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Comment by spaniard89277 | Hacker News Reader

I've been running online communities for years and this, as far as I can see, factual.

I've read somewhere, maybe multiple times, that most men are emotionally and sexually deprived. That sounds correct given the data I have.

I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. I still struggle sometimes. Many of my friends do much worse than me. I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-looking, that have not been touched by a woman in years.

We don't talk too much about this but it's clear to me that it hurts them a lot, because it's not only about feeling desired, self-steem, or they can't fullfill their sexual desires.

It's that they don't have those moments of intimacy that you have with members of the oposite sex, when you're naked or just cuddling.

The only advice I've told them is to get out of any online stuff and hit bars. But they're in their 30s, their self-steem is already pretty low, and when I bring em somewhere it's pretty difficult to get it running. The times we've been around women, they get tired after a while and just want to grab me and go somewhere else.

The've had GFs and hookups from time to time (meaning maybe about 2 years), and from my POV the've been treated pretty badly.

IDK what to say, but I try to not think about it too much because it makes me sad.

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In a past life I got pretty deep into trying to help guys like this.

There's a whole industry around it peddling advice that ranges from effective (yet impossible to implement for a broken person) to counter-productive and evil.

It's really very simple, but people just have massive amounts of negative programming that radiates out from them like a reverse pheromone.

Those who are hungry do not eat. You can't fake it, but letting go of fear and just talking to strangers in public flirting spaces (bar, club, maybe target, NOT WORK OR FRIENDS) over and over again while making no effort to hide one's sexual interest will eventually give one the appearance of non-attachment to sexual outcomes. Having a conversation with any kind of sexual implications while maintaining a stance of non-attachment to sexual outcomes is my definition of flirting.

The mindset (feel free to actually say this. it works): "I think we should do sexy stuff together because it would be fun for both of us, and I'm happy to tell you that because even if you say no, I hope I've flattered you and spoken my truth and that feels good."

Might be simple but still unattainable to a huge swath of guys. It's like trying to tell someone not to freak out before a job interview - just go there, be yourself and don't care about the outcome. Let me know how well that worked out...

Correct. If I had a cure I might still be doing it. Like I said, some people are broken. What I've described is more fundamental. It probably will be of more assistance to people doing okay with some hangups than people whose self esteem is not in a place where flirting can be an uplifting activity.

Edit:

-Therapy

-Dance classes (not for flirting, just having positive touch experiences)

What kind of therapy?

Dance classes could be still a downlifting experience but yes, could still be beneficial, even though not by much. Some numbing could be achieved, when after downfall one reaches a plato where for some range of input conditions the output doesn't worsen.

I meant talk therapy. Therapy is tough because a good therapist is probably very expensive, and might be a major expense for someone.

Cheaper options would be trauma or addiction groups if those fit.

A lot of people have just horrible “truths” they absorbed from their upbringing that need to be deprogrammed. Framing this as a parental trauma and working through it in a group setting could be useful.

Some people have had success with MDMA or psilocybin

The trick is to not be desperate for the job, and to schedule as many job interviews as humanly possible until it's just a thing you do[1]. Most people don't feel great after each rejection and so are not willing to put in the work.

1. The same strategy applies to public speaking, or product demos, or chairing a meeting, or systems design for people who feel they are not good at it. The human mind is incredibly adaptable and has great capacity for learning when exposed to new environments. The only exception is if the person has some kind of trauma or psychological wall and exposure harms them - in that case, I recommend talking to a professional first.

> Most people don't feel great after each rejection and so are not willing to put in the work.

Don't talk lightly about such things. Rejections are a known cause for suicides.

> The only exception is if the person has some kind of trauma or psychological wall and exposure harms them - in that case, I recommend talking to a professional first.

It's likely everybody had a rejection at least once. It's also likely a large percent didn't particularly enjoy the outcome. I don't think that so many people should seek professional help though - or it should be something very different from what we assume now.

There's a huge difference between "being rejected, and a bit bummed about it" and "being rejected, and being traumatized by it". The only way anybody gets good at anything is repeated failures. While learning to ice skate, you get some bruises from falling on your ass. Get up, dust yourself off, keep trying. If you fall down and break your arm, maybe get some professional help before trying again.

There could be an ocean of difference between failures learning to skate and failures learning to get dates, to the point it's not interesting to compare. At very least to some people.

What's the difference? Both are skills that can be improved through frequent practice.

> Don't talk lightly about such things. Rejections are a known cause for suicides.

