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So You’re Not Desirable

nytimes.com

121–130 of 140 posts

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#121
post #58
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always hated the term "friend zone" because I think it's really as simple as you have just described. One person likes the other and the feeling isn't reciprocated. It's unrequited love. The friendship part makes things more painful and complicated but I don't think it has any bearing on why the person isn't attracted to the other.

I have always seen the friend zone as a term to describe the dynamic where the girl is using the bait of relationship and sex to make the guy do things for her. I guess other people see it as the guy being too clingy and not getting the message. These are two entirely different concepts which both carry the term "friend zone".

Here's a third one. When I first learned about the term over a decade ago, it just meant that a girl can see you as friend material or romantic material, but once she sees you as friend material your romantic chances are pretty much gone forever.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#122
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty fucking rash to say that an attempt to impress someone is equivalent to objectification and sexism. It might reflect an inability to accept rejection, but I would hardly compare it to subhuman treatment (which is what objectification means -- treating someone without regard to their humanity). I sincerely hope this trend of reducing every male behaviour to sexism strangles itself.

I think you can find objectification at the root of anger and bitterness associated with the friend zone (which is often how I see the term used; the girl "puts you" in the friend zone after all). "But I'm so perfect for her, why can't she just seeeee" does show a disregard for the humanity of the admired; women are allowed to have opinions, and hitting all of the imaginary checkboxes on what make you perfect for her…

I have never actually seen complaints about the friendzone as a manifestation of entitlement, only lament.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#123
post #63

The article makes a good case for "when they get to know you, some of them will fall for you." When I was still young and at least somewhat cute, I remarked to a friend how depressing it was that women always go for rich and arrogant men. My friend's reply absolutely changed my perspective on this: by choosing socially well-accepted and successful men they actually place a lot more emphasis on the inner values than m…

Only on HN is it a revelation that men value physical attractiveness more than women.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#124
post #63

The article makes a good case for "when they get to know you, some of them will fall for you." When I was still young and at least somewhat cute, I remarked to a friend how depressing it was that women always go for rich and arrogant men. My friend's reply absolutely changed my perspective on this: by choosing socially well-accepted and successful men they actually place a lot more emphasis on the inner values than m…

For women that chase rich men (not saying all women do this, but the existent and very small subset of women that do), it's often not because of the success implied. It's because of what the paper can buy.

Those women would still chase trust fund babies -- they chose to be born to those parents just as much as you chose to be cute.

Those women would still chase those that became rich out of pure luck (eg.: lottery).

Your financial success says nothing about your ability to succeed in interpersonal relationships. In fact, sometimes qualities between the two conflict with each other : being 'aggressive' in business is a sound plan to boost your competitive abilities, being 'aggressive' with your girlfriend just sounds abusive.

The whole reason the social consciousness regarding the idea of a "trophy wife" exists is to describe shallow women who emphatically don't "love you for who you are".

Also, there's a bit of philosophical conflict when it comes to the significance of "characteristics you can't do much about". The thing is, you often can't do much about any of your characteristics.

I think you're trying to argue that personal characteristics, like being smart, being funny, or being relatable, are somehow more of a choice than being pretty. But do you really have a "choice" in being smart or being funny? Isn't the grade schooler who opines after a girl who values these seemingly choose-able personal characteristics not trying his damn hardest to have those characteristics? If so, why does he fail when he does? Didn't he have a choice? No. He couldn't do anything about it, much like he couldn't do anything about his physical attractiveness. Yes, he can learn from his personal flaws and adapt his personal characteristics, but, first off : that relies on the meta-characteristic of being aware about your characteristics, which, again, not a choice or anything you can change about yourself.

Is having the characteristics to be rich or successful something you can "do much about"? Then why doesn't everyone do something about it to be rich or successful? If it's because they're lazy or aren't determined to work hard -- are those characteristics that they controlled? If it really came down to just working hard (which being rich/successful isn't, there's a lot of intuitive judgment that you either have in your instincts or don't, but that's a whole 'nother discussion), can you blame lazy people for being lazy? Did they sign up on being lazy? Do you think they chose to be lazy and undetermined? If not being lazy is so clearly better, did they ask to not be able to see that clarity?

We don't judge people based on how well they take advantage of their control, because ultimately no one has true control.

The series of actions required to become a multibillionaire with an amazing lifestyle and an absolutely lovable personality where everyone likes you is not some undefined series of actions that requires superhuman levels of magic. It's just that you don't know how or you are incapable of becoming said person; you don't know which human actions to take and decisions to make to become said person. So you become the best person your sense of control allows you to be, but did you really choose that control if it's given to you?

We judge people based on how well they suit our needs.

If one man's needs is someone who is funny and smart, so be it.

If another man's needs is someone who is physically pretty, so be it.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#125
post #103
post #56

Romance is funny. On one hand, people believe in some intrinsic uniqueness in people that make a few of them destined to be their "soul mate". This is purely a matter of being-who-you-are, which can't be measured as objectively good or bad, but is perfect for the few that are your destined "soul mates" (some people won't call it 'soul mate' or have such a mystical aura around it, but may believe in the same thing jus…

>There is nothing like this league-stuff for friendships There is, and it's the same league: social status. It's just not as rigid because we typically have multiple friends, so the effect of one lower status friend is diluted. In general though, we try to maximise the average status of our friends (or at least try and match our own self-perceived status) just as with our mates.

