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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   35328 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Maybe it’s down to my social bubbles, but the way men are described in these kinds of posts just doesn’t mesh with the men I know.

Like the supposed truth that men aren’t big spenders and would happily sleep on a mattress in a cardboard box that had wifi. Sure men don’t tend to own as many knick-knacks and care less about interior decorating, but men loooove to spend big time on things they care about, like “gear” for their hobbies. Who’s buying $2,000 GPUs, 4k ultra wide monitors and pricy mechanical keyboards? Expensive guitars when they can barely string together a few chords? Ridiculously pricy sports gear? Who tends to spend extra on high performance sport version of cars even though they look basically the same as the base model? I don’t know any women who are impressed by a $1500 espresso machine, but I know guys who have them.

I’ve never seen an “average” man have issues with dating (casual sex, sure, but not dating). The guys I know who can’t seem to find a single woman to date… you can tell why from like a 5 min conversation. It doesn’t take the average guy an inordinate amount of effort to find an average woman and get married. Even awkward nerdy guys I know are getting married as long as they’re not actively unpleasant to be around.

I feel like that kind of malaise and blackpilling mostly happens to neurotic, terminally online people. If you touch grass in a first world country, those issues aren’t really there.

Like the supposed truth that men aren’t big spenders and would happily sleep on a mattress in a cardboard box that had wifi

Of course I can't speak for all men, but I think it's a bit more subtle than men be spending too; yofuckreddit put it well in the sense that many men's lives are more simple. Sure, I spend money on my home office and gym because I can afford it, but that doesn't really change my day to day life; if I ever went broke I'd still have a computer and be working out.

Obviously speaking in generalities, but I've found women enjoy a more dynamic life and are more attuned to keeping up with the lives of others; new experiences, new toys, new clothes etc. You can see how this might pre-dispose men to dropping out as opposed to women.

I’ve never seen an “average” man have issues with dating (casual sex, sure, but not dating).

I agree in the sense that most people, especially in middle-class+ demographics, could probably find a partner if they put a lot of effort into it and relaxed their standards; a lot of incel/red pill discourse is either fairly lower-class coded (single mothers, criminal chads etc) or wildly high standards for a partner and for a relationship.

The point I'm more trying to make is that it's significantly more difficult and costly than it ever used to be to find a partner, and even for those who do, the incentives for actually having a partner are falling further and further. Having high standards is not wrong, for a lot of people it probably is true that they're better off alone vs partnering with the people they can convince to commit to them; the single life is pretty damn good nowadays!

You can ask out basically any single member of the opposite sex. People try to set you up with their friends/co-workers/whatnot

You can hook-up with random strangers at a party

And as a man the bar is honestly pretty low and it’s ridiculously easy to set yourself apart

you can tell why from like a 5 min conversation

I will say that this is emphatically not the lived experience of most (straight) young men nowadays [it may be different in queer spaces like yours, I'm not sure].

Others already linked Radicalizing the Romanceless, but in general unless you're significantly above average in looks/charisma/wealth etc you're not getting set-up [especially work relationships are verboten], off-the-cuff hook-ups are not happening unless you're in college and rarer even there, and the primary way most men are going to meet women is through the dating app hellscape.

Yeah. I move in / post in / am at least aware of many different circles of guys (old high school friends, nerdy types, lefty types from my lefty activist days, church guys, football fans etc.), mostly millennials but sometimes trending towards zoomer, and in all of the circles a clear majority of guys is either married, in a steady relationship or has no trouble with dates, perhaps barring the church guys who obviously are playing a somewhat different game (and even there there's been a number of marriages recently, typically to girls from the same parish). Of course the traditional answer is that since I'm an (early) millennial I can't possibly know what it's like with zoomers, but even the younger guys in my circles seem to be doing OK.

I don’t know any women who are impressed by a $1500 espresso machine

Everything else you wrote rings true - but this is absurd! Or rather, not my lived experience at all. The person sleeping next to me now can tell you about all the expresso machines in all the various price ranges and why one is better than another.

But, all things have exceptions I imagine.

My wife wants some fancy espresso machine and is opinionated about which sort is good.

She refuses to drink my AeroPress coffee.

Whaaa....? My head just exploded.

