Over on Buzzzfeed, a couple of interesting pieces on the fine art of online pickup artistry.
Kelly Bourdet looks at some of the online PUA gurus and their teachings, noting that
Online pick-up artistry has taken the original aims of IRL pick-up — to develop general tactics and techniques for attracting and bedding women— one step further. One dehumanizing step further. Now, instead of “peacocking” (wearing gaudy outfits to demonstrate Alpha status) in bars and using tired negs, we have them deconstructing every aspect of online persona and communication to create sleek, marketing packages of human beings to sell to one another.
In an even more entertaining companion piece, Ouiser Boudreaux (AKA the Annals of Online Dating gal) reports on some of the actual terrible things these online PUAs write to women in an attempt to “neg” them into their IRL beds. Like “nice headband, bitch,” or “Lol, you look like a space commando.” Or this little passive-aggressive masterpiece:
You nearly have a perfect lack of grace. What happens when you realize only the also ran hotties slum it in brooklyn? Somebody who says they’re not good at being surface and rattles off a list of authors read mostly in high school english classes is nothing but surface. Your profile is among the most trite and cliche i’ve come across. which is a compliment of sorts, though keep in mind, you’re not in kansas anymore. You know who else won’t deal with a narcissist? just look in the mirror to find the answer: another narcissist.
None of these worked, in case you’re wondering.
@swankivy I just watched a couple of your videos and subscribed. I watched the first letter you got and, oh my, what a jerk! I can’t believe people are so angry about something that really doesn’t matter in their lives overall. So what if one woman who you haven’t even met is not sexually attracted to you (or anyone else but you know the guy is angry because he’s taking it personally), is that the end of the world? I get how hard it is to be attracted to someone you can’t be with who is a regular part of your life, I have a friend like that now. But, come on, someone you don’t even know? And it’s also no reason to be shitty to the person even if you do know them. If you can’t accept someone’s disinterest in you sexually you should move on. If I didn’t value the guy in my life’s friendship and have fun with him when we’re just hanging out I wouldn’t stick around and just torture myself.
While I’m not asexual, I’m definitely child free. I have never wanted to have children, and, if anything, if I change my mind and want to nurture a child or two in the very distant future I have always been set on adoption. I hear a lot of those things you mentioned. People act as though my not wanting children is wrong, and they see it as the ultimate goal in life. My goals are also related to what I can create with my mind and not with my uterus. It’s just so obnoxious when people treat you as if their goals should be yours. I don’t see the point in having kids in this society, but I’m not about to tell someone whose ultimate goal is to become a stay at home parent that they’re going to regret not having a career. Why should I be assigned a lifestyle that makes me cringe?
Oh, and for being called fat as an insult, I got that a few times on my youtube videos from angry MRAs. I was called fat and ugly a bunch of times. Then another MRA was like, “Just for the record, I think he crossed the line, I don’t think you’re fat and ugly.”
Gee, thanks. Because I made a video laughing about MRAs to gain their superficial approval and be told I was pretty.
I have nothing to add to the conversation, but I just want to say: swankivy, I’m so excited to see you here. Your site was one of the first that I found after realizing I was asexual, and it’s always been hugely helpful and entertaining to me. You are awesome.
Oh, cloudiah, that quote you pulled btw. I just want to note, “Sometimes I wonder if they forget that they are there to attract a man, and that men will actually be reading the stunningly stupid things they write on their profiles.” They treat it like you’re there to attract any man. Like, I dunno, maybe they assume that because you’re using an online dating website that you must be so desperate that you should just take the first dude who messages you. We talk about it a lot, but I mean, they don’t seem to get that women have preferences. We aren’t just going to settle for any old guy just to have someone.
I don’t want a guy who is going to treat me like his property. I don’t want a guy who is going to disrespect me. I don’t want to waste my precious time dating a guy who doesn’t understand up front that those are things I will not tolerate. So if my assertiveness over what is and is not an acceptable way to treat me in my profile is “scaring men off,” those are not the types of men I want to attract in the first place. No loss here. I much prefer being alone than being with someone who hurts me or I’m incompatible with.
But again, these are men who want their women to be docile, obedient, and agreeable at all times. So of course they don’t get that women have needs too.
Ahh, one last thing, sorry.
