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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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One should never underestimate the male ability to completely not notice an approach by a woman.

For attractive men, it's very easy to build skill to recognize signs of women's approaching, because half of women like them. For unattractive men, who are repulsive to 95% of women, most of times when they think they're approached by woman, it'd be a false alarm, so it's difficult to build that skill.

Also female approaches are very much built in a couched 'plausible deniability' sort of a framing. I've been a spectator of enough of my female friends' flirtations that they're trying to actually take lead on, and the whole artifice tends to be built in such a manner as for an initial approach to be made with genuine interest but the whole thing can be retconned/denied if for whatever reason there's any icks.

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because they’ll die alone if they don’t.

Attractive men don't have to get over it, they will be fucked anyway, maybe even by school teacher.

I do agree that guys should generally be trying to err on the side of doing too much rather than doing too little, and definitely believe that that approach will lead to more success so long as you don't... overpursue the false positives. Fail fast, fail often is probably the best way to go for the vast majority of guys.

I also feel that male rejection and female rejection tend to be fundamentally different. A lot of guys will definitely have a point of 'I could literally not sustain an erection' hard no, but there's also plenty of girls who they wouldn't consider wife/girlfriend material who they'd still nonetheless entertain if they took the front foot. Failure for girls is just as likely to be a situationship/FWB kind of a situation as it is to be an actual flat, firm rejection.

But on the other hand I know enough girls well enough that I've seen them get icked by the most absolutely random stuff in the formative period of a new crush/potential romantic dalliance. I've definitely seen guys fumble a pretty sure thing, but I've also seen a plethora of times where the fumble has been something totally random. I also feel like girls have way more ability to just instantaneously flick the switch from 100-0 and vice-versa in the face of an ick, compared to guys where I feel like attraction levels tend to remain consistent unless a truly shocking revelation comes up.

One should never underestimate the male ability to completely not notice an approach by a woman.

Yeah, I received a few mix tapes from girls high school. Since I was known in my friend-group as the opposite of "with it", I just figured they were politely trying to expand my musical horizons.

I've chatted with female friends who are convinced they're sending strong signals to other guys in their chats about potential romantic dalliance... then read the actual chats and it's been the most passive/friendly convo ever that they're convinced is them leading a wild romantic chase.

Also seen a lot of cases where a girl's absolutely fawned over some loose male potential and completely refused to lead and/or 'been ghosted' when the convo is prettymuch as follows


Random dude: 'My love, shall we picnic in the park this eve'

Girl: 'K'

Random Dude: 'When are you available? What is your ring size?'

Girl: 'Like React'

Random Dude: 'Are you free this Friday, my swan?'

Girl: Maybe

Then they accost me with 'why did I get left on read' and it's like... dude was trying his utmost best to get a sign of interest from you and eventually assumed you were trying to signal him to fuck off.


But like I understand the feminine impulse. The consequences of misplaced affections for men tend to be out-and-out rejection, whilst the consequences for a woman will trend far more towards getting fuckbuddyzoned/strung along for novelty's sake.

One should never underestimate the male ability to completely not notice an approach by a woman.

Oh, yes. I once worked with a girl on a project and thought we had a productive working relationship. One day she came to tell that she was being transferred to another project and when she left, my boss (an older woman with stellar social skills) loudly exclaimed, "thank God, I was this close to telling your wife about this situation". Notiсing my visible confusion, she asked if I really didn't notice that the girl had a huge crush on me. According to every woman in the room, it was blindingly obvious that she was in full worship mode. I have no idea to this day if they were pulling my leg.

Was this co-worker attractive? Workplace rumors always seem to spring up around young and attractive women, in my experience. For example, I once had a co-worker who was, bluntly, an absolute smokeshow. When I took up at the acting office manager for a spell, practically every other woman in the office stopped by my office to tell me about some supposed office affair this young lady was having. "I saw her coming out of such-and-such's office!" "She got off the train Monday morning with such-and-such!" "She had lunch with such-and-such three days in a row and then I saw them leave together on Friday!" I suppose it's possible I was an extra in a porn movie and that this lady really was a raging nymphomaniac but I'm pretty sure it was just run-away imaginations on the part of a bunch of jealous co-workers.

No, not really.

I suppose it's possible I was an extra in a porn movie and that this lady really was a raging nymphomaniac

I was going to ask if you were paid as such, but then I remembered that extras in porn movies are compensated via exposure.