As they say, "'No' is a complete sentence." Anyone can decline to date anyone for any reason you like. And it's probably best not to give reasons, especially if it's something intrinsic or hard to change.
Many people lack a peer group capable of giving them effective dating advice. Men who don't have any friends who aren't straight guys of their own age should probably fix that first. And work on opening up emotionally.
What?
Where I come from you're allowed to date who you deem to be attractive. Nobody cares if you don't date anyone because they're fat, dumb, small, poor or what not.
While there are activists out there attempting to use the standard social shaming toolkit to influence dating, their tactics won't work. Reproduction is too deep-seated a drive to tamper with that way. And fortunately, defeat here will blunt the entire array of tools.
It's as if an entire generation is hearing this internal monologue: "You mean that if I want you to consider me a 'woke' and good person, I need to have sex with this person I don't consider attractive? To hell with you and your morality then."
IMHO, much worse is the prohibition of prostitution. In my country, pornography can be found for free on internet but prostitution has recently been completely banned.
That puts a young man who watches pornography but has, for one reason or an other, absolutely no idea how to get laid, in a very difficult position. I can totally understand how that would make him angry.
No, advertising, either directly to the subject or to other people specifically referencing the subject, a personal characteristic as the reason for declining to date someone has always (well, since the early 1980s, at least, don't really know how it was received before I was in elementary school) been recognized as a means of attacking that person and often a bullying tactic, (doubly so when it is done prospectively.)
Not dating someone itself, for any reason, is not generally, even now, and irrespective of the actual reason.
what world do you live on? Declining to date someone and bullying them are very obviously different things.
It's how you wrap it with elegance and allure: just that your preference is to date e.g. petite females. Don't mention fat etc. at all. Or just simply state the person is not your type and walk away. They are pretty aware what they are doing, including taking photos from "slim angle" and trying to sell you "sub-prime CDS as class A-shares", and then just play usual shame game to force you to cater to them. Ignore it; it's like a bad business decision, be strong, enforce what you like and not what they would like you to - you can tell them once they can e.g. run 100m sprint in 13s, then you can date, as sporty ladies make you excited etc. And you even give them a S.M.A.R.T. goal; not that it matters as they will be stuffing themselves with whatever sugar they find, but at least you don't make a political mistake of aligning with the signature of fat shaming.
Do you have sources to cite on that? Because this honestly sounds like an incel talking point. The idea that it's ok for women to judge and reject men -- for being short, or any other number of male-oriented deficiencies -- but men are not similarly free to reject women based on their appearance. It's bullshit and it doesn't really exist. Anecdotally, I've never once seen someone be judged for not wanting to date someone no matter how shallow the reason. It's just another way in which these men are claiming to be unfairly victimized in the dating world.
I respect your experience and it may be that women do have much more power than men in the online dating world - that doesn't mean it's not an extremely skewed representation of the actual social dynamics that happens between humans. This is due to the many cultural biases of the people who make these apps and the audience they're targeting, both of which being typically college-educated urban American millenials.
Not everyone's approach to relationships is like that of a college-educated urban American millenial.
And while I also agree that the sample from Tinder is a very restricted view, and in general I also prefer meeting people directly in the real world. What I found interesting about Tinder is, precisely, that I allowed me to directly see how women outside of my social circles and spaces I frequent present themselves. While I still live in a hipster urban area, I found that so many of these examples of very traditional views about courtship---all this "I am a price" logic I mentioned in the parent post is not so much a sign of power, but I see it as more of a conservative view that puts women in a passive role. It can be frustrating for men, but probably it is also damaging for women, and to me showed, somewhat, that the road to better gender equality and fluid roles is a long one.
Have you browsed men's profiles on Tinder? You're comparing 50% of the actual data to your imagination here.
* there was that OKTrends blog article from 5-10 years back that noted women tended to rate 80% of men below average, while men tended to rate women in a normal distribution.
* there's apparently some indication that twice as many women as men manage to reproduce successfully.
* To the extent that books like _A Billion Wicked Thoughts_ reflect credible research, there's notable indications that women often employ a broader set of criteria along with a higher floor and aim for picking mates.
