Why isn't the author missing the obvious solution here: sex workers.
He clearly 1) wants casual sex with no committment 2) is averse to following social norms so should have no problem breaking the taboo against sex work and 3) sees himself as someone who can " become so rich and successful that women will put up with me prioritizing the thing I actually want".
Just paying to satisfy his base urges gets him what he wants while perfectly aligning with his values. Maybe he doesn't have the financial means yet, but he's clearly willing to work tremendously hard and invest to solve this problem (I imagine libido killing drugs aren't cheap). Focus on maximizing income, move to a city with a high concentration of sex workers and loosely enforced laws and do what he claims he wants.
If this doesn't work, then he's lying to himself and actually does value the emotional connection that most people get with sex (though if you're discerning enough you can get or at least mimic this with pros), so if he's unwilling to do this then it just indicates his preferences are inconsistent.
The OP doesn't say how old he is, but eventually he might want a real life partner and children. There's a lot to be said for that.
OP - hookers for sex. Date for love and partnership. If the women you date don't want to give you sex until you've decided you want a LTR; fine - that's what the hookers are for.
Perhaps he has some minimal amount of compunction and realises that sex workers are a horribly exploited class. Even in the best case where they aren't pimped/trafficked, the act itself is still horribly traumatising. Women already often don't enjoy and feel used after having sex they chose voluntarily - imagine how hideous it must be not to be able to say no?
They really aren't, that's a trope. Or more accurately, they are no more exploited than any other employee or entrepreneur. You literally have no idea about the reality of most sex work, standard disclaimer not all. That applies to any job though.
The author of this email clearly cares a lot about truth and honesty, but seems to care much less about making people feel bad. I have a few thoughts, about some of the specific claims made in the email as well as the overall approach that the email suggests:
> They generally are very frustrated by this dynamic, and do not enter into it willingly
I don't think this is true. You can say maybe that these women aren't entering into situationships without a full understanding of what will happen, but they are still choosing to have sex with men without any assurances in place that there will be a long-term relationship.
> the top 10-20% of desirable men (the only ones modern women are willing to date)
This is obviously false, and I am sure you know it. If this were true, it would imply that 80-90% of men are single! Obviously, being more desirable means you have more dating options, but I would bet that this is true for both genders.
> [women lie about their] attractiveness (by wearing makeup),
Calling this a lie is kind of ridiculous. Do you shave, or trim your beard? Have you ever had your hair cut? If so, that is basically the same thing as makeup.
> Or if it isn’t a conscious lie, it is at least a very harmful misrepresentation made by women, which they go out of their way to make for the sole purpose of influencing me to get something that they want.
This point actually seems like the crux of your problems. It is totally understanding that you would be frustrated by people unconscious self-deception, particularly because you seem to be unable to self-deceive. Being unable to self-deceive is a noble trait, but it absolutely can lead to worse outcomes than being able to convince yourself that you want something you don't.
I think that you are probably right that many Tinder situationships have a man who thinks he believes that this relationship will last for a long time, even though his last three relationships lasted two months each and overlapped each other a bit, along with a woman who thinks that she would love to have sex all the time and be a great partner even if she might just be overly optimistic about the future.
> So should I just become a miserable, chronically sexually frustrated but honest and forthcoming person? Or should I start long term committing to people I don’t like that much?
This is a false dichotomy, and there are many things in between the two. I doubt that it is literally the case that you are totally uninterested in a relationship with anyone, and that there is no one you could imagine dating. So, why not say "I'm not trying to force anything, I just want to see how things turn out", or something else which is optimistic but non-committal? It's not lying, it is literally true, and it seems like it would still allow you to play the game.
> But imagine my shock when it turned out every girl I’ve met on there turned out to gatekeep sex behind professions of long term commitment as well!
This is non-shocking. Imagine the world you are describing, from the perspective of these women. They have heard several, maybe even dozens, of men tell them that they want a long-term relationship, that they are falling in love, etc, etc, and yet each and everyone one of those men leaves after just a few weeks or months. These women probably calibrate to that, and assuming something like "men are much less committed in action than they are in words", similarly to how you have decided that women who say they are some age are probably actually 3 years older. Similarly to how you might read a profile saying "29" and in your head convert it to "32", these women probably hear you saying "I am just looking for sex" and in their heads convert it to "I am a psychopath who doesn't care what people think and I am here to use you".
And, to their credit, this entire post does lack empathy. You aren't making it seem like you want to have sex with women who want to have sex with you. The post makes it seem like you intend to use women in a way that hurts them, instead of finding mutually-beneficial relationships. Probably, however you reveal your intentions to these women, they are able to see this and decide they are uninterested in spending time with someone who doesn't want what is best for them.
> I still feel guilty.
Frankly, it seems like your guilt comes from knowing that you are looking to take advantage of people. I suspect that if you strived to make the relationship positive-sum, even if it was short-term or didn't end up working out, you could walk away from the relationship still feeling overall good about it. But you should feel guilty!
> most actually-hot girls are awful company. I have to make all of the plans, constantly perform for their amusement, drive every conversation, ... etc ... etc
It sounds like you are experiencing Simpson's paradox, where the only "actually-hot" women that are willing to spend time with you want more from you than people who are satisfied with just your body. You have to give a certain amount of relationship quality to a partner to keep them around, and you are finding that for partners who have higher market value, the price is higher. This shouldn't be a surprise to you.
> Do I get any points for actually feeling guilty about this equilibrium and seeking a better one, instead of just proceeding with a strong sense of my self-righteousness?
I think you get some points for noticing it and thinking it is silly, but when you are in a context where words have specific meanings, it can be more harmful to people to try and pretend you are in a different context where words have different meanings. It's fully expected that you lie about your willingness to work in an interview, there are various government forms where you are expected to fill out a specific bubble whether or not the text next to that bubble represents a true fact about the world, and in romantic contexts, saying "I'm just going with the flow and trying to see what the universe tells me" means "I am mostly interested in sex but haven't entirely ruled out alternate possibilities". But saying "I am mostly interested in sex but haven't entirely ruled out alternate possibilities" means "I am 100% interested in sex and uninterested in anything else". And "I am 100% interested in sex and uninterested in anything else" means "I am a serial killer who is going to have sex with you and then dismember you in my basement".
Yes, it's unfortunate that words don't always mean the same thing. But given that, you should strive to do what is best, not what feels more literally correct.
Also, you should try liking women and thinking about what you can offer them, instead of thinking of them as "someone who will withhold sex and let themselves go to the tune of 20+ lbs in the long run".
It's more important to communicate successfully than literally. It's more important that the recipient understands the message you mean to convey, even if that involves saying sequences of words which are not the most blunt and direct way of expressing one subset of your feelings.
Figure out how to hedge and be non-committal (pun intended) in your answers to questions about the future, and embrace the ambiguity.
I think the author's biggest sin is potentially lying or misleading in order to get sex. Cus... consenting under false pretenses is not really consent... I do think he should strive for honesty in relationships regardless of the cost to his quality of life.
However I don't think he loses points for violating social norms about how we talk about gender. We can call it rude to make generalizations about people or genders, but it shouldn't be globally off limits to speak in generalizations or at least speak from personal experience.
His points about dead bedroom marriages and weight gain are completely valid. Yes we can all sit here and say that you should hold out for some hypothetical ideal relationship with none of these problems, but that misses the point. In actual real-world practice, the default is low sex relationships and struggling with progressive weight gain.
