What exactly is a “high status man”? I mean other than obvious examples like Brad Pitt or Tom Brady.
The PUA movement seems very preoccupied about projecting “status”.
Hugh Hefner created that image in the 50’s.
He wrote a monthly column about Jazz, wine, art, and sophistication. He spent years describing a highly refined and cultured man that moved through society.
I’ve tried to find archives of those columns. He quit writing them in the mid 60’s. But he continued hiring quality writers that submitted work for publication in the magazine.
Today his values are almost laughably sexist.
Same here. I think the important thing to recognize with stuff like this is: you don’t have to be an extrovert. You don’t have to pretend to be a different kind of person. But sometimes it’s in your best interest to get out there, even just briefly, and it’s good to know how to do that.
I think society is quite occupied with status, it’s just rarely vocalized.
So I found it useful to learn, for example, social cues that someone is trying to put me down to elevate themselves. There are lots of subtle ways that people do this, and it wasn’t always obvious to me.
This may seem like a stupid question, but WHY is it useful to recognize that?
FWIW I think more often people MISREAD that others are trying to do that when in fact no put down was intended. Meanwhile nothing frustrates someone trying to put someone else down more than the point down not even being noticed.
There’s little gain in recognizing it when there and significant loss in misidentifying something as a put down. A little cluelessness can be a good thing.
My personal take is that those who are the most secure in their status are often not noticing the true attempts of others to be put them down. And that such serves them well.
Consider it the first step in assertiveness training. If you put up with little slights now, who knows what that person will do or say to you next. Let me be clear: I’m not saying that there should be a confrontation. I’m saying it’s good to be able to nip things in the bud so there is no confrontation.
So you’re agreeing with me that it is good to be able to recognize cues correctly.
Not really.
To me the best response to any small put down is to ignore it. Functionally there is little difference between recognizing it and ignoring it and not noticing it in the first place.
I consider myself lucky that I am too clueless to notice small slights, although it did once really anger a sister when she apologized to me for something I had never noticed …
OTOH there is huge value in not falsely reading something as an insult, not being among the easily or even looking to be offended.
Insults that need responses are generally hard to miss.
You just now said there is a problem with people misreading cues. I remember it well because you put it in BLOCK CAPS.
So you’re agreeing with me that being able to recognize cues correctly would be beneficial. I’m not really sure why you’re trying to avoid acknowledging that.
I’m not saying there is any causation or correlation with video games, but I’ve long observed that a lot of my frustrated “nice guy” acquaintances seem to treat dating (and other aspects of life, like work promotions) like a video game. Like, if you do these things and complete this mission or unlock this thing, then you get the prize/princess. Said guys also seemed to be pretty heavy into gaming. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but when people ask me what games I play I explain that I pretty much stopped when I hit the typical age for sports/girls/jobs. That was my peer group (I’m mid-40s) growing up. We played whatever systems and new games came out (and arcades and even floppy PC games) to a point where we all got summer jobs and/or played sports and tried (not always successfully) dating girls. Then we might have played as a very low level hobby here and there and then with our kids when we had them.
Sorry that I am unclear.
Yes it is important to not misread something that was not intended as an insult as one and to react without cause.
It is IMHO OTOH completely fine to be clueless and not recognize small put downs or passive aggressive acts. Recognizing those has little value in my mind as my action will be the same whether I perceive an intended insult or do not. If anything I am a happier person for my ignorance.
Bringing it back to a point relevant to the thread - responding to those sorts of negs is playing someone else’s game by their rules. The PUA movement was selling some mythic guide to a game. Yet not bothering to accept those as the rules, or even to agree on what the objectives are, is often a better approach.
Men generally have a preference for rules-based systems more than women do.
I think the tail is wagging the dog. These men aren’t successful with women for various reasons, usually poor socialization or personality issues that they have to work to overcome. They’re trying to apply a system because that’s what they know how to do.
I don’t think most of the more successful men really have a “system”, they just had better fortune and are satisfied enough that they don’t have to think about it or work on it as much. They don’t know how women really think either, neither of them do.
There are no “rules.” And not all women think alike. Knowing “how women think” is a stupid goal. Deal with women like they’re people and individuals.
That’s no people, that’s my wife!
Hmmm, I dunno. We have seen in recent years the importance of being able to recognize and understand manifestations of systemic bigotry, for example, in the form of “microaggressions” and so forth.
I don’t think everyone should be going around bristling with offense at every fancied slight, but I don’t think it’s helpful to deliberately cultivate social cluelessness about slighting remarks either.
Social cluelessness has historically been a useful (albeit not always conscious) strategy for, e.g., straight white males and other members of societally dominant groups. As members of dominant groups, whose characteristics are by default considered “normal” and positive, and who are on average more likely to be in socially secure positions, they tend to have built-in advantages in “put-down” wars.
So in many ways it’s convenient and comfortable for people in that position to embrace the notion that minor put-downs don’t really matter and it’s okay to be oblivious to them. But that’s a situation in which it’s useful to, as they used to say, “check your privilege”.
Your point does give me pause, and it is consistent with part of my first post:
“Secure in status” is obtained in many ways, including unearned by what you are superficially.
So I will do as you suggest and “check my privilege” … deferring to members of groups more currently subject to the impacts of systematic biases for the case of subtle put downs from a member of a privileged group aimed at you, apparently on the basis of your membership in the less privileged group:
Are you individually better off and well served recognizing each micro aggression aimed at yourself? (Which certainly occur, some without the aggressor even being consciously aware of what they are doing.) Or are you better off behaving as if you were secure enough in your status to not care?
This clearly veers way off the OP. Sorry. And attempting to keep it remotely relevant, whether or not others benefit from your calling micro aggressions out is not the question.
Then the follow up question to try to pull back to this thread - do you feel otherwise about similar level put downs within group? (That I think applies to what @Mijin was referencing more.)
@Mijin - Our of curiosity, is there a particular reason you felt unable to recognize social cues?
I think learning how to recognize and react to social cues is vitally important. Not just for picking up the ladies, but for most things in life. The whole reason reality shows are entertaining (for people who are entertained by them) is that it’s a bunch of crazy people overreacting to every perceived slight.
IIRC from Mystery’s show, the way he might deal with a “put down” from someone in the group is to turn it around on them and make them look like the jerk. like “who brought the fun police?” or “he she always like that”? Something like that.
Introvert isn’t the same thing as shy or socially awkward. It just means you need alone to to recharge whereas extroverts need to be around people to recharge. Where introvertion can become problematic is when you spend too much time alone and you aren’t meeting people.
Cite?
Of interest this is Simon, brother of Sacha.
It was pretty obvious – it wasn’t until my late 20s at which I could say I had more friends than bullies, or a proper girlfriend. My social skills were non-existent.
-but-
I think the framing of “able” vs “unable” to read social cues is very misleading here. Everyone could improve in some way or another, and I’d say the majority of men would benefit significantly from modest improvements.
I think my mention of “slights” has narrowed the conversation too much. Another example might be something like a person who often talks too much. They are failing to recognize cues that the other person has lost (or never had) interest in the topic and/or has something that they would like to share too. (I guess there might be some people so boorish that they don’t care that the other person doesn’t want to hear what they want to say, but I can’t say I’ve met anyone like that).
And I can give dozens more examples; people who are neither doormats nor too talkative will typically have blind spots elsewhere.
One thing to add to this:
I’m not saying that missing social cues is a reason for being bullied. They are not the same thing. I was just illustrating how much of a lost cause I was at one point.
Of more interest are all the people saying the theory is a crock of neurosexist shit.