It’s crazy how women can find so many people to blame for their dating failures instead of closely taking a look at the approach they take.
The crazy part is that some of these women have been using the exact same approach to men and dating since they were in high school and never revise it or make any changes.
We have all seen women that go through the typical dating cycle: meet a guy they find attractive, start fantasizing about him ‘being the one’, go on a few dates, start to have sex and immediately jump into a relationship.
And then once they are in a committed relationship with a man they know very little about and have known for a very short period of time they start to experience major conflicts and problems that eventually lead to heartbreak.
This approach will almost always fail because they don’t make sure that they share the same value, beliefs and views on sex, love and relationships before connecting themselves to a guy emotionally and physically.
These women put themselves in a position to possibly get pregnant by him and tie her financial well being to him.
Smart men
When you compare that approach to how smart men date, you see why one group is winning and the other is struggling.
Men usually meet a woman and spend several months figuring out if the woman has the kind of personality he can get along with; if she’s responsible, how she communicates, deals with problems and crisis, and if she has the skill set to be a mother and wife.
If women could slow down and stop trying to rush into relationship without proper dating, they too might start winning.
Not so smart men
The focus of modern dating has become less about the search for chemistry and more about the capacity to overcome pessimism.
But where does that pessimism come from? It’s not terribly complicated: Pessimism is the result of negative past experiences. Which brings me to my second point: People have their guard up. And with good reason! There is no end to the horror stories — both public and private — of dates gone wrong, people made to feel unsafe, mental, emotional, and physical assaults. It is scary out there.
The good news is that not everybody is terrible. The bad news is that it’s often impossible to differentiate the awesome people from the awful ones before it’s too late. And because nobody wants to get hurt, raped, or killed, people are all but forced to walk into dates with the tacit awareness that the person they’re meeting might potentially be a monster.
As a man, I try to be “one of the good ones.” I treat the women I date with respect and empathy as best as I am able to. I know many fellow men who do the same (in fact, I won’t associate with men who aren’t like this). Naturally, it’s frustrating when women who don’t yet know me don’t give me the benefit of the doubt.
It’s easy for this frustration to be misdirected at the specific women who cause it, but that’s a short-sighted and unfair displacement of my vexation. As I explained above, pessimism is the result of prior negative experiences; it isn’t arbitrary. Especially after a few years of dating, we’ve all had bad experiences that cause our hearts to close more and more to new possibilities.
From what I‘ve read and heard, women have far more to worry about than men: They tend to get harassed more, humiliated more, ignored more, stalked more, disbelieved more, kidnapped more, raped more, and murdered more than men as a result of a bad date. There’s A LOT for people but particularly women to be afraid of.
So yeah, when I still have “some rando from the internet” status, I’m only getting so much benefit of the doubt.
It’s unfair to blame women. It’s the bad behavior of men who aren’t “one of the good ones” that’s to blame. The rotten apples have ruined the bunch.
So, to my fellow men: GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.
You are harming women, and you are ruining this for the guys who aren’t terrible. Yes, it sucks to be guilty until proven innocent, but the reality is that the fear and pessimism of women is warranted.
It isn’t enough to do better as individuals; we need to be better collectively. Call out and correct bad behavior. Own your mistakes and improve yourself. Lead by example. Get a (paid) therapist. Be a feminist. We all win if we do this.
If pessimism is the result of negative past experiences, then optimism is the result of positive ones. Let’s do our part to breed optimism and make dating safe and fun again.