Holding out for an alpha like dad.

It is often said that girls marry men like their fathers.  I think this is due partly to familiarity; dads are the primary source of a girl’s understanding of what a man is, so it makes sense that in seeking a man for herself, she will seek one like her father.  (Likewise, men often marry women like their mothers.  One of my brother’s friends is living proof of this.  His mother is a domineering battle axe.  Guess what kind of woman the friend married and is apparently quite happy with?)

So what happens when a girl’s dad is an alpha male?  Doesn’t that make it ten times as hard for her to settle down with a beta?  If she’s used to a man who makes decisions and doesn’t back down, who lovingly teases her and her mom, and is clearly in charge of the family, why would she ever want to settle down with a man who is too petrified to ask her on a date, who dithers over decision-making, who defers to her every whim and strives to make her happy at all times, and who apologizes for himself all the time?  Even if she did fall for a soft, sweet beta, the bloom would probably not be on the rose for too long, and she would soon be gritting her teeth as she clung to the remains of her attraction.

I think that another reason the daughters of alphas want alphas themselves is that she wants her husband to be able to hold his own with her dad.  What kind of woman can admire and love a man who shrinks in the presence of another?  Especially when the man is the girl’s father – if he can’t command her dad’s respect, how can he have her respect?  If the point of marriage is that a man and woman marry and form their own family unit, then having a dad who is still the top alpha in the woman’s life doesn’t bode well for the success of the marriage because the new husband and wife aren’t really their own independent family unit.  The woman will end up deferring to her father, not her husband, because her dad is the one with the true authority.  (See:  Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey’s ill-fated marriage.  Nick couldn’t overcome father-in-law Joe’s overwhelming presence and influence over Jessica.)  The issue just gets compounded when alpha brothers factor into the scenario.  If a girl grows up surrounded by an alpha dad and alpha brothers, who know how to handle her, her mother, and other women, she’s going to even more expect her future husband to be at or at least near their level.

Personal alpha dad anecdote from this weekend:  my dad was going to bed and gave my mom a peck goodnight on the lips.

MOM:  Excuse me?  That’s it?

DAD:  That’s all you deserve!

And he didn’t give her a better kiss and sauntered off to bed with an SEG on his face.  (Note:  some nights when she says this, he does give her a better kiss.  Gotta keep the wife on her toes. :))

P.S.  I saw both Harry Potter and the Never-Ending Camping Trip Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Tangled over the weekend.  If any readers are interested in a discussion post (or posts), let me know.  Tangled in particular has some interesting gender dynamics discussionables.

EverydayDHV: keep a clean and organized home.

I know the subject line sounds a little like Adult Life Skills 101, but nothing can kill (or at least severely maim) interest like a messy, dirty house.  Whether you rent a bedroom in a house, live in an apartment or condo, or inhabit a mansion, the physical state of your abode is an irrefutable outward reflection of your inner character.  Despite our living in a world where we are constantly told not to judge people by, well, anything about them that seems obvious to the naked eye, nobody actually does this.  Everyone judges everyone else by their appearance and the appearance of anything they’re associated with.  And if someone walks into your disaster of a house, it’s likely that they will take a moment to recoil, at least on the inside if they’re polite.

The home is a reflection of the mind.  It is the physical manifestation of your inner being.  Dirty, messy houses belong to people who don’t care.  They belong to people who don’t know how to allocate their time, or aren’t capable of allocating their time, or are too lazy to allocate their time to basic upkeep, none of which are positive traits.  While there are always some exceptions to the rule (cue this blog’s chorus of INLTs), it’s unusual to find a person who is organized and in control in their daily life who also lives in a sty.

Because people enjoy being in clean, organized spaces, one of the easiest ways to DHV is to keep a clean, organized home.  I’m sure everyone has had the pleasure of walking in to a clean, organized home.  It is a refreshment to the senses and immediately calming (unless it’s one of those places that has so much expensive, untouchable stuff that it’s nerve-wracking to be around it for fear of ruining something).  If you’re looking for someone to spend the rest of your life with, having a clean, organized house is a very fast way of assuring someone that you’re in control, organized, not lazy, and you pay attention to details.

Just a note:  neat is not synonymous with clean.  You can have a very neat bookshelf that has never been dusted.  You can have a very organized bathroom with a toilet that only gets scrubbed once every six months.  You can have a nicely decorated bedroom whose carpet never is vacuumed.  Just because you don’t leave a trail of your belongings everywhere doesn’t mean you’re clean.  A lot of people can be neat, but it’s rarer to find cleanliness with neatness.  If you can do both, your stock will skyrocket.

