Frustration in being continuously told "its just a date"

[halogirl]

Sorry everyone this is what happens when you get English people who go abroad and they bump into each other. My fault .
Night night everyone
Glory be
Our father
Hail Mary

 

[JamalChristophr]

You’re only twenty aren’t you? Something like that? Don’t rush. You’ve got plenty of time. Friendship is a jewel. Focus on that.

 

[BoomBoomMancini]

It is both a phrase you are not familiar with and a PUA phrase. Its meaning is pretty self evident. Maxing out the potential facial, hygenic, muscular, and style aesthetics. It is a way of maximizing the potential you have from your genetically inhereted “looks”

There are some problems with the idea, but overall it serves its purpose well. A man interested in dating should at least consider improving his appearance, even if he isnt interested in look-maxing.

This illustrates my basic problem with the whole PUA culture. Like most dumb ideas, it has a kernel of truth: women don’t like passive aggressive “nice guys” who sulk and write emo poetry. Have a backbone. But besides taking it to a ridiculous extreme where you’re encouraged to be an abrasive jerk, it tries to reduce human interaction into this “system” with specialized terms and acroynms. It’s like a video game nerd trying to use a cheat code. You can tell the whole thing was invented by some dork attempting to reverse engineer confidence and self assurance and landing on “peacocking” and “negging.” Someone who is genuinely confident and comfortable in his own skin doesn’t get wrapped up in an Internet subculture based on trying to clinicially dissect girls like they’re an alien race.

I mean, yes, obviously do the best you can with what nature gave you. Work out and don’t smell bad. But that hardly needs to be said.

 

[Edmundus1581]

At how many dates would you say an exclusive relationship “begins” since as you note it isn’t the 1st. Is this just a conversational thing to be discussed or after 4 times for example it has some validity to it?

I’ve only been in that situation twice in my life. The first was with the woman I would marry (badly!) and another with a woman who would become my fiance, but we eventually broke up.

Both times I took the initiative to ask “Will you be my girlfriend?” and both times I had to pluck up some courage.

I’m just curious whether people have found this to be the norm - one (the man?) taking the initiative to ask and where “No” is a possibility, or does it just become obvious after a while, or they agree quite easily?

I suspect the first time I asked was premature and I should have allowed the relationship to grow, and probably fail, before throwing us both into something we regretted.

If I had my twenties again I would date more girls and have one or two “girlfriends”, including the drama of breaking up, instead of staying single for years and then going to a committed relationship in just weeks. As I said in a previous post I was “too serious” as a person, and this was one manifestation of that characteristic.

 

[WingsOfEagles]

GospelOfMatthew:

At how many dates would you say an exclusive relationship “begins” since as you note it isn’t the 1st. Is this just a conversational thing to be discussed or after 4 times for example it has some validity to it?

I’ve only been in that situation twice in my life. The first was with the woman I would marry (badly!) and another with a woman who would become my fiance, but we eventually broke up.

Both times I took the initiative to ask “Will you be my girlfriend?” and both times I had to pluck up some courage.

I’m just curious whether people have found this to be the norm - one (the man?) taking the initiative to ask and where “No” is a possibility, or does it just become obvious after a while, or they agree quite easily?

I suspect the first time I asked was premature and I should have allowed the relationship to grow, and probably fail, before throwing us both into something we regretted.

If I had my twenties again I would date more girls and have one or two “girlfriends”, including the drama of breaking up, instead of staying single for years and then going to a committed relationship in just weeks. As I said in a previous post I was “too serious” as a person, and this was one manifestation of that characteristic.

I think eventually the man needs to be clear that he wants to be boyfriend/girlfriend, and he shouldn’t keep things in limbo for too long. Boyfriend/girlfriend isn’t a massive committment yet, but does imply exclusively dating each other. This is important to a woman because the longer a guy seems to be avoiding going from “dating” to “please be my girlfriend”, the more paranoid she will become that he isn’t that interested in her.

 

[Edmundus1581]

Thanks! A very helpful reply. You seem to say the relationship is “in limbo” until an agreement is reached, and it’s not necessarily obvious without communicating it.

Boyfriend/girlfriend isn’t a massive committment yet, but does imply exclusively dating each other.

That is so important to remember! I would advise young people to both not be afraid of this “commitment”, and similarly not be afraid to break it off.

 

[Lea101]

I didn’t read all the replies so excuse me if my answers have been mentioned earlier.

