New project idea: a dating app that uses something like @alice 's deliciously quirky #captchalice questions as its main matching mechanic.
You get a question and a couple of replies, then you mark your favorite(s?). Only when you like enough of each other's replies, you see the profile and can chat directly. That would prevent matching by looks alone.
Might need some solid filters so you don't end up with profiles that don't match your preferred gender/relationship model/location/whatever.
let's just assume for a minute that this is acceptable social behavior. you've just sniffed a butt; now, what do you do with that information?
i'd assert that we're gonna need much better noses before this becomes a useful means of assessing potential dates.
[i'm unreasonably pleased that i managed to slip an 'ass' or two into each of those paragraphs]
How much info do you get from a handshake?
People do actually get information from each other's smells and they've done brain scans that show male-attracted people respond to male scents different than non-male attracted people. Also there's been one-off dating pools that match people based on everyone sending in a worn tshirt, then cutting them into squares and mailing'em out so people can sniff the squares and indicate potential matches. double match == date arranged.
@saltywizard
so people do kind of categorize each other by scent, and i think that's part of the problem with the artificial scent industry.
But at any rate none of that is relevant to the formal handshake situation, and replacing handshakes with sniffing butts was an Alice answer to their own question "if you could replace 1 human custom with something else" and i think an Alice absurdism @ arbitrary customs because it'd be funny to see men in suits lining up to sniff each other.
@old_angry_queer indeed. My reasoning being that handshakes mostly happen in corporate, government, and other formal situations, and are mostly initiated by men in suits, so replacing handshakes with butt-sniffing would be hilarious.
None of my queer or femme friends shake hands; we all wave or hug anyway, so we'd be largely unaffected by the change.
would it be optional? like those cheek-kiss greetings you sometimes see on teevee when the character is european or passing fancy?
@saltywizard by my original answer, everyone outside your social circles treats it just like the previous custom, so it would be just as enthusiastic and common as a handshake is nowadays, except the queer and infosec communities would recognize it for the absurdity it is.
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Gender David Copperfield
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