Men’s Rightsers and Pickup Artists alike are obsessed with the dilemma of the so-called “Nice Guy” who can’t get laid. MRAs see his plight as a symptom of a gynocratic society in which fickle, asshole-loving women are the gatekeepers of sex; PUAs see it as a sign that beta males need to learn how to imitate the vaguely aloof swagger of the natural alpha male.
And both MRAs and PUAs completely miss the point.
To see just how badly they do, let’s take a look at a recent post from the sadly influential PUA shitbag Heartiste, who uses an alleged Facebook screencap of uncertain provenance as a springboard for a diatribe against the “desperate male,” that is, the “desperate, clingy ünterbeta male” who pursues a woman, often in a weirdly apologetic, even abject way, long after she’s made it clear she has no interest in him.
But Heartiste’s example, as you’ll quickly notice, isn’t exactly a textbook case of so-called “friendzoning.” (I’ve blotted out the dude’s face; Heartiste didn’t bother.)
Be warned: it’s a teensy bit long.
Yeah, so I’m thinking that the problem isn’t so much that the dude here is “too beta” as that he’s “a creepy stalker with no sense of boundaries and the obsessive persistence of a serial killer.” It’s not even clear why he’s developed this fixation on her. He says nothing to suggest he knows anything about her other than that she’s a “pretty lady,” and she doesn’t remember ever even meeting him.
Heartiste, naturally, takes him to task not for his creepery but for violating “just about every Poon Commandment” — that is, Heartiste’s set of “alpha male” rules for getting, well, “poon.”
He also notes the fellow’s repeated promises to not “take advantage” of her if she comes over to his place. Generally speaking, when someone casually promises not to rape you on your first date, and presents this as if it’s somehow a generous gesture on their part, it’s pretty much the opposite of reassuring, as it sort of suggests that they were at least considering it as a possibility.
But Heartiste sees it as an example of excessive chivalry:
Any man who thinks promising a woman that he “won’t take advantage of her” is the way to her heart is a power tool. Chivalry works in the abstract (specifically that abstract where unicorns are a possibility); in practice it’s an abysmal failure. A woman, if asked, will always say she wants a man “who respects her need to take it slow”, but in reality, where her words meet the unstoppable force of her tingles, a chivalrous gentleman’s pose is the equivalent of downselling: “Sure, this smartphone looks fast and functional, but it actually has parts made from Fisher Price toys. Try this cheapskate badboy clamshell over here instead.”
No, dude, the problem isn’t that this guy is being too “nice.” The problem is that he’s creeping out a random woman because he refuses to accept that she’s not interested in him.
The trouble with a lot of so-called “Nice Guys” isn’t that they don’t understand when a woman has rejected them — our creepy Romeo in the screenshots here was aware that he was probably “bothering” her only a few messages in. It’s that they refuse to accept these clear if implicit “no’s” as real” no’s.” Because, on some level, no matter how lonely and desperate and “ünterbeta” they may feel, they still feel entitled to sex with a “pretty lady.”
I rather doubt that many “Nice Guys” show up for work at companies that have interviewed them and hired someone else. The solution isn’t for these guys to learn “game”; it’s for them to learn to respect a “pretty lady’s” no as they would anyone else’s.
Who tries to seduce someone via Phantom of the Opera? It’s not exactly what you’d call an uplifting story.
“I really feel like women, especially young women, aren’t getting the message that they’re allowed to say no and push back when their boundaries are crossed at all (largely because a big part of society still doesn’t support our right to do so). So whatever we can put out there to support that idea that hey, someone who’s crossing your boundaries is doing something wrong and if you end up having to tell them to back off it’s them who’s being rude and unreasonable, not you, could be helpful.”
Sorry, I dunno how to blockquote. I like the way CassandraSays put it there. I’ve also had this problem as a guy, being told I’m the one that’s being rude and unreasonable when I tell people they’re crossing my boundaries. I will admit that it’s definitely worse on the women’s side, but I feel like this is a common way for bullies or abusers to justify being bullies or abusers. It’d be nice if we could better teach people about boundaries in general.
What I loved was the, “I won’t assault you… unless you want it”.
Which can be done in a flirty way; if there is some bantering going on, and it’s not a first encounter.
Neither of which seems to have been the case.
