maudiorocks Posted July 11, 2011 Posted July 11, 2011 Just from lurking here for a week I've noticed that men are at a serious disadvantage compared to men of yesteryear. What are some things we can do to leverage our success in meeting women and actually getting dates? (Both new things due to emerging technology [i.e. the facebook/smartphone era] and old things pertaining to human nature).
somedude81 Posted July 11, 2011 Posted July 11, 2011 Just from lurking here for a week I've noticed that men are at a serious disadvantage compared to men of yesteryear. What are some things we can do to leverage our success in meeting women and actually getting dates? (Both new things due to emerging technology [i.e. the facebook/smartphone era] and old things pertaining to human nature). I really don't know. The tech boom has given women a bunch more options. But it doesn't seem to have helped men at all. Maybe even make things more difficult for us.
verhrzn Posted July 11, 2011 Posted July 11, 2011 I really don't know. The tech boom has given women a bunch more options. But it doesn't seem to have helped men at all. Maybe even make things more difficult for us. How so? What advantages do women supposedly have that men don't?
Author maudiorocks Posted July 11, 2011 Author Posted July 11, 2011 Disadvantaged compared to men of yesteryear - why do you say this? Technology has changed everything. Much of our interpersonal relationships are mediated by machines. (amongst other things)
Author maudiorocks Posted July 11, 2011 Author Posted July 11, 2011 Doesn't that really kind of hurt the quality of any of the relations with any of the women? I've always been a "one at a time" kind of guy. If there were a pool of 6 possible women I could be with, within a very short time I'd be able to narrow down the one I want to spend time with. It seems like the balance is superfluous.
somedude81 Posted July 11, 2011 Posted July 11, 2011 How so? What advantages do women supposedly have that men don't? One example is that online dating and Facebook has greatly increased the amount of attention that a girl can get from guys. For a man that can turn into an insane amount of competition between guys.
Ruby Slippers Posted July 11, 2011 Posted July 11, 2011 How so? What advantages do women supposedly have that men don't? Yeah, I think this goes both ways. Humans are merging with machines more and more, and this is only going to intensify, until eventually, machines will be "living and breathing" all around us. Sex with realistic robots will probably be commonplace and possibly mainstream within a couple of decades. One of the things that turns me off about online dating is that I imagine it's hard for some people to stop browsing the hundreds of men/women in their OD pool, even if they do meet someone great. Even though I only have a blank profile on a few sites and am not active on them, I am bombarded with messages from those sites, always showing me teasers of cute guys and making it very easy on me to learn more about them. I'm sure you can delete your profile or change your preferences if you meet someone, but it is in the interest of those sites to keep you coming back, so I'm sure they're aggressive in tempting you to return. This is just one example of how the endless parade of options keeps people distracted and focused on this magical something else, rather than what they are fortunate enough to have.
verhrzn Posted July 11, 2011 Posted July 11, 2011 One example is that online dating and Facebook has greatly increased the amount of attention that a girl can get from guys. For a man that can turn into an insane amount of competition between guys. But it can go the other way as well, in terms of competition. There was an OKCupid study that found that 2/3rds of guys were messaging 1/3rd of the women... not surprisingly, the top 1/3 most attractive. There have also been studies on how the amount of model-attractive ladies in the media is giving men a distorted view of reality. Men believe that the pool of super hot, single ladies is actually bigger than it really is, and are less likely to give less attractive women a chance. Why waste your time on an ugly local girl when you could be messaging a hot babe in CA? So, really, SOME girls are getting more attention... the rest of us may actually be getting LESS attention because 2/3rds of guys are bombarding that 1/3rd of the female population with messages.
Author maudiorocks Posted July 11, 2011 Author Posted July 11, 2011 And that would be a mistake to do so quickly, it takes time to see someone's true nature, everyone has their best foot forward at the start. Take your time, date several at once, and the fact that you have the same options they do makes them value you more as a fringe benefit. How do you manage that? If you're dating 3 girls at once say. How often do you contact each? How often do you take each out? How do you let them know that you're dating 2 others? I'm also noticing that a lot of guys in my age group are unemployed at the moment so I'm competing with a lot of dudes with way more time on their hands to tend to their women, keep in shape, etc. I would have never thought that being gainfully employed could be a disadvantage.
Author maudiorocks Posted July 11, 2011 Author Posted July 11, 2011 Keep early dates short, only contact to set up dates, do lots of weeknight dates, take them out once a week to start. Do not ask them if they are dating others or mention that you are until after several dates. It's none of their business early on. Next the ones who start asking their agenda quizzes on the first couple of dates, those are not bright and not well socialized. The good ones will just have fun without trying to grill you. They will do lots of the work for you by bad behavior, not returning calls, flaking, etc., so it's not as hard to do as you might think. When one drops out, plug in another one. Some guys can date 6-7 at a time this way, some only 3. This is exactly what women do, smart ones anyway, don't let them tell you otherwise. The key is like in any kind of sales, always have prospects coming into the pipeline to replace duds. Do this for several months and you will refine what you are looking for, not just a warm body or one who says yes, they will sense it, and it will make you much more attractive. Well that covers the easy part. Now I just have to attract some women, somehow.
