Like paper near a flame.

One consistent drum beat I’ve heard in the manosphere is that of a nearly obsessive fear of marrying a woman with a low or nonexistent sex drive.  This coincides with the idea that a man needs to “test drive” a woman before shackling himself to her with a ring, because what if she never puts out after the wedding night and horror of horrors you didn’t know this was going to happen because like a chivalrous white knight idiot you never had sex with her before the wedding?  Or – even worse – what if she only wants to have sex for a couple of years and then, after she gets her baby, she never wants to have sex again?  Sure, there’s a lot of derision of Carousel riders, but when push comes to shove, at least a Carousel rider is going to let you ride.  (Well, until she finds the next rider and takes half of your fortune with her, but at least you got your turn, which for most men seems to be better than no turn at all.)

In the Christian community, male fear of a sexless marriage seems to be as widespread as outside the church, but even more intense and much more underground.  It’s intense because devout Christian men know that they have one shot at marriage, which in turn is their one shot at finding a sex partner for life, and underground because Christians like to pretend that sex is a mystery that doesn’t exist don’t like to talk much about sex other than “Teens, don’t do it.”  For the Christian alpha male, there’s not much cause to worry – Christian alpha males almost always get snapped up right after college, or, if they delay marriage, whenever they feel like it’s finally time to leave and cleave…er, I mean, whenever the Holy Spirit speaks to them about the next season of life.  (As has been said here before, did anyone ever believe that Christian dating guru, pastor-to-be, megaflirt Joshua Harris was going to have genuine trouble finding a wife?)  It’s really the Christian beta males who must trek through Mordor to get to Mount Doom, only to possibly discover Gollum waiting to chomp off their finger.

The conundrum facing Christian beta males seems obvious:  Christian women don’t want beta males any more than non-Christian women do, Christian women have been trained not to give any signals of attraction, Christian women want to be “friends” for an unspecified amount of time first…yet Christian women expect men to “man up” and charge ahead, brandishing leadership skills in every facet of life, but not in too sexy a way, lest he be branded a sex-craved deviant or cause a sister (whom he should be treating with absolute purity) to stumble, but not so unsexy that the woman would rather wash her hair.  And a brother is somehow supposed to divine his future wife’s sex drive out of this?

While I empathize with Christian men facing the Leviathan of holy dating, I also think that the fear of marrying a low sex-drive woman is overblown.  I don’t know any single Christian women who are not confirmed spinsters who aren’t jonesing for sex.  As one of my single Christian female friends has said on a number of occasions, “I need to get married soon, because I’m ready to explode.”  It’s like shaking an unopened 2-liter bottle of soda and leaving the cap on.  You may not see a ton of bubbles, but the pressure is most definitely building up inside.  Men, please be encouraged that you won’t be buying a bottle of soda that is flat, but a bottle that is very agitated and waiting for the right time to unleash a torrent of passion.*

Interestingly, this subject came up in the comments of a recent Boundless post.  What began as comments to the female follow-up to “I’ll Go Out With You If…” (featuring the usual drivel) somehow morphed into some women admitting that yes, they did have sex drives that they were working to keep a lid on.  In one comment, a poster named Ashley summed it up thusly:

This is probably unrelated to the actual topic at hand, but I have never been able to explain this to a guy in a way that he can understand. There’s just no good way to tell someone, “I am so fantastically, unrestrainedly into you that I’m going to need us to work on the relational/emotional/intellectual connection here and I am going to need you to not. touch. me. until we talk about it — and I really have to warn you, I may need you to pull the breaks on me.”

Commenter Andrea-Elena responded:

Or how about…

I haven’t gotten to be physical much with guys in my life and I’m longing so much to touch and do all those things that even if I’m not over-the-moon into you, I might still pounce on you just ’cause I like you enough and I find you attractive enough and women get horny too!!!

I feel as if I ought to have a business-size card with that on it to give to a guy when we first start dating.

…

I was inexperienced until the age of 23. So I didn’t really know my own “strength” (heh, heh). I didn’t know I could be or would ever be the aggressor in making out. And there were times I was. Sure, that’ll be awesome when I’m someone’s wife. But it’s awfully dangerous during dating, especially at the beginning stages when it’s so easy for the physical bonding to escalate and go at a much more rapid pace than the “who we are as people” aspect of getting to know each other. And some guys don’t defend their own boundaries very well at times. Just as some of us gals don’t either at times.

So, men, take heart.  Chastity is not synonymous with a lack of sex drive.  Sometimes women may seem distant with affection because it’s the only way they can stop the snowball from accelerating down the mountain.  That said, I think it’s prudent for a couple who are getting serious to talk about sexual expectations in marriage.  If those expectations don’t line up and there doesn’t seem to be a way (or willingness) to make them line up, then the relationship really should be reconsidered.  Generally speaking, instead of spending a lot of time worrying about whether or not his future wife is going to want to have sex with him, a smart man would use that time to work on making himself so irresistible that his wife would have no choice but to jump him and have her way with him.