OK then, people are terrible through-and-through. Good way to end my day on that note.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#127
post #116
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone was talking about ethics.

It seemed to me that valuing someone based on 'inner value' was perceived to be ethically better than otherwise.

So if we are talking about ethics, the explanation for why people do what they do from an evolutionary standpoint doesn't say much about the moral implications of it. There are probably a lot of evolutionary theories on anti-social behavior in humans, say. Maybe some people are inclined to kill people in a surge of passion because that is some latent fight-or-flight instinct that has been beneficial for the survival of the organism, yadda yadda yadda. So what, though? That is not interesting when it comes to considering what is ethical and what is not.

It may seem that I am bringing up extreme cases, when procreating is seemingly benign. There are still considerations that one might have, though; even if it is beneficial for the propagation of the organism's DNA to have a certain amount of children - maybe for example 5 is the best in order to make sure they grow up relatively well - it isn't necessarily ethical. Maybe 3 children is the best for a happy and full childhood, with enough parental attention. Maybe bringing children into the world isn't something that a certain person should do, because of some terrible genetic disease (now we're straying into eugenics, and we probably know too little about DNA to be able to say that so-and-so should procreate and so-and-so should not). Propagating DNA shouldn't even be a goal in itself, ethically speaking. Humanity might have done more harm than good in becoming 7 billion people. And I don't just mean bad for each other, but in causing stress to ecosystems and the global climate which lead to natural disasters and other organisms struggling to adapt and survive.

So what if there is some evolutionary basis for some behavior? There has to be some reason. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we should endorse or encourage that behavior (whatever behavior is being considered).

Why did he kill him? Elementary, my dear Watson; first, we have to go back approximately 20,000 years ...

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Game" is only useful in making one realize that attracting women is a learnable skill. I was a big fan for a time but now realize much of what it recommends is like snake oil. I recommend going through David Deangelo's later material (2009+) and also Michael The Wizard. Deangelo's early work made it into "The Game" but even he realized with years of experience that there is a better way (Of course he made tens o…

Any specific recommendations for DeAngelo's later stuff? I too was big into that whole PUA/game thing in a former life (more theory than practice though) and came to much the same realizations about it, particularly after listening to many of Barry Kirkey's radio shows (the very early ones) where he gave you the non-exaggerated, non-glorified view of what it was like to live in that house. FWIW I also have a similar…

I recommend Man Transformation. I also recommend the book The New Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz (updated edition by Dan Kennedy). You can listen to the entire book on YouTube or download it and listen to it while driving. I recommend listening to it at least 3 times a month apart. I also recommend doing the following:

1. The theater of mind exercises where you visualize yourself as successful with women. You must make your visualization script really vivid for it to have any effect. And you must not lose focus while visualizing. This is actually quite hard and the reason why most people get no value out of it.

2. The mental rehearsal exercises before you go out and talk to women. You must design your life such that you are constantly interacting with women. The easiest way to do this is to sign up for dance lessons. Salsa is my preferred one. Other ideas: Hang out at coffee shops, in busy areas (malls, near college campuses etc)

email me at honeydoilookfat [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll send you more tips. For all intents and purposes I have solved the women problem although it took me six years. Now I am working on the wealth problem!

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#129
post #107
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I've seen, this is not unusual for men. Yes, I agree with everything you said. Of course the implication here is that it's different for women. Which may well be the case. Anecdotal evidence on my part seems to suggest that men are prone to add exceptions to their filter in order to let people in, whereas women overwhelmingly tend to only restrict their results further. In the end, this all might be expla…

Why is it mathematically absurd? Women have a smaller reproductive window than men. This includes periods which take a full 25% of the reproductive time. Men are available all the time. Women also bear a higher cost and greater investment in sex. So once again they are more selective. This creates greater competition among males for females than the other way around. Sure, the top guys have women competing for them b…

I think the topic is more about relationships, not sex in itself.

Re: So You’re Not Desirable

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any specific recommendations for DeAngelo's later stuff? I too was big into that whole PUA/game thing in a former life (more theory than practice though) and came to much the same realizations about it, particularly after listening to many of Barry Kirkey's radio shows (the very early ones) where he gave you the non-exaggerated, non-glorified view of what it was like to live in that house. FWIW I also have a similar…

> I too was big into that whole PUA/game thing in a former > life (more theory than practice though) I spent a few years working in that industry. If you want to bring more women in your life, the most important thing is: "find and talk to lots of them". Everything else is window dressing, which is why the whole "theory more than practice" thing is such a dead end. Honestly, I'd recommend one of the big commercial wo…

So true about practice over theory but the reality is you need to change yourself and become a different person in order to have success with women, if you are currently unsuccessful. To do something you have never done, you must become someone you've never been. And you are not going to change in 3 days!

I have attended some of those bootcamps and the reality is that most of the instructors are not that successful with women themselves. They have spent lots of time perfecting the approach and interactions at bars and are great at this, but outside of it have nothing else. I think they have paid too high a price. They have no careers, and must earn a living by teaching other men how to pick up women. Fundamentally this makes you a very unattractive man. You may seduce hot chicks from bars but you will never attract or keep a quality woman. By day three she will realize what a shell of a man you are and take off! If you are in your twenties, I would strongly advise you against going this path. Work on improving yourself, becoming more interesting, advancing your career, making more friends while simultaneously learning pick up skills. It is not easy but ultimately leads to the most fulfilling life.

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