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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026

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Authentic choice is the most costly signal of all.

Ain't that the truth.

This is more of an aside, but it’s tangentially related to signaling problems.

Women who are trad lifestyle oriented are looking for signals that predict convergences to negative outcomes for their specific locality’s. Global red flags are a thing but local, contextual red flags are more tightly watched for. When you talk about control you evoke that local contextual red flag for trad behavior. Even if you never say it out loud those sort of ideas have a way of leaking into social responses that women are far more intuitive at picking up. I’d recommend you change your mindset about around it, let go of your own desires for control and converge to value-basis belief.

I never say it out loud in person with a woman I might be interested in.

I don't intend to change my mindset, when its everyone else's mindset that sucks.

If it were working for them, they wouldn't be in the same boat and also mentally worse off than I am.

I don't intend to change my mindset, when its everyone else's mindset that sucks.

Cognitive rigidity is a choice. You should get over it. You can be happy or you can be right, which would you prefer?

You might not say it around women you are interested in, but what about friends? Their partners? People talk, I’m not sure about your personal platonic ecosystem but are you really so spoilt for choice that you can afford to burn bridges and close doors of opportunity?

Trad women don’t want to date men who express controlling-abuse red flags, doing so puts them in a worse position. When you explain your thoughts it comes off much more mild, thus its a signaling problem.

Cognitive rigidity is a choice. You should get over it. You can be happy or you can be right, which would you prefer?

Thus far I'm managing to be both.

Most people are managing neither, it would appear. I'm cognitively rigid insofar as my process has brought me towards what I actually want in life, and I see others processes do not.

Note, I may have a different overall set of priorities than the average person.

Their partners? People talk, I’m not sure about your personal platonic ecosystem but are you really so spoilt for choice that you can afford to burn bridges and close doors of opportunity?

Which bridges and doors are you referring to?

People aren't getting in relationships at all these days. The doors have been closed already.

Its worst among the young. Nobody is reckoning with this in a meaningful way.

The whole problem is that whatever mindsets you're trying to talk me into has led to this disastrous landscape.

Why would I change MY mindset when I can directly observe that doing so doesn't actually improve the situation?

Which bridges and doors are you referring to?

The ones that exist when you are a part of a community. When friends introduce you their partner’s friends, when you meet potential partners in your community, when people in your community vouch for you, when you bring your partner to your community and the women side conversation convey what a catch you are. Basic social things. Nothing reinforces a woman’s mate choice like a community that approves and lauds that choice as a good match.

If nobody is matching up then the obvious answer for you is to plant your feet in the sand and refuse to soften your language… because that will show them!

That's not how relationships happen anymore.

Its been replaced with online interactions and apps.

And people just NOT forming relationships. The doors you're describing are just shut, by default.

You describe my PREFERRED method of finding a partner. You're also describing the exact method that failed me repeatedly over the years when it turns out the women in a given community aren't actually looking for partners from said community.

This is my point. I've gone through this process, I've failed, and I've tried to adapt.

Its OTHER PEOPLE who have the mindset that led here. I'm just dealing with the fallout.

You’re not talking to a boomer mate, I spent 12 years in the OLD trenches. I know the stats, the sources, the arguments. I’ve made them, I sang that song, and I’m telling you very few of the couples I know, now including me, met online and I hang out with NERDS, where there is no/little stigma.

I literally came here from PPD.

So I'm curious (genuinely) as to what precisely you think the correct approach is that has decent odds of success.

What community out there is welcoming to new members, gives them a true purpose and puts their contributory efforts to good uses, and doesn't mind, and in fact supports members eventually pairing off together?

And, critically, has a decent gender ratio?

No cults, please.

I attest that, at large, in mainstream society, these functionally do not exist any longer.

More comments

Trad women don’t want to date men who express controlling-abuse red flags, doing so puts them in a worse position.

Do you know a large number of trad women? You've polled them on beliefs?

I can't say I know any, so me saying what they want when dating would be pure speculation. I certainly know that liberal PMC women are repelled by even a hint of what they perceive to be "trad" thought, but that tells me nothing about a more traditional woman who regularly attends church.

As I said two handfuls, ~7-9 ish depending on your definition. I'm not so autistic as to formally poll them, but I have talked about dating, relationships, and I am friends with many of their husbands, I was in their weddings. I know how those husbands think, absolutely they have preferences around tattoos, hair color, and lifestyle fitness, but they married women with similar values. It's not control, its a shared agreement on values. It is also just intuitive. Would you want to date a partner who wants to control how you dress and how your body looks like, who has the final say in all of that, and even worse, it's against your beliefs to run, to divorce, so you are stuck with a controlling partner? Anyone saying yes has a fetish.

To be clear the dichotomy I am suggesting is:

  • "I want absolute control and the final say on how my partner looks, how she dresses, what her hairstyle is, what her weight is" (Controlling and abusive)

vs

  • I want to marry a partner who has similar values to me in regards to tattoos, modest dress, and lifestyle fitness so we can do physically demanding activities together. (Normal human preferences)

Faceh is expressing the latter but wants it like the former. He should give up his control issues and just converge to believing the later. It would be healthier.

I know and have known a decent number of trad women. They're basically OK with "husband makes the final decision".

Focusing on controlling appearance is weird, though, since traditionally the woman manages not only her own appearance, but that of the children, and to some extent her husband and interior design as well. She is also forming the aesthetic judgement of the children. So it's best not to marry a woman with very poor taste.