OK, I’ll just add this: It’s about fear. It’s about gender roles and society. And it’s about Bruce Banner, the Hulk and the Avengers.
“Don’t do something simply to attract people, because chances are you’ll look inauthentic and turn them away.”
…sounds rather like…
“if you’re looking for love, you won’t find it. So do what you’d do if you weren’t looking.”
Not exactly the same as “you’ll find it when you stop looking”, of course, but somewhat in the same ballpark. Don’t take the cooking class, all the women will know you’re just there to hit on them, creep. Take the robotics class, where your passion for the subject will be so much more genuine and impressive. Well, I took the robotics class and I’m still here; you can guess how many women were in it. I learned a bit about robotics, though, which is cool.
How about this?
Don’t take the cooking class because you think the girl of your dreams will be there waiting for you.
Take a cooking class because you are interested in learning to cook AND because you want to have something to talk about just in case someone asks “What do you do for fun?”
Is taking a cooking class a guarantee that you’ll be more attractive? No. But it increases the likelihood.
If you’ve tried the guitar thing, the horsebiking thing, the Roman history thing, and the robotics thing and you’re still all alone, well guess what? It means that your problem isn’t that you don’t have enough extracurricular activities. And seriously, that’s all it means. No one is saying engaging in social activities is a sure-fire way to get a girlfriend. It just puts you in a different category than the guy who sits on the couch all day, talking about how “nice” he is.
If all of your default interests are stereotypically masculine - guns, naval warfare tactics, motorcycle maintenance, robotics - then most women will not find you interesting enough to spend time with. There are a few out there, but you’ll be playing long odds.
If you want to be regarded as interesting by more than just a few women, you need to cultivate your own genuine interest in subjects that they are likely to find interesting. If you know in your heart that you will never ever have a shred of interest in cooking, then no, you shouldn’t take the cooking class. But surely there’s something out there that you can find interesting, that women often find interesting as well. Gain some knowledge and (more importantly) some experience in that area, and you’ll have something to talk about (and do) together.
It also helps to not be one-dimensional. If the only thing you know about is robotics, the conversation and activity list is going to run out pretty quickly (unless you’ve found the one-in-a-million woman who is also a robotics fanatic). Learn about other things - geography, politics, music, art, current events - so that when she mentions her time with the Peace Corps in Eritrea, it won’t be the first time you’ve ever heard of that country.
It also also helps to be genuinely interested in other people. You know how good it feels to have someone interested in you, so show that sort of interest in the woman you’re talking to. Ask her about her history, her interests, her experiences. Find out what music she likes, learn a thing or two about those performers, see if you might (genuinely) like that music too.
OTOH…
If you’re so intensely passionate about robotics that you just can’t muster any interest in other subjects or other people, then consciously accept the choice you’re making: you’d rather be an expert in robotics than pursue/maintain a romantic relationship, and you willingly accept the resultant low probability of finding a low-maintenance romantic partner. I mean that to be as judgment-free as possible; your life is your life, and you get to spend your vital life-juice in whatever way makes you most happy - you just need to understand that your resources are limited, and you’ll want to put some thought into how to best allocate them.
You never know. Tomorrow you may be sitting in the office breakroom and you overhear a nice woman tellng her friend that she wants to do something fun and enriching, but she doesn’t have an idea of what that could be.
Maybe her friend suggests taking a cooking class.
And that’s when you say, “Did you say ‘cooking class’? I know of a good one. Because of the class I took, I can make a better lasgne than my mother’s.”
And the nice woman says, “For real? Was the class fun?”
And that’s when you say, with a little sparkle in your eye, “Yeah, totally. I’ll email you the information.”
And then she’ll say: “That would be awesome, Robot Man!”
And that’s when you say: “Robot Arm, baby.”
OK, scratch the last line.
But you see how it works? The cooking class may not manifest in immediate results. It’s just another thing to mention when someone’s getting to know you.
*“Robot Arm must like to cook if he took a cooking class. Maybe he will volunteer to make something for the office potluck. Maybe he’ll bring that delicious lasagne. He seems like a cool guy.”
*
You asked how what you were saying was similar to “you’ll find it when you stop looking”, and that’s what I was trying to answer.
