I think this is well reasoned. I am sure some people will try to make a moral equivalence of men and women's anger in exchanges across the dating interface. I reject that equivalence for a very simple reason:<p>* Men are angry they are facing rejection.<p>* Women are angry they are still subject to abuse, chattel status and risk of Sexual violence.<p>They just aren't equivalent.<p>That said. As a non participant I don't think I like some of the implicit test qualities in online exchanges i see on reddit. "Sorry you used LOL so you are bad. Bye" is .. well I guess it's a noise filter but it's kind of silly.<p>Is the problem a version of transactional/relational mismatch? Only partly. I would love to understand if the dating spaces where women must make the first move have a different problem by scale or intensity. (I stress purely out of interest. I read blind date stories because they're entertaining not because I need a date)
IMHO saying no (ie declining an offer or advance) should not qualify as "unpleasant", and everywhere in the piece one could replace "be unpleasant" with "saying no" and it would be equally true. That also means men need to take no for an answer, though I suspect the type of guy who doesn't will also tend to push through any other "unpleasant" behavior.
I honestly don’t really understand what point the author is trying to make. I simply note that in the current environment lots of the complaints she has for women actually dually apply to men as well.<p>> 20 years ago, when I was on the dating market myself, there were still rules of fair play. A young woman who naively dated a handsome man only to discover that he dated several other women simultaneously would be justified to blame him for being dishonest. Today, she would need to feel stupid because she didn't discuss the terms with him.<p>I distinctly remember having a conversation in like 2018 with my sister. We were both using Tinder at the time. I was operating under the assumption that once you started going out on dates with someone on the app, you stopped using the app and focused on getting to know them. To my chagrin I was informed that this was naive and stupid, and that my sister was currently going on dates with several men at once, and so were all the women on the app I was talking to, and that this was fine and even expected as long as it “wasn’t serious”. She made it clear that unless someone explicitly asked her to be “exclusive” (a high bar to clear) that she would continue to date as she pleased and not feel any obligation to even mention it to any prospective partner.<p>Women can’t expect fair play but neither can men. Seems like it’s a race to the bottom.<p>Overall it seems like the pressure is mounting on men to do more with less, but I could be biased in that regard.
It strikes me that a lot of discussion around this topic is very optimistic or maybe just naive.<p>All of the things that the author speaks about are reasons why men like to accompany their wives on trips, don't like their partners to go out drinking without them, etc. We know how people behave and act accordingly.<p>Yet there seems to be a strong effort to paint such things as some sort of rank unfairness.<p>The world is always, always going to direct attention towards nubile young women.<p>I applaud the author by the way for acting in a mature manner. It feels rare nowadays to see a young woman or man with their head screwed on, who realise that this won't all last forever. Settling down early is better.
It's not just women that are unpleasant, it's men too. The swiping economy has really done a lot of damage to the dating economy. The mutual disrespect flows both ways. The apps promote bad behavior by the very nature of their design.<p>I had quite a few matches cancel hours before meeting up, or just not show up. I had a match meet me at a concert ( I know, bad idea), and she spent most of night hitting on my married friend and crying in the corner. It's really discouraging, depressing and dehumanizing. I do not remember it being like this when I was in my 20's.<p>I am 42 now and used the sites from the time my divorce was finalized in 2021 until last summer. It wasn't all bad, I dated a few matches for more than a few weeks. The main problem is that in my experience, a lot of women will exaggerate their hobbies and interests on their profile to attract potential matches. It did really seem like many people were on the apps because they don't have time to date or did not have social lives/hobbies.<p>Based on the lack of success, I decided to stop wasting time on the apps and focus exclusively on expanding my social circle, volunteering, participating in social groups activities and going places where I could meet people. I've made a lot of new friends with interesting hobbies. You still get rejected IRL, but I didn't find anyone to be overly unpleasant about it. I ended up dating a few women over the course of a few months before I ended up with the girl I am with now.<p>Incidentally, everyone who I dated during this period had also given up on the apps and remarked on their toxic nature. Dating apps are not made for dating, they exist solely for making the site money by selling boosts and premium memberships in exchange for access to the product (women).
I thought this was sort of an interesting read. However:<p>(1) It made me wonder if there was an actually scientific way of tracking these things over the years. I imagine there's something buried in social surveys? It wouldn't be the same but might be a little informative.<p>(2) I was expecting a discussion of a different topic, and am not really sure she addressed the comment. The comment explicitly begins with "I'm referring to attitudes while dating, not how receptive someone is to having sex" and she seemed to discuss receptivity to casual sex.<p>This is fine, it's not really a criticism although I think the topic she seemed to lead with and that the commenter was mentioning seemed more interesting to me. I'm not sure I agree or disagree that dating norms have changed, but if it did it would be extremely interesting to me.<p>I've read a lot of women mention that when or where men are being pushy or manipulative, they tend to be more defensive or proactively self-protective like she's saying. I don't think I've read as much about an idea that women are "playing harder to get" in an established (in a broad sense) dating relationship. I'm a bit skeptical but it's interesting to think about changes over time in these kinds of things. At least in the US I feel like the focus is a lot on changes in cultural norms around sex, and less so on relationships per se.
>> When group A wants something from group B that most members of group B do not want to give, someone needs to be unpleasant. Either there needs to be unpleasant rules saying that members of group A are not allowed to ask members of group B for what they want. Or the individuals of group B need to act unpleasantly themselves.<p>>> Laws against begging are a case in point. Banning people from asking for money they might desperately need is unpleasant. It also prevents the minority that feel good from giving money to beggars from doing what they like. Laws against begging moves the obligation to be unpleasant from individuals to society as a whole.<p>LOL, this took an interesting turn. Begging for money is not equivalent to begging for sex, money supplies food essential for life. Nonetheless, I see the point being made, should we have rules where men are not allowed to flirt with women? Punishable by law. Yes, it will be abused, but it will also force men to find ways to cope.<p>More salient question: Who in society should take the burden to cope with bad actors?
It's difficult to find any good reasoning in this piece, nor in the other article she wrote, that she mentioned. The author's "tee hee I watched some old teen movies and that is the extent of my research" attitude shows her as unserious.
I’m so glad to be out of the dating scene! But, as a male, maybe I can share an experience that might contrast a bit with the linked story. Let’s call it a confession from an unpleasant man:<p>I was on a work trip- a few years ago- still fairly newlywed and no kids. We had different offices, and I was making the most of it to get to know people better from the other office. Drinks were involved, it was a big celebration event. Anyways, I was hitting it off really great with someone in another division that I didn’t get a lot of exposure to, but she used the software I was working on. She looked to be about my age. I dont remember what we were talking about but at one point she stopped me, held up her hand, and said “Im sorry, but I’m married”. I was absolutely flabbergasted. Of course I held up my hand and said I was married too- but it really killed the conversation. I absolutely was not hitting on her, but apparently being nice and interested in what she had to say was (incorrectly) detected as a pickup attempt. Anyways, ever since then I’m careful to not be too friendly with other women or to quickly bring up the topic of kids.<p>This brings me to another topic: kids. I absolutely adore my kids. I love playing with them. I love taking them to the playground. I am so terrified around other people’s kids. Some kid needs help at a playground? Not getting any from me. I want to be nice to other kids, but I’m absolutely terrified someone is going to accuse me of trying to abduct them or something. I feel like a man being kind to kids other then his own is absolutely unacceptable today, and that makes me really sad.
See also: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_economics" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_economics</a>