Do you like being treated as a celebrity in threads like this because you have boobs or would you prefer if people stopped obsessing over what sex you are?
Actually, I have run into enough guys who treat me like I’m the last woman on earth because I’m a female nerd that I’ve developed an aversion to anything resembling that type of behavior. I was understanding about their enthusiasm at first, because I want a nerd, too, but it just doesn’t work to date someone when they’re acting like you’re their last chance. They want to move too fast, they create expectations, they become biased and won’t hear me when I talk about things that may be incompatibilities. That intensity throws a wrench into the process of getting to know someone. I grok their sense of necessity about being careful in how they present themselves, and I approve of this thread (There are a lot of things I wish I could say to guys—we need to communicate, and I have been wishing for an opportunity to do that), but on the individual level, I am easily spooked by signs of early attachment, overly optimistic probability estimates about us working out, and impatience to see signs of an established connection. I go on the alert for these signs of irrationality if a person treats me “like a celebrity” or similar. For the record none of the questions in this thread (so far) have bothered me.
As for whether it feels empowering, no. First of all, my sense of self-worth is not connected to my attractiveness. I am more than my ability to attract a mate. Secondly, being one of the few nerdy women has only served to highlight the fact that dating between nerds is pretty dysfunctional. At first, it was fun to have so much attention (other nerd spot) but it quickly became obvious that more attention does not convert into a larger ratio of real romance opportunities. There are a lot of incompatible guys trying to make me like them and hoping they can magically “make it work”, and the ones who do seem good have problems like the above, and I feel a need to cut it short to prevent dysfunction. I think the crazy male-to-female ratio among nerds has caused more damage to my dating life than anything—so that’s what I usually think of when I am reminded of it, not how “empowered” I feel.
I am easily spooked by signs of early attachment, overly optimistic probability estimates about us working out, and impatience to see signs of an established connection. I go on the alert for these signs of irrationality if a person treats me “like a celebrity” or similar.
I can certainly understand how these behaviors would be incredibly unattractive, as well as representing ‘red flags’ indicating potential future complications in any relationship that is formed.
A corollary from a male perspective is that someone strongly predisposed from past experience towards seeing these signs of desperation and supplication can themselves make dating a drag. If ambiguous situations (or sometimes arguably non-ambiguous situations) are likely to be interpreted as motivated by weakness/low status/desparation/worship then avoiding such outcomes requires running far more strict, aggressive and constrained ‘game’ just to break even. Ultimately that lack of respect is just a huge turn off for me and one of the first things that’ll make me think ‘next’ and move on to the next option.
You really made me think, Wedrifid. I chose not to respond to you right away because I wanted to avoid jumping to the conclusion that I’m doing everything right. So, I made myself go think it over.
Before you said this, I thought I was being patient enough with ambiguous “signs” and tolerant enough of harmless lapses in social skills. I’ve done a lot of emotional support for people who have problems, so I’m pretty confident that my tolerance of harmless social mistakes (as well as my ability to spot false positives on my creep radar) is well beyond adequate for dating nerds and misunderstood gifted people.
But signs only seem ambiguous to me if I realize that they’re ambiguous. Are the signs that I think are unambiguous actually ambiguous? I don’t know… I think the best approach is to develop a greater tolerance for them. So, I’ve got a goal now of “Be strong enough that even when guys do these things, I don’t feel stressed out.” Of course, tolerating these problems endlessly would lead to doing a lot of hand-holding, which would be draining, and that’s not emotionally sustainable for me, but maybe a three strikes rule would be a good idea for me. That’d probably give a functional guy enough time to gain my trust in his sanity. Patience… yeah, I think I could use more.
And, you know, even if I have adequate patience and my tolerance of eccentricity is very high and I’m doing a good job of telling the difference between ambiguous and unambiguous signs of dysfunction, if guys are expecting me to be impatient, intolerant and judgmental, that’s no good. I could lose a lot of opportunities because of their baggage due to the skewed gender ratio. I’m not sure what to do to counteract this.
You know, maybe we just need open communication. Like “Hi, I know there’s a gender ratio issue, it’s stressing everyone out when we try to date each other, why don’t you and I just talk openly about these problems as we get to know each other?” That seems counter-intuitive on the one hand: there would be less of that sense of mystery and magic that people seem to expect but I’d really prefer bare reality at this point.
You have given me a lot to think about in your comment, Wedrifid. Thank you. (:
I upvoted this post because it does a good job at presenting your perspective as a woman in such interactions.
However, I don’t think it displays a lot of empathy or understanding for the other perspective. I’m not necessarily concluding that you lack such empathy or understanding, but I don’t see it in this post. For example, this sentence:
I was understanding about their enthusiasm at first, because I want a nerd, too, but it just doesn’t work to date someone when they’re acting like you’re their last chance.
