Of games, mate value, the Red Pill and dating dilemmas ;)

[chevalier]

Continuing this topic, which closed due to inactivity.

Specifically the last post:

I don’t agree with much of the red pill ideology but the idea of people having value as marriage partners is a concept that I have some time for. I mean I wouldn’t have married my husband if he was a bum with no prospects, I’d have been happy to be his friend but couldn’t have entered into a partnership where I was stuck with all the graft.

It’s taboo though. I constantly hear women say “I’d date an unattractive guy with a good personality” but think “well would you really or would you hold out for an attractive guy with a good personality?”. I think some women feel pressured to not look shallow or narrow minded so they say things they don’t mean “I’d date someone shorter”, “I’d date someone with no job prospects”.

I can see why some men feel women are playing games with them.

In short, I’ve always been inclined to shoot down guys complaining nonsensically about how women do this or that when they do the same — or worse, or similar — themselves. Like accusing women of ‘lookism’ when going for the looks themselves. Or accusing women of materialism while expecting to be able to make their own lack of sufficient/steady/any income someone else’s problem. I’ll have none of that, and I’ll always defend the ladies against those silly, patently illogical accusations. What follows is I don’t see any games there, even though some parts of the mental process are typically not outspoken for all sorts of reasons, chief among which is decency.

Where I do see games being played is where some sort of simulation or dissimulation is involved, particularly instrumental to (1) securing the match or to (2) testing the desirability of it. Where 2 I believe to deserve much more leeway than 1, with the proviso of not doing evil and of not using people as mere means (stepping stones) to achieving one’s own goals.

To put things as mildly as I can, I’ll just say I wish the dominant sentiment in the ‘womanosphere’ (by analogy to ‘manosphere’, which seems to be a word) were stricter than it currently is about these matters. A bit counterintuitively, I’m not arguing for pity on the guys who get rejected, but rather about the guys who get:

 

[chevalier]

• chosen for the wrong reasons without being led to believe that a relationship more consistent with their desires is sought by both parties in that match, e.g. the woman intends to be a distant wife, largely unavailable emotionally and/or sexually, because the man is not very attractive, while he does provide security, which is the real reason for the match, but he’s allowed to continue to err in thinking that it’s about mutual feelings of romantic love because that is what is making him desire and pursue the match, to his own detriment (I’d obviously prefer to see more transparency here along with some thought given to what’s best for and fair to both parties instead of only in one party’s interest)
• (far less importantly) tested in some questionably ethical ways, such as jealousy games or doing or saying something mean to test their calm, self-control, social competence and dominance/‘alphaness’

Otherwise what puts me off in ‘the Game’ is a take-no-prisoners sort of approach that’s just too clearly machiavellian when measured against what would ordinarily be regarded as objective ethical standards. Not that men have a stellar record of compliance with that. Or a stellar record of transparency about the reasons for pursuing the match.

Whatever one’s sex, it’s just not right to deceive the prospective mate (even passively, i.e. by not dispelling existing misconceptions) about the nature and characteristics of the relationship sought (especially degree of closeness, emotional availability, sexual interest, etc.), the existence of warm feelings of friendship, or passion, or respect, or anything else that makes a difference. In short, it’s never right to outsmart and snatch the prospective mate instead of making an open, transparent, honest offer and getting it accepted. Mates, of whichever sex, are not spoils to be won by outplaying them for one’s own benefit. Eschewing simulation and dissimulation is a good start*, followed by having both parties’ and not just one party’s best interest in mind.

(* With the necessary modifications for testing, e.g. when you have to test someone’s truthfulness and ask something you already know the answer to without betraying your knowledge, but without directly lying. I consider that acceptable. The same goes for non-overt probing questiones asked of an unsuspecting suspect. This is still in the ‘good cop’ area.)

Obviously, such things as whether a method is already too cruel or brutal or still within acceptable range will be somewhat subjective and subject to the typical human inclination to side with one’s own sex against the other. Hence a male perspective will necessarily differ from a female perspective, both of which can and likely will change if the table is turned (if we flip Tom and Kate in the imaginary set of facts).

 

[Xantippe]

You’re making this too complicated.

 

[Xantippe]

Looking at the old thread, Chevalier wrote, “My feelings concerning this tendency and especially the business-like approach taken by many conservative women are negative.”