If being rejected by a potential employer or potential sexual partner results in suicide ideation - I strongly recommend talking to a professional expeditiously.

A person in a healthy state of mind can be disappointed by rejection, but ought to realize that a self-fulfilling fear response while interacting with the potential employer/partner is unhelpful and take steps to mitigate future occurrences.

> If being rejected by a potential employer or potential sexual partner results in suicide ideation - I strongly recommend talking to a professional expeditiously.

Hmm...

> A person in a healthy state of mind can be disappointed by rejection, but ought to realize that a self-fulfilling fear response while interacting with the potential employer/partner is unhelpful and take steps to mitigate future occurrences.

Imagine you need to fly over a river to save your life, because you're being chased by a maniac with an axe. Would you fly?

No, because you can't. Person in a healthy etc. can realize that thing about fear response, but be unable to control that said response. Somewhat, but not quite, similar to being unable to hold breath voluntarily, for arbitrarily long time.

You might be right about the need talking to professional expeditiously. However many don't, and are ok, even though they pass through quite - to the point of those thoughts - dark area in their life. We know about some unfortunate outcomes of such situations; that doesn't mean all the rest have it easy.

> Imagine you need to fly over a river to save your life, because you're being chased by a maniac with an axe. Would you fly?

No, I would not - but if I survive the encounter, I would learn to swim under highly controlled circumstances (i.e. while not being chased by a maniac), and swim an increasing number of laps to help my endurance. That way I may have confidence to swim across raging river, if my life involved having to borrow axes from strangers near rivers.

Increasing numbers of people don't drink--which rules out bars. And you seem to be suggesting actions with a hookup as the desired objective--not of much use for those who desire a relationship rather than a hookup.

By "club" do you mean hobby type things? It's perennial advice but it has the serious flaw that to a large degree you encounter the same people over and over, most of whom are too young/too old/not available.

I'm married so I'm not looking but as a game I have paid attention to the suitability of those I get to know--and the number of relationship prospects approximates zero.

It is general advice. Even if you're taking it slowly, you need to somehow let the person you are interested in know that they will enjoy hooking up with you someday, or they won't stick around to wait for you.

Edit: I still need to emphasize the public element. Don’t let your co-workers and friends know you’re into them (at least don’t blame me if you do)

"Increasing numbers of people don't drink--which rules out bars."

It is possible to not drink alcohol at a bar and still have fun, but I also never liked bars to meet people.

And "clubs", no he did not meant a "hobby thing", but a place where you can dance and enjoy music.

Dancing is a very old way of hooking up.

Back in time it was the village dance, where the young people got close. And this still works, either in formal settings like a dance studio - or free style on a dance floor.

Dancing is body language and you can signal to other people, whether you are interested, or not. And then you get close, or apart.

Just understanding what many women are generally attracted to is a huge differentiator, worth quite a few points on the conventional attractiveness scale. If you're reading this, you probably come across to others as nice and inoffensive, which is actually a very good thing! But you do generally need to show off a little bit of a "wilder" side that's been properly tamed and made harmless, in a way that she can intuit. It's a big component of flirting of any sort.

"while making no effort to hide one's sexual interest"

This is tricky, but key. If you hide your interest, you will most likely act weird.

And yes, rejection is part of the game and no problem. Unless of course - like you say - one is already broken. Then a simple rejection can be devastating of the remaining confidence.

Flirting is a game, but some never learned how to play. I also learned it quite late and remember the awkward teenage years and feel sorry for those who never got the chance. And nowdays it even seems harder.

> Flirting is a game, but some never learned how to play

That would mean it's not very natural, which could be doubtful. However the quality of play could vary, with corresponding outcomes.

It is natural, the same way walking is natural. But you still have to learn it and not becpme crippled in a socially traumatising accident.

I'm glad I'm married and (hopefully forever) out of the game, because I can imagine it's even more difficult these days where harassment and creepiness is much more prominently on the radar. It can be a minefield. The difference between flirting (wanted attention) and creeping (unwanted attention) is entirely in the mind of the recipient. So you don't really know which one you've done until the recipient reacts either positively or negatively.

It's interesting to me. I have female friends in their 30s who go on tons of dates but reject pretty much all of them for any long-term relationship. The ones they seem to be in to tend to reject them after a couple of dates.

I'm not there in those interactions but I wonder how much of it is a mismatch between what you desire in a relationship and who you are attracted to in a person.

Or how much the "game" influences it. People tend to want what they can't have and reject things that come too easy.

