You make the mistake of thinking that women prefer alpha males/assholes consciously and intentionally while lying to you.
I don’t think it’s that. I see two scenarios that are more likely to generate what I observe:
1) When women give advice, the question they are answering is, “Which attributes would I like to add to a guy, while changing nothing else?” rather than “What would make me actually attracted to a guy?” and the difference is enormous. Frequently, when I get advice from women, what I’m thinking in my mind is, “No, you’re telling me what you would like. I’m asking for what would work.”
2) Women have a hard time articulating what generates attraction in them, and, once they put it through the filter of “social acceptability” and “hurting feelings”, it just reverts to a repetition of what they think they’re supposed to like.
In any case I firmly reject the view that “game” requires you to be a misogynist.
I don’t think it’s an issue of misogynist/not misogynist. It’s an issue of “doing/not doing what I have been taught is ‘respectful’”. That is, the autistic-spectrum male “learning algorithm” may mistakenly infer certain behaviors as being “not respectful” and therefore “don’t do”, while this was not actually entailed by any teaching received from a female (at least, given the female’s implicit assumptions).
I don’t think it’s an issue of misogynist/not misogynist. It’s an issue of “doing/not doing what I have been taught is ‘respectful’”. That is, the autistic-spectrum male “learning algorithm” may mistakenly infer certain behaviors as being “not respectful” and therefore “don’t do”, while this was not actually entailed by any teaching received from a female (at least, given the female’s implicit assumptions).
Part of the problem might be boys learning to respect women by respecting their mother or some other female authority figure. But boys don’t treat their mothers as equals, they treat them as superiors. I wonder if there is a correlation between men who are popular with women and those with little sisters. In any case, the solution surely isn’t to get pissed at feminists but to recalibrate your understanding of what it means to respect women.
I wonder if there is a correlation between men who are popular with women and those with little sisters
The author of the “Double Your Dating” products actually explicitly teaches men to treat a woman they’re interested in as if she were “your bratty kid sister”, so clearly at least one PUG has noticed this connection.
When women give advice, the question they are answering is, “Which attributes would I like to add to a guy, while changing nothing else?” rather than “What would make me actually attracted to a guy?” and the difference is enormous. Frequently, when I get advice from women, what I’m thinking in my mind is, “No, you’re telling me what you would like. I’m asking for what would work.”
Off the cuff, my advice would be to find someone for whom you don’t need to worry about what behavior “would work” and instead find someone who genuinely shares your interests and is a joy to be with, and pursue a relationship with them.
But then, having been in a love-at-first-sight sort of situation, my advice is probably as helpful as “let them eat cake.”
I’m glad you acknowledge this is a “let them eat cake response.” Not worrying whether one’s behavior is “working” is a privilege of those with behavior that works.
Of course, it sounds mechanical, perhaps even objectifying to be talking about whether one’s behavior “works” “on” others, as if they were a machine being fed input. Yet this pragmatic mode of thinking is forced on some of us by being the only viable way to solve deficits in social and dating experience and knowledge, deficits that were also forced on us due to negligent socialization.
FWIW, to me, the big difference between a particular mode of thought being objectifying or not has less to do with how one models people’s reactions than what one’s goal is. If what “works” just means what gets you laid or makes you happy, regardless of its effect on others, then you’re treating the other person as just a tool to your own satisfaction. That, to me, is “objectifying” and, well, makes you a shitty, bad person as far as I’m concerned.
If, on the other hand, you actually care about the prospective other person’s feelings as well, and what “works” is what makes both of you happy, then I can’t really see a problem.
This is one of the things that puzzles me about the whole PUA thing. Is the point of a guy changing his behaviour in such ways:
to get his foot in the door, and then, once that’s done go back to being “himself”;
to have to keep up the charade forever; or
to change “himself” for good (i.e. keep up the behaviour, but in such a way that it ceases to be an unnatural charade)?
1, I can sort of understand. 2 seems like a great way to ruin your life. 3 seems like a disaster as well if it involves becoming someone who routinely does things that one now thinks are objectionable; but could be rather more positive if it instead involves, say, becoming someone who is more fun to be around and better able to enrich the life of a significant other.
Or is all of this missing the point, which is just to get laid in the short term, and not be around for the long term anyway?
You need to do 1 and 2 (keep the charade for as long as you need) as a temporary solution, since changing yourself permanently (acquiring the necessary social skills, building confidence, body language, etc) can’t be done quickly and easily.
What is more, having an interim solution can be helpful and gives a boost to the process of improving yourself as well, e.g. even a modest success with women can increase your confidence and give you necessary social practice. It’s sort of a multiplier on your efforts of improvement.
The answers to those questions are as diverse as the individuals themselves. Different teachers certainly advocate different things, but the more ethical ones advocate, as you say...
becoming someone who is more fun to be around and better able to enrich the life of a significant other.
And grasping some of the ideas involved in that has certainly been helpful in my marriage.
Think of #3 the same way you think of any kind of self-improvement work (or if you like, a bootstrapping AI). There is no reason for it to be at all objectionable. People change things about themselves all the time and no one objects.
I certainly never meant to suggest that change is objectionable per se. But saying “just think of it as self-improvement” begs the question of whether it’s actually improvement. If you find yourself trying to become someone who regularly does stuff you now find objectionable (as per the comment I was responding to) then there’s a decent chance you’re actually engaged in an act of self-debasement instead.
