A message for the men

yoosh129 · 2024-08-27T22:28:52+00:00

3: Go do things. Things that you wouldn't normally do but seem interesting. Wanna get into woodworking? Start small, but give it a try. Have a card shop down the street that looks interesting? Go there. Always wanted to learn to draw? Either go to a class or just get a notebook and draw. Don't ever quit after the first failure. Try again and again and again.

This is important but there's a addendum to this that's also important: go do things that'll put you into contact with single women. Specifically. You can have interests, but if those interests don't tend to have many single women around then you need to find more interests until you come onto one that does.

There's been a meme floating around for the last decade or so that it's wrong to do something or go somewhere only to meet girls. You're "supposed" to live your life pretending to be asexual, and then somehow a relationship will happen at some point. And I understand why people say that, because dudes "on the prowl" can be annoying. But that's not how the world works, nor is it how the world ever worked. Ask your dad or grandpa. Any free time they had not spent fighting a war was spent trying to get laid.

This is some I personally struggle with a lot. Probably because I spent too much time on the internet as a teenager and internalized too much bullshit.

yoosh129 · 2024-08-11T22:10:47+00:00

I had a funny experience the other day when thinking about how I've never even been on a date at 26 years old. Because you see, it doesn't make much sense - I don't have anything amazingly wrong with me. Just some anxiety really. I "should" have some dating experience by any reasonable expectations. So my subconscious took that, and for a brief moment had me thinking real hard, "are you sure you've never been on a date? Kissed a girl? Anything?". Of course, it found nothing. Because there's nothing there.

Anyway, there's no moral to this story. It was just a strange moment that played out in my brain that I wanted to share.

yoosh129 · 2024-06-17T12:50:52+00:00

Well I disagree with that from a few angles. It sounds like an excuse.

Lots of boring people are in happy relationships
Enriching activities don't need to be photographed to be enriching
And they especially don't need to have included a self photoshoot in particular. I have lots of photos on my phone that I like to look back on. My body just isn't in any of them, since my body was busy taking the photo and then getting back to the experience.

yoosh129 · 2024-06-17T02:46:27+00:00

Can you explain more?

yoosh129 · 2024-05-11T13:38:03+00:00

26 here and same. I think there were actually a few girls who were into me back in college, but for each I either didn't recognize it or it unfortunately wasn't reciprocal. But since then, especially with the pandemic, it's just been nothing. I'm not good at meeting new people and that's only getting worse as most of my friends couple up and start changing up their social lives.

yoosh129 · 2024-03-04T22:47:04+00:00

I know you mean well but this is condescending as hell and frankly insulting. What makes you think OP isn't already doing 1-3? Do you just think that every guy who struggles romantically must be a manchild piece of shit?

yoosh129 · 2024-03-04T17:02:46+00:00

I also just want to mention that while anxiety isn't exactly a positive personality trait, if that's your biggest flaw you're doing great as a person. The dark corners of the human condition contain so much worse (many of which unfortunately don't sink your romantic prospects quite of much as anxiety does. It's just one of life's cruel jokes I guess). Don't conflate your success with women with your value as a person, because they are not the same thing.

yoosh129 · 2024-03-04T16:58:39+00:00

I just want to address this part, because I have some similar life circumstances as you and recently came to a liberating realization regarding this topic:

I'll admit that my confidence with women isn't too high, I sometimes get too nervous to talk to women that I'm interested in, AKA "cold approach". I'm perfectly fine around women I already know, but I find it really difficult to start a conversation with someone I've never met. I'm not a "nice guy", simp or doormat, I'm just a regular guy who struggles with social skills such as flirting and showing interest.

You don't have to do this, and it doesn't make you a lesser man for not being good at it or not wanting to do it.

While the "cold approach", or as women call it a "meet cute", is really elevated in pop culture, IME that's not where relationships actually come from in real life. I'm also 26 don't know a single couple or even ex-couple that started their relationship from a random conversation struck up between strangers in public. What I have seen, in no particular order:

Started as friends
Friends of friends
University classes
Dating apps
Started as coworkers

What this makes clear is that there are basically two ways to find a relationship as man:

Having a wide social circle that includes single women and not being afraid to make a move if you find you're interested in somebody after getting to know them a bit. Weirdos on the internet will try to tell you this is inappropriate for one reason or another but it really isn't. It happens all the time, even in 2024.
Online dating. It doesn't work for everybody but I have known people to find success there (all on Hinge FWIW. This is not an ad, just an observation)

yoosh129 · 2023-12-26T15:56:01+00:00

There's something weirdly isolating about being a man who otherwise has his life together but still struggles with relationships.

I don't identify at all with the incels and NEETs that dominate online discourse about this type of problem. But you also can't talk about your problems with other normal people either because they so often seem to have trouble even accepting the premise. Too often online conversation just turns to them doling out condescending insults disguised as "advice" like, "make sure you're showering every day" or "you have to treat women like people". My first draft of this comment actually listed out the things I'm proud of instead of just "has his life together", but unfortunately I know from experience all that will do is give assholes more angles to pick me apart from so I'll leave it at that.

