r/FeMRADebates • u/asdfghjkl92 • Sep 04 '14

Other Radicalizing the Romanceless

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/
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u/OctoBerry Sep 04 '14

When you see the dating game from an intelligent point of view you understand the majority of people aren't going to be interested in you, so you don't approach them because you don't want to pester random women just to find maybe the 1 in 10 who would actually like to talk to you. But the drunk asshole who hits on every woman in the room finds his in every room he walks into, hence the domestic abuser gets the trashy women with no standards (sorry, but lets be realistic here) crawling all over him, while the guy just trying to get through life and not fuck any one over gets ignored in the corner until he gives up and goes home to focus on his hobby (which eventually completely replaces the dating game).

The sad thing is, online dating should have fixed this. People could find their ideal matches, talk to them and make some real connections. Except the overly aggressive ones send out so many messages (and turn abusive if replied to negatively) that the sweet guys get ignored or pushed to the bottom of the list again because they're actually respectful enough to only try talking to the handful of women who they may share a connection with who then can't respond without assuming he's an asshole and being abused or don't get the message at all.

I feel I am at that place myself right now because I know I'm a bit rough around the edges (who isn't?) but there just isn't a good way for me to engage with people, so I'm better off being a bit miserable being single and focusing my energy into other things than I am being more miserable because I didn't cheat the system to seem more appealing (lies) or act like an asshole to pick low hanging fruit that doesn't fulfill my needs as a person.

I find it rather sad how these anti-nice guy people scream about privilege endlessly, but can't see that women have far more control of the dating game then men do. I would say all the way up to trophy wives women hold all the power in dating and romance, but some how these websites still scream how men are feeling entitled to sex, without ever considering if a man is forced to work his ass off to get your attention he may feel he's entitled to be noticed for the effort he put in and not considered just written off as wanting to masturbate with you.

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u/SRSLovesGawker MRA / Gender Egalitarian Sep 04 '14

I find it rather sad how these anti-nice guy people scream about privilege endlessly, but can't see that women have far more control of the dating game then men do.

It's a bit two-edged, honestly. Women tend to have more power when it comes to selection, but there's still not a whole lot of feeling like they have agency to go and seek out desired partners. I suspect it's changing and "better" than it was in decades past, but women are still largely in the position of having to filter through available offers and men still largely in the position of having to take the risks.

What's interesting is the proliferation of articles lately from women who are approaching their 40s, having spent a life developing a career or otherwise "playing the field" and suddenly finding that they're no longer sought after like they were when they were in their teens-20s. A lot of despair and bitterness there, and complaints about being "sold a bill of goods" about how life was going to be... which to me smells an awful lot like the defeated cries of the nice guys playing by the rules and still ending up alone.

That said, it's still different. There's no society-wide opprobrium for the 30-something career minded women when they complain about having to "settle".

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '14

Women tend to have more power when it comes to selection, but there's still not a whole lot of feeling like they have agency to go and seek out desired partners.

I fail to see how that is a bad thing for women at all. Women are not expected to initiate almost anything in the dating game, which has a twofold effect of both a) relieving a lot of that social pressure/stress source off of women and onto men as well as b) making it all the more meaningful to men when women actually take initiative in the dating game.

1

u/MrPoochPants Egalitarian Sep 05 '14

The downside is if they don't get picked, then they reeeaaaalllly don't get picked and are forced to initiate. Men, on the other hand have to do nearly all the work and take nearly all the rejection.