This post complements some stuff that came up in comments to Ozy’s post about objectification. The theme there was between the reception of catcalls vs. face-to-face conversation initiation. The theme here is about the difference between strong or repeated compliments and conversation initiation. –fl
Personal anecdote: When I was in fast-food management training many years ago we were taught during a section on dealing with job applications that unless you’re really desperate, if someone comes in and says “you’re not hiring are you” the answer should always be “no, we’re not.” The idea being that phrasing the question that way was a good hint that they didn’t think they were qualified, and whether it’s fair or not the instructor asked, who would be a better judge than the applicant him- or herself?
So a blogger I just stumbled across, the author of How to Date Little Miss Me Online, has an awesome title for a blog post: “She’s Not Out of Your League.”
The post addresses and eternal bubaboo of mine, the male worthiness trap, a manifestation of the bogus Two Rules of Desire that leads a lot of men to apologize, grovel, or otherwise dismiss themselves when they approach a woman they’ve decided is “out of my league.”
For instance a would-be suitor contacted Little Miss Me with the following message (converted from text-ese to standard writing)
“Heya! Alright! How are ya! Sorry to bother you but I had to message you. I do have to say you are, well, attractive. Sorry for the cheesy start. I don’t really know what to say. … How come you are single? I don’t believe you! LOL! Well, it would be great to hear from ya.”
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She say she also gets notes like this:
Hey, you ok? I know you probably get loads of messages, some nice, some just plain weird, but I’m nice and normal!! I just think you are so, so beautiful, naturally pretty, gorgeous smile, and a genuine profile… absolute <em>princess!</em>
She quotes several others that follow the same patterns: you are so hot, how can you be single, you’re too good looking to be looking for dates online, you need someone better than me, even though you must be swamped with offers please, please, please give me a try, and so on.
She says, correctly I think, that while this approach superficially inflates her ego…
It’s true I am all those things, damn I fucking awesome! And you are just nice and normal? Perlease, I need someone better than that! See the point I’m getting at?…
Exactly! It’s all well and good to be admired from afar by someone who’s insisting he’s not someone you’d want to date… but he’s not someone you’d want to date! I mean, there are always exceptions to everything but for the most part people — women or men — don’t really want to go out with people who say all they ever want to do is worship them. For one thing it’s not true — they usually want something else and what they often want even more than sex or a relationship is status, affirmation, a self-esteem boost, or something else that the mere fact of her beauty isn’t going to give them. For another thing there’s the feet-of-clay business that follows the disappointed suitor’s inevitable discovery that beauty alone, like wealth alone, can’t satisfy insecurity or anxiety.
Anyway, she passes along a quote from another blogger (“Riff Dog the blogging king of online female seduction” according to her) that I think could easily be misconstrued by victims of the worthiness trap but which, when read and not just skimmed, hits the nail on the head.
“Not only does a dopey “OMG UR hawwwwwt!” message bore you and show no wit, it has an even worse consequence:
Subconsciously when a girl like you reads that, it’s the equivalent of you being head cheerleader and some dweeb saying, “Omygod she’s hot!” The guy has basically defined, with a single sentence, what the social strata is for each of you. The head cheerleader doesn’t date the dweeb. She’s dates the quarterback. The quarterback doesn’t say, “Omygod you’re so hot!” He might say “You look nice” or some other understated compliment, but he won’t gush.
I think a general rule of thumb for any messages a guy sends should be – Is this something the dweeb would say to the cheerleader? Or is this what the quarterback would say?”
Note that Riff Dog isn’t saying cheerleaders will automatically say yes because quarterbacks just automatically earn or deserve dates with cheerleaders (“entitlement”) or that they don’t have to gush because, hey, they’re quarterbacks (“hypergamy.”) In fact it’s the exact opposite. Instead he’s just saying that the “magic” is that they treat each other as peers instead of as supplicants (him) and gatekeepers (her.) And, in my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-hand experience, it explains about 98% of real-life (vs. “alpha” vs. “beta” vs. “hypergamy”) dating preferences.