Well, if marriage is about forming a household together, having children, and living together until one or both spouses die, there are practicalities to be considered–especially if it is going to be a practicing Catholic household and there is the possibility of a larger than average family, and the wife’s earning ability being seriously curtailed by childbearing and motherhood.

“Dating sites, including Catholic ones, are auction sites.”

And yet, CAF has a number of youngish moderate income men (or even at least one older moderate income man) who met their future wives on Catholic dating sites or websites…

“Then there’s the fact that there is no more ‘women’s work’ (cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. to be regarded as just humans’ work, perfectly unisex), while there remains plenty of ‘men’s work’ (repairs, assembly/installation/transport, anything technical, taking out the trash, anything that’s unpleasant or requires physical strength).”

So men are going to be doing 50% of the gestating and 50% of the lactating! WOW!

I think you overestimate the degree to which even very egalitarian households are able to split labor. I also think that if you look around CAF, there are quite a number of CAF SAHMs who do serious repair work. There are also a lot of American women who do do-it-yourself home improvement projects.

“anything that’s unpleasant”

So, childbirth, diapers, and potty-training are 100% a man’s job? Good to know.

“What’s different in the American culture is that women still have a notion of equal contribution and mutual responsibility and recognize in men the right to have some expectations or standards of their own (depending on what level of feminism is involved).”

Yay?

As always, I recommend the book “How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids.”

 

[1ke]

Then there’s the fact that there is no more ‘women’s work’ (cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. to be regarded as just humans’ work, perfectly unisex), while there remains plenty of ‘men’s work’ (repairs, assembly/installation/transport, anything technical, taking out the trash, anything that’s unpleasant or requires physical strength

My power tools and I disagree with Chevalier.

 

[Xantippe]

I have a friend whose husband had to make her stop after she decided (while heavily pregnant) to go up a ladder and start removing the texture from the ceiling of the room they were wanting to turn into a nursery for the new baby.

She also installed baseboards while heavily pregnant.

I don’t do that stuff under the best of circumstances, but there are a lot of women out there like that. Also, my teenage daughter has done a lot of furniture assembly with her dad.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Hey xanthippe, great to see you posting.

 

[chevalier]

Well, if marriage is about forming a household together, having children, and living together until one or both spouses die, there are practicalities to be considered–especially if it is going to be a practicing Catholic household and there is the possibility of a larger than average family, and the wife’s earning ability being seriously curtailed by childbearing and motherhood.

Practicalities need to be considered, but with that — like with everything — comes moderation. And Catholic values cannot be used to contradict other Catholic values. Being a practicing Catholic includes at least trying to practice kindness and an outlook on human existence that transcends materialism instead of giving it a broad licence.

“Dating sites, including Catholic ones, are auction sites.”

And yet, CAF has a number of youngish moderate income men (or even at least one older moderate income man) who met their future wives on Catholic dating sites or websites…

Men with above-moderate incomes are in short supply. By definition their numbers are thinner than those of people, either male or female, with moderate incomes — that’s basically the essence of being above average. This means that the general populace must exercise a modicum of modesty in demands, for pursuing outliers will more likely than not result in lifelong singledom.

“ Then there’s the fact that there is no more ‘women’s work’ (cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. to be regarded as just humans’ work, perfectly unisex), while there remains plenty of ‘men’s work’ (repairs, assembly/installation/transport, anything technical, taking out the trash, anything that’s unpleasant or requires physical strength).”

So men are going to be doing 50% of the gestating and 50% of the lactating! WOW!

If you take another look at my list, you will notice that it’s general and not exhaustive. You can certainly find some things women still do that men don’t or can’t, but that doesn’t change the general trend that we are seeing a large-scale narrowing or disappearance of ‘women’s work’ or tasks associated with the female sex (what you describe, while certainly burdensome and describable as labour and toil, is not ‘work’ per se, which is not to say that it’s lighter but that it fits in a different category, hence without invalidating my observation), while ‘men’s works’ are still going strong not in the sense of being exclusively available to men but in the sense of being seen as exclusively men’s responsibility. And this includes cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc., which has become a mutual, shared responsibility, while such low-technology tasks as making or mending clothes have largely disappeared altogether (reducing the female task pool significantly), whereas technical or physically demanding matters (repairs, carrying stuff around, making sure devices and installations work, etc.) tend to be regarded as the duty of the man of the household.

 

[chevalier]

I think you overestimate the degree to which even very egalitarian households are able to split labor.