I'd agree, but the important word here is "tend". It's definitely not a universal statement.

>It's interesting to me. I have female friends in their 30s who go on tons of dates but reject pretty much all of them for any long-term relationship. The ones they seem to be in to tend to reject them after a couple of dates.

This is simply the other side of the coin, "online dating divides people heavily into winners and losers"

What is happening is that in the same way most women get more attention than most men, the few men who do get attention get to pick and choose because all of the women are going for them.

I don't understand how this is a stable situation. If women have to compete so much, wouldn't it be better for them to lower expectations?

Tricky. In an environment where it takes time to collect information about competitiveness, updating of expectations is slow (and costly, because it is hard to be rational about this), there is a lot of randomness, and one's own competitiveness might be typically decreasing ... the slope of the expectation update might be not steep enough.

Yes. But it takes time. Most importantly, women lose their ability to have children earlier than men but in their early 20s many of them are busy with other things and think they have a lot of time.

They get less desirable as time goes by so when they decide to ‘get serious’ at 35 it is already getting late

If this is the case then it would seem an easy problem to solve as men looking for relationships and not getting any responses should only have to message those 35 and older.

If they are young they are less established in a career which disqualifies them.

My take is that "age gap" relationships are difficult, even somebody who is 50 today grew up in a very different world than someone who is 27 on top of all the other issues about not outliving your partner too much, etc.

This is a proven dating strategy for around average value men. You present yourself as a provider beta looking for commitment, approach mid 30s to 40s women, establish a bond, bang them, and then ghost and move on to the next one. That sounds like a poor way to live to me, but it definitely works.

> wouldn't it be better for them to lower expectations?

There's two metrics here though which influence and confuse one another. Women get plenty of attention on the attractiveness side, but just because you can get laid doesn't mean you can get a relationship. It makes sense that if a lot of people are acting as suitors that you would then down select from this group. The problem is that on the woman's side you don't know if the suitor is looking for a relationship or just to get laid. Without a good metric for that, you can't properly down select and might just end up with a pool of only people that want to get laid. Especially if the primary initial selecting criteria is simply attractiveness (i.e. you're using an app). This is probably unsurprising considering in the digital world we often convince ourselves that we have stronger relationships because of tools like these (e.g. keeping up with friends more because Facebook) but in reality we don't because we are sacrificing the only meaningful tool to build and maintain relationships: physical time together.

A common tendency is for women to become accustomed to the type of men she can find for casual sex online, it's rough to go from dating the top few to an average partner.

I'm sure they are aware of the situation as well as their own biological clock and are acting according to their desires. Unfortunately we have to just let people make their own decisions in the realm of dating. Maybe the future is common egg freezing or artificial wombs and people can delay serious families until their 40s or 50s.

Women are okay with sharing one desirable man (polygyny). It has been that way since humans exist, as evidenced by the different rate of reproductive success for men and women respectively, as recorded in our genome. This is stable from a biological and social standpoint, if the social environment is how we spent the last couple of hundreds of thousands of years: in clans and tribes, size below Dunbar's number. If you look closely, polygyny is making its comeback since the end of enforced monogamy.

For modern society, this return to acting out the ancestral environment makes everything unstable. I predict in my lifetime for depression and suicide to be overtaken in number by extreme bouts of violence and riots.

How late into their 30s? Do they want kids?

"what you desire in a relationship and who you are attracted to in a person. "

What the head wants and what the heart wants ...

I am not sure, if this is a new thing, but there quite some social norms and expectations, that are impossible to fullfill (for both sides), creating unfulfillment and then drama.

I cannot say, that I know many happy couples. I met some and trying to work on my relationship, but it is really, really hard. Much harder, than I thought it is supposed to be.

That's because 80% of the women are chasing 20% of the men.

Okcupids data showed this in nice clear charts.

The numbers invert as you get closer to 40. Single women at 40 are desperate, single men at 40 have a jaded, and quite accurate, view of the majority of women.

It's really easy for them to do that with the massive quantity of men to choose from. It's a kid in a candy store. They (women friends and dates I spoke to in this big city) tend to whine about bad dates and 'I want to delete this app' but it's what happens when you get 10 matches per day and you have to quickly select who to give a chance.

Then they meet someone, it's hard to drop everything if there's still more matches you haven't met yet.

Online dating is the death of our species.

"If you want love, lower your expectations a few, because Prince Charming would never settle for you."

Many women struggle with how the set of men that are willing to have sex with them is a much larger set than that of men who are willing to commit to them. The size of the set intersection thereof declines precipitously as women age too.

