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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   24726 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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I just read about a real life version of the "isn't there someone you forgot to ask?" meme. Woman finds out a guy in his 30s dated a girl 13 years younger. She writes a story with their details, except in her story the guy is a creep. And now they're making a movie based on the story.

This is the short story: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person

This is the movie trailer: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J2VukOLSxoY

And this is an essay where the girl in the relationship says the guy was great: https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/cat-person-kristen-roupenian-viral-story-about-me.html

Alexis, a senior in high school, briefly worked with Charles at a restaurant. She was a hostess and he was a waiter. They liked each other and texted a lot. They slowly started dating. He was the liberal type who wouldn't own a car because it was bad for the environment. He even asked for consent before he kissed her for the first time. She said he was very gentle and caring and they had lots of things in common.

The only downside of the relationship was the fact that she felt people judged her for it, and that she felt she was growing up too fast by being in love with someone so old. They eventually grew apart and broke up when she was a sophomore in college, after dating for 2 years.

A few years later, Kristen Roupenian has an "encounter" with this Charles, after which she finds out that he dated someone much younger than him. She decides to write a story that includes personal details about him and the girl, including their small hometowns, places they worked at, the place they had their first date at, the way the guy dressed and a description of his house. Except in her story the guy is a creep, bad at sex, a liar and manipulator, who becomes abusive when the girl breaks up with him.

The story goes viral during the metoo movement. Alexis and Charles find out and are weirded out. Alexis thinks the author couldn't have known so many details about her life without stalking her online. Charles said he started questioning whether he was really an asshole and would go through old texts to make sure that was not the case.

A few years later, Alexis finds out Charles died. No cause of death is mentioned, other than the fact that it was unexpected. Earlier in the essay she says he was on antidepressants, so suicide is a possibility in my opinion.

Alexis tries to contact Kristen and she responds via email with a half-assed apology in which she says she shouldn't have included some of the details. Alexis writes this essay to tell her side of the story, but it doesn't change much.

And now they are making a movie based on this story.

Also, these are the pictures of the women mentioned in this post. I will let you figure out who's who.

https://imgur.com/2gApE3K

https://imgur.com/l2cfZtd

Woman finds out a guy in his 30s dated a girl 13 years younger. She writes a story with their details, except in her story the guy is a creep.

Because it’s a man’s fault if women his own age refused to date him when he was younger? Might as well tax a man for not living on Mars.

Because it’s a man’s fault if women his own age refused to date him when he was younger?

Well... yes? The implication is (both from a broad feminist narrative and in this specific case) that if you can't get dates from women your own age, this is because they can see the red flags of your unsavoury character. The solution is therefore to Be Better and self-improve until women your own age DO want to date you. The solution is not to instead date inexperienced young things, these being the only things you can get, because their red flag detectors haven't grown in yet.

t. Man dating a woman 13 years younger than him right now.

How old are you?

The dichotomy is 34M/21F

The implication is … that if you can't get dates from women your own age, this is because they can see the red flags of your unsavoury character.

And the same argument works the other way around. If you’re a woman who has trouble finding suitable men your own age, you should begin with your own self-assessment to determine what your contribution to the problem is. And if you’ve delayed too long and burned your advantage, there’s nothing a man can do for you except to tell you you’re incompetent at making decisions.

The solution is therefore to Be Better and self-improve until women your own age DO want to date you.

No. He ‘did’ do better. He went to a table with better odds, and found women willing to be more receptive to him. “Do better” =! Jump through hoops for me until I’m satisfied to the point where I want to date you.

The solution is not to instead date inexperienced young things, these being the only things you can get, because their red flag detectors haven't grown in yet.

And how do people get experience? If all it takes for a man to earn a red flag is to be met with female disapproval of such a facile kind, well, good luck with that, but I doubt she’ll get much support with that one. More 30+ year old men these days have less dating experience than a newly minted female adult does, now, more than ever.