If we take conventional wisdom seriously that we should just move past people who aren't a good fit for our wants and values, then in practice it seems the only happy pairings are going to be between two non-neurotics. I.e. to have extremely flexible wants and values. But if like the OP you are neurotic about sex quality/volume, and neurotic about personality, you're pretty SOL.
The problem is that the things he's neurotic about are a pretty low bar. I think he presents good objective and subjective evidence for the physical side of things. It's difficult to present evidence for unappealing personalities, which is why it's easy to sit on the sidelines and attack his character. He sounds like a misogynist so just call him a misogynist I guess.
But if he's right about the physical side of things, it seems difficult to rule out a priori that personal qualities could be in crisis of similar magnitude to obesity and dead bedrooms.
FWIW, my take is that neither gender like each other very much... and that neither gender is particularly likeable. I say this as a straight male with mostly platonic female friends who really struggles to find anything likable about men, or anything romantically attractive about women.
In broad strokes, the men I meet fall into three personality types. Narcissist, wounded dog incel, and golden retriever codependent. All three are trying to punch above their weight and have constructed a narrative around their personality about why they deserve more than what they currently have, without having to be truly physically attractive, successful, or enjoyable to spend time with. I keep most men at a distance and think they're unpleasant and potentially quite dangerous, especially left alone with women.
Continuing broad strokes, the women I meet basically can't take care of themselves. Credit card debt, eating disorders, and pharmaceuticals (ozempic + antidepressants). Rarely you meet someone who has career or physical attractiveness on lock, but it's always in just one area. Never across the board. It's consistently reinforced to me that women can be fixated and chronically worried about people, but never truly caring or showing up for them. Care means prioritization and self sacrifice. But the worry about relationships is always: "how much is this person going to give me", not "how can we be happy and show up for each other as equal adults". Again, not limited to romance, as I often see this played out with friends and parents.
You occasionally meet someone (of either gender) who has truly self sacrificed. Commonly this is caretaking for a family member. After complimenting their virtue and commiserating on the years of (often humiliating) labor, I generally find that they're the same kind of person as everyone else. Mostly selfish and disconnected. They just happened to land (or be pressured into) in an extreme and temporary situation.
What's wrong across both genders is that modern human bodies are unattractive. See objective stats about body weight, but even people of normal body weight aren't necessarily well groomed/hygienic. If this sounds harsh, just think how many people can confidently look attractive in swim wear. It's basically no one.
Modern humans are also passive content-consumers. See the rise of Tik Tok or YouTube. We carry around phones and social media like its a 24/7 pacifier.
We consume and live in hypothetical narratives we find validating or pleasing, and this disconnects us from reality and disconnects us from each other. Bla bla bla bla bla pages and pages and hours and hours of social media dribble to distract ourselves from the mirror.
Just show up and show me something beautiful, or strong, or interesting. Maybe we can be friends. Which brings us full circle to why I think the least important thing we can do is tone check the OP. There's an unlimited supply of people practicing a culture of disassociation and mutual abandonment with a socially palatable tone.
Good post, though I would push back on the 80-90% point. Something north of 35% of Gen Z men *are* matchless over the past year, and the dating app stats consistently show the top 20-30% of men get ~70% of matches. The average woman rates as 5/10 with even tails on both sides, whereas the average man rates as 3/10 with a larger left tail to the distribution.
This is likely just biology and not really something that can be culturally fixed, since the same mating distribution is seen in other species. Monogamy norms likely arose as social norm to "fix" this at the cost of female choice.
>Yes, it's unfortunate that words don't always mean the same thing. But given that, you should strive to do what is best, not what feels more literally correct.
The type of people that read this blog seem to struggle with honesty<>literal meaning of words. For me, it's likely because all the morality tales and instructions from elders focused on the literal words out of your mouth being true and it became an important part of my identity to be honest. Its helped me to reframe honesty as "get the picture inside their head as accurate as I can, given my understanding and situational constraints."
It takes a novel-length dissertation to convey complex feelings, but you only have one or two sentences before the other person stops paying attention. If you deliver the first two 'technically accurate' sentences of your 200k word personal manifesto, it may leave them with a worse internal understanding than if you oversimplified and gave a "I'm just going with the flow" response. It's more honest to simplify.
This is much like how science textbooks start with the Rutherford atomic model.
Absolutely! I really like the metaphor of simplified atomic models, as another case where saying something that isn’t literally true is a better way to communicate usefully.
"It’s extremely rare for me to find a partner I genuinely enjoy that much" - we know. This is normal. It's why people talk about finding "the one": because even if you don't believe there is literally only one person in the world you can be happy with, it is rare to find someone you really click with. Most dates you go on will feel like "this person is quite nice, but I don't really want to spend more time with them". You just have to keep trying until you meet someone whose company you really enjoy.
It's possible that at the moment, you are young and really do just want to get laid. That will probably change. Most people like being in love.
I also think you should examine your attitude towards women. Some of the passages in your email feel quite bitter and hateful, e.g. "I have to make all of the plans, constantly perform for their amusement, drive every conversation, keep them laughing, spend absurd amounts of money on time consuming activities that aren’t sex, put up with her bad attitude and capricious moods, they have zero intellectual curiosity or insightfulness about anything". How do you feel when you see women online writing about "men" or "the average man" in this kind of tone?
It seems like you want to do the right thing and avoid hurting your partners; maybe the first step to that is to honestly ask yourself if you are a bit of a misogynist, and if so, try and lose that attitude.
You don't have to lie! But you also don't have to be a terrible salesman.
When asked what you are dating for simply say "I am open to anything. Whether it be a few dates or eventually a long term relationship."
This way you are open to a long term relationship developing if you end up liking the girl's company, and you aren't lying about wanting to be in a relationship with the girl before you actually want to.
A few other worthwhile points:
1st, you probably don't just want sex forever. You also want sex. But imagine if you met a super awesome girl than genuinely impressed you as a person and you enjoyed hanging out with. That would be better right? Or imagine if you became friends and enjoyed hanging out with the girls you slept with? That's where casual dating really shines. Your dates becoming hanging put doing cool stuff. If you have little experience with dating and are a little anxious it can be easy to feel negative. I feel you. But with a few positive experiences, which I hope come your way soon, your perception of dating might become positive!
2nd, an easier way to get easy sex without becoming mega rich is to get in shape. Anyway, I find most women don't have exceptionally high standards some men think they do.
3rd, Try joining an in person group/club of people that are into your hobbies and start normal conversations with women the way you would when meeting men to see if there's anyone you actually think is cool before asking them to hang out or on a date.
I get the impression that OP is the kind of literal person who would think that most salesmanship is also basically lying by omission & exaggeration (no offense to him).
You could be right. I used to be a literal person too and I still dislike lying by omission and exaggeration. That's why I suggest changing dating goals and a message which doesn't involve lying by omission or exaggeration.
I strongly suspect that this individual is either leaving out some key info about his own personality/appearance that makes him unappealing to female partners, and/or just setting impossibly high standards that are sure to leave him disappointed. After reading this, it’s quite clear to me that this person is both neurodivergent (like me) and feels a certain sense of entitlement, ie “I deserve a life full of pleasure but free of commitment,” a phase many young men in this country seem to go through.
