Wednesday, March 7, 2012

An educational experiment

Sofia discovers the male perspective on her sex by creating a male dating profile:
So, I’ve been posing as a guy online for nearly twenty-four hours with positive results. I am competing against a pool of polyamorous-vegan-feminist-omegas, but it’s still a minor feat nonetheless. A few things I’ve learned....

- Women are fickle. Even if a sequence of messages seems to be going really well, a woman will arbitrarily change her mind at any given point if you did not re-calibrate effectively, or her competing options are disqualifying you as a sexual candidate. This trait in particular made me really sympathetic to the hoops men have to jump through when acquiring a girl’s attention, even though most women have nothing to offer.

- Women are boring and have very high estimations of themselves. I mean, I really should say “people” in this case, because having maintained a female profile on such a website, I can tell you that most men (at least online) don’t really know what they’re doing either. The difference is the self-evaluation. Most men undervalue themselves online and most women overvalue themselves. I understand this is a natural consequence of the sexual marketplace, but after you read the literally hundredth, carefully worded profile of a girl touting her intellectual strengths and esoteric pop culture references, it gets EXCRUCIATINGLY boring. The annoying part is that she thinks she’s being really unique with her taste in independent music + film, off-kilter or “quirky” sense of humour (god, that word gets abused) and how intelligent she is (knowledge accumulation is very different from stringing two abstract thoughts together to make an original one).
While the idea that women are, for the most part, incredibly boring, will likely surprise many women considering how interested men appear to be in their banal little thoughts, it is absolutely true. The tedious nature of the female intellect is why most intelligent men do not look for intellectual companionship in a mate; remember that just as men will laugh at women when they're not funny, they will feign interest in the parroted meanderings of the intelligent and literate woman as well.

The main reason women are boring is because they are solipsistic. Since they see all of Creation only from their own perspective, and their interest in things only extends so far as those things can be related to them, they have literally nothing of interest to offer anyone who does not share their unique and precious perspective, which is a set that consists of most of the other 7 billion people, male and female, on the planet.

This, in fact, explains why intelligent men often prefer less intelligent women. Now, I know many intelligent and educated women, and I have observed, over a period of several decades, that the three primary uses of female intelligence are a) identifying and contextualizing solipsistic connections in order to direct the conversation towards herself, b) concocting ex post facto justifications for her own questionable behavior, c) winning arguments through fast-paced verbal legerdemain. Does anyone really believe that demonstrating superior skill in those three things is going to enhance a woman's appeal to any man?

The handicap of solipsism also explains the huge absence of female accomplishment that was expected over the last 90 years of the equalitarian era. Women now outnumber men at the highest levels of education, but what have they used that education to do? Mostly talk about themselves. The rare female exceptions tend to come from, as one might expect, the omega females, who are so sexually unappealing that they have no choice but to develop their intellects and actually do something with them if they are to have any male contact at all.

So, it really is the fault of men that women never develop their intellects, but in exactly the opposite manner that most believe. It is not male oppression that has retarded the intellectual development of women over the centuries, but rather, the surfeit of male interest in women.

Anyhow, read the whole thing. It's fascinating to see way in which the light bulb turns on for her.

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Intelligent" women know very well that their intelligence is getting them nowhere with men. To make themselves feel better they invented the bullshit cliche of men being "intimidated" by an intelligent woman, and feeling "insecure" in their presence. LOL. The real deal is that female intelligence doesn't make her face any prettier nor her tits bigger. End of story.

LP2021 Bank of LP Work in Progress said...

Wow, this nearly proves many Game related concepts. The handicap of solipsism is huge for all women.

Anonymous said...

This is one of the reasons I'm still unmarried almost twenty years after my divorce.

Of the women I've dated I end up asking some simple questions, "Is she interesting?" and, "Can I stand to live with her?" The answer is almost always No.


Athor Pel

Stickwick said...

Does anyone really believe that demonstrating superior skill in those three things is going to enhance a woman's appeal to any man?

Yes. Ashamed to admit, I used to think a) and c) were appeal-enhancing.