Which makes it a giant flag, in the brightest of rutile colors.
A lot of the way most societies bring up children is about teaching them to let their boundaries be breached rather than be “rude” by defending their right to not have that happen. It’s definitely worse for girls/women, but it happens to boys and men too. The idea that it’s the person saying “back off” who’s being rude rather than the person who’s deciding to ignore other people’s discomfort and piss all over their boundaries has always bothered me.
Cassandra: It goes on to adulthood. I glossed an event in my borg post about being told to shut up when telling a jackass he was a jackass for saying I wasn’t disabled, and was cheating the gov’t, etc.
Then again, maybe not. The reason given was,”there were children present an it set a bad example”. I wasn’t all that polite in my response to that either.
When I was sexually harassed in high school, my weapon of choice was ignoring him–he’d loom over me, and I’d look down at my desk and try not to listen. Some of his buddies used my distraction to steal my purse (this was during class, I caught it right away, and when I made a fuss, my teacher told me that “sometimes boys do things like that to girls they like. We were seniors).
I felt bad and used to second guess myself, because I had been told that it was bad to shun people. All I wanted him to do was leave me the hell alone, or at least not tell me creepy things/follow me around in class.
In better news, here is a image gallery of my cats, including one of my parents’ cats.
http://imgur.com/a/tiWmF
Dudelah, I don’t know what you’re reading but:
Which would be first thing top of the page of the CDC fact sheet.
Or are we just mistaken yearly rates for lifetime rates? ‘Cause the BJS link was talking only about the year 2008.
Speaking to RosyMask up there, if not clear, BTW.
The more I listen to other people talk about this stuff the more I wonder how I somehow managed to miss out on a lot of that socialization. Maybe it was because my mother had been an abuse victim as a child, but she brought me up with a rock-solid conviction that if anyone was breaching my boundaries I had the right to tell them to back the fuck off, and my dad reinforced it by telling me that if anyone was making me feel that way in a physical sense I had the right to use force if necessary to get them to back off. I know that when I do it some people will think I’m being rude, but I’d rather be seen as rude than feel threatened and helpless. Maybe the key is your parents having told you that if some people think you’re being rude that’s OK? The message I got was that politeness and good manners were important, but not as important as my safety.
@Maria, that was an awful story. I’m sorry that guy was harassing you.
Maria: I’m not sure which guy in that scenario was worse, honestly. The harasser was, of course, a piece of shit, but the boyfriend was clearly no prize–and some folks, I suspect, would be more affected by being hit with that victim-blaming horseshit from someone they trusted than by being creeped on by a stranger (which, sadly, a lot of women just have learned to erase as background noise due to overexposure). And of course, since he’d been called in, he was also taking advantage of the fact that she wasn’t in a position to tell him he was being a jerk, because she was currently supposed to be grateful to him for riding in to save the day–which I’m sure she was, but seriously, dude, get the fuck over yourself.
@Maria: A few years ago I met up with a friend who’d been overseas for a while, to chat about her holiday. It was lunchtime at the local corner pub, we were dressed in casual wear, absolutely no indication that we were looking to hook up with some lucky feller (which we weren’t). And yet, because we were two women having a drink and a chat together, some bloke decided to pull his barstool over to our table to join us. He didn’t ask, or say a word, just pulled up a chair, plonked his beer down, folded his arms on the table, and looked at us. He was a total stranger, much older, and very very drunk. He looked us both up and down.
I glanced at my friend, then, without saying anything, got up and went looking for the pub bouncer. I told him the guy was imposing himself on us, and although he hadn’t done or said anything untoward, he was rude just by dint his uninvited presence; could he please be asked to leave us alone? The bouncer was great – came back with me and very politely asked the guy to “leave the ladies be”. The guy got up, muttered “stuck up bitches” and staggered off. Alpha male indeed…
@ Spleeny Baggage
Ah, the random pub/bar nuisance. I’ve found that raised eyebrows and an “excuse me, do I/we know you?” can sometimes embarrass them into going away, particularly if you do it loud enough for people around to overhear and/or there are a group of you rather than just one.
@CassandraSays: I agree, but in this case (a) there weren’t many people around, and (b) the guy was seriously drunk, quite heavily built, and looked like he could get belligerent. I didn’t want to take the chance. Plus I just didn’t want to get into it, y’know? I just wanted him gone. I made it clear to the bouncer that I didn’t want him tossed out or anything, just… moved along. No harm done. He probably didn’t even remember us five minutes later!
