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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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Some of these are legit (like fertility) but if you’re giving up on having kids because your potential wife slept with 6 guys before you or is liberal, it’s an incredible self-own and you’re shutting yourself out of the most joyous thing you will ever experience in life over really tiny details. Obviously nobody is forcing you to compromise but I really hope you and others reading this don’t sacrifice your happiness on the alter of weird twitter dating discourse.

but I really hope you and others reading this don’t sacrifice your happiness on the alter of weird twitter dating discourse.

Please don't minimize like this. I didn't report the comment because I believe in addressing things like this head on instead of running to the Mods.

This isn't "weird Twitter dating discourse" this is, as the kids say, "lived experience."

I spent part of my 20s trying to find Mrs. Tollbooth in order to settle down. I kept an "open mind" the way mainstream culture told me to and didn't care about past promiscuity, political incompatibility, their status as a child of divorce and/or poor relationship with father.

Each one of these relationships failed catastrophically for what I recognize now as very significant character and personality failures. I'll admit that I probably didn't do enough to highlight and try to correct bad behavior (again, I was trying to be accepting) and, in at least one case, sort of gave up but kept having sex because sex is fun (I view this now as personal weakness. I wonder what your average sex positive person would say).

So correlation is not causation, right? That these women had "questionable" backgrounds doesn't mean that those background caused these bad situations, right? Bullshit. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. These women had failed to demonstrate a high-trust and durable relationship with any man in their life up to that point (one was even openly, frequently, and hostile-y critical of her very mild mannered and milquetoast brother). Why in the hell would I take all of the available data and throw it out because "don't believe what you read on Twitter"

I should've been fishing in other streams. I realize that now and that's what I do now. I've also cleaned my own act up over the course of several years. My fear is that what @2rafa said in another comment somewhere in this thread is true - I missed the boat on good pair-bonding in my 20s and now will have to "settle" for a woman who did the same in her 20s, but likely has the same view as I do now. Is that really settling and will I quietly resent her for life? Probably not, that's stupid. The fear remains.

But @faceh isn't being some sort of Twitter edgelord when he crunches them numbers and comes up with "welp, blackpill might be on the menu." He's reflecting the reality of thousands of younger unmarried men. And that reality is now manifesting in meaningful ways

Yep. I fell for a few girls who had classic red flags (grew up without father. Claimed to be molested when younger. And/or were on various psych meds, for instance) and I BENT OVER BACKWARDS to be accommodating.

My efforts were not recognized or appreciated or reciprocated, and ultimately the relationships failed in EXACTLY the way you would expect given the stereotypes. The lady blows it up with some irrational, out-of-pocket behavior which completely ignores the actual history of the relationship. Total waste of time and effort to achieve a predictable result.

Eventually you get sick of ignoring your gut and taking chances on the hope that you found a diamond in the rough.

As far as I know, the ex who dumped me prior to our wedding hasn't found another long term partner in the 3 years since.

Suggests it wasn't a me problem.

Yep. I fell for a few girls who had classic red flags (grew up without father. Claimed to be molested when younger. And/or were on various psych meds, for instance) and I BENT OVER BACKWARDS to be accommodating

This whole thing started with talk of "gynosupremacy", which I'd maintain is a twitter thing. If we're talking about a child of divorce on psych meds , it doesn't matter if she's larping as a tradwife - run!

or is liberal

The problem is that "is liberal" tends to be an effective proxy for "is a gynosupremacist".

That's intensely corrosive to relationships for what should be obvious reasons, since someone whose axiom is "always take for I am better, never give for you are lesser" simply can't function in an environment of give and take (i.e. a healthy relationship).

And the reasoning is the same as the [steelman for the] virginity argument- "if she had any brains or working emotional regulation, she wouldn't have been given to man-hating in the first place", and being someone who could be vulnerable to social pressure/irrational hatred like that is a liability (corresponding copypasta: "if she's still a feminist, you aren't the one"). Will she fall back on blaming you just for being a man if and when things go bad? Will she take it out on your sons, resulting anywhere from simple quiet quitting to "I'm divorcing you because you won't gender-affirm the new daughter I would have rather had"?

I say this as someone who thinks "a lack of virginity means she's sex-obsessed with all men everywhere" is the spear counterpart of the above, and just as serious a problem, for the same reasons- as this is a clear symptom that the man has problems with his brain or emotional regulation, gives away a bit of underlying androsupremacy, and might take it out on you or his daughters if the relationship hits a rough spot (corresponding copypasta: "raising daughters is the ultimate cuck").

Partners just aren't bringing much to the table to counter the risks

Every new video game or porno-tech (though I repeat myself) produced simply makes the definition of "much to the table" that much stricter. And I think this is relatively equal across genders- the amount of inherent boorishness/laziness in the average man, or inherent entitlement/screaming harpy in the average woman, that can sustain a relationship... is far lower than it was 100 years ago. Personality types that don't measure up are now much less likely to make it out of the gene pool (and that's even before getting to "is he stable?/is she attractive?") and will also be inherently more loudly resentful of this fact.

The problem is that "is liberal" tends to be an effective proxy for "is a gynosupremacist".

