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(I'm new, so I'm not sure if this is Culture War.)
Does anyone have any modern dating advice?
I'm interested in finding out what are the "real" rules that people operate under when it comes to dating, which might be different from the rules they ought to have or the rules they claim to have or the rules that they believe that they have (but subconsciously they use different rules). And of course the word "people" is very broad and presumably various subgroups operate in different ways, so I'd be happy for clarification on that point too. (And then of course individuals differ from the norms of the subgroups they belong to). Ideally I'd like to see some objective evidence, but personal experiences/impressions still count for something.
I identify with the difficulties in Scott's classic posts "Untitled" and "Radicalizing the Romanceless". Generally I'm paranoid about approaching women, because I feel like maybe they think I'm a creep and they're just too polite to say so. My biggest concern isn't that they dislike me per se; it's that maybe I've hurt the woman without realizing it. I'm very sensitive about that.
I've done dating sites and speed dating but I can't seem to find any connections. I should note that I have low self-esteem, so rejection is hard on me, which in turn makes it difficult to put myself out there. (Here's a question: How much time per week does the average single straight guy spend on dating sites etc., assuming he's actively looking for a date?)
I'm not a misogynistic incel, but whenever I talk about my dating woes a good portion of people feel the need to tell me "Don't be an incel!" when I haven't said or done anything remotely misogynistic. I figure the Motte is probably a good place to find people who understand my perspective.
I've been looking for dating advice recently, but everything seems contradictory. You're supposed to treat all people equally regardless of gender (which is great!), but at the same time you're supposed to conform to gender stereotypes and you should expect that most women will do the same. People tell me it sucks and it's not fair, but I'm the man and that means I have to initiate contact and get rejected a lot. They also tell me to be persistent but in the same breath they tell me not to be too persistent and it's not clear where to draw the line.
They tell me to be authentic but they also tell me to "fake it till you make it" and act like I'm a cool guy who dates people all the time. They tell me to express my feelings but they also tell me that "women can smell fear" so I should act confident even if I don't feel confident. They tell me to be honest but I've also had a (female) therapist suggest that I should tell some white lies to make myself more attractive. This woman gave a TED talk about her wonderful relationship with her husband (who sadly passed away) and she admits that the relationship began with lies: He falsely claimed to be a Fullbright Scholar to get her attention. Months later she found out the truth, but she was only angry for a short time. Ultimately, his lie made their whole relationship possible!
People tell me that women like it when you express interest in them, but also they think it's creepy. People tell me I must never express interest in a girl at her place of work, but the only relationship I had in the last 10 years began with that exact scenario, and the girl was flattered! (We eventually broke up, and since then I've also approached a few female coworkers at my own workplace, without success.) People tell me that if I show interest in a girl early on then I'm "too easy" and there's no "intrigue", so the appropriate thing is to give little hints about my feelings so she can pursue me. (In which case, apparently I'm taking the female role and she's taking the male role? I'm not offended by that; I'm just confused.)
People say that they met the love of their life on a dating app, but they also say that dating apps are trash and nobody likes them. (But even though everybody hates dating apps, apparently nobody can think of anything better to do.) People tell me it's ok to wear t-shits with the name of my favorite show or whatever (it displays my personality), but also I should never do that and the only way to be attractive is to wear solid colors with the occasional stripe.
One commenter on the Motte wrote "running a 'playing hard to get' game on a woman seems suboptimal. If you are looking for someone with whom you are authentically drawn to/compatible with, why set up these hoops or create a culture of deception within the relationship?", but in the next breath that same person wrote "it is also a risk to be overly eager. It's unattractive". But if I'm very attracted and I act like I'm only mildly attracted, doesn't that create a culture of deception within the relationship??
Long story short, I'm lost.
(And it surely doesn't help that I've got a long history of mental illness and isolation and thus I missed out on a lot of opportunities for social learning.)
I am actually bi, but in practice it's rare for a guy to get my attention, so I'm mostly concerned about how to approach women.
"Radicalizing" was written in 2014, and the advice at the bottom leads me to essays from 2001. It occurs to me that this might be woefully out of date.
Does anyone have any modern advice for me?
Another bi guy here! One who does much better with the men than the ladies, but who's nevertheless ended up with a woman.
Some scattered thoughts:
(1) Contrary to @doglatine, I'd suggest that being attractive is more important than not being unattractive. Polarization is key, and given the choice between eliminating all unattractive traits (impossible anyway) or developing a single trait that's highly attractive to (some subset of) women, the latter is likely to get you better results. Which isn't to say that getting rid of unattractive traits isn't important; it's just that I'm working on the presumption that you've (particularly as a bi guy) already gotten the low hanging fruit there (shower and shave every day; wearing clothes that fit decently), and additional efforts are likely to have rapidly diminishing returns. You aren't going to un-unattractivate yourself into attractiveness. And if your attractive traits are attracting potential female partners, you've pretty much won; women (all people, really) are willing to overlook, almost to a fault, any unattractive trait in a man if they feel attraction to him.
The only thing that's not low-hanging fruit to put effort into is, basically, don't be fat; if you're fat, any advice you get here that's not "don't be fat" is entirely missing the forest for the trees.
(1a) So how to be attractive? This honestly requires a lot more information than we have here, and it's highly dependent on your current state. Broadly, I'd say become highly successful at something: career, some hobby, immaculate physique, high level of style. You are really the only one positioned to make any kind of useful plan on how best to navigate from your current state to a more attractive one.