Men left out in the cold aren’t writing opinion pieces and accounts wallowing in self-pity or rage, when women reject a man who owns a pencil box and a lime green T-shirt, but will give 6 children to an alcoholic that beats them. If you want to meet an appropriate man your own age in your youth, be less stupid.

No. He ‘did’ do better. He went to a table with better odds, and found women willing to be more receptive to him. “Do better” =! Jump through hoops for me until I’m satisfied to the point where I want to date you.

Also a lot of the 'do better' is relationship/dating-experienced link. Whilst there's a lot of baseline attractiveness stuff that can be done, there's a large factor of 'Can't get job without experience, can't get experience without job' at play

Well any functional relationship is never going to be one-sided. The problem with relationships today is far less rooted in “experience” or lack thereof; it has to do with people’s expectations and larger cultural shifts.

As it relates to the last part of your statement, I think that finds itself in many places of society. I recently came extremely close and lost out on a very promising job opportunity as a result of a this dynamic at play. As to be expected, it was a government position. Let’s just say I brushed too close to the edge in my background interview to things that I guess make me a highly suspicious candidate. Despite having no criminal background of any kind.

It’s a similar problem in a way to the difficulty the government has in hiring hackers. Highly qualified candidates get passed up due to their eccentric lifestyle, in favor of unqualified stooges that are always playing catch-up in cyberspace. You wouldn’t want a pedophile to babysit at a daycare for instance. That’s obvious. But should that also mean you shouldn’t have poachers as gamekeepers? There’s a difference between “thinking like an attacker” and “acting like a criminal.” But there are times also where those two things appear to come awfully close to one another, and in some cases may even converge.

Relationships and institutions that can resolve these contradictions (which isn’t difficult to do) whether it’s in relationships, employment, or public policy, are almost always going to stay ahead of everyone else.

Man dating a woman 13 years younger than him right now.

Depends where the age ranges lie. Women in their 20s up, not so bad. Teenagers - yeah, that's a problem, because 17 year old girl (or boy) and 30 year old man (or woman) is too much of a difference where they both are in their lives. Think of it this way - when he was her age (18) she was 5. He'd be babysitting her, not dating her.

The good old "half your age plus seven" rule says that a 13 year age gap becomes fine when the man is 40 and the woman is 27.

27 should be old enough to know your own mind, but I do fear somebody would go "he took advantage of the power imbalance!"

So "half your age plus 7" for our 30 year old guy and 17 year old girl would be 'she should be 22', which seems fair enough.

Teens to early 20s is young and inexperienced, so even a reasonable gap at such ages does mean unequal life experiences. 20 dating 33? Yeah, she's a bit on the young side. 25 dating 38? Much better. 15 dating 28? Dad should be getting out his shotgun 😁

The solution is not to instead date inexperienced young things, these being the only things you can get, because their red flag detectors haven't grown in yet.

If someone sincerely believes that young adult women's red flag detectors are so bad that they can't tell the difference between good/bad yet then they should support a chaperone like an elderly family member having a level of control over young women's dating lives who can help them filter out the bad ones from the good ones. Unfortunately feminists really don't like that either.

At this point in my life I basically ignore anything coming from a self-professed feminist. I would encourage others to do the same, your existence will get better.

they should support a chaperone like an elderly family member having a level of control over young women's dating lives who can help them filter out the bad ones from the good ones

Unfortunately, 15-19 year old girls are right at the period of life where they're insistent "but we love each other! I'm so mature! you don't understand! it's not fair!" and they won't listen and will rant online about abusive parents trying to break them up and making plans to run away etc.

Seemingly you can't just lock your kids in their room anymore if they're trying to sneak out and see the unsuitable boyfriend.

Unfortunately, 15-19 year old girls are right at the period of life where they're insistent "but we love each other! I'm so mature! you don't understand! it's not fair!"

Not just girls. Though it never happened, reportedly my father wanted to get married at 16. We often joke about the lengths horny young boys would go to in order to get laid, some of them might even agree to marry, of all the crazy things.