The reality that this guy probably doesn’t want to hear is that life is hard for most people and full of trade offs. You can either choose to be in a long term relationship with someone you love, accepting the fact that they won’t always be as sexy as they were at age 25 (and neither will you), or you can choose to live a life that is lonelier but maybe contains more peak sexual experiences. A or B. Both have upsides and downsides.
This whole thing basically feels like someone complaining that they want to be a famous musician without having to do the work of learning music. Sorry kid, that just ain’t how life works. As another commenter already pointed out, there's always a brothel somewhere if you're really desperate. That seems to me like a less healthy solution than getting counseling or maybe just introspecting on your own self-entitlement, but whatever keeps you sane, I guess.
> I strongly suspect that this individual is either leaving out some key info about his own personality/appearance that makes him unappealing to female partners
Seems likely. He recognises that situationships exist - this is basically the exact thing he wants, no? - but they're out of reach for him for whatever reason. Some women do actually just want to mess around for a while without it going anywhere. There will be tradeoffs to make in finding such people but it's not like there's not a market for casual encounters.
High constraints are the easy way to make situationships impossible, e.g., being only willing to date 10s without bringing anything exceptional yourself to the table. Multiple constraints too: top quintile of smart, pretty, interesting, and easygoing is .016% of the population...
"How do I obtain consensual casual sex, from women who explicitly do not want casual sex, without lying?"
Answer: You can't.
"Do you have any advice for men who feel like life presents us with the following predicament: be an asshole, or be celibate, or long-term commit to someone you’re just not into for anything other than sex?"
Answer: I'll assume the three options you present are intolerable. Ask yourself, are there any women on Earth whom you would be into for something other than sex, and who would be into you? If yes: pursue those women. If no: prostitutes.
Bryan, don’t debase your blog with publishing such reader notes.
For the young man, prostitutes are the obvious solution and have already been suggested.
Lying is indeed immoral. Seeing women merely as unlikeable sex objects is sad even for the young man. You’re missing out on the pleasant company of half the population.
Do you endorse your preferences? My main recommendation would be to try to get better ones. Yours are unlikely to make you or others happy.
He may be hanging out in places where women are deliberately trained to be unlikeable, colleges and universities. He would be well advised to meet women from the rest of the world. He could probably find one with whom he shares an interest other than sex ... if he has one.
I have good news. If a woman is genuinely good company, she will become hot without having to do anything else. Your brain will just start thinking she is sexy because of the emotional connection you have made with her. Even if she is grotesque by conventional standards, her personality will override that in your mind. There have been multiple times in my life when I have felt overwhelming sexual desire for initially unattractive women because they were such a delight to be around and interact with.
Additionally, if you can afford drugs to deadening your sex drive you can also afford to buy your girlfriend a GLP-1 agonist. Don't offer to do so unprompted, of course, but most women who gain weight are just as unhappy about it as you are and will be happy to take some if they feel they can afford it.
“Women are fundamentally clueless, intellectually vacant beings whose inner lives bore me, but I want access to their bodies, so isn’t it frustrating that they wont give me what I need exactly how I want it while being the unserious people they are?”
not blasting him for being evil, everything he said is fine descriptively, but he says it normatively with this bitter demeanor that comes across as viscerally pathetic. He implies this cosmic injustice of the duplicitous femoid’s fickle nature thwarting the sex promised to him, while he’s oh so burdened with the gift of being intelligent and principled to even recognize this horror and “not be a psychopath like most men.” Going out on a limb he obviously views women as people whose interests are vapid/trivial, conversations are shallow, lives are unserious. I have a hunch he wouldn’t even like the prostitution solution for vague moral disgust and pride related reasons. The only solution seemingly is to reflect about what he believes.
>wants only sex
>doesn’t particularly like spending time with women
>needs novelty to feel sexually fulfilled
>doesn’t want to commit because stale sex
>doesn’t want to psychopathically lie “like most men”
>wants women to sleep with him anyway without emotional expectations
1) If he or these older guys are getting bored in their sex life, my hunch is that their wife / partner wants kinkier sex and they're just not listening....
2) Consider two lives one decade out. In one life, you've committed to a wife probably 8 yrs ago and get to parent with someone you know and trust. In another, you have churned through three-five relationy things but now are finding someone, marrying, and having children at pace with her clock (only a few years!) It's kind of your future to choose.
3) the 20% of men get 80% of women stat neglected agency in the game. It's kind of true, but a young man can move himself into that 20% with some trivially easy lifestyle changes. Just lift weights, don't get fat, read a book a month, stay employed, don't drink (too much), wear sweaters, and keep a job. Then signal a willingness to commit and whoah, you (a former 6) can seriously date 9s
Anyway, I feel for this young buck. Sex / love are a tough game and we have not inherited a healthy cultural script, maybe worse our script is actively degrading w phones / screens. But just take care of yourself and get kinkier and things will work out.
He's being honest with how he feels and what he thinks he wants and is asking for advice of what to do with the morality of the situation. What is pathetic about that?
When I'm honest with myself, sometimes I realize that I'm the pathetic one. This guy has an extremely disordered view of women. It is concerning that he thinks that being an asshole makes someone a psychopath, but doesn't see the major red flags in himself with extreme lack of empathy for half of the human population and extreme sense of entitlement to have sex with no commitment.
I'm really surprised Bryan thought this essay was worth shining a light on. I really like Bryan's perspectives on most things, but how men should interact with women is one of the areas where he should probably stop relaying his thoughts. Also, Bryan's atheism probably doesn't help here either. Anon seriously needs to find God and not think of himself as the center of the universe.
Do you have any advice for women who feel like life presents us with the following predicament: be a bitch, or be permanently single, or long-term commit to someone you’re just not into and who you have to take a dose of Xanax, close you eyes, and hold your nose to have sex with?
What I mean is, it’s common to only want a man who gives you foot rubs, pays your rent, renovates your kitchen for you, and helps move heavy things, but it’s really, really hard to to get that from a man if you’re honest about the fact that you never, ever want to have sex with him ever. I have literally never met a man who was interested in renovating my kitchen for me unless I told him I was interested in having sex with him, so I know for me at least, I would’ve had to have been literally single with no man to do my handyman tasks for me since I moved out of my parent's house at age 18 if I chose the path of pure forthcomingness and honesty. So yes, I admit I have exaggerated the depths of my interest in sex with men, to get permission to get them to give me foot massages and unclog my drains.
This makes me feel guilty every time I do it. But on the other hand, the need to have a boyfriend to do dirty work and lift heavy things feels like a powerful security need inside my head that has to to be met or I’ll just become depressed or tear my hair out in a frustrated sense of deprivation.
Yeah the secret sauce to dating is that you actually have to like the opposite gender, instead of just liking sex. Otherwise it’s just quite frustrating.
I've got good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that your worldview is all the way fucked up, and you've got a lot of personal growth ahead of you in order to get to where you want to go. The good news is that there is a lot of room for growth. Things can get way, way better for you than they are right now. I know this for a fact, because I've been in your shoes.
Let's focus on some things you already know:
1) You are really struggling in the dating department, and you need some help. You wrote this post *hoping* that somebody would be able to help you. Here we are, but you need to listen.
2) There are things that you are just not getting when it comes to dating. On some level, you know this. You mentioned the top 10-20% of guys thing in your post - but if you're being honest, you have personally met guys who are not particularly impressive or attractive, yet always seem to have a cute girl on their arm. You can be that guy, but first you have to be humble and recognize that those guys are approaching things in a radically different way than you are.
