Jesus, I think we might know the same guy.
For the record, I was one of the ‘too shy to ask women out’ in high school that, er, got a much more active social life in university. My wife has a hard time believing I wasn’t always as socially active.
No kidding. Look, I am not a sewer beast. I’m not the hottest girl in the room (well, looking around, I might be, but that’s because there’s a lot of bums in here today) but I am by no means ugly. I’ve been in a relationship for almost six years now, but when I was actively seeking guys I have NEVER, never in my life (and, by the way, I was hotter then) been approached by any guy who wasn’t clearly unsuitable. And by unsuitable I mean homeless and my dad’s age. I don’t know what makes me unapproachable, but I certainly couldn’t get laid just by standing there. Every single person I have ever dated I met through online dating sites.
A couple points:
First, women work their *asses *off to get noticed by men. I think it’s beginning to even out some (what with “manscaping” and all) but overall there is just no contest. Anyone who says, “Women just have to stand there and look attractive,” is not only wrong objectively, as referenced above, but has also completely dismissed the amount of work that goes into looking attractive for a woman in our society. So right there, that’s messed up.
And woman who are “10’s” work even harder. I’m not saying a lot of them don’t enjoy the game, so to speak, but they work incredibly hard to look as nice as they do (and then are frequently dismissed as “high maintenence”, but that’s a different rant). Women who want to date highly desirable men spend a lot of time and effort on that pursuit, and frankly it pisses me off that low-status men consider this “unfair” and get upset that they can’t bag a high status women simply for existing.
Secondly, a lot of the men who follow this stuff are socially inept, to say the least. They never ask out anyone until they are instructed by these Pick Up Artists. They may think it works for them, but that’s because anything would. If you go out and ask every woman you see to have sex, some will say yes. If you have even a modicum of charm or personal hygiene, you’re going to do even better than that. And again, the more you try it, the less foolish you feel (and look) and the better your success rate will be. So these guys might not feel ripped off, because they now have dates, but the truth is their “Secret Game” is just Dumbo’s feather; they are doing better because they are doing something.
So, in answer to the OP, my opinion is that it’s probably a wash. There is a lot of awful ideas about women that fester in these communities, but those “Nice Guys” were probably mostly like that before, so I’m not sure it matters. I think the truly sweet men who just need a little help getting out there move past all that and do fine later, and the confidence helps them. What I really wish is that there was a community that *wasn’t *based on scoring with women as if they were objects, and wasn’t so inundated with misogyny that would help shy men find confidence, but so far that isn’t happening. That would be something that would be wholly good, in my opinion.
You saw Black Swan and think her character was best described as “shy”?
While yes, I agree that shy woman will be approached more than shy man (though he will likely be crushed on just as often, if he is cute and seems nice), if she doesn’t want a loudmouth or a stranger hitting on her… so what? Being hit on 100 times by people you’re not attracted to isn’t inherently worth more than connecting once with someone you actually like.
I guess what I don’t like about PUAs is the sense of entitlement. It is always assumed that these guys deserve to be having sex with the hottest women possible. Sex is not a right. As the linked comic suggest, I really think they deserve the women reading The Rules. Then when their relationships sour they can wonder what the hell went wrong and say “It’s like I didn’t even know him/her!” while their friends laugh at them.
The “women just have to stand there” meme also grates on me. We spend buttloads of money on make-up, clothes, bath products, manicures, perfumes, etc. We spend most of our public life uncomfortable in tottery heels, not-quite-warm-enough or binding clothes, nylons (god, how guys love black nylons) and other ridiculous stuff. We spend time dressing, messing with our hair, shaving the whole damn body, etc. Go look at some people out on a date one day and estimate how much effort each one put into it.
Then there is the mental energy of somehow attracting guys without turning them off by being too forward. We need to be intriguing and interesting, but not intimidating. We need to be welcoming but not too eager. There are tricks we use…I discovered that if I dumb myself down a bit and add a little stumble to my walk, it goes right to men’s hearts. I think it’s stupid, but it works.
