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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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The guys who can't get women

Is it the girls or the guys who have the power on dating apps?

There's bad news about single men everywhere these days. It's portrayed as a societal problem that so many young men don't have the moves, and don't get sex, cuddles or offspring.

And women's "impossible demands" are blamed for their lack of success on dating apps.

The young men feel generous with the number of likes they get on the apps, but don't get the same amount of likes in return. They take it for granted that this little effort should earn them the chance to get laid, so you can imagine the frustration when that wish doesn't come true. Hordes of men whine that the ladies have the upper hand in the marketplace.

So poor young men.

But I'll share a little secret: The demands women have on men are ridiculously low. Here are some examples of what I've heard women my age being charmed by in men:

He was reading a book on the subway. He knew the definition of the term feminism. He moved (even with a smile) when he stood in the way of someone at the bread shelf at Kiwi. He apologized for interrupting someone.

It doesn't take much to get a star in the book.

Yet men who have given up dating often claim that they were ostracized from society by liberated women. For many, liberated women are synonymous with demanding women, who only consider men at the "top of the hierarchy" as good enough.

This hierarchy of alpha, sigma and beta males is the imagined reality of many men. The alpha male is usually at least 6 feet tall, has a perfect BMI and a status job. Preferably money too.

He gets all the women. Often in turn. The rest of the men get none, or have to settle for what they see as the basic scrap of women they don't consider attractive enough.

Below the alpha male you find all the other men. Totally average guys with slightly worse moves on the ladies. Their outfits may consist of yesterday's shirt and gym shorts, and their conversations often revolve around cryptocurrency, gaming or football.

Yet they scratch their heads as to why women are looking in a different direction.

It's the modern version of the romantic comedies of the 80s, where the woman only goes for handsome heartthrobs, while the poor good guy sits at home alone.

The most frustrated young men seek companionship in online echo chambers filled with depression, anxiety and body dysmorphic disorder. None of them have learned to talk about their problems. It feels easier to take what they call "the black pill", the belief that you are genetically predisposed to be ignored by women.

Women become scapegoats for men's existential loneliness. You don't have to visit many comment sections before you come across bitter men posting about insufferable women withholding sex.

Do these sound like nice guys to you? Someone you want to date and save from loneliness and celibacy?

The 21st century dating culture is not for sissies. Dating only through a screen is a poor basis for connecting with others. Of course you'll have delusions about what's expected of you. Of course you feel inadequate.

The difference is that many men's solution to this is to become bitter because women don't lower their standards for them. At the same time, women overexert themselves to meet the demands we think men have on us.

Because listen:

There are plenty of single women who feel just as insecure as single men, but they blame themselves, not the men who reject them. Instead, we empty our bank accounts to buy makeup and skin products. We get up before sunrise to remove every hair on our bodies. We starve ourselves.

Yet I'm supposed to believe that women have all the power in the dating world?

More women succeed on dating apps because they do more to get validation. Looking at women's profiles, you usually get a gallery of smiles and pretty outfits, shiny hair, friends' dinners, hiking and picnics in the park.

Men's profiles are mostly a couple of grainy selfies with a dirty room in the background. Maybe a shirtless photo in neon lights at a fitness center. What women are actually interested in, they don't seem to have given a second thought.

The criticism my friends and other female peers have of men's profiles on the apps usually has little to do with the men's appearance. It's more about the profile and photos being totally lacking in charm.

Women look more often for personality, because they are looking for a connection with someone, while many men only look at looks, because they are mainly interested in body and sex.

The alpha male is an ideal for men, not the dream man for women. On the contrary, I've heard many nightmare stories from bad dates with these types. They sit there and flaunt themselves, and are so full of themselves that they are completely uninterested in the person they are on a date with. It's like the old joke:

No, I've talked a lot about myself. Let's talk about you. What do you think of me?

Dating the alpha male are the stories we laugh about most on girls' nights out.

Men on dating apps don't try to meet women's desires

  • -33

Baity as it is, this post has something I agree with: men are not accustomed to the rat race that women have been running for decades. Women used to need men for their money (cf. Pride and Prejudice discussion downthread), but if you don't need a breadwinner to support you and your 2.2 children (and why want children, anyway?), why settle for a man that is just average? I've heard that Satisfyer is much better than any man if you only want an orgasm.

If you're a blue tribal around 20 you will probably have to learn all the stuff women have been doing:

  • is my body hot? What can I change to make it hotter? What can I wear to accentuate the hottest parts are hide the not-so-hot ones?

  • is my face attractive? How should I style my hair to make it more attractive? How will makeup help?

  • is my personality attractive? Can I be a good listener that at least pretends to be interested in the topic? Do I know how to talk about things that interest the other party?

  • are my hobbies attractive to women? What do they say about me? Do I have a hobby that lets me meet women easily?

