understand what they're doing.

From RTFA men have to have pictures and answer questions, whereas women do not. So, different treatment based solely on sex. A better, non sexist, system would treat both sexes equally.

Stereotyping and treating all members of one sex differently than the other sex is the literal definition of sexism.

I'll have to check it out! Thanks for the heads up!! :)

Honestly, I think most of it is because I'm a hardcore introvert in any situation where I don't expressly sit in a seat of power. Put me in a board room and I rock, I'm assertive, and I control things. Put me in a party where I don't know anyone and I pet the dog all night because even talking to strangers makes me anxious. I don't really try to project it, but somehow I do (it's not uncommon for me to be the only person on a packed train with no one sitting next to them - and I'm meticulously clean and well manicured so it's not like I smell, lol).

That is very true - I think my wife and I both won on that deal :)

You should reread what I wrote. I just included those photos among others. I didn't claim to be a money pot. It was intended as a counterpoint to the GP's post about "posting pictures dressed nice, with a nice car, etc." I'm saying that those things don't really help.

Take it as a counterpoint to to the post above. Not all of the photos were like that. I had some of me playing trumpet with my band, some of me in a half marathon, etc, some just hanging out drinking a beer. And none of what you described in any way warrants the nasty responses I'd get for saying hello.

I've never been a great looking guy, but at least well kempt. It was pretty common to try and say hello and get a, "Ugh, gross" or "Sick, can you believe this guy is trying to talk to me?" Maybe the northeast just has an overabundance of really stuck up women.

Well, I hate to insert sociology/anthropology here, but there is likely some subconscious bias you are seeing. Historically men tend to gain "social capital" as they age, whereas women lose "social capital" as they age. Primitively speaking, men would be assumed to have gathered resources and power over a lifetime, and still be capable of producing young with relative ease. An older woman has a significantly harder time. She is likely to either be unable to bear young or have complications doing so, and at least traditionally was unlikely to have garnered many resources of her own. The converse is that young women are sought after for fertility, while young men often have relatively little in the way of resources or power because in theory older men would have first pick. So, essentially, the dating experience for an older gentleman who is pursuing age-appropriate women is significantly different from the dating experience of a young man seeking age appropriate women. As much as we like to glorify ourselves, we're still just big bipedal apes.

And socially aware men take the implied put-down that "all men are sending dick pics in every message" as offensive, and they choose not to use the site. The dick pic guys show up anyways and just start sending dick pics, because there's no requirement to see someone's photo before you send them your dick pic. A better approach would be to block photos for everyone from the beginning. Then you'll at least have some decent guys in the mix along with the dick pic senders.

SSBBW? Is that like a Super Saiyan BBW?

I know a few couples that ended up going long term that met through text-based MUDS, MOOS, Sensi-Summinks, EWTOOs and EWTHREEs. They basically met with all text based profiles and messaging, and only afterwards did they have pics.

LOL, my wife was actually the roommate of a girl I had dated for about 2 months. I occasionally sent her an IM to check how she was holding up (she has and continues to have a number of major health problems), and she started hinting that her roommate was single. Then one day she just randomly handed the computer over to her roommate. Point taken. So, we met up to see a band, drank, hooked up, and where I really shined was making pancakes the next morning. We've been together ever since. No programming though, she's a music teacher. If it isn't midi, she's clueless about computers.