As for why women don’t message men. Well, I can tell you my reasoning: I find flirting via the internet to be way more scary than flirting in person. Maybe it’s due to the permanence of the internet. You know, whatever I say might get screencapped or forwarded if it’s really stupid. Also, the fear of the non-response. Personally, I don’t respond to people I’m not interested in because, like some of you said, it just drags the interaction on further, and a lot of them just feel like form letters anyways or will be straight up cruel to prove “they weren’t interested anyway.” I fear that non-response the most because there is no sense of closure. I’m the type who needs closure (it’s part of my OCD). If I get up the courage, and it takes a lot of courage for me, to write something sincere to someone, and then I get nothing in return… well, that’s hard for me to take. It’s not worth agonizing over so i rarely bother in the first place.
Meanwhile, when I speak to someone in person, which I’m much more likely to do, I can get an immediate response. I can read their body language, feel the warmth (or lack thereof) of their energy, and get a real idea of whether or not they are actually interested. There are no non-responses involved. I can then move on with my life.
I really don’t like online dating which is why I don’t actively use my profile. The only reason I semi-used it for a few months was because my social outlets just are not bringing in single men who I’m interested in (I get single men who I’m not, and taken men who I am), so I thought maybe I’d have more luck on a site where everyone is single. Unfortunately, getting over that hurdle of messaging a guy first was too difficult for me, and the only messages I was getting were from men who I was completely not attracted to, so it was a bust. Now, if these men were appearing in my every day life, I’d approach them with much less problem. I don’t know where they’re hiding.
@pillowinhell: a guy friend of mine who has a really great profile (and is also just as cool IRL!) is annoyed because he gets a lot of women sending him messages that say “I’m not actually interested in dating you, but I wanted to say I love your profile!” Uh….okay.
I suspect the lack of initiative by women is a combination of women being subject to the same “she doesn’t make the first move unless she’s desperate” conditioning lots of us get, plus fear of online harassment. After all, if you approach a guy and then he turns out not to be so great after all, it’s just that much more likely that you’re going to get a shitstorm if you say “Sorry, this isn’t going to happen.”
I suppose the answer is likely to be different for everyone. I guess I’m pretty cavalier when it comes to dating, for some reason its never really bothered me, the rejection. Sometimes it stings a bit.
Rejection isn’t what bothers me, it’s when things go unresolved. Like, when you go on a date and never hear from the person again. I would much rather be told, “I’m not interested after all,” than be left to wonder wtf happened. So yeah, as I said before, the fact non-response is the reason I avoid messaging people personally.
Sometimes I wonder if they forget that they are there to attract a man, and that men will actually be reading the stunningly stupid things they write on their profiles. Looking through Match, I see a lot of grrrl-pwr buzzwords, feminist posturing, and what I can only describe as pre-emptive shit-testing….
1. Do your market research. Determine what the men you find attractive want in a wife, then give it to them. If you’re not willing to do this, then on behalf of men everywhere, I invite you to shut up and stop bitching about not being married. Shaming your customers into buying your product only works on women and beta males (women). And no, banging a different man every three months on your way to the serial monogamy hall of fame is not market research.
Is such a hot mess of logical failure.
1: I don’t think they forget it at all. I think they are doing just that. They’ve figured out what they want, and they are looking for it. These guys aren’t it. Sucks to be them.
Newsflash, “pre-emptive shit testing” of this sort is a good thing. It weeds out the idiots who won’t read, the clueless who don’t read and the assholes who think they have a right to “bang a different [woman] every [x chunk of time]” because they like it, and women don’t.
That’s called creating a campaign to target one’s market. It’s what smart people do. Fools just throw ideas at the wall and hope some will stick. These guys seem to resent being asked to live up to standards.
Sucks to be them.
Ugh, I checked out that Professor website. Just what Austin needs, more privileged manchild jagoffs running at the mouth. They claim fat women are a violation of their civil rights, clearly they’ve never had a civil right violated in their candyass lives.
I’d say the “women don’t approach” conditioning is a huge reason why women don’t write to guys on websites. I’ve hardly ever gotten approached by anyone, either IRL or online, so I realized early on that if I didn’t do it, no one would. But it’s still occassionally nerve-wracking!
Apollo on the blog says:
So if a man has the right to decide what he finds attractive, does this mean women do? The obvious answer is of course they do, if you are a rational person and most of these types are not. So the answer they give is no way!
THEN on top of that, they get all butt hurt when the woman has the nerve, the NERVE to not be whatever arbitrary weight that they think is acceptable. Why are you angry that a woman that you have no interest in dating and is not pestering you for a date is saying that she is fat? Why does it make you cry inside that she is not miserable?