It's kinda curious that women emphasize commitability as a desirable trait, yet they agree and understand that commits could and should be a rare thing.

What about that majority of cases when a woman doesn't want a commit? People grow to sexual age in 18 and can be not committed until much later, so in between they can/should/want to have less consequential encounters, right? So what about that majority of cases, do women still struggle when they are in the same situation - when they would have sex but unwilling to commit?

> People grow to sexual age in 18

Sorry for going off on a tangent, but I think this needs correction. By that age, puberty is already over. For girls, onset of puberty is 10, reproductive maturity is 14.

It could be that you mean something else, namely a related social/legal construct, but that does not seem likely to me because of the word "grow".

yeah 18 has more to do with the experience and emotional maturity necessary to navigate the society we've built than it does with biological maturity. Our private parts are ready to go long before our 18th birthday, which is obvious from the ultra hormone shot that high-schoolers get. On the other hand, full cognitive maturity isn't complete until long after that birthday. It seems almost like the line at 18 is purely for practical reasons around the need for workers than it is due to any scientific understanding of the way humans work.

"I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-looking, that have not been touched by a woman in years."

I have a friends like this. One solution a couple of them have found is dating internationally. Not via "mail-order" services though. It was sort of a situation where they had a domestic friend who had friends or relatives abroad who were looking for a US marriage. So there was some trust there, and it was set up sort of like an arranged marriage. A lot of people hate on arraigned marriages, but the older I get, the more they make sense.

The international dating absolutely ruins dating for local guys. Look into Eastern Europe or even better, Thailand.

Also, is it really long term solution to loneliness? If only motivation for marriage was to get the attractive citezenship, what will hold the marriage after it's done? Anecdotally, internet is full of stories of "mail-brides", who divorce the men and take a sweet part of his assets with it.

There are prenups, which I believe would be wise for any couple to create (together), and especially important in this type of arrangement.

As I said, this isn't through a mail order service. This is via friends of friends. The marriage would not just be for citizenship. Just like the arranged marriages I mentioned, there would be an element of matchmaking via the intermediary (the mutual friend in this case, or the two families in a traditional arrangement) that has a true belief that the two people would get along well together and share similar values. Then you would have visits and such to see how you liked the other person.

But yes, I see how that can create problems in specific locales. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how the problem can be solved universally.

> There are prenups, which I believe would be wise for any couple to create (together), and especially important in this type of arrangement.

Judges can override prenups. I just did a little Google research, and just under 50% of prenups are invalidated during divorce.

They can't override prenups. They can invalidate prenups, or portions of the prenup for specific reasons. I couldn't find the stats that you mentioned. I would guess that number included specific provisions that were invalidates, such as custody arrangements, which are outside the scope of a prenup.

Look up "Second Look Doctrine"

Yeah, again, they can invalidate portions of the prenup for specific reasons. In the case of second look, that reason would be if the terms are considered unreasonable at the time of divorce. So it is fairly open ended due to "reasonable" being subjective based on the judge (or master) that you get. But the use of this doctrine is supposed to be pretty limited and should only be applied if the terms were egregiously lopsided or a significant life event occurred (disabled spouse).

At minimum I think most people (the bottom ~90% dating-success-wise, both men and women) in our society would be better off with arranged marriages compared to our current cultural hellscape.

The problem is no one thinks they're in the bottom 90% of anything.

Yeah, mindset is a huge component to this. I think the media has exasperated the problem through idealized fantasy which does not match reality. I think people tend to have high expectations of a match, but don't hold themselves to the same standards.

As an example, I've had fat/obese friends say they wouldn't date a fat girl... Or friends that expect the man to pay for everything like it's 1950 and make grand gestures like in the movies.. what do they expect then?

Just like porn ruins actual sex for so many young men, romantic movies of all types ruin relationships for so many young women. Smut novels sell millions of copies a year to women of all ages so even if women intellectually know its 'not real' it becomes their default internal vocabulary.

Re: paying for everything. A lot of women want to step outside of their own traditional gender role but have a man firmly inside his.

There's a somewhat well-known series on HBO in USA, called Game of Thrones. A character there, Tyrion Lannister, who's a kind of a nerd, describes how he lost virginity in staged encounter with a paid woman.

It could be hard to figure out what would be better - this kind of initiation with associated large risk of getting emotionally attached to the paid person, or staying virgin for years and years, having no comparative to peers experience and somewhat falling more behind, so having to dig out from deeper and deeper pit. So I wouldn't with certainty recommend looking for paid services to get initial experience, even though that could - not always - simplify subsequent interactions. Even though such an approach could be sufficiently different for men vs. women.

