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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2637 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for September 20, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Every few hours, when I get tired of sneaking a cheeky vape in the millions of bathrooms and liminal stairwells that litter my hospital, I'll head over to the back of the building, in a secluded, roped off area that's the de-facto smoker's haunt of the place.

An ankle height chain dangles at the approach, as do signs for, among other things, no parking, and an enjoinder against loitering because there's construction ongoing up above.

It might say something about the nature of the universe that the tripping hazard produced by that chain far outweighs that of the falling debris, when it exists. Not the prohibition on smoking, of course, but since you can't quite see the signs from there, everyone pretends they don't exist.

There's a quiet camaraderie at play, doctors huddling together for a chemical pick-me-up after a grueling day at work, a good chunk of which was spent admonishing their patients for the same indulgence they're engaging in.

Did I mention this is an oncology hospital, or at least department big enough to be a standalone one? I suppose that's relevant too.

You can see a combination of quiet guilt, resignation and combativeness in their eyes. Yes. We know this is bad for us. We know you know. What are you going to do about it? Not smoke? Perish the thought, and pass me another. How's that patient with COPD doing? Yeah, he won't quit, even if it kills him, and given that he's got end stage lung cancer with brain mets, we're half a mind to wheel him out, nebulizer in tow, for a couple to greet the last dawn of his life, and just the start of another for us.

I stand there puffing on my vape, experiencing an exceedingly mild, almost homeopathic sense of smugness and superiority. Look at them, burning out their lungs, huffing and puffing when I pass them on the stairwells, and for what, the same nicotine I get, without the stink and almost all of the drawbacks beyond a nicotine dependency?

The vape ban in India has been a disaster, and these are the consequences. I muse on the black comedy that is existence with a black coffee in hand, that the tobacco lobbyists in here got a final swing in by banning the cheaper, healthier alternative.

I ignore the occasional curious glance at my little electing facsimile, the incongruity of a cigarette with an usb port. I'm probably the only one. In turn, I ignore the shifty consultants who don't meet my eye, still harboring in their heart of hearts the feeling they need to do better and set an example for us all. I hear the promises, the whispered pacts to cut down together. They're still they're next week.

There's a bimodal distribution there, you can tell seniority both by how quick, hurried and clandestine their puffs are, all flash and smoke blown into dark corners, and then the blatant ones, the big shots without who the hospital would grind to a halt of PGs, Associate Consultants and RMOs left rudderless when the buck stops with them. They challenge each cig and any mildly curious passersby. Fuck you, even cancer thinks twice about taking me on, at least on the hospital premises.

And then the phones ring, cigarettes burn out, the last dregs of chai and coffee are downed. Paper cups laden with ashes find more corners to marinate in, and stubs are crushed by shoes beneath scrubs and we all go our merry ways. If there's hell to pay, at least we can afford it.

Great comment. How does the ban work in practice? Still simple enough to acquire for those interested?

Well, you can order them online and have it show up at your doorstep, without being ripped off the few times I've tried! The legal system has bigger fish to fry, this just adds a level of friction that stops it being remotely common, especially since the ban was handed down when the practise was barely taking off.

The ban is on sales; possession and use are legal, so if you manage to get some, there's no further barriers in play.

I see med students smoking regularly off campus grounds, and if there is ever any remonstration from the hospital it takes the form of photographs of unsightly cigarette butts thrown in the sidewalk--a problem because it upsets the neighborhood nearby, presumably, for social harmony is the real moral law here. Appearances, face, tatemae.

I never get it when I see doctors smoking. I feel the same quasi-revulsion as when I read about married pastors fucking their parishioners, cops stealing, or college administrators privileging star athletes and sports over academic programs. The little glimpses of entropy and chaos. Yes, I'm a naive idealist.

That said, it was a nice read. We all contain multitudes.

I used to be extremely militant about not smoking and avoiding those who did, but I softened up my stance when I realized that with advances in modern medicine, a fresh smoker is unlikely to die of lung cancer. I hold this to be true even leaving aside AGI timelines, cancer treatments are improving and fast. Still not the best idea, because they make you feel like shit when you're not smoking them, leaving aside other health issues, but I don't go about handing out pamphlets.

As for vapes, me and my girl did a literature review prior to our first purchase, and the evidence demonstrating any health risks is thin to outright nonexistent, I'd say they have like <1% the risk or harm of cigarettes, if you care to quantify. At that point I don't really lose sleep over it.

I suppose I have fewer hopes in modern medicine than you, particularly as regards the health risks of smoking (or vaping). You may or may not be right about the prospects of lung cancer for any given smoker, but obviously routine smoking is a predictor of all manner of other cancers, as well as COPD and various other non-respiratory ailments.

I am not telling you anything you do not already know.

I would probably still smoke when drinking, as I did for years, just for the social aspect, but I seem to have developed what is probably chronic bronchitis (though I have not been diagnosed) and the last time I had a cigarette with a smoker friend of mine I was coughing for days afterward. Not fun.

Don't take this as my being preachy, though it's true I tend toward being that gadfly presence in people's lives. As I suggested earlier, we all have our faults, and I certainly have mine--nagging being one of them. Doctors in Japan are notorious for actively avoiding telling people to stop smoking or drinking, or even suggesting this as a possibility, though they will regularly shake their heads at eating so-called "western food." Once a doctor's prescribed remedy for my son's digestive issues was: "Eat Japanese food" (和食を食べなさい). The vagueness of this was not surprising, but it still ground my gears.

We're on the same page here, I didn't take you coming across as preachy, I just wanted to clarify why I felt I could vape without worrying about it coming back to bite me. While hypocrisy isn't the worst sin, I avoid it when I can!

Doctors in Japan are notorious for actively avoiding telling people to stop smoking or drinking

Given the lifestyles of Japanese salarymen, I suspect half of them would either die or kill themselves if you take away their few remaining pleasures in life haha

I've decided to leave The Motte. Anybody who wants to know why can discern the shape of it if they want to. You can think poorly of me for it if you'd like. This isn't really a change from the present- I haven't been active since the switch. More I'd always thought I would reengage here at some point, and now I know I will not, so it's time to take the steps for someone who knows they're moving on.

Thank you, Motte, for helping me hone my rhetorical skills and become better at expressing myself. I will always have very fond memories of this community, even if the time has come for me to be done.

You’ll be missed. Good luck with everything.

Ultimately a lot of the opinions of men here around misogyny, sexism, sex, and women in general are strongly motivated by a deep personal bitterness resulting from perceived or real sexual / romantic failure (either in their past or present) with women.

Thus the paranoid obsession with the idea that all women are secretly fucking “chad” while the nice guys (like them, or like them before they became redpilled) are left with the scraps or nothing at all. They’re not angry about male promiscuity, they’re (as I said to @raggedy_anthem last week) angry that they’re not Chad, that they’re not Russell Brand, that they don’t get to fuck around with many beautiful young women very easily. Or, in cases where they have worked to be more attractive to women, the fact that beauty is superficial has ‘blackpilled’ them in the same way. So, as ‘temporarily embarrassed chads’, they must defend bad male behavior.

Thus the paranoid obsession with the idea that all women are secretly fucking “chad” while the nice guys (like them, or like them before they became redpilled) are left with the scraps or nothing at all. They’re not angry about male promiscuity, they’re (as I said to @raggedy_anthem last week) angry that they’re not Chad, that they’re not Russell Brand, that they don’t get to fuck around with many beautiful young women very easily. Or, in cases where they have worked to be more attractive to women, the fact that beauty is superficial has ‘blackpilled’ them in the same way. So, as ‘temporarily embarrassed chads’, they must defend bad male behavior.

If a few assumptions are true:

  1. "Chads", as a group, are not only better looking but more conscientious/determined/virtuous than average Joes, and

  2. Average Joes, without the opportunity for a wife and family, are NOT going to either stop contributing to society or attempt to violently reorganize it to get wives and families...

then why the hell is this a bad thing? Future generations will have more Chad genes and fewer genes of guys that just kind of sucked but were doing OK under agrarian patriarchy. Even if our civilization collapses and we wind up living like African peasants, germ theory was a big deal and means that infant and maternal mortality will likely never be as low as it was centuries ago. That has some implications for the structure of families and societies.

I say bring it on: why doesn't Chad deserve a literal harem, if the kids are doing OK?