We need to make positive moves, too, but we have to go about it in devious ways- which is a lot of work to figure out. A guy can just say “Hey, let’s go up to my room” but a woman often has to pull some stuff like “Uh, I really have to go to the bathroom…” and wait for him to invite you up or whatever. It’s a lot easier to actually say your intentions than to try to sit around projecting them.
I don’t know a single guy who gives a shit about any of this stuff unless they’re taking a date to a formal event.
How is this different than what those PUA’s do?
They (claim to) have discovered similar “tricks” about women, and are just spreading the word.
For me, this stuff is about diminishing my own self-esteem. I’m sure I could get laid more often and by a more highly prized bunch of women (younger, prettier, sexier, though I’ve no real complaints now) if i were willing to work hard enough at mastering these techniques, but I think I’d feel worse about myself–that I’m not charming just the way I am, that women don’t find me inherently interesting, and that I have to do all sorts of stuff that I ordinarily don’t do (and don’t feel comfortable pretending that it’s just my natural self). I might get laid by a better class of woman (maybe) but I’d have to confront the fact that I couldn’t do that just being myself, which tends to make me feel worse, not better, about myself. And I’d find it hard to transition into a real relationship if I were in one that started by pretending to someone radicially different from myself.
Really? You don’t know a single guy who prefers a woman with a nice hairdo? Attractive, well fitting, fashionable clothes instead of sweatpants? You don’t know a single guy who prefers his date wear makeup, unless they are going to a formal event? You don’t know a single guy who prefers a woman who shaves her legs and armpits? What about pubic hair? You don’t know any men who prefer women clean shaven, or attractively trimmed “down there”? You don’t know any guys who find heels sexier than sneakers? Are you fucking kidding us? :rolleyes:
Imagine the time before makeup and personal grooming was invented. Some women were naturally good-looking, with dark eyelashes, well-shaped eyebrows, with a good color on their cheeks, awesome plump red lips, and barely a hair on their body.
In those times the women who lacked these things couldn’t do much about it, and maybe when makeup and personal grooming was first invented and tried out in public, it may have met a backlash in the form of “why are you pretending to be something you aren’t”?
Nevertheless, over centuries, it has become accepted that women go through the arduous personal grooming rituals you mention, in order to provide the illusion that they have dark eyelashes, well-shaped eyebrows, with a good color on their cheeks, awesome plump red lips, and barely a hair on their body.
And not only is it accepted, it is now more or less expected of women to do so.
It’s possible that whatever these PUA’s are doing may, centuries later, be not only accepted but expected from every man.
The one issue I see that may prevent this is that the whole PUA thing/community feels a bit loserish and skeevy, but then again, maybe the first women who put on makeup and shaved their legs came across as loserish and skeevy.
What a lovely “Just So” Story. Got a cite for any of that made up history?
Besides the fact of- so? Maybe people would rather move to a more authentic model in relationships, rather than make both sides as phoney as possible. Certainly there are plenty of women agitating for that.
Do you need a cite that at some point in human history there was no makeup? Or that makeup is meant to mimic features that men find attractive in women?
I don’t disagree that people want less phoniness. But, if women stop being phony about their looks and go with their natural looks, and if men stop being phony about their “swagger” and go with their natural character, I don’t think the majority of people would like the outcome (which I think is one where the top 10% of men and women get all the action/attention and if you’re not one of them you won’t be able to do anything about it). Being “phony” in this context means that lower-status men and women use their brains to mimic characteristics in order to appear higher-status to the opposite sex.
Polerius
I’m sure you are aware that beauty standards change dramatically from place to place. In my experience, the ultimate decider of “what is beautiful” is what signals status through time and money.