3) You have to trust me when I say that you can learn this stuff. Part of you is probably afraid that you are fundamentally broken in some way. That you can't have the dating life you want because you aren't handsome enough, tall enough, fit enough, successful enough, cool enough, funny enough, charismatic enough, etc.. I'm here to tell you that none of that stuff is really necessary. It definitely helps and makes things easier, but it's not required. But it's up to you to believe me when I say it.
Okay, now for the advice.
1) You don't have a dating problem. You have a general worldview problem. The issues you are having with women are also affecting your friendships, work relationships, etc.. You are over-relying on your intellect at the expense of everything else, and now you are paying the price for treating charisma like a dump stat. You need to work on your social skills, empathy, and emotional intelligence, which will also required a reorientation in your personal outlook and philosophy. This is fundamentally about your growth as a person. As a downstream effect of that, you will find that your dating life improves dramatically.
2) Only take advice from people who are kind and seem like they have healthy relationships with other people. Listen to people who love themselves *and* love other people. Listen to men who genuinely love and appreciate women. Listen to people who have healthy relationships. For dating specifically, Models by Manson is a pretty solid primer. On a deeper level, The Courage To Be Disliked is an outstanding book of personal philosophy that you absolutely need to read. Read it this week.
3) Avoid advice from any and all people who treat social relationships as a zero-sum game that you need to win.
4) Avoid advice from people who treat men and women like different species, or who focus on men and women as distinct categories that need to be treated in a different manner. Yes, there are differences between men and women, but only on average, and there is a tremendous amount of variance within each gender. One of the main ways that you are fucking up is that you are focusing on women as a group, when you really need to be directing the entirety of your focus on the specific woman that is sitting across from you on a date. People are enormously complex (reality has a surprising amount of detail, the map is not the territory, etc. etc.). Your job on a date is to try to understand and connect with the person you are on a date with. Instead, you are trying to force that individual woman into the mental models in your head. It's not going well, so stop doing it.
5) Relatedly, you seem to have very little interest in the women you are dating. This is not a problem with women. This is a problem with you. If you view every non-sex activity with a woman as a cost of getting to have sex with her, then... well, you kind of suck as a person, and it's not at all surprising that most women aren't interesting in that less-than-compelling offer. Here's a tip - your interests are not that important, you're not that deep or that smart, the things that you like and find fascinating are not inherently superior to the interests of the cashier at the gas station or the girl you just matched with on Tinder. You need to learn how to appreciate other people. They have a lot to teach you, if you'll let them. That same hot girl who has "zero intellectual curiosity or insightfulness about anything" is wayyyy more plugged into social reality than you are. She knows what the fuck is up, even if she isn't the best at articulating it or putting it into an intellectual framework. If you took the time to understand the world from her perspective, you would find her a lot more interesting.
6) You need to approach dating with a sense of play. You are treating sex like a problem that you need to solve. This shouldn't be news to you, but women want to have sex, too. They want to get fucked just as much as you want to fuck them. They've been on just as many shitty dates as you have. They are *rooting* for you, man. If you approach dating collaboratively, as something you are both doing for fun, you'll find that you have more fun results.
7) You are way too focused on your self. Your whole post is about presenting a logical case for your actions and feelings, at presenting your point of view in a way that shows that your thoughts, feelings, and actions are rational and correct. In other words, the most important thing to you is that your behavior is *defensible*. That attitude is sabotaging you, because you are more focused on not being wrong than you are on getting what you want.
_____
All of this may seem too abstract and generic to be useful. When people start talking about the importance of empathy in dating, it can sound very white-knighty or woo-woo. So let me give you a concrete example.
I went on a first date last year that was going medium-well. Pleasant, with positive energy but a superficial level of connection. Around 20 minutes in, I playfully booped her on the nose in response to something she said.
She reacted extremely negatively - clearly upset, immediate change to her body language and energy.
20-year-old me would have gotten irritated and/or defensive. "I was obviously being playful - there's no call for her to react like that! Women are so emotional and irrational, she should have recognized that I was just trying to have fun and be playful." And so 20-year-old me would have gone home bitching about how difficult women are.
25-year-old me would have done what I did next, which was to sincerely apologize. "Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you." She went on to explain that she had bad reactions from that sort of physical teasing due to the way her brothers treated her growing up. We had a nice conversation about that, and the date returned to mostly pleasant but superficial energy.
And yet. When I wasn't directly engaging her, I could see that she was still upset and trying to hide it. When the conversation lapsed, she would turn to watch the band and you could see the tension on her face. It was obvious that she was still bothered by that very mild incident.
That's where 25-year-old me would have missed the boat. "I apologized, didn't I? What more did she want? What more could I have done? How was I supposed to know she was going to react like that? I guess she has some sort of issue that she needs to work out..." and so I would have given her a hug goodbye and then never seen her again.
30-year-old me took a different tack. Those younger versions of me were focused on the defensibility of my actions, on the perceived irrationality of the woman's behavior/reaction. But at 30, I was finally secure in myself and in my actions. I knew 100% that I had done nothing wrong, so I felt no need trying to prove myself correct or explain myself any more than I had. All of my energy was focused on her. And I didn't blame her or have any anger at her for her reaction - I barely knew her, after all. How can I judge her for what makes her upset or uncomfortable? (as an aside, "I'm Ok, You're OK" is the mindset you should always seek to embody in interactions, romantic or otherwise.)
So, having noticed that she was still upset, I grabbed her hand and apologized again. "Hey, I really mean it - I'm sorry that I upset you. I can't promise that I won't upset you again in the future, but I'll always do my best not to, and listen to you when you say that something makes you upset."
Sounds cheesy, maybe? I don't think so. I think that's just basic politeness and social calibration - don't do things that upset people if it costs you little to nothing to avoid doing it.
In any case, that *second* apology - something I never would have thought to give when I was younger - worked like an absolute charm. She totally melted, all of the tension leaving her body. An hour later we were calling an Uber back to my place, and we continued to see each other for months afterwards.
Why did that work? Because it showed that a) I cared about how she feels, and b) I didn't need my hand held to understand how she feels and do something about it.
That seems like a small, basic thing, but it's truly shocking how many men don't understand the power of paying attention to the person they are trying to sleep with. As my female friends like to say, the bar is on the floor. So take advantage of it and start caring about your date - you'll be surprised at just how powerful of an effect that can have.
If one doesn't enjoy the company of women, perhaps reexamining their feelings towards male partners is healthy. This would allow their high sex and anti-female preferences to coexist in a socially comfortable manner.
Why isn't the author missing the obvious solution here: sex workers.
He clearly 1) wants casual sex with no committment 2) is averse to following social norms so should have no problem breaking the taboo against sex work and 3) sees himself as someone who can " become so rich and successful that women will put up with me prioritizing the thing I actually want".
Just paying to satisfy his base urges gets him what he wants while perfectly aligning with his values. Maybe he doesn't have the financial means yet, but he's clearly willing to work tremendously hard and invest to solve this problem (I imagine libido killing drugs aren't cheap). Focus on maximizing income, move to a city with a high concentration of sex workers and loosely enforced laws and do what he claims he wants.
If this doesn't work, then he's lying to himself and actually does value the emotional connection that most people get with sex (though if you're discerning enough you can get or at least mimic this with pros), so if he's unwilling to do this then it just indicates his preferences are inconsistent.
You beat me to it.