ETA: Is she possibly looking for some sort of frothed milk beverage with espresso in it? Because that's the only way I can make sense of those two sentences together.

She wants espresso in steamed milk, so yeah.

Yeah, thanks, I was all, "how could anyone who is opinionated about which sorts of fancy espresso machines are good refuse to drink from an AeroPress?!" Then my brain kicked back in.

I’ve never seen an “average” man have issues with dating

This has always been amusing to me. Online discourse is profoundly rife with "alpha fux, beta bucks" and "no man can get dates finder is a hellhole" but all my male friends seem to have as much sex and dates as they want.

Admittedly, my social sphere leans towards white collar yuppies downtown, so there's lots of fish and no one is answering "flip burgers" to the "what do you do" question.

But even my childhood friends, who are not yuppies, still pull?

One guy works like 2 days a week (smokes weed the other 5) and lives in a shitty apartment but always has a new girl, and they're bartenders/bottle girls/etc (one time a stripper lmao) so they're attractive, if messy.

Another is decidedly not conventionally attractive, works a non status job, and churns first dates enough he had to stop posting Instagram stories of sunsets because he was getting worried someone would notice (it's his first date move).

Im not sure how to reconcile these two realities.

Possible that they're extraordinarily charismatic and kind of...retired from the high-reward, high-stress lifestyle that you get when trying to monetize that. Like a guy with a math degree from Princeton undergrad working the counter at Subway, or the former investment banker working as a chef or cook at a small resort.

I wonder if it’s basically shared knowledge. The thing about dating is that nobody will tell you how it works. If you’re lucky in your social circle, you and your friends figure it out in your late teens and pool your shared knowledge and experience. If not, your only option is people who are incentivised to lie to you: priests, gamer girls, masculinity influencers, MeToo journalists, etc.

For various reasons, all these people tell you what they want you to believe, not what’s true. For high-conscientiousness men especially this is a killer.

People flock to those like themselves, so you have all-male groups who collectively have no idea how to get dates and have male hobbies as an alternative, versus mixed groups like yours who all date constantly.

I think that might explain what you see.

your only option is people who are incentivised to lie to you: priests, gamer girls, masculinity influencers, MeToo journalists, etc.

I'm confused, how do you figure priests are incentivized to lie to people about how to find dates? I wouldn't go to a priest for marriage advice (for obvious reasons), but plenty of priests dated (and yes, even had sex - priests are sinners too) before joining the clergy. For example, the pastor of my parish is a pretty young guy who was engaged before he decided he was being called to the priesthood, so he could probably give decent advice about attracting women (if you're in Brazil where he's from).

There are priests who are good at this and priests who are bad at this, IME.

Obviously if you ask your priest how to get laid on a first date he will answer ‘dont’. But the better ones are fine people to listen to. Few of them are popular on the internet.

Essentially along the lines described below by other posters. I would expect priests to be disproportionately virgins or bad at dating for the obvious reasons, and they are also often older and regarded as pillars of the community. Finally, Christianity has certain ideas about what women and dating are like and how they should work (as do feminism, PUA, etc.) and priests are sort of expected to uphold those values.

As such, it's not that priests are incentivised to lie to you exactly, but I think to some extent they are motivated to lie to themselves and also they will not necessarily tell you all their own private thoughts. Some very self-aware exception will exist, as with any other creed, but I don't think institutional authority figures in general are very helpful in this sphere.

Priests and especially Protestant pastors, influenced by feminist tendencies, often tend to push misandric, gynonormative ideas, even though Christianity as a creed is unreservedly and unquestionably patriarchal.

It's not about having no experience, it's about them having a tendency to tell you that behaving like a good christian or [insert religion] will surely lead to you finding and holding a partner, when it's at best unrelated or at worst actively counterproductive.

Ironically, I would actually say that they are better equipped to give good relationship advice once you already are committed to each other, for the same reason.

behaving like a good christian or [insert religion] will surely lead to you finding and holding a partner

I was going to say that churchgoing women outnumber men, so yeah maybe. But, now that I google it, articles say young women are attending church at much lower rates than previous generations. So much lower that it flipped to more young men than young women who regularly attend church.

Sorry young guys, you missed the boat on that one.

Im not sure how to reconcile these two realities.