You can be a great Catholic guy, but if you come across as weird or awkward…many may not want to go out with you. Many referring to girls you simply come across. Most girls I know (myself included) would not go out with a guy they just met. A lot of them want some sort of build-up (I. E. The mini friendship stage where they can evaluate you to see if you would be a good match).

So perhaps you can focus on that. Most girls do not view dates so casually too. A lot of us, boys and girls, are not used to the idea of one-on-one outings with someone we barely know. It takes a lot of interest and attraction for them to say yes.

A guy recently asked me out (through Instagram, the horror) and while he made it clear he’s not asking to jump into a relationship, I turned him down because I don’t know aaaannnything about him besides his name. I know men complain about the friend zone but honestly, don’t undermine the importance of being friends first.

 

[Lea101]

Because in the girl’s perspective, you asking her for a date is an indicator of your romantic/sexual attraction to her. And if that’s not true, then why ask her out? It’s not something she can easily ignore and go back to being friends, if that makes sense.

Also with all due respect and love to Sarah Swafford and speakers like her, they are often attractive and already married people. They’re probably looking at it from the eyes of a guy asking his future spouse for a date. Rather than a guy who has constantly been rejected and is asking a woman who won’t end up as his spouse. I do remember Matt Fradd telling the women at a Seek talk to just say yes and that it wasn’t that serious though. Although I think most women still wouldn’t say yes unless they’re attracted to you.

 

[MarlboroMan]

See this is what kind of annoys me. I don’t even necessarily disagree with you about PUAs and Pickup Culture in general, but it really seems like everyone misses the point as soon as anything related to Pickup is mentioned.

Yes, Pickup is pretty much a “dork” reverse engineering picking up women. But then again, what else could it possibly be? Cool, attractive guys don’t need “techniques”. They can pretty much just smile and the attraction is already there, as soon as they make contact with a woman. She might turn them down in the end, but they’re foot was always in the door. Saying

“Oh Pickup is only for dorks!”

Is not a serious criticism.

As for reducing it all down to just “peacocking” and “negging” that also misses the point. Pickup is, more than anything, a psychological theory about women in general. And while it may go too far in some areas and be misguided in others, it actually does make a great deal of sense and in practice it can help EVERY man understand women better.

I get that PUAs are low hanging fruit, especially whenever women are around, and makong fun of them always gets a clap or two, but given the quality of dating advice “dorks” get from the media, from mainstream websites, from their parents, and from threadsike this, I definitely see the value that Pickup brings to the table. If nothing else, it breaks the echo chamber and provides a radically different theory.

Ultimately, the only real problem with Pickup is that it is gynocentric. Ironically, as gynocentric as feminism. Just the other side of the same coin.

 

[Rob2]

halogirl:

There should be a charity where grumpy English people get looked after xx

Maybe @Lee1 and @Rob2 will be interested in this charity if they get grumpy.

I haven’t read any of this thread @Sarcelle , so I don’t know what prompts the post .

Not to worry , but - - - - - - - (Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Lea101]

Certain techniques can be useful because ultimately, they can simply be ways on how to initiate a conversation that both sexes can actually utilize.

However, a lot of their techniques and beliefs that manipulate or put down women can be against Christianity (duh). It’s better to advise someone against the community so they won’t be sucked into it. That’s the main problem with it. It’s manipulation and/or uncharitable views towards women. It’s better to just call it out immediately.

Also PU culture is obviously gynocentric because it’s all about picking up women in the first place, so it’s not a surprise. Even mgtow cliques fall into this because they’re constantly talking (uncharitably) about women and what they want.

 

[BoomBoomMancini]

I get that not everyone is blessed with Mario Lopezian dimples and we need advice for Joe Everyman. The problem is the type of guy who is going to be attracted to a system like this is likely the type of guy who is already obsessive and neurotic and hyper-analytical. It reinforces the worst tendencies of its target audience. This is the last guy who needs to be rushing back to report to his internet friends how many times per minute he touched a girls forearm. I used to post on another forum regularly and someone started a thread making fun of PUAs. They would visit a PUA forum, screenshot comments, and post them for general hilarity. Granted, I’m sure they were cherrypicking the most ridiculous ones, but the amount of hyper-analytical dorkery was insane. Guys were breaking down basic interactions that most functional adults should be able to handle on autopilot like it was the D-Day landing. Not to mention there was a real dark Eliot Rogers/incel/“I hate women” tone to a lot of the posts.

Besides, and I agree this is low hanging fruit, it’s just annoying as a subculture, with all the crazy terms and acronyms to explain relatively simple, common sense ideas. Do we really need a term for “try to look as good as genetics will allow”?

