Young men and relationships

[DemonTree]

@puzzlegal

Agreed. Surely we can praise virtuous men without needing to praise them just for being masculine. Because the flip side of this is denigrating men who happen to be strong in virtues that are more commonly found in women. And that is certainly not good for society, nor for most people in it.

The point was not to praise or denigrate men for different virtues, but to give men who want to be/appear more masculine a positive version of masculinity to aim for, and one that would make them more attractive to women rather than less. Do you think this a reasonable goal, and if so, what would that positive masculinity look like?

@DSeid

But it is how it plays out for the men you reference.

These frustrated men failing at, well life, but specifically at love, are play acting at being what they believe is being “a real man.” They are insecure about their manliness, so they have to act the part.

Depends which men you are talking about. AIUI, the entire point of incels is that they have given up; they are not trying to appeal to women, gain any kind of success, or be manly. They’re egging each other on to ever greater depths of bitterness, and assuring each other that the women they are missing out dating on dating are all shallow, terrible people anyway.

Red pillers probably do fit this description, and their doubling down on negative aspects of masculinity tends to put women off even more.

Then there are men who are not part of these groups, who have been listening to common dating advice, and it isn’t working for them. These are the ones who could potentially be helped.

@DSeid

We all have whatever is innate to ourselves that drives our gender identity, and the internalized gender behavior expectations learned from babyhood on. But when it comes to making decisions on how to act, acting masculine or feminine is a poor guide to being either: just decide by trying being a good person, the best one you can be, guided by who they honestly are. These frustrated young men? Pretty sure that when they do that they will be being seen as masculine.

What should people do when the ‘just be yourself’ advice isn’t working? What if who you are just isn’t attractive to many people?

@DocCathode

I have never had that reaction from any woman I have been involved with. If we cannot safely share our thoughts and feelings with each other, we are not actually romantically involved. We are not even ‘friends with benefits’. True friends share such things. We are just two people who meet up often for dinner and sex.

I’m glad to hear it. These stories were pretty depressing, and I guess men are less likely to spontaneously share the opposite anecdote where they opened up and their partner was supportive.

@Zoobi

@DemonTree

Egalitarian messaging from society is at odds with what is actually attractive to the opposite sex

It’s seems like you are in fact quite in agreement with the neo-patriarchy then.

Please stop this guilt by association crap. Do you have any actual evidence against what I said?

[thorny_locust]

@DemonTree

@Zoobi

@DemonTree

Egalitarian messaging from society is at odds with what is actually attractive to the opposite sex

It’s seems like you are in fact quite in agreement with the neo-patriarchy then.

Please stop this guilt by association crap. Do you have any actual evidence against what I said?

Do you have any actual evidence that women in general aren’t attracted to egalitarian men, or that men in general aren’t attracted to egalitarian women?

Some certainly aren’t, no. But I really don’t think this is an overall genetic built-in; I know too many counterexamples.

[Zoobi]

You want evidence that society treating men and women as equals isn’t destroying sexual attraction?

[DemonTree]

@thorny_locust

Do you have any actual evidence that women in general aren’t attracted to egalitarian men, or that men in general aren’t attracted to egalitarian women?

That isn’t what I meant. Men and women are attracted to somewhat different things, so messaging that says both sexes should aim for the same goals and focus equally on the same attributes is likely to be suboptimal for dating. (It might be good in other ways, though.)

[puzzlegal]

Men and women, on average, are attracted to different things. Just like men and women, on average, find different virtues come more easily to them. While it’s okay to look at what makes people more attractive on average, we each only need to attract a small number of people. There are lots of paths to finding a partner.

[DemonTree]

@thorny_locust

I suppose the difference between us there is that my reaction has always been, “I’m a woman. I’m doing this. Therefore this is a thing that women do.” I’m a girl, I’m doing this, therefore it’s a girl thing; it can be a boy thing too. I’m a woman, I am doing this, therefore it’s a woman thing; it can be a man thing too.