It's simply the 'alpha fucks, beta bucks' phenomenon in action. And what you and @rae are generally describing are the 'I don't know anyone who voted for Nixon' effect in action.

But what I'm saying is that my friends really aren't too 5% Giga-chads and those last two example friends are extremely not that.

So if I know lots of non-alphas who are fucking, what's up?

Yeah I guess my thinking was if below average men in the looks/earnings/status department can get laid regularly, anyone can

At the risk of being circular, one answer is that if your friends are getting loads of dates / sex with reasonably attractive girls, they are in fact giga-chads because that's what being a giga-chad is. Whereas if someone is rich and handsome but can't get girls interested in him, it would be odd to call him chaddish. Some men seem to have It, a strange factor that impresses other people, and much of the verbiage spilled here and elsewhere is working out what It is and how people who don't have It can get It.

That's a fair point

I guess my thinking was if they can do it, anyone can. But thinking about it more today, one dude is extremely forward and the other is nominally shy/introverted but he does play the numbers game.

I guess for the "shy" one, I'm still suprised he pulls as much as he does (given internet discourse) as he uses tinder, etc and isn't that hot. So the narrative "tinder only works for the hottest men" falls apart a bit.

Also both of them are more than happy to date women that aren't perfect (one literally dated a stripper). So they're also realistic about standards.

That seems sensible. I know a fat, short dude who's fun but not good looking by anyone's standards (think fat Gimli) but he has a happy marriage with a lovely girl who he essentially seduced away from a much handsomer and richer dude; he's as forward as that sounds.

I think that it's partly that dating is heavily subject to virtuous cycles - even if you're dating on tinder, if you've got photos of yourself with affectionate women, if you're obviously comfortable with women, if you know how dating works and how to take the lead and make people feel comfortable, that makes up for a lot. Which is encouraging in that it suggests that datability can be improved, it's just that from a certain starting point it's hard to see how in an easily actionable way. @kky had the right of it when he talked about tractability. Also mixed friendship groups probably help a lot.

I feel like I occupy some sort of intermediate space. On one hand, a fairly comfortable majority of men I knew (including myself) paired up without much trouble, or at least had no trouble finding intermittent partners when they were not too busy actively wrecking their lives; but on the other, I do see some 30% of guys that seem to live the internet discourse stereotype (orbiting, being serially relegated to the "friend zone", or outright socially shunned by any women) without being terminally online, or with the terminal onlineness appearing downstream of their misfortune. For maybe half of them, it is somewhat obvious to me what about them tanks their chances (though I have to wonder how much of these traits is upstream rather than downstream of the outcome), but there is a remaining set where I feel like I just lack the UV cone cells that allow birds to tell that the flower is fake, or something.

In some cases, it also seems to be a case of product-market mismatch: certain guys elicit the "I couldn't ever see him like that"~revulsion spectrum of reactions only from a particular demographic, and do normally with others. This is unfortunate when they only target that particular demographic - some combinations where I have seen this patterns is nerdy white guys and white girls (which is why you can always find the CS department by following the gradient of WMAF couples), Chinese-American guys who have Chinese Dad aura and Americanized Asian girls, and Indian guys and Asian girls independent of assimilation. There are cases that go against the common patterns though - I used to know a particular Caucasian guy in CS who elicited baseless shockingly cruel commentary from the Asian girls I was friends with, but paired up with a (status-matched, in my estimation) girl of his own demographic halfway into grad school.

and Indian guys and Asian girls independent of assimilation

don't I fucking know it ...

I was (by my own analysis) a pretty good catch for years. My problem was that I couldn't find any women up to my standards. It is exceedingly grim out there for anyone with expectations that would have been reasonable even 30 years ago.

Found one eventually and we're very happy. Years later we're still constantly telling each other "I can't believe no one else got to you first."

Even so I know too many other men my age and younger who can't find a decent wife for anything.

Found one eventually and we're very happy. Years later we're still constantly telling each other "I can't believe no one else got to you first."

That's so awesome man, congratulations to both of you.

There's definitely a trend of men being too timid to take the initiative in relations between the sexes.

I could not disagree with this harder (+the data backs me up). Maybe it’s slightly different 5-10 years older than me, but there are so so many single men in my social circles. Sure some of them have some social skills to work on, but they’re mainly average guys with average hobbies. Some of them haven’t been on dates in years.

