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Notes -
Time for some good old fashioned gender politics seethe:
https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/11of65g/i_21m_asked_my_friend_21f_to_be_fwb_and_now_she/?sort=confidence
A clearly very socially awkward nerdy literal virgin (despite being 21 years old) guy thinks a cute girl in his study group is flirting with him. He takes her aside privately after a study session and asks her… does she want to be his FWB (friends with benefits)? He reasons that he wants to have fun like many young men and isn’t looking for a relationship right now.
The girl is shocked and taken aback. She turns him down flat and appears uncomfortable. He feels uncomfortable too and apologizes to her and leaves.
Over the next few weeks, she doesn’t say anything to him at study sessions. He tries to make contact again, not to proposition her, but just to resume their friendly acquaintanceship. She tells him directly that she doesn’t want to speak to him. He is hurt but understands and leaves her be. Soon enough, he learns that she has told her friends and extended social circle what happened, and he is widely reviled as a creep. He feels hurt and violated. He laments that he has lost a friend, and now feels like he’s being lambasted for an innocent error, and he wishes the whole thing would just end and go away.
My take on OP is sympathetic. He comes off as extremely awkward and clearly isn’t well versed in the endless myriad of opaque and seemingly contradictory rules of modern dating. He wanted an FWB, and he didn’t understand that the socially acceptable way to get one is to ask a girl out on a date (usually through Tinder), then hook up with her, then either stay as vague as possible for as long as possible about your intentions while continuing to periodically fuck, or to sort of half way shrug after a fuck session and say, “yeah, I’m just really not looking for anything serious right now.” OP genuinely thought he was being upfront and honest with another person, and assumed that he was proposing something mutually beneficial.
Yes, it’s not a good idea to outright proposition a girl to be an FWB in a library. It’s awkward and weird and I can see how it made her feel uncomfortable. But all signs point to OP making an innocent error. He didn’t know any better. When he became aware of his mistake, he immediately apologized, gave the offended party space, and only later attempted to reestablish contact in a friendly, non-threatening manner. He made an innocent mistake and responded in the best possible way.
And Reddit’s response to OP is… calling him a massive piece of shit in every conceivable way.
What I find interesting about the overwhelming criticisms of OP is that they split in two completely opposite directions, but seemingly from the same critics.
On the one hand, OP is relentlessly slut shamed. He is accused of treating this woman like a “flesh light,” of feeling “entitled” to sex, of creepily trying to fuck an acquaintance, of pursuing sex with a girl instead of trying to date thine lady like a proper Victorian gentleman.
On the other hand, OP is relentlessly virgin shamed. He’s an incel, a fool, a creepy moron. He’s daring to try to have casual sex when he hasn’t even lost his virginity because he is SUCH A MASSIVE FUCKING LOSER. OP doesn’t understand that casual sex is only for chads who have fucked a bunch of girls, FWBs are an unlockable perk, not a privilege of the sexually unworthy.
Fortunately, there is a minority of Reddit commenters backing OP up, but it is a small minority. Meanwhile, many more posters are saying that OP is well on the way to becoming an incel or Andrew Tate fan, and unfortunately, they’re right, just not in the way they think they are.
I don’t have a larger point for this post, only that it’s incredibly frustrating that a significant portion of mainstream culture has erected these standards for the dating marketplace where one false step not only does, but should result in social and moral annihilation.
The participants in the Reddit BoRU and RA threads are unwittingly putting on an illustration of our threads that discuss male vs. (lack of) female approaching, the Women are Wonderful Effect, the societal eagerness to vilify men.
The elephant in the room there, an elephant that Reddit women will generally avoid (or whose existence they will deny, as the elephant makes them feel less like strong independent #GirlBosses), is that women are extremely passive when it comes to approaching and will not take initiative to… initiate. Men have the burden of performance. It’s up to men to read women's minds as to know when/how to approach or risk making women “uncomfortable,” since nothing is worse than the sin of being a man and making a woman feel “uncomfortable.”
Not that the slightest of fucks is given to a man’s comfort—like hypothetically, gossiping to turn his classmates against him, confronting him about asking a girl to hook up (when it’s none of your business), or texting him from an unfamiliar number to insult him.
How dare Study Session Guy look for a friend with benefits when he’s a stupid low-status virgin? Ugh, the male entitlement. Who does he think he is? Doesn't he know he's a low-level character who lacks the EXP to unlock that part of the map yet, much less pursue that quest? He should be grateful for her friendship, know his place and patiently stay in the friendzone, slowly orbit and monkey dance and maybe one day the friendship evolves into a relationship if he’s lucky she so deigns.