The labour that is split generally tends to come from the traditional pool of female tasks, while traditional male tasks aren’t split. This means men retain 100% of old male tasks while incurring some of the old female tasks because of the ‘egalitarian’ splitting. Things get closer to really being egalitarian only among affluent white collars who just pay someone else to do all household chores, or among traditionals who insist on a traditional split.

And for the record, the amount of time each spouse spends doing chores will gravitate toward 50/50, but not so areas of perceived responsibility with all the attendant expectations of not merely making sure those things are done but also exhibiting some skill at actually performing them. And here the woman is no longer expected to be able to do most of the things her grandma was supposed to do, but the man is still largely expected to retain the ability to do the things his grandpa was supposed to do. She no longer has to sew or mend because that’s no longer done in-house, and cleaning is no longer the responsibility of any particular sex, but he still needs to know how to fix furniture, the plumbing, the car, etc.

I also think that if you look around CAF, there are quite a number of CAF SAHMs who do serious repair work.

That becomes as a necessity when the man’s putting in 80-hour weeks. After 12 hours of hard work plus commute you can still lift a fridge (though you can drop it just as easily if you don’t focus hard), but for most precision work you’d better not touch it with a barge pole, as you’re more likely to botch it than not due to tiredness.

So, childbirth, diapers, and potty-training are 100% a man’s job? Good to know.

Nope, not those. After some thought, perhaps I exaggerated the percentages initially. Still, the weight of expectations is greater on men than on women.

Yay?

That’s not the only area in which you guys beat the old continent.

EDIT: As for auctions, auctioning generally comes to selling high and buying low, which often results in some degree of misrepresentation or downplaying, and ultimately comes down to the kind of stiff numerically-driven competition that’s hardly romantic — for both sexes, by the way, as men in those circumstances tend to overfocus on physical attractiveness and try to max that out the same way women try to max out the man’s status or perceived place in the pecking order.

My female friends are telling me men are beginning to put pressure also on some other fronts than physical attractiveness, so competition is becoming tough for them as well.

 

[chevalier]

… And my perception is that competition is tough not because of how valuable as mates or how skilled at ‘the Game’ people in one’s wider group / comparative bracket are. Nope. It’s tough because of how aggressively the opposite sex plays the game. The whole brutal hardball thing. Which, incidentally, is what I myself hate the most in ‘the Game’ too. Even in business, adversarial style of negotiation and find absurd faults in perfectly sound merchandise is something I have a strong distaste for.

A lot of people of either sex would be happily married by now if they’d only quit the ambition-driven hard-selling nonsense or social climbing (the latter especially in developing countries*).

(* You wouldn’t believe the nonsense that’s going on round here.)

 

[ConfusedLucy]

I don’t think it’s so much a game as people facing different pressures and not always making good decisions.

 

[1ke]

And here the woman is no longer expected to be able to do most of the things her grandma was supposed to do, but the man is still largely expected to retain the ability to do the things his grandpa was supposed to do.

Chevalier, you have issues. I say that affectionately.

Who cares what grandma was “supposed” to do or grandpa. In my experience couples, past and present, did what worked for them. I don’t know anyone in my family or my husband’s who gave one flip for women’s work vs men’s work. You do what needs doing, what is in your skill set, and you ask for help with the things you can’t do. You make decisions based on who the best person in the household is to do it.

Let go of all the BS. It’s holding you back.

 

[TheLittleLady]

#1 problem: The young adults today were not allowed(?) to learn to navigate social interaction as children. Parents set up play dates instead of kids simply playing with the neighborhood kids. If one kid gets mad, the parents step in and force a resolution. Kids NEED to learn to work it out between themselves, sometimes it looks like “Lord of the Flies” in that yard, but, those kids learn to negotiate interpersonal relationships

In school if a kid gets in trouble, falls behind, fails a test, the parents swoop in and make sure the teacher is put in his/her place. No one actually fails a test or a grade anymore. Everyone makes the team, everyone gets a trophy. Kids NEED to fail sometimes, it is the only thing that builds self confidence.

Teens, Young adults who are the rare ones with jobs have the same thing, mommy calls the boss when the worker is sick or when they don’t like the schedule.

We have raised a generation of hot house flowers who now get to learn at 32 what they should have learned at 7.

It is not that complicated.