I don’t understand why people are saying that they prefer one out of two extremes. The point of this article that I gathered was that it’s best to be somewhere in the middle. Confident enough to make a good impression, but modest enough to refrain from preening. It may not be true for all people, but I definitely think it is true for me. Recently, my boyfriend and I have not been getting along because he worships me and never wants to disagree in order to not hurt my feelings. I am comfortable with being the first to call, text,… Read more »
BlackHumor, That’s how I understood it. Now my question is, if Bob perceives Alice to be of higher attractiveness than he is, should he not approach her at all, or should he fake the confidence to treat her as an equal even if he does not feel it? To me, neither seems smarter, healthier, or more likely to get him laid*. I’m somewhat conflicted on the objective leagues. Clearly they do not exist in the way that chairs exist, or even in the way that numbers exist, but I would assume that they exist as probabilistic and epiphenomenal patterns. Note… Read more »
figleaf, Ozy, everyone, since my earlier comment about how to arrive at the “quarterback”-feeling seems to be lost in the moderation queue, I’d still like to link to what I think is the best post about the issue at hand I’ve ever read. It’s directed at me, and refers to experiences I mentioned in Clarisse Thorn’s manliness thread. While I don’t think the comment accurately “gets me”, I still think it is brillian as such, starting with the following observation: “IME, while general confidence is (both platonically and sexually) attractive, in discussions of dating, ‘confident’ is mainly if not always… Read more »
@kilo: I think the point of the original post was not that everyone is equally attractive (they’re not) or that everyone has equal chances with everyone (they don’t) but rather that treating people you approach as superior to you is stupid, unhealthy and unlikely to get you laid.
Also what Ozy said: objective “leagues” don’t exist. Some cheerleaders really like football players, but then again some cheerleaders really like geeks*. Or goths. Or metalheads. Or whatever other odd types of guy you can find in a high school.
I think it’s pretty clear that having lower standards* expands the pool of people available for dating, and therefore makes it more likely that you’ll get laid. On the other hand, it makes it more likely that the person you end up having a relationship with is someone you don’t actually want to have a relationship with. Like a lot of things in dating, it’s a tradeoff. *Please note that I do not believe in objective attractiveness. I’m attracted to physicists, someone else might be attracted to bassists, but if either of us insists that we MUST date a physicist… Read more »
@dungone: Let’s be clear about our terminology. By “hopes and dreams” you do mean “denying the existence of almost all women”, right? Because that’s what we were talking about.
@dungone
I would guess it is about it always being easier to find flaws in others than engaging in introspection.
@typhoneblue, reminds me of a guy back in college who told me I was an asshole for dating a girl with clear skin. His reason? I used to have acne in high school. He called me a hypocrite because when I had acne I was lonely and complained about how hard it was to get a date. So it wasn’t even that I pointed at girls with acne and laughed or refused to date one when the opportunity arose, just the fact that I had the audacity to date one who had clear skin, at any time, ever. That made… Read more »
Doug S., my story is different, but similar in quite some ways (I’ll spare the readers my whiny post ^^). I feel your pain and wish you only the best. Noah, so your argument is that this guy you know only goes for people outside of his league? I don’t disagree, but doesn’t it clash with the article somewhat? Also, what do you think is a good way to determine one’s league, and that of the people you are interested in? If he was ok with a slightly to moderately chubby girl, but not a heavily obese one, would you… Read more »
@typhonblue
Off course a fat woman can have any desire she so pleases, including slender handsome men. I would however as having been grossly overweight and being constantly told that I should know my league, not miss the chance to give what was given. You can’t kick other people when they have zero value on the meat market, and then expect sympathy when you are on the lowest rung of the meat market.
It sort of reminds me of a incredibly hypocritical quote from a female fat activist.
“Society judges us and thinks we’re not worthy of a slender, handsome man.”
