thefourthvine | Poll: Compare Amongst Yourselves

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Poll: Compare Amongst Yourselves

makesmewannadie is visiting me, and we got to talking, as we often do. (Okay. Full disclosure: the actual challenge would be making us shut the fuck up.) And one thing we talked about reminded me of a poll I'd considered posting lo these many moons ago, to test a hypothesis that I can't very well tell you beforehand. (Bias is death to informal and statistically skewed LJ polls, my friends.)

So, first, let me just say: hey, it'd be cool if you'd take this poll. I would love you and stuff.

Second - when I say "your friends list," I mean the portion of your friends list that you read regularly - your default reading filter, if you have one, or the whole list if that's how you read. (If you don't read your friends list at all, this poll is not going to be a good fit for you.) My point is, I want you to consider the people you know the best. (Which is not to say you necessarily know them well, of course.) And when I say "the average," I mean your own personally assessed average of this trait over your friends list.

And, seriously, there are no bad answers here. I'm only wondering where you fit into your own mental picture of your friends list for these particular variables. I know you may not have great data for all these questions; just give me your first reaction, and I will of course love you forever.

ETA: Please don't go back to change your answers after you've finished the poll and seen the results! (Unless you think of something you want to add to the text box, or you've decided shoes are more important than almost-cock. Those questions are weighty and take long consideration; I understand that.)

[Poll #931955]

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So, the majority of people feel they are less sexually active & less creative than their flist.

Although, if most fans are lurkers, but most of their flist is made up of BNFs, the "less creative" might actually be statistically possible.

I do think it's interesting that nearly everyone so far thinks other people are having more sex. And the lurker factor is another interesting point, but then, if you're answering a poll, are you really a lurker? (If a lurker clicks on a radio button, but no one hears him, is he still a lurker?)

Well, for example I checked that I have "less sex" because there's a definite dearth of *any* kind of sex in my life, and I figure that "no sex" is always bound to be less than the "average" even if a number of other people also may not have sex, even if the *majority* also had no sex (unlikely, but I guess everybody who never mentions their sex life or lack thereof could be like me and not have one atm), because I know that at least some of f-list is in steady relationships and those are bound to have some sex, so the "average" would still be "some sex" even if the standard deviation might be so high as to render that "average" not that useful, because in that hypothetical case most would have no sex with some having regular sex, and nobody would have the "a little sex" that would be the average. Does that make sense?

Yup. You're thinking in terms of numerical average. Like, if Friend A is having no sex, Friend B is having no sex, Friend C is having sex four times a week, and Friend D is having no sex, then the mean is once a week, and A, B, and D are below average.

But the other way of looking at that same data, of course, is the median and the mode are both 0, so in actuality, A, B, and D are average and C is above average. (Probably I weighted towards the first view by using the word "average" in the poll.)

Either way, an interesting data point. (And, of course, it could just be one of those things: everyone assumes everyone else is having more sex. Which is really easy to assume if you're having no sex, but even if you're just having less sex than usual, or less than you think you "should" have, stuff like that, it would still be easy to assume you're below average.)

Yeah, when I think "average" I don't think of a median in mymind. I mean, I've mostly done statistics in physics and in the usual cases you want a meaningful average with a standard deviation (and possibly even try to justify kicking out data points that are too extremely skewed to make sense as some kind of error or abberation if they'd mess up your standard deviation too badly *g*) and not the kind of skewed data sets for which I understand median is used.

*nods*

I don't think most (as in, the vast majority, and the only reason I'm not saying that no one does is that I've known some very strange statisticians in my time) people think median for average - but then, one of the points of this exercise was how you defined average, first time through. You think of averages in terms of numbers, and normally so do I, but I realized while taking this that that wasn't how I was judging these things at all. It was really interesting.

Wait, was I doing this wrong? I thought we were supposed to be using a perceived numerical average, because if we're going by the second model, all my answers would be different. As it is, I think once you take the handful of people on my flist who are way more successful, creative, etc. than I am and then the handful who I like but always think wow, reading this is like looking at a cautionary trainwreck, those two extremes cancel each other out, and that was my thought process while answering these questions.

You were doing it entirely right, because what I really wanted was for you to use however you defined average - perceived numerical, in your case.

As it is, I think once you take the handful of people on my flist who are way more successful, creative, etc. than I am and then the handful who I like but always think wow, reading this is like looking at a cautionary trainwreck, those two extremes cancel each other out, and that was my thought process while answering these questions.

*nods*

I wonder if all friends lists have these kinds of extremes. And I wonder what weight we're giving those extremes when we answer these questions. Oh, LJ Poll, why will you not allow more exhaustive statistical analysis? And interviewing selected subjects? And possibly also the answers to life, the universe, and everything?

Oh, I was thinking of a numerical average too. If we're using the median, my answers would be different on a couple.

I wanted people to use whatever they thought of when they thought of average, so whatever you used was right. ("What We Think About When We Think About Average" would be a great title for a book. Although, sadly, it would likely be a self-help book, and I'd want it to be a stats book. *sad*)

It would also be a great name for a band.

Also, could I maybe use it for a story title? You got me all thinky and stuff and now I have this average plot bunny.

Also, could I maybe use it for a story title? You got me all thinky and stuff and now I have this average plot bunny.

Of course! (And cool!)

(And you gave me a title for a piece of meta that, sadly, I will never write. But oh how I want someone else to write "The Typical Plot Bunny: A Survey of the Species.")

And, of course, it could just be one of those things: everyone assumes everyone else is having more sex.

Or people on people's flists talk about the sex they're having a lot. :D

The "less sexually active" was the statistic that drew my attention as well.
Maybe it's that people lie in their text posts but are willing to be truthful in ticky-boxes?

Or, else, we've all read so much fan fiction that we've gotten to the point where we think if we're not in a BDSM foursome, we have boring sex lives?

That's it exactly. I mean, really, I'm having sex on a fairly regular basis, but it's in a bed with sheets and a quilt on top and doesn't involve feathers or Karo syrup, black leather, gun oil, or puddlejumpers, so it doens't really count.

Which, when typed out like that, is incredibly stupid, but as requested, I'll not go back and change my answer.

See, this is why this poll is so interesting. Because I'm also having good sex on a regular basis, though it doesn't involve feathers, Karo syrup (thank god), black leather, gun oil, or puddlejumpers, and I considered that "more sexually active."

(And thank you for resisting the temptation to change your answers. I know half the time with polls I do that, and I really do want people's first reactions, here.)

I think it may be more that we tend to hear about sex people are having, if that makes sense. If three people post about having sex all the time, and everyone else is silent on the subject, what we think of when asked about sexual activity is those three people.

Of course, my own theory doesn't work on my friends list, where people are very vocal about the sex they're not having.

Hmmm.

Or very vocal about the sex *other* people are having, which seems to be a common theme on my flist.

("And then I realized why the ceiling was shaking and OH MY GOD.")

"All I did was walk into the living room and now I'm TRAUMATIZED FOREVER OH GOD MY EYES."

Yeah, I see that on my friends list from time to time, too. (And I also once lived in an apartment complex that - well, it was sort of built around a courtyard, and the courtyard echoed, and all I can say is that one woman did not need the echo to help carry her glad tidings, if you see what I'm saying, but it certainly ratcheted things up to operatic scale for her. This was particularly bad in hot weather, when everyone had windows open. I mean, yay for sex, but I think you should somehow manage to be less noisy and disruptive than cats in heat. (There was a theory in the building that she was just making the noise for entertainment purposes, with no sex involved. That would have made sense, because I have heard many an orgasm in my time and none has been quite that - um.))

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