 

[Irishmom2]

I am the fix it person at my house. Not because of my husband’s work hours, but because I have skills he does not. I have an interest in learning how to do repairs and upgrades that he does not. So I do what I can and learn, or pay someone when it is beyond my capability. (Electrical)

 

[TheLittleLady]

Who cares what grandma was “supposed” to do or grandpa. In my experience couples, past and present, did what worked for them . I don’t know anyone in my family or my husband’s who gave one flip for women’s work vs men’s work. You do what needs doing, what is in your skill set, and you ask for help with the things you can’t do. You make decisions based on who the best person in the household is to do it.

Let go of all the BS. It’s holding you back.

Amen.

My father, grandfather, my uncle are the people who taught me how to properly iron clothes, how to make repairs in clothing, sew on buttons, and my Uncle (big burly retired Navy farmer) taught me how to hand sew “fancy stitches” and how to build cabinets. My dad could knit, crochet, and do fine embroidery until he lost use of his arms.

On the other end of things, my son could not change a tire when he needed to, so, I offered. He refused my help and found a youtube video that taught him how to do it.

I’m still sticking with the lack of growing up without a group of kids, siblings, neighboorhood, school kids, parish kids, who learned how to communicate and work out issues is crippling adults.

Step one, start being friends with people who share something in common with you. Join or organize local groups of Catholic roofers or Catholic dentists or Catholic dance instructors, Catholics who share the same career are going to have a shared life experience. Don’t get frustrated “I went to one Catholic Tennis Pro’s meeting and everyone else was over 50 so I cannot be part of that group!” Guess what, the 56 year old has children, godchildren, nieces, nephews, etc. When they get to know that you are a good man, a man of integrity, you’d be surprised how quickly we “ancient decrepit” Catholics start playing matchmaker.

 

[Xantippe]

Apologies for not being caught up with the thread, but I wanted to add that I don’t think that Chevalier’s description of modern life (husband does 100% of traditional man stuff plus 50% of traditional woman stuff) recognizes the impact of parenthood.

When you have small children at home, the load of household work roughly quintuples. Children 0-3 need constant supervision just to keep them alive, and when you have children that age at home, you just do not have free time anymore–when kids are awake, you can expect to be working all the time. This isn’t “modern women” being terrible, it’s just how things are when you have small children at home and aren’t ridiculously wealthy. I don’t know how things are in Poland, but something we deal with in America is that the grandmas are often AWOL, which means that it’s not really possible to do things “the way grandma used to,” because we don’t have the kind of human resources to draw on that grandma had.

Another thing to bear in mind is to give appropriate “credit” for work. For example, if dad is repairing the car, but mom is in charge of the 2-year-old, both are doing work. Or if mom is cooking dinner and dad is in charge of the 1-year-old, both are doing work. It’s easy to see what you yourself are doing, and not realize that your spouse is also working at the same time…At some point (5ish?) this gets to be less of an issue, but not understanding how your spouse is contributing can be a major source of marital friction.

Also, at least in the US, the nature of the housewife’s or parent’s job has changed a lot. This is very noticeable with school-age children. For example, I personally do not normally do a lot of cooking or cleaning, but I do do a lot of tasks that my grandma (or even mom) would not have dreamed of, for example doing a lot of driving for the kids, record-keeping for my teen who is applying to college soon, keeping up with school emails and checking grades electronically, writing emails to teachers and school administrators, and making sure the kids have some kind of social life.

So, for many, many reasons, it’s not fair to complain that a modern mother does not live the same sort of life that her grandma did. It is a different world, and our families need different stuff from us.

 

[angel12]

My power tools and I disagree with Chevalier.

I love my chainsaw.

 

[Elizabeth3]

The labour that is split generally tends to come from the traditional pool of female tasks, while traditional male tasks aren’t split.

I think the reason women were calling for more help with household chores was due to the fact that they were now working full time as well as their spouse and a lot of men still had the assumption that the daily household tasks and child care was not in their domain so women were pulling double duty.

It really depends on the household. In the real world, the division of labor is generally split according time, ability, and strength. Also to consider, while most repairs can safely wait a few days/weeks/months to get done (leaking toilets and car repairs aside), the daily management of a household can get pretty sticky when there are five or more members with different needs to be met at any given time and different schedules to keep. There are many more tasks that must be done within a few hours to a day with “women’s work” than there is for “men’s work” and the more people there are, the more tasks there are that NEED DONE RIGHT NOW so it’s often necessary for both mom and dad to pitch in with whatever if there is to be any time at all that evening for rest and recreation. Not too many spouses refuse to do stuff because that’s women’s/men’s work. If they are of good-will, each pitches in with whatever the needs are according to their ability and when both of them can’t do something, they call someone who can.