The OP doesn't say how old he is, but eventually he might want a real life partner and children. There's a lot to be said for that.
OP - hookers for sex. Date for love and partnership. If the women you date don't want to give you sex until you've decided you want a LTR; fine - that's what the hookers are for.
Perhaps he has some minimal amount of compunction and realises that sex workers are a horribly exploited class. Even in the best case where they aren't pimped/trafficked, the act itself is still horribly traumatising. Women already often don't enjoy and feel used after having sex they chose voluntarily - imagine how hideous it must be not to be able to say no?
The fact that some sex workers are "exploited" (whatever that means) doesn't mean all are, or that nobody should ever hire one.
Obviously you want to be reasonably sure the provider actually wants to do the job.
They really aren't, that's a trope. Or more accurately, they are no more exploited than any other employee or entrepreneur. You literally have no idea about the reality of most sex work, standard disclaimer not all. That applies to any job though.
The author of this email clearly cares a lot about truth and honesty, but seems to care much less about making people feel bad. I have a few thoughts, about some of the specific claims made in the email as well as the overall approach that the email suggests:
> They generally are very frustrated by this dynamic, and do not enter into it willingly
I don't think this is true. You can say maybe that these women aren't entering into situationships without a full understanding of what will happen, but they are still choosing to have sex with men without any assurances in place that there will be a long-term relationship.
> the top 10-20% of desirable men (the only ones modern women are willing to date)
This is obviously false, and I am sure you know it. If this were true, it would imply that 80-90% of men are single! Obviously, being more desirable means you have more dating options, but I would bet that this is true for both genders.
> [women lie about their] attractiveness (by wearing makeup),
Calling this a lie is kind of ridiculous. Do you shave, or trim your beard? Have you ever had your hair cut? If so, that is basically the same thing as makeup.
> Or if it isn’t a conscious lie, it is at least a very harmful misrepresentation made by women, which they go out of their way to make for the sole purpose of influencing me to get something that they want.
This point actually seems like the crux of your problems. It is totally understanding that you would be frustrated by people unconscious self-deception, particularly because you seem to be unable to self-deceive. Being unable to self-deceive is a noble trait, but it absolutely can lead to worse outcomes than being able to convince yourself that you want something you don't.
I think that you are probably right that many Tinder situationships have a man who thinks he believes that this relationship will last for a long time, even though his last three relationships lasted two months each and overlapped each other a bit, along with a woman who thinks that she would love to have sex all the time and be a great partner even if she might just be overly optimistic about the future.
> So should I just become a miserable, chronically sexually frustrated but honest and forthcoming person? Or should I start long term committing to people I don’t like that much?
This is a false dichotomy, and there are many things in between the two. I doubt that it is literally the case that you are totally uninterested in a relationship with anyone, and that there is no one you could imagine dating. So, why not say "I'm not trying to force anything, I just want to see how things turn out", or something else which is optimistic but non-committal? It's not lying, it is literally true, and it seems like it would still allow you to play the game.
> But imagine my shock when it turned out every girl I’ve met on there turned out to gatekeep sex behind professions of long term commitment as well!
This is non-shocking. Imagine the world you are describing, from the perspective of these women. They have heard several, maybe even dozens, of men tell them that they want a long-term relationship, that they are falling in love, etc, etc, and yet each and everyone one of those men leaves after just a few weeks or months. These women probably calibrate to that, and assuming something like "men are much less committed in action than they are in words", similarly to how you have decided that women who say they are some age are probably actually 3 years older. Similarly to how you might read a profile saying "29" and in your head convert it to "32", these women probably hear you saying "I am just looking for sex" and in their heads convert it to "I am a psychopath who doesn't care what people think and I am here to use you".
And, to their credit, this entire post does lack empathy. You aren't making it seem like you want to have sex with women who want to have sex with you. The post makes it seem like you intend to use women in a way that hurts them, instead of finding mutually-beneficial relationships. Probably, however you reveal your intentions to these women, they are able to see this and decide they are uninterested in spending time with someone who doesn't want what is best for them.
> I still feel guilty.
Frankly, it seems like your guilt comes from knowing that you are looking to take advantage of people. I suspect that if you strived to make the relationship positive-sum, even if it was short-term or didn't end up working out, you could walk away from the relationship still feeling overall good about it. But you should feel guilty!
> most actually-hot girls are awful company. I have to make all of the plans, constantly perform for their amusement, drive every conversation, ... etc ... etc
It sounds like you are experiencing Simpson's paradox, where the only "actually-hot" women that are willing to spend time with you want more from you than people who are satisfied with just your body. You have to give a certain amount of relationship quality to a partner to keep them around, and you are finding that for partners who have higher market value, the price is higher. This shouldn't be a surprise to you.
> Do I get any points for actually feeling guilty about this equilibrium and seeking a better one, instead of just proceeding with a strong sense of my self-righteousness?
I think you get some points for noticing it and thinking it is silly, but when you are in a context where words have specific meanings, it can be more harmful to people to try and pretend you are in a different context where words have different meanings. It's fully expected that you lie about your willingness to work in an interview, there are various government forms where you are expected to fill out a specific bubble whether or not the text next to that bubble represents a true fact about the world, and in romantic contexts, saying "I'm just going with the flow and trying to see what the universe tells me" means "I am mostly interested in sex but haven't entirely ruled out alternate possibilities". But saying "I am mostly interested in sex but haven't entirely ruled out alternate possibilities" means "I am 100% interested in sex and uninterested in anything else". And "I am 100% interested in sex and uninterested in anything else" means "I am a serial killer who is going to have sex with you and then dismember you in my basement".
Yes, it's unfortunate that words don't always mean the same thing. But given that, you should strive to do what is best, not what feels more literally correct.
Also, you should try liking women and thinking about what you can offer them, instead of thinking of them as "someone who will withhold sex and let themselves go to the tune of 20+ lbs in the long run".
It's more important to communicate successfully than literally. It's more important that the recipient understands the message you mean to convey, even if that involves saying sequences of words which are not the most blunt and direct way of expressing one subset of your feelings.
Figure out how to hedge and be non-committal (pun intended) in your answers to questions about the future, and embrace the ambiguity.
I think the author's biggest sin is potentially lying or misleading in order to get sex. Cus... consenting under false pretenses is not really consent... I do think he should strive for honesty in relationships regardless of the cost to his quality of life.
However I don't think he loses points for violating social norms about how we talk about gender. We can call it rude to make generalizations about people or genders, but it shouldn't be globally off limits to speak in generalizations or at least speak from personal experience.
His points about dead bedroom marriages and weight gain are completely valid. Yes we can all sit here and say that you should hold out for some hypothetical ideal relationship with none of these problems, but that misses the point. In actual real-world practice, the default is low sex relationships and struggling with progressive weight gain.
If we take conventional wisdom seriously that we should just move past people who aren't a good fit for our wants and values, then in practice it seems the only happy pairings are going to be between two non-neurotics. I.e. to have extremely flexible wants and values. But if like the OP you are neurotic about sex quality/volume, and neurotic about personality, you're pretty SOL.
The problem is that the things he's neurotic about are a pretty low bar. I think he presents good objective and subjective evidence for the physical side of things. It's difficult to present evidence for unappealing personalities, which is why it's easy to sit on the sidelines and attack his character. He sounds like a misogynist so just call him a misogynist I guess.
