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I kind of went back and forth on whether I should reply to this because it got weirdly personal at the end. No, this isn't about me and I'm not sure why you think that's my objection. And I knew from the beginning that you're happily married, so this is quite academic for you. But eh... if you can't discuss entirely pointless topics with no practical value then what is this forum even for, am I right?
So when I said your heuristic is basically that a man has to intuit whether you like him or not, I was basing it on your original statement way upthread:
Even assuming you don't literally mean that such a man wouldn't know anything about how to build a good life together, this is still a very strong statement. And I suspect that the reason we disagree on the implications of your condition is because we have very different views of what your hypothetical action of batting eyelashes and saying "I like spending time with you" communicates to a man. In short: that communicates almost nothing.
The reason why this doesn't communicate much to a man is because most of the meaning is being carried by the batting of eyelashes. Women quite often say "I like spending time with you" (or similar) to platonic friends they have no interest in, after all. But I think that @2D3D hit the nail on the head when he described how men simply do not communicate with subtle body language cues like that. The odds are very good that a lot of men won't even see the batting of eyelashes, much less realize it means "whoa this girl likes me". We communicate 90% with words, 9% with tone of voice, and 1% with very unmistakable body language that basically translates to "I'm happy/sad/angry". We simply do not do subtlety (in fact, subtle reading between the lines like that actively annoys most men I have known). Basically the only reason that any man would ever pick up on the romantic interest your hypothetical statement was trying to communicate is because someone (maybe an older man, maybe another woman) sat him down and explained "look, this is just how women communicate and they are the ones who have all the power in this dynamic, so you have to try your best to look for tiny signs and figure out what they mean even if it seems silly to you".
So, for most men (at least as far as their natural communication style goes) your hypothetical test basically doesn't tell them anything that a platonic friend wouldn't have told them. And I think that is the really big difference in our viewpoints that is causing us to disagree. I get the sense that from your perspective, you described a clear unmistakable sign of interest that a woman might show. But trust me when I say from a man's perspective, trying to read that intent is like trying to read tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. It doesn't come naturally, makes no sense to us even if we know to try to do it, and is pretty much the most difficult thing you can ask of us.
By comparison, the good qualities you're assuming a man won't have if he can't pass that test (i.e. "building a good life together")? Those are easy. We understand things like providing for a family, stepping up to take care of business, and making sure your wife is treated like the precious gift she is. They are driven into us very deeply (partly by nature, partly by seeing the example of good men around us). Even the scoundrels who take advantage of women understand these things way more easily than they do the sort of subtle communication you're talking about (they just don't do them, even though they understand them just fine).
And that, ultimately, is why I pushed back on your heuristic that I quoted above. From the perspective of a man, you're basically saying "If he can't do [really difficult thing that doesn't come at all naturally], he's going to have no idea about [really easy to understand thing which actually does come somewhat naturally]". It's just not at all accurate to what men are actually like, in my opinion.
I wanted to reply to this but forgot about it, but this did get really personal and I know I also found it frustrating, and actually kind of laughable in that sense. Like you give a shit whether a married stranger on the internet thinks you're marriageable.
I'm with you, man. But I think this interchange illuminated one of the big lessons I've learned from being on the motte: the worst enemy of men who struggle romantically isn't progressives, but traditionalists.
Progressives will tell you you're lonely by making up all sorts of just-world reasons why you're a bad person, but traditionalists will come right out and say they think you're unworthy of being married because you're a weak, cowardly man. What you've learned from this interchange is that it's not just the men who think that in trad communities, but the women too. And even hydroacetylene has gone on record that the trad approach to dating doesn't actually work very well.
I'm certainly a pretty conservative believer, but what I've learned from the motte is that I absolutely, under no circumstances, want to be a trad Catholic. Or at least a trad Catholic disagreeable enough to post on a politics board. They are fanatically bad apologists for their understanding of the Christian approach to gender roles and even for their understanding of the Gospel.
Whatever they think they're doing, our local trads are doing the very opposite of evangelism. Someday they will have to make an account for their behavior before the throne of the Lord. And I hope the judgment will not be too heavy upon any of us, distracted from prayer and charity by useless arguments and the sound of clanging gongs.
I think people who are bad at relationships in certain ways are drawn to belief systems that can be used to not only justify, but reinforce, that deficiency. Christianity is just how the traditionalists/men do it, and that's mostly because until around 60 years ago there was no reason for women to have their own version.
Because of this, I think people who don't have that problem look at Christianity, see people doing that, come to the completely reasonable conclusion that they are the same, and shut down. Doesn't help that people who aren't Christians for those reasons look or act much different than your average good-quality human being, either (hence that famous Penn and Teller rant about morals), but maybe that isn't "real" Christianity either?
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Thanks man. I appreciate the support. It was indeed a frustrating conversation, but on the other hand it's been out of my mind since then so I guess it couldn't have been that bad lol
I do agree with your broader point, that the people who kind of push people away from the faith the most are the super traditional ones. IDK why, exactly, I am sure it's not their intent. All I know is just about every time I go on /r/catholocism I come away from it going "man those people are crazy and if I didn't know lots of very nice Catholics IRL I would run screaming".
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You are focused on the "give the man a signal that you are open to being asked out" while my main focus has been on the topic of the thread, that the man should be the one to ask the woman out. If the man is too shy to do so, the woman should offer some encouragement, but not enough to completely overcome the challenge the man faces. This challenge is important and demonstrates many good qualities. I don't think anything you have said has really rebutted this or offered any opposition to this all all, except that your wife asked you out online.
I think you are very wrong about how much communication is non-verbal. When people study such things, the percentages are generally flipped around (less than 20% is word choice, tone and body language is more significant.) If someone is actually blind to body language and tone, then that doesn't seem like a good way to spend a marriage either.
Under current sexual harassment norms, you're wrong. It currently reduces to an arsehole filter; current norms are that asking out a woman who doesn't want it is evil, so asking out a woman not known to want it is, probabilistically, also evil, and only arseholes do it.
Set fire to those norms, and you'd be right.
The filter works in reverse too. If a woman acts crazy because a man asked her out, then the man is better off not dating her. Best to figure that out early, instead of pining and waiting for her to ask him.
I also think the idea of a woman liking a man first is flawed. Women's sexuality is responsive. Read romance novels. How many women-centered romance novels are about the woman meeting a guy, liking him first, and pursuing him? How many feature one or more men adoring the female protagonist first, then the protagonist coming around to the idea of loving one of the men?
Women have crushes, but a strong component of their desire is the feeling of being pursued (in a safe, playful manner.)
If we're building a whole dating culture where men can't ask women out first, then no wonder nobody's having sex.
I think we are functionally in agreement.
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Men display subtle body language unconsciously. That is why you must always do an ocular patdown to assess the threat of a man. Though if you unconsciously change your own subtle body language following the ocular patdown by, say, making a sweet kung fu pose and flexing your guns just that little bit, the other guy may do his own ocular patdown and change his body language as well and oh no its a schroedingers threat unboxing now we HAVE to fight see this is why men don't observe shit.
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