I don’t disagree, but I’d put the ranking more simply:
Men with positive qualities (confident, good looking, etc.)
Men lacking in these positive qualities.
Whether a particular man is a jerk or not is a separate issue: many women (but not all) would find that a massive turn-off - some women don’t: maybe because they are jerks themselves, or maybe because they are shallow, or maybe because they are socialized that way.
It is no different from how men see women, really. Though the difference I suspect is that men tend to rate looks higher than self-confidence as criteria of attractiveness.
A man is just as likely to overlook negative personality traits (such as jerkishness) in women, if he thinks they are hot: some will, some will not. The net result is the same: overall, women who are hot jerks will do ‘better’ (as in attract more male attention) than women who are not hot, but not jerks. The quality of that attention may be an issue, of course …
The main difference is actually a big benefit to men: in our society, for whatever reason, men have more ways to appeal to women on this shallow level. A women is at a big disadvantage if she is not physically hot (not insurmountable of course, but moreso than a man). A man can more easily make up for lack of being physically hot, by confidence, humour, and the like.
This is an answer to the question/lament about why people don’t give advice - the ‘nice guy’ will get defensive and argumentative if you point out anything unpleasant in his actions or beliefs, no matter how toxic the stuff he’s saying is. This isn’t limited to nice guys, most people don’t want to hear anything even mildly negative about themselves, especially if it means they have to take the blame for their own situation. And note that it isn’t just one guy jumping to a wild conclusion, multiple people who read the post reached the conclusion that something smelled significantly bad in it.
The thing is, when you’re actually out in the world dating or trying to hook up, if she catches what she thinks is a red flag, she doesn’t have justify or explain her decision before she writes you off. Most likely she will just politely finish the date and walk away without being overly negative (way too many guys take rejection badly), then no second date. You don’t get a chance to explain your side and argue that she’s being unfair, or to have someone come in and play ‘devil’s advocate’ for you - or to complain that she’s jumping to conclusions or being onerously judgmental. I’ve seen a friend mine on OKC when she was in her early 20s before she found a LTR that’s suits her, and her sorting wasn’t based off of ‘let me give this guy the benefit of the doubt’, it was ‘is there a red flag? OK no need to waste time’. (And some of the stuff you’ve said is the kind of stuff I’ve heard her complain or laughed about ).
You said in your post that your experience with getting rejected in the dating world, which you barely put any time or energy into, causes you “to be more broadly cynical towards women in general.” There is a clear implication that you feel that women are wronging you, because people don’t generally get “more broadly cynical towards” a particular group if they think that group is behaving as they should and treating you in a reasonable way. But the only thing that they are doing is putting as little effort into dating you as you are into dating them. (Blaming women for doing what you’re doing also hits the ‘hypocrisy’ tag, BTW).
“I’m getting bitter and cynical towards you women because you don’t date/romance/bang/whatever me” looks extremely toxic and indicative of a lot of problems to all of the women I know who have recent experience dating.
First off, the contention that something can’t be assholish because a lot of young guys do it is flawed in and of itself, but is really absurd in a thread about nice guys where some people assert that anyone getting any kind of attention from women is a jerk.
Yes, locker room bragging is assholish behavior, even if it’s not rare. The fact that the vast majority of men won’t do that sort of bragging around women they’re interested in should be a clue. And it’s certainly not anything that would be considered ‘nice’ behavior, so why are you listing it as part of your experience of being a ‘nice’ guy? Bragging on sleeping with women like they’re a prize to be won is objectification, so that’s one example of the things I listed. Would you feel as highly about a woman with a similarly high sex number? If no, then it’s an example of hypocrisy and misogyny too.
Did you have something different in mind behind thee statement when you made it? Could be - but I explicitly said that “the meat of the ‘not nice stuff’ is in the subtext and implications of this, so it would take a bunch of back and forth to sort out how much is phrasing…”.
Most of the time if a woman hears you talking about how envious you are of your friend who bagged two dozen chicks, most of them hotties, they’re not going to take it well. If you’re saying this to us when you’re trying to show how nice you are, you’re likely displaying the same attitude when conversing, even if you’re smart enough not to directly say that you envy the guy with the high sex number.
Because random women who happen to talk to you briefly don’t owe you anything, much less have an obligation to become some sort of freelance therapist. ESPECIALLY when pretty much every woman who tries it ends up getting threats of rape, assault, and/or death.
Hm, you’re right that this doesn’t seem helpful as a coda to a rejection. However, if someone told me “I can’t understand why I can’t find a nice guy/girl” I would offer up the above as applicable.
It does seem pretty counterproductive to keep fishing in the same pond and throwing back everyone you don’t like just so the next person has to deal with them and expect the undesirable catch to intuit the problem and fix it without so much as a hint to what’s the problem. And cue complaints about how (online) dating is so hard.
If you say you’re busy you can’t complain if people come back to ask again. I know it sounds unlikely, but there are real people out there that are actually busy.
Sure. I think most of the people commenting in the thread try to be helpful if someone asks for help.
But you can’t help someone who isn’t asking for help. You definitely can’t help someone who actively rejects your help.
I think the crux of the matter here is the “hint as to what’s the problem.” We’ve had a million (okay, maybe half a million) of these threads. Lots of women have stepped up in these threads to give more than hints. And lots of the guys are the same guys over and over and over and over. And sometimes those same guys tell us things like “women don’t know what they want,” or “women don’t like nice guys.”