There may be methodological issues that I'm not in a position to evaluate, so I'm sure all of this is subject to review. Also, none of this means you have to make any categorical call about who has a more privileged or difficult life by gender; beyond the good reasons for anyone to be selective when looking for prospective mates, there are some that apply to women in particular. But it does look like there are studied reasons for suspecting that women are more selective and critical about prospective mates than men are.
These are basic human-type concerns. Which makes the angry, bitter, you-definitely-can't-empathize-with-me rhetoric of many incels even more frustrating.
Is this more Jordan Peterson, “woe is men” shit?
Seriously, if these sovereign individuals can’t forge social relationships with others, especially women, and use that to further their understanding and connection with the real world, then that is their problem, as individuals. It’s not society’s fault that these individuals choose to not engage with society on society’s terms. It’s certainly not women’s fault and very much not their responsibility to fix.
A call for individual impetus or responsibility to fix system issues isn't necessarily wrong, but it's usually futile.
Consider: some set of features that identify an individual, over time, begin to predict a worse or less ideal state. Is the cause and solution most likely to be a collective individual moral failure, requiring a collective individual improvement? It's possible. But is it likely?
Or perhaps a better question, is this proposed solution likely to improve the state of the world to one we all like? "Be better, it's not our responsibility to fix your issues." If this is repeated enough does the trend reverse? Or if it doesn't reverse, do we simply not care? If we don't think this will reverse the trend, and if we do care, then this seems like a poor strategy.
You don't have to care or not care about any individual, and you don't have to take any individuals belief or claim at face value. That's the difference between trying to divide up lines and attribute moral defect to society or individual, and trying to map out a complex system at understand solutions that aren't about assigning blame or worth, but rather improving society for all.
Still, an ability to have empathy for those who suffer, whether they are part of your side of the culture war or not, is (only in my opinion) a beautiful trait.
I agree and this has made me rethink my comment and the angle I took.
The suicide of famous artists such as Chris Cornell and Scott Hutchison - particularly Hutchison - has really shocked me and made me think more widely about what it means to live happily as a man these days. I think we need more people thinking about it positively. And more people need to embrace and encourage civility as you've done.
It's so easy to fling rocks in the culture wars, and satisfying too, but in a junk food way.
As you say, there's a bigger picture.
Thank you.
I like the war and peace reference too ;)
Acknowledging the existence of a problem affecting men?
> ... then that is their problem, as individuals ...
I agree, but the society needs to acknowledge that it actually IS a genuine problem for these men. We can then encourage the development and adoption of technological solutions, such as sexual VR and sexbots. It might not be the ideal solution for these men, but at least it's a solution (and it puts no responsibility on women to do anything).
I don't think anything that has come out of the MRA/Petersonian fringe is helping though.
There certainly is problems with men/masculinity in society, it's both sad and tragic, as illustrated by the tragic suicide of Scott Hutchison a couple of weeks back. I'm convinced that all these people who think they're sticking up for men are only making things worse though.
The answer doesn't lie in blaming female empowerment.
What do you mean?
I wont say its entirely society's fault, but we cant just ignore the problem. As that leads to Brexit, Trump,etc.
I would argue that there are profound differences too between institutional racism and male sexual resentment.
Of course, institutional racism is several orders of magnitude more severe.
(Update: wow, I get downvoted for this. Nice!)
This skirts a taboo that you can barely talk about: that personal preferences in dating are not judged to the same standard, and that movements of empowerment and positivity are clashing with everyone's free will in pursuing -- and especially articulating -- what they do and don't like. Declining to date someone because they're fat is now firmly seen as a bullying tactic, but not dating someone because they're short is perfectly fine. The protocols around communicating preferences to others and getting them accepted by one's peers is a quagmire where social conventions haven't ventured, so everyone lies for self-preservation ("I like you as a friend", "I don't wanna be tied down"), and those left out are left to draw their own conclusions.
This is all terribly unfortunate, but not really new; the incel movement, however, feeds not solely on rejection and obsessing over the base biological reasons thereof, but the implicit entitlement they they'd deserve otherwise.