And I see the Professor also assumes that fat=unhealthy. *sigh*
Well, the other part is that you have more competition for the same number of jobs. Employers can therefore offer less pay because people should be grateful they even have a job. I think the everyday working guys fear having that much more competition and rightfully so. Depending on your skillset and education, finding decent paying work can be like winning a small lottery.
Women contaminating the workforce may drop the status of the field. But the pay drops due to a glut of prospective employees.
@Pecunium: “Someone who is intentionally rude, or who chooses to intentionally disregard someone’s written description of what they are looking for; and is dealt with assertively, even rudely, is far from someone shooting another in the head for petty theft.”
That’s really well said. People who say this crap are acting like they DESERVED civil treatment when they opened with blatant disrespect. Why should I treat them the way I treat respectful people?
“And decent people wouldn’t try to imply that being offended by entitled jerks, and refusing to let them continue in their obnoxious ways; withough check or hindrance, was abnormal.”
Exactly. People try to do this when they want us to seem unreasonable. I get a lot of “oh my GOD, calm DOWN” when I react with outrage to things that are outrageous. Any response is usually labeled hysterical just because it is a response. If they can make it seem like my response is an overreaction that reveals something bad about me–and then they jump into criticizing that–then they neatly avoid having to address my argument.
@ostara321: “Pro tip: if you think someone isn’t into you, timing their responses and then freaking out on them when they aren’t responding fast enough to stroke your ego is a surefire way to really make them not into you.”
Very nice. That’s happened to me too–the whole “don’t bother replying, obviously you’re not interested” thing. Which I guess means that if I have a life, it’s offensive. A great article by the title “Schrödinger’s Rapist” explains this phenomenon in much better first-person commentary than I could.
@M Dubz: “part of me thinks that it’s another whole symptom of the ‘women aren’t really human/ all women behave THUSLY’ syndrome. That is, if men see all women as behaving the same, then compatibility doesn’t really matter, because we’re all the same anyway, and you should just pick the prettiest one.”
YES. Ever gotten that lovely comment: “Look, we might as well be HONEST–I have to know if I’m attracted to you before I’d consider a relationship, so I look at that first! What’s wrong with that? *Natural human urges, sex shaming, I’m a GUY okay, why do you hate men*, etc.” Thinking that actually all men are like this, and all women are like this but they pretend to not be . . . they believe they will get points by suggesting that this is “honesty” rather than, you know, being shallow, and that I should respect it because I’m being chosen as a pretty one anyway and should feel oh so coveted.
“Also? Chubby-chasers on the internet are a whole additional level of awesome (awful). Because they think they’re doing you a FAVOR by objectifying you and treating you like a hunk of meat. Because clearly fat ladies have no standards/ are just desperate for a scrap of attention amirite?”
Dear god yes. I’m not fat but several of my best friends are. (Oh shit, should I make up a black friend too in case we discuss racism? No, seriously.) My website was once trolled by Reddit, and someone said something similar to me, though–not about me being fat since I wasn’t, but about me being “not conventionally attractive” and therefore I probably hate men so much because it’s only ugly ones or rude ones who talk to me. If only, they said, a really hot guy would do me a favor and talk to me in a club, I’d stop being such a bitch. Don’t hurt yourselves there fellas!
“I also love how the insult they always go to is “fat bitch.” As a representative of fat bitches everywhere, I take umbrage with you saying that like it’s a BAD thing.”
I get called “fat bitch” when they can’t see me. Because they assume I’m probably fat and therefore worthless. If you’re somewhere in the middle, people will still call you “fat bitch” if they can see you, and harass you about it. If, like me, you’re on the skinny end of the spectrum and they can’t possibly call you fat, they will call you anorexic or a druggie, which is what I usually get. As long as they can try to say something to attack what women surely must be most obsessed with–their appearances. Way to try to undermine my self-confidence by exploiting what you THINK are my weaknesses, jackass!
@Polliwog: I love the “you used a submissive picture!” story. Classic. People do that to me too–tell me my picture or even my mere presence on OKC is leading them on and is “not fair” because, you know, waah, they want me, waah, I’m hurting them by not being available. But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Eve has been blamed for “tempting Adam” as if he has no agency since the Garden of Eden.
