**Fotheringay-Phipps **already addressed it best, IMHO:
Therefore:
If someone says women like jerks, it does not follow that most married/involved men are jerks. It just means that jerk traits are an appealing aspect for many women.
Emphasis, of course, on ‘many.’ Not all.
Anyway, back on topic:
In my observation, one reason some men mistakenly believe that deception, ‘strategy,’ manipulation or indirect-ness is required to attract a woman is because they have indeed initiated directly to a woman before and been rejected - but then mistakenly conclude that the directness was the reason for the rejection.
You’re ignoring the other half. Let me show you the context again:
If someone says women don’t like nice guys (with “nice guys” defined however you like) who are women marrying? Think about the logic.
Women don’t like “nice guys.”
Many guys get married to women.
Those women are either marrying non-“nice guys” or marrying someone they don’t like.
I don’t mean to tell you what your experience was, and I’m sure there are plenty of things I’ve had good experiences with that I’ll defend and feel good about defending against criticism.
Wouldn’t you agree, though, that the specific reason the key market wouldn’t realize “general conversational skills” would be a class that would help them is because they are specifically looking for “pickup” or “seduction” or “game” techniques? In other words, it’s not a branding issue because seduction and game is exactly what they are attempting to sell to those dudes, isn’t it? Whether or not it’s useful in other social settings is a legitimate point about its utility as a whole, but the explicitly stated purpose of the whole industry is teaching men how to get women to fuck them. It is frustrating sometimes that its defenders will obscure that point as if they acknowledge that there’s a possible downside to that approach, when the purveyors of it put it right up front in bold letters.
I mean, I just googled “PUA” figuring that’s what somebody brand new to the idea would do. The first result is Wikipedia. The second is an anti-PUA PSA.
The third is a forum community of pickup enthusiasts, and if you click on the link you get a popup selling you a video that will tell you, inter alia:
It ain’t about general conversation. In fact, it’s explicitly also not about anything that is mutually affirmative. It’s about mooting the entire idea of consent.
Why are you saying this as if it’s a ridiculous thing to even consider answering the guy’s question?
The problem with offering reasons is that this can give people the idea that fixing those reasons will give them a second chance.
But there is something to be said to let people know about fixable things they’re doing wrong. That way they can do better in the future. If everyone does that this will benefit you as men you encounter won’t be as clueless.
If they were in the position to recognize good men and talk to them, they wouldn’t have the problem at hand in the first place.
Also, “good” women talking to each other doesn’t seem to make them any less single.
If someone says men don’t like “fat women” (with “fat” defined however you like) then who are men marrying?
Men don’t like “fat women.”
Many guys get married to women.
Those men are either marrying “non-fat” women or marrying someone they don’t like.
No it’s not. The problem with offering reasons is that it is offering criticism to somebody who is already feeling rejected and frustrated and has already given at least one slight indication that they’re not worried about pushing the boundaries with you. Do you think they’re all making up the fact that when you answer that question honestly, what you generally get in return is verbal abuse and insults?
That would indeed be the argument that person would be making. You’ve set out the argument. Now you get to assess it.
I must concur that “learning to flirt” and “PUA techniques” appear to be two different things.
The first is something that facilitates a certain type of communication.
The second may have some of that, but looks more like a bunch of techniques for manipulating women into sleeping with the PUA advocate. Looks, at least on the surface, icky. The women involved look more like targets for fun than partners in fun.
So lots of men do in fact like fat women, and whoever keeps saying that men don’t like fat women is a stupid idiot. That’s the solution to the riddle. Are you trying to make some other point with this syllogism?
Are you really trying to deny that thinness in women is an appealing aspect for many men? Or are you trying to make some other point?
I don’t think that’s fair. It isn’t a reasonable expectation that women go around offering life lessons, at the possible cost of embarrassment and hurt feelings directed at them.
Flip the script, and you will see why this doesn’t work (ignoring for the moment the point about women fearing for their physical safety).
Say some woman approaches you, but for whatever reason, she just doesn’t turn your crank. Would you feel at all comfortable saying something like “you know, I’m just not into you, but if you did a few things - like fixed your hair different, maybe had on more (or less) makeup, maybe worked out a little, or dressed a trifle less dowdy (or less revealing, or whatever), or had better hygiene, or more educated tastes, - I could have been”?
I know I wouldn’t be - why should I run the risk of making a possible enemy of her? Lots of women would not at all take such advice as well-meaning constructive criticism, but rather, as a full-blown humiliation and personal attack. I can’t know in advance how she’ll take it, so even if I’m thinking it, I’m hardly likely to blurt it out (however tactfully put).
It is all risk and no benefit. I have nothing necessarily invested in this person, and I’m not likely to take on a bunch of risk for no benefit.
I’m making the point you damn well know I’m making, and the same point that Velocity is hamfistedly contesting, which is that “women don’t like nice guys” is a facile oversimplification of a complicated thing, and overstates the argument to such an extent that it’s obviously false.
It’s especially funny coming in the context of a post that says people should be more “self-centered.”
I disagree. You’re deliberately interpreting “women don’t like nice guys” in absolute terms such that you can refute it. This, despite Velocity taking pains to make clear that this was not his intention (in saying “Emphasis, of course, on ‘many.’ Not all.”)
To be clear (not that it wasn’t already): The suggestion here is that thinness in women is parallel to jerkiness in men. There’s something about it which makes it appealing, and all else being equal possessors of those qualities will tend to have a leg up in terms of appeal for the opposite sex. But this does not imply that all married women are thin or that all married men are jerks.
Very simple, really.
I honestly don’t think it works that way. It is more like there are certain qualities women find attractive, such as confidence and good looks, that are orthogonal to jerkiness. Some women may be willing to overlook, or are so foolish as to not notice, jerkiness in men that possess these positive qualities, but I rather doubt they are actively attracted to jerks.
The equivalent would be men attracted to women who are pretty, despite the fact that they are jerks.
Thinness may be a criterion in a man’s judgment as to the relative prettiness of women (varies with the man - I myself like 'em thin, and I’m willing to accept that’s the majority view, if only for the sake of argument), but I rather doubt jerkishness is an actual criterion for attractiveness in men.
In short - line up men who are equal in positive qualities, only divided into jerks and non-jerks, and I doubt the former have an actual advantage over the latter.
And while doing so, insults both men and women. Men who use the construct think they are just sneering at women, but they are also sneering at men.
I think a ranking goes like this:
The vast majority of discussion on this topic, and confusion for millions of nice guys in the world, centers on the fact that 2# ranks higher than 3#. Nobody thinks it unusual that 1# is higher than 4#.
That’s fine. The problem at this point is that there’s going to be confusion over what the position is versus whether it’s correct. The point of my exchange with JC was what the position is, and whether it’s comparable to men’s preference for thin women. Fact is that it is, for purposes of this discussion, and JsG’s assertion that this implies that married men are jerks is a completely specious one.
That doesn’t mean you can’t disagree with the position itself, as you’re doing here, but it confuses the issue.
Certainly not deliberately or consciously. I’ve suggested that subconsciously there is, in that jerks tend to be perceived as stronger or more self-confident. I don’t have any proof of this, and you can obviously disagree.
But the point again, at this point of the conversation, is that the notion that this position implies that married men are necessarily jerks is silly.
I agree with this. But my hypothesis is that to some extent jerkiness is itself perceived as confidence, and “nice guy” attributes are perceived as weakness. To the extent that you can pull off being seen as confident despite being a nice guy, then all to the better, but I don’t think these things are completely uncorrelated.
Until she loses all sympathy for him and reports him to HR for sexual harassment?