********************

As a side note, I am going out of town for Thanksgiving.  This will most likely be my last blog post until next week.  May everyone have a thanks-filled weekend.

 

Harry Potter got it wrong.

In honor of the release of the second-to-last cash cow film in the Harry Potter franchise, I figured now would be a good time to get soapbox-y about J.K. Rowling’s inability to write believable romance.  Please be aware that spoilers for the series follow.  If you really don’t want to know, now is the time to turn back.

For those who need a refresher/primer, the Harry Potter books revolve around the titular character who discovers at age 11 that he is not just a normal, everyday human (or Muggle, as the books call them) but a wizard.  And not just any wizard – he is the sole miraculous survivor of an attack from the greatest dark wizard ever, Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry’s parents (themselves a witch and wizard).  The books then chronicle Harry’s adventures at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy, a British boarding school for those with magical abilities.  During his time at Hogwarts, Harry becomes best friends with Ron Weasley, a good-natured boy of modest magical ability from a very large, very poor wizarding family, and Hermione Granger, the class brain whose parents are Muggles.  Each book increases in scope and complexity, as details about Harry’s past are revealed and Voldemort’s return becomes an ever-increasing threat.  The seventh and last book of the series climaxes with Harry’s final confrontation with Voldemort.  (Harry wins in the most anti-climactic ending ever for a supposed epic villain, and I still think that Rowling was using some pretty shaky logic to get to that ending.)

Anyhow, as the characters age – the series starts when they are 11 and ends when they are 17 – romance naturally enters the picture.  Harry ends up with Ron’s younger sister, Ginny, and Ron himself ends up with Hermione.  (The epilogue of the final book has both couples at the train station, sending off their children to Hogwarts.)  It’s all very tidy and sickly-sweet.  Orphan Harry gets to be a part of a big, jolly, loving family, and the Weasley family gets to be progressive and open-minded by embracing Muggle-born Hermione as one of their own.  (Muggle-born vs. “pure-breds” is one of the ongoing themes in the books and is one of Voldemort’s motivating factors.)

Which characters would pair off was a subject of hot debate among fans.  Some fans felt that Harry would end up with Hermione, who was always Harry’s biggest supporter and Girl Friday.  Others noticed Ron and Hermione’s constant bickering and guessed that it would be Ron and Hermione in the end.   Since the books were written from Harry’s limited third person point of view, there was no way of accessing the other characters’ thoughts, nor actions apart from Harry.  It wasn’t until the sixth book was released that the debate was settled once and for all:  Harry suddenly notices that Ginny is popular, gorgeous, athletic, magically gifted (unlike her brother Ron), sassy, and bold, and he spends the majority of the book lusting after her.  Meanwhile, Hermione sulks because Ron hooks up with the class bimbo.  If that didn’t make it clear enough, in the final book Rowling actually had Harry say that he had only ever thought of Hermione as a sister.  Your objections are denied!

As someone who favored Harry and Hermione, I resented Rowling’s psychosocial gymnastics to put the two couples together.  I never understood what Hermione, a highly accomplished and perfectionist witch, saw in Ron, who was completely average in every way and tended to be subordinate to Harry in their friendship.  In fact, I’m not sure Rowling ever knew, either, considering that she gave Ron a very hasty injection of athletic ability in book 6 and heroism and magical ability in the book 7 so that Hermione could finally admire him for something.  Okay, so Ron was a late bloomer.  It happens in real life, why not in books?  Well, not only was Ron up against his own mediocrity, but I still have no idea how he could have believably overcome Harry’s pure status game.  Because Harry was the only person who had ever survived an attack by Voldemort, he was already famous in the wizarding world and entered Hogwarts a celebrity.  Additionally, Harry had exceptional athletic ability – he was invited during his first year to be the seeker for his house’s Quidditch team, an almost unheard-of honor.  He was also rich – his parents had left him mountains of wizard money at the bank.  And he was humble about it, too, never flaunting his status, athleticism, or wealth.  Oh, and he was adventurous – always taking risks, always embroiling his friends in a new adventure…and always relying on Hermione for help.  How could any of this not be intoxicating to a young girl?