For example, we value shaved legs. But in Cameroon, people valued hairy legs. Why? It turns out cooking over an open fire singes your leg hair and eventually it stops growing. Women with leg hair obviously had enough money not to cook all day, and thus were highly desirable as status symbols.
Farmers want the white skin of someone who sits comfortably indoors all day, while office workers want the tan skin of someone who spends a lot of time doing leisure activities. People without a lot of food value plump-well fed women, while people with plentiful food want women who spend a lot of mental energy controlling what they eat. People in places where women do manual labor dream of the supple limbs of idle girls, while people in places where women do sit-down jobs value gym-bunny bods.
In other words, the very point of these beauty rituals is that they take time and money. Of course some things are universal- a varying degree of youth, signs of fertility, etc. But the exact details are pretty damn cultural.
You’d be surprised.
While most men don’t have exact words for it, men do know when a woman “takes care of herself.” They may say “Oh, I don’t care how she dresses,” but they do notice (and stay fascinated) when you know how to dress and keep things new. I’ve experimented with different levels, and tiny details like taking care of your nails or wearing delicate shoes really does make a difference. Even if you don’t notice the details, you notice how day after day they add up.
Wodaabe men might disagree.
Well, to be fair it’s not like guys have it any easier. You try coming across as confident and assertive without sending ‘potential rapist/stalker’ vibes.
Granted, guys have it a bit lucky in that we’ve missed the whole makeup thing (but us cyclists tend to share leg shaving secrets with our much better halves). But guys spend time at the gym. And guys do spend time thinking about what to wear before a date (it’s hard pulling off the ‘casually awesome’ look unless you’ve had lots of practice).
Overall I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. How a person carries themself is an excellent sign of their self-esteem, and if they can’t even take care of themself I suspect they’ll struggle to take care of a relationship.
Because the best “technique” is still and always going to be “having shit tons of money” and selling their books on how to get women to let you put your penis in them is a very good way of getting that money.
I agree that a big component is cultural, but how does that relate to what I was saying?
In places where being tanned is attractive, women fake it by buying bronzing cream or going to tanning salons.
In places where long eyelashes are attractive, women fake it by putting on fake eyelashes or eyelass-extending makeup.
In places where big breasts are attractive, women fake it by buying push-up bras (or cup-enhancing bras).
In Cameroon, where you claim hairy legs are attractive (cite? BTW), if women were behaving like Western women, they would fake it by getting heat-resistant leg hair implants or some sort of leg makeup that gives the appearance of hairy legs.
The point is that it is socially OK for women to fake having the qualities men desire in women.
It doesn’t matter that the set of qualities men desire in women changes from society to society.
I’m going to need a cite about a time in recorded history when people (men and women) didn’t work to improve their appearance, yes. It is my understanding that anthropologists have even found sharpened clamshells they believe were used for shaving, so it seems like a feature of humanity the predates even recorded history.
As I said, it’s a lovely story, but it is one you made up and isn’t true for any society I can think of, or have read about, but of course if you have a cite to show the opposite, let’s see it.
At this point we’re going to have to agree to disagree. First of all, the line between phoniness and hygiene is blurrier than it might appear on first thought.
Secondly, I think most people manage to have sex. Ugly people, fat people, weird people, mean people, poor people; basically for every type of flaw a person can have (and even a multitude of them!) I’ve met someone who fits the description who is getting laid. The difference is that they are fucking people in their league and not sitting around all butthurt about it. PUA’s and their followers want to fuck women out of their league, and think they have invented a system that allows them to do that. I think the degree they are successful in that pursuit is debatable (because I think they lie) but as I said above, I don’t think this makes the concept as a whole a bad thing. I think it’s probably a wash.
Of course I didn’t mean that one type of makeup attracts all men everywhere. You can take my statement as “makeup in Western culture is meant to mimic features that men in Western culture find attractive in women”
No, we really can’t, because you tried to say that in times and places that weren’t western culture people strove to meet those ideals and failed, and that is demonstrably false.