Almost no women IRL are like this. I’ve been on hundreds of dates in big liberal cities and I don’t think I ever met someone who meets this description. It’s a type of woman that exists basically only online and perhaps in some weird pockets you’ll never encounter in person anyway.

As for the virginity thing, I dunno, sleep with a virgin to get it out of your system. It’s just not important.

Almost no women IRL are like this. I’ve been on hundreds of dates in big liberal cities and I don’t think I ever met someone who meets this description. It’s a type of woman that exists basically only online and perhaps in some weird pockets you’ll never encounter in person anyway.

There's plenty of women like that, it's just that the "gynosupremacy" usually turns out to be pretty theoretical, and they're a lot more flexible / reasonable in their personal life.

It would be very helpful if you could quantify this risk, though, because as mentioned the consequences for misreading her are severe.

How heavily must a guy filter?

Don’t filter on it ex ante. Go on the date. If she really holds psychotic sexist views (she probably doesn’t) it’ll be quickly obvious.

Great.

But not my point. I can filter my dates by going on them, even if the ratio of crazy/not crazy is unfavorable.

I'm asking for a quantification of how many women out there are actually likely to pass the filter.

And, to really drive the point home, are there enough of them for most guys who want marriage and kids to have them, or do we have to acknowledge that the pie is too small for them all to get a slice, and thus we're actually in a state of heavy competition for a limited resource?

I'm asking for a quantification of how many women out there are actually likely to pass the filter.

The honest answer is "I have no clue" we're talking about people's intimate relationships, and I just don't have that much insight into them. But going by what I was able to see, the odds are pretty good, like, in the neighborhood of 100%. I've seen a militant feminist bending over backwards for a 5/10, mildly successful autist who just fell out of love with her, and ended up breaking up, I've seen another psy-op herself into tolerating infidelity / polyamory / wtf it they were calling it, I've seen successful "I can fix her" stories. Now, I'm not saying ~100% of women are marriage material, but I just haven't seen a case where the "gynosupremacy" was the reason for a relationship to fall apart.

I'm asking for a quantification of how many women out there are actually likely to pass the filter.

Like I have been saying, almost all of them. The number of normie women who want marriage and kids with normie men is almost certainly greater than the number of number of normie men looking for the same thing. That there’s a huge number of men-hating women out there categorically uninterested or unfit for marriage is a super weird cope made up in red pill/incel/sigma male Twitter. I know this because unlike these people I touch grass regularly and almost every single woman I interact with is normal and wants a normal relationship. Off the top of my head I can think of >10 single women in the Bay Area who are great and looking hard for their guy.

That a lot of these women are below men’s standards for other reasons (too fat, had sex with too many guys, etc) is a different issue and comes down to facing up to the fact that if you’re a 4/10 guy and want to get married you’ll probably have to marry a 4/10 woman.

I know this because unlike these people I touch grass regularly

You can do better than this strawman.

The number of normie women who want marriage and kids with normie men is almost certainly greater than the number of number of normie men looking for the same thing.

What if the normie women's definition of "normie" men isn't real? Like, what if there is a documented, quantitative disparity here between basic gender perspectives of the other.

I think the modal normie guy is just fine with a wife who had a few boyfriends before him, who puts on some pounds after they start dating (and definitely after marriage and kids) and who sips wine wearing her "The Future is Female" tee-shirt while they watch the Notebook again.

I think that same "normie" woman in that scenario is (not so) secretly resentful that her now husband plays Toby Keith sometimes when he BBQs, doesn't keep up with This American Life, put on a few too many pounds after they got married and lost his nice butt he developed playing Div-3 lacrosse, and wonders about "that chick Ashley" that his frat bros bring up after a few beers when they visit.

Expectations and the delta between them and reality matter. Your "4/10" comment is totally valid, but it also works both ways.

Yeah, great post. If you want a hot, relatively chaste, young, smart right-leaning woman, that’s not impossible, but you better be the equivalent of that as a man, namely a successful, attractive, charming, relatively young guy who probably has similar values, which in the case of chastity is likely some kind of religious conservatism. Young Mormon men seem to have no issue marrying chaste(ish) pretty blondes who will vote for Romney and deliver 3-4 children, because that’s their milieu. Too often some chubby suburban secular engineer whose primary hobbies are video games and online political discussion thinks he deserves the same.

Hot young people are in no short supply, and some substantial subsection of that group (assuming nothing truly weird or ambitious) likely meets anyone’s individual extra standards. But you have to make sure you’re part of that group, and you’re where the young people are (NYC, SF, LA, etc) and that you have things to offer that they want, too.

A 35 year old average looking guy of average means probably isn’t going to marry a 23 year old conservative trad virgin. If that’s the blackpill @faceh was talking about then, sure, it’s real. But at that point the unlikelihood of winning the lottery is a blackpill, and so is a peasant girl realizing she’s unlikely to marry the prince. If you’re in your thirties as a man you have to accept you missed the first wave of pairings (and arguably the second) and likely (unless extremely hot or successful) have to make do with women for whom the same is true. That’s no great injustice.

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They're all just risk factors that should be considered.

You want to make the case that guys should marry and have kids, show them the odds they're facing.