Agree. Arranged marriages worked for generations. And to me it looks like a perfect mechanism to tame hormone-induced young people, who, en masse, hurt not only themselves but whole society.

> Arranged marriages worked for generations.

Existed, sure. Whether they “work” or not is... well, for most of history no one was gathering data, but arranged marriage still exists now, and there is evidence linking it to higher rates of suicide, for women particularly.

Do you have some links? The stuff I found was just correlated, but also had other major issues listed too, like domestic violence.

There's a big statistical problem here--these days the things shown to relate to a relationship "working" are basically reasons not to dissolve failed relationships. Lots of couples stay together but are basically financially-linked roommates.

I would strongly discourage fishing in international waters. The basic problem is that there is a huge incentive for such women to pretend interest when what they really want is the green card. The balance of what each brings to the table shifts considerably once the permanent green card is issued.

Note that this is *not* to say that international relationships can't work--I've seen some that do (including my own) but I do not know of one that didn't involve one person being in the other's country already (although I would not rule out both people being in a third country, I just don't know any such.)

Go for other first world countries then.

yeah internationally traveling to date I encourage it.

even if it's just for short term flings.

a lot of average guys tend to get overlooked with online dating, and don't have the cojones to approach their local women.

whereas if it's international - you become interesting - just by being someone a woman doesn't interact with on a daily basis i.e you not the local loser. so chances of her fucking you for the "wow" factor are higher than if you were a local.

of course don't go there trying to find love

> I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. I still struggle sometimes. Many of my friends do much worse than me. I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-looking, that have not been touched by a woman in years.

While I think that globally the sentiment about this is true (market is driven by women), I also had many average-looking, intellectually stimulating male friends that said "that girl is too ugly".

> I also had many average-looking, intellectually stimulating male friends that said "that girl is too ugly".

That however doesn't mean that male friends would rule out going with said girl.

There's the "wisdom" which summarizes the idea that there are no ugly women. It's in other words the same idea as above - for vast majority of women men would still go with them.

I've fallen for plenty of women who I was not initially sexually attracted to but as I spent more time with them they became so. Not because they looked any different, but because emotional bonds formed. So called "inner beauty." I'm confident this is an extremely common experience for men and women alike. The issue is that this will never happen through a dating app.

very good point I think that is lost in the modern dating economy

> The only advice I've told them is to get out of any online stuff and hit bars.

They need your wife to bring her single friends to the bar.

If they have a hard time reaching out to women hitting bars without friends won't help them much.

I second this.

For some reason at the bar people don’t ever talk to me until I’ve been drinking for so long I sound like an idiot.

Seconded. And going to a bar with the goal of finding romantic partners makes you sound particularly idiotic when you loosen up a bit. That's why many approaches here, which assume rational part, especially - importantly - at the moment of human-touchness, e.g. when you're actually communicating with potential partners, can fail dramatically. Imagine you'd drink enough and start broadcasting a little your ideas which brought you - especially if you're a nerd - to the bar. You're going to have spectacular, epic what-they-say. And if you don't loosen up, you're perceived as incincere, somebody who's hiding something, likely nasty, behind them and trying to catch strangers in who knows which schemes.

Practice sounding like an idiot while sober! ;)

intelligence can be intimidating; overbearing intelligence is almost a turn-off

maybe people are just waiting until you're down on their level

Most women aren't intimidated by intelligence. They're turned off by condescending assholes who constantly recite facts and contradict others instead of carrying on a normal conversation.

I've been married for 8 years so not sure anyone should care about my advice, but I wouldn't suggest going to bars or clubs at all. I know there are exceptions, but for the most part it's hard to think of an environment where a nerdy introverted person will be perceived as lower status.

When I learned to play poker, one of the key insights was that beyond the point of basic competence, literally the most important factor is table selection, and second most important is seat selection. It doesn't matter how good of a player you are if you're in a game with an even better player on your left. Similarly, you don't have to be very good to make a lot of money if you can find a terrible player and sit to their left.

I think this applies to dating and social skills more generally. While it's great to occasionally get out of your comfort zone, you're more likely to have success socially and romantically in settings where you feel in your element. The more comfortable you are and the more you're authentically enjoying yourself, the more attractive you'll appear to others. So unless you really like bars and clubs, don't go to them--or at least look for places with a vibe that suits you, not places where you feel like a loser. The best bet is to somehow find the overlap in the venn diagram of 'places/activities you authentically enjoy' and 'places where single women are present'.