At the risk of engaging in a) once again, I'll relate a similar experiment I tried. (Though, lacking Sofia's self-awareness, I wouldn't understand the results until years later.)

When I was an undergrad, my roommates and I decided to try an experiment with the personals in the local hipster newspaper. I'm talking so painfully hip that its resident movie critic would only give four stars to obscure black and white Iranian films. We decided to try three different female personas and see which one got the most responses from men. #1 was a quirky hipster chick. #2 was a highly intelligent physicist (we started the ad with "F=ma"). #3 was what we considered to be excruciatingly boring: an aspiring actress who was looking for her true love to rescue her from loneliness. We were sure #1 was a slam-dunk and that #2 would come in a close second (we were all physics majors -- there's that female solipsism).

All of the ads got responses, and the order of popularity was #3, #1, #2. We were shocked to discover that not only was #3 the most popular, but got five times as many responses as the others. Men, we discovered -- even unbelievably hip men -- vastly prefer sweet and uncomplicated. Of course, being young and female, what we perceived through the haze of cognitive dissonance was that men were "afraid" of something "challenging." Oy.

Mike M. said...

Vox, I'm not sure the comment about intelligent men preferring less intelligent women is completely correct. I think it may be more a situation of intelligent men trading off intelligence for looks and personality in a mate.

If they could find and get a woman who was attractive, personable, and smart, they would take her. But given a choice, I suspect a fair number of men will marry down-IQ. It's a particular issue for the men at the far right end of the bell curve. IIRC, male standard deviation in IQ is considerably greater than that of women, which means that men with genius-level IQs greatly outnumber women of equal intelligence. So the men have no choice - they must marry down in intelligence. And trade it for something else.

Yohami said...

LOL and true.

DaveD said...

Intelligence matters, just not as much as looks and a pleasant, fun demeanor. I want a woman who's smart enough that I don't have to explain a lot of things too but not a woman who's so smart that I have to debate everything with.

I find it amusing that Sofia, more than once, makes the point that most women have nothing of value to offer other than being a woman. That so many of them think that is more than enough is why, even as a Christian, I consider staying single, bouncing from girl friend to girlfriend, until I die.

DD

VD said...

I used to think a) and c) were appeal-enhancing.

Out of curiosity, why? What was your basis for reaching those conclusions?

Mr. Nightstick said...

OT:

Now that Dennis Kucinich has lost his seat, can we reasonable expect his much younger and more attractive wife to depart?

Daniel said...

OT:

Now that Dennis Kucinich has lost his seat, can we reasonable expect his much younger and more attractive wife to depart?


Doubt it. He's a pimp. He's got a line of fairly hot Amnesty International refugees waiting in the wings in any case. Besides, now he's free to go and rock it international style.

Unlike a lot of politicians, the seat didn't give him the ladies - the thing that got him the ladies got him the seat.

I know two attractive women under the age of 25 who have a major thing for ol' Dennis.

Jehu said...

VD,
In my experience, you don't have to 'pay' anything for the level of intelligence a woman has in the SMP or MMP. For instance, all of the women I've had long term relationships with, including my wife, fit into a fairly narrow band of attractiveness and from +1 to +3 sigmas in intellect. Only in cases where your available social circle for dating is really small do you have to make tradeoffs on brains vs looks. In efficient markets you tend to attract women who are at a percentile of attractiveness similar to your own percentile of status/desireability and pretty much everything else is largely 'free', or so cheap as to be irrelevant.

Markku said...

The plight of intelligent women is vastly exaggerated. There is a sexual market segment for everyone.

sofia said...

would also like to add that re: female solipsism. female profiles invariably have a lot of "i am/do, etc." in their profile, whereas male profiles are written from a less personal, more generalized perspective. because women assume you're into the trivialities of their thoughts.

Aeoli Pera said...

Don't neglect the tomboy contingent. Surely you've noticed that most every male activity has a 5%-15% contingent of women. Excepting linux and heavy metal, naturally. (Retards: that was a joke.)