Also: people are shallow. The experience of being very unattractive, or of having a large change in either direction of attractiveness, breeds cynicism. If you're friends with anyone that got surgery for a jaw so puny that their doctors recommended it...ask them how they were treated before and after surgery. I haven't had the experience and I don't know anyone who does, though.

I'm not a Chad, but neither am I an incel, even though I am pretty black-pilled and speak like one. The reason I am blackpilled is more for CW reasons.

Do I want to be Chad? Yes. Very few honest men would say otherwise. As was the norm in the early 2000s before it became a CW battlefront and men were generally much more open about the fact that if they could of course they would bang all the hotties, quite literally all of them.

Do I really really really want to be Chad? No. Having an attractive enough partner is good enough. The fact that Chads exist, doesn't really rile me left or right too much.

What really does rile me is lies. If there was honest acknowledgment in the form of;

  • Men are wrong for these reasons, and it's making the problem worse
  • Women are wrong for these reasons, and it's making the problem worse
  • Men must do X,Y,Z
  • Women must do X,Y,Z

We can work towards a solution.

But we don't have that. Its ALWAYS the mans fault. Nothing to do with the fact that men are set up to fail, no solutions, nothing. Just that men suck.

And then the solutions given are plain terrible. No such solutions ever ever tell the individual men how to actually improve their chances. They tell them to be more empathetic or respectful some other gay shit. Why not tell them to hit the gym, talk to as many women as they can, and get a better car or something? You know things that would work?

I have yet to see a woman actually think like an invidiual about this. They always talk about it in a way where women as a class is prioritized even over individual men. Why such suffocating level of gynocentrism? You won't give men your honest advice to protect other women? (Because its impossible to be successful with women without making some of them uncomfortable, if your terminal goal is never making a woman uncomfortable ever, you will never get ANY woman)

Why is there so much talk of where is it appropriate to talk to women or not? So what? We can't speak to our fellow citizens in the public? Or school? Or work? Or the gym? Or the anywhere? Is that like the solution ??? Talking to women?? Shouldn't these articles be telling men to talk to women wherever they can??

It's the constant never ending othering of men. This dishonesty or tribalism makes me feel that no one actually talking about the issue has my best interest at heart, it's only their problem because they are paying a price now. My reaction to that is.. "okay fuck you too".

Thanks for your reply. From my perspective I don't think the vast majority of individual men or women are to blame - anyone under 75 came of age during or after the sexual revolution after all. Even Russell Brand was affected by it (and his father's degenerate sexual behavior) as a child, according to himself. But from my perspective I don't think a reckoning can come without facing the fact that powerful men did create or certainly forward the sexual revolution for their own gratification.

That young women want male attention, and that young men are interested in young women, was as true in 1923 or 1823 or 1023 as it is in 2023. What has changed is that young women are expected to put out for those men's sexual gratification in way they weren't historically. As @raggedy_anthem said last week, it's unclear how young women benefit from promiscuity - the young men in question probably aren't going to prioritize or care about their pleasure, they risk sexually transmitted diseases, sexual (or other) violence and social stigma. The only reason they do it is 'attention', but again, a pretty young woman got that from men long before the sexual revolution in every society on earth, so this hardly requires promiscuity. What happened was a race to the bottom, in which women were encouraged to trade their bodies to ever greater degrees to attempt to get the same thing (a stable relationship with a decent man) that they always wanted and which they had previously been able to get without debasing themselves to anywhere near the same extent.

And then the solutions given are plain terrible. No such solutions ever ever tell the individual men how to actually improve their chances. They tell them to be more empathetic or respectful some other gay shit. Why not tell them to hit the gym, talk to as many women as they can, and get a better car or something? You know things that would work?

There is no 'individual solution' to the sexual revolution. That's why my advice to individuals tends to be (as it is in dating advice threads here) to take chances, to be open about attraction, to not wallow in self-pity, to avoid promiscuity because it's bad for the soul, and to focus on finding a decent person from a good background of good temperament who you want to start a family with. And yes, to take care of your appearance (if anything, I'm one of the most honest people about 'face is everything' / superficiality here, and I'm open about being pretty vain myself).

But while you can live a good life in a rotten culture, as a society, this isn't really a solution. It's hard to predict how culture is going to develop, but I don't want many more generations of young women to grow up thinking they owe it to men to have sex with them for fleeting attention, and so one of my hopes from these movements (and associated tiktok movements for young women etc) is that they help the next generation of girls think more carefully about whether they give in to pressure from men and boys to sleep with them without really thinking about it. It's not likely, of course, liberalism flows in only one direction. But as @iprayiam3 said, and this I really do agree with,

From where I stand...MeToo is people trying to put a roof back over their head, while the same people who tore down their original house criticise them for not enjoying the fresh air, and the people who built the original house are too busy tell them they're rebuilding it wrong, instead of telling the wreckers to fuck off.

Indeed they may be rebuilding it wrong, but then again, 'traditional' religion and the conservative movement utterly failed to prevent the sexual revolution, so it's hard to see that as the 'solution' either.

Yeah. The washing machine and things like it were a pretty big deal and were arguably inevitable once we got the electricity, running water, and affluence to afford them on a large scale. An underrated factor here is also penicillin; before penicillin, syphilis was basically the AIDS of its day. The cutting edge treatments of the time were giving people arsenic and hoping that that killed the syphilis before it killed the person.

Intentional malaria infection was also used.

Both of these won the Nobel Prize in their time.

We might converge on a sex negative chastity culture, but it would probably look like the most sociosexually restricted 10 percent of people's desires/ideals become the mean. Casual sex would be seen as...ungentlemanly, possibly low class, and risky.

That young women want male attention, and that young men are interested in young women, was as true in 1923 or 1823 or 1023 as it is in 2023. What has changed is that young women are expected to put out for those men's sexual gratification in way they weren't historically. As @raggedy_anthem said last week, it's unclear how young women benefit from promiscuity - the young men in question probably aren't going to prioritize or care about their pleasure, they risk sexually transmitted diseases, sexual (or other) violence and social stigma. The only reason they do it is 'attention', but again, a pretty young woman got that from men long before the sexual revolution in every society on earth, so this hardly requires promiscuity. What happened was a race to the bottom, in which women were encouraged to trade their bodies to ever greater degrees to attempt to get the same thing (a stable relationship with a decent man) that they always wanted and which they had previously been able to get without debasing themselves to anywhere near the same extent.

I don't really disagree with any of this.

Even though I contest the notion that the plural option a good woman has to be with a man is to debase herself. Because in my view it's like all the woman has to do to avoid that is say "I really like you and want to continue this, but let's take it slowly". If he is a "decent man" this ought to work.

But I wouldn't hold my breath on this.

There is no 'individual solution' to the sexual revolution.

I would say there is no solution to anything ever but individual solutions done a million times over.

More on this later.

But while you can live a good life in a rotten culture, as a society, this isn't really a solution

I would go as far as to say there exists no solution at all.

My highest probability event is if something crazy like an AI-powered VR revolution AND mass cloning or something doesn't happen, then the problem solves itself in a few generations. High TFR groups outbreed low TFR groups and... problem solved! Some rotten cultures by definition won't last forever, survival is the terminal goal at the most microscopic level.

It's hard to predict how culture is going to develop, but I don't want many more generations of young women to grow up thinking they owe it to men to have sex with them for fleeting attention, and so one of my hopes from these movements (and associated tiktok movements for young women etc) is that they help the next generation of girls think more carefully about whether they give in to pressure from men and boys to sleep with them without really thinking about it.

You are a lot more optimistic about these so-called movements than I am. And I think you are offering them an overly charitable reading.

The overwhelming majority of them are just repacked FDS shit. They don't say "you know putting out on the first date with a random isn't good for your soul", It's more like "don't put out for a broke nigga (the implication being it's ok to put out with "Chad")".

If you have any examples that are not terminally low IQ, feel free to share.

Indeed they may be rebuilding it wrong, but then again, 'traditional' religion and the conservative movement utterly failed to prevent the sexual revolution, so it's hard to see that as the 'solution' either.

Bringing things back never works. New problems need new solutions.

Ideally, we would (I hate to use this word but..) "empower" men.

  1. This means fixing the dating-related messaging given out everywhere. You might not realize how many lies are required to hold up this house of cards. That which can be destroyed by the truth must be! Be honest about women's K selectiveness and men's R selectiveness.

