putanumonit.com
Primarily relevant to here through the discussion of what people claim to find attractive vs. choose, but also considers various other measures of attractiveness. I dont agree with all these analyses but think its worth posting simply for considering the topic in a lot more detail then Ive previously seen.
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Related: David Burns has a motivational theory of human communication, including romantic relationships. The idea is that the most common cause of problems is motivation, not skill. This is contrary to the standard model, which is that communication is primarily about having the right skills, so you can read body language, tones of voice, choose your words correctly, push people's buttons in the right way etc.
A problem with the standard model is that even many mentally retarded people are able to have fulfilling and happy relationships, despite crappy communication skills and a cognitive inability to master them. One of my high school friends is retarded, but he has a stable and happy relationship with an autistic woman who shares his interests and challenges. They work together very effectively as a team, and they manage to hold down (basic) full-time jobs despite their cognitive impediments. Why? They are highly motivated and willing to do the (VERY) hard work of being together.
I suspect that most relationship advice is useless for most people who read it, because they have some mix of (a) process resistance and (b) outcome resistance.
Process resistance: "I shouldn't have to work so hard to find and keep a partner!" "It's too scary to face rejection." "Why should I be the one to make all the effort?"
Outcome resistance: "I don't want to risk being cucked. It's safer to be single." "I want a relationship, but I don't want to lose my independence." "I'm not looking for the One, but the one before the One."
With these cognitions, people can have all the communication skills, attractiveness, and so on in the world, but still be unable to develop satisfying relationships. Even if they do happen to find an interested and desirable partner, it won't work out, because they lack the appropriate motivation.
"How many single people does it take to screw a lightbulb?"
"Just one, but the person and the lightbulb must be motivated to screw."
Ironically, my adopted + retarded brother has had pretty bad relationships. The women he's able to date are pretty emotionally abusive (and I don't throw that term around lightly). He's a super nice guy and frankly is a catch given his cognitive abilities, but I'm sure he could be more traditionally attentive as well.
I can give him relationship advice but it's always colored by his position in the sexual market. He wasn't able to find a girlfriend till he'd graduated high school by the skin of his teeth so I don't want to have him drop a relationship if he's still at least kind of enjoying it/getting laid. At least you can effectively prevent the marriage by requiring the couple to do all the work themselves to get registered and everything.
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Do you have more material on this theory of relationships? A quick Google didn't come up with much.
This matches my experiences/intuitions, and my favorite relationship advice: Sex and the City's "He's just not that into you"; and the more TRP/trashy Most Favored Nation theory of past experiences. I'd love to read a good serious treatment of it.
I put that into a couple of search engines with all the variations/related terms I could think of and it turned up nothing. In fact, search engines in general seem to downrank TRP content rather heavily.
I'm not sure that's a TRP or PUA approved term, just my own; but it's a trashy reflex that fits in with that kind of thing. "He's just not that into you" or the TikTok "If he wanted to he would" stands for the idea that if a man really likes you he's going to go for you. He's not going to tell you "work is hectic" or that "the timing is bad" or that he's "coming off a breakup and doesn't want to get into anything serious right now." He's going to love you and make love to you asap, anything else means he's keeping you on the hook but not going to stick around unless he's desperate.
The Most Favored Nation idea is the sexual, hetero-male equivalent: if she's attracted to you she will want to fuck you, she will want to fuck you fast and she will want to fuck you wild, and that basically scales in terms of the wildness of the sex versus the level of attraction. So if you know, or especially if she lets it be known, or double especially if she specifically tells you, that she's been wilder with other partners, that means she was more attracted to them than she is to you and you should move on.* It's basically a rejection of women following The Rules or the FDS approach to dating; if she really liked you she'll throw out the handbook and be with you immediately. Giant red flag if she tells you about all the gross things she used to do with other guys, but doesn't do with you because you're nice to her; either she was more into them, or she is telling you how she likes to be treated while giving herself plausible deniability. You should demand in partners the best, wildest sex they've ever had with another partner, anything else means she is Just Not That Into You.
The basic concept is the same: if someone really likes you, the logical rules are suspended, and you shouldn't accept anything less than someone who really likes you. Which relates back to @Harlequin5942 's point: romance is a matter of motivation, not capability or situational context. You want someone who is motivated to be with you, not someone who is Just Not That Into You.
*The common female objection to this is that women shouldn't be obligated to perform sex acts with future partners which they did with past partners, they might not have enjoyed them after they tried them, they might be ashamed of having done them, they might be in a different place in their lives, etc. Which is why I'd offer the addendum that you shouldn't pry into a partner's sexual past, if she is really ashamed of or didn't enjoy X she'd keep X a secret. If she's flaunting her history of X all over, bragging about it to friends, she probably at least kinda liked it. Either way, it might not be perfect but it seems to be a useful heuristic every time I've seen it, with a few minor exceptions that serve to demonstrate the purpose of the rule.
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I came across it in David Burns's book Intimate Connections. I think he's done some econometric testing on it (he does that whenever he can get some data) but I don't know if the tests have been published in the psychotherapy literature, since I'm not a psychotherapist.
I'll check my library for it. Thanks!
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