You reminded me of a time at university, when a guy who I knew a little sat next to me in a physics lecture, and upon seeing my notes commented that he always thought girls had neat handwriting. I replied something to the effect that now he knew he was wrong - because I was a girl, and always had terrible handwriting.

I never thought there was anything wrong with being interested in maths and science as a girl, but I knew it made me different. And I could see that things like being overly competitive in games made other people uncomfortable, and made them judge me unfavourably, while it was more expected and tolerated in boys. But I wanted to fit in, and I didn’t want to make people uncomfortable, so I tried to tone it down and avoid acting on those feelings (not very successfully, I don’t think). I still don’t really know what the right path is here between being oneself and having consideration for others.

@puzzlegal

I think it’s a mistake to confuse virtue with sexual attraction. There’s some overlap, of course. But tall men and women who have large bosoms and narrow waists tend to be more sexually attractive than their peers, and neither of those traits is related to virtue.

I don’t think it’s wrong to tell young men that many women find power attractive, and that they might improve their attractiveness by developing whatever power comes naturally to them, whether that’s physical strength or skill at chess. But i don’t think “cultivating power” is a virtue, either, and those same men should be warned that they should also cultivate virtues, like respecting and caring for others.

And as suggested above, there is toxic feminity, too, when women try so hard to be “feminine” that they neglect to be good people.

That’s fair. The idea was that non-toxic masculinity could be about cultivating masculine virtues, and possessing those virtues would hopefully also make a man more attractive to women. But the converse is obviously not true, that everything attractive to women is a virtue.

[DocCathode]

@DemonTree

I never thought there was anything wrong with being interested in maths and science as a girl, but I knew it made me different. And I could see that things like being overly competitive in games made other people uncomfortable, and made them judge me unfavourably, while it was more expected and tolerated in boys. But I wanted to fit in, and I didn’t want to make people uncomfortable, so I tried to tone it down and avoid acting on those feelings (not very successfully, I don’t think). I still don’t really know what the right path is here between being oneself and having consideration for others.

As a general rule, I do not care at all what strangers think of me. Yesterday, my beloved and I went to an Indian restaurant we had never been to before. When my meal came, I picked up the serving bowl and poured the whole thing onto my plate as I always do. The plate was more shallow than I thought and some sauce overflowed onto the table. I also managed to get a little sauce on my shirt while eating. She was strangely upset by this.

On the car ride back to my apartment, we discussed things. She asked if I thought my behavior was “sloppy”. I said no, not really. She asked if I cared if the staff at the restaurant thought I was sloppy. I was rather stunned. As I have told her many times, no- I didn;t care at all. The only person in that restaurant whose opinion mattered to me was her.

Sometimes, just because I felt like it, ran errands and/or rode the bus dressed as a clown, wearing a brown hooded cloak and carrying a staff, etc.

I have a romantic partner. So I am not looking for one and do not care whether I make a favorable impression on random women I meet.

I care somewhat what the other tenants in this building think of me. Having their goodwill has a practical value.

I care somewhat what people in this neighborhood think of me. I would very much like it if they trusted me enough to let me show their kids magic tricks and such, and to let me play with their dogs.

Beyond that? I do not care what strangers think. Various people have told me that I should. None of them have ever given a valid reason why I should.

[DSeid]

@DemonTree

The fact they need proxies of power to appeal is kind of the issue here, no?

Sort of.

Yes women judge (not necessarily consciously) potential partners partly by some combine score of measures that are proxies of power, and how that score relates to their own. This combined score is not a checklist of masculinity.

These scores include physical factors, like height and athletic build. Signs of social status and intellectual strength, like educational level and job title. Wealth and income. Signs of social skill, like wit and apparent confidence. Values like willingness to defend others.

None is evaluated in isolation of all the others, or equally by any two women. And typically that relative to their own bit applies … as discussed a short man might have more success with a woman who he is even the same height as him than one he is shorter than. All else being equal.