  2. Stop the constant girls rule boys drool messaging. Why the society-wide campaign to lower the status of half the population? Societies with high TFR actually respect men!

  3. Defeminize education.

.. You get the just.

But those will never happen so individual men self improoooooving it is for now.

I also vote for guys being chucked out into the Alaskan wilderness or some other life-and-death challenge, willingly undertaken. It'll harden the survivors up and we have what, 105 boys born per 100 girls? We can afford to lose a few of the biggest chumps.

as ‘temporarily embarrassed chads’, they must defend bad male behavior.

I actually know some men who have a shocking (and frankly unhealthy) number of sex partners. Thing is: They do take no for an answer. Except for one (who was ejected for being a creep), they don't try to say my contrary beliefs are insincere. I'm not privy to their Tinder accounts, but I assume they treat other women the same way. I might dislike these men's behavior for other reasons, but based on my limited experience, most "Chads" respect women.

I am sorry if I wasn't sufficiently curious about the experience of unattractive women; I've said before that I think their experience of sex and relationships is even worse than that of their male counterparts. However I'd feared that any curiosity would be seen as salacious or ham-handed. Suffice it to say that unattractive and disabled women have a lot of genuinely traumatic experiences trying to date, and it is terrible. Let's say that I know a lot of autistic women and most have been raped or abused.

This new man-o-sphere stuff seems quite harmful, not least to the believers -- at least with PUA there was a goal, and a clear (if sleazy) path to that goal. Now it seems to be bitter black pills all the way down, which is mostly just a self reinforcing death spiral.

Many things are accepted as fact that (based on my experience) are just dumb, most obviously around virginity and the attractiveness of women over 30. (aging in general I guess -- many of these guys seem to think that it will be all over for them sexually at 30 as well, which is just.. weird)

I mostly just tune this sort of discussion out by now, as it's useless to argue with insane premises sincerely believed -- although I do try to repeat the helpful advice of 'go to a dive bar and get drunk if you are not getting action with OLD' from time to time, but there are always many reasons why this is not feasible.

I'm sure others feel the same -- so don't get the impression that the Chad-Stacy whining (which I agree with cimrafa is mainly jealousy related) is all that representative of what people think in this space. It's just that there's nothing much there to talk about, and we can't exactly ban that line of discussion, so there's not much to be done.

Goodbye. I liked some of our interactions, though it's been a while since I've seen anything from you. If you keep writing, I hope to see it again.

Shame, but farewell.

I really don't get why people are so prissy about downvotes when they mean fuck all here. We don't even have a karma system.

Sure it's unpleasant to find out people dislike your opinions, but anyone who can't take such minimal negative feedback probably isn't the best fit here. Either way, it's still a shame to see a regular leave, so farewell.

They may just be internet points, but it sucks being downvoted, here or elsewhere. Scott removed the option to vote on his blog ,and there is a good reason Facebook , Twitter and other social networks do not allow negative votes. Given the success of those sites, they probably know best about how to maximize engagement. People take this stuff personally because opinions are an extension of one's self, as they are conceived by a person. it's not just a rejection of the idea or opinion, but also the person who espoused it. i think that is how a lot of people see it.

In Song's defense, did she mention anything about downvotes?

And hell I don't even check my scores unless I get replied 24 hours later. Then again I'm somehow pretty popular around here so... brushes imaginary dirt off shoulder

I did mention downvotes. But it was evidence for something I was unhappy with, not the terminal goal.

The end of it, really, is that I don't want to be somewhere where apologetics for sexually harassing women is really popular, my protest against it gets no good faith engagement at all, and my protest gets treated as though it were bad faith itself when it absolutely is not. I would have been able to tolerate apologetics for sexually harassing women, but people treating my protest with respect and replying in good faith. I can work with that. But that's not this place, so I'm out. There's no reason for me to be here if people are not going to treat my arguments or me with respect.

@self_made_human too, as this is in part a reply to you, too.

Look, I've spoken to another woman who used to be a member of the Motte, and she also left because of the misogyny. You might decide it's the cost of an open discussion forum, or it's "not really that bad". But it is that bad to us*, and the cost of letting bad faith misogyny run free is the women who otherwise would have enriched this place.

I think it's telling that I literally don't think I'm being treated like a psychological equal and rational agent, and the response from you guys is, "cost of doing business in any space where saying negative things about women isn't a Thought Crime." This has nothing to do with saying negative things about women, and everything about being treated as a person on equal terms with any of you men. This kind of treatment is dehumanizing.

@ZorbaTHut may as well tag you too since this is your place, and I think this is worth you knowing about.

I don't need any sort of reply or justification from any of you, and I certainly don't expect any action. Just wanted to make sure my position was absolutely clear.

*to be clear "that bad" is as much the bad faith nature of the misogyny as the misogyny itself. It's one thing to engage with a misogynistic man when he's really listening. It's another entirely when he tuned you out before you opened your mouth because you're a woman, therefore your beliefs are de-facto wrong. My impression here is absolutely the later, and has been for a LONG time. A woman cannot work with that. There's literally no way to engage with that man in a productive and mutual way. There's nothing to do except walk away.

I think it's telling that I literally don't think I'm being treated like a psychological equal and rational agent, and the response from you guys is, "cost of doing business in any space where saying negative things about women isn't a Thought Crime." This has nothing to do with saying negative things about women, and everything about being treated as a person on equal terms with any of you men. This kind of treatment is dehumanizing.

Look Tyrian I really truly feel for you here, and trust me I wish this place was less misogynistic too. I regularly fight against the posters that shout "ALL WOMEN ARE EVIL" and try to provide more nuance. I do wish you would stay and present the feminine perspective.

But I have to say - what you're experiencing is what it's like to be a man trying to discuss anything in the mainstream discourse nowadays. It might be cliche to say it, but again the reason so much misogyny erupts in forums like this is that if you are a man trying to talk about your issues in the modern world, you get absolutely eviscerated by most folks. Other men call you weak if you try to talk about emotions or problems, women call you privileged and basically tell you to suck it up because women have it worse.

Things are moving in the right direction I think with more mens' issues becoming talked about, but growing up as a young man in the 90s and 2000s was absolutely brutal for a variety of reasons. I know women have issues too, but at least women can feel at home in their culture complaining about their problems and the other sex. Men do not have that luxury.

So when I respond with things like:

cost of doing business in any space where saying negative things about women isn't a Thought Crime.

What I'm trying to get across is that yes, it's awful that there is misogyny in this place and women are treated as less than equal. Frankly in my personal opinion, I think users like you and @2rafa are some of the most quality contributors we have.

At the same time though, I can't help but empathize with the angry young men that come here and spew their venom. I was in their place a decade ago, and it's not a pretty place to be in. When you're suffering terribly, and you can't find any sort of comfort or even basic recognition that your suffering is valid, it makes sense that you lash out. Especially when the only groups that will give you the time of day espouse that type of rhetoric.

I get that you're leaving, but I hope that you can understand the type of vitriol you've been subjected to here isn't about you in particular. It's about young men dealing with massive emotional issues who haven't had the ability, compassion, or grace to overcome them. That's partly on them, but it's on our society too and especially the women that ridicule and demean young men.

Anyway, I know you don't particularly want or care for my justifications, but I hope any other women reading this and thinking about leaving see that there are at least some posters here that don't appreciate the misogyny either, and are trying to soften the harsh edges.

The Motte is a poorer place without posters like yourself providing a measure of counterbalance to the not uncommon tendency around here towards doompilled paranoia.

She did, you can check the previous comments on her profile. Her gripe was that what she considered a well-thought-out and nuanced effortpost lost out to one that, once again in her opinion, ignored her points and went on a misogynistic diatribe.

Ohhh I see, yeah. Eh at this point it's just the cost of doing business in any space where saying negative things about women isn't a Thought Crime. Of course we're gonna attract a lot of incels and women haters, but needs must when the devil drives.

Sorry to see you go.

Maybe not the right place, maybe better for Sunday, but I'm not in a great mood. What is up with senior software engineering hiring? All the job postings seem to be premised on the idea that you don't learn any transferable skills in your career, only domain-specific ones. If you want a senior position doing X, you'd better have been doing X for multiple years already. I get that makes sense for principal-level jobs where the whole point is to hire a world expert on X, but a senior still has to ramp up as part of a team anyway. Surely this state of affairs is really suboptimal, given (I hear) how hard it is to find good people. Where are the companies hiring smart senior SWEs who have been doing X to do Y and just figuring on an extra bit of ramp-up?