They aren't always easy to find and it might take some work to arrange these types of settings if you don't have access to any that already exist, but at the same time, anyone can host a game night or book club or running group etc. and start promoting and networking to get people involved.

For most of my life, I have been one of those guys who were like your friends. The point about intimacy hit hard - I have never seen such a simple point expressed so beautifully.

Aren't bars similar to dating sites? A forum for men to compete with other men for women. I would think they'd have better luck with group activities (rec sports, craft/hobby stuff) or online groups devoted to something (restaurant enthusiasts, etc).

Nightclubs, yeah, most bars aren't nightclubs though.

Bars are a fairly decent place for low stakes socialization, at the very least.

In person dynamics are just different - I met my husband in a bar. At the time neither of us were looking to date anyone for various reasons but we happened to get chatting and our chemistry was immediately apparent. If he were exactly the same person but I first "met" him as a dating profile on the screen I almost certainly would have passed.

In regular bars it's downright rude to walk up to most groups if you're not in that group, and good luck finding a single woman drinking by herself.

In night clubs? Better hope you've hit the gym for the last month...

Groups could be drinking at someone's house. They're paying money and arranging transportation to be doing their group drinking in public. It's rude not to engage with them.

hahaha you are a funny guy, makes sense to me.

Yes, but the crucial difference is that online you're competing with everyone else in your city, in a bar you're only competing with the other guys in the bar.

There's a strong winner-takes-all effect online

Not really the same at all. People in bars tend to be much more willing to engage with others than they are on the apps. Its very easy to set insanely high standards when the next person is only a swipe away.. compared to in person you can see 'these are all of my options so pick someone and see how it goes'

There is much less competition in a bar. Very rarely would an attractive guy in a bar be picking up 3 or 4 women at the same time. So those women would be forced to not choose anyone, or choose a different man. Next, an attractive man can only "court" a very small actual number of women in a physical real time setting, vs online.

Let me recommend how I met my wife: Reddit! I posted, not on the main /r4r which moves quickly, but a more niche one. The fact that I posted is key: Women on Reddit are inundated with tons of PMs when they post. However, there are a ton of both men and women who browse those subreddits but do not post themselves. And unlike a dating app, which is both algorithmically driven and focused on attractiveness, Reddit provies you a textbox with which you can differentiate yourself in whatever way makes you you.

> It's that they don't have those moments of intimacy that you have with members of the oposite sex, when you're naked or just cuddling.

I have not read the paper yet so I don't know if this idea was captured but I agree the issue is not only about the sex, it's also (maybe even moreso) about intimacy and connection.

I wonder to what degree this is an issue brought on by a higher level of education and awareness. I mean there are plenty of loveless marriages and I expect the further in the past you go the more common this was. I can not imagine that at the time when marriages were usually arranged, mostly for economic reasons, there was much love unless they were lucky. There was also just so much inequality contributing to this. I can believe many people were not aware better was possible.

Have people become aware that relationships can be more and now find it impossible to settle for less?

Edit, just to make it clear, is not necessarily a bad thing. Changing the expectation about what a relationship should be towards one where more things are valued is a good thing. It does however mean we are suffering the consequences of being in the transition period between two value systems.

>> I've told them is to get out of any online stuff and hit bars

Unfortunately, women that frequent bars are very likely to be alcoholics.

Being inexperienced in your 30s as a man is game over. Sorry to put it bluntly but for those guys there isn't a path that leads to a relationship or real intimacy of any kind.

This is completely false. I remained "inexperienced" into my thirties, and am now happily married.

> I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me.

So, I promise I'm not just picking on the phrasing (though yeah, the phrasing is pretty bad).

I find it amazing that you went through that whole discussion about the perspective of your seemingly-hetero-male-only social environment without once recognizing that intimacy is a two-way transaction and that the other party needs to get something in return. Everyone, including women, wants a satisfying relationship. And most people aren't getting one at any given moment.

And it doesn't seem like any part of your calculus is how to square those perspectives? Your whole comment is about women in some sense, but the only time their perspective even enters the discussion is in one sentence where you talk about compelling them to like you out of physical desire?

And you don't think this might be part of the reason your negotiations are failing? Sales people don't try to close a deal without getting to know the customer first. Why do you think it should work any different here?

You seem to be missing the point that has been made many times here that these studies and reports are demonstrating that a significant number of ordinary men are not even getting to the point they can negotiate a "transaction".