They usually don't usually reach the upper echelon of skill, but for every Bean there's a Petra.

LibertyPortraits said...

Speaking of educational experiment: Vox, what are your thoughts on the plausibility of women being worse negotiators (underselling themselves) in the job market and statistically earning less than men?

Josh said...

that's a stupid theory

Stickwick said...

Out of curiosity, why? What was your basis for reaching those conclusions?

For (a), it was pure narcissism. I found myself fascinating, so why wouldn't everyone else. For (c), let me preface this by saying I mistakenly thought legerdemain meant verbal skill, not trickery. But in any case, I thought intellectual dueling enhanced my appeal, because I often get a sexual charge out of debating with an attractive man. I just assumed men found it equally appealing (there's that solipsism). Looking back, I think I was also half-consciously hoping for a smack across my smart-aleck mouth.

Stickwick said...

I'd like to describe to y'all one of the most unpleasant, yet revealing, experiences I've ever had regarding the nature of women.

I had lunch with a female friend this afternoon, and the conversation drifted into politics -- a topic I studiously avoid with women, but she asked me about my support for Ron Paul, so I naively thought this would be an opportunity to win a convert (I know, I know). Here's how it went:

Me: Explained the philosophical basis of my political belief in the principle of freedom. Basically, we're all corrupt and fallible, therefore the less government power is concentrated the less potential there is for really horrible things to happen.

Her: No sale. Firm belief in a large, powerful federal government that regulates most things.

Me: That's the main reason for Paul's popularity right now -- a lot of people are vehemently opposed to a large, powerful federal government.

Her: There must be a compromise.

Me: There is. We can shift almost all federal power back to the states, so that each state can decide how much freedom it wants, what to regulate, etc. Some states can be as regulated and socialist as they want, while others could effectively be free.

Her: Abject horror. It would be terribly unfair to make people move if they didn't want to live under a particular state-imposed ideology.

Me: It's even less fair to completely disenfranchise large segments of the population that don't want to live according to the ideology of a particular federal government.

Her: We all have to compromise for the greater good.

Me: There is no compromise, because the ideological gap is too wide. In fact, it might lead to civil war or a peaceful dissolution of the U.S.

Her: Horror. Again, some people would be displaced and have to move, and that's unfair.

Me: I laid it on the line. There is every variety of socialism in the world, from the soft socialism of Canada to the welfarism of the Nordic countries to the hard communism of North Korea; but there isn't a single country where people like me can be left alone to make our own decisions without government intrusion, to have the freedom to take risks, to win or lose, and to live with the consequences. If we have a powerful, monolithic government that imposes an ideology people like me find intolerable, then where in the world can we go to live how we want to live?

Her: She looked me in the eyes and said, in all earnestness, that I could try some lawless African territory or the middle of Siberia.

So … it's an unthinkable hardship for a family to move from, say, Texas to Massachusetts so that they could enjoy more socialism, but people like me can just f*ck off to Somalia or Siberia if we want to live free.

I am reminded of a quote by Nietzsche that I did not fully understand until today:

Are you a slave? If so, you cannot be a friend. Are you a tyrant? If so, you cannot have friends. In woman, a slave and a tyrant have all too long been concealed. For that reason, woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knows only love. In a woman's love is injustice and blindness towards all that she does not love.

That describes my friend perfectly, and I believe Nietzsche is right that it applies to women in general.

mmaier2112 said...

So can we name Stickwick an honourary Dude yet or what?

LibertyPortraits said...

@Josh,

It appears that your comment was directed at mine. If so, can you explain what is stupid about it? As far as I am aware, women undersell themselves, and women statistically earn less than men. I wouldn't even agree that the question was vague or lazy since I am merely asking an opinion from one who has a better command of logic than I and would notice if there is a possibility of a correlation (I know that it isn't a causation) that shows up in the statistics. Again, if you think it is a stupid theory/question, explain to me why instead of drive by commenting, thank you.

Stickwick said...

So can we name Stickwick an honourary Dude yet or what?

