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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30730 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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Nevertheless, it’s evident the author himself is skeptical. He spends a lengthy section of the book detailing how JBP himself collapsed into a highly dysfunctional and disorganized existence

Reality is not a morality play, it's perfectly possible for someone to vocally endorse the optimal strategy and yet have it fail them (or him fail it).

The benefits of low hanging fruit like working out, good grooming and fashion are so blatantly obvious that one man's failures do not derail them. I'm sure the author doesn't hold Jordan as the sole argument, but I still can't see it being true.

Improvement is the other strategy which deserves a response; and my response is that I’m far from convinced. The few instances in which I’ve had success with women have had an almost random quality to them, and have been seemingly unrelated to any obvious self-improvement project. Lately I’ve greatly improved both my wealth and general status, and yet success has been sorely lacking.

Scott drew attention to a semi-serious analogue to micromorts, micromarriages, as in an action that has a 1/millionth chance of getting you married. I posit that it's obvious that microfucks are a useful concept too, and that while you any individual act of self improvement cannot be guaranteed to lead to getting laid, they tend to add up over time if you're being diligent.

Handsome people are already born with a lot of (micro)fucks to give, but for the rest of us, we have to work to earn them. Very little guarantees getting laid, short of paying for it in cold hard cash, but it's still worth trying.

In my reply to Cjet, I elaborated on why, despite being significantly above average (at least compared to my peers), I have immense sympathy for incels and incel-adjacent people.

As such, while I wouldn't go as far as to call myself a Chad, I'm certainly further on that end of the spectrum than the other. I still have immense sympathy for incels/average dudes, because I had to deal with raging, all consuming libido for years, and still had dry spells afterwards. I look at the latter, and think "there but for for the grace of God go I". The Chads (and women) simply don't understand what torture that is, how corrosive it can be to your self esteem, even if most of your peers are in similar straits.

Frankly, if you’re having trouble with women as a young man – and I speak as a young man who has had much trouble with women – the problem is likely to get worse with age.

Others have already pointed out that women tend to prefer older men, at least in the age range when men are still desperately horny.

Last but not least, a question to open further discussion: what is the optimal strategy, both in general and in more detail (i.e. should you improve, and what aspect of yourself or your dating approach is most fruitful to improve?).

Firstly, you have to at least try at the "improvement" category. Go to the gym, dress better, get a nice haircut.

If you're extremely unlucky, then yes, this may not suffice, but I feel no qualms about endorsing it in general.

You are far less likely to improve things like height/intelligence/charisma. Some of that isn't outright impossible, since you can always do limb lengthening or keep on hitting the field till you brute force a pickup strategy that works. It's simply not productive.

That being said, it really is a numbers game. If you never try you'll never know, and modern men have a degree of shame and fear that is blatantly counterproductive when you don't have to live in a tribe with the same dozen women your entire life, who gossip about your pitiful failure to court them all. Hit on women goddammit!

Finally, avoid the apps, unless you're in the lucky 10% who get all the goods, in which case my advice isn't for you. For the majority of men, it's a painful, soul sucking process that only dents your self-esteem.

I am unusually good at both in-person flirtation and sliding into DMs, but the advice is still true for the average man. Women are far less picky face to face, and you get far more than a fleeting moment of her attention.

That about sums it up when it comes to general purpose advice, everything else must be tailored to your individual needs.

Addendum:

I'm not being facetious, but my (sweet and loving) girlfriend was looking over my shoulder while I write this post (of all the hundreds I've written lately!).