But if he's right about the physical side of things, it seems difficult to rule out a priori that personal qualities could be in crisis of similar magnitude to obesity and dead bedrooms.
FWIW, my take is that neither gender like each other very much... and that neither gender is particularly likeable. I say this as a straight male with mostly platonic female friends who really struggles to find anything likable about men, or anything romantically attractive about women.
In broad strokes, the men I meet fall into three personality types. Narcissist, wounded dog incel, and golden retriever codependent. All three are trying to punch above their weight and have constructed a narrative around their personality about why they deserve more than what they currently have, without having to be truly physically attractive, successful, or enjoyable to spend time with. I keep most men at a distance and think they're unpleasant and potentially quite dangerous, especially left alone with women.
Continuing broad strokes, the women I meet basically can't take care of themselves. Credit card debt, eating disorders, and pharmaceuticals (ozempic + antidepressants). Rarely you meet someone who has career or physical attractiveness on lock, but it's always in just one area. Never across the board. It's consistently reinforced to me that women can be fixated and chronically worried about people, but never truly caring or showing up for them. Care means prioritization and self sacrifice. But the worry about relationships is always: "how much is this person going to give me", not "how can we be happy and show up for each other as equal adults". Again, not limited to romance, as I often see this played out with friends and parents.
You occasionally meet someone (of either gender) who has truly self sacrificed. Commonly this is caretaking for a family member. After complimenting their virtue and commiserating on the years of (often humiliating) labor, I generally find that they're the same kind of person as everyone else. Mostly selfish and disconnected. They just happened to land (or be pressured into) in an extreme and temporary situation.
What's wrong across both genders is that modern human bodies are unattractive. See objective stats about body weight, but even people of normal body weight aren't necessarily well groomed/hygienic. If this sounds harsh, just think how many people can confidently look attractive in swim wear. It's basically no one.
Modern humans are also passive content-consumers. See the rise of Tik Tok or YouTube. We carry around phones and social media like its a 24/7 pacifier.
We consume and live in hypothetical narratives we find validating or pleasing, and this disconnects us from reality and disconnects us from each other. Bla bla bla bla bla pages and pages and hours and hours of social media dribble to distract ourselves from the mirror.
Just show up and show me something beautiful, or strong, or interesting. Maybe we can be friends. Which brings us full circle to why I think the least important thing we can do is tone check the OP. There's an unlimited supply of people practicing a culture of disassociation and mutual abandonment with a socially palatable tone.
Good post, though I would push back on the 80-90% point. Something north of 35% of Gen Z men *are* matchless over the past year, and the dating app stats consistently show the top 20-30% of men get ~70% of matches. The average woman rates as 5/10 with even tails on both sides, whereas the average man rates as 3/10 with a larger left tail to the distribution.
This is likely just biology and not really something that can be culturally fixed, since the same mating distribution is seen in other species. Monogamy norms likely arose as social norm to "fix" this at the cost of female choice.
>Yes, it's unfortunate that words don't always mean the same thing. But given that, you should strive to do what is best, not what feels more literally correct.
The type of people that read this blog seem to struggle with honesty<>literal meaning of words. For me, it's likely because all the morality tales and instructions from elders focused on the literal words out of your mouth being true and it became an important part of my identity to be honest. Its helped me to reframe honesty as "get the picture inside their head as accurate as I can, given my understanding and situational constraints."
It takes a novel-length dissertation to convey complex feelings, but you only have one or two sentences before the other person stops paying attention. If you deliver the first two 'technically accurate' sentences of your 200k word personal manifesto, it may leave them with a worse internal understanding than if you oversimplified and gave a "I'm just going with the flow" response. It's more honest to simplify.
This is much like how science textbooks start with the Rutherford atomic model.
Absolutely! I really like the metaphor of simplified atomic models, as another case where saying something that isn’t literally true is a better way to communicate usefully.
Absolutely the best analysis here! (You should make it its own post)
I hope the following thoughts will help.
"It’s extremely rare for me to find a partner I genuinely enjoy that much" - we know. This is normal. It's why people talk about finding "the one": because even if you don't believe there is literally only one person in the world you can be happy with, it is rare to find someone you really click with. Most dates you go on will feel like "this person is quite nice, but I don't really want to spend more time with them". You just have to keep trying until you meet someone whose company you really enjoy.
It's possible that at the moment, you are young and really do just want to get laid. That will probably change. Most people like being in love.
I also think you should examine your attitude towards women. Some of the passages in your email feel quite bitter and hateful, e.g. "I have to make all of the plans, constantly perform for their amusement, drive every conversation, keep them laughing, spend absurd amounts of money on time consuming activities that aren’t sex, put up with her bad attitude and capricious moods, they have zero intellectual curiosity or insightfulness about anything". How do you feel when you see women online writing about "men" or "the average man" in this kind of tone?
It seems like you want to do the right thing and avoid hurting your partners; maybe the first step to that is to honestly ask yourself if you are a bit of a misogynist, and if so, try and lose that attitude.
You don't have to lie! But you also don't have to be a terrible salesman.
When asked what you are dating for simply say "I am open to anything. Whether it be a few dates or eventually a long term relationship."
This way you are open to a long term relationship developing if you end up liking the girl's company, and you aren't lying about wanting to be in a relationship with the girl before you actually want to.
A few other worthwhile points:
1st, you probably don't just want sex forever. You also want sex. But imagine if you met a super awesome girl than genuinely impressed you as a person and you enjoyed hanging out with. That would be better right? Or imagine if you became friends and enjoyed hanging out with the girls you slept with? That's where casual dating really shines. Your dates becoming hanging put doing cool stuff. If you have little experience with dating and are a little anxious it can be easy to feel negative. I feel you. But with a few positive experiences, which I hope come your way soon, your perception of dating might become positive!
2nd, an easier way to get easy sex without becoming mega rich is to get in shape. Anyway, I find most women don't have exceptionally high standards some men think they do.
3rd, Try joining an in person group/club of people that are into your hobbies and start normal conversations with women the way you would when meeting men to see if there's anyone you actually think is cool before asking them to hang out or on a date.
I get the impression that OP is the kind of literal person who would think that most salesmanship is also basically lying by omission & exaggeration (no offense to him).
You could be right. I used to be a literal person too and I still dislike lying by omission and exaggeration. That's why I suggest changing dating goals and a message which doesn't involve lying by omission or exaggeration.
Social dance, too: swing, salsa, two-step; got yer cardio raht heah. Zouk, for the young and brave...
I strongly suspect that this individual is either leaving out some key info about his own personality/appearance that makes him unappealing to female partners, and/or just setting impossibly high standards that are sure to leave him disappointed. After reading this, it’s quite clear to me that this person is both neurodivergent (like me) and feels a certain sense of entitlement, ie “I deserve a life full of pleasure but free of commitment,” a phase many young men in this country seem to go through.
The reality that this guy probably doesn’t want to hear is that life is hard for most people and full of trade offs. You can either choose to be in a long term relationship with someone you love, accepting the fact that they won’t always be as sexy as they were at age 25 (and neither will you), or you can choose to live a life that is lonelier but maybe contains more peak sexual experiences. A or B. Both have upsides and downsides.
This whole thing basically feels like someone complaining that they want to be a famous musician without having to do the work of learning music. Sorry kid, that just ain’t how life works. As another commenter already pointed out, there's always a brothel somewhere if you're really desperate. That seems to me like a less healthy solution than getting counseling or maybe just introspecting on your own self-entitlement, but whatever keeps you sane, I guess.
