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From what I've gathered by listening to women, there are fundamentally different problems. "Attention" is not valuable in itself. Getting spammed with dick pics

From what I've gathered by listening to women, there are fundamentally different problems. "Attention" is not valuable in itself. Getting spammed with dick pics is about as appealing as any other kind of spam. No one looks in their spam folder and thinks "Gosh, all of these advertisers think I have money to burn! What a great compliment!". It doesn't show any personal interest. It's not a sign that the other person is going to treat you like a human being instead of a sentient (flesh-)wallet. The difference in experiences starts early in life. For boys, girls showing interest in them is often an exciting and empowering experience. For girls, often as not, the first sign of sexual interest is a creepy older man making uncomfortable comments at them when they're 11 years old. IIRC this shows up in mental health statistics -- boys who start puberty earlier tend to do better; girls who start puberty earlier tend to do worse. And of course there are different social standards applied to men's and women's sexuality. Women also have much bigger safety concerns than men do, and have a harder time getting anything done about attacks afterwards. I think all of this does make it harder for women to understand the destructive loneliness that a lot of men (particularly young men) face. I've been there, and I remember that trying to talk about with my female friends was a frustrating experience. But over time I've come to see that women don't really have it any better than we do. We're wandering through a desert looking for an oasis; they're swimming through a lake of garbage looking for an intact water bottle.

mbar84 4y ago
> We're wandering through a desert looking for an oasis; they're swimming through a lake of garbage looking for an intact water bottle. I think it's more like, we're both in a corner store and while many men can't afford something to eat, though it's right in front of them; women won't stop looking before they find Caviar and a bottle of Champaign.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zozbot234 4y ago
> The difference in experiences starts early in life. For boys, girls showing interest in them is often an exciting and empowering experience. Hence, if you're going to try and show interest in a woman, do it in a way that's clearly going to be interesting, exciting and empowering to her, even if she doesn't seem to reciprocate sexually. (Which in practice means you'll need to show genuine social interest and friendship to her, combined with a modicum of sexual interest that's demonstrably connoted as non-threatening. Mostly by showing yourself off as sexually attractive and attainable, and leaving it at that. Yes, it's very unintuitive from a male POV - many males will reject this approach as weak. But a neutral assessment of strategy says it will work, and give women what they're mostly looking for.)
- avmich 4y ago
  > do it in a way that's clearly going to be interesting, exciting and empowering to her I wonder what examples would you have in mind? It's easy to say "just be great".
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    It's not easy, but it should be your goal. Do you think most guys (or even most women, perhaps) have ever paid the least bit of attention to being interesting and exciting to their prospective partners, much less empowering them? Even with people you genuinely like and care for, it's not something you'd know to strive for intuitively. So the bar is not that high.
    - avmich 4y ago
      > Do you think most guys (or even most women, perhaps) have ever paid the least bit of attention to being interesting and exciting to their prospective partners, much less empowering them? I know for sure that a lot of men, significant percent of my single friends, actually tried that for years, with little to no effect. Seems like when a woman needs the man to be interesting and exciting, she wants some non-trivial specifics which are actually hard to either understand or achieve. > So the bar is not that high. Would you think that this whole situation the article describing happens while the bar is not that high? Do you think the problem is illusory? Or the society as a whole just doesn't know some rather simple to make and simple to understand actions?
      - zozbot234 4y ago
        > Or the society as a whole just doesn't know some rather simple to make and simple to understand actions? Yes, society as a whole does not care in the least about giving people viable social "scripts" by which they might get to know each other and pursue intimacy in safe, healthy and effective ways. (Of course, the consequences of this lack become all the more apparent when ludicrous excuses are put forth to minimize or justify serious coercive and predatory behavior. Teach people to relate to each other in better ways, and you'll also deprive dangerous predators of the excuses they like to fall back on.)

mbar84 4y ago

> We're wandering through a desert looking for an oasis; they're swimming through a lake of garbage looking for an intact water bottle. I think it's more like, we're both in a corner store and while many men can't afford something to eat, though it's right in front of them; women won't stop looking before they find Caviar and a bottle of Champaign.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

zozbot234 4y ago

> The difference in experiences starts early in life. For boys, girls showing interest in them is often an exciting and empowering experience. Hence, if you're going to try and show interest in a woman, do it in a way that's clearly going to be interesting, exciting and empowering to her, even if she doesn't seem to reciprocate sexually. (Which in practice means you'll need to show genuine social interest and friendship to her, combined with a modicum of sexual interest that's demonstrably connoted as non-threatening. Mostly by showing yourself off as sexually attractive and attainable, and leaving it at that. Yes, it's very unintuitive from a male POV - many males will reject this approach as weak. But a neutral assessment of strategy says it will work, and give women what they're mostly looking for.)

avmich 4y ago
> do it in a way that's clearly going to be interesting, exciting and empowering to her I wonder what examples would you have in mind? It's easy to say "just be great".
- zozbot234 4y ago
  It's not easy, but it should be your goal. Do you think most guys (or even most women, perhaps) have ever paid the least bit of attention to being interesting and exciting to their prospective partners, much less empowering them? Even with people you genuinely like and care for, it's not something you'd know to strive for intuitively. So the bar is not that high.
  - avmich 4y ago
    > Do you think most guys (or even most women, perhaps) have ever paid the least bit of attention to being interesting and exciting to their prospective partners, much less empowering them? I know for sure that a lot of men, significant percent of my single friends, actually tried that for years, with little to no effect. Seems like when a woman needs the man to be interesting and exciting, she wants some non-trivial specifics which are actually hard to either understand or achieve. > So the bar is not that high. Would you think that this whole situation the article describing happens while the bar is not that high? Do you think the problem is illusory? Or the society as a whole just doesn't know some rather simple to make and simple to understand actions?
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      > Or the society as a whole just doesn't know some rather simple to make and simple to understand actions? Yes, society as a whole does not care in the least about giving people viable social "scripts" by which they might get to know each other and pursue intimacy in safe, healthy and effective ways. (Of course, the consequences of this lack become all the more apparent when ludicrous excuses are put forth to minimize or justify serious coercive and predatory behavior. Teach people to relate to each other in better ways, and you'll also deprive dangerous predators of the excuses they like to fall back on.)