I suppose that’s part of why Rowling worked overtime in the sixth book to present Ginny as an alpha female uber alles.  She had to make it inconceivable that Harry could possibly end up with anyone else, not when such a choice babe was in the building.  The glamming up of Ginny – who up until then had been a tertiary character with a girlish crush on Harry that left her speechless whenever he was around – essentially forced Hermione into the role of Harry’s beta orbiter – and we all know that loyalty and devotion are never rewarded with romance.

To be fair, Rowling never wrote Harry as acknowledging any possible attraction to Hermione, other than being surprised at how pretty she looked at a school dance, and in hindsight you can see her dropping hints for Ron and Hermione in the earlier books.  Still, Hermione was extremely loyal to Harry, even more loyal than Ron, and deeply admired Harry, and the two shared some intense emotional experiences over the years.  Sometimes just proximity is enough to trigger an attraction, and who was more proximate than Hermione?

The more I think about it, though, maybe Rowling followed reality after all.  Harry and Ginny were the Hot Ones, and Ron and Hermione were the Not Ones.  Occam’s Razor, ho!

Men and smart women.

A reader emailed me a blog post suggestion with the following comments:

You sometimes complain (not exactly the right word) that men avoid smarter women.  You should expect this, shouldn’t you?  Don’t you believe that, all else equal, a) a woman a man can’t credibly “lead” can’t be happy with him, and b) a man can’t credibly lead a woman who is markedly smarter than he is, due to “the truth-extracting powers of time and familiarity”?   Maybe guys  know enough to avoid things they can’t (by definition) appreciate anyway.

Hmm.  Yes and no.

I think the key here is that a woman can’t respect – and therefore can’t feel romantic passion for, and therefore has no interest in being led by – a man of small intelligence relative to her own.  If she feels that he is a dunderhead, there’s no way she’s going to put her life and well-being (and those of her future children) in his hands.

However, a man does not need to possess book smarts in order to be impressive in intelligence to a woman.  Here is why:  book smarts aren’t as important to women as street smarts/people smarts.  A woman will be more attracted to the guy who got all Cs in high school but is resourceful, witty, and well-liked than to the guy who was valedictorian but can’t leverage his intelligence into social currency.  It follows, then, that very bright women can be attracted to (and naturally soften themselves for) men who aren’t Einstein but are socially savvy and quick-witted.  The key typically with smart girls is that the guy must have some aspect of intelligence that the girl admires.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be book smarts.  As long as the man can parlay his brainpower (in whatever form that may take) into increased social dominance, many a smart woman will be happy to follow such a man.

Obviously, there are some limits to how big an intelligence gap can exist in a couple.  Educational level and socioeconomic status are reasonable proxies for determining this gap, though not absolute.  For example, I’ve found that a lot of people with bachelor’s and graduate degrees, both men and women, may have “smarts” but not really much intelligence.  Really, though, the “dunderhead test” is probably the most reliable.  Dunderhead-ism kills admiration and respect, the two crucial ingredients for a woman’s attraction and voluntarily submission to a man’s leadership.

Finally, yes, I think that men tend to avoid women they perceive as smarter.  Most men assume that they will have a hard time being impressive to such women and therefore bail without even trying.

Is virginity even relevant past age 30?

As I’ve discussed before, the church sends out different messages about sexual purity depending on what age group you fall into.  If you’re still in high school, Sex Is Bad.  (It’s Good if you’re married, but since you as a high schooler have no hope of being married any time soon and since most of you are going to college for four or more years during which you will not get married, Sex Is Bad.)  If you’re out of college, then abstinence is rarely mentioned, with the sort of implicit understanding that everyone understands that Single People Don’t Do It.  Not that I’ve ever seen anyone hauled in front of the church to be disciplined for fornication, other than mostly regretful single male worship leaders who were saying goodbye because they got caught.  I would bet good money that in churches with lots of people returning to the fold (you know, the loving, nonjudgmental churches), there are regular attendees aplenty who are fornicating with delight, with many even openly cohabitating.  But let’s not be harsh, because we don’t want to give anyone the impression that legalism still mars the church.  God will convict their hearts in His own good time.  Besides, if I point a finger, someone might point a finger back at me, and that would be unpleasant and rather unedifying.

In the manosphere, there is a constant to-do about a woman’s “number” and a woman’s history of riding the “carousel.”  As far as I can tell, there isn’t a specific “number” beyond which a woman becomes a carousel rider, but it seems generally agreed upon that a woman’s “number” must be three or lower to qualify as “good.”  I’m not sure if this means the husband is number three or number four, but it does seem that most men who are shopping for a wife definitely get uncomfortable beyond five.  Even if a woman has always only ever had sex with men with whom she is “in a committed relationship” and has never strayed, six is just too many.  Even if it was a decade ago and she’s been living like a nun since, she’s still likely to be branded damaged goods.

