LESSWRONG
LW

All of Tego's Comments + Replies

Why Are Women Hot?
Tego1-1

This is a much more elegant way of making the criticism I was vaguely gesturing at in my comment. It's not an objectively bad post, but I agree it feels something like unwelcoming

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Why Are Women Hot?
Tego21

It seems to me unlikely that women don't care at all about making their partners happy, and I'd argue that the google search is approximately the same level of evidence as the existence of the "female dating coach" in the original post. 

You're definitely right on housework not being the same thing as investing in a relationship. That was my bad.

It feels like women do an equal amount of the work in emotional support / close connection / engagement / etc realms (at least once already in a relationship), but a cursory search on JSTOR hasn't turned up anything useful as far as proof, and I guess it's possible that I've just been very lucky in relationships so far.

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Why Are Women Hot?
Tego*30

So everyone has approximately the same optimal strategy for creating a healthy & stable long-term partnership. But in the process of finding partners, women optimize more for attractiveness, because physical attractiveness matters more as a selection criteria for men, whereas women traditionally are looking more for traits like success and commitment. Is this more correct? I feel like that does address my objection above.

[Edit: from the following quote: "Women who are excellent lovers, girlfriends, and wives presumably pick up these skills in private [... (read more)

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Why Are Women Hot?
Tego143

I read Putanumonit somewhat frequently and and generally enjoy your writing, so I was surprised how much this essay made me automatically bristle.

As one generic critique: I disagree with the "Standing There Looking Hot is not a Love Language" section, exemplified this quote:

There is almost no advice for a girl on how to actively contribute to a relationship, or that it’s even a goal.

This seems very obviously incorrect. Googling "how to make boyfriend happy" brings up a lot of articles about showing trust, making romantic gestures, giving compliments, doing... (read more)

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9Jacob Falkovich
That's true, but I think this sort of thing isn't usually given as "dating advice" for women and many would bristle at the suggestion that the girl has to do and practice all those things to find a happy relationship. A girl who's googling "how to make boyfriend happy" instead of "how to get boyfriend" is already on the right track. And again, I'm not saying that women don't contribute to relationships or marriages — they clearly do and you can make the fair argument that it's more than 50% on average. I'm saying that they don't signal their abilities and willingness to contribute in the early phases of mating and courting, and all advice about how to find a boyfriend doesn't talk about that at all.
3Viliam
Just guessing -- internet is large enough that you can find almost anything if you google it. But how likely are women to encounter such advice without actively looking for it? Does the culture bring the possibility of this behavior to anyone's attention? That is indeed an important work, but it is not the same thing. One can do the dishes and help the kids do their homework, while completely ignoring their partner. (Technically, one can do the dishes and help the kids do their homework without having a partner at all.) Imagine it from the opposite perspective: if a woman is complaining that her husband is not actively contributing to their relationship, and the husband says "but I bring to our home my salary!", does it seem like he has sufficiently addressed the complaint? Well, neither does "but I do more housework!".