It’s also amusing how young women sometimes act like spoiled children—especially when it comes to courtship and dating—and we pretend it doesn’t happen, provide an “oh dear, dear, gorgeous” like the Ramsay meme, or actively condone and encourage them. Study Session Girl could had just said “no thanks” and discontinued the friendship. She could had even said “no thanks” and continued the friendship. Either way, a level-headed response that might befit an adult. Yet, she had to poison the well, start a gossip mill, sink his reputation, and essentially create a hostile
workstudy session environment for affronting the Lady's honor, for having the audacity as to be insufficiently attractive while thinking she might be That Kind of Girl (which she likely is, just not for him). The crowd had to be set upon him, in name of her honor. Slay, queen! He had it coming.Obviously, this is not to say directly asking a girl to be your friend with benefits is wise, tactically. Quite the opposite, as it takes away her plausible deniability and ability to dodge accountability, her ability to tell herself and others “we were just talking and hanging out; somehow one thing led to another and omg it just like happened!” If a younger brother, male cousin, nephew, etc. recounted me a story like Study Session Guy's, I'd shake my head and be like "Did we not teach you anything? Let's review the ways that could had gone better..."
@Quantumfreakonomics remarked earlier this week that he would in the past think:
I wouldn’t say dirty, lying, backstabbing tricks are necessary for success; I certainly wouldn't like deploying dirty, lying, backstabbing tricks (Russell Conjugation, perhaps: “Others might deploy dirty, lying, backstabbing tricks, but I deploy subtle, creative, smooth maneuvers”). However, I would say a large degree of social engineering and maintaining kayfabe is certainly needed for consistent success. Asking a girl if she wants to be your friend with benefits breaks kayfabe.
"Yes means yes” comes to mind and how it can be construed as an intentional or unintentional civilisational-level shit-test. The nice feminist guys who take it slow and overcommunicate every step of the way will fumble their chances away and remain pussless, whereas the toxic inconsiderate chauvinists who go full steam ahead all gas no brakes will see many more touchdowns. It separates the socially savvy from the non-socially savvy (and in the case of “yes means yes,” helpfully gives women another way to retrospectively claim non-consensuality if they so feel like it).
Decades of gender egalitarianism and mainstream feminist propaganda certainly don’t prepare young men for navigating sex and dating. Men and women are the same, except for when women are more Wonderful but sometimes more vulnerable—and when men are shittier and more toxic.
If you believe their pretty lies about women, the same cultural forces will only blame you for believing their lies. Study Session Guy paid the price for believing that male and female sexuality are similar, that men and women have a similar disposition toward honesty. As @erwgv3g34 commented on the Motte subreddit back in the day:
>Television: *lies to you about women all your life*
>School: *lies to you about women all your life*
>Women: *lie to you about women all your life*
>You: *believes lies about women*
>Society: "Haha, you actually believed the lies we told you about women? FUCKIN' AUTIST".
This is why I hate normies.
If you aggregate up Reddit women’s reactions to threads like these (about men bungling initiation attempts)—and their dating advice (more like “advice”) in general on approaching—it shakes out to something like this:
Don’t cold approach women. What kind of creep pesters women he doesn’t know? Women don’t date strangers.
Don’t ask out women from class or work. What kind of creep exploits school or work to pester women who are a captive audience?
Don’t ask out women from your social circle. What kind of creep takes advantage of his friendships or social circle to pester women?
Don’t ask out women that you meet through hobbies like dancing or sports. What kind of creep takes advantage of hobbies to pester women? Women are there for their interest in the hobby, not to meet men.
Oh and don’t message girls on online dating or social media. There’s already too many creepy losers in online dating
(like you)and what kind of creep pesters women on their social media accounts? Ugh, just because her profile is inundated with bikini pics and lingerie shots doesn’t mean she’s looking for sexual attention.Of which, Study Session Guy violated the second (while being insufficiently attractive and sufficiently unattractive, of course). However, a man who dutifully and obediently follows these commandments will find himself with no options to improve his dating prospects. Reminds me of that hilarious Motte thread: “Just tell me where you think white people are supposed to live” started by @knob. A confused, frustrated, or indifferent man reading Reddit women’s advice might ask: “Just tell me where you think men are supposed to meet women.”