Are you a woman by chance? Perhaps that might explain our different perspectives.

I’m a trans woman but before that I was a man and dated women and men. My experience isn’t typical but I know a decent number of straight men and I have trouble believing an actual average guy can avoid having a single date for years, unless they’re avoiding all social situations with the opposite sex.

If you’re a regular straight person, everything is basically designed for you. You can ask out basically any single member of the opposite sex. People try to set you up with their friends/co-workers/whatnot. You can hook-up with random strangers at a party if the chemistry’s right without having to worry if they’re in the <5% that’s attracted to you, if you’re sexually compatible, or if you’re trans and passing, that they won’t react violently.

You don’t have to deal with people hiding your relationship, you can just follow a preset script, introduce your partner to your friends, meet their parents without fear, etc. And as a man the bar is honestly pretty low and it’s ridiculously easy to set yourself apart in terms of fashion/being a decent partner/a decent father, and your attractiveness is dictated by a multiple of things rather than just your rapidly declining physical appearance.

Plus most straight men seem to be attracted to most women? I don’t understand it but it should make your life easier to not be picky.

  • -19

If you're autistic and not otherwise impressive or a "supercrip" it's rather gross for you to want to be anything other than a celibate and prosocial monk. As for fashion: I suspect that the schlubby straight guy is countersignaling some kind of social grace stuff. At least in some places. At my hospital: the medical students dress better than the residents, who in turn dress better than the attendings. One attending I mistook for a janitor or laborer at first!

In other instances, (gynephile) trans men reported that they found dating as a man was a lot harder.

without having to worry if they’re in the <5% that’s attracted to you

do you realize that this is exactly how women see average man? median woman considers median man repulsive. This is only advantage for cishet males who are in top 5-10% and/or in low population density. Homosexuals have had their solutions to dating which serve average gay in big cities better than average heterosexual.

you can just follow a preset script

"script" used to be, now it's gone along with arranged marriages.

If you’re a regular straight person, everything is basically designed for you.

I'm one of the many, many guys who grew up with the bedrock knowledge that I should never display romantic interest in a member of the opposite sex, for fear of creeping them out.

I can entirely believe that on balance, your analysis here is more or less accurate. I'm pretty sure Trans people do in fact have it significantly harder than straight men, and certainly much harder than straight women. But straight men have it pretty hard, and a lot of them have achieved common knowledge that approximately no one is interested in helping or even sympathizing with them in any way. The bitterness this produces is severe, and mixes poorly with claims that "everything is designed for them".

Jeez I have no idea why you got downvoted so hard.

If you follow the upvote/downvote patterns you’ll notice that a fair chunk of the motte’s lurkers are pretty stereotypical internet right-wingers these days, of the type who are likely to read “I’m a trans woman” and instantly downvote. And/or the type who are wont to react with instant negativity to anyone saying that “the straight man dating world/heterosexual relations aren’t that bad, actually”. Sad but true.

Edit: plus some good old-fashioned identity elements. The straight men lurking the motte presumably didn’t take kindly to a queer person talking about them from outside their Lived Experience.

I was talking about my own Lived Experienced™ though! Maybe I should have cleared that up more. Oh well.

I think blackpill/manosphere/battle-of-the-sex discussions benefit from queer viewpoints as they can bridge the gaps between the sides so to speak, so I’m happy to give my two cents regardless.

I mean I'm pretty transphobic but the whole reason this place exists is to be an open forum where people of widely-divergent viewpoints can have conversations and consider each other's perspectives. I upvote effort and sincerity. Downvotes are reserved for bad form, not for disagreement. This is basic stuff and it bugs me that even among our much-smarter-than-average userbase people can't seem to figure it out. Downvoting you for your perspective is the equivalent of rating an item on amazon one star because USPS delivered the package late. Real trog hours.

Also @TheDemonRazgriz since I'm coming back late.

As a bi guy, I've dated both men and women. And it is multiple orders of magnitude easier to get a date with a man than it is with a woman. Quantitatively, my inbound like/match rate online was literally 100x when matching with men (I'd get a number of likes in a day with men that it'd take me almost a year with women).

