I love this post! I wish I had written this. This also explains why (eg) I met my girlfriend through my blog as opposed to any other medium - very efficient filtering
"Selection still happens whether you do it on purpose or let it happen to you."
Love this point.
I'd take issue with one point you and Chris made:
"If you’re trying to convince or change the other person, you’re almost certain to fail every time you try. If your goal instead is to find out whether they could be a good partner for you, you’ll succeed in doing so."
I think there's something in between trying to convince and finding out. I think most men rule themselves out of a woman's interest by being terrible at flirting, dressing poorly, insert other turnoff. I think most men would be well served by working on their "game". Rather than trying to convince I would describe it as creating a context where a woman can become interested in you, and you can also get to know her. You want to create a context where the woman can convince herself that she is attracted to you, and remove as many obstacles in her way as possible.
Convincing seems to presume you're trying to turn no into yes, but the default state for most women is neutral or ignorance of a man's existence, and ideally you'd like to turn neutral to yes.
I’d go further and say the goal is to turn unaware into fully aware
Your ability and willingness to escort someone from their starting point to where you’re at is indicative of certain prerequisite qualities
That process is not conclusive, but failure to notice someone’s frame of mind and to match their energy does indicate the lack of important prerequisites
I greatly missed the more math-y perspective posts from the Putanumonit era. They resonate to me much more than many of the posts on Second Person which are more vibe-y
I know, a lot of readers who followed me from Putanumonit are disappointed at the lack of math nerdery. It's not my fault that dating is actually about vibes and not about running the numbers.
There are tons of vibes based dating advice already out there. What I like so much about this post and the old matrices one and the "Do girls like nice guys/assholes" stats post is that they feel much more actionable, and are a perspective unavailable anywhere else. I've come away from many Second Person posts wondering "Okay... But how is my behaviour supposed to actually change?".
(In any case I did get a gf a few months ago and it's hard to know what if any advice ultimately helped, but I think the matrices one probably did).
Is it just me or is dating a bit over complicated? 🤔 Back in the day, I’m sure it wasn’t this difficult.
I guess it might have something to do with influence from social media or movies that expect men and women to behave in particular ways.
Thing is real life isn’t like they show in the movies. Nobody’s perfect. Everyone in and out of the dating market just secretly wants to be loved for everything that they are (flaws and quirks included).
Apps don’t include one fundamental factor: Chemistry.
Quite often, chemistry can make a man attracted to a woman that might not necessarily be his “type”. In the same way, chemistry might just attract a woman to a short bloke… it’s all about which traits a person wants so much that it outweighs their flaws 😉
The biggest thing you lose on dating apps is seeing a person in their natural environment.
If there’s someone single in my friend group, at my running club, at church, then a LOT of my perspective on them comes from seeing them move and interact in that social situation.
In contrast, a dating app shows a snapshot of whatever they chose to reveal. Further, most meet-ups from dating apps are 1-1, so it’s still a very restricted environment. You’re a long way into the process before you get to observe your date from a distance
In many ways, it would be far better to invite someone into your social circle before dating them. The costs of doing so make that difficult in the general case
Echoing Chris, the kind of stuff I’d like to write. I started taking my online presence and content diet more seriously when I started noticing I only experienced annoyed disagreement at everything on my feed.
It’s really nice to finally come across things I agree with. I’ve viewed things this way for a long time and took it for granted, but the rise of destructively bad advice from all sides is motivating me to try and spread the good word.
Intentionality can be overdone, but it’s usually underdone. Optionality is overrated by those who care about it and underrated by those who don’t even know about it.
Attraction, seduction and selection are best served by an optimal combination of acceptance/surrender (healthy detachment) and intentionality.
It’s easier to tell superficial elements apart than more structural elements. That’s why closets are best organized by category of clothing, not color. It’s easy to find the orange sweater once you know where all the sweaters are.
Prioritizing the important, hard-to-select-for elements is hard because we oftentimes struggle to identify them, let alone verbalize them, let alone work towards them.
Living publicly and showing up authentically can mitigate this by helping build social capital. Audience and network—assuming you’re embodying self-fidelity—will result in good connections.
Living in dissonance with your inner self and values will see you hanging out with people who aren’t right for you, spending your time doing things (including work) that aren’t right for you.
Beware of accepting the advances of those who fall for your performative social skills; if you’re hard to love, don’t hide it. Charm is superficial, and while it’s a prerequisite, it’s not the requirement in and of itself.
I love this post! I wish I had written this. This also explains why (eg) I met my girlfriend through my blog as opposed to any other medium - very efficient filtering
"Selection still happens whether you do it on purpose or let it happen to you."