My real beef with the PUA stuff is that it takes some decent points and then pushes them to an extreme. “Don’t be a doormat” becomes “exploit her insecurities and use them to manipulate her.” “Don’t waste time on a girl who is clearly not interested” becomes “if a girl ever cancels a date, she is forever anathema.”

 

[TheLittleLady]

I’m just curious whether people have found this to be the norm - one (the man?) taking the initiative to ask and where “No” is a possibility, or does it just become obvious after a while, or they agree quite easily?

For us it was simply an organic thing. As we grew closer, we each stopped dating other people. That was almost 30 years ago.

 

[Usagi]

Thinking about women as sex vending machines or robots with “hypergamy” programming is not a healthy way to think about women. It is certainly anti-Christian, given that so many of our moral teachings boil down to “Other people are people, just like you. Treat them as such.” PUA techniques, and the whole “manosphere” attitude, encourage the sin of lust in the pure sense — not the “I thought about sexy stuff” that most people obsess over, but literally treating other people as objects for your use and pleasure. Obviously the incel movement is the worst of the worst, being what happens when the previously mentioned obsessive dorks find PUA techniques insufficient and yet still buy into the underlying theory about how women work, but you can see it all over the place.

 

[Sarcelle]

They call women femoids, which imply women are robots or appliances which one can hack.

 

[HopkinsReb]

Interestingly enough, most heterosexual men do manage to have relationships without the help of the red pill. They generally accomplish this by employing a technique called “growing up.”

Now that’s what I call a red pill.

 

[GospelOfMatthew]

I think the prevalence of pornography further exploits this mentality and makes it the natural conclusion about women for a lot of guys

 

[HopkinsReb]

Instead of trying to find ways to manipulate women into going out with them, perhaps the dorks should find ways to be less dorky. It’s really not that hard, and it’s pretty satisfying, because the traits that women who are worth marrying want in a man are the same traits which are most satisfying for a man to acquire.

 

[Aquinas11]

Interestingly enough, most heterosexual men do manage to have relationships without the help of the red pill. They generally accomplish this by employing a technique called “growing up.”

Interestingly enough, many heterosexual women manage to not have relationships or find a husband , they generally accomplish this by employing a technique called “dating up”

When a 35 year old woman who earns $100K because she decided to focus on her career until age 35, and is looking for a husband, she often instinctively looks for a man who earns more than $100K and excludes men earning less than $100K. Most men earning more than $100K age 35 or older are already married, so she’s looking at 1-2% of men who are (a) earning over $100K and (b) age 35 or more and (c ) who are single. Problem is that the top 1-2% of men can choose any woman he wants to be mother of his kids so will choose a woman age 22 at peak fertility and who can be full time mom rather than someone who is 35 and working 50+ hours a week. Hence she frequently doesn’t find anyone due to her (often subconscious) searching criteria. So what many of these women need to do (but aren’t doing) is lower their standards. But they won’t since nobody is telling them the truth. Instead they’re telling them “men suck” and “you go girl”, which makes you wonder if they really want to help them. And then anyone who does tell them the truth is attacked, so the problem will just keep getting worse. Hence why birthrates are way down, people getting married much later, etc etc. Not good.

 

[PetraG]

Ultimately, the only real problem with Pickup is that it is gynocentric.

Well, if you’re one of the women that guys try to pick up. If you’re not, you get to watch guys hit on your same popular friends over and over, friends who are tired of getting hit on and of the “kind of guy” who tries to hit on them, all while those guys treat you like you’re as appropriate for that as their own sisters. Nothing against you, sister, but, well…yes, women get “friend-zoned,” too.

You might ask yourself if you’ve been asking anyone out who might be having as little luck with the whole “pick up” strategy as you have. I can’t answer this, but it might be that you’re being rejected for shallow reasons by women who get way more requests for dates than they want or are interested in but are also making choices for relatively shallow reasons and missing out on women who might be better matches for you than you think.

In other words, you’re being overlooked. Is there someone that you are perhaps overlooking? Is there someone who your friends think you ought to ask out that you haven’t? Few of us like to be set up, but sometimes when the ladies at church think that Guy A and Gal B would make a good match, they’re actually right.

The other advantage to this source of advice is that people who think you’d make a good match will also help set you up. Some women who are wary of guys who sell themselves are more open to guys who come to them with recommendations. Sure, other women like a guy who presents himself, but since that hasn’t worked, maybe you need to reconsider who your targets are and how you have tried to establish a connection. What works most of the time for other people hasn’t worked so far for the two of you–and you are looking for someone who hasn’t crossed paths with you by use of the previous methods.