Lol, I wish it was only like this for.. Seniors! At Least it makes sense there.

All the junior jobs around me are asking for AWS,K8s,A thousand disjointed frameworks that no sane person should ever use in unison blah blah blah

I thank God I was born with an IQ above 130, otherwise this shit seems impenetrable/unsustainable at the pace its going for even above average joes.

While HR handles recruitment, it seems to me from the Reddit CScareers sub that job requirements are often written by programmers and programmers are extremely guarded about their jobs; they don’t want a 10x superstar coming in and taking their jerbs or making the comfortable 10-hour-a-week arrangement look obvious to their superiors. Hiring a truly exceptional natural talent is like being hot and having a 10/10 join your friend group, you may be fine but everyone now looks worse by comparison. Best to hire someone upper-mid tier.

it seems to me from the Reddit CScareers sub that job requirements are often written by programmers and programmers are extremely guarded about their jobs; they don’t want a 10x superstar coming in and taking their jerbs or making the comfortable 10-hour-a-week arrangement look obvious to their superiors.

Or programmers are more aware of the costs of having a bad cog in the machine and know that there are a lot of "programmers" out there who're basically charlatans that clearly weren't prepared by their schools or their own independent study (lots of people see programming as an easy way to an upper middle class life, no need for grad degrees or credentials)

I think fear of a bad one is way more relevant than fear of a great one.

This is likely what's affecting people on cscareerquestions which is more likely to involve angst from hyper-selectivity on the low end* (as with dating, it's the lower tier types that can't get jobs that dominate the sub and create most of the angst, the better-off people either show up and then leave when they're hired/married or just dispense bits of advice as elder statesmen).

Honestly, as someone who was a very mediocre programmer at best , I can't even blame them. A lot of people survive or just do the time in school and work without really stretching themselves or developing true experience. But it may take a while for this to become clear. People can skate for a while, depending on their role.

But the costs they impose on any project can be...substantial. Even slight delays can be hugely problematic. The last thing you want is a fucking drag you can't trust to perform tasks on a complex project.

* The conventional wisdom is that if you have a couple of years of track record you'll do pretty well in the job market from then on. (Though in Canada the glut of skilled labour may make it worse for everyone.)

lots of people see programming as an easy way to an upper middle class life, no need for grad degrees or credentials

My boss likes to gripe about this. Late Gen X and early Millennial Russian IT professionals are overwhelmingly geeks. They became programmers not because IT was the hot new thing, but because they had a PC at home and fell in love with it. Late Millennials and Zoomers, who grew up in the era of FAANGs, overwhelmingly view IT as a lucrative job. You can still find people whose eyes start to shine when you give them a complex problem to solve in the latter cohort, but they are few and far between. The majority have completed a Python/JS/testing/data science course and are probably competent in that specific area, but their competence is severely limited.

No.

No sane programmer would ever write the monstrosities you see in JD's. It would forever ruin anyone's credibility as a programmer to put the shit they put together. I recently saw one asking for LISP experience... LISP !!!

Also I'm with @ArjinFerman here. A lot of programmers want to work with a 10x. A 10x in a team raises the skill level of everyone else in the team. Instead of spending hours on a bug, you can just ask the 10x. My founder CEO is a 10x and I gained like a 3x experience multiplier just talking to him.

I mean no ill will but you have a very warped idea of what it is like being a programmer. Which I wouldn't fault if your only source is reading their accounts on reddit.

There's not that many superstar programmers, and I'd probably pay money myself for the chance to work with one, if they were the mentoring type.

It seems to me though that a lot of programmers have established their little niche where they fulfill their job requirements in well below their allotted 40 hours a week. Some guy coming along and working even close to that much who is (even similarly) capable is obviously going to stand out to management, questions are going to be raised. I don’t think this is unique to the job of course, sales people often say the same thing.

They can ask all the questions they want, what are they going to do, fire me? I'll have another job by the end of the week. A guy like that is probably less then 1 in a 100 or even a 1000, and most of them never bother applying at an average company, so if they happen upon one, their only workable strategy is to have the 10x guy literally replace 10 people. Even that can backfire if he gets bored of the place and quits. It's either that or do what I recommended earlier, and have the 10x help to lift the rest up.

Theres 2 classes of programmers. The ones working in large MNC's who work 10 hours a week and write a function a week. And those working in more flat companies where an entire website gets made in a weekend (because the tech lead or CTO is actually present and not in meetings all day). You will get wildly different accounts depending on which one you are talking to.

Sometimes it boils down to (run by people from Sillicon Valley) vs (run by people not from Sillicon Valley)

Where are the companies hiring smart senior SWEs who have been doing X to do Y and just figuring on an extra bit of ramp-up?

Everywhere. FAANGs and FAANG-wannabes use leetcode-style exercises. Other companies just poach, I was hired by my current employer for being orthoxerox, not being a world-class expert in data lakes (because I knew practically nothing about data lakes).

But this doesn't work with random candidates. If I get scheduled an interview with an external candidate that is reportedly a very good Rust programmer that is willing to give Spark on Scala a try, I immediately have a few questions:

  • why hasn't he been hired as a Rust programmer already?
  • is he really a good Rust programmer?
  • what will happen if he gets an offer for a Rust job next month?
  • how much of an on-ramp will he need to get up to speed?
  • if I find a good Spark programmer next month, will I be allowed to hire him?

FAANGs solve this by having a lot of slack. When you can hire 100 senior SWEs each day, you can afford to shuffle them around for a few months and then fire 50 that didn't get up to speed.

Poaching solves this by giving you a long-term view of a candidate: you need people that are curious and get shit done, knowing someone for five years is the best way to find out if they are both.

TLDR: use your network. Keep in touch with wordcels that have left your company for greener pastures and ask them if they have an opportunity for a cool guy like you.

So is "you know someone who works there" pretty much the only way to signal general competence? I suppose the question, then, is: how does anyone get hired any other way even if their resume ticks all the boxes? If a resume doing X well doesn't signal general competence enough to be hired to do Y absent having someone on the inside who can vouch for you... then why would it be a sufficient signal to get hired to do X? (Maybe the answer is, it isn't, which is why the whole search process is terrible on both sides?)

Not going into too much detail to avoid self-doxxing but I was hired directly into a senior role from academia with no industry experience... I did have a personal recommendation then, and I guess I didn't give enough credit to how important that was for getting my foot in the door.

So is "you know someone who works there" pretty much the only way to signal general competence?

Having lots of different experiences without looking like you're job hopping (so 3+ years per job) is another one I can think of. But then you still need to get past the initial HR filter that screens for buzzwords.

Presumably the whole system works because people lie on their resumes. Not sure why companies would want to optimize for this.

Because HR is retarded

They say “the worst thing she can say is no” but I asked a woman who I’m sorta friends with on a date via text and she read the message but hasn’t responded for 11 days and that’s so much worse than “no.”

I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything wrong but I guess I just want feedback on this message as a sanity check.

Hi [name]

I just want to say that I think you're really kind and intelligent and interesting and pretty and I'd like to go on a date with you some time if you're interested.

If not, it's not a big deal, we can pretend this didn't happen and keep being friends lol

I'd agree that your alternative course of action would have been a much better idea, at least because acknowledging the importance of subtext and escalating away from plausible deniability gradually is a good way to communicate "if I were your boyfriend I probably wouldn't do anything to suddenly embarrass you". I also sympathize with anyone who feels so uncomfortable about delivering rejection that they'll avoid a person they've recently had to reject. But...

pretending to remain friends with her, when she knows you want more, which is not sustainable

"pretending"?

This sounds so much like a pot-shot Scott Alexander thought was embarrassing enough to delete:

They always use this phrasing like "Man, I thought he liked me as a person and enjoyed spending time with me. But then he said he wanted to date me! What a dirty rotten liar!" It sounds for all the world like not only are there two ladders, but that women can't even conceive of the idea of having a single ladder where liking someone and wanting to date them are correlated."

I thought that was a productive post overall because "just ask for dates in socially-recognized venues or via friends-of-friends" was a useful takeaway for some people, but if his overgeneralization actually applies to some women, then "don't reject suitors specifically because they were attracted to your personality first" might have been even more useful.