> I strongly suspect that this individual is either leaving out some key info about his own personality/appearance that makes him unappealing to female partners
Seems likely. He recognises that situationships exist - this is basically the exact thing he wants, no? - but they're out of reach for him for whatever reason. Some women do actually just want to mess around for a while without it going anywhere. There will be tradeoffs to make in finding such people but it's not like there's not a market for casual encounters.
High constraints are the easy way to make situationships impossible, e.g., being only willing to date 10s without bringing anything exceptional yourself to the table. Multiple constraints too: top quintile of smart, pretty, interesting, and easygoing is .016% of the population...
"How do I obtain consensual casual sex, from women who explicitly do not want casual sex, without lying?"
Answer: You can't.
"Do you have any advice for men who feel like life presents us with the following predicament: be an asshole, or be celibate, or long-term commit to someone you’re just not into for anything other than sex?"
Answer: I'll assume the three options you present are intolerable. Ask yourself, are there any women on Earth whom you would be into for something other than sex, and who would be into you? If yes: pursue those women. If no: prostitutes.
Bryan, don’t debase your blog with publishing such reader notes.
For the young man, prostitutes are the obvious solution and have already been suggested.
Lying is indeed immoral. Seeing women merely as unlikeable sex objects is sad even for the young man. You’re missing out on the pleasant company of half the population.
Do you endorse your preferences? My main recommendation would be to try to get better ones. Yours are unlikely to make you or others happy.
He may be hanging out in places where women are deliberately trained to be unlikeable, colleges and universities. He would be well advised to meet women from the rest of the world. He could probably find one with whom he shares an interest other than sex ... if he has one.
>most actually-hot girls are awful company.
I have good news. If a woman is genuinely good company, she will become hot without having to do anything else. Your brain will just start thinking she is sexy because of the emotional connection you have made with her. Even if she is grotesque by conventional standards, her personality will override that in your mind. There have been multiple times in my life when I have felt overwhelming sexual desire for initially unattractive women because they were such a delight to be around and interact with.
Additionally, if you can afford drugs to deadening your sex drive you can also afford to buy your girlfriend a GLP-1 agonist. Don't offer to do so unprompted, of course, but most women who gain weight are just as unhappy about it as you are and will be happy to take some if they feel they can afford it.
“Women are fundamentally clueless, intellectually vacant beings whose inner lives bore me, but I want access to their bodies, so isn’t it frustrating that they wont give me what I need exactly how I want it while being the unserious people they are?”
not blasting him for being evil, everything he said is fine descriptively, but he says it normatively with this bitter demeanor that comes across as viscerally pathetic. He implies this cosmic injustice of the duplicitous femoid’s fickle nature thwarting the sex promised to him, while he’s oh so burdened with the gift of being intelligent and principled to even recognize this horror and “not be a psychopath like most men.” Going out on a limb he obviously views women as people whose interests are vapid/trivial, conversations are shallow, lives are unserious. I have a hunch he wouldn’t even like the prostitution solution for vague moral disgust and pride related reasons. The only solution seemingly is to reflect about what he believes.
>wants only sex
>doesn’t particularly like spending time with women
>needs novelty to feel sexually fulfilled
>doesn’t want to commit because stale sex
>doesn’t want to psychopathically lie “like most men”
>wants women to sleep with him anyway without emotional expectations
>wants to keep his sense of moral superiority
>wants credit for introspection/suffering
>wants access without obligation
>wants intimacy without responsibility
>wants reality to adapt to his preferences
>confused why nothing works
Well, desire's infinite, right? That's not a (soluble) problem.
The problem at hand is how to address it. In his case, I think the free-market solution is an excellent fit.
1) If he or these older guys are getting bored in their sex life, my hunch is that their wife / partner wants kinkier sex and they're just not listening....
2) Consider two lives one decade out. In one life, you've committed to a wife probably 8 yrs ago and get to parent with someone you know and trust. In another, you have churned through three-five relationy things but now are finding someone, marrying, and having children at pace with her clock (only a few years!) It's kind of your future to choose.
3) the 20% of men get 80% of women stat neglected agency in the game. It's kind of true, but a young man can move himself into that 20% with some trivially easy lifestyle changes. Just lift weights, don't get fat, read a book a month, stay employed, don't drink (too much), wear sweaters, and keep a job. Then signal a willingness to commit and whoah, you (a former 6) can seriously date 9s
Anyway, I feel for this young buck. Sex / love are a tough game and we have not inherited a healthy cultural script, maybe worse our script is actively degrading w phones / screens. But just take care of yourself and get kinkier and things will work out.
It seems clear the letter writer doesn't have a wife/partner, and is just anticipating that in the future.
Anon's also saying "I don't want a wife / partner bc I know it will be boring, so instead I'm gonna sleep around forever"
My point is basically: bro, you don't start having fun sex until you've been together for a few years
Seems clearly not true?
Unironically, explain?
Sex can be fun way before you’ve been together for a few years!
This is guy is a full-blown loser. He wants to treat regular women like prostitutes but not pay.
He clearly does not enjoy the actual company of women. He resents them for ageing when men age, too.
If this is truly how he feels, just use sex workers and then he wouldn't have to "feel guilty" about pretending to like women.
What a pathetic person.
He's being honest with how he feels and what he thinks he wants and is asking for advice of what to do with the morality of the situation. What is pathetic about that?
When I'm honest with myself, sometimes I realize that I'm the pathetic one. This guy has an extremely disordered view of women. It is concerning that he thinks that being an asshole makes someone a psychopath, but doesn't see the major red flags in himself with extreme lack of empathy for half of the human population and extreme sense of entitlement to have sex with no commitment.
I'm really surprised Bryan thought this essay was worth shining a light on. I really like Bryan's perspectives on most things, but how men should interact with women is one of the areas where he should probably stop relaying his thoughts. Also, Bryan's atheism probably doesn't help here either. Anon seriously needs to find God and not think of himself as the center of the universe.
Do you have any advice for women who feel like life presents us with the following predicament: be a bitch, or be permanently single, or long-term commit to someone you’re just not into and who you have to take a dose of Xanax, close you eyes, and hold your nose to have sex with?
What I mean is, it’s common to only want a man who gives you foot rubs, pays your rent, renovates your kitchen for you, and helps move heavy things, but it’s really, really hard to to get that from a man if you’re honest about the fact that you never, ever want to have sex with him ever. I have literally never met a man who was interested in renovating my kitchen for me unless I told him I was interested in having sex with him, so I know for me at least, I would’ve had to have been literally single with no man to do my handyman tasks for me since I moved out of my parent's house at age 18 if I chose the path of pure forthcomingness and honesty. So yes, I admit I have exaggerated the depths of my interest in sex with men, to get permission to get them to give me foot massages and unclog my drains.
This makes me feel guilty every time I do it. But on the other hand, the need to have a boyfriend to do dirty work and lift heavy things feels like a powerful security need inside my head that has to to be met or I’ll just become depressed or tear my hair out in a frustrated sense of deprivation.
Any thoughts??
Yeah the secret sauce to dating is that you actually have to like the opposite gender, instead of just liking sex. Otherwise it’s just quite frustrating.
Never mind "the opposite gender," whatever that is.
I recommend liking the opposite sex. Homosexual persons will make their normal substitution.