This is not a very good model of nerdy guys who come on too strong. From their perspective, you (as a woman in a largely-male group) have many more romantic prospects than they do. They can’t afford to wait and take things slow, because there’s always someone else who is more assertive or has better timing. It’s a scenario they’ve personally observed over and over again. Now, obviously it’s detrimental for every guy in this situation to reason this way, as you remark:
I think the crazy male-to-female ratio among nerds has caused more damage to my dating life than anything
It’s actually a very good example of the tragedy of the commons. Individually, going after every woman they meet seems like it should improve their chances; collectively, it ends up driving women away and reducing everyone’s chances. We would expect rationalist/skeptic/etc. guys to figure this out, but they often don’t. Why is this?
Try to imagine being completely romantically alone, through no choice of your own. Imagine this not over the course of weeks or months, but years or even decades. Not one date, not one kiss, hardly even any fun, flirty conversations with interesting, attractive people. This is the stark reality for many nerdy guys, and they often feel powerless to change it.
So, yes, oozing desperation is not a good romantic strategy, but it’s not just due to simple social ineptitude or inexperience. While the nerdy guys are trying to keep in mind how women feel when they’re constantly pursued (and this is something at which many of us can improve), women should please keep in mind just how lonely and desperate it can feel on the other side.
The reason I didn’t focus on empathy in my previous comment is because I didn’t see any reason to think that would be useful to you guys. In my view, we have problems that empathy can’t solve. I see now that it would probably be good if I detail some of my empathetic experiences because there’s a need to feel like women care and also explain why empathy can’t solve the problems I listed. So I did both.
I met a really sweet guy on a dating site that I have things in common with and we started having wonderful conversations. Then I started to notice Asperger’s symptoms. Instead of rejecting him immediately, I started giving him information about how he was coming across. We both decided that we were not romantically compatible (for unrelated reasons) but we talked frequently over the next year or so, and I kept giving him information to help him socially. I care about him a lot and it makes me sad to think of him ending up alone, so I helped as much as I could.
I make a point of letting guys know if they make a mistake, with few exceptions. If they seem beyond helping (the occasional crazies), I may back away slowly and vanish. If they send me a message on a dating site that ignores my profile, I ignore them. Otherwise they’ll usually get some type of error message from me. I know they need feedback.
There have been three situations in the recent past where I met someone I really liked, but they made a mistake. In each of these three situations, I pointed out the mistake but kept talking to them because I liked them and was hoping they’d come around (well in one case I was hoping that my initial assessment was wrong). I don’t do this for every kind of mistake. It really depends on what it is. Sometimes I meet someone I really like but I know I can’t save it, so I won’t try (though I usually tell them why I’m not continuing). But if I think there’s a reasonable chance, I’ll try.
It’s not like I’m not understanding. It’s that there are big problems that no amount of understanding can overcome. Let’s look at each of the big problems I listed for a minute. Please consider that I am not deeming these “problems that understanding will not overcome” for arbitrary reasons. Everyone is naive when they’re young, me included. Due to this, I got to find out the hard way that certain things will doom a new connection and that there’s nothing I can do about it. Here is why they doom new connections:
Bias about incompatibilities and overly optimistic probability estimates
Imagine telling someone that you’re not sure you’re what they wanted, and they just brush it off and want to proceed anyway. If they’re not willing to talk realistically about these things, a few problems result. First, when other people believe we’re more compatible than we are, I find it unacceptable to continue to knowingly allow them to believe that. I feel a sense of responsibility about not leading people on, so this situation is unacceptable to me—I can’t allow it. Second, I have to wonder whether they’re leading me on. If they aren’t willing to really look at a potential incompatibility and give me an honest answer, I may very well end up in a relationship that ends in heartbreak because I thought the person would accept something about me that they couldn’t. If they’re unwilling to face the truth to and make sure to tell me about these things in the beginning, they run a high risk of leading me on by accident. When people feel strongly attracted and that causes them bias like this, it’s really, really hard to get through to them. When I have tried to get through to them, this has resulted in me burning out on trying. Worse, it breaks my trust (I can’t trust them not to lead me on). The combination of not feeling okay with allowing them to be led on, not trusting that they won’t lead me on and being burnt out by trying to wake them up results in an extremely risky situation that is likely to lead to heartbreak for one or both of us. Since there’s no way to get an accurate idea of our compatibility in that situation, if I notice they’re stuck on optimism bias, I quit.