The imbalance since the onset of online dating is huge and it and its dismissal with implied equivalence on each side is a real problem for society.

Even with that imbalance what the OP said is entirely correct. You can't dismiss the feelings of the other partner in a potential romantic relationship and view it as transactional. If someone does it's probably a large part of why they have issues finding one. Even beyond the initial ability to actually speak to someone of the opposite sex.

> The imbalance is huge

This is overstating the case. This can all be measured. Statistics like median number of partners, age at marriage, etc... are indeed all trending downward and growing more asymmetric between men and women. The linked article cites a few studies like this. But it's not a "huge" effect.

This is a meme, created largely by feedback communities like the incel folks. Note, FWIW, the Betteridge question mark in the title of the linked paper. Contra everyone's assumptions here, it does not seem to be presenting solid evidence for a "public health problem".

> Contra everyone's assumptions here, it does not seem to be presenting solid evidence for a "public health problem".

I fail to understand your arguments leading to such outcome, unfortunately.

It doesn’t have to be a numerically huge effect to be a socially huge effect.

In the simple model where people pair up 1-1 exactly once, a 2% imbalance means 2% of people can’t pair up no matter what they do.

I wonder how this plays out in places like India and China that practice sex selective abortion.

It works out horribly. In China men at the lower end of the economic scale have effectively no chance of finding anyone and many do not even try because the cost is too high. That causes social unrest.

The term you are looking for is "bare branches"

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/bare-branches-secur...

> What happens to a society that has too many men? In this provocative book, Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer argue that, historically, high male-to-female ratios often trigger domestic and international violence. Most violent crime is committed by young unmarried males who lack stable social bonds. Although there is not always a direct cause-and-effect relationship, these surplus men often play a crucial role in making violence prevalent within society. Governments sometimes respond to this problem by enlisting young surplus males in military campaigns and high-risk public works projects. Countries with high male-to-female ratios also tend to develop authoritarian political systems.

https://theconversation.com/pity-chinas-bare-branches-unmarr...

> Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, is a highlight in Chinese society. But for many young people, the joy of vacation and family reunion is mixed with questions from parents and relatives about their achievements in the past year, including about their relationships.

> This is a particularly stressful occasion for single men who – unless they choose to rent a fake partner or have a stroke of luck at the local marriage “market” - are forced to face the miserable fate of singlehood.

> These involuntary bachelors, who fail to add fruit to their family tree are often referred to as “bare branches”, or guanggun. And the Chinese state has recently started to worry about the dire demographic trend posed by the growing number of bare branches.

> The 2010 national census data suggests that 24.7% Chinese men above the age of 15 have never been married, while 18.5% of women in the same age group remain unwed.

'Bare Branches' and Danger in Asia - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2004/07/04/b...

> Your whole comment is about women in some sense, but the only time their perspective even enters the discussion is in one sentence where you talk about compelling them to like you out of physical desire?

Presumably what spaniard89277 means is "I have talked to long-term-single men and this is what I think their aggregate perspective is, I don't know many long-term-single women so I don't really know their perspective"

After all, if he knew a lot of single people of both genders, presumably he'd point them at one another.

Your right about the two-sided thing. The key to successful dating is understanding the woman's perspective. Most men think women should act like them and want to have meaningless sex right away. No, that's not how it works. For most women who are going to have more than a one night stand, sex is a big deal and an enormous emotional investment. I could go on, but this is HN not a dating advice subreddit.

> The key to successful dating is understanding the woman's perspective.

Understanding could be required, but sufficiently not sufficient condition. That understanding should have a chance to be demonstrated - and the choice of actions, given highly unpredictable short-term decision making, could easily make or break the transaction.

I say "could be", even though I seen cases where that was completely bypassed - only the form was in place, and one side of the transaction remained under wrong assumptions long after the initial actions had place.

FWIW: the point works fine without generalisms about sex or whatever. My point was really that 90% of incel culture is just pure self-centered lack of empathy. If you aren't interested in the lived experience of your "target" and are focused only on what you want "from" them, you're not going to be successful.

And to repeat: that same logic is identical to sales, which is another area most incels are extremely bad at.

I agree with this. The importance of being okay-looking and intellectually stimulating are small compared to the importance of being a good emotional communicator, self aware, reciprocating in conversation etc.

I'd disagree regarding okay-looking - that could be surprisingly more important than assumed. Without looks which make enough of a pause many other qualities are worth little.

