Acting Goofy

[Syne]

Even to the point of thinking they know what qualities some internet stranger values in a friend.

I’m not trying to befriend you, if that’s what you think.

Never thought you were.

 I’m just trying to shed some light on this "alpha male" misconception.  It promotes preconceived notions regarding mate selection, not to mention disagreeableness and anti-social behavior.  That type of behavior might attract unstable people, but well-adjusted ones will avoid aggressive, self-centered, and controlling individuals.

This type of faulty thinking leads men to believe that women don’t know what they want and that nice guys finish last.  So they ramp it up and it becomes a never ending cycle.

Nonsense. Aggression, disagreeableness, anti-social behavior, etc. are all non-alpha traits, because they are all primarily motivated by insecurity. True alphas don't need to display their dominance because they don't have a need for validation.

But it is true that some, usually young, women mistake displays for actual dominance. Once they get older and more socially calibrated, they no longer rely on such crude cues. Still, women don't know what they really want, as copiously evidenced by the chasm between what they think and say they want and want they are actually attracted to.

So what do you think are the traits of a "nice guy", that you would be attracted to? Be specific. Let's test your assertion that you know what you want. And don't imagine, as many women do, that someone who already has status, like Brad Pitt or someone, has those traits. Average "nice guy". Be honest with yourself.

[Secular Sanity]

Women don't know what they really want, as copiously evidenced by the chasm between what they think and say they want and want they are actually attracted to.

So what do you think are the traits of a "nice guy" that you would be attracted to? Be specific. Let's test your assertion that you know what you want. And don't imagine, as many women do, that someone who already has status, like Brad Pitt or someone, has those traits. Average "nice guy". Be honest with yourself.

We never actually "have" what we want because people aren’t objects.  They can leave whenever they want.

It's actually the lack of such emotional spikes in a relationship that makes women unhappy.

I certainly don’t see it that way.  I think it’s actually the lack of distance that makes any relationship unhappy.  And they shall be one flesh; probably the worst advice ever given.  Are you attracted to someone that takes you for granted?  Your significant other is a person in their own right.  This recognition alone keeps things alive.  People seem to put more effort into their relationships with their friends than they do with their significant others, but I don’t have unrealistic expectations.  I don’t expect one friend to meet a certain set of criteria.  They all have different qualities that I admire. Simone de Beauvoir thought that every human being is always a singular, separate individual with different needs and wants.  That's pretty obvious, isn't it?

Something about otherness seems applicable here. Similarities and differences are crucial in forming self-identities, but as Simone de Beauvoir pointed out, it’s as if masculinity is constructed as the social norm and we are the Other.

Why are we always differentiated with reference to a man?  

I can't think of anything else ... EXCEPT SEX ... and this is the problem.

Do you realize how much influence women have over men?

As C2 has stated, we are to the male, a sexual being, and you seem to be suggesting that our influence has primarily been through a man’s dependence for sexual gratification and offspring.

No wonder you can’t be friends with us.  Still to this day, we’re thought of as less than, weaker, and the second sex.

[confused2]

I can't think of anything else ... EXCEPT SEX ... and this is the problem.

I was tired at the time - I'm not trying to evade what I said - but I could have have said the same thing in a better way.

we are to the male, a sexual being,

- that captures what I should/would have said were I as articulate as SS.

[Syne]

Women don't know what they really want, as copiously evidenced by the chasm between what they think and say they want and want they are actually attracted to.

So what do you think are the traits of a "nice guy" that you would be attracted to? Be specific. Let's test your assertion that you know what you want. And don't imagine, as many women do, that someone who already has status, like Brad Pitt or someone, has those traits. Average "nice guy". Be honest with yourself.

We never actually "have" what we want because people aren’t objects.  They can leave whenever they want.

Who said anything about "having"? Is that just a non sequitur to avoid answering what you claim to know?
How can you expect us to believe you know what you want and are attracted to if you can't even answer this simple question? O_o

It's actually the lack of such emotional spikes in a relationship that makes women unhappy.

I certainly don’t see it that way.  I think it’s actually the lack of distance that makes any relationship unhappy.  And they shall be one flesh; probably the worst advice ever given.  Are you attracted to someone that takes you for granted?  Your significant other is a person in their own right.  This recognition alone keeps things alive.  People seem to put more effort into their relationships with their friends than they do with their significant others, but I don’t have unrealistic expectations.  I don’t expect one friend to meet a certain set of criteria.  They all have different qualities that I admire. Simone de Beauvoir thought that every human being is always a singular, separate individual with different needs and wants.  That's pretty obvious, isn't it?

Something about otherness seems applicable here. Similarities and differences are crucial in forming self-identities, but as Simone de Beauvoir pointed out, it’s as if masculinity is constructed as the social norm and we are the Other.