Early Attachment
When people are attached, they act like they need things from me and expect me to fulfill those needs. Rewind to my teenage years when I had trouble saying no: if people acted like they needed things from me, I would try to make them happy. Since I wasn’t doing these things based on a mutually beneficial relationship, I would inevitably burn out—I was trying to meet their needs, but wasn’t getting my own needs met. You run out of juice that way. What’s worse is that when you’re doing something because you feel expected to instead of out of a genuine sense of love and connection, it’s obvious. The result is that they sense this, and they demand more affection to compensate. For that reason, the burnout comes on rapidly. Of course, people who are attached too early don’t see the flaw in being attached too early. If they did, they wouldn’t become attached too early—or maybe they don’t know how to avoid it. It’s for those reasons, I think, that they never seem to go “Yes, I am attached too early.” and take responsibility for their own needs. Instead, when the difference in attachment is noticed, their solution is to try anything they can think of to get me attached, too. We all know how hard it can be to stay rational in emotional situations. We know that relationships are governed by reality the same way everything else is. Therefore we can easily see that it’s both important and difficult to stay rational regarding relationship decisions. Being subjected to somebody you like trying to make you feel attached to them puts you in a risky situation where you’re likely to become irrational and make a relationship decision that explodes later on. Anyone who has experienced the misery of heartbreak can surely imagine how terrifying it is to be in a situation where you’re rational enough to see that it’s likely, but not certain you’ll be strong enough to resist temptation. For that reason, people put in this situation tend to run screaming.
Moving too fast / expectations
The main reason moving too fast is unworkable for me is that it creates expectations I can’t fulfill, and the reason unreasonable expectations are unworkable is because people don’t let you change their expectations—instead, they are judging you by those expectations. For instance, they expect me to have more intense feelings for them than I’m ready for. Being unable to produce these, and unwilling to lie, I must tell them that I’m not feeling as interested as they are. If they really are expecting me to move as fast as they do the reaction I’ve had is that they assume I’m never going to be interested because I’m not intensely interested right away. Then they go into sour grapes mode. Attempting to convince them that I’m not sour would be hard enough in and of itself, but I’d also have to convince them that their expectations were unrealistic. That would come across like whining about being rejected or attempting to circumvent the person’s judgment. When someone rejects me, it’s best to respect their decision—no matter what it was based on—and move along.
I do understand that a lot of guys feel like they’re going to be alone forever. I’ve had those feelings, too. Don’t think that women don’t ever feel that. It’s worse for the guys because of the gender ratio, but it’s not like we can’t relate at all. Finding the right person is hard. I am complicated, and this results in there being a lot of incompatibilities to consider. It’s not easy for me, either.
The truth is, I have no idea how I would ever make dysfunctional behaviors like these work for me in a dating context. It seems ill advised to even attempt to do that, so I won’t. You said “oozing desperation is not a good romantic strategy, but it’s not just due to simple social ineptitude or inexperience.” and what I’m saying is “social ineptitude and inexperience do not just reek of desperation, they make dating broken in ways I can’t work with.” I hope you see the reason why I focused on these things in my post is not because I’m not empathetic but because, from my point of view, the biggest problem is that a lot of guys don’t realize that the things they are doing make the connection unhealthy and dysfunctional.
It seems to be a common attitude that the women need to realize that the guys are having a really hard time just finding the sorts of women they like, let alone getting the practice needed for good social skills. I do realize this. In fact, I do not see the gender ratio problem as being “due to creepers”—to me, that’s just another symptom of a different underlying cause which is nobody’s fault.
It’s actually a very good example of the tragedy of the commons. Individually, going after every woman they meet seems like it should improve their chances; collectively, it ends up driving women away and reducing everyone’s chances. We would expect rationalist/skeptic/etc. guys to figure this out, but they often don’t. Why is this?
I think they get sucked in by the experience. It takes a lot of emotional control to fight back things like optimism bias, attachment and unrealistic expectations when you’re compelled by mating instincts, pressured by hormones and lifelong romantic dreams are clouding your mind. It doesn’t surprise me that a lot of intelligent guys act like they’re sort of “drunk” on the experience.
I developed emotional control through meditation to prevent myself from taking a “drunken” approach to romance. That’s what I’d recommend for anyone having these problems.
Thank you very much for the thorough reply. I understand your position and experiences a lot better now, and I think we are broadly in agreement about what needs to happen on each side. I recognize that understanding alone is not going to solve these problems, especially in individual cases, but I think it’s an important component for longer-term improvement. Judging from this post, you clearly do have empathy, and I could not reasonably ask any more in that regard than what you have already demonstrated.
Dating isn’t charity work. If you go on dates and do what is, roughly speaking, the opposite of what works, you will probably fail.
If the girl you are dating is feeling particularly generous she may be willing to give you a reference to a guide on dating skills and tell you to “quit being a pussy”, giving you a chance to have more success with the next woman that you date.
These are correct statements about the present. They are not very helpful for improving the future and solving the collective action problems that have led to this point.
I have not said that dating should be charity work. I only think that dating could be a little more charitable. Epiphany’s follow-up comment pretty well illustrates what I mean.
These are correct statements about the present. They are not very helpful for improving the future and solving the collective action problems that have led to this point.
Incorporate it into your models of such guys. I think this can help moderate problems such as being “easily spooked” and “cutting it short to prevent dysfunction.” Instead of thinking that this guy is just too clingy/creepy/codependent/etc., dig a little deeper. If the flirtation or relationship just isn’t going to work, then so be it, but we can at least strive to leave things a little nicer than how we found them. If I, as a guy, try to give other guys advice in these matters, it just seems like I’m trying to create a competitive advantage for myself.