Sure, a fair bit of that was just casual sex. But even if 75% were just looking for casual sex, that's still an order of magnitude more ease dating men than women.

I suspect this mismatch is that your "average man" encompasses a lot of things that make him substantially above average.

My experience isn’t typical

No one's is. I think the intercontinental, intergenerational (intersectional? a dirty word around here) scale of the internet makes comparisons nearly useless while also allowing almost any reasonably credible explanation to find enough support to pass as "true".

"You could meet someone at work" say 1000 people who work at bars in LA.
"I can't meet anyone at work" say 1000 guys who work in provincial warehouses.

"You can meet people at parties" say 1000 people who like to go clubbing in NY.
"I don't go to parties" say 1000 guys who like programming.

"You can meet people through friends and family, or at church" say 1000 Mormons in SLC.
"I was raised by 4chan and social workers after my dad abandoned my alcoholic mum and the only people who go to church are old or weird" say 1000 guys from the underclass.

"You can meet young, fun, attractive women online" say 1000 20somethings who live across the street from a middle tier university.
"Apps are full of divorcees and single mums" say 1000 40somethings who live in low turnover commuter towns.

Then a statistician comes along, shoves them all into one box and finds that 50% of people find someone at work/at parties/at church/online/etc.

It's like the blind men and the elephant. They're all true but without the full context people are talking past each other. This thread itself is a microcosm of this phenomenon.

On the other hand the internet is the only place where we can discuss this at length because workmates, party goers, friends, family, parishioners and statisticians alike are neither keen nor useful for sitting around IRL bemoaning one's dating woes at length, and maybe even less for proclaiming one's dating success. "Hello boss/barkeep/buddy/cousin/sir/professor, care to share some fully generalisable insight into why some people are struggling with dating? Not me though, I'm swimming in pussy. High five!"

You can ask out basically any single member of the opposite sex

Choose ten separate and unaccompanied strangers and then actively confirm which ones aren't single. As a trans woman you might have an intuition how different your approach and the results would be asking as a man or as a woman.

I think the major difference is people who have monosexual friend groups vs mixed friend groups. If all your friends are nerdy guys you're probably not going to the kinds of parties where there are lots of single ladies to hook up with and you're relegated mostly to cold opens. People have been making less friends now than ever before so it's pretty common to not have one member of the opposite sex that you see regularly and platonically, and if you meet your friends through mostly male hobbies then, lets just say monosexual friend groups aren't rare.

If you’re a regular straight person, everything is basically designed for you. You can ask out basically any single member of the opposite sex. People try to set you up with their friends/co-workers/whatnot. You can hook-up with random strangers at a party if the chemistry’s right without having to worry if they’re in the <5% that’s attracted to you, if you’re sexually compatible, or if you’re trans and passing, that they won’t react violently.

I have to ask what you're basing your statements off of because none of these statements are true for the "average" man, and they haven't been for at least the last 10 years. Full disclosure, I'm a late millennial/early zoomer (late 90s to early aughts) straight male.

You can ask out basically any single member of the opposite sex

You can do that in the same way that you can run through a minefield and not get blown up. The fact of the matter is simply that the consequences for running into a vindictive, cruel, or simply insane woman is now much greater than it ever was in the past. They used to tell you that the worst thing they can do is say "no" (this was never true, but it was true enough to be good advice maybe 15 years ago) but now the worst thing they can do is pull out their phone and start blasting your face all over the internet. And that's not even the worst thing they can do. If she calls the cops on you, you'd really be in hell.

People try to set you up with their friends/co-workers/whatnot.

First of all, dating at work is on of the worst things you can do to yourself. Again, it's simply not worth the risk. You're not putting just your reputation on the line, but your career as well. Secondly, maybe this is just because of my circles, but I've only ever once seen someone else even attempt to set up their friends. It happens so rarely, that I have to seriously doubt that it ever happened at all, even before the current climate.

You can hook-up with random strangers at a party if the chemistry’s right without having to worry if they’re in the <5% that’s attracted to you, if you’re sexually compatible, or if you’re trans and passing, that they won’t react violently.