 

[Xantippe]

She no longer has to sew or mend because that’s no longer done in-house, and cleaning is no longer the responsibility of any particular sex, but he still needs to know how to fix furniture, the plumbing, the car, etc.

I don’t think that’s true in the US. My husband is actually rather good at repairs (we save SO much money given that the plumber is $80 an hour), but I get the feeling that he’s well above average in our peer group. I don’t think that the physician dads we know are spending a lot of time sweating over car repairs or do-it-yourself–nor should they, if they don’t enjoy it, they can make more money doing their actual job, and if they would prefer to spend time with their kids in their limited time off.

It’s also quite common in the US now for even pretty middle class families to outsource yard work. My husband used to have to wreck most of a Saturday working on the lawn of our rental house, but after we bought a house, I made the gift to him of finding the $70 a month to pay a yard guy to mow and blow twice a month. They have good equipment, and they do the whole yard in probably about half an hour…So that’s one significant traditional dad job gone…But I’d much prefer to have my husband available on Saturdays to help with kid driving or home repairs, rather than having him spend the whole day paying off the Curse of Adam (Genesis 3:19). It’s been 7+ years since he last operated a lawn mower.

I also think you are vastly overestimating the amount of time spent on household/car repairs. At our house (which is quite large), it’s rarely more than 2 hours a week, and we skip a lot of Saturday maintenance days if we have other stuff going on. In a typical household, there’s way more “women’s work” than “men’s work,” especially if the yard is hired out.

Also, if the couple lives in a rented apartment, there may virtually no “men’s work” at all. (My husband and I had been married 9 years before we finally moved into a rental house with a yard that needed to be taken care of–up until then, there was almost no “men’s work” at all even available, aside from electronics or occasional furniture assembly.)

Still, the weight of expectations is greater on men than on women.

I think you’re doing this calculation without factoring in children.

My female friends are telling me men are beginning to put pressure also on some other fronts than physical attractiveness, so competition is becoming tough for them as well.

It’s very noticeable in the US that non-college women have a hard time getting married.

 

[Xantippe]

Something that comes up a lot on CAF is new moms getting worn down and their husbands not noticing that they are getting worn down.

If a couple has a very strict “traditional” division of labor and the wife is a SAHM with small children at home, it’s very likely that the division of labor is going to wind up being pretty unfair. And there can be some unexpected fluctuations as things change. For example, our family had a very bad patch when Baby Girl (our third child) was a toddler. I did just fine taking care of her, my household chores and the big kids’ school stuff when she was an infant, but about mid-way through her second year, things started to change for the worse. (This is very common with children 1.5-2.) She was napping less, she was more difficult, and she eventually learned how to jump over our baby gates and out of her crib. Suddenly, it wasn’t fair that I was the person 95% in charge of Baby Girl and it was becoming impossible to keep up with stuff like laundry or school emails for the big kids (in the couple of minutes that I would need to move laundry, she’d run off to do who knows what).

Our division of labor had been fair, but it just stopped being fair, when Baby Girl got harder to manage and I had to beg my husband for every minute away from Baby Girl. I was under enormous pressure, because I wasn’t keeping up with my laundry (very important for a family of five with two kids who wear school uniforms) and I wasn’t able to keep up with my school emails, and every time I wanted to go to the grocery store by myself or get a haircut by myself, it was a Big Discussion with my husband. My husband (bless his heart) would say things like, “Do you really need to?” (when I literally had hair in my eyes) and would start discussions with me about how if I were really organized, I could do all of our grocery shopping efficiently in a single weekly visit…

It was just not a nice way to live. My husband was being very disrespectful to me, but he didn’t even realize it at the time, because he could come and go as he wanted to, but I was virtually a prisoner, because I couldn’t go anywhere by myself without getting his agreement. But he didn’t see that, because that wasn’t his life.

I eventually started fixing that problem by putting Baby Girl in parents’ day out (a 5-hour weekly daycare program created to give SAHMs a breather). Suddenly, life was better! I could go to dentist or doctor or to get a haircut without begging my husband for a couple hours of freedom, and I was able to catch up my laundry and school emails.