I am trying to promote mutual understanding so that communication between the genders works better. I never have and likely never will experience being in such high romantic demand, so I have no visceral feeling for how women feel in that situation. The best I can do is to keep in mind what I’ve been told by women whenever such a conversation occurs. On the flip side, most women in rationalist/skeptic/etc. groups have never experienced such prolonged romantic isolation. If we want to increase group conscientiousness of issues which can drive women away, understanding needs to flow both ways.
Instead of thinking that this guy is just too clingy/creepy/codependent/etc., dig a little deeper.
I could pause before attaching labels, but I don’t think arbitrary guys who I don’t enjoy interactions with ought to get particularly much attention in the form of “digging”; that doesn’t make sense to me.
I don’t think I would enjoy a prolonged period of having to manage someone’s desperation on the expectation that there is an otherwise functional guy under all of it. Plenty of guys come functional out of the package, so the opportunity cost of a lot of dysfunction-fussing-with is high. But your advice could be good for people who like fixer-uppers; it’s probably safer and more productive than trying to tame a sociopath or something.
“the ones who do seem compatible have problems like the above”
There are a lot of incompatible guys trying to make me like them and hoping they can magically “make it work”, and the ones who do seem good have problems like the above, and I feel a need to cut it short to prevent dysfunction.
You can be dysfunctional and incompatible, which is a fail. Or you can be functional and incompatible, also a fail. Or you can be compatible and dysfunctional, still a fail.
The only thing that’s not a definite fail is compatible + functional.
Probably feel good about never having to be in this exact situation? I doubt that he implies that he deserves a pity lay. He can probably afford to pay for a professional escort once in a while, one of the solutions advocated by Dan Savage.
It would be lovely if you’d point that kind of thing out to the nerdy guy. One problem with being a nerdy guy is that a lack of romantic experience creates a positive feedback loop.
So yeah, it’s great to point out what mistakes the guy made. See Epiphany’s comment here.
(I have no doubt that you personally would do this, I’m just pointing this out for future reference. You might not remember, but I’ve actually talked to you about this positive feedback loop over IM before. I complimented you for doing something which would go towards breaking the cycle.)
It’s not really flattering (or, as Captain Hook would say “I want no such compliments!”). Being sexually harassed is not empowering, and trying to troubleshoot it isn’t invigorating, it’s just useful. I’m glad to help people avoid pattern matching to behaviors that look like threats/seem condescending/just aren’t fun, and I think it’s appropriate to spend a little time discussing them.
I wouldn’t want this topic to keep seeding new threads the way the Endless September discussion did, but I don’t think starting the discussion dooms us to that fate. And if you’re worried about that threat, start another quite interesting thread on a different topic.
Some of each. I like attention, and bringing up my gender is a great way to get attention, because many people are interested in the rare female perspective on various LW topics. (It seems, though, that the attention I seek and receive on LW regarding gender is unrelated to my boobs.) When I don’t want gender-related attention, I simply don’t mention my gender; having a gender-neutral username is nice. Sometimes I like participating in discussions about gender/PUA/etc. without revealing that I’m female.
I suggest availability bias because they are the two extremes of a simple spectrum of “pay no attention to women’s sex… pay lots of attention to women’s sex”. It feels natural to think in these terms, even when I’m aware that actual behavior mostly lies between the two extremes, varies a lot for the same person, etc.
I get so much free Karma for being a girl that it’s making my dopamine system short out good sense sometimes. Karma is majorly addictive. I keep coming back to this topic because I’m getting so much of it.
I also think it’s rather unfair that I often get way more karma for saying the same stuff as a man does, but with a “feminine anecdote” or “feminine caveat”. My model of LW would have a very critical argument with a man trying to make evopsych arguments with nonobvious generalisations, but a post I make about it where I explicitly signal femaleness would get upvotes.
I think it’s tremendously unhelpful that just signalling being a girl gets a post more karma (though I can understand that we want “more of this” as in women posting, I personally end up doing “more of this” as in signalling being female). My system 1 is just flat-out addicted though and doesn’t even want me to complain.
The wording of the question is problematic, because (a) it sounds snarky, and (b) it is trying to produce a specific answer. See, for example:
It’s not really flattering (or, as Captain Hook would say “I want no such compliments!”). Being sexually harassed is not empowering, and trying to troubleshoot it isn’t invigorating, it’s just useful.
Please try to use a more neutral tone when asking questions. It will yield more (epistemically) useful answers.
It is a sincere question. And I suspect I’d actually respect either an answer that the emphasis on sex and gender drama is tiresome or that the extra attention is flattering and empowering.
EDIT: The edit to the parent changed the meaning of my response. I’m glad I looked back. I should have quoted.
Understood, I realize making the meaning of my reply too highly dependent on unquoted context makes the meaning my comments fragile. I’m surprised I forgot to quote, actually.
Do you like being treated as a celebrity in threads like this because you have boobs or would you prefer if people stopped obsessing over what sex you are?
