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Notes -
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
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?
(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]
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