You can hook up with strangers at a party (Personally, I'm not sure where these parties are or who's going to them. I haven't been to a single party outside of work events after college). This is one that might be colored by my own experiences, but I have never hooked up with a stranger at a party, even when I was going to them back in college. I have to assume that it's due to my deficiencies because it apparently happens enough to other people for it to be a prevalent thing.

Plus most straight men seem to be attracted to most women? I don’t understand it but it should make your life easier to not be picky.

In my experience, it's not my pickiness that's the problem. Or maybe it is. I don't consider myself unattractive (I give myself 6/10 simply because I'm tall and not overweight and I don't have any physical deformities), but according to at least a sizable minority of women, most men are unattractive, so in reality a 6/10 is probably actually a 2/10.

All in all, I legitimately don't know on what basis you're making your claims because they run almost completely counter to what I've experienced as a straight male. I have to assume that they must have been true in the near, or even distant, past, otherwise they wouldn't be so oft repeated. The only people who talk about how supposedly easy it is to date are either old and out of touch or have at least one attractive trait that is above average (looks, charisma, or money). None of the people who I consider "average" have the experience of dating being "easy".

Essentially, dating is a hock like challenge, good luck in the boreal forest and tundra.

I have to ask what you're basing your statements off of because none of these statements are true for the "average" man, and they haven't been for at least the last 10 years. Full disclosure, I'm a late millennial/early zoomer (late 90s to early aughts) straight male.

This is my own lived experience as a bisexual man (at that time), and this was in the last 10 years as well. I’m not American though, so perhaps it’s different and more cut-throat in the US?

I was no “chad”, just a short skinny effeminate guy. I had an awful personality, little interest in women and still a few hook-ups and flings just happened from going with the flow. Getting set-up at work was a real thing that happened to me.

I was no “chad”, just a short skinny effeminate guy. I had an awful personality, little interest in women and still a few hook-ups and flings just happened from going with the flow.

Nice humblebrag. Now I understand that was most likely not even meant as one, but that's how it comes across because that's how awful it is for most men nowadays. I'm not going to rehash Radicalizing the Romanceless, but it's even worse nowadays than when that article was written. Men are suffering.

And I think you're right in that it's worse in America, especially compared to East Asia, where I and my family were from originally, but with how widespread the American ideological contagion has become, I don't see thing getting better any time soon.

Personally, I'm not sure where these parties are or who's going to them. I haven't been to a single party outside of work events after college

When I was younger I hooked up with multiple women at the local club, which is kinda like a party that regularly happens in one place. Or used to be, about twenty to ten years ago. No idea what it's like now.

There are also music parties (usually techno) that are petty much designed for taking drugs, showing off your physical abilities through dance, and then hooking up.

University parties were also a thing, but I was too busy studying.

Actual house parties, I'll admit, I haven't seen since school.

Office parties exist, but hooking up there, as you said, can be tricky.

Clubbing is just another thing that gen z has killed, I'm afraid. I've never been to a club in my life, so I can't relate, but if you just search on youtube, you'll find dozens of videos that lament how the clubbing culture from the 10's is completely dead.

I've been to a single music party (concert?) though, and I have to say that I don't think I've ever felt more out of place than I did when I was there. The music was alright, but I don't take drugs and I don't dance so it was just awkward for me to be there. Didn't help that the friend that actually invited me canceled at the last minute.

It's easier for straight cis guys (or even people like myself who are bi), but I think you overestimate how easy it is to walk into a relationship, depending on social class and work/life balance. This is an older poll, but you still end up with sizable percentages of unmarried adults having never had a date, and a much bigger group struggling to try to get a relationship; it's only gotten worse since.

Straight men can ask out anyone... kinda, and there's pretty strict social norms against doing so anywhere near work and several different classes of enthusiast hobbies. People try to set up straight men with friends and coworkers... if you're already the sort of person who has. You can hook up with random strangers... if you're in the tiny percentage of straight guys that can get a tindr date. There's a lot of ways for straight guys to set themselves apart to women... in the negative sense as easily as the positive: (het, cis) women are far more likely to get the ick for single 'red flags' that can end up being. Straight guys don't have anywhere near the expectations of attractiveness... but they're also dancing a very narrow line between coming across as too aggressive or not forward enough.