* Another way of putting it:  I DIDN’T WAIT THIS LONG SO I COULD HAVE FIVE MINUTES OF LAME, DUTIFUL SEX ONCE A MONTH.

Beauty is not insurance against infidelity.

Just weighing in on the Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher cheating thing.  Yesterday Roissy was gloating that, as he had predicted, Ashton Kutcher cheated on his significantly older wife.  (According to Wikipedia, Kutcher is 32 and Moore is 47.)  Roissy’s assertion was that Moore was just too old to keep her husband’s sexual attention and that she was a fool for thinking she could.

Well…yes and no.  I don’t think Demi Moore would have been much less in danger of having her husband cheat on her if she were 25 instead of 47.  Best-case scenario is that it just would have taken longer for him to cheat.  Ashton Kutcher has sufficient looks, fame, and wealth that regardless of whom he was married to, he would still be faced with constant temptation.  It’s more likely that Kutcher, like so many men in Hollywood before him, simply succumbed to the temptation of a young woman who was freely offering herself to him and pumping up his ego.  And in Hollywood, such women are numerous, especially when they can get something else out of the affair, like fame or access to even higher-status men.

Would it have been wiser for Kutcher to marry someone younger (if he had to marry at all, which he probably shouldn’t have)?  Possibly, but many beautiful women in Hollywood who are younger than Moore have been cheated on.  The only way female beauty is a protection against male infidelity is when the woman’s beauty greatly outpaces the man’s status, so that the man feels he has something irreplaceable to lose, and even then, it’s not a sure thing.  (Real-world example:  Roissy’s regular commenter Gorbachev, a self-proclaimed 6 who has been dating for a few months a woman whom he considers the hottest woman he’s ever seen in real life, a woman who gives him agonizing oneitis – and he still cheated on her.  And then went on the internet and told everybody.)

Basically, if you don’t believe that marriage is an exclusive sexual relationship for life, you shouldn’t marry.

Hypergamy and the stigma of being the back-up plan.

There is a pretty impassioned hash-out going on at Boundless on the topic of why men don’t ask women out.  (Yes, Boundless went to that well again.  As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.)  As per usual, it’s a veritable cornucopia of insights into the modern evangelical female mind and young, evangelical relationships (or the lack thereof) in general.

One point that was brought up in the comments is that men risk their reputations when asking out women from a certain church.  If a man screws up his courage, asks out a woman, and she shoots him down, he is then socially obligated to wait an undefined period of time before asking the next woman out from the same group, lest he be pegged desperate, creepy, or undiscriminating (i.e., a wannabe player).  The risk factor is high, because one wrong move can decimate his chances with anyone for a long time.  No woman wants to be some man’s back-up plan when the most attractive option flames out.

When the topic has arisen on my blog, usually the proposed solution is just not to date women from your own church, thereby sidestepping the possibility of social ostracism.  (Of course, if you happen to find someone from another church, the single women at your own church will just despise you for not finding any of them up to your lofty standards.  Or, if they find the girl not up to snuff, they will decide that you like to slum.)

Given women’s hypergamous natures, however, I started wondering if more church women would say yes to a date with a man who had just been out on a date with another woman from the same church group.  Getting rejected by a girl in the group serves as a pretty unavoidable and obvious DLV.  If Jim Bob asks out Sue on Sunday for a date on Tuesday, and she rejects him, there is a very tiny probability that Wendy will say yes if Jim Bob asks her out on Wednesday after singles group.*  Wendy would likely cite the abovementioned reasons for rejecting him, but isn’t her hypergamous hamster the real reason?  Conversely, getting accepted for a date would be a big DHV and make a man more attractive to the other women in his social circle.  If Jim Bob asks out Sue on Sunday for a date on Tuesday, and she accepts, wouldn’t Wendy be more likely to accept a date from Jim Bob as well when he asked on Wednesday?  Someone needs to do a study on this.

* Exception:  Wendy has a pre-existing crush on Jim Bob and is doing the happy dance on the inside that she’s finally getting a shot at her dream guy.

Mike, Molly, and missed signals of attraction.

Last night the new Chuck Lorre sitcom Mike and Molly premiered.  In the episode, Mike, a cop, and Molly, a fourth grade teacher, individually attend an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.  Molly is charmed by Mike’s sense of humor and introduces herself to Mike after the meeting ends.  What happens next is right out of the Matt Savage playbook of missing signals (I kid with love, Matt):

Molly tells Mike that she’s a fourth grade teacher and would love to have a police officer come and speak to her class, HINT HINT HINT.