Actually, I have run into enough guys who treat me like I’m the last woman on earth because I’m a female nerd that I’ve developed an aversion to anything resembling that type of behavior. I was understanding about their enthusiasm at first, because I want a nerd, too, but it just doesn’t work to date someone when they’re acting like you’re their last chance. They want to move too fast, they create expectations, they become biased and won’t hear me when I talk about things that may be incompatibilities. That intensity throws a wrench into the process of getting to know someone. I grok their sense of necessity about being careful in how they present themselves, and I approve of this thread (There are a lot of things I wish I could say to guys—we need to communicate, and I have been wishing for an opportunity to do that), but on the individual level, I am easily spooked by signs of early attachment, overly optimistic probability estimates about us working out, and impatience to see signs of an established connection. I go on the alert for these signs of irrationality if a person treats me “like a celebrity” or similar. For the record none of the questions in this thread (so far) have bothered me.
As for whether it feels empowering, no. First of all, my sense of self-worth is not connected to my attractiveness. I am more than my ability to attract a mate. Secondly, being one of the few nerdy women has only served to highlight the fact that dating between nerds is pretty dysfunctional. At first, it was fun to have so much attention (other nerd spot) but it quickly became obvious that more attention does not convert into a larger ratio of real romance opportunities. There are a lot of incompatible guys trying to make me like them and hoping they can magically “make it work”, and the ones who do seem good have problems like the above, and I feel a need to cut it short to prevent dysfunction. I think the crazy male-to-female ratio among nerds has caused more damage to my dating life than anything—so that’s what I usually think of when I am reminded of it, not how “empowered” I feel.
I can certainly understand how these behaviors would be incredibly unattractive, as well as representing ‘red flags’ indicating potential future complications in any relationship that is formed.
A corollary from a male perspective is that someone strongly predisposed from past experience towards seeing these signs of desperation and supplication can themselves make dating a drag. If ambiguous situations (or sometimes arguably non-ambiguous situations) are likely to be interpreted as motivated by weakness/low status/desparation/worship then avoiding such outcomes requires running far more strict, aggressive and constrained ‘game’ just to break even. Ultimately that lack of respect is just a huge turn off for me and one of the first things that’ll make me think ‘next’ and move on to the next option.
You really made me think, Wedrifid. I chose not to respond to you right away because I wanted to avoid jumping to the conclusion that I’m doing everything right. So, I made myself go think it over.
Before you said this, I thought I was being patient enough with ambiguous “signs” and tolerant enough of harmless lapses in social skills. I’ve done a lot of emotional support for people who have problems, so I’m pretty confident that my tolerance of harmless social mistakes (as well as my ability to spot false positives on my creep radar) is well beyond adequate for dating nerds and misunderstood gifted people.
But signs only seem ambiguous to me if I realize that they’re ambiguous. Are the signs that I think are unambiguous actually ambiguous? I don’t know… I think the best approach is to develop a greater tolerance for them. So, I’ve got a goal now of “Be strong enough that even when guys do these things, I don’t feel stressed out.” Of course, tolerating these problems endlessly would lead to doing a lot of hand-holding, which would be draining, and that’s not emotionally sustainable for me, but maybe a three strikes rule would be a good idea for me. That’d probably give a functional guy enough time to gain my trust in his sanity. Patience… yeah, I think I could use more.
And, you know, even if I have adequate patience and my tolerance of eccentricity is very high and I’m doing a good job of telling the difference between ambiguous and unambiguous signs of dysfunction, if guys are expecting me to be impatient, intolerant and judgmental, that’s no good. I could lose a lot of opportunities because of their baggage due to the skewed gender ratio. I’m not sure what to do to counteract this.
You know, maybe we just need open communication. Like “Hi, I know there’s a gender ratio issue, it’s stressing everyone out when we try to date each other, why don’t you and I just talk openly about these problems as we get to know each other?” That seems counter-intuitive on the one hand: there would be less of that sense of mystery and magic that people seem to expect but I’d really prefer bare reality at this point.
You have given me a lot to think about in your comment, Wedrifid. Thank you. (:
I upvoted this post because it does a good job at presenting your perspective as a woman in such interactions.
However, I don’t think it displays a lot of empathy or understanding for the other perspective. I’m not necessarily concluding that you lack such empathy or understanding, but I don’t see it in this post. For example, this sentence:
This is not a very good model of nerdy guys who come on too strong. From their perspective, you (as a woman in a largely-male group) have many more romantic prospects than they do. They can’t afford to wait and take things slow, because there’s always someone else who is more assertive or has better timing. It’s a scenario they’ve personally observed over and over again. Now, obviously it’s detrimental for every guy in this situation to reason this way, as you remark:
It’s actually a very good example of the tragedy of the commons. Individually, going after every woman they meet seems like it should improve their chances; collectively, it ends up driving women away and reducing everyone’s chances. We would expect rationalist/skeptic/etc. guys to figure this out, but they often don’t. Why is this?