((and... straight guys are picky in a different way. The expectations are lower, but anything under them is far more strict limitation, in extreme cases to the point where even a guy that wanted to muscle through it in the interest of an orgasm or a relationship would find themselves 'pushing rope'.))

If you're able to make the first move, a lot of those problems disappear, but in turn a lot of the ways (straight, cis) men were allowed to make the first move have disappeared too. Of my social environments, there's maybe one in which asking someone out on a date would be accepted (and, uh, coincidentally this is also the gayest one, thanks FFXIV), and maybe three where it's not explicitly ban-worthy. I can't speak on straight guys getting set up by friends or family from personal experience, given the bi bit, but from what I've seen second-hand there's a lot of people where that either doesn't happen, or it only happens in situations that have developed the various taboos.

Some of that's downstream of selection effects as I've aged and been in a relationship for a while, but it's very different from the gay world or from what I can see of most of the trans-friendly dating world. A number of gay writers are pretty strong advocates of that model replacing the classical one for hets, but I'm not sure it's working out great for the gays: I have a hell of a time when quite a lot of my options are split between bars or dances, down2succ-level 'casual', or online stuff that's never going to graduate beyond RP and hard to even keep time synced. Where these options are unpleasant in a gay context, they seem unsolvable in a het one.

((And the dodges are so common that Scott Alexander had a post on how "you can tell why from like a 5 min conversation" explanations radicalize a lot of people who are very far from the central example of what I'm hoping are your actual focus, over a decade ago.))

Again, I'm not saying that het (cis) guys have it worse or even anywhere near as rough as you do, but I think you're running into a version of the lemon market problem in things like comp sci hiring; it's really easy for the absolute worst to get vastly over-represented, while a lot of those who are either slightly under-par or who are not as assertive won't show up much on your radar.

tindr

A nitpick, but it’s tinder, with an e. Grindr dropped the e — I guess because “grinder” sounds more like a meat processing tool than a dating app. (Not that dating apps don’t grind people up inside!)

The stats are what they are. Do you reject this information, or doubt its accuracy? I'm in that category, AMA.

This would be an appropriate time to provide those stats.

Expensive guitars when they can barely string together a few chords?

Bro, why you gotta single me out like that?!

Don't worry, it's in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that if you can get through the opening chords of "Smoke on the Water", you can buy any guitar you can afford.

0-3-5 has entered the chat

The guys I know who can’t seem to find a single woman to date… you can tell why from like a 5 min conversation.

One such man I know IRL, who I was friends with at the time, said something like "I would ask Gaashk out, but she would probably stab me," in front of me. He did not in fact ask me out), and is still single and complaining about it on Facebook.

Yes, men are not women.

Right, he was using a women's strategy and women's strategies don't work for men. Maybe that would have worked if he'd seen her reaction, decided he wouldn't get stabbed (or "HELP, AUTHORITY, REMOVE THIS CREEP"), and then asked directly.

But the direct methods of trying are forbidden for men (see above in all caps) unless they succeed, and the penalties have done nothing but increase.

Isn’t that asking someone out? Or at least heavily indicating a desire to do so?

My understanding is that both parties provide plausible deniability whilst looking for positive indications. So the reply might be a laugh and a change of subject for no and a smile + ‘you’ll never know unless you try’ for yes. Am I totally off here? Paging @TitaniumButterfly here also.

Nobody teaches you how to do this stuff, unless you’re lucky and have generous male friends who know better than you do.

My general impression is that women seek plausible deniability (sometimes to the point of sabotaging their communication to men), but they want men to be direct with them (insert Darth Plagueis meme here), at least within the bounds of decorum. i.e. women want you to ask them on a date directly, not to talk about how you want to have sex with them if it goes well.

That is unfortunately true. I wish that such blatant double standards didn't exist, but what can you do.

Forgive my directness, but as someone who desperately needs reliable advice, is this coming from an experienced participant or an onlooker like myself?

If a woman is interested in you she wants you to be direct.

When I decided my (now) wife was the one, I didn't pussyfoot around. It does take a lot of confidence to pull off though, which is why step one is "Become someone you can be confident about being."

A bit of both I guess? I'm married, but my wife and I met through OKCupid a decade ago. So there wasn't the need to navigate asking her out on a date, because we met in a way that made it clear what the expectations for the relationship were.