Feelsgoodman Posted July 11, 2011 Posted July 11, 2011 I think the biggest "handicap" that men are experiencing these days is the fact that women (and especially young women in their prime) are simply not as interested in men as they were in the past. And there's simply not much you can do about that. These days, even men who are good looking, successful and have pleasant personalities are not guaranteed success with women. Sure, women might find them attractive in general terms, but they would not go out of their way to lock in a guy like that. Even these "upper echelon" men have to deal with flakiness and other forms of irrational female behaviour. In fact, the only guys who are guaranteed success with young women these days are celebrities and drug dealers. Anyone who has ever lived in any non-western part of the world would tell you how markedly different the social dynamic of male-female interactions is over there. For non-western women, finding a good man is literally the most important thing in life. This was also the case in our culture until the 1960s. Nowadays, western women are told that having marriage and family as your top priorities is old fashioned and lame. They are encouraged to go out and have fun and live for themselves. So it's not surprising that relationships with men are taking a back seat to other priorities.
Queen Zenobia Posted July 11, 2011 Posted July 11, 2011 I think the biggest "handicap" that men are experiencing these days is the fact that women (and especially young women in their prime) are simply not as interested in men as they were in the past. And there's simply not much you can do about that. These days, even men who are good looking, successful and have pleasant personalities are not guaranteed success with women. Sure, women might find them attractive in general terms, but they would not go out of their way to lock in a guy like that. Even these "upper echelon" men have to deal with flakiness and other forms of irrational female behaviour. In fact, the only guys who are guaranteed success with young women these days are celebrities and drug dealers. Anyone who has ever lived in any non-western part of the world would tell you how markedly different the social dynamic of male-female interactions is over there. For non-western women, finding a good man is literally the most important thing in life. This was also the case in our culture until the 1960s. Nowadays, western women are told that having marriage and family as your top priorities is old fashioned and lame. They are encouraged to go out and have fun and live for themselves. So it's not surprising that relationships with men are taking a back seat to other priorities. In general I agree with this but for a different reason. Marriage was supposed to be/is supposed to be a partnership. Sort of like "gee, I really like you, and we want the same things out of life, and we enjoy each other's company, so I'd like to spend the rest of my life with you". That kind of attitude, which is healthy, has been replaced by a view of marriage of some kind of indebtedness or servitude, something that's neither exciting nor enjoyable for either sex (for various reasons). Your comment about non-Western cultures though is a bit misleading and ignores a lot of other factors. Very much an oversimplification.
verhrzn Posted July 11, 2011 Posted July 11, 2011 I think the biggest "handicap" that men are experiencing these days is the fact that women (and especially young women in their prime) are simply not as interested in men as they were in the past. And there's simply not much you can do about that. These days, even men who are good looking, successful and have pleasant personalities are not guaranteed success with women. Sure, women might find them attractive in general terms, but they would not go out of their way to lock in a guy like that. Even these "upper echelon" men have to deal with flakiness and other forms of irrational female behaviour. In fact, the only guys who are guaranteed success with young women these days are celebrities and drug dealers. Anyone who has ever lived in any non-western part of the world would tell you how markedly different the social dynamic of male-female interactions is over there. For non-western women, finding a good man is literally the most important thing in life. This was also the case in our culture until the 1960s. Nowadays, western women are told that having marriage and family as your top priorities is old fashioned and lame. They are encouraged to go out and have fun and live for themselves. So it's not surprising that relationships with men are taking a back seat to other priorities. Depends on what non-western women you're looking at. Japan's birth rate is in free fall right now, partially because younger people, and especially women, have decided marriage just isn't worth it. Japanese society is structured in such a way that when a woman marries, she is expected to give up her job and dedicate herself exclusively to children... finding childcare is difficult and pricey, and child rearing extremely competitive. Many anthropologists speculate that the reason women are no longer keen to rush into marriage is because the modern world offers them lots of different opportunities, whereas marriage defines you solely as a wife and mother. Marriage for far too many Japanese women is a ball and chain without any of the benefits. Now, if women could experience independence and variety within a marriage, then perhaps they'd be more inclined to participate in it, and Japan's birth rate wouldn't be in literal free fall. I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this, but that really was one of the basic tenants of feminism: that rights and freedom for women benefit men just as much.
Author maudiorocks Posted July 11, 2011 Author Posted July 11, 2011 So guess the answer to the thread title is: nothing.
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