Committed Christian men are even more hyperobsessive about the almighty “number” because (if they’ve been 100% pure themselves) marriage is their one and only shot at finding a sex partner, and no one wants to marry the town bike.  It’s understandable that the idea of treading where a score of other men have tread before is not a particularly appealing one, especially when one has tread nowhere oneself.  Still, with the age of first marriage being so high, and living in a sexually permissive culture where many Christians do not adhere to traditional sexual morality, it becomes increasingly unlikely that a Christian will be able to or even be able to expect to marry a virgin, especially after, say, age 25.  It’s not that it can’t be done, it’s just that in many cases, it won’t be.  By the time someone is 30, hoping for virginity in a future spouse is like hoping to see a unicorn.

So is virginity, in a practical sense, really even that relevant after the “prime marrying years” are past?  I think most Christian men beyond college age would agree with the “three is a magic number” approximation.  So if you’re an attractive 32-year-old Christian woman who’s had sex with two guys and haven’t had sex with anyone in the past five years because you’ve rededicated your life to the Lord, are most single Christian men going to say, “Um, sorry, not a virgin, bye.”?  I doubt it.  A lot of those men won’t even be virgins themselves, and since the woman is still under the magic number, she’s still marriage material.

I’m not condoning fornication.  God’s rules are God’s rules.  As the creator of sex, God knows what He’s doing in setting boundaries.  Paul says, “‘Everything is permissible’ – but not everything is beneficial.”  This is one of those “rubber meets the road” areas, where “faith is being certain of what we do not see.”  As I get older, I’m not sure that I see that there’s much personal benefit in getting married a virgin vs. getting married somewhere under the magic number, but as I also see the societal havoc (and personal devastation) that fornication has wrought, I am reassured that God is, as always, infinite in his wisdom.

Hot and cold.

Can some of the men here please explain this phenomenon?  Typical scenario:

Man and woman meet at a social gathering (church, house party, bar/club, online).

Man and woman hit it off.

Man starts to call woman every day and sends dozens of flirtatious texts.  This goes on for weeks.  Woman raves to friends about “chemistry.”

Man and woman finally go on a real date (or just have an official one-on-one “hanging out.”)

It goes well.  There may be kissing.

Woman does not hear from man for days or even weeks afterward.

When woman finally screws up the courage to ask the man what’s going on, he says that he’s been “busy” or “has a lot of personal stuff going on.”  (Or HAS CANCER.  This actually happened to a friend of mine, who had dated a guy for a few months.  She thought things were going well.  Then he went completely AWOL.  When he finally resurfaced, he told her that he had been dealing with CANCER.  That was the end of their relationship.)

Woman wonders what went wrong/puts man on lifelong hate list.

How can a man go from hot to cold so fast?  Women interpret pursuit, especially consistent pursuit, as a sign of romantic interest.  For most women, feelings don’t turn off and on light a light switch, so when men flip-flop instantaneously, it throws women for a very confusing, and sometimes heartbreaking, loop.  Note that the younger and more inexperienced the woman, the harder this kind of flip-flop is to take.  It’s still hard for older women to take, but they usually have enough life experience to know that they have to harden their hearts and move on.

Movie: Megamind.

I saw Megamind tonight and enjoyed it a lot.  I even really enjoyed the 3D, and I have not been a 3D supporter at all.  (Converted movies look like absolute junk – I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D a few years ago; it looked awful.  Up wasn’t impressive enough in 3D for me to want to fork over the extra cash.  I skipped Toy Story 3 in 3D for this reason, but now I am questioning that decision, especially since the preview for Disney’s upcoming Tangled looked superb in 3D.)

For game aficionados, Megamind is notable for its portrayal of a super omega named Hal, voiced by Jonah Hill.  I find Jonah Hill pretty revolting to look at these days (due to my fat bigotry), but his voice was very well-suited to the character and he turned in a great voice performance.  If you’re not sure how to act around women, just make sure you don’t find yourself emulating Hal in any way.  He was that oh-so-adorable mix of hapless and creepy.  Eesh.

Spoilers may abound in the comments.

Writing a successful online dating profile.