My first thought is, define "sorta friends". At least in my book, "friends" is people I already talk to and get together with regularly and would be perfectly normal to ask to get together with. This feels more like this is a person who you see once in a while at work or school or something but don't talk/message with 1 on 1 regularly and have never done anything together. That's more of a loose acquaintance in my book.

A bit of a long-winded way to say that it seems like you're trying to jump too big of a gap with this message. Going from basically no direct communications to an overly fawning and formal date request is 90% chance going to seriously weird her out. If you don't already have extremely flirtatious contact in some other medium, you need to start much more casually. Something along the lines of, hey [name], want to come get [a drink / lunch / dinner / a movie / whatever is your kind of thing], or invite her to some group event that you're going to. Or send a short joke or meme or something to get a conversation started, and if there's actually a fun and active interaction, do the previous. If you actually get together, things just kind of go or don't go based on how your interaction feels, the formality of calling it a date seems out of place, and like it's trying to force her into a some kind of framework where she'll be pushed or obligated to do something she doesn't want to do.

The turn-off of fawningness is pretty hard for guys to really get. Guys don't tend to understand that until they've become successful enough at some job or hobby or something to have people fawning over them. It feels pretty weird, and it doesn't make you respect the person doing it. At best, you see them as an assistant or apprentice or something of that level. It almost tempts you to take advantage of them and abuse them a little, even if you weren't inclined to do that sort of thing. All of this is basically the complete opposite of what women are actually attracted to.

On the explicit "not a big deal", see the Frank definitely doesn't diddle kids video. That's a way over-exaggerated version, but the basic idea holds - the more time and words you spend talking about how you aren't or don't want to do something that your context implies you're going to do, the more people will disbelieve you. I understand that you're saying that because you're earnest and over-thinking things and actually mean it, but that's not how most readers, especially women, will interpret it. You communicate that it's not a big deal by writing the first part like it actually isn't a big deal, not by explicitly saying it isn't a big deal. Both of your paragraphs actually communicate that it's a super big deal to you.

I've always tended to over-think things myself as well. I've found it a good rule of thumb to chop out 3/4 of everything I write. It's probably worth a try for you sometime - write a message how you normally would, then spend some more time chopping out 3/4 of it by taking out everything that you may reasonably assume your reader already knows or understands.

But all of that said, this is all pretty normal issues to have for young guys learning how to interact with women. You're not a bad person or anything, there's just a lot of stuff to learn that seems odd and counter-intuitive at first, and is probably the complete opposite of everything you've ever been told by whatever authority figures you've trusted. You probably didn't have much of a relationship with her in the first place, and it's a tall order to build that over text when you haven't already done so in person, so you haven't really lost much. Just forget about this message entirely and don't try too hard to talk to her if you happen to run into her again anytime soon.

overly fawning

I like how you broke this down because I don't think I've ever heard anybody explain it so straightforwardly. It makes sense.

At the same time, I am left facepalming at the eternal incongruence between male preference for directness and female preference for a million layers of build-up and plausible deniability. If it works out and a longer term relationship forms, the not-initially-called-a-date meeting will probably end up being retroactively referred to as a date.

I'm curious if she was actually a good friend of yours, or if the sexual tension had you more interested in her. Imagine her as a guy friend, and if you still feel it was a good friendship then maybe try to salvage it.

When I started realizing in college that many girls made for terrible friends I saved myself a lot of headaches. When I met my the woman that is now my wife, I had a mistaken impression that she was already married/taken. She was fun and interesting though and I continued to hangout with her in the same way I'd want to continue hanging out with a guy that is fun and interesting.

I also had a friend in college that I really liked talking and hanging out with. I asked her in kinda the same way you did, but in person. She said she just wanted to stay friends and not be anything more. We never talked again. It was a bummer, but it only had me feeling down for a few days.

Sexual attraction is kinda weird. I'm not entirely sure how it works for women or for men. There are some people that seem to figure out their own version of sexual magnetism. As a guy you need to work yours out. And be careful not to go after the super magnets among the women. There are some women that seem to attract a disproportionate amount of men. My sister is one of these women, she was never single for more than a month since 6th grade. It was mainly a defense mechanism for her, she just got constantly hit on by guys around her if she was single.

Find a girl the other guys don't notice. Friends of the magnet girls are a good pick. Then find your own sexual magnetism and see if some attraction occurs.

A lot of good comments already, but hopefully I can add something useful.

Remember the story about the guy who thought his study partner was flirting with him, so he told her he was not looking for a relationship, but was dtf is she was, so she freaked out and told everyone to avoid him? Yeah. You are definitely not in the same band of awkwardness as he is, but think of him as the platonic anti-ideal.

Don't put girls you have an existing relationship with on the spot. You have actually texted her a direct question, so there's a paper trail that both of you can't pretend to ignore. @5434a has the right idea: plausible deniability. You could've tested the waters with an indirect question about "a friend" whose girl-friend-two-words asked if she could be his girlfriend-one-word and he didn't know what to answer. Or could have framed the date as totally-not-a-date and then went "haha, these people must think we're on a date together" and gauged her reaction to the idea.

Right now the best option would be to pretend you haven't written this and look for an opportunity to discuss cases like yours with a third party in a safe environment with your friend present. Ideally this third party should be your trusted friend with higher social intelligence that should bring this up with a fourth party: "Don't drink that much, Fred, or you'll end proposing to random people from your contact list! I can't be your best man if you wake up in Vegas married to 'Hannah Couch Delivery'" and then steer the conversation to convince your woman friend that a text like this shouldn't hurt an existing relationship.

To be clear, you did not "ask her on a date". You told her you are interested in going on a date with her, and why, which is a somewhat awkward thing to respond to.

Like others have said, the key here is to just ask her to do something with you. Ideally (and this is the secret sauce) something you would have already been interested in doing, with or without her. "Hey I'm checking out xyz Saturday, want to come with?", etc. You're off on an adventure, it's up to her if she wants to come along for the ride. This framing is much more appealing to women.

look on the bright side, she's gonna go through the same thing when you ignore her in a year after you've gotten jacked as fuck from the motivation this rejection brought you. (speaking from personal experience)

when you ignore her in a year

This part never usually pans out lol.

Speaking as a fellow who did the exact same thing of getting jacked out of sheer spite (at least in the early stages).

This part never usually pans out lol.

Oh it did for me, I still remember her reaction when she saw me for the first time in like 6 months: * looks at me, does a double take, eyes widen, face becomes fully red, furtive looks the whole evening *. I actually feel a little bit guilty about just how good revenge feels.

Unless you were fat or physically grotesque before (hard to believe if you got jacked in six months) I can’t see this changing much. Women can be superficial, of course, but the gap between a handsome man with an average body and a handsome man with a good body usually isn’t enough to go from ‘rejection’ to this, at least not in my experience. Physical features women find attractive are (in order of importance) face (provided average height or above), height, broad shoulders. The gym helps with 0/3 (weight loss can do it, if a man is fat enough that it shows in the face, but I presume we’re not talking about that here).

Ah, in my case it was extreme fat loss, yeah, I didn't really gain muscle, just revealed what was there. People who haven't seen me in a while tell me I got jacked out of a misunderstanding of where muscle comes from.

Wheres the part you ignore her? This seems to me you came across her and she acted in a way that implies she might reciprocate interest, but didn't show any

While I second all the excellent technical advice from more intelligent posters than i, it probably didn't matter. As my great aunt used to say, if you were born to be hung don't worry about drowning.

That is to say, while improved technique might have improved your odds, it probably wouldn't have made a difference to the outcome. Unless her desire to sleep with you was in perfect equipoise before the text, a bad one probably didn't ruin a good chance and a great one probably wouldn't salvage a longshot. The outcome was probably written in cards that were dealt long before you hit send.

Probably, yeah

I think the problem is your message was so straight forward that it rushed to the objective which removed any ambiguity and plausible deniability from the interaction and explicitly cemented it into the frame of a capital D date. You were probably also too comprehensive with the if/else conditions.

"Doing anything this weekend?"
[response]
"Fancy [social activity]?"
[response]
"No big deal, maybe another time"
...and then there's nothing to have to pretend didn't happen, which is going to be challenging now because you went meta at the end.

On the plus side at least you tried, and shared it for open feedback, and now you can move past it with the benefit of hindsight and others' perspectives. Make a mistake and learn from it. That's better than passively wondering what if. Better luck next time.