Try to imagine being completely romantically alone, through no choice of your own. Imagine this not over the course of weeks or months, but years or even decades. Not one date, not one kiss, hardly even any fun, flirty conversations with interesting, attractive people. This is the stark reality for many nerdy guys, and they often feel powerless to change it.
So, yes, oozing desperation is not a good romantic strategy, but it’s not just due to simple social ineptitude or inexperience. While the nerdy guys are trying to keep in mind how women feel when they’re constantly pursued (and this is something at which many of us can improve), women should please keep in mind just how lonely and desperate it can feel on the other side.
The reason I didn’t focus on empathy in my previous comment is because I didn’t see any reason to think that would be useful to you guys. In my view, we have problems that empathy can’t solve. I see now that it would probably be good if I detail some of my empathetic experiences because there’s a need to feel like women care and also explain why empathy can’t solve the problems I listed. So I did both.
I met a really sweet guy on a dating site that I have things in common with and we started having wonderful conversations. Then I started to notice Asperger’s symptoms. Instead of rejecting him immediately, I started giving him information about how he was coming across. We both decided that we were not romantically compatible (for unrelated reasons) but we talked frequently over the next year or so, and I kept giving him information to help him socially. I care about him a lot and it makes me sad to think of him ending up alone, so I helped as much as I could.
I make a point of letting guys know if they make a mistake, with few exceptions. If they seem beyond helping (the occasional crazies), I may back away slowly and vanish. If they send me a message on a dating site that ignores my profile, I ignore them. Otherwise they’ll usually get some type of error message from me. I know they need feedback.
There have been three situations in the recent past where I met someone I really liked, but they made a mistake. In each of these three situations, I pointed out the mistake but kept talking to them because I liked them and was hoping they’d come around (well in one case I was hoping that my initial assessment was wrong). I don’t do this for every kind of mistake. It really depends on what it is. Sometimes I meet someone I really like but I know I can’t save it, so I won’t try (though I usually tell them why I’m not continuing). But if I think there’s a reasonable chance, I’ll try.
It’s not like I’m not understanding. It’s that there are big problems that no amount of understanding can overcome. Let’s look at each of the big problems I listed for a minute. Please consider that I am not deeming these “problems that understanding will not overcome” for arbitrary reasons. Everyone is naive when they’re young, me included. Due to this, I got to find out the hard way that certain things will doom a new connection and that there’s nothing I can do about it. Here is why they doom new connections:
Bias about incompatibilities and overly optimistic probability estimates
Imagine telling someone that you’re not sure you’re what they wanted, and they just brush it off and want to proceed anyway. If they’re not willing to talk realistically about these things, a few problems result. First, when other people believe we’re more compatible than we are, I find it unacceptable to continue to knowingly allow them to believe that. I feel a sense of responsibility about not leading people on, so this situation is unacceptable to me—I can’t allow it. Second, I have to wonder whether they’re leading me on. If they aren’t willing to really look at a potential incompatibility and give me an honest answer, I may very well end up in a relationship that ends in heartbreak because I thought the person would accept something about me that they couldn’t. If they’re unwilling to face the truth to and make sure to tell me about these things in the beginning, they run a high risk of leading me on by accident. When people feel strongly attracted and that causes them bias like this, it’s really, really hard to get through to them. When I have tried to get through to them, this has resulted in me burning out on trying. Worse, it breaks my trust (I can’t trust them not to lead me on). The combination of not feeling okay with allowing them to be led on, not trusting that they won’t lead me on and being burnt out by trying to wake them up results in an extremely risky situation that is likely to lead to heartbreak for one or both of us. Since there’s no way to get an accurate idea of our compatibility in that situation, if I notice they’re stuck on optimism bias, I quit.
Early Attachment
When people are attached, they act like they need things from me and expect me to fulfill those needs. Rewind to my teenage years when I had trouble saying no: if people acted like they needed things from me, I would try to make them happy. Since I wasn’t doing these things based on a mutually beneficial relationship, I would inevitably burn out—I was trying to meet their needs, but wasn’t getting my own needs met. You run out of juice that way. What’s worse is that when you’re doing something because you feel expected to instead of out of a genuine sense of love and connection, it’s obvious. The result is that they sense this, and they demand more affection to compensate. For that reason, the burnout comes on rapidly. Of course, people who are attached too early don’t see the flaw in being attached too early. If they did, they wouldn’t become attached too early—or maybe they don’t know how to avoid it. It’s for those reasons, I think, that they never seem to go “Yes, I am attached too early.” and take responsibility for their own needs. Instead, when the difference in attachment is noticed, their solution is to try anything they can think of to get me attached, too. We all know how hard it can be to stay rational in emotional situations. We know that relationships are governed by reality the same way everything else is. Therefore we can easily see that it’s both important and difficult to stay rational regarding relationship decisions. Being subjected to somebody you like trying to make you feel attached to them puts you in a risky situation where you’re likely to become irrational and make a relationship decision that explodes later on. Anyone who has experienced the misery of heartbreak can surely imagine how terrifying it is to be in a situation where you’re rational enough to see that it’s likely, but not certain you’ll be strong enough to resist temptation. For that reason, people put in this situation tend to run screaming.
