re: "Encourage men to discuss the issues they face, and listen to them."
Arrived at a recent take that men's emotional privacy is important to respect and that not respecting it is directly how you get to Tate-ism etc. Masculine ideals taboo externalizing one's emotions because men tend to react to adversity by doing and so it's important that the baseline be personal responsibility, especially for when the doing gets fucked up. When you encourage men to externalize their emotional angst, you give them license to behave badly for reasons that they no longer have to feel responsible for and will consequently seek no change to modify. Men can absolutely be deeply emotional, but directing that internally is the briefest of necessary stop-gaps between "I feel X" and "therefore I'm about to do Y, is this a good idea?"
This is very illuminating and helpful. Will have plenty to self-reflect on.
But it seems like a one-sided transaction. She loves him because she he gives her stuff and does stuff for her. Why does he love her? What does he get in return, and how is it equal to what he gives?
How does being extroverted and social in a men’s group lead to dates with women? I can’t tell but it seems like you met your partner through a dating app. Being needed is nice but if it’s all by people you don’t want to date, I don’t know if that’s going to do much.
It sounds like the main issue for your rationalist groups was that there were no women. As far as I know, the turn out in most rationalist groups is still very heavily male. Most men gravitate towards being social in their preferred hobbies, which are gender biased. Another issue is that while you might like your hobby, it might more generally not attract the type of individual you’d be best fit to date.
I guess my point is that your personal story doesn’t seem to align with the narrative.
Over the past 10 years I've had phases where I was leading a team, the guy more or less holding a small company together during a chaotic time, running a "cool" 500-person event — or quite aimless with what felt like no good options for doing anything useful for anyone available.
Sometimes there were women around in the former contexts who were directly impressed by what I was doing (it led to dates, but I also missed many great opportunities because I was a total idiot lol), but even when there weren't, how I was feeling about myself in the former situations vs. the latter carried over into other contexts and made dating a lot easier, and I think other people could tell.
Of course it's optimal if you can directly display your competence and usefulness with plenty of single women in your "target demographic" around, but my point is that even when you can't, having "a thing" that makes you feel productive and useful will likely make it a lot easier to meet someone somewhere else too.
N.B. this doesn't really mean you will be dropped by the wayside if you fall out of love with your job — many friends, including and especially women, have been extremely patient and supportive during my more aimless/lost times — but if you meet someone new while you yourself sort of don't think you're doing anything useful with your life, they are likely to believe you too.
I just don’t think that really translates to things like online dating swipe culture. Whether or not you’re “needed” at work and other situations isn’t going to really be demonstrable in 6 photos and 3 sentences. For your first few text messages, I don’t think it’ll show up either. Maybe it can appear after you get into some dates but that’s way down the pipeline that most men don’t struggle with anywhere near like the initial funnel. This article is about the initial funnel as well.
How did you get dates out of these things? If you’re in a high position of authority, typically having any relationship start at work is practically outlawed. If your event is somehow full of your target demo then I guess lucky you but that seems pretty hard for most men to accomplish. I’ve also run a lot of events and it never led to anything.
Idk man. My experience and that I see of many others is that people can need things from you but not want to fuck you still. They seem pretty unrelated for most scenarios.
Men are ancient tech in modern world, should be phased out. Govt should incentivize abortion of male fetus while encouraging birth rate. Waaay too many men than the few things than they can reasoanbly be needed for over women, everywhere else women’s participation is preferred.
Damn, I feel a little called out here 😅
Wow, this is so fucking good. So many profound insights here. Will be coming back to this one
re: "Encourage men to discuss the issues they face, and listen to them."
Arrived at a recent take that men's emotional privacy is important to respect and that not respecting it is directly how you get to Tate-ism etc. Masculine ideals taboo externalizing one's emotions because men tend to react to adversity by doing and so it's important that the baseline be personal responsibility, especially for when the doing gets fucked up. When you encourage men to externalize their emotional angst, you give them license to behave badly for reasons that they no longer have to feel responsible for and will consequently seek no change to modify. Men can absolutely be deeply emotional, but directing that internally is the briefest of necessary stop-gaps between "I feel X" and "therefore I'm about to do Y, is this a good idea?"
This is very illuminating and helpful. Will have plenty to self-reflect on.
But it seems like a one-sided transaction. She loves him because she he gives her stuff and does stuff for her. Why does he love her? What does he get in return, and how is it equal to what he gives?
How does being extroverted and social in a men’s group lead to dates with women? I can’t tell but it seems like you met your partner through a dating app. Being needed is nice but if it’s all by people you don’t want to date, I don’t know if that’s going to do much.
It sounds like the main issue for your rationalist groups was that there were no women. As far as I know, the turn out in most rationalist groups is still very heavily male. Most men gravitate towards being social in their preferred hobbies, which are gender biased. Another issue is that while you might like your hobby, it might more generally not attract the type of individual you’d be best fit to date.
I guess my point is that your personal story doesn’t seem to align with the narrative.
Over the past 10 years I've had phases where I was leading a team, the guy more or less holding a small company together during a chaotic time, running a "cool" 500-person event — or quite aimless with what felt like no good options for doing anything useful for anyone available.
Sometimes there were women around in the former contexts who were directly impressed by what I was doing (it led to dates, but I also missed many great opportunities because I was a total idiot lol), but even when there weren't, how I was feeling about myself in the former situations vs. the latter carried over into other contexts and made dating a lot easier, and I think other people could tell.
Of course it's optimal if you can directly display your competence and usefulness with plenty of single women in your "target demographic" around, but my point is that even when you can't, having "a thing" that makes you feel productive and useful will likely make it a lot easier to meet someone somewhere else too.
N.B. this doesn't really mean you will be dropped by the wayside if you fall out of love with your job — many friends, including and especially women, have been extremely patient and supportive during my more aimless/lost times — but if you meet someone new while you yourself sort of don't think you're doing anything useful with your life, they are likely to believe you too.
I just don’t think that really translates to things like online dating swipe culture. Whether or not you’re “needed” at work and other situations isn’t going to really be demonstrable in 6 photos and 3 sentences. For your first few text messages, I don’t think it’ll show up either. Maybe it can appear after you get into some dates but that’s way down the pipeline that most men don’t struggle with anywhere near like the initial funnel. This article is about the initial funnel as well.
How did you get dates out of these things? If you’re in a high position of authority, typically having any relationship start at work is practically outlawed. If your event is somehow full of your target demo then I guess lucky you but that seems pretty hard for most men to accomplish. I’ve also run a lot of events and it never led to anything.
Idk man. My experience and that I see of many others is that people can need things from you but not want to fuck you still. They seem pretty unrelated for most scenarios.
Can you write a version of this article for men who are seeking out romantic monogamous relationships with other men?
Men are ancient tech in modern world, should be phased out. Govt should incentivize abortion of male fetus while encouraging birth rate. Waaay too many men than the few things than they can reasoanbly be needed for over women, everywhere else women’s participation is preferred.
https://substack.com/@mrgirl/p-157885214