In light of ASDF’s comment that he had jumped into the online dating waters, and my friend’s experiences with eHarmony, here is some advice about how to write a profile that will stand out from the treacly, saccharine rest.

(1) Your profile is like a resume.  Treat it with the same care.

When I say a profile is like a resume, I don’t mean that you should list your accomplishments in bullet points.  I do mean, though, that you should use proper English:  capitalization, punctuation, spelling, grammar, the whole nine yards.  Typos in profiles are as much death as they are in a professional resume.  Thanks to my friend’s, um, generosity, I have been able to view a lot of men’s profiles.  Most of them look like they were typed by a blind chicken.  It’s a huge turn-off and works against you in an environment where you’re basically being considered like a menu item at a restaurant.

(2) Your profile is also like a cover letter, so show your personality.

Resumes are like the structure of a building, while cover letters are the inner decor.  Two people can decorate the same house in completely different ways.  So while, for example, at eHarmony everyone has the same type of information on their profiles, the way you express yourself can make the difference between her seeing you as a lame tool or as a cool guy.  This is why it is so crucial to demonstrate personality in your profile.  In online dating, she will not wait to get to meet you in person for you to show her how cool you really are, so if you’re a fun, funny guy, your profile is where to show it.  If you’re a serious, romantic type, show that.  If you care about saving the children of a fashionable African nation, show that.  But be genuine.  Insecure try-hards are very easy to spot.  (They’re usually the guys writing “lol” all over the place.)  Also, do not be sarcastic.  Sarcasm doesn’t usually work well on strangers, and in print, it is very easy to misconstrue tone.  Especially at eHarmony, whose members are primarily looking for a future spouse, sarcasm is a sign of unseriousness.

Talented writers have an advantage over unskilled writers here.  If you’re not that great of a writer, you should write some rough drafts and have a friend (preferably of the opposite sex) proofread and critique you.

(3) Contrast is king.

(HT to you-know-who for coining this excellent phrase.)  Yes, even in dating profiles, contrast works.  eHarmony has its members list the five things they are most thankful for.  Pretty much every guy lists “God, my family, my friends, my health” as four of the things they are most thankful for – and yes, they list them using those exact words.  To avoid sounding like a cliche, find more descriptive ways to list those same things – or find something else that is interesting to list.  Do not be treacly, though.  Writing “the ability to breathe God’s beautiful fresh sunshine air” is NOT sexy.

(4) Have at least five recent photos of yourself on the site in a variety of settings.

Women do not see past the exterior in online dating.  Your picture, unless backed up by a killer written profile, can make or break you.  So here are my recommendations about photos:

– The more photos, the better.  Okay, there’s such a thing as overkill, but having only one or two photos is a turn-off.  It says you don’t take good pictures, you don’t have much of a social life, and you’re lazy.

– Caption your photos.  Mention where you were, what you were doing, the date the photo was taken.  Do not write Facebook type stuff like “on the top of a mountain!!!!!!  woo hoo!!!!! it was AWESOME!!!!!! lol”.

– Have some close-ups as well as full-body shots.  Your body/build matters.  Basically, all of your photos should not be headshots, nor should all of your photos be far away.  That said…

– No photos of you taking a picture of yourself in the bathroom mirror with your cell phone.  That’s Craigslist territory.  Also:

– No naked/half-clothed shots.  Most women seriously looking for husbands do not care what your bare chest looks like.  Pictures with your shirt off, unless it’s a beach/swimming picture, scream narcissism.

– No photos of yourself partying in a bar.

– No photos of yourself with women draped all over you.  A PUA will consider this preselection.  A woman seriously looking for a husband will do the following:  (1) judge the sluttiness of the women in the picture.  If they are slutty-looking, you’re toast.  (2) judge the prettiness of the women in the picture.  If they’re better-looking than her, you’re also toast.  (3) label you a player.  You are toast.  (4) think of you as the kind of man who has way too many female friends.  You are toast.  The only exceptions to this are photos of you with female relatives (mom, grandma, sisters, aunts, cousins).  Oh, and (5) if the women in the photo are beneath the woman looking at your photo, then you’ve preselected yourself out of the running.  You are toast.

– No photos where you have clearly cropped out the girl on your arm.

– No photos of you when you were 18 (unless you’re, say, 19).  No photos of you as a child – unless it shows something about your personality.  (Ex:  “Me at age 8 with my childhood sports hero.  Die-hard [your favorite team] fan to this day!”)  No more than one of this type of photo, and only if you were a cute kid.  No photos of you when you still had hair.  No photos of you when you were still thin.  These will only invite negative comparisons.

