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On July 30 2008 10:45 YanGpaN wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2008 10:36 travis wrote:On July 30 2008 10:17 YanGpaN wrote:On July 30 2008 08:46 semioldguy wrote:On July 30 2008 08:13 GeneralStan wrote:
Because I've been told my whole goddamned life to be myself. I'm a nice person. I confess. Its my overarching personality flaw.
I've also been told for most of my life that to get a girl that being myself is a good way to go. So we find later that that's a bunch of bullshit, and we can't actually be ourselves and get girls.
I'm disillusion and frustrated by this reveloation. Why should I have to be a worse person who isn't myself to get girls? "Just be yourself" is one of the worst pieces of advice ever given. It's the response people give when they really don't have any advice for you. If it's a problem that can be solved by being yourself, then there shouldn't have been a problem to begin with. Again it seems like you're manipulating women this way, but the truth of the matter is that you're manipulating women anyways by being nice and generous. You have the mindset that "I want her, so I'm going to be nice to her" which is already maniplative. uh, unless you're actually nice to everyone. /gasp heh thats arguable, even though you may be nice to everyone. When you meet a hot girl you have the mindset of "I'm being nice to her, so she can return it to me sometime". You're not being nice just to be yourself, but you have a purpose of it, and therefore is manipulating.
I did a poor job of explaining myself so I am starting over.
I am me - I am devoted to honesty both with myself, and others. I do not like making games out of social interaction. If I have feelings I feel are worth sharing I will share them as honestly as I can. If the girl rejected that I would either continue to try to show her how awesome I am(which is easy if you can invoke fearlessness), or I would move on without regrets.
scheming is for people who don't love theirselves enough to be completely honest
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To Semioldguy:
I am sorry if I have misinterpreted you. That's not my intention, although I did knowingly use your post on page 1 as an excuse to speak somewhat beyond issues you raised.
At the same time, I feel pretty sure that I didn't completely misinterpret you, because after my post, you go on to speak of masculinity as a fact (boldness, decisive behavior). My point was precisely that this kind of masculinity is not an objective fact of human nature, but something that is socially constructed through practice. Furthermore, I think you have misinterpreted me, because the violence I spoke of was not merely physical violence towards women - in fact, I was not talking about that at all, except perhaps tangentially.
The violence I was speaking of is SYMBOLIC violence. This symbolic violence consists of dismissing certain kinds of men as less manly because they do not exhibit particular traits (boldness and decisiveness, for example). Similar violence is carried out against women when we assert - explicitely or not - that a woman's essence is rooted in her physical appearance. What about women who don't wear "women's" clothes, or have large breasts, etc? What about men who are not bold and decisive? They are not any less a woman or man than you or I.
Furthermore, there is a kind of historical violence at play in your ideas of masculinity. What I mean is that the idea that men are bold and decisive (and the implication is that women are more submissive, emotional, and docile) is something that was forged through thousands of years of social practice! And looking back through the centuries and millennia at these practices, we see great oppression of women. Women were pushed around, told what they could and could not do, and their development relative to men was severely stunted. We essentially blame the victim; we act like it is a woman's fault for being submissive, when all her life she was TAUGHT to be submissive - forced to be submissive - and at the same time we believe that it is our role to be oppressors and dominators and deciders (for a more modern example of this, look at gangsta rap culture, with pimps and bitches and hos.) (Please realize I'm not saying you are oppressive, Semioldguy, I am merely trying to shed light on a history behind this idea of masculinity as boldness and decisiveness). Men who do not play this game of domination are seen as less than men. So the symbolic violence I speak of affects men as well as women, because not all men want to play the game. Why should such a man be seen as less of a man?
Also note that I am not saying men should not be sexual, or that they should not act on their sexuality. That is for each man to decide. My point is not to say precisely what men or women should be or should do, but rather to allow for great diversity and move beyond essentialist notions of sex. If you want to be a player, great. If not, great.
There is an increasing culture of men who study dating and relationships who argue for a return to "real masculinity." While there are bits of truth in the things they say (there are nuggets of truth and goodness in pretty much any philosophy), there is also a lot of mysogyny at work, and it is troubling for me, and obviously to several other people who post here.