Love this point.
I'd take issue with one point you and Chris made:
"If you’re trying to convince or change the other person, you’re almost certain to fail every time you try. If your goal instead is to find out whether they could be a good partner for you, you’ll succeed in doing so."
I think there's something in between trying to convince and finding out. I think most men rule themselves out of a woman's interest by being terrible at flirting, dressing poorly, insert other turnoff. I think most men would be well served by working on their "game". Rather than trying to convince I would describe it as creating a context where a woman can become interested in you, and you can also get to know her. You want to create a context where the woman can convince herself that she is attracted to you, and remove as many obstacles in her way as possible.
Convincing seems to presume you're trying to turn no into yes, but the default state for most women is neutral or ignorance of a man's existence, and ideally you'd like to turn neutral to yes.
I’d go further and say the goal is to turn unaware into fully aware
Your ability and willingness to escort someone from their starting point to where you’re at is indicative of certain prerequisite qualities
That process is not conclusive, but failure to notice someone’s frame of mind and to match their energy does indicate the lack of important prerequisites
I greatly missed the more math-y perspective posts from the Putanumonit era. They resonate to me much more than many of the posts on Second Person which are more vibe-y
I know, a lot of readers who followed me from Putanumonit are disappointed at the lack of math nerdery. It's not my fault that dating is actually about vibes and not about running the numbers.
There are tons of vibes based dating advice already out there. What I like so much about this post and the old matrices one and the "Do girls like nice guys/assholes" stats post is that they feel much more actionable, and are a perspective unavailable anywhere else. I've come away from many Second Person posts wondering "Okay... But how is my behaviour supposed to actually change?".
(In any case I did get a gf a few months ago and it's hard to know what if any advice ultimately helped, but I think the matrices one probably did).
This is a brilliant post…
Is it just me or is dating a bit over complicated? 🤔 Back in the day, I’m sure it wasn’t this difficult.
I guess it might have something to do with influence from social media or movies that expect men and women to behave in particular ways.
Thing is real life isn’t like they show in the movies. Nobody’s perfect. Everyone in and out of the dating market just secretly wants to be loved for everything that they are (flaws and quirks included).
Apps don’t include one fundamental factor: Chemistry.
Quite often, chemistry can make a man attracted to a woman that might not necessarily be his “type”. In the same way, chemistry might just attract a woman to a short bloke… it’s all about which traits a person wants so much that it outweighs their flaws 😉
Thanks for sharing 😇
The biggest thing you lose on dating apps is seeing a person in their natural environment.
If there’s someone single in my friend group, at my running club, at church, then a LOT of my perspective on them comes from seeing them move and interact in that social situation.
In contrast, a dating app shows a snapshot of whatever they chose to reveal. Further, most meet-ups from dating apps are 1-1, so it’s still a very restricted environment. You’re a long way into the process before you get to observe your date from a distance
In many ways, it would be far better to invite someone into your social circle before dating them. The costs of doing so make that difficult in the general case
Sure - and what do you do when you are lucky to date anyone that does basic hygiene and won’t get you killed, maimed, or jailed?
Concentrate your efforts on getting out of the humanitarian catastrophe zone, get back to dating afterwards?
Echoing Chris, the kind of stuff I’d like to write. I started taking my online presence and content diet more seriously when I started noticing I only experienced annoyed disagreement at everything on my feed.
It’s really nice to finally come across things I agree with. I’ve viewed things this way for a long time and took it for granted, but the rise of destructively bad advice from all sides is motivating me to try and spread the good word.
Intentionality can be overdone, but it’s usually underdone. Optionality is overrated by those who care about it and underrated by those who don’t even know about it.
Attraction, seduction and selection are best served by an optimal combination of acceptance/surrender (healthy detachment) and intentionality.
It’s easier to tell superficial elements apart than more structural elements. That’s why closets are best organized by category of clothing, not color. It’s easy to find the orange sweater once you know where all the sweaters are.
Prioritizing the important, hard-to-select-for elements is hard because we oftentimes struggle to identify them, let alone verbalize them, let alone work towards them.
Living publicly and showing up authentically can mitigate this by helping build social capital. Audience and network—assuming you’re embodying self-fidelity—will result in good connections.
Living in dissonance with your inner self and values will see you hanging out with people who aren’t right for you, spending your time doing things (including work) that aren’t right for you.
Beware of accepting the advances of those who fall for your performative social skills; if you’re hard to love, don’t hide it. Charm is superficial, and while it’s a prerequisite, it’s not the requirement in and of itself.