There’s two things here. First, even if that’s true, the person who’s doing the rejecting didn’t ask to be approached.
It depends. Last week I was at a seminar where most seats are filled with people. I sat down next to the place where a girl put her bag and jacket with whom I chatted previously.
She sat the lecture next to me. Afterwards she asked me whether I was okay with her sitting next to me. In her mind she did make a choice to sit next to me for which I didn’t ask.
I don’t think it’s automatically more ethical to engineer a situation in a way where the other person thinks they are making the approach and proclaim you have no responsibility for being approached.
Most people are pretty bad at interpreting what goes on in an interaction and who actually initiates various things. Sometimes people interpret things wrong and do make honest mistakes.
As for just how bad giving out a rejection is, again, I think it really depends on the advance.
I grant that point. It makes sense to calibrate with acts that don’t produce much harm. Especially with acts that don’t contrain the ability of the other person to issue the rejection.
or even just making the move in an elevator, that may make someone more or less uncomfortable if they have to reject the advance. This is the sense of “confident” that I’m talking about.
I don’t think making a move in an elevator is an expression of confidence. I haven’t read a specific analysis of the situation from a PUA guy but I would expect them to advice against that behavior.
I don’t think making a move in an elevator is an expression of confidence. I haven’t read a specific analysis of the situation from a PUA guy but I would expect them to advice against that behavior.
I think tabooing “confidence” would end up being revealing here. I suspect yours, confidence-1, would read something like “not signalling anxiety or nervousness”, whereas I’m talking about confidence-2, the anticipated probability of success, which informs the expected value of an approach.
I accept responsibility for the miscommunication. In my initial post I talked about PUAs advocating “confidence”, and equated that to confidence-2. You and others have pointed out that actually some or all of the advocacy is for confidence-1, which I didn’t at first appreciate. I haven’t read all that much PUA stuff, so I’ll accept what you’ve said and leave it at that.
Anticipating success in an approach in no way implies that it’s a good idea to constrain another person to reject you.
If a girl thinks that she only gave you her phone number because you coerced her to give it to you, why should she answer the phone when you call and look forward to going on a date with you?
The way people backwards rationalize their behavior matters a lot.
It depends. Last week I was at a seminar where most seats are filled with people. I sat down next to the place where a girl put her bag and jacket with whom I chatted previously.
She sat the lecture next to me. Afterwards she asked me whether I was okay with her sitting next to me. In her mind she did make a choice to sit next to me for which I didn’t ask.
I don’t think it’s automatically more ethical to engineer a situation in a way where the other person thinks they are making the approach and proclaim you have no responsibility for being approached.
Most people are pretty bad at interpreting what goes on in an interaction and who actually initiates various things. Sometimes people interpret things wrong and do make honest mistakes.
I grant that point. It makes sense to calibrate with acts that don’t produce much harm. Especially with acts that don’t contrain the ability of the other person to issue the rejection.
I don’t think making a move in an elevator is an expression of confidence. I haven’t read a specific analysis of the situation from a PUA guy but I would expect them to advice against that behavior.
I think tabooing “confidence” would end up being revealing here. I suspect yours, confidence-1, would read something like “not signalling anxiety or nervousness”, whereas I’m talking about confidence-2, the anticipated probability of success, which informs the expected value of an approach.
I accept responsibility for the miscommunication. In my initial post I talked about PUAs advocating “confidence”, and equated that to confidence-2. You and others have pointed out that actually some or all of the advocacy is for confidence-1, which I didn’t at first appreciate. I haven’t read all that much PUA stuff, so I’ll accept what you’ve said and leave it at that.
Anticipating success in an approach in no way implies that it’s a good idea to constrain another person to reject you.
If a girl thinks that she only gave you her phone number because you coerced her to give it to you, why should she answer the phone when you call and look forward to going on a date with you?
The way people backwards rationalize their behavior matters a lot.