  • are my male friends appropriate? Do I have a cool friend that gets me into places? A wingman I can trust? Do they all look good on camera without outshining me?

  • is my lifestyle attractive? Do I look like a strong independent man that doesn't need a woman in his life to feed and clothe himself and keep his apartment clean and tastefully decorated?

The difference between men and women is that for women, seducing a man is is standing in the vicinity of said man. Smiling and being pleasant, and then waiting for the man to actually initiate. Being there is 90% of the battle won.

It's different for men. If you think that the only reason I'm not dating Gina Carano is that I haven't ran into her, then I don't know what to say.

These are extreme examples. But men never seem to do even light versions of this. Some men will stalk specific women, sure, often women they’d have no chance with even under ideal circumstances. But the strategic pursuit of a certain type of woman appears very rare.

I feel like a certain amount of this is just down to how male & female sexual attraction differs. If a male's exposed to a reasonably attractive, friendly woman with similar interests for long enough he'll likely eventually swing her way. If a girl's exposed, far more likely for a permanent 'ick' to form or the window to close of perception.

If a girl's exposed, far more likely for a permanent 'ick' to form or the window to close of perception.

Not necessarily. For me, anyway, trust comes before lust so online dating is frustrating and I'm a 75% of lovers were friends first kind of person.

That said, I do consider most of my male friends unfuckable.

(Note: I read through this entire thread and discovered, along with everyone else, that the OP comment is at least low effort and maybe-probably ChatGPT or Norwegian copypasta. Cool. Still, @2rafa

s thoughtful response motivated my response)

Ulterior motive hobby-ing and socializing in order to date is a very bad idea. As @RenOS states in reply, if you're the guy doing the thing (hobby / career / social event) just to hit on women, you get a reputation as the dude who's just there to hit on women. Because you are and you have sort of concealed that fact. I would argue that if you do this in any way that's even slightly related to your profession, say by joining a "Young Professionals in Old Timey Dirigible Engineering," you're courting disaster. The lines between personal and professional spheres for conduct are very, very blurred (I'd argue this is probably a bad thing, but that's for a different thread and a higher effort post).

The solution to this is to be good at flirting. In fact, that's always been the solution. Flirting is a specific means of communication that lets both parties covertly communicate interest while allowing for exit points constantly without anyone getting too hurt. These days, really, really subtle flirting with slow escalation and a lot of indirection at the outset appears, to me, to be the default. I think this is a symptom of overall social regression due to the rise of emotional hypersensitivity, and, frankly, just a little bit of broad level social skill retardation due to social media. It amazes me how many "conversations" these days are just round-the-table sequences of references to memes and YouTube videos.

Therefore, I see a lot of things in my social group's dating rituals nowadays (late 20s early 30s) that reminds me of what early High School was like. People do track likes on social media as indications of romantic intent. People do have multiple group-of-friends outings where two interested parties are specifically there to be near each other before those two parties go on a one-on-one date. In fact, there are even literal practice dates where one party will ask the other if they want to do coffee / movie but in such a fashion that there's no possibility of it escalating whatsoever. I remember a ritual in High School where you would ask your True Love if they wanted to sit outside in the courtyard to eat lunch together and that this was absolutely necessary before an outside-of-school-in-real-life date.

The elevated risk with current flirting, however, is that incompetence is punished nearly as harshly as the clandestine operation of hobby-ing to date. If you're socially less than replacement level (that's a baseball term, look it up), and go off half-cocked (yes, I'm having a little bit of fun now) and ask someone on a date too early in this process, or announce romantic intent with even a pretty basic - but direct - compliment, you could risk getting the creeper label. The modulators here are 1) how attractive you are 2) existing social standing 3) communication awkwardness. This is where you see a lot of angry TRP'ers and blackpillers raging "WhY caNt womenz take ComPLiments?" Well, if you're so incapable of recognizing social context, cues, and current rituals, your "compliment" is seen as a random mad raving by a whirling free radical that's too dangerous to be engaged with. When the man in three layers of sweatshirts in two layers of urine cologne on the subway salutes me and says "Morning, General!" on my commute, I don't feel flattered.

Well, how does a fellow with underdeveloped social skills go about improving? The answer is to talk to everyone about boring shit all of the time. Master small-talk. "But small talk is bullshit! I want to get into deep conversations! And isn't that also what a mate wants?" Sure, eventually. But being able to make small-talk that isn't cliche ("crazy weather we're having"), or boring, or just you free-associating demonstrates a similar kind of subtle communication very much like flirting.

If you can get a stranger, in 60 seconds, to tell them something about themselves (basic, nothing deep), laugh at an observation, and then ask you a question, you've just made a stranger begin to trust you (in the telling of the something), enjoy being around you (laugh), and take a reciprocate interest in you (the question). And, remembering that being sneaky is bad, you're doing this in a context where you don't already want to have sex with the stranger (or, you preemptively discard that outcome. Sometimes the Barista is cute, but you're not really trying to make it happen).