My stance, to reiterate, is this: in this culture, it may be that so called "masculine" behaviors will "work" to get women to sleep with you and even be with you in a longer relationship. It may be that the "masculine" approach is even more effective in this regard. BUT, my contention is that such an approach will tend to attract certain kinds of women - not all women. And it may be that the kind of women this approach attracts are not the kind of women you'd want to be close to. And again, there is more to romance than sleeping with a lot of women. If lots of sexual partners is what you want, that's fine. But choosing a different path does not make you any less a man, and I think it can be at least as rewarding to be with a very few women that you can relate to deeply. If you aren't a so called "masculine" man, then you probably won't relate so deeply to a woman who falls for "masculine" men. So again, don't make a greatly contrived effort to change who you are just to appeal to women you wouldn't get along with anyway. Have standards. "Be yourself," and have the patience that this requires. There is someone for everyone.
A lot of people are frustrated with the games played in romance. I am one of them. There is a lot of bullshit. There is a lot of bullshit in modern cultures in general. So you have a choice: you can play the game and get "results," or you can choose not to recreate the bullshit that you despise. I choose the latter option. It means I don't get laid as often as I would prefer, but there is more to life than getting laid (granted, even I sometimes forget this, and am capable of being very sexually frustrated, but it is true - there is so much more).
Incidentally, I don't think that resisting the mainstream notion of masculinity means you have to settle for unattractive women. Granted, I've only been with 3 women in my 25 years on this Earth, and I was a virgin until late in my 22nd year, but 2 of the 3 women I was with were very sexually attractive, and I was very sexually satisfied with them.
Just be patient. If you don't like games, don't play them.
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About Travis' post just above mine: Kudos to you, man. I am in complete agreement with you.
My approach to a woman I am interested in is to show genuine interest in her, and to try to share the aspects of myself that I prize the most. If they don't care to relate to a fellow such as myself, then why would I fret over that? I wouldn't like them much either, most likely.
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About BottleAbuser's anecdote on page 2:
This is much my approach! I've mentioned many times on TL.net that I bathe about once a week (partly because I'm not a fan of it, and partly because I want to conserve water), and that I never wear deodorant. I often have a beard and my hair is growing increasingly long and straggly. Surprisingly (to some, not to me), I am now dating a beautiful blonde girl who doesn't care at all about this stuff. She likes me anyway.
Also, in romance, I often try to turn my liabilities into assets via humor. Some women get it and like it, others don't. I'm not worried about the ones who don't.
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United States22883 Posts
That was a pretty nice post Inky. Just as men are often pressured to be more "manly", women are also conditioned to look for that. In fairness, I'm not sure how much is biological and how much is psychological. The dominant male/submissive female thing didn't start millenia ago, it's been going on for millions of years with many species of animals.
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Thank you for the compliment, Jibba. I was being less nuanced than I could have been. Because of what I perceive as an imbalance, I place virtually all emphasis on socialization - behavior shaped by society, not by biology. But what you are saying has truth; we aren't just social creatures, we are also biological creatures. But I see a lot of danger in the way so many people disguise politics as pure biology, so I tend to emphasize the social and political.
So I agree with you; it is both. BUT, I will say that in my own experience and in my general understanding, the kinds of women I want to be with are less interested in a stereotypically masculine man.
Also, even within a purely biologcal or natural framework, I would analyze the human subject as not just the will to fuck and procreate, but also as the will to relate on other levels. In other words, I don't see non-sexual interests as any less biological than the will to fuck. So I say this by way of pointing out that a human being is not a unified being; there can be competing interests within a single person, and so it is not unnatural to or un-biological to place less emphasis on what might be biologically determined sexual behavior. In other words, it is not unnatural to decide not to play the game - it instead reflects a different biological imperative.
Yeah, I agree with you Jibba.
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On July 30 2008 11:24 nA.Inky wrote:
...I am now dating a beautiful blonde girl...
Pics or it didn't happen.
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Haha, BottleAbuser  I guess it didn't happen, because sadly I have no pics!
Jibba, again I'll state that I agree with you. But I'd like to add that some cultures are known to be particularly favorable to women, even placing women in positions of power over men. So clearly humans have room to be many different ways. Also, what I understand of bonobos - close relatives of humans and chimps - are that they are female centered.
Just saying this to try to counter the biological argument that says men have to be such and such way because blah blah - and I know you weren't saying that at all, Jibba.
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United States22883 Posts
Agreed. Totally off topic, but I got a long explanation of the word 'amazon' when I went to Turkey. It's from the greek word amazos meaning "without a breast" because they cut one of their breasts so they could better use bows. D:
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Haha, Jibba. Sweet Jesus, man!
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In my stupidity I believe that the word masculinity is an abstract noun. It is interpretated differently by everyone. Although you may say it is 'boldness, or decisiveness', these concrete nouns are your interpretation of the abstract masculinity. Although culture has been a large determinant of what is considered masculine and what is not - it depends on the person. Forgive me if you disagree, reverend sirs and venerable elders.
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EPT