So a man who has little power in that combine is at a disadvantage. They are losing in life and love. Harder to find the woman their combine appeals to relative to their own.

This btw has nothing to do with being open with feelings and vulnerable, other than that these men are often really bad at it, little practice. And of course if the feelings they share are mostly ones of bitterness and resentment or self contempt it doesn’t fly well. OTOH the ability to share feelings without being overwhelmed by them can fall into the confidence bucket. And in any case it is something not dumped out all at once first meeting.

These men are desperate and desperate people are easy marks for snake oil.

@DemonTree

What should people do when the ‘just be yourself’ advice isn’t working? What if who you are just isn’t attractive to many people?

Here’s the thing. There is no simple cure for their problem. They can work on their true strengths and present themselves more confidently in a greater variety of environments. It doesn’t have to be attractive to many; just the right one …. take the rejections in stride and keep get your swings at bay. That is a difficult treatment course. Hard.

There is snake oil that is just sugar water, maybe even has a positive placebo effect, and snake oil that is drinking poison or even that harms others.

Buying into demonstrating power by putting women in their place, by being a bully, by adopting caricatures of manliness, is in the last group. It is not just snake oil: it harms both themselves and others. They won’t treat what ails them by buying into being more controlling men.

[DSeid]

I’ve only quickly skimmed this article and already feel like it belongs here:

Opinion | The Toxic Male Is Ready for His Close-Up

[Ulfreida]

To think that almost all of these issues would be solved if we just re-instituted arranged marriage.

[carrps]

I just watched a movie on TCM last night called Seventh Veil. It was one of those 1940s movies about psychiatrists finding that one key thing that cures the mentally ill person. Starring James Mason and Ann Todd. The Mason character was Todd’s guardian and was horribly controlling and abusive (verbally and once tried to smash her hands with his cane). It ends with the doctor bringing the three men in her life together with the intention that she’ll be magically cured and choose the right guy. Horrifically, she chooses Mason.

Imbd had a trivia item about the Queen Mother attending a special screening, and she somehow missed the very end of the movie. When Todd told her what happened, the QM was disappointed and said she’d hoped she go off with the “nice, clean American.” Funny. But really. Mason’s character was awful. And he was the character who we were supposed to think was the proverbial good guy.

[Der_Trihs]

@DSeid

Height is a cross culturally firmly wired possibly subconscious proxy for “power” in terms of male attractiveness to females.

Very unlikely. Taller men being preferred is almost certainly something that dates back to our pre-human days, part of the standard sexual dimorphism for moderately polygamous primates like ourselves.

As a sexually selected feature the actual answer for “why do women prefer taller men” is “because women prefer taller men”; sexually selected features naturally develop into a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop. Women find taller men attractive, half their children are male, therefore a preference for taller men is selected for because their sons will find it easier to attract women. And around and around the loop goes, having left the original reason it became attractive behind millions of years ago.

The original reason is probably because size is what’s known in biology as an “honest signal”; an indication of the status of a creature that’s hard to fake, and thus more likely to be believed. A tall, muscular male by virtue of being tall and muscular demonstrates to a female he’s good at getting food, and to predators & rival males that he’s probably strong and thus dangerous. And once it was originally selected for because of that the feedback loop would start and millions of years later here we are.

[DSeid]

@Der_Trihs

tall, muscular male by virtue of being tall and muscular demonstrates to a female he’s good at getting food, and to predators & rival males that he’s probably strong and thus dangerous

Oh. So it is a possible hardwired subconscious proxy of power. Happy to be corrected!

[Der_Trihs]

@DSeid

Oh. So it is a possible hardwired subconscious proxy of power.

Not power, access to food and physical strength. And with a gap of millions of years since it originated calling it a “proxy” is a huge stretch. Like calling humanity the result of the Dinosaur Killer.