I’d have looked to the bouncer for backup in that situation too, don’t get me wrong. Actually your story makes me wonder how often bouncers would be willing to back female patrons up if we asked. Part of the reason that I often don’t ask them for help is that I don’t necessarily trust them to take my side.
I know what you mean. There’s some places I wouldn’t expect the bouncers to be of any help to me… but then, they’re not the kind of places I’d want to go to anyway. I’m thankful that I live in a place with lots of different venues to choose from – I know that doesn’t hold for a lot of other places (small towns, for instance).
That would be a useful piece of information to pass around for any local area, wouldn’t it? Places where the bouncers are more likely to hurt or harass you than help you.
What are statistical trends?
As a woman you’re pretty much damned if you do damned if you don’t. Guys complain about girls being nice, but having no intentions towards them and they complain when girls shut them down immediately. I have been in many situations where I tried either tactic and there’s just no winning. Guys can complain all they want about how unfair it is that they have to initiate contact and face rejection, they should try enduring unwanted attention that they can only escape by either “leading them on” or being a frigid bitch and then fearing what kind of potential reaction they may face as a result.
I had a guy sitting behind me on the streetcar at like 2 am chatting me up, it wasn’t super comfortable but I didn’t tell him off until he asked me what I would say if he told me he had a body in his freezer.
But randomly being harassed is a compliment! Why wouldn’t women be flattered when some guy on the bus told them about the body in his freezer? Women are so stuck up.
@Sparky:
Mary Koss’s “research” also “concluded” that “1/5 women are raped.” Except that she completely made it up, blatantly manipulating her data to get the result. Over 70% of women in her survey explicitly told her they had not been raped, so she just fudged some words around until they could be put in the “raped” category. Since the NISVS (the tool used to come to that CDC conclusion) appears to be a paid for by the VAWA people (the same type of RadFems who paid for Koss’s “research”), it’s quite easy to assume that it’s blatantly manipulated data as well.
Not to mention that RadFem “research” counts a man and woman having a drink before sex as “the woman being raped.” Or her being on medication for any number of mental health disorders, which currently 1/4 women have in the United States. They just twist the meaning of everything to milk out the maximum possible number of rape victims, manifesting them even where none exist.
I would bet money that there was no such question as “have you been raped,” to which 1/5 women answered “yes”–because that’s not just these weasel studies are conducted.
My favourite version of this is the there’s-no-acceptable-time-to-say-you’re-seeing-someone game. It’s not fair to carry on a conversation with a man if you’re in a relationship with someone else unless you tell him off the bat about your partner, because as everyone knows, no man would ever want to actually talk to a woman unless he might get laid as a result. You have wasted his precious mantime! But also, it is annoying and conceited to talk about your partner when you meet a man. Why do you think everybody wants you? You’re not all that, okay?
I think the trick to beating this one is you’re not allowed to be in a relationship unless it’s with the duder who is trying to chat you up.
True, but I didn’t find that out until after he’d unceremoniously dumped me. That’s when I picked up the book it was based on, and found it to be absolutely ghastly. But the soundtrack from the innovative Toronto production was very fashionable at the time, and he was obviously taken with it, and no doubt figured any girl he was with would be, too. And so I was, for a while. Can’t deny that “Music of the Night” has its charms, although it doesn’t jibe well with the Norman-Bates-meets-Quasimodo personality of the Phantom. I’m guessing the musical departs quite a ways from Gaston Leroux’s little potboiler of horrors; I never did get to see it.
Nowadays, I’m just amazed at all the weird shit I put up with merely because I was young and inexperienced and desperate to be liked.
“Music of the Night” is lovely, but IT IS A RAPE SONG. There’s no way around it.
On the creepy stalker dude, I wonder if he’s focused on this one particular woman alone, or if he’s spamming his daily one-liners out to several women. If he looks through his friends list, and with anyone who looks hot enough, he spams. And with fb, you can’t do a blind cc – you actually have to send out each one. If he’s smart enough, he know’s how to copy and paste; if not, he’s actually typing the same basic crap out over and over and over again.
I’m not sure if that’s more horrible or not.