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'The reason you're failing with women is because of your negative attitude' is a pretty common trope response to any discussion men have around about structural problems with dating in modern society. As is women taking critiques about female behaviour in the dating world as a personal affront.
Men having mask off discussions like in this thread do not (for the most part) bring negative attitudes to their interactions with women. Quite the opposite, their acceptance of the modern dating environment acts as a pressure release for any resentment they feel towards women.
I think your average guy who isn't getting laid isn't because he has a negative attitude.
OTOH, yes, I think people on this website, specifically, and other sites like it, aren't getting laid because of their negative attitude. The same way say, somebody who spends hours upon hours on /r/antiwork probably isn't going to do great in their career
See, I would disagree that your average guy isn't getting laid.
That's why I said, "your average guy who isn't getting laid."
But yeah, I think most guys are fine about this. Even guys who aren't getting laid regularly. Partly revealed preferences and partly, in many urban areas, things really only opened up the past year or so. I know things were open and freedom was flowing since basically fall 2020 in parts of the country, but mask mandates and the like weren't completely gone in my very blue neck of the woods until March of 2022, and it was only then, that things felt totally back to normal.
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You're not wrong and yet they are not wrong either. A negative attitude is, as a general rule, not very attractive.
I would have to think believing half of the human population is fundamentally lesser than you in emotional maturity and intelligence reaches past the range of negative attitude.
If you have an IQ of 100 half the population is literally of inferior intelligence.
Well, I would have to disagree. I have an IQ of 110 and I don't consider those around me with a lower number inferior to me intelligently.
Are you trolling?
No?
An IQ test is designed to measure and be proxy for 'g' the general intelligence factor. The scores are fitted to a normal distribution, N(100,15). This means a person with a score of 100 by proxy is technically more "intelligent" than half of the population.
You can still assert that you chose to personally believe otherwise, but it would be a belief that is not well informed by psychometrics.
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It's also a pretty absurd trope. I'd be surprised if anyone really believes that the successful men in the dating market are always or even mostly those who "respect women". It's an interesting inconsistency so many liberals have where they simultaneously see all of these issues in gender relations and yet so often the dating scene is "working as intended" when they want to use it as a cudgel.
I can buy that, and like I mentioned in my reply to @justawoman, calling it a majority may have gone too far. It's more that we all understand toxic relationships to exist, and we all know that disrespect is often not disqualifying, not just due to recent dating developments but throughout human history. I don't think that it's the best dating strategy to "become an asshole", but at the same time, a fear of being an asshole can hold you back, because it's often exaggerated, so in that sense "respecting women" is not necessarily the first piece of advice I'd give to someone in a bad spot. And I feel like there are a lot of depressed young men who think they are respecting women but are actually just fearing them, which etymology-wise isn't that different.
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It's the good ole conflating attractiveness (proxied by dating success) with moral quality. Once you drink the "be a good man to get women" [1] koolaid and actually believe it (god bless their hearts), the logical inference is that men who don't have success with women must be bad.
It is a very female coded thought process though, I have yet to see any man regardless of his success level with women use this line of logic.
[1] Attractiveness is also a near perfect predictor for "personality". Wow much linear relationship. Halo effect is a hell of a drug.
What does "female coded" mean?
X coded Y means, Y is assumed to come from X most of the time, and that it's more natural for X to make Y than Z, for E.g. It's similar to 'connotation'. It's about perception.
https://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/about
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You think a majority of men want to be in a relationship with someone they fundamentally disrespect? I certainly don’t advocate for anyone to get into an unequal relationship like that.
Edit: I feel it's important for those third parties reading to address your second musing because it appears you are restating my thoughts not in good faith. I do see issues in gender relations, although I do not believe it is strictly because I am liberal, but I believe they occur because of the previous culture of gender roles pressuring all women and men into roles they weren't comfortable with, and as we grow as a society in intelligence, empathy, and communication we shrug those confines off and those who cling to them are uncomfortable. Unfortunately, there is no room anymore for absolute and subjective statements such as "all men" and "all women" "do this", so those trying to use that frame of mind in the dating scene are finding natural failure. No sane, healthy woman (or man) wants to date someone who thinks they are an immature liar.
My point isn't whether you or anyone else advocates for relationships like that, it's just my observation that they happen with a high frequency. The reason everyone talks about "red flags" is because we are so blinded by flattery and the glow of an early relationship that we often miss when the other person actually doesn't respect us. We may not want to date someone like this, but we are certainly willing to trick ourselves that we aren't when we actually are.
Does the disrespectful attitude actually work out to be a majority of successful men? Well, maybe not. But a more defendable position is that every man has the experience of knowing some real assholes who have no problem picking up women, and I think plenty of women have seen the equivalent on their side as well. And many of these kinds of people are perfectly willing to gaslight their target into thinking that it's really "them" who is the one being selfish immature liar. And a toxic relationship can run on those fumes for a very long time.
This should all be common liberal understanding (and I am very liberal myself, full disclosure), and yet when a frustrated young man is resentful, suddenly the liberals become stoic. Surely it's something wrong with the frustrated young man that is preventing him from finding a partner? If a man were to so much as vent, surely that would be evidence of his own insufficiency? But because it's so hard to argue this in the liberal framework, arguments like yours have to be totally tortured to assume that most women, or most anyone, can sniff out good men from bad, and are immune to toxic disrespect.
It's much simpler, and more harmonious for the liberal worldview, to just admit that some men get screwed over by the way women judge attractiveness and by the way society teaches men to date, and that they should get to vent harmlessly if they so desire. And they should eventually let go of the resentment! But they shouldn't have their venting be held against them.
By doing so they'd open the status quo up to legitimate critique. Their reluctance to do so is because of some combination of women are wonderful (women can do no wrong) and male hyperagency (men are responsible for everything that happens to them).
By not doing so it does lead to many men going through the 'anger stage' when they find out they'd been indoctrinated with social mores that are against their own personal interest. You could find them on forums like /r/theredpill and some never get over it.
If anything, admitting that "some people are bound to get screwed over" is pretty much fatal to the liberal worldview (which I'm here taking to mean "we all come out good/okay in the end"). Either you can't keep calling yourself a liberal and sleep easy at night anymore, or you go to some illiberal extreme worldview. Kind of like what we see with the rest of the culture war, really.
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I have to disagree that anyone, men or women, can hold thoughts like, “I think women are childish and immature.” and have a good faith conversation with a woman.
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