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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4057 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 19, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I explicitly didn't say "1 in 20 women in a relationship with Awkward Andy are as bad off or worse than those being beat by Henry"; I said:

to the point of believing there's a 1 in 20 chance that a woman in a relationship with such a man suffers more than a woman in a relationship with a man who literally beats her up

Which means exactly the same thing as what you just said.

You can throw around the phrase "extremely non-obvious" as much as you like, it doesn't change the fact that what you're arguing is grotesque. You're so myopically mired in self-pity that you actually think there's even the remotest chance that a woman would rather be in a relationship with a man who beats her up than you. You shouldn't be "open to the possibility": it's preposterous and a grave insult to every victim of domestic abuse in history.

When you qualify as a doctor, I pity the poor women you'll have to treat whose shitty boyfriends land them in the ER. Knowing you, you'll be too busy asking them "but was he handsome tho??" to set their jaws properly.

You're so myopically mired in self-pity that you actually think there's even the remotest chance that a woman would rather be in a relationship with a man who beats her up than you. You shouldn't be "open to the possibility": it's preposterous and a grave insult to every victim of domestic abuse in history.

I have no disagreements about how pathologically self-pitying SkookumTree is in his comments, but I don't think the rest follows. The revealed preference of many a woman is to be in a relationship with a man who beats her up rather than with someone who's awkward to the level of what SkookumTree believes he is. It's possible to discuss if those are her "true" preferences and what she would "truly" rather do, and there's room for such factors, but I think the pudding they actually choose to eat is where the proof is.

Personally, I think this sort of thinking stems from a sort of "Just World Hypothesis" when it comes to romance, particularly that moral qualities that society in general sees as good in a man also translate to romantic success, and as such, if a man has romantic success despite having negative moral qualities such as beating his gf/wife, then there must be something that corrupted and manipulated the women who keep volunteering to be his gf/wife. When I think the more straightforward and also more correct explanation is just that there's only coincidental overlap between these two categories, and women, like all people in many contexts, often tend to be prefer things that are unhealthy for them over things that are healthy for them, if those unhealthy things provide other benefits that the healthy things don't.

For what it is worth, I think that by far the most likely explanation is that our abusive shithead is essentially functioning as a con man and being extremely dishonest about what his intentions are. Our spergy hero is mostly what-you-see-is-what-you-get; however, he is dogshit at marketing himself.

I freely accept the claim that many women get into relationships with attractive men who subsequently go on to beat them. I'm not for a moment claiming that a socially awkward guy who isn't much to look at would actually have an easier time getting into a relationship than a charming Chad who has no qualms about expressing himself with his fists, on the basis that the former man Respak Wimmen and the latter man doesn't. One of my most-upvoted chains of comments on this site was arguing that the advice often given to incels by feminists (namely "if you're an incel then just be more feminist and you won't be an incel anymore") is nonsense.

But I wasn't really talking about who has an easier time getting into a relationship (socially awkward autist vs. charming but violent Chad) - I know it's the latter. I was talking about who is more miserable in a romantic relationship: a woman in a relationship with a socially awkward autist, or a woman in a relationship with a physically abusive man.

The fact that women are far more likely to get into relationships with attractive men who subsequently go on to beat them up than they are to get into relationships with socially awkward autists - this does not imply that women in the former type of relationship are happier than women in the latter type. Sure, it's a revealed preference by women as a group, but that doesn't really tell you about how subjectively happy the person with that revealed preference is. Lots of people's revealed preferences (lottery tickets, gambling with long odds, drinking to excess) have a net-negative impact on their subjective happiness. In light of how utterly miserable and capital-T traumatised most women who escape from abusive relationships seem - well, I'm going to need a lot of evidence before I just accept the claim that women in relationships with caring but socially awkward men are even more miserable than that.

Fair enough in terms of happiness. I think that just shows that, for many people, including some subset of women, happiness just isn't all that important a thing to aim for in a relationship, and they would prefer to be in a relationship that causes them less happiness and more misery than one that causes greater happiness and less misery, since there are other factors in the less happy and more miserable relationship that make it overall more desirable. I'd agree that if SkookumTree thinks that women would be happier being in a relationship with an active wife-beater than with him with all his awkward shortness, then he is wrong, and not by a little, but by a lot. But I think there's a large chunk of truth to be seen here, which is that many women would prefer being in that unhappier and more miserable relationship than with him, as shown by revealed preference (I also think he vastly underestimates both the quantity and quality of women who would prefer the opposite).

I know what you're getting at, and for what it's worth Skookum did explicitly argue that he thinks there is a 5% chance that women in relationships with wife-beaters are happier than women in relationships with caring but socially awkward autists.

I think thinking of this in terms of revealed preferences is a kind of misleading framing. I don't think it's so much that Alice is given the choice between Bob (charming, handsome but prone to fits of violence) and Charles (not much to look at, socially awkward, but very decent) and chooses Bob, knowing full well that Bob will eventually go on to abuse her (and Charles never would) but deciding that it's worth it.