Why are we always differentiated with reference to a man?  

Of course you don't think you see it that way. But you're actually half-aware of the solution. It's not about simple distance. It's about varying, dynamic distance, i.e. emotional spikes...with the corresponding lulls.

Being of "one flesh" has nothing to do with taking anyone for granted. It's about people joining in a way that compliments their individual traits. Dreamers with the grounded, emotional with the logical, etc.. It seems that in your experience you get more emotional spikes from your friends.

Your supposed patriarchal norm is just a limiting belief. Men and women are just different. Learn to accept the world as it is rather than how you wish it to be.

I can't think of anything else ... EXCEPT SEX ... and this is the problem.

Do you realize how much influence women have over men?

As C2 has stated, we are to the male, a sexual being, and you seem to be suggesting that our influence has primarily been through a man’s dependence for sexual gratification and offspring.

No wonder you can’t be friends with us.  Still to this day, we’re thought of as less than, weaker, and the second sex.

Another self-justifying caricature. As a women, you are primarily an EMOTIONAL BEING relative to men. You are not as constrained to the linear, logical thought processes men are most familiar with. As such men find male friends more comprehensible and relatable. One major motivation to overcome, or tolerate, that incomprehensibility and emotional dependence does happen to be sex, and the evolutionary impetus of female sexual selection. Guess what? If you were truly committed to having male friends, you could eliminate sex as a consideration...by offering it freely and without any commitment or stipulations. But then you'd have to overcome your own evolutionary psychology that tells you how socially risky that is.

Your thoughts of being seen as "less than" is just an inferiority complex. One in which you've bought into the supposed patriarchal norm as THE measure.
You instinctively feel that men have power over your, because they do. But then you think that's somehow the ideal you're measured by. It's not.

[Secular Sanity]

Who said anything about "having"? Is that just a non sequitur to avoid answering what you claim to know?

I think it was you that said people always want what they can't have.

Guess what? If you were truly committed to having male friends, you could eliminate sex as a consideration...by offering it freely and without any commitment or stipulations. But then you'd have to overcome your own evolutionary psychology that tells you how socially risky that is.

It's not really that socially risky anymore or haven't you noticed.

By contrast, eros and philia are generally understood to be responsive to the merits of their objects—to the beloved’s properties, especially his goodness or beauty. The difference is that eros is a kind of passionate desire for an object, typically sexual in nature, whereas ‘philia’ originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feeling towards not just one’s friends but also possibly towards family members and business partners. Given this classification of kinds of love, philia seems to be that which is most clearly relevant to friendship.

I'm not a cum dump.  I’ll stick with the philia.  Thanks for the advice, though.  

Your thoughts of being seen as "less than" is just an inferiority complex. One in which you've bought into the supposed patriarchal norm as THE measure.

You instinctively feel that men have power over your, because they do. But then you think that's somehow the ideal you're measured by. It's not.

Just look around the globe, silly boy.

[Syne]

Who said anything about "having"? Is that just a non sequitur to avoid answering what you claim to know?

I think it was you that said people always want what they can't have.

I said "people tend to want what they can't have": https://www.scivillage.com/thread-5569-p...l#pid21123
It's having their presence, affection, etc.. Not possessing the person his/herself.
What does that have to do with what "nice guy" traits you think you're actually attracted to?
Just justifying your avoidance of facing the fact that you really don't know? O_o
You actually have an opportunity to grow here, if you can get out of your own way.

Guess what? If you were truly committed to having male friends, you could eliminate sex as a consideration...by offering it freely and without any commitment or stipulations. But then you'd have to overcome your own evolutionary psychology that tells you how socially risky that is.

It's not really that socially risky anymore or haven't you noticed.

So your female friends in relationships wouldn't see you as a potential threat for being so free with your sexuality? If not, good, your problem is solved and you can quit bitching about the supposed patriarchal norms.

By contrast, eros and philia are generally understood to be responsive to the merits of their objects—to the beloved’s properties, especially his goodness or beauty. The difference is that eros is a kind of passionate desire for an object, typically sexual in nature, whereas ‘philia’ originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feeling towards not just one’s friends but also possibly towards family members and business partners. Given this classification of kinds of love, philia seems to be that which is most clearly relevant to friendship.

I'm not a cum dump.  I’ll stick with the philia.  Thanks for the advice, though.  

See, you do think that is undesirable. It's your evolutionary psychology and social conditioning that make you think of it in those terms. But if you could be above that, you'd simply remove the obstacle to attaining your goal.

And if that's all you can take away from casual sex, I pity you.

Your thoughts of being seen as "less than" is just an inferiority complex. One in which you've bought into the supposed patriarchal norm as THE measure.

You instinctively feel that men have power over your, because they do. But then you think that's somehow the ideal you're measured by. It's not.