[puzzlegal]

@Ulfreida

To think that almost all of these issues would be solved if we just re-instituted arranged marriage.

I was thinking the same thing. There are about as many men as women. Just make sure to marry everyone off and we wouldn’t have these issues.

(We’d have different issues, but not exactly these ones.)

I was thinking that in the old days, it wasn’t so much that a young man got advice from older men as that his parents talked with the parents of eligible women in his community, and both the men and women were pressured to marry based on who their families picked for them.

[msmith537]

@DemonTree

@puzzlegal

Agreed. Surely we can praise virtuous men without needing to praise them just for being masculine. Because the flip side of this is denigrating men who happen to be strong in virtues that are more commonly found in women. And that is certainly not good for society, nor for most people in it.

The point was not to praise or denigrate men for different virtues, but to give men who want to be/appear more masculine a positive version of masculinity to aim for, and one that would make them more attractive to women rather than less. Do you think this a reasonable goal, and if so, what would that positive masculinity look like?

When I think of positive (sometimes referred to as “heroic”) masculinity, I generally think of how men were portrayed in films and TV as I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. Action heroes like Chuck Norris or Arnold Schwarzenegger being extreme examples of this. But in more practical terms, some of the characteristics for any man (any person really) might include:

• Self sufficient - At the very least he should be able to take care of himself.
• Loyalty - He supports and is willing to stand up for the people that are (or should be) important to him.
• Strength - Not just being able to bench 250 lbs but being able to overcome adversity or obstacles, even when he’s the underdog.
• Purpose - He needs some reason for being
• Cool - A man has to endure a lot of bullshit. He can’t loose his shit when things don’t go his way. Like what else was @DocCathode supposed to do other than calmly go to the bathroom to clean up and move on with the meal?
• Respect - A man both gives and receives it through what he says and does
• Smart - Don’t be dumb

Above all, they should do the “right” thing for any given circumstances.

I think it’s really hard to teach these traits these days. Largely because we live in a relatively safe and soft world where not of these things are tested. Think of Ed Norton’s character in Fight Club. There is nothing “manly” about him. He has not purpose or goals. His only “strength” is his ability to endure a tedious job indefinitely. A lot of men, even well educated ones, are like that. They just sort of “exist”. How is that attractive to anyone? It’s not, so they try to make themselves more attractive with a veneer of conspicuous materiality. But that just turns them into superficial douchebags.

I also think we need to stop pretending that men and women (and everything in between if you prefer) are the same. There is a tendency to treat women as small sexy men and men as emotionally malfunctioning women. Both can have the same traits I described above but do them in ways that are inherently masculine or feminine (or both, or neither).

[Der_Trihs]

@Ulfreida

To think that almost all of these issues would be solved if we just re-instituted arranged marriage.

Forced, not simply arranged. Unless it’s forced many people will say “no”. The two aren’t the same; plenty of arranged marriages have been willing ones, where one or both of the participants could have refused if they wanted to.

As an aside I recall hearing that kind of solution proposed by the incels, as a weird kind of sexual socialism. Just treat women as sexual property to be handed out fairly and evenly (no need to ask their opinion, of course).

At any rate I think that the fundamental problem is that sexual and romantic relationships are inherently unfair. People aren’t standardized in either characteristics or desires, nor are they in unlimited supply, so some people are always going to be unable to have the kind of person they want, and some are always going to be popular than others. So the inevitable result is that either some people are unhappy because nobody wants them, or because as in the forced marriage scenario they have an unwanted relationship imposed on them. Or both.

A fairly obvious unsolvable problem, but some people don’t want to accept that some things are unfixable. Especially when they are on the short end of the stick. So they come up with “solutions” that are unworkable at best, and usually highly unjust (again, like the forced marriage scenario).

