= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
LauraABJ comments on Let them eat cake: Interpersonal Problems vs Tasks - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (568)
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.
So, unless I hear "Leave me the fuck alone" (or similar variants), I can safely assume it's just a game of "hard to get"?
I'll follow that advice, but only if you have to endure the consequences.
Well, I mean that it's a universal signal as opposed to varying in each person. There are many other signals that mean the same thing, but they are not universally applicable in all circumstances.
Okay then. For now, I suggest you consider the incentive structure that results from women who have held both of these positions at some time or another.
"Geez! Why can't this guy take a hint and buzz off?"
"Pff, only a complete wuss would go away just because I asked him to. If he were worth my time he would have kept it up."
This is an oversimplification of something very complex involving many subtle nuances. It's sorta like saying Newton was wrong because a bowling ball falls faster than a feather... What is meant by asked for example. "Leave me alone" vs "I'm just going to have to walk across that room mister," are not equivalent.
I'm sure it is, but just for the record, your explanation isn't going to deconfuse any poor male who isn't deconfused to begin with. (Perhaps you already know that.)
Well, pardon my frustration, but point of these questions is to make sense of and reveal these nuances, which is why the earlier answers you gave weren't what I was looking for.
Obviously, if a woman says something sarcastic and teasing, that's ... flirting, not a rejection. The problem cases are more common and more ambiguous. If a request for a date is flatly turned down, how do you know if it's a test, or if further pursuit constitutes harassment? If I'm ignored, is that a test, or am I beting told to go away?
It may seem clever to use this as a filter, but, as I think I've demonstrated, there are disastrous consequences to it. You can't simultaneously promote "No means No, morons!" and "I like when guys aren't deterred by rejection."
The stakes are even higher when it comes to date rape, but I'm sure as hell not going to spell out the mapping on that one.
Someone who says "I'm just going to have to walk across that room mister" or similar, is not necessarily being sarcastic/flirtatious. More generally, there's genuine uncertainty about "hard to get" plays: the best that can be said about them is that they are not solid evidence either way, although they do "up the ante", so they're not without effect from a "strategic" point of view.
Luckily, a reasonably knowledgeable guy generally has collected enough bits of evidence to make a proper decision. Nevertheless, even the most confident pick-up artist would take a statement such as "leave me alone" at face value unless there was very solid evidence to the contrary.
Most guys have the opposite problem: they are overconfident (or more rarely, underconfident) about their counterparty's interest in them, and find it hard to properly update their estimate in the face of available information. The only way around this problem is for such people to train in LessWrong-style debiasing and improve their "dating/seduction/etc." skills, as detailed in the OP. Focusing on the "nuance" of verbal statements is a mistake.
Yes.
What leads to this impression? My impression is that the majority of males are underconfident. But it may vary depending on subculture and peer group.
Tangent, but there are two different kinds of "overconfidence":
If you're 95% sure that you will not be President of the USA, then you're underconfident in the first sense but overconfident in the second sense.
The two sometimes go together in that if you believe you're better at finding out the truth than you are, you'll have more strongly peaked probability distributions than you should.
Some thread necromancy...
Not yes. I remember listening to one PUA (don't remember the name, has a strong foreign accent) say that if they tell you to go away, you should tease them about it, and not go away.
And for him, it apparently works.
Great job there, women. I just love when I can't tell if you're serious that I should go away.
Hey cowards -- you can vote me down all you want, if that makes you feel better. It still won't change the f'ed up incentive structure that results from women favoring men who trivialize of their rejections.
That is the real problem, not the fact that I'm talking about it.
If you really can't reliably tell when people are being serious or not, err on the side of respecting their articulated preferences.
I think it's safe to say that the majority of women who flatly reject an offer for a date or continually ignore an advance, do NOT want to be pursued further. There are exceptions, and some people do change their minds, but if that's what you meant by 'rejection,' then No means No. Hard to get is a more complicated dance than "Will you go out with me," "Uhhh.... you're not my type. No."
But it's not nearly as simple as you just portrayed it.
I mean, we all like to feel superior as we shake our heads in contempt at the poor guy who just won't give up. She's obviously not into you, man! She told you "no". Just let it go!
Er ... until we look over there and see the women talking glowingly about how charming and romantic it was for her husband/fiance/current boyfriend to keep pursuing her even when she flatly told him no, and is now glad that he didn't take her seriously then.
Given those cases, it's quite a bit more understandable why a man would refuse to give up on such an "obvious" case.
I'm not familiar with any such cases. Are they really as common as you think they are?
Perhaps you're hearing these stories because they're exceptional?
Let's assume for a moment that these cases are exceptional. (I would in any case agree that they're not the norm, but not rare either.) Does that exceptionality not suffice to explain the commonality of overpersistent (and overcautious) men?
Of the people heading to Hollywood with big dreams, the ones that become movie stars are the exception. Yet the potential rewards suffice to explain the hordes of people who try anyway.
Of the people working up the corporate ladder, millionaire executives/VPs are the exception. Yet the potential rewards suffice to explain the hordes of people who try anyway.
Of the people trying to become professional athletes, those that can make a living at it are the exception. Yet the potential rewards suffice to explain the hordes of people who try anyway.
So the "woman who rejects firmly and later changes her mind" is the exception? So what. It's still understandable why such cases would have a disproportionate motive force.
But I supsect that if there's any bias in counting up these cases, it would understate their availability in our recollection. Remember, once the suitor has become "the good guy", the halo effect kicks in. See now, my guy never acted in contravention of the "No means No" rule. See, I didn't give a real no. My guy isn't one of those freaks who would disobey the rules we promote...
That's assuming she continues to remember her impression of him at the time of rejection in the first place.
By the way: of the people voting on my comments in this discussion, your downvotes are the exception ;-)
More to the point, how do we trust these second- and third-hand stories to be reported accurately? My guess is that the "just say no" refusals were anything but, and that the stories are extremized. At the very least, the participants would have had plenty of side information which we'd know nothing about.
I know of no such cases.
I'll see your anecdotal absence of evidence and raise you another anecdote.
(Two friends of mine, who recently got married, tell just such a story.)
Me neither. But I do often hear about such cases second-hand. So even if these cases aren't common, they may have a big impact on those who witness them.
Yes you can. And that cuts back to the core of the OP.
Oh, the "the fuck" part is essential? Good to know.