Yea... stop overthinking this and just be normal. Just say you are interested in LTR regardless, as is the standard polite society norm.
I've got good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that your worldview is all the way fucked up, and you've got a lot of personal growth ahead of you in order to get to where you want to go. The good news is that there is a lot of room for growth. Things can get way, way better for you than they are right now. I know this for a fact, because I've been in your shoes.
Let's focus on some things you already know:
1) You are really struggling in the dating department, and you need some help. You wrote this post *hoping* that somebody would be able to help you. Here we are, but you need to listen.
2) There are things that you are just not getting when it comes to dating. On some level, you know this. You mentioned the top 10-20% of guys thing in your post - but if you're being honest, you have personally met guys who are not particularly impressive or attractive, yet always seem to have a cute girl on their arm. You can be that guy, but first you have to be humble and recognize that those guys are approaching things in a radically different way than you are.
3) You have to trust me when I say that you can learn this stuff. Part of you is probably afraid that you are fundamentally broken in some way. That you can't have the dating life you want because you aren't handsome enough, tall enough, fit enough, successful enough, cool enough, funny enough, charismatic enough, etc.. I'm here to tell you that none of that stuff is really necessary. It definitely helps and makes things easier, but it's not required. But it's up to you to believe me when I say it.
Okay, now for the advice.
1) You don't have a dating problem. You have a general worldview problem. The issues you are having with women are also affecting your friendships, work relationships, etc.. You are over-relying on your intellect at the expense of everything else, and now you are paying the price for treating charisma like a dump stat. You need to work on your social skills, empathy, and emotional intelligence, which will also required a reorientation in your personal outlook and philosophy. This is fundamentally about your growth as a person. As a downstream effect of that, you will find that your dating life improves dramatically.
2) Only take advice from people who are kind and seem like they have healthy relationships with other people. Listen to people who love themselves *and* love other people. Listen to men who genuinely love and appreciate women. Listen to people who have healthy relationships. For dating specifically, Models by Manson is a pretty solid primer. On a deeper level, The Courage To Be Disliked is an outstanding book of personal philosophy that you absolutely need to read. Read it this week.
3) Avoid advice from any and all people who treat social relationships as a zero-sum game that you need to win.
4) Avoid advice from people who treat men and women like different species, or who focus on men and women as distinct categories that need to be treated in a different manner. Yes, there are differences between men and women, but only on average, and there is a tremendous amount of variance within each gender. One of the main ways that you are fucking up is that you are focusing on women as a group, when you really need to be directing the entirety of your focus on the specific woman that is sitting across from you on a date. People are enormously complex (reality has a surprising amount of detail, the map is not the territory, etc. etc.). Your job on a date is to try to understand and connect with the person you are on a date with. Instead, you are trying to force that individual woman into the mental models in your head. It's not going well, so stop doing it.
5) Relatedly, you seem to have very little interest in the women you are dating. This is not a problem with women. This is a problem with you. If you view every non-sex activity with a woman as a cost of getting to have sex with her, then... well, you kind of suck as a person, and it's not at all surprising that most women aren't interesting in that less-than-compelling offer. Here's a tip - your interests are not that important, you're not that deep or that smart, the things that you like and find fascinating are not inherently superior to the interests of the cashier at the gas station or the girl you just matched with on Tinder. You need to learn how to appreciate other people. They have a lot to teach you, if you'll let them. That same hot girl who has "zero intellectual curiosity or insightfulness about anything" is wayyyy more plugged into social reality than you are. She knows what the fuck is up, even if she isn't the best at articulating it or putting it into an intellectual framework. If you took the time to understand the world from her perspective, you would find her a lot more interesting.
6) You need to approach dating with a sense of play. You are treating sex like a problem that you need to solve. This shouldn't be news to you, but women want to have sex, too. They want to get fucked just as much as you want to fuck them. They've been on just as many shitty dates as you have. They are *rooting* for you, man. If you approach dating collaboratively, as something you are both doing for fun, you'll find that you have more fun results.
7) You are way too focused on your self. Your whole post is about presenting a logical case for your actions and feelings, at presenting your point of view in a way that shows that your thoughts, feelings, and actions are rational and correct. In other words, the most important thing to you is that your behavior is *defensible*. That attitude is sabotaging you, because you are more focused on not being wrong than you are on getting what you want.
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All of this may seem too abstract and generic to be useful. When people start talking about the importance of empathy in dating, it can sound very white-knighty or woo-woo. So let me give you a concrete example.
I went on a first date last year that was going medium-well. Pleasant, with positive energy but a superficial level of connection. Around 20 minutes in, I playfully booped her on the nose in response to something she said.
She reacted extremely negatively - clearly upset, immediate change to her body language and energy.
20-year-old me would have gotten irritated and/or defensive. "I was obviously being playful - there's no call for her to react like that! Women are so emotional and irrational, she should have recognized that I was just trying to have fun and be playful." And so 20-year-old me would have gone home bitching about how difficult women are.
25-year-old me would have done what I did next, which was to sincerely apologize. "Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you." She went on to explain that she had bad reactions from that sort of physical teasing due to the way her brothers treated her growing up. We had a nice conversation about that, and the date returned to mostly pleasant but superficial energy.
And yet. When I wasn't directly engaging her, I could see that she was still upset and trying to hide it. When the conversation lapsed, she would turn to watch the band and you could see the tension on her face. It was obvious that she was still bothered by that very mild incident.
That's where 25-year-old me would have missed the boat. "I apologized, didn't I? What more did she want? What more could I have done? How was I supposed to know she was going to react like that? I guess she has some sort of issue that she needs to work out..." and so I would have given her a hug goodbye and then never seen her again.
30-year-old me took a different tack. Those younger versions of me were focused on the defensibility of my actions, on the perceived irrationality of the woman's behavior/reaction. But at 30, I was finally secure in myself and in my actions. I knew 100% that I had done nothing wrong, so I felt no need trying to prove myself correct or explain myself any more than I had. All of my energy was focused on her. And I didn't blame her or have any anger at her for her reaction - I barely knew her, after all. How can I judge her for what makes her upset or uncomfortable? (as an aside, "I'm Ok, You're OK" is the mindset you should always seek to embody in interactions, romantic or otherwise.)
So, having noticed that she was still upset, I grabbed her hand and apologized again. "Hey, I really mean it - I'm sorry that I upset you. I can't promise that I won't upset you again in the future, but I'll always do my best not to, and listen to you when you say that something makes you upset."
Sounds cheesy, maybe? I don't think so. I think that's just basic politeness and social calibration - don't do things that upset people if it costs you little to nothing to avoid doing it.
In any case, that *second* apology - something I never would have thought to give when I was younger - worked like an absolute charm. She totally melted, all of the tension leaving her body. An hour later we were calling an Uber back to my place, and we continued to see each other for months afterwards.
Why did that work? Because it showed that a) I cared about how she feels, and b) I didn't need my hand held to understand how she feels and do something about it.
That seems like a small, basic thing, but it's truly shocking how many men don't understand the power of paying attention to the person they are trying to sleep with. As my female friends like to say, the bar is on the floor. So take advantage of it and start caring about your date - you'll be surprised at just how powerful of an effect that can have.
Hope some of this helps you man. Good luck!
If one doesn't enjoy the company of women, perhaps reexamining their feelings towards male partners is healthy. This would allow their high sex and anti-female preferences to coexist in a socially comfortable manner.