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@msmith537

When I think of positive (sometimes referred to as “heroic”) masculinity, I generally think of how men were portrayed in films and TV as I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. Action heroes like Chuck Norris or Arnold Schwarzenegger being extreme examples of this. But in more practical terms, some of the characteristics for any man (any person really) might include:

• Self sufficient - At the very least he should be able to take care of himself.
• Loyalty - He supports and is willing to stand up for the people that are (or should be) important to him.
• Strength - Not just being able to bench 250 lbs but being able to overcome adversity or obstacles, even when he’s the underdog.
• Purpose - He needs some reason for being
• Cool - A man has to endure a lot of bullshit. He can’t loose his shit when things don’t go his way. Like what else was @DocCathode supposed to do other than calmly go to the bathroom to clean up and move on with the meal?
• Respect - A man both gives and receives it through what he says and does
• Smart - Don’t be dumb

I am afraid that you are declaring as masculine values the values shown by one nation’s film industry during a twenty-year period, coincidentally the period during which your own identity was formed.

How does that compare to ideas of masculinity in, say, Maoist China of the same time period? or 18th century France? Or 12th century Senegal?

Self-sufficiency is a very American ideal. I just read the Labors of Heracles with my students, and in one of the labors, Heracles gets the help of his nephew to complete it, and for that reason the person assigning the labors says it doesn’t count. But–get this–the guy who assigned him the labors is the villain. He’s clearly being a pedantic asshole. And you can’t get more heroically masculine than Heracles.

Loyalty: one of our nation’s top heroes is George Washington, notable mainly for being a traitor to the crown.

Strength: is Daedalus a hero? Is Hamlet? Are they masculine? Setting aside tragic heroes, I think this trait shows up equally in heroines.

Purpose: at least fictional heroes better have a purpose, I’ll give you that–but I don’t think that’s especially gendered either.

Cool: The Irish hero Cu Chulainn comes to mind, a dude most famous for losing his goddamned mind in every battle, going into a murderous frenzy. Masculine yes; keeping-his-cool absolutely not.

So: I think this is an interesting list, but it is both culturally situated and not always gendered.

@msmith537

Both can have the same traits I described above but do them in ways that are inherently masculine or feminine (or both, or neither).

I just don’t know what “inherently masculine” means, if not “done by someone with testicles.” If that’s not what it means, I think it’s not a meaningful term, given how masculinity is culturally situated. If it is what it means, I’m not sure it’s more useful than describing the way to do certain things as “inherently redheaded” or “inherently gaptoothed.” If it means a third thing, can you explain?

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

The analogy I think of, and that I want more unhappily single folks to think of, is friendship.

Let’s say you’re lonely, and you want some people to hang out with. Specifically, you like gaming. You reach out to a gaming group asking if you could join the game.

Under which of these circumstances should they have to accept you at their table?

• They just let someone else join, so it’s unfair if they don’t let you join.
• They like to play the same system as you, so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t let you join.
• They posted online looking for a new player. You’re a new player, so they should have to let you join.
• You’ve made a financial investment in the gaming system, so they should let you join.
• You’ve been friends with the DM, and even helped her move a couple months ago, so she should let you join.

Which of the following excuses could they make that would suffice for not letting you join?

• They’re not looking for a new player right now.
• You want to play D&D and they want to play Pathfinder.
• In meeting with you, they just don’t think your playstyle would be fun for them.
• They’re not willing to give an explanation, they just say no.

I think most folks have enough self-awareness around friendships to know that none of the first scenarios suffice to force them to let you join, and all of the excuses–including no explanation–suffice for them not letting you join.

If you can’t find a gaming group, ask yourself whether there’s something you can change about how you’re approaching the process. But never ever ever blame the people who don’t want to game with you.

Romantic/sexual relationships are like friendships.

[Robot_Arm]

@Der_Trihs

…and usually highly unjust (again, like the forced marriage scenario).

I don’t know that forced marriage is inherently unjust or sexist. If men and women are both forced to marry, that seems fair to me. If men could opt out, but women couldn’t, then I’d agree with you.