16 Comments

Think about it this way…imagine a time where a woman you did not find attractive was interested in you. Suppose she laid out ironclad logic for why you two should be together. Would you get into a relationship with her even though you weren’t attracted to her? I imagine not.

So why would you expect a woman to do that which you yourself would be unwilling to do?

As another analogy. Keynesian models are ironclad in their mathematical logic but it doesn’t mean that they do a good job explaining how the macroeconomy actually works. You should think of yourself as using the wrong model for dating.

Friendzoning is a nice way of telling someone that they are not attracted to you.

I suggest reading David DeAngelo’s Double Your Dating. It works for all adult ages. Make sure you get the DeAngelo one, there’s another with the same title my PJ Carlson which is no good.

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To double down on your cogent lesson here, imagine further that it is a trans-woman trying to argue why you should date them.

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Actually, the proper analogy would be a man you do not find attractive...since the original woman in question was a lesbian. Would there be anything he could tell you that would cause you to find him attractive?

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A poor salesman keeps trying to sell to the same customer who keeps saying "No" for five years when there are so many other prospects out there willing to buy.

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Not sure it's worth suffering through the endless book promotions in order to pick up the occasional interesting post. May be time to "down-grade".

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I actually feel more sorry for the woman in this case. It sounds like she tried to let him down as gently as possible yet he was determined not to take the hint.

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Reading Bryan's original article, I am really confused as to how someone could have an A,C,B preference ordering. If you enjoying being around someone enough to date them, you should also enjoy being around them enough to be their friend. If you wouldn't enjoy being someone's friend, dating them seems insane. You'll end up being one of those couples who don't really like each other and just coexist at home.

My wife was my friend before I dated her. I knew a few other women at the time who I would have been fine either being friends with or dating. They remained my friends after I started dating my wife and that was fine.

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Well, yes, but if you're around them and they're dating other people you're constantly reminded that you're not good enough for them and you get jealous.

Better to simply leave and avoid the resentment.

Of course, some people may not feel this way.

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There are a couple good reasons to not get jealous:

1. If you have multiple friends you'd be interested in dating, and you are monogamous, you will only end up dating one of them. You might be good enough for the other ones, but aren't dating them because you're taken.

2. You might be good enough for them by more objective standards, but not good enough for subjective reasons. To use an extreme example, if a man is attracted to a female friend who is a lesbian, he will probably understand that her not being attracted to him doesn't mean that he is not good enough. It's not that isn't good enough, it's that he's not her type.

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I mean, both of those are quite logical, and as I say some people may not feel this way. For 2. in particular, there's no 'good enough by objective standards'--sometimes the attraction just isn't there, as you say. Theoretically it's better to keep the friend as well.

However, feelings often aren't very logical, which is why men often don't remain friends with women who have rejected them. There's also the possibility the guy she winds up dating (assuming she's not gay) may wind up being suspicious of you, particularly if she gets married. In extreme cases this may result in violence.

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As someone who frets about dysgenic fertility, I hope you'll eventually beget offspring if you haven't already -- whether with a wife, steady girlfriend, casual sex partner, prostitute, or sperm-bank customer. Anyway, good luck with any further quest for romantic engagement. If you've got wealth or status to flaunt female hypergamy could work in your favor.

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Obviously, reasoning was NOT your strong suit.

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>reasoning was my strong card, though inapplicable here.

Somewhat off-topic, but I'm curious if Bryan's readers have any thoughts on actually-effective techniques to leverage one's reasoning ability to attract partners.

One thing I noticed when I was a student is that participating in class a lot by raising my hand, and having intelligent things to say, seemed to get me attention from the ladies. But this could be more of a public speaking thing than a reasoning thing.

Another idea is to think of the dating game as a board game, and see if you can identify a creative strategy to abuse the rules in a way the designer didn't intend. A specific example is from the book *Succeeding* by John T Reed. The author was a cadet at a military academy, and not surprisingly was struggling to find a date for military balls and such. Eventually he hit on a method of buying yearbooks for local educational institutions, writing letters to attractive women from the yearbooks, and A/B testing the copy for the letters until he hit on a formula which worked.

(Granted, some women seem to find it anti-romantic when men think too strategically about dating. I might be incompatible with those women anyways though.)

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"If you enjoying being around someone enough to date them, you should also enjoy being around them enough to be their friend."

Except that if you are super-keen on getting to intimacy with her, your "friend" time with her will always seem frustrating and incomplete. In any case, it's a hopeless situation, and something you should not persist at, unless you can reconcile yourself to her being who she is--a lovely, even "perfect" person who is not interested in you as an intimate partner.

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You are probably gay.

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Do not fixate on one woman until you are dating that woman. Remember the ABCs:

Always

Be

Crushing

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