I think it's more like Alice meets Bob and is very taken by his charm and good looks, whereas at no point does Charles ever feature in her radar (because he never worked up the nerve to ask her out, or he did but was flatly turned down). Throughout their courtship, Alice never suspects that Bob will eventually go on to beat her up, even if there are obvious red flags which she wilfully ignores, rationalises away ("he only gets violent with men, he'd never lay a hand on a woman") or even romanticises ("if he's this jealous, it must mean he really loves me"). It's only months or years later when he actually starts beating her up that she realises the magnitude of her error, and notices how anxious, scared and out-and-out miserable she feels all the time.

Meanwhile Alice's friend Diane has settled down with Charles - and sure, maybe Diane never got quite as wet with Charles as Alice got with Bob, and maybe Diane wishes Charles would say more than two words at dinner parties - but they nonetheless have a healthy caring relationship that never devolves into screaming matches or broken glass.

Okay, look, I'm not saying you're posting in the wrong place; however, if you weren't a staff writer on "The Good Wife," that's Julianna Margolis's loss.

But how do you get from a compelling (even Emmy-winning) story that describes an extremely plausible series of events to being able to present evidence that what you describe is more or less confidence to what OP described, or any other type of interpersonal relationship?

Not sure what you mean, sorry.

Don't apologize--I was trying to be clever, which is always a hit-or-miss endeavor.

Anyway, my question is: how do you count what percentage of women in, say, America have the sort of relationship you describe? How does OP? Because both of you describe things that do happen, but how often they happen is very, very difficult to count. The only place I can even think to look is the GSS, and I can't find any questions on there that really seem germane.

Part of me thinks Skookum's hypothesis (which he freely admits he only has 5% confidence in it being true) should simply be disregarded out of hand: "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". This discussion has been going on for weeks and no one has yet presented any real evidence for the claim that women are more miserable in relationships with men who are caring but unattractive and socially awkward than women in relationships with men who are physically abusive. The best someone could come up with a study which purported to demonstrate that the introduction of no-fault divorce in the US precipitated a massive drop in the female suicide rate, but that seems tangentially related at best - it could just as easily be explained by women no longer being forced to stay wedded to men who beat them, drink too much, gamble all the time, rape their children etc.

When I see some very persuasive evidence that women in relationships with socially awkward men are more miserable than women in relationships with men who beat them, then and only then will I entertain the possibility that the hypothesis is true. Until then I am taking it about as seriously as astrology or crystal healing.

I do agree that the narratives you wrote are believable and realistic ones, certainly compared to the one where Alice is just given a choice between Bob and Charles, which is more akin to a romantic comedy or dating show than an actual real experience of a typical woman. And yet, I believe the revealed preference matters a lot here, because women, like all people, have a choice in terms of what kind of person to pursue for a long term relationship. Alice's choice to value Bob's charm and good looks and not check for signs of what kind of happiness or misery a long-term relationship would provide her - or perhaps to check but to discount - tells us something about how much she values happiness and (lack of) misery in a long-term relationship. Of course, people can't be expected to think in reasonable long-term horizons in the realm of romance, especially if heightened hormones are involved, but then I'd characterize that lack of foresight as part of their preference.

Ironically, I would wager that after Alice & wife-beating Bob have been married for a while, and if God came down and gave Alice the choice to rewind time and live what life would have been with Charles (let's say He also shows her what Charles was like to Diane, i.e. decent), in most cases, she would choose to switch. I don't think this really tells us much about her preference or what she would rather have, though, since these things don't exist only in thought experiments. At best, I think it would tell us that Alice would prefer to (or wishes to or sees herself as) be the type of person who prefers Charles, not that she is someone who prefers Charles.

Hmm.

I do know a guy who said he'd no shit rather be beaten by asshole parents than have rather manipulative parents that are in many ways disconnected from reality and full of shit as well as pathologically controlling, but generally well-meaning. Yes, that IS just one guy...but that guy was a real dude. What I am arguing IS grotesque, and I think that the chance is fucking small but present. Also, you don't think I could set jaws competently? Damn, thought 'spergs were s'posed to be at least decent at engineer shit.

So one guy in the entire world said he'd rather have emotionally abusive narcissistic parents than physically abusive parents. I presume his parents were neither physically nor emotionally abusive, so this was just idle uninformed speculation on his part and in reality he'd have no way of knowing which is worse. You're citing one random guy's idle uninformed speculation that he'd prefer to have physically abusive parents over emotionally abusive parents as a data point supporting your hypothesis that at least some women would be more miserable in romantic relationships with socially awkward autists than with boyfriends who beat them up.

Seriously dude, we're getting into "seeing Jesus on a piece of burnt toast" levels of casuistry here.

And while you're at it, you're conflating "emotionally abusive narcissistic guy" with "unattractive, socially awkward but fundamentally well-meaning autist". Well... wow. Maybe you aren't as decent and kind as you think you are.

Quick sense check: have you ever met a woman in a romantic relationship with a socially awkward man, and the woman seemed generally happy and at ease with herself? I have, dozens of times. Now, have you ever met a woman in a romantic relationship with a man who beat her up, and she seemed generally happy and at ease with herself? I have not, ever. I've met women in romantic relationships with men who were "merely" emotionally abusive, and they seemed, frankly, shadows of their former selves.

I've been coming at you with kid gloves for weeks, but at this point I have to tell you: you're revolting, but not for the reasons you think.

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