It’s been a long time, but I remember that: you wave timidly from across the room, and then if she doesn’t bare her fangs and snarl at you, you approach and wave your arms some more. It didn’t work very well, but it prevents Jotus remus from getting murdered.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
You know you’ve found The One(tm) when you spot them across the room and they’re also pretending to be a hermit crab.
I’ll just patiently await Ozzy Man’s narration of this video before I begin to enjoy it. Or perhaps ze Frank’s.
My dating strategy has been to spend months working up the courage to ask a woman out, find out she’s already with someone, then go home and bitterly cry in my room all night.
Needless to say, it doesn’t work very well.
Bugger ,there must be easier ways to pass on ones genes .
davidc1:
I hear asexual budding is nice. Far less embarrassment and heartbreak.
It’s also a good idea to wear running shoes, and warm up beforehand, in case a hasty exit is called for.
That was funny. I can definitely understand this spider.
I was raised to believe that couples are supposed to be flirting and dating before having sex. At first, back when I was younger, I sort of tried doing that. It didn’t work. I simply cannot flirt. My ability to notice and correctly interpret other people’s non-verbal communication is abysmally bad. At some point I just got fed up with being involuntarily celibate, so I decided to change my strategy. What if I just asked some of my friends or acquaintances whether they wanted to have sex with me? The worst thing that could happen was getting “no” for an answer, and there was nothing particularly bad about it. Thus I just started asking people, “Do you want to have sex with me?” It actually works pretty well (some people agree). At least for me it worked much better than trying to flirt. The good thing about humans is that, unlike spiders, they generally do not bite. Being told “no” isn’t really that bad.
Not really discovered. Cataloged. The species was cataloged. It was probably pretty familiar to the brown people who’d been living there a few thousand years.
The mildly deranged penguin suggests the lady spiders should adopt a variant of the Bonobo’s strategy, Pushy bonobo mothers help sons find sexual partners, scientists find (“High-ranking mothers lead sons to groups of females and keep guard while they mate”). The problem with the spider’s current strategy, she (the mildly deranged one) asserts, is the lady spiders don’t get enough to eat, as their dinners keep distracting them with the paddles and then running away. So a variant of what the Bonobo’s do: The lady’s mommy should sneak up on the peek-a-booing male (the lady can feign lack of interest in eating him), grab and hold him down, whilst her daughter mates and chows down.
She says penguins use a similar strategy, except they don’t eat the males — the males are needed to keep the eggs warm through the long cold winter whilst the ladies all fly off to the tropics for a nice vacation. Instead, they distract the male with some cheese, and whilst he’s distracted, hit him a larger piece of cheese, take his cheese, and refuse to give it back until he agrees to sit on the eggs. Then they eat all the cheeses, telling the male he’ll get a cheese when once the eventual chicks eventuate.
@3 Also known as the Morrissey strategy.
No no no, the best strategy goes like this:
Choose mate.
Try to suppress feelings for mate, and sexuality in general, for at least five years.
Admit to sexuality and continue to long for mate for another 1-2 years.
Discover that mate is also of an appropriate sexuality. Pluck up courage to ask mate for relations for another 1-2 years.
Ask mate whether mate has significant other. Cry over answer for another 1-2 years.
Try to find another mate. Fail. Resume waiting for original mate to become single again.
Become shadow of former self, pining for lost mate, failing to see point of existence absent from his glory.
Repeat stages six and seven for entire adult life, until the cold hand of death makes the entire feeble masquerade of existence seem like the dust and ash it is.
Did I say best strategy? Well, best of the one I’ve tried so far. I can’t honestly say I’d recommend it.
cartomancer @11: Here’s another strategy: Move on. Yes, easier said than done. I know.
Wait. Did they do it or not?
gijoel @ 10
My variant has a lot less veganism and white supremacy.
They are so cute!