@ Noahbrand “His current plan is making him unhappy, as it involves telling himself over and over that he wants a girlfriend, while making sure that he won’t have one.” Criticizing his plan wasn’t what I was talking about. But if you figure you’re going to get nothing, you might as well go for the best kind of nothing. Besides I wasn’t talking about that so much as this: “He’s a fat, kinda dumpy guy who chews with his mouth open” Yeah, his _attitude_ is risible but, you know, this description is really insulting. It’s also just about as judgemental… Read more »
@typhonblue: His current plan is making him unhappy, as it involves telling himself over and over that he wants a girlfriend, while making sure that he won’t have one. We should, maybe, pretend this plan is a good one? He would be happier either acknowledging that a girlfriend just isn’t what he wants right now, or finding some nice chubby girl who digs him. (I confess that I’m biased here, as I am personally hella into chubby girls, so I find his disdain for them as baffling as it is ill-advised.) His plan of, like the mathematician Doug linked, denying… Read more »
@ Noahbrand
“I seriously think he’s just scared of being in a relationship and has subconsciously found a way to avoid ever being in one, while still telling himself that he’s trying.”
So let’s mock him for his social ineptitude.
Ha-HA!
@Doug S.– The “Why I Will Never Have A Girlfriend” link you provided contains a key flaw in its math. Well, two flaws, the first one being that he’s trying to find love with math (http://xkcd.com/55/, dude. We’ve been over this.). But the second one is that he insists that his hypothetical girlfriend be “two standard deviations above average” in physical attractiveness. (Yeah yeah, he acknowledges inner beauty too, which TOTALLY has an average and standard deviations above it. Suuuuure.) That, by his own calculations, eliminates 64 out of every 65 women in his set. In other words, if you… Read more »
Meta-comment: I tend to use a lot of links in my comments so they often end up in moderation for a while. Would logging in with a WordPress or Facebook account help with this?
Ah yeah it was Men’s Long Hair Hyperboard, but it probable changed since.
Men’s Long Hair Community which wasn’t even a proper forum then (not sure now?) was one of the first places I acknowledged my transition (as in I transitioned during active membership). Long Hair Care, I’m not certain, unless that’s the place I talked about my first lolita fashion dress, which cost me 130$ (from China).
Brings back memories, that was 4 years ago. I was much more impulsive than now, but my tastes were pretty much right on target… I’m just more shy about it nowadays.
First off, thanks for the link! I’m imagining some of your readers (girls especially) raising an eyebrow if they clicked it.
Little Miss Me is a sweetheart (I actually thought she was a former girlfriend, Gabriela, at first) with some great advice. And no, her point had nothing to do with negs.
I love that “You’re not hiring, are you?” story, by the way. Perfect example. I might steal that one and use it in my own blog at some point, because I think it might be one of the most fundamental errors some guys make.
@Clarence: “The best arguer wins” is a failure mode, not a legitimate way to organize a marriage. Any of the ways to organize the marriage can devolve into it. It’s certainly not the same thing as egalitarianism.
Another politics analogy: the difference between egalitarianism and “best arguer wins” is the difference between democracy and anarchy.
@Doug: Okay.
Schala: the Long Hair Care Forum. Your screen name seems very familiar, and I think it’s either there or Livejournal’s longhair. Or maybe I’m confusing you with someone else, and if so, sorry.
And yeah I deal with finances much the same way, but it’s a bit odd to me that everyone isn’t seeing it quite like that.
That post was me at my most pessimistic. In terms of physical appearance, I have virtually no ability to judge male beauty – so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were plenty of women who would think I am “cute”. I do have plenty of good qualities that I didn’t mention in the previous post, and I’ve finally managed to learn how to talk to strangers without being creepy about it. (For quite a while, I was in a position in which if I didn’t talk to strangers, I’d hardly ever talk to anyone at all except on the Internet.)… Read more »
Actually, I’m Ronfar on TVTropes (and a lot of other places). Doug S Machina is someone else.
BlackHumor:
I would argue rather that both parties interests are more protected in SS marriages. After all, in an egalitarian marriage you have no leverage over anything, and the best arguer wins. SS marriages allow for the possibilities of trades and vetos so they are hardly unrepresentative. It’s true that in an “egalitarian” marriage your partner has no more relationship power than you do in any given sphere, but you also have no protections whatsoever.
@Schala
‘You can have everything you don’t desire’.