Thanks, IndyGuy. That's the best compliment I've ever received.

One clarification. The second time I said there can be no compromise, I meant in the sense that there is no workable hybrid of her totalitarian vision and my libertarian vision at the federal level. Besides, what she really meant by "compromise" was what women almost always mean when they say "compromise," to wit: "You'll do things my way, and you'll like it."

Matthew said...

On the topic of Nietszche, I've been trying to figure out why Jeeves considers him to be "fundamentally unsound", but I draw a blank.

Jeeves's ethics are fairly unorthodox:


"You mean you slipped him a Mickey Finn?"

"I believe that is what they are termed in the argot, madam."

"Do you always carry them about with you?"

"I am seldom without a small supply, madam."


And Jeeves clearly knows what the well dressed ubermensch is wearing. What gives?

Anonymous said...

@Stickwick

I found it funny that you said all the ads received responses, but was upset the physicist received the least. Lets say ad 3 received 35 responses, ad 1 received 25 responses and ad 2 received 10. Whats it matter how many you received? At least you got attention.

I don't understand why women would rather be validated by X number of men rather than by one good man. You can only date/marry one guy anyway.

I don't understand why it is so offensive to women to not be X% of mens type. Why not just focus on the guys that do prefer girls like you? Seems like a waste of energy trying to shame men into preferring a certain type of woman rather than working with what you've got, no?

Maybe I'm missing something.

JCclimber said...

Most likely the men who wrote in to the physics intelligent woman profile were bottom of the barrel, sexual market place-wise.

That would be upsetting.

Funnily enough, I would have chased that if she was reasonably attractive physically, but not if she was unattractive. So far, I've only met 3 women whose IQ's were above mine, so I'd be marrying down anyway.

The only really smart women I've known (IQ 140+) who weren't annoying were raised in another culture.

Wendy said...

...women being worse negotiators (underselling themselves) in the job market and statistically earning less than men?

Or they oversell and fail.

Wendy said...

@Stickwick

I found it funny that you said all the ads received responses, but was upset the physicist received the least. Lets say ad 3 received 35 responses, ad 1 received 25 responses and ad 2 received 10. Whats it matter how many you received? At least you got attention.


If she identified the most with the profile that got the least attention (likely since she is a physicist), she's not going to be happy. It would be a wound to her pride (and expectations).

Stickwick said...

Maybe I'm missing something.

You're missing something.

This was about confirming a hypothesis, not about finding a boyfriend. We assumed the hipster chick would be the clear winner, since it was a hipster newspaper. We assumed the physicist chick would get almost as many responses, since she was a highly-intelligent elite, also presumably valued by hipsters. As I pointed out, the lonely actress got five times as many responses as the others. And, yes, that means something.

Most likely the men who wrote in to the physics intelligent woman profile were bottom of the barrel, sexual market place-wise.

I have no idea if they were. This was an actual newspaper, so we only had a few lines to make an impression. The responses were in the form of very brief voicemail messages at the newspaper's answering service, so it would have been difficult to ascertain the market value of the men without following up on the messages, which we did not.

Since the men didn't know what we looked like, and with all else being equal/unknown as far as they were concerned, it was all about which personality type was the most appealing. The physicist was a close third behind the hipster chick, but both were miles behind the actress.

Obviously, it was disturbing to find out that our intelligence and (eventual) elite status were of little value in the dating marketplace.

LP2021 Bank of LP Work in Progress said...

Fantastic Stickwick, very interesting!

Desert Cat said...

"Obviously, it was disturbing to find out that our intelligence and (eventual) elite status were of little value in the dating marketplace."

See, this is the kind of "market research" that leads to the truth. This is what the original game communities did in the '90's in order to define and refine game. Hard empirical data ruthlessly winnowed to find what does and does not work.

This is why we can point and laugh at the author of xkcd. He may not like the truth, but the truth is what it is.

Anonymous said...

Personally I would like to see the numbers of responses comparison to say a male profile who lists bartender, bouncer, musician, tattoo artist as his occupation. Versus a male profile who lists city employee, garbage man, janitor, truck driver as his occupation.