This is, for the most part, a pretty safe space for women actually to say what the problem is. One on one? Lots of women aren’t going to risk it. Here? Lots of women do risk it and are ignored, or patronized, or insulted. Sometimes, the messages get through.
So, how are women supposed to give these hints, or shouts, or big fucking clues without risk? I think those of us who like men a lot would love your suggestions.
A lot of the time (if not most), its difficult to diagnose the root cause for simply not being into someone. I’ve met plenty of perfectly decent, non-hideous men and have felt zero desire to date them. If they wanted to know the basis for rejection, what exactly would I tell them? That for ill-defined reasons, just the thought of kissing you makes my uterus hurt? How is that helpful?
In many cases that haven’t met this ill-defined condition of disinterest, it didn’t really feel like my place to point out issues I see happen to see as flaws that others either might not care about or are almost impossible to change. For instance, one guy turned me off because he could never join me in discussing ideas and abstract concepts. He could only talk about people, places, and things. There is no cure for this, in my experience. Just like its impossible for me to suddenly enjoy talking at length about every mundane moment in my day, you can’t expect a concrete thinker to turn into a navel-gazing philosophizer.
But another woman might have zero problem with this guy, and in fact be very happy to have a man who delights in hearing about the shoes she bought last weekend or whatever because he too has news of equal importance to share.
So how helpful would it be for me to essentially tell him he bores me intellectually because he can’t talk at “my level”?
There sure are, but there’s also a difference between “I’m busy” and “I’m busy Saturday night , how about ( Friday , Saturday afternoon, next Thursday) ?”
Might there be overly literal people who truly don’t understand this? Maybe, but they probably don’t understand the stereotypical excuse of “I have to wash my hair” either.
Non-rhetorical (at all) question. Do the guys who hear a blanket “I’m busy” as “try again later” hear it the same way when men say it? A boss, or coworker, or brother, or father, or friend?
Yes, actually you can complain. The question is whether that complaint is actionable.
But you know, my answer was actually tongue in cheekish, and not meant to interpret literally. The point being that a woman who gets fed up with a guy pestering her eventually will reach a breaking point where politeness and coyness goes out the window, and more drastic forms of self-expression will be used that may hurt a guy far more than anything he expected.
This is what happens when you push people out of their comfort zones.
Well, I certainly don’t have all the answers. And I’m very happy that we can have this debate here in a (mostly) civil way without people ignoring, patronizing or insulting each other. That’s certainly my goal and if I’m not succeeding, I promise to make a valiant attempt at taking any feedback as constructive.
There are people who like blunt directness and people who like little (or not so little) white lies. “Do these pants make me look fat?”
“No, it’s your huge behind that makes you look fat” vs “No they look great on you!”
But it’s usually possible to be tactful and at least stay in the general neighborhood of the truth: “I like the blue ones better on you.”
I know there have been plenty of times when people have hinted at certain things towards me and I never picked it up at the time, but only realized what they meant much later. And I consider myself average to above average at these things. I can’t imagine how bad this must be for truly clueless people. Hint-speak just isn’t a reliable way to get information across, and that’s the point, really, because you need plausible deniability. So don’t be too annoyed when the hints don’t work.
Three problems with “explaining” a rejection, as the rejector:
The default should be no rather than yes. The burden shouldn’t be on the rejector. If a company doesn’t hire an applicant, that’s because the default is no. A person doesn’t get hired unless there is a particularly good reason ***to ***hire them. You need a compelling case for “yes,” not a compelling case for “no.”
Sometimes a rejector can’t quite articulate the exact precise reason why he or she dislikes a suitor. (or “suit-ress?” what’s the female equivalent?)
What if the rejector gives a “reason,” and the rejectee fixes the reason? Rejector: “Sorry, you’re too fat.” Rejectee: “OK.” (loses 50 pounds.) A year later: “I’m back!” Is the rejector obligated to date that person? No, but it’s awkward now, because the “reason” has been “addressed.”
If it were true that "“women like jerks” apart from a few “outliers,”, it would not follow from this that most married men are jerks. Any more than saying “men like thin women, apart from a few outliers” implies that most married women are thin. It’s an elementary logical error, which was well illustrated by Velocity’s analogy, and your criticism was invalid.
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t does seem pretty counterproductive to keep fishing in the same pond and throwing back everyone you don’t like just so the next person has to deal with them and expect the undesirable catch to intuit the problem and fix it without so much as a hint to what’s the problem. And cue complaints about how (online) dating is so hard.
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Guys hit on women irrespective of whether those women are actively “fishing”. Why should a woman who isn’t even thinking about dating/being in a relationship feel obligated to play dating coach to the random stranger who hollers at her at the Starbuck?
Yes, really. I literally don’t know a single woman who has been actively dating for a decent amount of time in the current decade who attempted do the ‘explain why you were rejected thing’ routinely who didn’t get at least one assault/rape/death threat for it. I know at least a dozen who have, and I’ve seen many more on message boards about dating. They’re not necessarily credible threats, as they’re usually online or in text by someone who she’s not going to see again, but they happen with alarming frequency.
BTW, another problem that nice guys have is that a side effect of treating women like some alien being leads to completely dismissing the actual experience of women. For all the ‘female friends can’t help you learn to date’ silliness, it is definitely true if you are going to dismiss their experience and advice.