@Everyone talking about guys who get pissed that girls don’t write back on OKC: It’s a valid complaint, and I really wish people in general would respond to their mail even if they’re not interested, but YES, every “I’m not interested, thanks” mail is an invitation for abuse, and in my case it comes about fifty percent of the time. I have a thick skin. Not everyone does. If I make it clear that I’m not interested–and that’s always, because I just point them to my profile and draw their attention to the part that says I AM NOT HERE FOR DATING OR MATING–I’ll either get a lecture, or an explosion, or a “bitch u ugly anyway,” or a condescending diatribe on how I should stop getting off on rejecting men for my own sick pleasure. Whatever. I could NOT have been more clear about what I’m looking for. Kicking your feet and screaming about not being recognized as an exception is pretty much just a total exercise in embarrassing privilege display.
@Jessay–Thanks for watching my videos. Your comments are right on–indeed, these people feel like they need to condescendingly lecture me on my obligation to entertain their desires, and how I’m just going to be so SAD if I’m left alone to, you know, live as if I’m the authority on my own desires.
My looks have been insulted in my videos a few times . . . usually people acknowledge that I’m within the range of normatively attractive and start saying crap about how it’s a waste for me to be asexual (or, if they wish they could abuse me for being fat but they can’t because they’ve seen me, they’ll tell me I have “skinny drug addict arms” or something), but I’ve also had people insult my hair for being ratty and tell me I have a Jew nose or an annoying voice. You know, I actually prefer this kind of “rebuttal.” Because telling someone they’re ugly instead of arguing with their argument is pretty easy to laugh off.
@lauralot89–I really appreciate your comment and I’m excited that you’re excited to see me. Haha. I get a lot of bullshit from people about how “WTF is this awareness stuff important? STFU already, no one cares if you don’t have sex” or “aren’t there BIGGER PROBLEMS you should be worrying about??” So it’s always nice when someone decides to tell me I made a difference.
Oh god this is so effed up.
@Pecunium , on how those guys say “the women are forgetting that they’re THERE to attract a man”: “I don’t think they forget it at all. I think they are doing just that. They’ve figured out what they want, and they are looking for it. These guys aren’t it. Sucks to be them.”
Exactly. It’s like they haven’t figured out yet that we actually want to be offensive, or at least off-putting, to men who would talk to us this way, expect us to be this way, or think about us as though we are obligated to entertain their requests. I’ve had more than one man on OKC tell me that my profile is going to chase people off, or that my “attitude” is too brusque, etc. Did they ever think that ALL of the men who have ever talked to me through that site whose company I actually WANTED to keep were amused by my comments? And they’re not just “manginas” or men who are making fun of their competition in order to get laid. That’s just what they like to say to each other. “Everyone thinks like us. The guys who say what girls actually want to hear are doing it just to get in their panties.” Er, except no.
“These guys seem to resent being asked to live up to standards.”
And that is exactly it. “But what do you expect me to DO?” and “god damn you expect me to pass a test or something!” Honey, the only reason this is frustrating to you is that you are STILL trying to Christmas-tree the scan-tron and expecting an A. These are not impossible standards. They are not arbitrary or shallow or based on attributes that are out of your control. We simply ask for respect and some semblance of understanding compatibility factors.
@princessbonbon: You’re also spot-on when you talk about women’s right to be whatever weight they want to be. This idiot thinks he can declare “excuse me, but fat girls are not attractive, I have spoken, and I have lots of head-nodding; therefore women need to whip themselves into shape in the form of a size 8 or smaller, or else we will not deign to sleep with them.”
Have fun, guys. Enjoy your “standards.” Enjoy your “right” to tell women what they can look like before you’ll screw them. And then keep waving your fists around screaming about how women aren’t attracted to you or how it’s THEIR unreasonable standards that are to blame for your romantic failures. Anyone can have unreasonable standards and be therefore hard to please, but meanwhile, all the fat chicks I am super close with are married or in relationships. Because . . . news flash . . . not even close to all guys have those standards. THEY’RE NOT STANDARD.
“Why are you angry that a woman that you have no interest in dating and is not pestering you for a date is saying that she is fat? Why does it make you cry inside that she is not miserable?”