But, Uncle Toll Booth does kind of think all of this is bullshit. I think traditions had it right. A big part of relationship formation in the West before World War 2 was a clear demarcation between socializing and courting. Sticking with the High School image, the entire point of specific dances throughout the year was do create an unambiguous way for one party to announce interest to another (interestingly, these went "both ways" very earlier ... my Grandfather told me fond stories about his Sadie Hawkins dances where "the girls could do the pickin'" -- you take that however you like, dear reader). These dances were also the monkey-see-monkey do practices for adult courting. An invitation to dinner and/or entertainment was unambiguous as a symbol of interest. A polite decline from the offeree was respected.

[I'm going to skip the part on why / how this changed because I'm already way off topic and want to bring this ramblin wreck home]

I think a massive cause of mutual frustration in heterosexual western dating today is hyperabundant ambiguity. Friends-to-lovers, officemates-to-lovers, hobbying-to-lovers, means that a lot of young women, upon meeting a guy who is perfectly nice to them, think "wait ... is he trying to fuck me?" Not does he want to (which even Grandma had to deal with) but "is he already trying to, but won't be clear about it." Or, if he is clear about it, it's so crass, direct, and awkward that it's not just a turnoff, but, potentially, a cause for mild alarm.

[Self-critique: This post got away from me a little. I hope the Mottizens can salvage some value from the wreck]

That ambiguity is on purpose.

Social mores had to adapt to the forced mixing of foreign cultures, at gun point.

Gone are the days of the real #MeToo movement, when a woman could get any impudent Emmet Till lynched for allegedly showing misplaced interest.

Now the time is at 'what timmy gon do' and the answer is jail time

There would be a lot more clarity in a society that appropriately (violently) dealt with incivility, and where there would be no get out of jail card for every rapist, molester, drug addict, deadbeat dad etc.

I agree that actually meeting the other gender is a critical part of dating success. But I disagree that most men aren't trying this.

The extreme examples obviously wouldn't work for the men the same way as for women, because women are much more sensible to possible stalking, for good reason - male stalkers are much more common and far more dangerous. Any men attempting the kind of things you're listing here would risk being branded as an ultra-creep. Even typing out "strategically pursuing a certain type of women" I feel like I'm writing something about a male serial killer.

But the "light" variant of this is done all the time. "Has lots of women" is a top positive criteria for choosing what to study, together with "pays well". I know several men who have told me explicitly that they chose their field because it has lots of women. Same for hobbies. Hell, I would count that as negative attribute of men; They constantly try to find novel ways to pretend to be into something that women like to get laid under false pretences. "I totally care about the environment babe, please tell me more about it while we make love"

My wife studied psychology and both she herself as her female fellow students complained a lot about suspecting that the men in the course only studied it for dating (based on the few male humanities students I know, I concur with her entirely). One in particular had tried to hit on a few too many girls and now struggled to be accepted at all. As you see, even the light version you risk being branded a creep as a man. So unless you already have a decently above-average baseline of social capability, it is a wiser choice to not attempt it as a man and stick to "safe" options like clubs or dating apps where, if you screw up, you don't risk ruining your entire social circle and several years of your life (one of the prime reasons why men flock there despite the abysmal stats). And what you definitely do not do is admit it to any women (and if you want to be really safe, ideally not even to yourself).

I would even go as far as saying that the light version is done much less by women. No women ever studied a field because it has lots of men - no, that is usually one of the top negative criteria, a reason not to go into a field. I have never heard about a women going into a hobby because it has lots of men, either. And women also do lots of gatekeeping of their fields and hobbies, while men often actively try to recruit women into their hobbies. Back when I took advanced dancing lessons as a teen (in my region, basic dancing lessons are a social requirement), the girls would often complain about how many of the boys dropped out after the basics and just a moment later about how many of the boys who didn't are only doing it for dating and how creepy that is. I dropped out since I already was insecure about myself and that didn't help. None of the girls even cared to my knowledge, so it was probably a correct choice.

Looking back, the broad social dynamic is obvious; The already successful (in the broad sense) men do the minimum social requirement and get out, a minority stay in since they like it or as a courtesy for their girlfriends, some of the unsuccessful but socially above-average stay in to increase their chances to get lucky, and finally the great bulk of average and below men get out before they are branded creeps. The women wanted more of the successful men to stay in, and less of the unsuccessful. Being a bit but not terribly socially awkward I stayed in a bit longer than what was considered appropriate for me, but I got the hint after a short while and also got out before it was too late.