I’m sorry bro. We’ve all been there.

They say “the worst thing she can say is no” but I asked a woman who I’m sorta friends with on a date via text and she read the message but hasn’t responded for 11 days and that’s so much worse than “no.”

You now understand how completely unhinged conventional-wisdom dating advice is. You’re not supposed to tell bright-eyed youngsters, “actually the worst thing that can happen is that she becomes viscerally disgusted by the thought of being with you,” but that’s the truth. That’s not necessarily what happened here, but it is a realistic option that one needs to be aware of.

If not, it's not a big deal, we can pretend this didn't happen and keep being friends lol

I get what you were going for here. You heard somewhere that the biggest thing women fear about dating is feeling unsafe, so you wanted to be as non-threatening as possible. Women hate this for some reason. I don’t know why, but they do. You will drive yourself insane if you try to figure out the deeper operating principles at play which cause this bizarre-seeming behavior. Just accept it.

Unfortunately I don’t have any practical advice for what to do going forward. If you wanted a sanity check, you are making the typical mistakes that a young man reasoning from male-brained priors would be expected to make, so no, you are not going insane.

Thank you. She’s not a big texter AFAICT and the most likely thing that happened was that she read this and thought about it for 30 seconds and forgot to reply because she was in the middle of something and had other more urgent messages which really isn’t that bad, but I can’t help overthinking.

It's a no from her my guy lol. One does not simply forget texts of that magnitude.

She didn't forget to reply. She deliberately didn't reply because it would be socially awkward for her and make her feel uncomfortable.

Your best step from now is to follow through and pretend like nothing happened and you never asked her.

I'm rooting for you with future women btw. You did nothing wrong here. Her behavior is incredibly common.

Yes, you cannot help overthinking, yes. You are spot on here. You cannot help overthinking. Or can you? Can you begin to help it. I think you can. Help the overthinking to go away.

What's your plan for tomorrow's lunch? No plan? Okay spend some time thinking about that. What are you going to eat? Why? Are you on a diet regime at the moment? Exercising? What's your BMI? When was your last health checkup, and are you planning to begin the process of sculpting or taking ownership of your body and appearance or are you just going to melt into entropic blobhood like most Americans do (No idea if you are American)?

I am not solely trying to distract your interest here, I am mostly serious. But you see my point. There are other things for you to be focusing on that have to do with your very real well-being that have zero whatsoever to do with any woman. Finally, brother, whatsoever is healthy, whatsoever gets you those gainz, what adds to your physical strength and formidableness, whatsoever clears your complexion and staves off the beergut--if there be any excellence in your life or anything praiseworthy--dwell on these things.

You’re not supposed to tell bright-eyed youngsters, “actually the worst thing that can happen is that she becomes viscerally disgusted by the thought of being with you,” but that’s the truth. That’s not necessarily what happened here, but it is a realistic option that one needs to be aware of.

It’s a very glass-half-empty way of looking at life, though. I’m often reminded of the Donald Trump mentality, like it’s impossible to imagine Trump responding to rejection with anything except “your loss!”. And while I have many problems with the Trumpian attitude to life I concede that it captures the kind of glorious nonchalance / DGAF attitude that many genuinely happy people have.

If she didn’t reply, it’s her loss, and whatever her reasons, they don’t matter (assume she has a boyfriend or something). You move on, there will be more opportunities. Believing anything except this is a recipe for self-pity and self-hatred.

One of the few comments of yours that I actually agree with.

If you think with a cool head, playing the numbers game is the best tactic for a man trying to date in today's world. There are common factors that might increase ones chances (obviously), but variability is still high enough that only way to get P(X) close to one is to have many X's.

Its not trying to maximize the number of attempts at the cost of quality of attempts (being NOT bad here is more important than being good). Its reach a sufficient quality of attempt and then maximize the number.

If you want to recommend people purposely believe things that are false, then go ahead. Everyone copes differently. As for me and my house, we will serve The LORD.

As the adage goes, it’s cope or rope.

Hah, never heard this but I love it.

You move on, there will be more opportunities. Believing anything except this is a recipe for self-pity and self-hatred.

If you want to recommend people purposely believe things that are false, then go ahead.

Where is this coming from? It is always, objectively true that there will be more opportunities. That's not naive optimism or wishful thinking, it's the stark reality.

If you were talking more about the earlier paragraph (about being nonchalant) that is entirely subjective and cannot be right or wrong.

It is always, objectively true that there will be more opportunities.

In a loose, almost meaningless sense, yes, there will always be more opportunities. The epistemic parameters that actually matter are 1.) What is the probability that my next attempt will succeed? and 2.) What is the probability that I will ever succeed? There are humans on Earth right now who's parameters are both essentially one, and humans on Earth who's parameters are both essentially zero. This means that these parameters need to be estimated empirically using Bayes's Theorem. You might object that you should "just turn your brain off bro" and ignore all this fancy reasoning stuff, but then you run the risk of ending up like this guy. Does this guy need to simply "move on" and remember that "it is always objectively true that there will be more opportunities"?

Now, this guy is not the median male. I myself have had better luck than him (I was able to get multiple actual dates!), so I'm comfortable saying that he's more than 1 standard deviation below the mean in terms of all-inclusive attractiveness. Is he more than 2 standard deviations below the mean? I'm honestly not sure. This is the buzzsaw that millions of young men are being tossed into with no warning by everyone's cheery platitudes. Enough. If we can't be honest on TheMotte of all places about what it's really like out there, then we can't be honest about it anywhere.

That guy, specifically, needs to remember that dating apps are a platform men are more interested in than women, and that he isn't going to succeed on them with whatever he has now. If you imagine every 'scene', very simply, just pairs up men and women matching in ordinal SMV rank starting from the top, in scenes with a lot more male interest than female interest, bottom-quartile men will not get any matches. He should pursue other opportunities, the kind in which most men succeed. Even very low 'SMV' men like the obese, poor, criminal, stupid, and awkward usually have sex and relationships, usually with similarly low SMV women of the same social class.

Does this guy need to simply "move on" and remember that "it is always objectively true that there will be more opportunities"?

Absolutely, yes, he needs to remember that there will be more opportunities, because that is the factual truth. Not just in an "almost meaningless sense" either. Perhaps he should change his strategy up, maybe dramatically, but to give up and say he's out of opportunities would be to deny reality.

It sounds like what you're really saying is that some people are too optimistic about their own chances. OK, sure, maybe they're too optimistic about their own chances barring major lifestyle changes, but reversed stupidity is not intelligence, and you can't turn around and say that this means that advice to "remember you'll always have more opportunities" is delusional.

Paging @CanIHaveASong

To OP, look I am no professional, but one of the best bits of advice I ever read was that if you get ghosted, just move on. Sometimes no response is, in fact, a response. You're right, it isn't fun to be ignored, it sucks, it's demoralizing. But it doesn't matter.

If you want reassurances, here they are:

  1. This has happened to every guy who has tried this, more than once, at one time or another.
  2. If she is your sorta friend, as you say, you will see her again someday. A woman's prerogative is to change her mind. Just don't feel the need to bring this ignoring up as if it's important. It isn't.
  3. These hurt feelings are just chemicals inside your brain.
  4. Women could have a dozen reasons for not responding. They are in a relationship with someone else, they secretly like someone else, they don't want to hurt your feelings and have no idea how to respond, they fear the endless back-and-forth if they do say no and you persist, they fear some other frightening reprisal because Male, or something else.. Don't take rejection as a personal attack on your own desirability.
  5. It's okay that you are asking this question and asking it here. It shows you're trying to figure things out the way we all do. Don't feel bad about any of this, you'll get better at interactions with women as you mature and develop confidence.
  6. Good for you for giving it a shot and not just pining away.

Without knowing you, her, or how you interact it's impossible to comment on your stated question of what's wrong with your message. It comes off to me as cloyingly sweet, which is of course no crime. But depending on how you two interact there could be a humor I'm not getting. You don't need a sanity check, but you do need to put your focus elsewhere than this particular person, at least for a good while.

Finally: Send no more texts to this person, ever, for any reason, if you do not receive a reply. If you've already done so, stop. 🛑

I found this advice to be deeply empathetic and fairly profound. Saving for the next time I need to give a friend a pep talk. Really, really good stuff George.

Thanks for the kind response. This helped me feel less bad about it.