::applause:: Yes, they really want to punish us for not being what they want to have sex with. As an asexual who does a lot of awareness efforts, I get rape threats pretty regularly. I’ve determined that this is a two-pronged attack. One: if a guy were to rape me in a “corrective” sense, he hopes that I would suddenly worship his penis after realizing how full and complete and whole sex had made me feel. He has conquered me and shut up another silly asexual bitch who thinks the world does NOT revolve around penis. And two: Were I to not be converted into a nymphomanic through the magic of his amazing cock, you see, *I got what I deserved*. I got PUNISHED. And that second attitude is the same way these particular guys view women who are in any way not physically attractive or available to them: they need to be HURT and put down and attacked for daring to feel good about themselves. How dare they feel sexy, or attractive, or of value as a human being, if they are not doing anything to deserve his attention? Oh no, lady. There need to be CONSEQUENCES for that.
Happily, those “consequences” involve calling you ugly on the Internet. BOO-HOO!
Totally. I’m a fairly busy woman with a limited amount of free time (when I’m online it’s often as a breather in between working on projects and whatnot, not the type of time I could commit to meeting a man), so I don’t want to waste that time by just dating any old dude who happens to see my profile. I want to make the time and money I spend going out count. I’m better off hanging with my friends, watching a tv show, or checking the internet than spending $40 on a meal with a complete douche.
Yeah, when they go on a rampage about women being fat as if it’s some sort of great injustice against the men, they’re just deciding what they find attractive. When women have any sort of standards at all, or don’t want to sleep with that dude who is in the “friend zone” because they aren’t attracted to them, they are superficial bitches. How DARE we not hand over our vaginas to any “nice” guy who wants a piece (while simultaneously having to be pure and virginal), but they can have their pick of the litter. Fat? You should be ashamed of yourself!
The double goddamn standards, my god!
They should be WAY more concerned about outsourcing than they are about women working in the field. Women still at least have to make minimum wage whereas people in other countries can go home with a dollar a day. That’s what’s driving down our pay rates.
And Ohhhh my god. The threats of corrective sex that I see enough to be concerned about. Somehow we do not live in a rape culture, yet lesbians and asexuals get threatened with rape as a way to “fix” their orientations way more often than they should (which should be zero, but the number of times it happens to most individuals is well above this). Same goes for “bitchy” women who “just need a good fuck.” How do people say these things and then sleep soundly at night?
Jessay: How do people say these things and then sleep soundly at night?
Because they don’t see women as people, not really. To make a, not as strained as I would like, comparison, they do the same sort of compartmentalising chattel slave-owners do.
Women aren’t completely human, so it’s ok to abuse them.
RE: swankivy
Demi gay guy here! Wow, I had no idea there were so many ace and gray-a folks on here! Brings a tear to my heart, it does.
RE: Jessay
My sexual abuse was corrective in nature. I STILL remember the classic line the first time my rapist succeeded. He buttoned up his pants, saw me curled up crying and said, “I knew it would be hard the first time. But don’t worry. Next time we can work on teaching you to like it.”
This is why I want to shake people who insist asexual folk don’t encounter any sort of discrimination and bull.
I think I just got negged on XBox Live!! o.O Some completely random soul sent me a friend request, and then like 10 hours later sent me a message saying “you should add me, you only have three friends”. Hilarious, but creepy!
RE: Shadow
Apropos of nothing, but been meaning to tell you since I first saw your icon: WOO NIGHTCRAWLER YEEEEAH
@LBT: Yes, it’s annoying when people think asexual folks don’t get attacked. I’m fortunate in that I’ve never actually been sexually assaulted, though I’ve had people threaten it multiple times because they thought I deserved to get forced into experiencing sex (you know, because then surely I’d see how irresistible it is and how much of a fool I’ve been to forgo it). Nice to see you here too.
I’ve seen other people embed YouTube videos in comments, and I don’t know if I’m able to do that (I’m new in commenting here), but I’ll try to embed my self-made “Asexual Bingo” video below to show the anti-asexual (and frequently misogynistic) comments I often get. Nobody harasses us? Yeah right.
Attempt to embed:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncoHJo5128Q&w=420&h=315%5D
@Rogan
Wha-what!!! High fifteen!!! *falls on arse*
@swankivy
just copy the url from the address bar and paste it
I figured that would only show the link. I was trying to embed. But it looks like the link shows up anyway. I dunno which codes are “allowed,” and it tends to vary. Anyway it’s a pretty cool video. 😉 Except I’m biased, since I made it.
RE: Swankivy
Aw, unfortunately, due to various computery issues, video is damn near impossible for me to access at this time. 🙁 Sorry. Do you happen to have a transcription around somewhere?