Just look around the globe, silly boy.

I'm talking about the context in which I live, in a modern Western society. If you have to go to extreme examples to justify your views, that's on you.

[Secular Sanity]

Just justifying your avoidance of facing the fact that you really don't know? O_o
You actually have an opportunity to grow here, if you can get out of your own way.

I know.  I also know that I wouldn’t be attracted to someone that just wanted to have sex with me.  Casual sex is not just harmless fun.  There are consequences for both men and women.

As usual, you're making too many assumptions.

[Syne]

Just justifying your avoidance of facing the fact that you really don't know? O_o
You actually have an opportunity to grow here, if you can get out of your own way.

I know.  I also know that I wouldn’t be attracted to someone that just wanted to have sex with me.  Casual sex is not just harmless fun.  There are consequences for both men and women.

As usual, you're making too many assumptions.

Who said they "just" want to have sex with you? O_o

I'm not assuming anything. I'm taking what you say you want, male friends, and offering solutions. If you don't like them then maybe you're starting to understand that men and women are inherently different. Or that you don't really know what you want.

Have you never heard of safe sex? Granted, sex for either gender does activate the pair-bonding circuits of the brain, but that's what causes people to ignore red-flags and leads to bad relationships. So some degree of casual mentality about sex is a very good thing, whether you're very sexually active or not.

Do you like to slut-shame people? O_o

[Secular Sanity]

I feel the flick of an ancient whip, the whip that drove my forebears through all those eons, drove them howling and heartsick after all those unattainable women, or, when attainable, through one after another of them until, broken and spent, they found one finally who was unattainable upon whom then could be concentrated what was left of their repeatedly broken hearts. I should shout out: "Brothers! Brothers! Take heed!" We are rushing on to despair and madness in pursuit of something chosen for us to want but not in our interest to want. Like cattle we go forward, blinded in uproar and dust, thinking we are seeking what we want. But brothers! It is not we who want all those women—one or two would be enough—but a force that ignores our interest, our welfare, that would sacrifice every one of us, to a man, in a moment, without pause, without a glance, to achieve its iron purpose. Take heed! It’s a biological trick. We have been selected for desiring. Nothing could have convinced us by argument that it would be worthwhile to chase endlessly and insatiable after women, but something has transformed us from within, a plasmid has invaded our DNA, has twisted our nature so that now this is exactly what we want to do. But we did not choose a nature that would have such wants that would send us careening after women, fatuously, self-destructively, through all the days of our lives. Never, never would we, looking at the consequences, choose such a lemming nature. It was pressed upon us while we slept. We must rise up, reject it.

I can’t believe it’s this way for women. They don’t want to violate a man. Were one of them to approach me with the motivation I bring to them I’d run for my life. Or for my soul! What they want must be something quite different. They want to be talked to. I know what they want. They want to be understood, to be known in their specialness, to be truly recognized.

She doesn’t say much. But I say a lot. I ask questions. Real questions. I enter into her experience. I enter another life, understand it. And I convey to her my recognition. And all this, if I am sincere will be an interesting experience for me. I’ll learn something new. But this was not my object, is not for me essential. I could live without it. But for her what’s happening there between us is essential, it meets her deepest need, is life-giving, rescues her from anonymity, bestows significance, brings her individuality alive. The giver of that experience becomes terribly important to her.

There has been no force, she is a free agent, she lets me in, but I know myself a despoiler. And—to squeeze out from this obscure truth the last bitter drop—the more immaculate the garden where my muddy boots now tread, the greater the victory, the deeper my gratification.

Sex shows, it occurs to me, are watched by silent staring men; there are no such houses filled with women watching men being degraded, reduced to objects. Why is that?  

Men gather in pornographic shows, not to stimulate desire, as they may think, but to diminish fear. And since fear diminishes desire, the felt effect of reducing fear is increasing desire.

As women move increasingly toward equality, the felt danger to men increases, leading to an increase in pornography and, since there are some men whose fears cannot even so be stilled, to an increase also in violence against women.

And even if, as the widest improbability, we should find a woman who had become the fantasy…even then the sought-for closeness would not be possible. For the woman who really matched the fantasy would be empty. Nothing there.—Allen Wheelis

And if that's all you can take away from casual sex, I pity you.

No, Syne, it is I, who pities you. Like I said, as yet man is not capable of friendship.

[Syne]

And if that's all you can take away from casual sex, I pity you.

No, Syne, it is I, who pities you. Like I said, as yet man is not capable of friendship.

No, it's just that you harbor unrealistic ideals about how men and women relate. Men have no problem being friends with other men, who they can really understand and relate to. Women just don't offer that kind of value as friends, nor are men emotionally needy enough to require friends regardless of their value. Why don't you just find some gay friends? You know, instead of always sounding like a bitter misandrist.