She would like to make the following statements, written by her own hand on my phone:

Do not listen to anything he said. Doesn't apply to most women. If I slide into her DM, don't expect to get anywhere. My boyfriend vastly overestimates his prowess in the matter of flirtation. He is a very nice man, and that is the 1sf and most important thing g. Women have a radar in detecting fake vs real. I was the one who asked him out, yes that does happen, but it was not because of the flirtatious attitude. Tbh, It was painful. Be yourself. Not everyone is suited to everyone. I can assure you, I like him way before he started flirting. Cause I thought we had a genuine connection and I cud talk to him. That is what we want I the end, someone to talk to, make a life with. Had I not liked him before, his flirting wud have been construed as creepy. So, find out what u like in a woman, and stick to that. Don't slide into peoples dm'z. I assure u, that is a full proof way of getting blocked.

Addendum to the addendum:

Thank you sweetie, of course you're right :*

(Quick, she's looking away!)

Ahem, I would like to add another point to my list of general advice.

Do not take dating advice from women.

I was actually the one who started flirting with her weeks before she even noticed, even if she was the one to ask me out on a date and the one who pulled me in for a kiss. Her mom called me handsome the day the two of them first saw me 😉

That's about it, I don't want to get too saccharine haha.

I would advise making a top one percent income and being charismatic enough for a career in politics. Failing this, either choose lifelong celibacy or decide where you want the ambulances. If the former it helps to take a job that meshes poorly with marriage and family. A truck driver or a neurosurgeon both don't have time to put down roots.

Do not take dating advice from women.

I can't emphasize this point enough. You wouldn’t learn how to cook from a restaurant critic would you? Women are consumers of romance, they don’t produce it. I’d further extend it taking almost any advice at all from women on any subject. I decline to elaborate further due to this board’s civility norms. Instead a story.

I friend of mine had a dog that really wanted to chase cars. He was fenced in well but managed to jump over, so they got a higher fence. The dog then dug under that one so they started tying him to a lead as well as sinking the fence. The dog strained at the lead when vehicles passed, dug ever deeper holes, and maintained it’s single minded focus. One day it worked. The material stress on the lead compounded and it broke, the escalating digging efforts were adequate; he did it, he was free. A particularly obnoxious or chase-worth vehicle was in his sites, going slow. The dog finally caught one and it crushed his head like a grape.

The libido of a young man is a powerful thing, it’s built civilizations and it’s destroyed them. It’s driven men to the highest levels of achievement as well as suicide. Marlon Brando once described it as being chained to a madman. Short of voluntarily becoming a eunuch, men are in a tough situation in our modern world because of it. I have great sympathy.

However, if you think you have problems with women related to not being able to catch one, wait until, like the dog in the story, you do.

The next time you experience an ebb in your libido, try the following thought experiment. Consider a woman you know well and are attracted to. If through some sorcery they were magically transformed into a man but everything else about them remained, their behaviors, attitudes, they way they treat people, their “personality”, work ethic, etc all remained identical to their pre-transformation self. But instead of their attractive female packaging they now male, would you want to be their friend? Is this a man you would engage in cooperative pursuits with? Even want to be around them at all?

This really helped me when I was young and in the throws of my libido. For me the answer was overwhelmingly NO for the vast majority of the women I was attracted to. At the risk of violating this board’s norms against “booing the outgroup” the vast majority of the attractive women I’ve known in my life have been kinda shitty people. Petty, vain, immoral, motivated by a combination of fear of consequences and avarice. Deathly allergic to taking responsibility for any of their negative behavior. A weak internal locus of control. I’m am absolutely not saying all women are like this, but the American white middle class women I’ve spent most of my life around absolutely are, including all of my immediate family (barring one self-actualized aunt). This also describes a good chunk of the men as well. In times of weakness it also described me.

If you have a strong lifelong desire to start a family you have few options here I’m afraid. If you don’t ever desire children its easier. The main point of this rant is to consider more carefully the objects of your desire as much as you can while blinded by the fog of that same desire.

Finally, self-improvement is worth it for the its own sake. Worry about yourself more. Be more selfish. Be healthy. Pursue your goals, career or otherwise. Be ok with occasionally being an asshole. Perversely (or maybe not?) a fit and driven man who doesn’t give a shit about women is attractive to some of them. Often most of them.