(2) Dating is not the type of thing that responds well to putting lots of time into it. An hour a week on the dating apps should be sufficient to get a date per week. If you're getting a substantially worse effort/outcome ratio than this, you need to either focus on the real world, revamp your profile, or improve your attractiveness. Probably some combination of those.
(3) There are pretty much no rules around dating. You can date any adult you want, and you can approach any adult you want. So long as you don't pester them after being turned down, you've committed no moral offense. That doesn't mean that you should thoughtlessly make approaches or date, but remember those are just matters of tactics, not of ethics. If someone has a wild emotional breakdown because you went up to her in a cafe and said hi, that's on her, not you.
(3a) As far as lying goes, I'd recommend against actual lies, but anyone telling you to list all your negative traits upfront are looking out for their convenience over your well-being, and they certainly wouldn't do it for themselves or someone they care about. As point of example, my last three girlfriends (including my current fiance) all said that they wouldn't have matched with me if I had listed my height on my profile. Had I committed some unpardonable sin by not? Nope; more than that, not only me but they would have all been made worse off if I took the "always make your most unattractive traits the main takeaway of your first advertising pitch" advice to heart. There's also an algorithmic aspect here: most dating sites use something like Elo-scoring to determine who to display to users, but if you list a trait that generates a broadly negative response, even women who don't care about that trait aren't ever going to swipe right on you, because you won't ever even end up in their swipe queue.
(4) Dating is all about conforming to gender roles. That means that, as a man, you'll have to approach, and you should be "confident." Confidence here has pretty much nothing to do with self-esteem but is instead something like masculine performativity. Body language, voice timbre, and conversational style (don't hedge things you say, even if you know they need to be hedged) will get you far here.
(5) Persistence is overrated. You should initiate and make yourself available, but put no more effort into pursuing a particular relationship than you would a friendship. If a woman's into you, she'll reciprocate. If she's not, perhaps you'd be able to convince her to give you a shot because you'll always be willing to put in ten times as much effort as she ever will, but that's a pretty miserable existence.
How many profiles would you expect a guy to contact within that hour?
I would say 5 minutes a day while you're sitting on the toilet. More than 100 contacts per week, less than 200?
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Yeah. The most masculine thing a man can do is go to war. If you come back in one piece, and can hold down a job, you'll be more attractive. However, you will pay an incredibly hefty price for that. I recommend joining the Marines, if you're directionless.
An ex-marine who holds down a job afterwards will do very well in the dating market; all the ones I know do very well, even in cases where their base demographics are unattractive (short; Asian). It seems kind of overkill, though, and there are easier ways to do well enough without having to deal with the tradeoffs and shittiness of military life.
Yeah. Peacetime military service has made most of the guys that chose it better off for having done it. War is a different kettle of fish; I haven't spoken to a single combat veteran who says his experience has been an unalloyed good. It's anything from "mixed bag" to "drank himself to death at 43 because of the things he saw and did in Iraq". They were more attractive, though.
What do you think about the role of life-and-death danger in making men more attractive? I think that it is the combat, not simply having been in the military, that's doing the work here...a Marine that's never been to war doesn't get the benefit that the guy that's survived combat gets.
It helps reduce neuroticism; if you manage to learn grace under literal fire, most other things roll off your shoulders. You're not going to be terrified at the idea of buying a woman a drink or being turned down.
Though, even vets who never saw combat get significant benefits. There's a baseline level of physical fitness most have, and they also learn structure in their daily lives and the capability to deal with banal peacetime military shit. Many men never achieve even that, and so even those bare minimum things put you solidly in the "above average" category.
TRIAL by wager of WILDERNESS.
I have been thinking about something: in ages past, men went to war to prove themselves. They still do, today, and the survivors I have seen return more attractive, although they pay an immense price, and that is only counting those that return more or less in one piece. Now, war is more destructive than it once was, and we don't think highly of war in general, for good reason.
Therefore: I have been training for this for the past year or so. I plan to have myself dumped into the Alaskan wilderness in late February, 50 miles from the nearest road or civilization. I'll walk out, and if I make it out alive, I'll have been hardened by my experience. I'll have stared my own death in the goddamn face, braving temperatures of 40 below 0 just to walk out alive.
Do you think that this will make my ugly, autistic ass any more attractive? I've heard it said that you have never lived until you have almost died, and that tough, masculine men are attractive AF. This seems like something that would harden someone...either permanently, as a rock-solid corpse, or permanently, as a wilderness-hardened man.
TL;DR Is dumping myself in the middle of the woods in Alaska in winter gonna make me more attractive, if I survive?
I'm a 5'6" 165lb autistic ugly medical student, for what it's worth. 28, virgin, been on a couple of dates. I'd do better if I was OK with morbidly obese women.
Some people think that this is an idiotic idea. It probably is. People do not do this for a reason; I believe that the reason is because it is expensive; if a thousand unattractive autists tried this you'd have too many dead ones for this to make sense on a societal level. However, I do suspect that it is helpful for those that survive, and with less risk of being a fucked-up crippled guy. Either you walk out of the wilderness more or less whole, or not at all. And there would not be nearly as much of the moral-injury shit a lot of vets drink themselves to death over...there is a lot of very deep shame that a lot of veterans carry about the things they did and didn't do. I've seen them die (of alcohol-induced liver failure) and heard their stories.
TL;DR does life-and-death danger make dudes that survive it more attractive?
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