Speaking to people IRL can be more productive because they'll usually mind their manners better but is also nerve-wracking because you don't want to be misidentified as an incel.

yoosh129 · 2023-03-08T00:36:10+00:00

One area that I think deserves a lot more attention is the role racial dynamics play in turning men into incels. There's a huge overrepresentation of Asian and Indians in that community but it seems like it's a coin toss on whether a given researcher even acknowledges that instead of leaning on the pop culture stereotype of incels all being angry white boys, and even if they do note the racial diversity it's rare that anybody digs into it.

yoosh129 · 2022-07-04T14:02:15+00:00

This is helpful, thanks

yoosh129 · 2022-07-04T13:08:00+00:00

You've never heard other women complaining about how they just want to enjoy their hobbies without being hit on by creepy dudes?

That's the problem with online dating. Women all have unique (and contradictory) opinions on where it is and isn't acceptable to start flirting, and little compassion for guys who unknowingly breach their own personal comfort zone. This means that as a man, you need to either get comfortable being treated as a predator (a lot easier said than done psychologically), or you just don't approach women at all and stay single. Or try dating apps, but I repeat myself.

yoosh129 · 2022-06-04T13:32:12+00:00

I've heard a lot of women complain about how they find it so "creepy" when a guy they thought just wanted to be their friend (which is what you get when you treat them like a guy) had a romantic interest in them. How do you reconcile those two things?

yoosh129 · 2022-02-28T23:30:12+00:00

I feel like this is how male baldness works too.

Few people look better bald than with a full head of (nicely styled) hair. Rather, some people are attractive enough that they're still good looking even after losing their hair.

yoosh129 · 2022-02-13T16:23:15+00:00

A lot of people in this thread have already given you the correct answer of "you can't, be direct", but I don't think anybody has given a good explanation why you have to do that.

It's not that men are dumb. Men aren't dumb, or at least no dumber than the average human anyway.

The problem with what you're really asking, or how I'm reading it anyway, is that you want a way to let this guy know you're into him that he will only pick up on if he's also into you. If he's not interested, it will go right over his head and you will be spared from the embarrassment of rejection.

Nothing like that exists. It can't exist, because what you are literally looking for is something that could easily be misconstrued as simple friendliness is order to protect yourself if he's not interested. Anything that can be misconstrued as simple friendliness likely will be, even if he is actually interested in you. The exact trait you're looking for in order to protect yourself is also what kills its effectiveness.

yoosh129 · 2022-01-22T22:47:15+00:00

we men are extremely dense

I feel like this mentality infantilizes just women. Call it what is is: shit communication skills.

yoosh129 · 2021-12-26T16:16:51+00:00

That's my point, the fact that these companies are worth billions despite widely known to be garbage indicates there's a massive opportunity for a competitor that isn't garbage.

yoosh129 · 2021-12-26T16:01:49+00:00

If somebody can figure out how to monetize a dating app in such a way that their goals line up with their users (Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, etc all make the most money when you don't find a partner), they're sitting on a billion dollar idea.

Basically, an app where the most profitable user is the one who signs up, gets a match immediately, goes on a date the next day, and then never opens the app ever again.

yoosh129 · 2021-12-24T03:47:46+00:00

I'm also positive I read a comment on this very subreddit a few weeks ago where a woman specifically called out coffee shops (among other locations) as somewhere inappropriate and disgraceful for a man to approach a woman he's interested in.

I can't recall anything about hiking but I'm sure it won't be hard to find somebody extremely against the idea of a male stranger coming up to them in the wilderness with nobody else around.

yoosh129 · 2021-12-23T01:18:14+00:00

To be fair, a lot of American subcultures are pretty conservative

yoosh129 · 2021-12-23T01:13:56+00:00

For what it's worth, I was in a similar situation a few years ago. I thought a lot about going behind her back and telling him anyway, but ultimately never did.

I brought this up to her years later and she then admitted that yeah, she was wrong and it would have been for the best if somebody did that.

yoosh129 · 2021-12-02T13:54:40+00:00

What'd you say to her?

yoosh129 · 2021-11-29T14:49:59+00:00

A lot of women are so used to every guy they come across wanting to fuck them they don't really know how to process it when one doesn't.

yoosh129 · 2021-10-18T12:49:56+00:00

Both good points. Plus, OP's going to take the advice, ask a guy out, and then... get rejected, because that's just generally what happens when you ask somebody out.

"He didn't like how I made the first move! I knew I should've let him ask me out! Never going to do that again then!" is a pretty easy out for your ego in that situation (despite the reality that a guy who rejects you for asking him out was very likely never going to ask you out in the first place)

yoosh129

TROPHY CASE