FWIW, I didn’t intend the colloquial meaning (“raises the question”): I meant that the response “think of it as self-improvement” assumes precisely what is at issue (i.e. that the change is for the better).
Good points, but I object to these:
I don’t think it’s that. I see two scenarios that are more likely to generate what I observe:
1) When women give advice, the question they are answering is, “Which attributes would I like to add to a guy, while changing nothing else?” rather than “What would make me actually attracted to a guy?” and the difference is enormous. Frequently, when I get advice from women, what I’m thinking in my mind is, “No, you’re telling me what you would like. I’m asking for what would work.”
2) Women have a hard time articulating what generates attraction in them, and, once they put it through the filter of “social acceptability” and “hurting feelings”, it just reverts to a repetition of what they think they’re supposed to like.
I don’t think it’s an issue of misogynist/not misogynist. It’s an issue of “doing/not doing what I have been taught is ‘respectful’”. That is, the autistic-spectrum male “learning algorithm” may mistakenly infer certain behaviors as being “not respectful” and therefore “don’t do”, while this was not actually entailed by any teaching received from a female (at least, given the female’s implicit assumptions).
Part of the problem might be boys learning to respect women by respecting their mother or some other female authority figure. But boys don’t treat their mothers as equals, they treat them as superiors. I wonder if there is a correlation between men who are popular with women and those with little sisters. In any case, the solution surely isn’t to get pissed at feminists but to recalibrate your understanding of what it means to respect women.
Respect=/=defer.
The author of the “Double Your Dating” products actually explicitly teaches men to treat a woman they’re interested in as if she were “your bratty kid sister”, so clearly at least one PUG has noticed this connection.
Off the cuff, my advice would be to find someone for whom you don’t need to worry about what behavior “would work” and instead find someone who genuinely shares your interests and is a joy to be with, and pursue a relationship with them.
But then, having been in a love-at-first-sight sort of situation, my advice is probably as helpful as “let them eat cake.”
I’m glad you acknowledge this is a “let them eat cake response.” Not worrying whether one’s behavior is “working” is a privilege of those with behavior that works.
Of course, it sounds mechanical, perhaps even objectifying to be talking about whether one’s behavior “works” “on” others, as if they were a machine being fed input. Yet this pragmatic mode of thinking is forced on some of us by being the only viable way to solve deficits in social and dating experience and knowledge, deficits that were also forced on us due to negligent socialization.
FWIW, to me, the big difference between a particular mode of thought being objectifying or not has less to do with how one models people’s reactions than what one’s goal is. If what “works” just means what gets you laid or makes you happy, regardless of its effect on others, then you’re treating the other person as just a tool to your own satisfaction. That, to me, is “objectifying” and, well, makes you a shitty, bad person as far as I’m concerned.
If, on the other hand, you actually care about the prospective other person’s feelings as well, and what “works” is what makes both of you happy, then I can’t really see a problem.
Btw, it’s mechanical on the side of the man as well—being forced to output behavior which you normally would not, and might even object to doing.
This is one of the things that puzzles me about the whole PUA thing. Is the point of a guy changing his behaviour in such ways:
to get his foot in the door, and then, once that’s done go back to being “himself”;
to have to keep up the charade forever; or
to change “himself” for good (i.e. keep up the behaviour, but in such a way that it ceases to be an unnatural charade)?
1, I can sort of understand. 2 seems like a great way to ruin your life. 3 seems like a disaster as well if it involves becoming someone who routinely does things that one now thinks are objectionable; but could be rather more positive if it instead involves, say, becoming someone who is more fun to be around and better able to enrich the life of a significant other.
Or is all of this missing the point, which is just to get laid in the short term, and not be around for the long term anyway?
You need to do 1 and 2 (keep the charade for as long as you need) as a temporary solution, since changing yourself permanently (acquiring the necessary social skills, building confidence, body language, etc) can’t be done quickly and easily.
What is more, having an interim solution can be helpful and gives a boost to the process of improving yourself as well, e.g. even a modest success with women can increase your confidence and give you necessary social practice. It’s sort of a multiplier on your efforts of improvement.
The answers to those questions are as diverse as the individuals themselves. Different teachers certainly advocate different things, but the more ethical ones advocate, as you say...
And grasping some of the ideas involved in that has certainly been helpful in my marriage.
Think of #3 the same way you think of any kind of self-improvement work (or if you like, a bootstrapping AI). There is no reason for it to be at all objectionable. People change things about themselves all the time and no one objects.
This “self” business is probably nonsense anyway.
I certainly never meant to suggest that change is objectionable per se. But saying “just think of it as self-improvement” begs the question of whether it’s actually improvement. If you find yourself trying to become someone who regularly does stuff you now find objectionable (as per the comment I was responding to) then there’s a decent chance you’re actually engaged in an act of self-debasement instead.
Just a reminder that “begging the question” and its variants are jargon in logic, and so it seems the colloquial meaning should be avoided here.
FWIW, I didn’t intend the colloquial meaning (“raises the question”): I meant that the response “think of it as self-improvement” assumes precisely what is at issue (i.e. that the change is for the better).