The truth is I’m interested in robotics and cooking, and a lot of other things as well. There’s a kitchen supply store near me that does one-day classes on how to cook specific dishes. I haven’t been to one yet, but I will.
Then my problem must be something else. That’s what I’m still trying to figure out.
I posted a list of things I’m interested in upthread; some of them lean rather masculine, and some not.
I already make a better lasagne than my mother’s. Seriously mom, cottage cheese?
Well, you have to be sincere. Once you can fake that you have it made. (George Burns, I think.)
And you don’t have to claim that horse riding is the best thing in the world - just that it seems interesting and you want to try it, and of course that you love horses. (Not hard to do, even if you are shoveling money into their mouths.) Clearly you don’t do this if your regular routine is working for you in meeting women.
There are better ways, but my daughter rode from 4th grade right through college, and barns were the mirror of science fiction clubs 40 years ago - very predominantly female vs male. (I think sf is better now.)
When I was watching my daughter ride I did think more than once that if I were a teenage boy this would not be a bad place to hang out.
But even if someone does it is no guarantee that a guy with no success in regular activities would have success there.
Anyhow, the real point is that “nice” guys should stop thinking about themselves and start thinking from the point of view of someone they want to attract.
Thanks - that’s exactly what I meant.
No one would ever describe me as a bad boy. But when I was in school I didn’t really have any difficulty getting dates, and I definitely never felt the level of frustration we see here.
I was a member of a science fiction club in grad school with just one woman. I asked her out, and she accepted. No one else bothered to. It was no big deal. And I’m pretty sure I was less appealing than Quasimodal.
And that activities that can be described as sausage fests aren’t conducive to meeting women or giving you topics to talk to women about. (It goes the other way as well, the Jane Austen club is probably not the place to meet guys - and it probably isn’t the topic of conversation most guys are going to enjoy for two or three hours at a time. Mention it - and if he doesn’t respond with some variation of “oh, Persuasion is my favorite” - move the hell on.)
You know what’s even worse though - when those sausage fest activities actually manage to attract a real live female of the species, and then the “nice” guys chase her off. My daughter tried Knowledge Bowl at school - a room full of guys who went out of their way to make her feel uncomfortable and not welcome. Or the “fake geek girl” thing. Or the “we have a girl in our D&D group, lets have all our characters rape her” thing.
If you’re reading this Martian Bigfoot, I just wanted to explain another reason why your advice (pick up a guitar and be sexy about it) strikes me as not really good for the guys we’re talking about. I hope you haven’t taken a permanent vacation from the thread.
Now, I’m defining a “nice guy” as someone who is in his late 20s and older, has a chronic problem attracting dates, and appears to be an OK guy in both looks and personality, albeit with some social awkwardness and minor imperfections:
A woman who is likely compatible with a “nice guy” isn’t looking for a “bad boy”. True, she may find a “bad boy” stereotype sexy and attractive. But she ain’t dumb. She knows she’s out of the bad boy’s league. Because maybe she’s not conventionally “hawt”. Maybe she’s socially awkward. Maybe she knows she doesn’t have the energy to keep up with a bad boy and their bad boy ways, especially since she’s older with little time to waste.
So sure, the “nice guy” kind of woman may react in a positive way if she sees a guy flex his muscles (literally or metaphorically). But I’m not thinking her first thought will be, “Mmm, I hope he’s gonna ask me out!” It’s probably going to be, “I don’t know why I’m even looking at this guy. There’s no way he’s going to be interested in a girl like me!” And if this macho guy does ask her out, she’ll be so intimidated that she will probably push him away. “He must think I’m some kind of slut if he’s talking to the likes of me! Either that, or he must be high on cocaine!”
The “nice guy” kind of woman has been given the same advice as the “nice guy”–find an activity you enjoy and try to do it with other people. So you’ll see her showing up at the cooking class, the pub trivia night, the slacklining meet-up, and science fiction book club. And all the while, she’ll be subtly looking out for the guy who is clearly a newbie (just like she is!) but who is having a good time about it (OMG confidence!) And later, when she talks about her weekend adventures in the office breakroom, she’ll pay special notice to the guy who says something like, “You play pub trivia? I play too sometimes. I hope you’re better at it than me!” (smiles and laughs, twinkle in eye)
Meanwhile, the “bad boy” is standing off in the corner, rolling his eyes at the mere concept of “pub trivia”.