Anonymous said...

A female friend of mine actually is a PhD physicist and, lo & behold, she does have some dating issues. She's unusual in part because she thinks a lot like a guy and does a couple guy sports for hobbies - this makes sense I guess b/c she's in a field where you have to be freakishly gifted at stereotypical guy things, pure math and spatial relationships. So she's got a lot of guy friends, including the crew of mostly married guys I roll with, she puts the co- in one of our co-ed teams. No hanky panky, she's not cruising, she just likes her sports. Married guy consensus in the crew is that she's awesome wife material but approaching the sell-by date (she's early/mid 30's, low N count, a 7, very fit & athletic, supportive type of girl) but she's not a big fan of sociopathic alpha behavior, and at the same time doesn't much like crypto Herbs. Herbs, alas, predominate in the ranks of the professionals she's dated.

So her pattern is that she employs this female sort of game to meet guys, her flirtation game is A+, close to boner inducing, but she can't close the deal and manage to date for longer than a couple months. She has the usual chick failings, getting a bit solipsistic on them, a little critical of them, and then they usually break up when she finds the guy isn't interested in wearing pants in the relationship.

Further married guy consensus is that she needs a smart guy (1-2 SD> mean) with an almost blue collar mentality, an assertive engineer + foreman project manager type or police lieutenant to keep up with her and to hold the pimp hand high in that relationship, and she has told us about various infractions where the guys she's dated have shown themselves to be "total pussies" (in her words). When she relates the situations in questions, she's right, the guys went total Omega on her.

I'm not sure what to make of her situation, just thought the dating physicist thing would be interesting. She isn't exactly the young/hot/dumb thing, nor an aging carousel rider. It would be interesting to hear the group's thoughts - particularly in light of Stickwick's thing about the personal ad.

Anonymous said...

Talking to women is completely boring! And I talk to every women I get a chance. I have yet to meet a women who can keep me interested with her intellect. Her body and charm, yes, but not intellect. Men intellectuals are few, women intellectuals almost non-existent. Most conversation with women is practical, self-centered, emotionally-driven, trivial, and stick to a base of the few topics and hobbies they are interested in. There are many intelligent women, in fact I am a doctor, my entire side of the family is physicians with many women doctors, and of all my colleagues, they are all completely utterly boring! Intelligence yes, but interested in engaging in topics of serious concern, very very few women. Leave intelligence out of the criteria and there are so many to choose from. I find each women to be basically the same, with few variations in each one based on upbringing and environment. Study women objectively, you will see the truth.

The men who talk about smart women are dumb themselves.

Anonymous said...

Men are attracted to beauty, women are attracted to status.

The whole trick is in knowing VALUE - primarily your OWN. Know where you sit on the food chain.

For example: runway models are out of my league, but attractive women in the 7-9 category are not. I know this from direct experience. Doesn't mean I DON'T try for the occasional model, and doesn't mean I haven't succeeded before - but I have a good grasp of the odds according to my place on the evoluionary 'food chain.'

It's important to know one's value without the hindrance of EMOTIONALISM. Women are generally incapable of this.

Anonymous said...

As a male, I am attracted to women who are pretty and nice. I am not attracted to logical ability, interest in sports, career success, etc. These are MALE traits - thing that attract WOMEN. Why would I be attracted to MALE traits if I were looking for a WOMAN?

A lot of the trouble today is caused by the theory of 'social construction' of gender. The idea that there is no evolutionary difference between men and women and that we're all specifically products of our environment. This is all complete hogwash. Men are men, and women are women. I EXPECT women to be emotional because they're WOMEN!! I don't expect them to think objectively; it's not in their DNA. That's what MEN are for. WOMEN are here to make the world better for men by providing the EMOTIONAL energy that men don't have.

One thing feeds the other. That's how it was meant to work. Now, it's all a big competition. And I'm NOT seeking a COMPETITOR; I'm seeking warmth, comfort, solace . . . all those things that women think are 'sexist' today.

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