In my experience, looks matter to men a lot more than they matter to women. Of course some level of attraction is necessary but (again in my limited experience) women are far more willing to go for an average-looking partner with a great personality than men are.

Sounds quite misguided.

Of course intimacy is a two-way transaction. It's also a thing where the chain of events and actions happen, and there are many possible breaking points, which at beast move the interaction to square one. So to summarize in short words, "make women like me" means passing this chain of events - from men's point of view - so that there's a passable chance to actually complete the transaction. Note that the situation is hardly symmetrical for men vs. women - I'd argue men are much more forgiving and willing to continue the chain of actions should something go sufficiently unexpected, in the wrong enough way.

I would guess you don't see the attempt to square the perspectives because it could be too obvious to talk about. Like, when we talk about programming we usually assume ability to handle basic addition of numbers under a hundred, which comes handy - and similarly when we talk about relationships we assume the two-wayness just the same, there's no need to talk about it.

> Sales people don't try to close a deal without getting to know the customer first.

This could vary widely. One can study somebody else for long time - see e.g. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735/ The Sting, where the conspirators take time to study the ways their counterparts behave. Or in other case one could fly by the seat of your pants on a dance floor, when he sees a woman partner for some minutes at best. There could be little opportunities to get to know the other side better though - Tinder illustrates that when you make a split-second decision having barely even studied the image on the screen, not saying anything about the person themselves.

> Why do you think it should work any different here?

I guess because the analogy doesn't quite holds.

> and when I bring em somewhere it's pretty difficult to get it running

How much time do these friends spend in social situations with women where the goal isn't to get laid/find a girlfriend?

I don't know your friends, but have known people in similar situations. In all those cases, their were others in our social circles who looked worse "on paper" but had no real difficulties here - it wasn't really about attractiveness or intelligence, but about behavior and/or expectations.

> How much time do these friends spend in social situations with women where the goal isn't to get laid/find a girlfriend?

Sometimes it's all available time. Which could be really small or none at all.

Behavior could be significantly affected by proximity with women, when you're in certain age and experience. It's described in the literature, for here it could be said a social - social - situation with women where the goal isn't to get laid/find a girlfriend - and where such goal doesn't quickly appear and supersedes whatever other goals there were - could be rare to find.

It shouldn’t be rare though (assuming US cultural norms). If it is, that might be a big part of the root problem.

What norms have to do with this? Imagine that whenever a man is in proximity of women it's like a loud signal which doesn't go away, and he needs to concentrate on anything else to avoid following the noise. It's irrelevant which cultural norms are around.

Cultural norm meaning it is normal to be in social contexts with mixed groups of genders without it being primarily sexual, and generally expected of people. There are countries and cultures where this is not true, which makes mixed gender interactions different.

> Imagine that whenever a man is in proximity of women it's like a loud signal which doesn't go away,

This is not normal, and may point to deeper problems.

I dont think most people realize how big a deal location is. Move to a big city in the north east (NYC is the best) and you will have better luck than the west coast or midwest. The numbers favor men in those locations.

In what sense? Is the gender ratio skewed there?

>I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me.

The only person who should "make women like me" is a female lesbian Doctor Frankenstein.

Anyone else has to make themselves likable to women.

The only person you should make do or be or like things is yourself.

You can't force other people to like you, just because you feel like it.

I think the active voice here is coloring the situation in the light where one has more confident position.

Without or with it leads to all kind of emotional problems. So to be alone isnt that bad.

And relations are not always about sex, the most stable relations are based upon understanding and care friendship. Sure sex is something but after the kids do people still want to live like rabbits, well there much more in life than sex. The media might make you think peole have sex every day or so, thats bullshit some relations are not based on sex at all but are by all means perfect relastions. (some people dont enjoy sex, or because of medical reasons).

If you want a happy life enjoy other peoples smile, go to places where people smile, enjoy your life yourself visit places. There is no perfect face or figure. And stay away from people who build their life on consumables as drugs or alcoholics a its reciepe for disaster.

Dont try to search for it, not online either, accidents just happen ;)

> Dont try to search for it, not online either, accidents just happen ;)

I would definitely recommend a more active approach. Time goes by, and can come to an end unfortunately.

> The only advice I've told them is to get out of any online stuff and hit bars.

It took me a while to understand, that "bars" here do not correspond to "outdoor exercise equipment".

> that most men are emotionally and sexually deprived.

Recently I saw Mozart's "The Magic Flute" for the first time. Papageno character heavily resonates with this observation. So, the problem is not new.

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