If and when you finally do achieve your goal of forming a relationship, like the dog in the story, then do your real problems start.

I find the average Indian man or woman rather vapid and boring, and even attractiveness doesn't seem to have more than a minimal bearing on that.

Maybe it's different in the West, but the closest I get to seeing the kind of insanity most average Americans suffer from is when I accidentally wander into a default sub on reddit.

Finally, avoid the apps, unless you're in the lucky 10% who get all the goods, in which case my advice isn't for you. For the majority of men, it's a painful, soul sucking process that only dents your self-esteem.

This is wrong I think. The apps truly are a painful, soul crushing experience. But if you are not very picky they will give you the chance to very quickly practice pitching to women. And there are few things that motivate sticking to the gym more than hour after hour of hard rejection.

Do not listen to anything he said. Doesn't apply to most women. If I slide into her DM, don't expect to get anywhere. My boyfriend vastly overestimates his prowess in the matter of flirtation. He is a very nice man, and that is the 1sf and most important thing g. Women have a radar in detecting fake vs real. I was the one who asked him out, yes that does happen, but it was not because of the flirtatious attitude. Tbh, It was painful. Be yourself. Not everyone is suited to everyone. I can assure you, I like him way before he started flirting. Cause I thought we had a genuine connection and I cud talk to him. That is what we want I the end, someone to talk to, make a life with. Had I not liked him before, his flirting wud have been construed as creepy. So, find out what u like in a woman, and stick to that. Don't slide into peoples dm'z. I assure u, that is a full proof way of getting blocked.

Genuinely awful advice. Women have no such radar and that they think they do it very bad for them.

This is wrong I think. The apps truly are a painful, soul crushing experience. But if you are not very picky they will give you the chance to very quickly practice pitching to women. And there are few things that motivate sticking to the gym more than hour after hour of hard rejection.

Sure, if you want to use them as training, they work fine, but unless you're already so gifted you don't need any advice, you won't be getting much in the way of dates out of them!

Genuinely awful advice. Women have no such radar and that they think they do it very bad for them.

As much as I love her, she, like most women, has little insight into why she likes the things she likes in the realm of courtship.

It does get mildly aggravating when some of them well-intentionedly give advice that might be accepted by naive men, who think that surely words straight from the horse's mouth are of any help when you're trying to ride it.

Sure, if you want to use them as training, they work fine, but unless you're already so gifted you don't need any advice, you won't be getting much in the way of dates out of them!

If you're willing to spend the untold hours I believe practically anyone can at the very least get a match that will respond occasionally and eventually set up at least one coffee date. We're talking many hours here - thousands and thousands of miserable swipes. It worked for me, and the pretty tangible increase in hit-rate as the gym slowly paid its iron dividend gave me a latter I could feel.

It does get mildly aggravating when some of them well-intentionedly give advice that might be accepted by naive men, who think that surely words straight from the horse's mouth are of any help when you're trying to ride it.

It's very striking how bad the advice tends to be and it has caused me to introspect on the advice I give to women about men. I now try to keep my commentary to simpler things and be extra critical of any opinion that could be subconsciously trying to frame male behavior as pro-social. That said, unlike with women society at large is already pretty suspicious of male behavior.

Hmm. My close female friend told me to stop being so self loathing. This has been helpful. I might have a date this weekend with a thin middle class American woman. Other than that...I don't remember having gotten any garbage tier advice from women, although it is possible I can't tell good stuff from dogshit.

As far as I've seen, men are far less likely to unsolicitedly give such advice to women, though I have no strong opinion on how good that advice would be if they did give it.

I think people, men included, give advice to women about men. Just probably not of the "how do I even get them interested in me" variety. My Fiance's sister is starting college in the fall and I gave advice to her today about how to be careful at parties.

Well I'd say that I don't think men do a bad job in that regard, from what I've seen.

I was more focused on the advice to women about how women should get the men they like category myself.

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