Yes.
Don’t worry, I know how I come off. 
But it’s not my fault that people don’t read what I’m actually writing or put beliefs on me that I don’t have.
No it doesn’t. If I had started with “That’s true..but–” it would.
I’m upset that people are saying I’m saying things I’m not, and labelling me as some inexperienced unenlightened moron. I would be just as upset if people were doing it to someone else.
Okay: I think a lot of women are motivated by similar things, and a lot of men are motivated by similar things. Which is what I said from the start. Again there’s this “all (gender) are this” thing that I’m not saying.
Not sure what relevance this is. If the discussion is whether men tend to have lower standards than women, are you saying only high-quality people get married? I honestly don’t know why you wrote that bit.
Single people are looking for dates. Single people looking for dates are on dating sites. Single people looking for dates on dating sites act, in very large groups, in very different ways based on gender lines on those dating sites.
I don’t see why you would discard this as irrelevant.
Again I don’t see how this is relevant. I really don’t know why you’ve de-railed this into a discussion on desperation.
You said earlier:
[QUOTE=you with the face]
For one, your pronouncements about how desperate men are just don’t even make sense, but you think they do because you can’t see beyond the IT/barfly crowd that comprises your world. How many doctors, lawyers, car mechanics, starving artists, plumbers, soldiers, political staffers, truck drivers, police officers, EMTs, assistant principals, college professors, store managers, contractors, concession stand attendants, and <insert any other job title other than the 40-year old virgin IT stereotype> meet this stereotypical loser profile that is apparently the antichrist of your version of masculinity?
[/QUOTE]
I read that as you saying those people in the professions you listed (outside of the “IT/barfly crowd”) are different. But you’ve just said now that they’re exactly the same because they’re everybody. So you’re saying the “IT/barfly” crowd represents everybody else.
[QUOTE=you with the face]
Seriously, most people aren’t in their dream jobs and regularly put up with crap to pay the bills. Most people aren’t losers though
[/QUOTE]
Aren’t they? Will you bring your kids up to believe they shouldn’t strive for anything and they should accept that their lives will be crap? Or will you want them to be successful high self-esteem people who get what they want in life? If you’d encourage the latter, then aren’t you implying the former are losers in comparison?
[QUOTE=you with the face]
and still manage to score and maintain relationships, and function like everyone else does.
[/QUOTE]
I specifically said earlier that plenty of low self-esteem people get married. Why are you arguing with things I’m not saying? I’d like to stop having to defend myself against stuff you’re putting in my mouth.
- TWTTWN
It’s one thing to talk about your own experiences and let others draw conclusions from those. To say to someone else “I suspect I’m more experienced than you” is flat-out arrogance, and there’s no way you can know it’s true. Given how much talking you profess to do, I’m surprised you don’t realize that.
Anyway, yes, we’re going off the rails here.
No offense, but I don’t see “suave charming pickup artist”. I see a young guy who based on his posts spent a large portion of his younger years as or surrounded by socially awkward “IT types”. And now after years of studying the “art of the pick up” has all the same over-enthusiastic smug arrogance of an IT dork, just channelled into a new hobby. Doesn’t make you come across as “alpha”. Just as a bit of a jerk and pretty clueless.
No one is forcing you to become some sort of Homer Simpson father or get saddled up with some harpy who hen pecks you to death. If a relationship is a drain on you than you should end it. On that I think we are in agreement. But this “it’s my way or the highway” attitude I see from not necessarily from you but other guys I know IRL where they think that they can do and act however they want want and therefore actively seek out women who will enable that is a bit ridiculous. Part of becoming a mature adult male is having to make mature adult choices. Many of those choices will be mutually exclusive. You might have the 9 to 5 job to be with your family more, but you might not make as much money. You might want to be single your entire life pursuing your own interests with single-minded purpose, but you will find your close friends may have less time or inclination to hang out with you as their family activities take priority.
Unless you think men and women are interchangeable, the woman is going to bring something to the table that the man lacks.
A guy may have completely self-actualized and still have weaknesses. It’s pretty unlikely that he can’t find someone that provides attributes he lacks, though he might decide the social cost isn’t worth it.
Most guys “need” a long term relationship with a woman if they want to reproduce and contribute to the success of the offspring. It also makes some economic sense as well.
I’ve never met the “complete” guy. I’ve met a ton that have decided that what they have completed is the only important stuff.
And the Golden Post-Parsing Award for threads this month goes to…this thread! 
I’m saying I say dispute this notion that you forth earlier:
I’m not saying these men don’t exist at all, but acting as though there’s an epidemic of them who are this desperate really makes me laugh. It seems like a convenient carnard that permits you to feel superior over those who haven’t figured out the game like you have. If you’re surrounded by men who feel this way, it’s probably a better reflection of the company you keep than that of larger society. Most men in my circles are not like this at all.
Because there’s no reason to believe men and women are necessarily going to be identical in where they go and how they go about finding mates online? Because we’re not just talking about single people, but people in general?
See my response above.
I’m saying you’re fixated on a type a guy–a guy who doesn’t exhibit alph-male characterstics that supposedly define an attractive male, who is desperate in the way you described above. It’s easy to talk about men in this way when your reference point is a stereotype about IT geeks and bar flies; but most men aren’t IT geeks and bar flies.