Moving too fast / expectations
The main reason moving too fast is unworkable for me is that it creates expectations I can’t fulfill, and the reason unreasonable expectations are unworkable is because people don’t let you change their expectations—instead, they are judging you by those expectations. For instance, they expect me to have more intense feelings for them than I’m ready for. Being unable to produce these, and unwilling to lie, I must tell them that I’m not feeling as interested as they are. If they really are expecting me to move as fast as they do the reaction I’ve had is that they assume I’m never going to be interested because I’m not intensely interested right away. Then they go into sour grapes mode. Attempting to convince them that I’m not sour would be hard enough in and of itself, but I’d also have to convince them that their expectations were unrealistic. That would come across like whining about being rejected or attempting to circumvent the person’s judgment. When someone rejects me, it’s best to respect their decision—no matter what it was based on—and move along.
I do understand that a lot of guys feel like they’re going to be alone forever. I’ve had those feelings, too. Don’t think that women don’t ever feel that. It’s worse for the guys because of the gender ratio, but it’s not like we can’t relate at all. Finding the right person is hard. I am complicated, and this results in there being a lot of incompatibilities to consider. It’s not easy for me, either.
The truth is, I have no idea how I would ever make dysfunctional behaviors like these work for me in a dating context. It seems ill advised to even attempt to do that, so I won’t. You said “oozing desperation is not a good romantic strategy, but it’s not just due to simple social ineptitude or inexperience.” and what I’m saying is “social ineptitude and inexperience do not just reek of desperation, they make dating broken in ways I can’t work with.” I hope you see the reason why I focused on these things in my post is not because I’m not empathetic but because, from my point of view, the biggest problem is that a lot of guys don’t realize that the things they are doing make the connection unhealthy and dysfunctional.
It seems to be a common attitude that the women need to realize that the guys are having a really hard time just finding the sorts of women they like, let alone getting the practice needed for good social skills. I do realize this. In fact, I do not see the gender ratio problem as being “due to creepers”—to me, that’s just another symptom of a different underlying cause which is nobody’s fault.
I think they get sucked in by the experience. It takes a lot of emotional control to fight back things like optimism bias, attachment and unrealistic expectations when you’re compelled by mating instincts, pressured by hormones and lifelong romantic dreams are clouding your mind. It doesn’t surprise me that a lot of intelligent guys act like they’re sort of “drunk” on the experience.
I developed emotional control through meditation to prevent myself from taking a “drunken” approach to romance. That’s what I’d recommend for anyone having these problems.
Thank you very much for the thorough reply. I understand your position and experiences a lot better now, and I think we are broadly in agreement about what needs to happen on each side. I recognize that understanding alone is not going to solve these problems, especially in individual cases, but I think it’s an important component for longer-term improvement. Judging from this post, you clearly do have empathy, and I could not reasonably ask any more in that regard than what you have already demonstrated.
Dating isn’t charity work. If you go on dates and do what is, roughly speaking, the opposite of what works, you will probably fail.
If the girl you are dating is feeling particularly generous she may be willing to give you a reference to a guide on dating skills and tell you to “quit being a pussy”, giving you a chance to have more success with the next woman that you date.
These are correct statements about the present. They are not very helpful for improving the future and solving the collective action problems that have led to this point.
I have not said that dating should be charity work. I only think that dating could be a little more charitable. Epiphany’s follow-up comment pretty well illustrates what I mean.
I disagree.
What is it that you would like us to do with this information?
Incorporate it into your models of such guys. I think this can help moderate problems such as being “easily spooked” and “cutting it short to prevent dysfunction.” Instead of thinking that this guy is just too clingy/creepy/codependent/etc., dig a little deeper. If the flirtation or relationship just isn’t going to work, then so be it, but we can at least strive to leave things a little nicer than how we found them. If I, as a guy, try to give other guys advice in these matters, it just seems like I’m trying to create a competitive advantage for myself.
I am trying to promote mutual understanding so that communication between the genders works better. I never have and likely never will experience being in such high romantic demand, so I have no visceral feeling for how women feel in that situation. The best I can do is to keep in mind what I’ve been told by women whenever such a conversation occurs. On the flip side, most women in rationalist/skeptic/etc. groups have never experienced such prolonged romantic isolation. If we want to increase group conscientiousness of issues which can drive women away, understanding needs to flow both ways.
I could pause before attaching labels, but I don’t think arbitrary guys who I don’t enjoy interactions with ought to get particularly much attention in the form of “digging”; that doesn’t make sense to me.
In the context of Epiphany’s post, these aren’t arbitrary guys:
I don’t think I would enjoy a prolonged period of having to manage someone’s desperation on the expectation that there is an otherwise functional guy under all of it. Plenty of guys come functional out of the package, so the opportunity cost of a lot of dysfunction-fussing-with is high. But your advice could be good for people who like fixer-uppers; it’s probably safer and more productive than trying to tame a sociopath or something.
