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wedrifid comments on Let them eat cake: Interpersonal Problems vs Tasks - Less Wrong
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Could you explain more explicitly what this problem is? There are two meanings I could extract. One of which I would object to (but suspect you did not intend.)
Well, let me restate the problem: the best way for men to understand what women go through regarding unwanted sexual attention, is (supposedly) to think of how we regard salespeople. However, this analogy has a critical flaw in that women do not universally hate suitors who make advances, but only some of them, while people in general do hate salespeople, telemarketers, spammers, etc., irrespective of the merit of the product they're selling.
The problem is to find a unified theory for what makes these different kinds of advances garner so much hated -- or not.
I don't think that's the problem. If advancing induces hatred in the woman, she was not likely to want you if you approached her in a different way (though if someone's on the fence, having some finess can help). I think the decision of whether or not a woman wants the advance at all is made relatively quickly. The real problem is to find a unified theory of how women want men to be, a much harder sell for men in the self-help section.
I can understand that much, but that still leaves a question unresolved. Let me put it this way: Would you say women dislike being approached by salespeople and telemarketers in a different (and stronger) way than they dislike being approached by men they're not interested in? Or are they in the same category?
What if you compared pushy salespeople to pushy suitors that women have decided they're not interested in (at least not at the moment)?
What if you compared salespeople to suitors that the woman not only isn't interested in, but considers out of her league entirely (i.e. below her)?
I think it's pretty important here to distinguish between pushy/persistant suitors (say, Steve Urkel) vs. people who get the hint. I'm not sure you're keeping that distinction in mind.
Considering that I broke the question down and considered those cases separately, I'm pretty sure I did keep that distinction in mind.
It's an important issue with a non-obvious answer because of all the glowing stories you hear from women about how "Oh, when [husband] and I first met, he kept asking me out again and again and I kept telling him no, but then I realized what a great guy he is and now we're married!"
I don't recall hearing a story like this. The ones I hear usually go, "He kept asking me out again and again and I kept telling him no, and eventually I took to avoiding places where I might encounter him / documented his harrassment and went to HR / got a restraining order."
Well, I don't know who you hang out with, but I've heard that tale quite a bit.
But you're absolutely right about one thing: many times it does in fact lead to the situations you describe, which creates a serious problem: if many women "encourage" and enjoy this persistant behavior, while others hate it ... well, a huge chunk of men will have expected positive utility from persistence, and most men will be in a difficult position: "Is this a real rejection, or an indication that I need to more seriously signal interest?"
And of course, the "persistent" types cross over to those that don't like persistent men, making women worse off too.
But at the same time, women arguably might not even want there to be a universal, reliable, required rejection signal [1], because men will know exactly how much interest they have to show! (ETA: which is bad because the signal given by a man's persistance is no longer a reliable indicator of his liking of/commitment to you, because all men will just shift to the minimum level of persistence, which thereby becomes uninformative.)
[1] The signal I described means that if women actually like the guy, they must not give the signal, while if they don't like him, they must give the signal, no exceptions: no desires for persistent men that continue after receiving the signal. Note that violent resistance would not qualify as such a signal, because women do not, and would not commit to, using violence against every man they're not interested in.
In fact, at the higher end of the status game some of the early process seems to be in using the rejection signals used to deter lower status guys as tests to see if the guy has both the confidence and social experience to convey that those moves apply to those other guys, not him. At that level the difference between an engaged challenge and outright disinterest is usually clear and stalking is not a particular problem.
Amen! If the guy isn't confident enough to get over a little 'hard to get', then he's probably inexperienced and not worth bothering with. Many women do this both consciously and unconsciously. However, "Leave me the fuck alone," may be the unambiguous rejection signal you're looking for.
Salespeople are wanted if you have explicitly gone into a store expecting to buy a certain kind of product. Then they are helpful sources of localised information. You want what they have and went looking for it.
Salepeople are not wanted if they are intruding and trying to push a product on you when you were not looking for it. If the methods or product are particularly offensive - that just adds insult to an already unwanted situation.