–  Unless you have jacked up teeth, include some photos of you smiling.  Women find smiles inviting.  Women do not find photos of you with a gangsta scowl inviting.

– Photos of you dressed up are a plus.  (THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO PROM PICTURES.)

– No photos of you badly groomed, unless it shows an appealing part of your personality.  (Ex:  “Me trying out Alaska chic.  It lasted 3 months.”)

(5) Brevity is the soul of wit.

Don’t overwrite your profile.  Don’t treat it like a diary, like your shrink, or like your creative writing class.  Don’t write like Matthew from Boundless.

Write crisply, clearly, vividly, and authoritatively.  Do not use ellipses.  Do not abuse the exclamation point.  Never write more than one exclamation point or question mark in a row.

Above all, do not qualify yourself to the woman.  Don’t explain ad nauseum why you’re a great catch.  BE a great catch.  The good ones will pick up on it pronto.

Why girls bolt after church.

In the comments of my last thread, Hermes asked:

Haley, if you’re taking topic requests, I’d be interested in your thoughts on women bolting for the door the second the church service or singles group gathering is over (and then complaining that they don’t get asked out.)

Usually it’s either:

1) They don’t want to stay and talk.

2) They’re shy.

3) They’re alone.

If a woman is alone (i.e., didn’t come with a friend or doesn’t really know anyone there), she’ll be less likely to stand around and be available for small talk.  It’s very awkward to stand by yourself and wait for someone else to take notice of you.  (Plus, I think it’s kind of humiliating.)  Most people also are not comfortable with approaching groups of established friends and injecting themselves into the conversation.  Established groups of friends are some of the most impenetrable, unfriendly groups around.

At the same time, you can’t just keep to yourself and blame everyone else for not making you popular.  I don’t have much sympathy for people who grouse about their unpopularity yet expect everyone else to do all the heavy lifting.

I think the best time to make contact with a person is before the service or meeting starts.  Establish rapport beforehand, then snag the person before they jet afterwards.  Especially when a person is by herself, it’s usually on you, the established attendee, to make the first move.  A personal invitation is a very powerful (and often effective) method of persuasion.

Male IOIs.

Happy Election Day, Americans.  (At least I hope it ends happily for me, which, living where I live, is an iffy proposition. We few, we happy few…. But I soldier on, pen in hand, mighty as the sword, or at least a plastic butter knife…)

I have some thoughts percolating about “fat bigotry” in light of the recent Marie Claire ~scandal~, but until I get them organized, I thought a post about male IOIs might be a good pasttime.  I suppose this will end up being a discussion appealing mainly to the ladies here, since persons of one sex find their sex’s IOIs extremely obvious.  For example, I can always tell when a woman is trying to attract a man’s attention, but quite often the man may as well be wearing a bag over his head.  (Then the man goes home and complains that no women like him.)

These are the IOIs I usually recognize from men:

• Staring
• Prolonged eye contact
• Attempts to isolate
• Attempts to monopolize time/attention
• Standing too close
• Overly earnest compliments about my appearance
• Overly earnest questions about myself
• Upper arm touching
• Seeking me out

Feel free to add/subtract/correct me if I’m wrong.  I think a lot of confusion arises for a woman when she feels she is receiving IOIs but they don’t translate into dates.  Then she is stuck with the dilemma of whether the man is just being friendly* – does he treat all women this way? – or whether there is something wrong with her that he won’t make a move.  For a woman, context is key, so if she doesn’t feel she is getting a clear read on the situation, she will spend too much a lot of time, usually with girlfriends, analyzing each situation for clues to the man’s mental state.  This is why He’s Just Not That Into You was such a watershed moment for a lot of women.  It gave women the freedom not to waste time and emotional energy analyzing men’s motives.  It’s a great relief to have a more or less bright line test for men’s interest:  if he asks for a date, he’s interested; if he doesn’t ask, he’s not interested (or at least not sufficiently interested).  Not that asking for a date means that he thinks he is developing feelings – he could just be trying to get sex – but it’s a much more concrete move, at least.

* How to know a man is not attracted to you at all and considers you well beneath his standards of attractiveness for even association:  he will act like you do not exist.  This means never making eye contact, never saying hello, never making small talk.  This is why reasonably attractive men who are also genuinely kind and friendly have so many women nursing crushes on them.  Even the smallest amount of attention is manna from heaven.