On the other hand when doing traditionally nerdy hobbies like LAN parties or pen & paper, even just a single women being part of such a group was treated as a coveted grand prize. Even as I got out of the nerdy circles into more normie ones, the basic dynamic has never changed in my experience. In college our lab (which itself is ~ 50-50 gender split) played football and people were always complaining about the lack of women, and nobody ever complained about the wrong women joining for the wrong reasons. Most of my time at university there have been more women than men at almost everything, and the few times anybody mentioned that at all it is either seen as a positive accomplishment or followed by crickets chirping.

You have an interesting circle of friends.

The question of where to find single, available women IRL is something I see repeated alot on men-focused forums, reddit included. The conversation tends to devolve down in the same way;

  1. 'Where do I find women to interact with and touch grass?'

  2. insert list of women-focused activities and hobbies

  3. 'I'm not interested in any of those; should I pretend to be invested in them just to find a girlfriend?'

  4. Cue a mixed response of 'Just give it a shot, you might like it!' and the inevitable chorus from online women of 'Ew, you shouldn't join a hobby just to meet women, that's disgusting and women can always tell!'

  5. Cue frustrated response from several men about how they've been told they shouldn't talk to women in a variety of social spaces, so what exactly are they supposed to do?

  6. No response.

itsallsotiresome.jpg

So, yeah. This is something that's I feel has been happening alot as of late, and has been exacerbated by covid. Whether this is all antecedent data or indications of a larger social trendline with ominous implications for the future has yet to be determined.

Well, my go-to advice has always been speed-dating, which doesn't require any specific interest, and only involves women who explicitly want to meet men. It's a lot easier if you live in a large (non-tech-focused) city, but that's true of pretty much everything.

I do think the hobby stuff can be more pleasant if there are hobbies that work for you, and that "try things you don't expect to like, at least once" really is good life advice. (Of course don't keep going if you hate it.)

The "Ew" people do not have your best interests at heart, and - outside of school or work - can usually just be ignored. Some women really do go to social activities to meet men; some other women like to get in the way, for reasons I wouldn't dream of imputing.

Ah, yes. I've seen that advice, as well.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone remarking on it actually working, though. Most of the time people comment how nothing ever comes of it, and I've never actually seen it occur in real life.

If I had to venture a guess, this idea stems as an artifact of european style dating, where I've heard a more slow, organic, 'start as friends and become more' is seen as a standard thing, whereas in American it's often considered openly verboten.

That's mostly a wild supposition on my part, though.

I would say it is considered the ideal here in Europe, yes. But it mostly works for the guys who don't struggle with women anyway. If you're an average guy with average social skills you will be able to meet women at bars and clubs and might get lucky. But if you try to weasel your way into a friend group with plenty of women, they will be nice and considerate but simply not invite you to most events except the biggest, which will functionally be the same as the bars and clubs you've already been frequenting. If you try to invite them to something, they will not show up. If you get pushy, they will start actively avoiding you.

I think many women really struggle to process the male perspective. As a woman, as long as you are nice and social and put in just a minimal effort to get along with any guy, he will generally don't mind your presence or even want to actively invite you to every social event he knows. More women is ALWAYS better. As a woman, your main problem is the opposite; You're bombarded by male attention and need to make sure to avoid the lazy fuckers, the losers, the stalkers, the cheaters and so on. Otherwise you'll end up being one of those wifes who does all the house work while also working full time and also caring for the kids, or you will end up having to bankroll your husbands stupid ideas that go nowhere or you will be replaced by a younger model once you're older etc.

As a guy however even woman you're friendly with will by default see no reason to invite you to any social event. All else being equal, a social event gets worse with more average men present. Men will want to come less since they want to meet women, women will want to come less since they want to meet the good men.

As a woman in America I only ever considered the "become friends and fall in love" method.

As a very plain woman I secured a husband by working at a IT Service Desk where I was the only woman and joined a fantasy football team without knowing anything about football (I picked players based on the vibes I got from their name.) I fell for the best man out of the bunch, someone of healthy weight, high intelligence, and emotional self-awareness. He fell for me. It probably helped that by that time half the single guys (and one of the married men) were interested in me, driving up my perceived value.

It took two years of spending time in male dominated spaces, but I think I married the best man I could.

It makes sense, and it's doable, but it's backwards. The bag young men are supposed to secure is resources and social status. They may as well start looting and raping if it takes this much social intrigue to find a decent partner.

In any of your examples, did the women do all this effort to secure a poor, regular height man, with a great personality?

I went to an event like this recently in finance and it was like 60% women, all young, and because it was all PMC disproportionately skinny and attractive.

Huh, that's interesting. I always assumed those things would be as male-dominated as the industry as a whole; if they're majority female, that's a huge selection effect.

Ah, that makes sense. The FCA gave a ratio of 17% female in 2019, but only for people senior enough to need approval.