If someone sincerely believes that young adult women's red flag detectors are so bad that they can't tell the difference between good/bad yet then they should support a chaperone like an elderly family member having a level of control over young women's dating lives who can help them filter out the bad ones from the good ones. Unfortunately feminists really don't like that either.

I think you could sell the idea to some of them (particularly those that have children), as long as the elder family member is a woman too.

But this isn't even about feminism, it's a general issue with post-classical liberalism. On one hand we must maximize individual autonomy, so the grasp that the family, church, and community have over us must go. On the other hand we cannot just stand there and watch as people drive off cliffs, so we must establish a quasi-totalitarian system of social control that will try to reproduce the benefits of family, church, and community.

Another part of the puzzle is that in order to destigmatize premarital sex, we ended up almost throwing away the very idea of romance. I had this conversation with my wife recently, where she was telling me how an older dude at work is creeping on a friend of hers. I felt that might be unfair to the guy, and we ended in an argument until I asked what is supposed to be wrong about the guy having feelings for her, and courting her with honest intentions. She said there's nothing wrong with that, but that is definitely not what that guy was up to.

But in this modern world a stable monogamous relationship (or, heaven forbid, marriage and family) is not a better thing to aim for than a series of casual flings, so we must once again invent a quasi totalitarian system of social control, that will try to do what the traditional one did, but with extra steps, so maybe no one notices.

I think you could sell the idea to some of them (particularly those that have children), as long as the elder family member is a woman too.

Oh sure, I don't think that would make much of a difference at all. The political attitudes gap between men and women closes once people enter their 50s, I don't expect a woman's mother to make significantly different decisions from her father, in fact I'd expect her to be even more cautious than her father in who she's willing to accept for her daughter because of greater risk aversion.

I think you could sell the idea to some of them (particularly those that have children), as long as the elder family member is a woman too.

Is that not the default for arranged marriages? Certainly ultra-orthodox Jewish matchmakers are women, and most Muslims I’ve spoken to mention that arranged marriages are really arranged by the mother even if in theory men make the decisions.

So they'd probably say "based" to the Jewish matchmakers, but be skeptical of the Muslim setup because formally the power is still with the man (we are still talking about feminists, rather than trad women). Not saying they're a majority, in fact it's probably a fringe of a fringe, but there's a strain of feminism feels like they've been taken for a ride by the powers that be.

Yep, generally it's women who do the heavy lifting in the arranging of marriages for us too. The father generally defers to his wife in like 95+% of cases, and it's widely agreed that it's a good thing (regardless of what the soap operas may display, they are designed to be interesting stories for viewers, and do not reflect real life statistics at all).

Yeah, realistically that’s about what I’d expect. It just seems like a job that winds up being women doing it because they want to do it more than men do.

Yeah. Male role is more of a rubber stamp/final approval in most matchmaking-driven cultures. Indian & Chinese, from what I can see, vast majority of the matchmakers are women.

The solution is therefore to Be Better and self-improve until women your own age DO want to date you.

Tangentially, I find the near-horseshoe with the whole "alpha male" mindset community (or whatever the term is, idk) fascinating. You suck, be an alpha. She didn't want to date you? Not alpha enough. She broke up with you and started dating someone else? You weren't alpha enough. What's the issue, bro? Just be an alpha? Why aren't you more alpha? Just be alpha like me!

This is partly why the Alpha Male communities kinda work/get adherents, since it's the same messaging from both sides and yet the Alpha Male/dating bro types are the only ones who provide actual explicit instructions about what getting better/'alpha' looks like. Meanwhile the other side is 'Be better' but either doesn't spell out what that is or provides inaccurate feedback

Everyone is “alpha,” without a receipt. Especially those in the Manosphere community, if you want to even call it that these days. Whatever semblance there was of an organic community was virtually lost, the moment it exploded into popular discourse and started gaining traction.

Just look at some of their popular figures in the YouTube circuit. Rich Cooper. Coach Greg Adams. 21 Studios. These aren’t people going out and ‘slaying’ every night. These are people who’ve found a business niche.

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