(OK, that last line probably isn’t true.)
I wonder if nice guys have a better shot at clicking with someone if they can hold off becoming bitter in their late twenties or early thirties. I’d think more people of both genders are wanting to settle down at this point. I probably scared off the woman I dated a year before Ms. P and I met. Even though I never said so, I wonder if she thought oh my god, he seems ready to settle down" and ran in the opposite direction. She went from talking about us doing things together months in the future to saying that, even thougn I was the nicest person she ever dated, she couldn’t make a committment. I had never mentioned it, but she may have sensed that I was thinking it. When I had been dating my future wife around the amount of time when I was dumped before I got a little worried that I would scare her off. But because she was at a different point in her life, that was what she hoped would happen.
The point of that story is that, while we nice guys may start getting that initial attraction we didn’t see before, there’s still the problem of usually being less experienced in the relationship department than the women we meet. As a 30 year old who had dated very little, it was unlikely that I’d meet someone around my age and maturity level who didn’t have a lot more relationship experience than me. And I never did. My wife had been in two long term relationships before we met, and it would be fair to say that my never having been in one of more than a few months sometimes presented challenges. We were able to overcome it, but I can see it being insurmountable for some people.
I’m here. I’m working on something. I feel half-decent about it, although it may be TL;DR. Like, three posts. But I guess that’s better than a hundred posts of futzing around.
I’ve PM’ed some stuff to Robot Arm for reality checking purposes. I have no idea if he’s received it, though, I may have klutzed up the PM thing. I don’t always computer well.
I think you said you date fairly often, you just haven’t been in a relationship recently. Maybe using eHarmony could help you find a relationship. Like I said on another thread you could also consider finding a partner overseas such as in Asia. It is apparently easy to find women in some of those countries. BTW I am 37 and have only ever dated my wife - no other romantic encounters. I think you should be grateful that you do date quite a lot and have had some relationships. My sisters have been single for many years. BTW apparently if you are satisfied with being single it is MUCH more likely that girls will be attracted to you. That was the case with me meeting my wife.
monstro, can I send you the same three PMs I sent to Robot Arm? I mean, exactly as they were written. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m over here, whispering things behind your back. I want you in the loop, because I mention your name in them.
Just keep in mind that it’s me talking directly to Robot Arm, if the pronouns get confusing.
If you don’t do PMs as a thing, then I won’t. I’ll just stick them in the thread. But it’s not really edited to thread level. It’s a bit TL;DR.
Sure.
I just replied. You (monstro) are welcome to those, too, if you like.
I think there’s also a generational thing to consider. The “nice guys” of 20 years ago were dealing with a different female population than the guys today are.
There are more than a few inexperienced women out there because of the options that have opened up for women. The days of going to college to get a Mrs degree are long over. Increasingly more women have dedicated themselves to school and career, spending less tme on their social lives. And while a “nice guy” might feel angsty about his single status during his college years, I think women are more likely to be okay with theirs. Probably because they are less likely to hear (or absorb the message) that they are “losers” . Unattached women hardly ever gets called “spinster” anymore, but I suppose that’s what girls back in the day were called who made it to their 30s without a man on her arm.
And then when many do hit their 30s, they realize that if they want to actually have a family, they need to get their head out of the books and start looking.
So while I agree that inexperienced single guys probably outnumber inexperienced single girls by a considerable amount, I think the gap is shrinking.
I’m opposed to doing things that “women dig” not just because women are not homogenous enough to make safe generalizations about what specific attributes they collectively find attractive, but because the women who are attracted to timid guys with little experience are likely smart enough not to put weight on specific attributes (like plays a guitar, rides motorcycles, has big muscles etc.). Teenaged girls glom onto stereotypes and images (OMG! I totally love jocks!). But a 30-year-old woman who had no interest being a boy-crazy adolescent back when she was an adolescent doesn’t want a jock, geek, a guitarist, or a biker. She wants an entire human being who can see her as an entire human being.
Not being an identifiable “type” probably didn’t hurt me when I met someone ready to settle down and start a family. Interesting what you said about the generational difference, Monstro. I never dated anyone who didn’t have considerably more dating experience. Being in a relationship can be a learning experience, and I was definitely behind the curve. I was also probably hard to figure out. I may be a lot of things, but simple ain’t one of them.