Well, this conversation has managed to go right around in a circle:
Also, turning “dig a little deeper” into “a prolonged period” seems uncharitable.
Well, yes. I do in fact have many more romantic prospects than a bunch of the guys I know. Should I act like that is false?
Prolonged beyond what is enjoyable, or required for me to achieve a comfortable level of confidence that it’s not going to become enjoyable soon.
If you read it in context, that means:
“the ones who do seem compatible have problems like the above”
You can be dysfunctional and incompatible, which is a fail. Or you can be functional and incompatible, also a fail. Or you can be compatible and dysfunctional, still a fail.
The only thing that’s not a definite fail is compatible + functional.
Probably feel good about never having to be in this exact situation? I doubt that he implies that he deserves a pity lay. He can probably afford to pay for a professional escort once in a while, one of the solutions advocated by Dan Savage.
It would be lovely if you’d point that kind of thing out to the nerdy guy. One problem with being a nerdy guy is that a lack of romantic experience creates a positive feedback loop.
So yeah, it’s great to point out what mistakes the guy made. See Epiphany’s comment here.
(I have no doubt that you personally would do this, I’m just pointing this out for future reference. You might not remember, but I’ve actually talked to you about this positive feedback loop over IM before. I complimented you for doing something which would go towards breaking the cycle.)
Give them a link to a dating skills guide and tell them to quit being a pussy.
It’s not really flattering (or, as Captain Hook would say “I want no such compliments!”). Being sexually harassed is not empowering, and trying to troubleshoot it isn’t invigorating, it’s just useful. I’m glad to help people avoid pattern matching to behaviors that look like threats/seem condescending/just aren’t fun, and I think it’s appropriate to spend a little time discussing them.
I wouldn’t want this topic to keep seeding new threads the way the Endless September discussion did, but I don’t think starting the discussion dooms us to that fate. And if you’re worried about that threat, start another quite interesting thread on a different topic.
(For those not familiar with the reference, it’s a fun one.)
Some of each. I like attention, and bringing up my gender is a great way to get attention, because many people are interested in the rare female perspective on various LW topics. (It seems, though, that the attention I seek and receive on LW regarding gender is unrelated to my boobs.) When I don’t want gender-related attention, I simply don’t mention my gender; having a gender-neutral username is nice. Sometimes I like participating in discussions about gender/PUA/etc. without revealing that I’m female.
Why do you think those are the only alternatives? Or an especially interesting pair of alternatives?
I’ve assumed that daenerys gets karma and attention (at a fairly ordinary level) because they’re a good poster about difficult topics.
I had understood the questions to be abstract and anonymised, not to daenerys.
Fair point about the question being more general than I took it to be.
However, that makes it seem even weirder to me. Would you care to write about why you chose those alternatives?
I suggest availability bias because they are the two extremes of a simple spectrum of “pay no attention to women’s sex… pay lots of attention to women’s sex”. It feels natural to think in these terms, even when I’m aware that actual behavior mostly lies between the two extremes, varies a lot for the same person, etc.
I get so much free Karma for being a girl that it’s making my dopamine system short out good sense sometimes. Karma is majorly addictive. I keep coming back to this topic because I’m getting so much of it.
I also think it’s rather unfair that I often get way more karma for saying the same stuff as a man does, but with a “feminine anecdote” or “feminine caveat”. My model of LW would have a very critical argument with a man trying to make evopsych arguments with nonobvious generalisations, but a post I make about it where I explicitly signal femaleness would get upvotes.
I think it’s tremendously unhelpful that just signalling being a girl gets a post more karma (though I can understand that we want “more of this” as in women posting, I personally end up doing “more of this” as in signalling being female). My system 1 is just flat-out addicted though and doesn’t even want me to complain.
Is this comment intended as snark?
The wording of the question is problematic, because (a) it sounds snarky, and (b) it is trying to produce a specific answer. See, for example:
Please try to use a more neutral tone when asking questions. It will yield more (epistemically) useful answers.
I also was offended both by the wording of the question, and by the “here are the answers that I would respect” follow-up.
It feels like not but trolling.
It is a sincere question. And I suspect I’d actually respect either an answer that the emphasis on sex and gender drama is tiresome or that the extra attention is flattering and empowering.
EDIT: The edit to the parent changed the meaning of my response. I’m glad I looked back. I should have quoted.
Would the answer to your question influence whether you see this call for narratives as being useful or not?
It would have some influence. And I’m curious about such things.
To be clear, before editing my question was:
Is this comment intended as snark or is it a genuine question?
Sorry. I thought I edited it quickly enough that you would only see the edited question :). I certainly edited it before I saw your reply.
Understood, I realize making the meaning of my reply too highly dependent on unquoted context makes the meaning my comments fragile. I’m surprised I forgot to quote, actually.