Literally every experienced participant will, if being honest, tell you the same thing.

So... would you have stabbed him?

No, I wouldn't have even pretended. I would, at worst, have sighed a bit at his puns.

To be sure. Just had to note that you hadn't actually denied the allegations =P

All the best to you if you're still on the market.

Haha, I'm now married with children. Because he kept asking me out, more than once, to interesting places, even though I turned down the initial invitation and even gift.

That's a bit tricky though.

You turned him down, even after he invested in a gift, and he kept pursuing. And I don't know what if any signals he was reading that led him to think it would succeed.

Meanwhile, the advice that men would get, both from most women and men, is you have to move on after a rejection, because continuing on is 'creepy,' or is 'simping' (ESPECIALLY the gift-giving), or maybe even straight up stalking or harassment. How many rejections is a man supposed to 'ignore'? How much should he invest before it becomes throwing good money after bad?

There is no good answer. And there's the risk of a woman actively exploiting this tendency in men to pump as much money and effort from him as possible.

This pursuit model of the man slowly, politely grinding down a woman's barriers and making increasingly enticing offers for her time and affection is one that I personally prefer. But it just doesn't work very well when women have many available options, and to continually pursue one who has already rejected you just reads as 'desperation' which is a turnoff on its own.

Simply put, why would a guy put himself through that without some reasonable expectation of success?

Yeah, most of the married people I know met their husband in a fairly small cohorts, such as a church or volunteer group (not rotating volunteers, a specific stable cohort), where that sort of thing is more likely to work out, and both parties will experience negative repercussions if they act badly.

It used to work when you could do this in the context of socially sanctioned courtship. The man knows he isn't being played too hard because no one is having sex with the woman. Women in turn get to get more exposure to a man and test his level of interest commitment. I think it's a W for both sides. Certainly women seem to still like it today (why is Pride and Prejudice still so popular).

Yep.

I said recently:

I think men find it more tolerable to compete for the hand of the 'fair maiden' who is making everyone play the game to win her affections, than to have to face the reality that the maiden isn't so fair after all and they were burning efforts trying to get her to pay heed, meanwhile she's banging Sir Lancelot on the side and was never actually considering his proposal.

Rejection is less likely to convert to resentment when a man is at least 'in the running' for a woman's affections. When he's one of twenty dudes, 4 of which have already banged her, and another 10 have her nudes, its like... what is the point?

A guy being tested by a woman, rising to the occasion, passing the test and earning her hand in marriage is a pretty solid cause - effect /action - reward path. Humans are persistence hunters after all.

But a guy putting in effort, getting rejection, then seeing that the Chad (whom he KNOWS has got four other women on rotation) get the prize with much less investment, well, that's going to sting, it feels personal, even if it isn't.

And of course worst is when the women CONCEALS her other paramores (as they are wont to do) so its only AFTER one man has put in tons of effort that he realizes he could have just used standard pickup artist tricks on her and gotten the sex without the emotional distress.

Having an easily legible, mutually agreeable path for successful courtship solves for all the uncertainty and makes it so much less stressful on men and women, but we've fucking THROWN OUT the rulebook.

The core problem seems to be that the assumption is that the man is trying to immediately sleep with the woman and dump her after. So a man who’s persistent isn’t expressing how inexhaustible his passion for this particular woman is, he’s trying to wear her down so he can pump her and dump her.

Or at least that’s the fear, which leads to feelings of disgust at persistence. All it takes are a few experiences of being used and discarded to make someone put up massive guardrails. Heck, men feel terrible at being rejected and it’s easy for that to become resentment and contempt. Men (not all of them!) are perfectly willing to lie to score, and that’s a kind of rejection, too. A woman I was in love with once offered a friends with benefits arrangement when I told her how I felt about her. I felt terrible.

Dating in the courtship model only works when people can trust each other; when they’re worthy of trust. That’s broken down.

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Well, would you have gone out with him?

Maybe. I'm not sure. It probably wouldn't have worked out romantically.

Well, I don't know what it's like to be a woman, but when I try to imagine that situation I feel pretty turned off. Somewhere between cowardice and whining. Like he's trying to plausibly-deniably get you to initiate.

Anyway congratulations on your husband and family. WAGMI.

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