This seems much more reasonable than the position I thought you were representing. I don’t know if I agree, but then I’m pretty cautious about ascribing general personality traits to males or females because I think it can be incredibly limiting to individuals and damaging to society as whole.
I get that you’re feeling attacked and my intent wasn’t to make you feel that way. I only brought it up because I thought a productive discussion could come out of it.
When that happens, he’ll assume that they have been corralled into a life they never wanted by the temptation of easy sex from more goal-focused women: it couldn’t be that they legitimately prefer that life. Of course, that view will be strengthened by the fact that his buddies will say things like “man, I am so jealous of your life” or, when they turn down invitations, they will say things like “I’d love to, but I can’t, because my wife wants me to blah blah blah.” And those things will be somewhat true, but not the whole truth: the whole truth for most people is a complex tangle of choices gladly made mixed with half-hearted regrets. Add to that the desire not to sound like a jerk (“Sorry, man, I’d rather hang out with my kids”), and you could easily think everyone who is settled down regrets it all the time.
- twttwn
You just have to find a woman who wants the same things you want out of life. Out of your long list, the only thing I want is to travel the world, and as it happens my wife loves travelling also. So we’re completely compatible that way. Beyond that, I’ve become much more productive at work since we got married.
Agreed. And to do that you have to know what you want out of life. That’s basically what my posts before the big derail said.
- TWTTWN
I know lots. We all do. As mentioned, that describes a very large percentage of people in the world: married, single, whatever.
Do you know any super successful people? I mean those at the very top of their professions? Like the top 1%?
I ask because I do, and the thought that they’d have a spouse who held them back is laughable. These people don’t let anything hold them back. Not rejection, criticism, failure, anything. They would never have a spouse who wasn’t 100% supportive.
Yeah, I know people who think they’d have been some super star if it weren’t for their spouse, bad luck, or whatever excuse they have. The fact is they don’t have the same sort of personality as those at the very, very top.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t be pretty darned successful and mostly happy even if you’re not that person. Most of us don’t become super stars and do quite well anyway. Among those I know who are pretty successful and happy, most are married. Then again, most people I know are married. So I can’t really draw any conclusion from that!
My point is that a lot of happily married guys will whine to their single friends because they think that’s expected or the relationship isn’t really set up for “let me tell you about the funny thing my kid did” or because they think “my wife won’t let me” is somehow a nicer thing to say than “I don’t want to”. Others whine to their single friends because it’s the only safe outlet for those feelings–but it doesn’t mean those feelings dominate their day to day lives.
I hope you’re married. Men are great at picking up snacks and handing you hot water bottles.
I was and I will be again soon-ish, but it’s Seasonale (and Depo, in my younger days) that has saved my sanity.
Agreed. People who know what they want don’t let anything hold them back. Most people don’t seem to know what they want so they get held back or go down the wrong path (unhappily married).
- TWTTWN
Just to let you know, you didn’t attribute the quote correctly. I didn’t say what you quoted; MaddyStrut did.
Or unhappily celibate. Or unhappily sleeping around. There are many ways to be unhappy and I doubt marriage is disproportionately represented among them.
The general point you’re arguing is probably correct - it’s better to set your own goals for your own reasons, rather than try to do what you think other people want. And if we only purused self-actualisation rather than social capital maybe we’d all be happier. But the latter behaviour is incredibly common in all walks of life - children try to impress parents; cadets try to impress drill sergeants; new graduates try to impress their first boss; young men try to impress their peer group. Nor is it a bad thing, in fact, for children or soldiers, for example, to be given an ideal to live up to (whether that’s sharing with others or never leaving a man behind). It would be a very rare person who could set their own definitions of success without any reference to what their superiors, peers or (potential) loved ones value; a still rarer one who found those definitions actually helped them get ahead in the world.
I’ve even heard tell that there are socially inept young men who master a whole raft of social skills for the initial purpose of increasing their desirability to women. Some of them may internalise this goal as being one of self-improvement once they’ve had some success, but even among this group I believe there are some who quantify their mastery of life by their ability to get phone numbers from chance-met women.
Sorry for the bad quoting!
Thanks for actually making a good point instead of just throwing completely uncalled for overly-condescending snark based on ignorant stereotypes. I think this is a good point. Your goals can be flexible and change through your life as you learn about yourself (like the kid who decides the army is what he wants). Taking it further you could say the other cadets and sergeants etc in his group help him be his best too because they all have the same (if more minor) goal of turning him into a good soldier.
So then the OPs question could be reduced even further to “do people need other people to be their best?”. Can you be your best with no external influences? Probably not in team sports or jobs that require working together, but could you become a pro-golfer by winging it and studying on your own? Or a pro poker player by memorizing the odds-calculating math involved? A pro body-builder?
Like I say I think the flaw was just in the initial question itself making it a gender thing and using “need” vs “enhance”.
oh, there’s the throwing completely uncalled for overly-condescending snark based on ignorant stereotypes bit. It sure would be easier to discuss stuff if people didn’t add this kind of thing. I’m never the first one to start being a dick, I just say my opinion like everyone else and then someone jumps on the “lol well you admitted you’re a PUA so here’s a bunch of witty zings insulting you and casting judgements on your lifestyle and as a person, even though you haven’t actually been mean to me”. I didn’t bring up my arrogant (but true) point that I have more experience until someone else condescendingly told me i don’t know how the real world works with grown-up men and grown-up women.
- TWTTWN