This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Perhaps you should reread my comment with a more charitable mindset, because you seem to be missing the points I make by a mile. For example, I didn't at all say that it's a red flag that you didn't like an interaction with a man who assumed that you were open to have sex right away. What I did say that it is a red flag that you considered such a single incident, that to me seems a fairly minor inconvenience, to be a strong argument to not want to approach men as a woman. If it were to happen all the time, it would be different, but that was not what you claimed.
Note that I did agree with you that what the other person said was wrong and that there are women for whom approaching men will be very unpleasant (just like it is for some men). So I'm not sure why you are acting like I was saying any different. I have my own beliefs and don't feel obligated to accept the narrative of the other person you were arguing with or your narrative. I can disagree with both of you; and do.
No, my claim is that you, and every women I've ever seen complain about their experience while approaching men, seem to expect a level of guaranteed ease and lack of bad experiences that seems very unrealistic. It's like having men complain that approaching women doesn't work because they fail when they put in as little effort as Brad Pitt or George Clooney presumably need to do. It's my belief that a man who would complain like you, would at best be kindly told that he's having completely unrealistic expectations and at worst would be called an entitled creep who deserves jail time.
I do believe that women are often under-appreciating men, for example, by being very unfair to men who have difficulty with the dating process, but this is not actually part of my argument, as it's beside the point (except for the effect it has on their own perception of how easy it is to be the one approaching). I believe that women have it way easier when approaching men. For example, women are considered creepy far less quickly and even if they are, they are far, far, far less likely to get beaten up over it or excommunicated due to it. I do get that men are often not used to getting approached and may thus react relatively poorly compared to situations where people have a pro-social script ready, as many people operate based on scripts and are not very good at freestyling. But everything I've seen, from my own personal experiences to video's with a hidden camera where women approach men with weird requests, tells me that men almost always act way nicer to women than how men act to men or women to men. So a woman approaching men seems to be playing the game on easy mode. Of course, you can still lose on easy.
Men who approach women with the goal of a long term relationship actually also have to overcome an assumption that they may just want sex and/or are desperate. It's a hard challenge in general to shift the person you approach to a sexual mindset where they start to evaluate you as a potential partner, but without them getting upset because they feel forced into a sexual dance that they don't want, or having the wrong idea about what kind of relationship you are aiming for, or considering you the lesser person just for being the one who is making the offer.
An issue is also that women are actually already approaching men. These are often called 'groupies' and they do typically seem to want casual sex or at least, use sex to get a shot at seducing a top tier man. If anything, this willingness by women to approach a small subset of men, and the ease with which they have sex with these men, but very rarely approach those who are not very attractive, makes the problem worse.
I don't know what kind of men you were approaching, but I have heard a decent number of stories where introverted men found a relationship by being approached. It seems likely to me that the paucity of women who approach men who are not rock stars, also enables approaches that are much harder for men to use, like corny pick-up lines or extreme bluntless, like telling introverted men that you approach them because the introverted men that you are attracted to don't dare to approach women and that he better not get the wrong idea and that you still expect him to impress you to have a shot. By using such an approach, you shift the frame from you wanting something from him, to you being so kind to give him a chance. Of course, it needs to be sufficiently true for it to work and it shouldn't be too aggressive or not aggressive enough.
As always the approach needs to be tailored to those you want to seduce, though, and I don't know who you tried to seduce. If you try to approach men who are very successful by approaching women, it's probably a lot harder of a sell.
Anyway, my point was primarily that I'm unconvinced by your arguments for your claim that approaching men isn't viable for you. I think that getting upset over a single person getting the wrong idea strongly suggests that you expect a level of success that is unreasonably for the vast majority of men and women. Attributing being perceived as desperate or such to being a woman who approaches men, rather than even entertaining the possibility that it is the way you do go about it, is also very unconvincing to me.
Of course, it is possible that you cannot achieve a decent success rate (by male standards, which you may consider absurdly low), but I am simply unconvinced by the evidence you present.
More options
Context Copy link