I'm married and have been out of the dating pool for over a decade now, so as many grains of salt as needed, but I see a few things that I consider mistakes:

  • First, there's no need to frame the situation as a date. You can just say that you want to go out for dinner, or go for a hike, or go to [cool local thing that's happening]. If things go well, you can always suggest grabbing some drinks, then it's pretty obviously a date, and that'll go wherever it'll go. If not, well, you can both play it off like it was never anything more than hanging out with your buddy anyway, so no harm done.

  • The flattery isn't necessary and probably doesn't help. It may well not hurt either, but it does make some women feel uncomfortable. The fact that you want to hang out with her already pretty clearly informs her that you find her attractive and think she would be fun to hang out with.

  • Not to go full PUA, but I think you're just too damned nice in the message. The level of niceness gives off a bit of an air of desperation, even if it's not really there. I think men are better off with some degree of carefree nonchalance or making it seem like it should be exciting to hang out with them rather than framing it as though it would kind of be a favor and would be potentially embarrassing if she didn't want to go. Try something shorter, along the lines of, "hey, I'm headed to the concert on the square Thursday night and maybe out for drinks after, want to join?". Framed that way, you're already doing something, it's going to be fun, and if she just doesn't want to she can opt out without actually saying that she doesn't want to go on a date.

Thanks for the feedback. Re: The first bullet, those sorts of “dates that aren’t dates” are how I used to approach things and my experience was that it’s a good way to make friends. So I started trying to be more direct.

I'm no expert on this, but off the bat, there are two things I believe you did wrong.

One is that you did it via text. Text might be okay for relationships that form over text (e.g. OLD or internet friends), but if she's someone you have any sort of IRL contact with, I believe finding a way to ask her out face to face would have been better.

Two is that you hedged with the last part, showing a lack of confidence in your part. If you had ended it before the "if you're interested," that alone would have made the message much better. Even better yet, remove the part that starts with "I think" and ends with "pretty and." Just state your intent and desire, and let her do the work of shooting you down if she chooses to. Preceding with compliments just screams insecurity to my eyes.

There's, of course, always the possibility of the zeroth thing you might have done wrong, which is just not being attractive. This is the biggest factor that dominates all other factors, including the content and medium of your request, which could very well have had literally zero impact on the results, depending on how "wrong" you were on this. But that's outside the scope of this post.

There's, of course, always the possibility of the zeroth thing you might have done wrong, which is just not being attractive.

This is likely to be the problem if this sort of response is a common occurrence to OP. Attractive guys (who a girl has previously met in person) do not normally get ghosted because the text wasn't framed perfectly.

Thanks for the reply. In-person wasn’t really a practical option; we meet too rarely and only in group settings.

I agree that saying

I just want to say that you're really kind and intelligent and interesting and pretty and I'd like to go on a date with you

Would have been better but I find it hard to imagine that (especially with someone she knows irl) this is ever enough to make any difference.

Yeah, fair enough, probably "much better" was overselling it, and it's not the kind of thing that would have allowed some threshold to be crossed. Like you allude to, that it's IRL acquaintance is pretty significant.

There's a threshold of "begging for a date" beyond which the text has minimal chances of actually leading to a date, and I agree that that rewording is still past that threshold. Reword it some more though and I think the chance of success does increase markedly.

One of the cool things about this community is that we can benefit from the expertise of our autists regulars with niche special interests. We haven't had (to my knowledge) a nootropics/supplements/vitamins thread in a while, so let's hear from you. Currently I take only Vitamin D 4000 iu every day in the awful, gray British winter (October to April) and fish oil capsules. What should I consider adding?

NMN, NR, Lecithin, Maca root, Vitamin K2 and collagen.

Not sure about vitamins etc, but I've been using Kratom to help with muscular pain/energy/not drinking alcohol and it has been helpful. I tend to get itchy if I take too much for too long though.

It's extremely cheap and a quite effective substance. Some folks have said it's addictive, but I haven't had much of a problem with it. @JhanicManifold might know more.

For regular consumption, creatine is the king, there's no other supplement with as clear and massive of a benefit, it makes you stronger, helps cognition and 30 years of intense research hasn't found a single negative effect (maybe apart from slight intestinal distress in some people).

I also use phenibut and modafinil on special occasions. Phenibut is amazing at lowering social anxiety in particular while leaving your reasoning capacities essentially untouched, and modafinil is good at boosting concentration and making you stay awake. You shouldn't take these daily, phenibut in particular will fuck up your life if you take large doses daily, the best is to use it for occasional job interviews or presentations, for which it works amazingly well.

How are you acquiring modafanil? I was under the impression that it was tightly regulated unless you fly fighter jets.

Buying it on indiamart.com from India pharmacies, I haven't really had problems with importing it in Canada

modafanil

It's actually one of the easier stimulants to find on online labs and pharmacies, much easier than other comparable stimulants. It differs by country what your Border Force officers are going to allow into your country, so it is probably better to get from a domestic source, so knowing where to get it is more about knowing where to look.

What’s the risk with phenibut?

It's a close cousin to benzodiazepines (though much easier to acquire), so the withdrawal symptoms are massive as fuck, there's a reddit community dedicated to people who've fucked up their lives taking phenibut everyday, though I can't seem to find it right now. I also notice increased anxiety on the day after I take a dose. It works very well for my use case, but I periodically remember not to treat it lightly.

The most important guidelines about nootropics/supplements/vitamins are:

  1. People are unique and respond differently due to factors like genetics, diet, and age.
  2. Effects can very greatly based on dose and how often you take something. Some things you have to take multiple times for the effects to build up to a noticeable level.

You can't just copy someone else's stack. You need to know what it is that you're trying to achieve. Then it become trial and error with substances and doses to find what works best for you. Making one change at a time is the best way to identify what works for you.

Some goals you could have might be: more energy, things that aid workouts, immune support, pain management, mood, better sleep, libido, skin, etc.

If you have a specific goal in mind I might be able to give you some recommendations on things to try.

More energy is a big one, I often feel tired in the morning, at least pre-coffee. But I’m mostly interested in what people have found works for them.

I don't have much experience with increasing energy but occasionally I'll take an extended/delayed release caffeine pill and that has been giving me a good energy boost for 8-12 hours.

If you have lower testosterone you could try something like Cistanche or Tongkat Ali. I dabbled around with them and I felt my testosterone change, but the noticeable effects were pretty subtle. It has been a while since I tried them but I recall a mild increase in energy.

Have you tried sleeping more? There are physiological constraints that are not easily circumvented.

My wife has recently claimed that drinking something called saji berry juice (which she mixes with orange juice) has changed her moods, aches, and generally feeling for the better. The little drop of Retsyn apparently is iron supplementation; apparently saji is high in iron. The link I am linking to says it's called "seaberry" or "sea buckthorn" and I have no idea what it is and had never seen or heard of it until there it was in a carton in our fridge.

This is what she drinks.

Oh, this berry is very common here. We buy it flash-frozen and just blend it with sub-60C water to preserve vitamin C. I quite like the taste, but I haven't noticed any significant changes from drinking it.

I just take those plus vitamin c and creatine.

Vitamin C because it's an excuse to eat an orange flavored gummy candy that might be benefiting my genetically garbage skin a bit.

Creatine I took at first for working out, worked for me there, maybe an extra rep or so per set. No real side effects beyond 5 lbs of water weight gain, but no weight in the midsection because clothes fit the same.

Might be just me but I feel like it helps my mental energy / focus as well. Maybe it's a placebo from having a bit more physical energy? Kinda like with the weightlifting it's like I can push through a little bit longer on some mental task where I'd normally want to take a break. Anyone else get this? It's supposed to be very safe unless you have bad kidneys so I usually stay on it even if I'm not working out as much.

You don't have to answer this but I somehow always imagined you writing from NYC. I feel like you've said you lived there. Maybe because I mention my location in every single post I make (日本!) I imagine where others are. Anyway just a random thought, I've no supplement commentary except Fish Oil, because I don't eat fish and something Omega 3s.

I grew up in NYC (and went to college there)! So you’re right, I’m a real New Yorker, but I’ve lived in London for the last half decade or so though.

See, you answered, you didn't have to. Anyway yes I knew you'd mentioned NY. Hard to keep track who's who and where, and I don't and can't, but sometimes I can.

Living in Japan and not eating fish has to be a tragedy. What do you eat at sushi places?