Nowhere. In the eyes of women, if you’re the type of man who deliberates about where and how to ask out women, you’re unworthy. Women generally view men who approach courtship strategically or opportunistically as inherently creepy or suspicious. They want naturals—not some imposter who, by some combination of the numbers game and clever strategery, managed to punch above his weight. After all, for women, courtship and romance are just magical things that happen to them serendipitously like Acts of God, so what’s wrong with these men who need to bombard women with messages, plot to join hobbies to meet women, or bother innocent study session classmates? So gross and unromantic.
An obvious solution for men, naturally, is to ignore women’s dating advice for men, ignore sanctimonious vilification of men who approach courtship the “wrong way,” strive toward being attractive and not unattractive, and keep a cost/benefit analysis in mind to see what trade-offs of risk and reward might work for you. My approach in recent years is to aggressively DM on social media/online dating (preselection and female mate-choice copying for the win) when I foresee having lots of free time in the near future, but be very conservative in approaching through social circle or the workplace (lest an errant attempt gets my social credit points knocked out Sonic’s-rings-style like what happened to Señor Study Session).
I created an account, after years of lurking, just now to respond to this thread As A Woman. And not only that, As A Liberal, Cisgendered Woman. I supposed I have strong feelings about reading all these sentiments about folks of my sex and gender and couldn’t help myself from chiming in, as I think most of the advice and ideas in this thread are useless for the lurking men reading here who actually want to date a woman.
I have seen tons of absolute and negative statements about my personality (since I am a woman and am therefore lumped in) with little evidence, and am wondering; do you, and folks in this thread who agree with you, actually want to date a woman? Because it doesn’t seem like you fundamentally respect them. It seems to me the general sentiment is that all women are emotionally immature children (without objective evidence to prove it). My subjective observation would be that that attitude - women are liars, women are picky, etc. - about women leaks out into interactions with them, and, understandably, they, or I supposed “we”, do not want to get romantically or sexually involved with someone who thinks so poorly of “us”. Well, I suppose some of “us” do, but that’s a kink lol. I would recommend that loveless men consider one solution to their lack of success in the dating market is to re-examine their overall attitude about women and see if that isn’t playing a part as to why women are not responding the way you want them to.
Congrats on breaking the lurking barrier.
Anyways, your theory sounds good doesn't work.
Evidence? Anecdotes. Some very successful with women guys I know have let's just say some unenlightened views about women behind closed doors among all-male company. And believe me you will have to work a whole lot to squeeze out the things I say about women in the motte in real life.
So yes, this reasoning does make sense, and I am sure actually does effect some men's chances on the margins, but I would say in large you have cause and effect mixed up. Guys become bitter about women proceeding a lack of success (and sometimes too much of it)(not the other way around), this sometimes manifests into a negative feedback loop, sometimes doesn't.
Here's something I want the 4 female readers to understand. Because they keep on making the same mistake over and over again. You realize how men are generally funnier than women right? (Perhaps because they need to be funny to get laid so they develop a sense of humor?). Men also need to get good at lying to women to get laid as well. Don't believe everything the men in your social circles tell you in polite company.
Men around you could hold views like the ones you read here and just hide their power levels. Hell, I used to draw butterflies and frame them in pretty picture frames and gift them to my ex because she liked butterflies. (Even though it was the gayest shit in the world) Very sweet of me I know.
Don't extrapolate or interpolate from mask-off conversations in anonymous online forums. You certainly know how some in the motte feel about Jews and Blacks. Some discussions are theoretical..
Also, why didn't you oppose any of his claims? Such as {you say X but that's clearly false evidenced by Y}, and instead went straight for the ad-hom?
It's just a very tired form of arguing, imagine every left-wing argument was met with, "maybe you just suck at making money".
Yes, I know that and I don't find it convincing argumentation in that context either. Because the whole point of arguing is to.. convince the other side. Shitting on them kind of gets in the way of that.
You can make an entire corpus of systems level arguments against leftism spanning system dynamics, control theory, game theory, and economics without having spoken on the character attributes of the leftists even once. But I will sneak in a few comments about how their humanities and social science major asses are incapable of not only understanding the formalized versions of fields but abstracted out models either.
Is there truth to it in both cases? Yes. Even though in the gender war front I would say the lines between cause and effect are blurrier.
They might but their mechanisms for dealing with it are terrible. It always just boils down to attractiveness. Which is rational if you assume everyone's a liar and cheater so might as well go for the good looking ones.
Do I think a better mechanism exists? Yes.. just use all that "emotional intelligence" to figure it out.
The blackpill is that it doesn't actually matter if you are a liar, cheater, or immoral (make the inference using the aforementioned proxy variable). I have enough reason to believe as much. Which is again not really a bad thing. Nature is hardly deontological.
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