You don't want to know. Yes it's a terrible waste, and I am constantly reminded of it. A cruel joke of fate. I go to sushi places with family and they enjoy whatever raw pieces of ocean thing and I sit there. I eat shrimp, so that's something.

Japan takes seafood to a whole new level. Writhing squid tentacles in ponzu, shirako (the infamous fish sperm), and other abominations like namako (sea cucumber) have, alas, prevented me from even trying.

Magnesium and Zinc are my favorites. Magnesium before bed, and zinc when you want to avoid getting sick(er).

I've found magnesium to be great for avoiding sore/cramped legs in the days following long hikes.

I've had good results with CoQ10 at 200 mg, you should notice a difference if it works for you. Taurine pairs well with morning caffiene, it helps avoid jitters.

Other things are generally for specific issues you're having.

You might want to just look into a multivitamin with CoQ10 just to avoid having to take too many pills.

I live in a medium sized city and I’ve been unable to find some type of adult high-functioning autism peer support group. I have seen these groups in larger cities, but they are too far away. The reason I was looking for a group is because I’m trying to connect with other people on the autism spectrum, but I have trouble finding them IRL. I think it would benefit me to have a space where I can reduce my autistic masking and talk about special interests.

I was thinking about trying to start a group in my city as I think there is a demand for such a group. Running a group and managing social situations gives me anxiety so I don’t know if I could do it alone.

  • Do you have any ideas on how I could find other high-functioning autistic adults in my area?
  • If I did try to start some type of autism support group do you have any advice or ideas on how to go about it?
  • Is there a specific platform you would recommend?
  • What would you do to resolve conflicts among people in the group?
  • How far would you go in trying to accommodate everyone’s unique needs?
  • What type of events might be successful in the group?

Go to a rationalist or EA group. That's basically what you're looking for.

When you say you want to "talk about special interests" my question is--why not find a group dedicated to those special interests? And--what are these interests? Are there SSC meetups in your area? What about board game stores that have open play tables and "game night" gatherings? Maybe a comic book store that does anime screenings or similar? These are all places you're likely to find fellow aspies, but also normies who are accustomed to interacting with aspies.

I admit the very notion of a "high-functioning autism peer support group" strikes me as a bit internally incoherent, to be an aspie almost by definition implies a tendency to be clumsy at things like "supporting" others. And unfortunately, in many contexts "reduce my autistic masking" boils down to "be various shades of offensive without being asked to make adjustments for the sensibilities of others." Interpersonal interaction demands varying degrees of "masking" from everyone, aspies are just bad at it (and often additionally introverted, and so also exhausted by it). "I'd like a space where I can interact with other humans without following the usual rules for interacting with other humans" is kind of the opposite of a support group, as support groups tend to lubricate social interaction by making expectations more clear, and more strict.

In short, "connect with other people on the autism spectrum" sounds to me like an instrumental goal; what is the final outcome you're looking for here?

  • If the point is to make friends, I'd say skip the "spectrum" as a barrier to entry and go straight to social gatherings where people share your interests.
  • If the point is some kind of group therapy, then start calling psychiatrists in your area and ask them if they have an aspie group session (or whatever psychiatrists call those now, it has been a couple decades since I was directly involved with such things).

If you have some other goal in mind, it is not clear to me what that could be.

When you say you want to "talk about special interests" my question is--why not find a group dedicated to those special interests? And--what are these interests? Are there SSC meetups in your area? What about board game stores that have open play tables and "game night" gatherings? Maybe a comic book store that does anime screenings or similar? These are all places you're likely to find fellow aspies, but also normies who are accustomed to interacting with aspies.

I'm looking for something more like a mental health support group that is limited to people that self-identify as autistic. I want to focus more on discussing the challenges of navigating society's allistic norms. A place to vent about the frustrations of daily life. I have found general mental health support groups (or sharing circles) somewhat helpful but I feel like those spaces would be much more helpful to me if they were limited to high-functioning autistic adults. Many times the allistic attendees are happy with platitudes and just want to feel the emotional support of the group. I am looking for a space that is more blunt and focused on evidence-based thinking. I want to be able to have deep conversations about the issues that impact autistic people.

When I read things here or on SSC I often become interested in them, so I don't necessarily want to focus just on my current special interests. I'm looking for a space where people would be interested in discussing random topics that they find interesting and this could perhaps cause other people to become interested in those topics. I don't want a space where people stick to the safe and popular topics (unless they are interested in discussing them in a deeper or unconventional way).

I'd like a space where I can interact with other humans without following the usual rules for interacting with other humans.

Yes, I'd like a space where people who are bad with body language are comfortable. Where the focus is on the information being communicated and not on the mannerisms of the speaker. Where people are more open-minded than usual. Where the norms of communication feel more comfortable to people on the spectrum. It is exhausting to always have to adapt to allistic norms and frustrating when I constantly fail due to giving off the wrong body language. Instead of autistic masking all the time I want to find a space that is limited to people who identify as autistic.

what is the final outcome you're looking for here?

I'm looking for aspie group therapy, but also a group that does more than that. Ideally, it would be a group that has group therapy sessions (or sharing circles) but also has other events like book clubs/discussion groups and social events.

Thanks, this is all very good clarification. I do wish you luck with this!

I'm looking for a space where people would be interested in discussing random topics that they find interesting and this could perhaps cause other people to become interested in those topics. I don't want a space where people stick to the safe and popular topics (unless they are interested in discussing them in a deeper or unconventional way).

I'd definitely look for an SSC meetup, or start one next time Scott posts a signup calendar at Astral Codex Ten. Or maybe that's a rolling thing, now? I don't know.

I'd like a space where people who are bad with body language are comfortable. Where the focus is on the information being communicated and not on the mannerisms of the speaker. ... Where the norms of communication feel more comfortable to people on the spectrum. ... Instead of autistic masking all the time I want to find a space that is limited to people who identify as autistic.

Where I suspect you are most likely to fail, here, is that there's no such thing as "normal" autistic behavior. Normies gonna norm, normies gonna conform: that's what makes them normies. My own experience is that autism is not "a different way of thinking/communicating," but a diverse array of ways of failing to communicate. Other autists may well be more accommodating of that, but usually this will not actually improve their ability to communicate with one another. There will still be annoyances and slights and failures to communicate, they're just even less tractable than when it happens with normies.

If I may be forgiven a maybe-clumsy metaphor, consider sexual reproduction at the cellular level as a model of communication. Two gametes meeting is an "exchange" of information. If one is mutated too far outside the norm, the information exchange is likely to fail. If both are mutated too far outside the norm, the information exchange is astronomically likely to fail. Likewise, with patience and care normies are often able to complement aspies in the communication process, but between aspies communication compatibility will generally depend on them having compatible gaps in ability. I have seen this most crisply in romantic pairings (where perhaps all interpersonal quirks are seen most crisply), with for example aspies who struggle with displays of affection still wanting displays of affection from their partner, but being unable to communicate that in productive ways (either on the transmitting or receiving end!).

That is, in my experience, "high functioning autism" doesn't mean "bad at interacting with normies in the following particular ways," it means "bad at interacting with everyone in the following particular ways." Other autists are better positioned to empathize, but that doesn't make them good at empathizing!

Consequently I still think the closest thing to what you want would be group therapy for aspies. A trained and experienced therapist serving as a facilitator to a small group of similarly-afflicted individuals is often better than generic "mental health" support circles.

But based on some of the other things you've expressed here, I expect that in the end you'd be better off showing up at nerdy community events often enough to organically develop some accommodating friendships, of whatever neurotype. I do understand the reasons why you might consider this an undesirable alternative to the crafting of an exclusively aspie "safe space," though.

Do you want to find other self-identified high-functioning autists? The problem with 'high functioning' is that it covers a broad spectrum from 'not high functioning but thinks of themselves that way' (in the same way that people overestimate their beauty or charisma or intelligence) to 'not autistic but identifies as such' (because of tumblr/reddit/tiktok memes where having a special interest means you're an autist etc).

Do you want to find other self-identified high-functioning autists?

Yes, that is exactly what I'm looking for. People that identify that way and are able to successfully live independently without a parent/guardian.

The actual diagnosis is not important. I'm mostly looking for people who would be comfortable discussing the challenges they face navigating society's allistic norms. Also, the people I'm looking for would have some trouble with understanding/using body language.

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