Mike responds that she should contact the police department and they’ll send someone over.  (Level of obliviousness:  10.)

Molly’s face immediately falls at his not taking the bait.  (Her inner monologue:  OH NO HE DOESN’T LIKE ME I WANT THE EARTH TO SWALLOW ME WHAT DO I SAY NOW????)

Fortunately for Molly (and for the premise of the sitcom), Mike’s cop friend suggests that Molly give Mike her number and Mike can talk to her class himself.

Molly happily gives Mike her number and tells him to call her.  Mike says he will.  Molly lingers, hoping that Mike will ask her out.  He doesn’t.

Molly leaves with her sister, and Mike’s friend chastises him for not making a move.  Mike defends himself, saying he didn’t want to look desperate.

Scene ends on a button.

Watch it here:

Sometimes art really does imitate life!

What a woman thinks when a man doesn’t respond to her signal of attraction.

Matt Savage wrote a recent post on men missing signals of attraction from women.  He related a story where he was talking to an attractive young woman at a bar, and he mentioned that he liked the show True Blood.  The girl responded that she LOVED the show but, alas, had no television and did not like watching the show on her tiny computer screen.  The conversation continued and eventually petered out.

Savage then says that it took him three days to figure out that the girl had given him a huge opening to invite her back to his apartment or at least set up a future date.  Oops.

Men (in general, not Savage) like to complain about women not being straightforward and men having the onerous task of deciphering all of the cryptic messages that women send.  I guess in a man’s “perfect” world, courtship would go something like this:

MAN:  Yo, you’re hot.  Wanna do it?

WOMAN:  Okay.  By the way, it’s only easy for you to get me, ergo I am not a slut.

MAN:  *beats chest proudly*

The reason women tend to be roundabout in the ways they advertise interest, though, is that they want men to pursue them.  If a woman has to spell it out for the man, then she doesn’t feel like she is being pursued; she feels like she is the pursuer.  She will also feel like her feminine charms alone are not enough to incite action by the man, which is humiliating.  Worse, if you do end up going on a date, she will doubt your attraction to her, so expect more shit tests.  In addition, by being very straightforward, she will risk being labeled desperate and try-hard by other women and possibly other men, too.  (Everyone knows a boy-crazy girl who throws herself at every available man she meets.  No woman respects a desperate peer.)

As a result, the only option a woman has is to drop hints and hope the man responds.  If a woman suggests that you should do something together or hang out sometime, you’ve hit the motherlode.  She will not suggest hanging out to a man she has no interest in.  If she says something sounds like fun, that’s also an invitation to invite her to join in.  If she asks when the next time you’re doing X activity is, she wants you to invite her to go along.  If she asks if you need help with something, that’s also an opportunity.  If she eagerly expresses interest in something you’ve just expressed interest in (as in Savage’s anecdote above), you can make a move with confidence.

Given all of the above, when a man doesn’t act on a woman’s hints, the woman usually concludes that the man is not interested in her and has a list of 99 things he’d rather be doing.  Men complain that women want them to shoulder all of the risk, but for a woman, showing interest and dropping hints IS a risk.  Take the following scenario:

MAN:  Some friends and I are helping our buddy move this weekend.

WOMAN WHO IS INTERESTED:  Really?  That sounds like fun.  What day and time?  Do you need help?

Here is what a man with a clue would say:

MAN WITH A CLUE:  Really, you want to help?  That would be awesome.  Let me have your number so I can text you the address and time.

WOMAN WHO IS INTERESTED:  *SWOON*

HER INTERNAL DIALOGUE:  EEEE THIS GUY IS AMAZING I MUST TELL MY GIRLFRIENDS RIGHT AWAY

Here is what a man without a clue would say:

CLUELESS WONDER:  Nah, we got it.  Basically we’re just gonna be throwing some stuff in a truck and then go shoot some hoops.

CRESTFALLEN WOMAN WHO IS HATING HERSELF FOR BEING INTERESTED:  …oh.

HER INTERNAL DIALOGUE:  THIS LOSER WOULD RATHER HANG OUT WITH SWEATY, SMELLY GUYS THAN ME.  I MUST BE UGLY.  HE HAS BEEN TALKING TO ME OUT OF PITY.

Or, if she’s read He’s Just Not That Into You a bunch of times:

IRRITATED WOMAN’S INTERNAL DIALOGUE:  He doesn’t know fabulous when he sees it!  Has he looked into the mirror lately?  YOU ARE NOT ALL THAT, NIMROD.  You should be more grateful.

The signs are there if you look for them.  Just understand that the less you read them, the more frustrated a woman is going to become with you.

The importance of compatibility.

Roissy – or Chateau, or Citizen Renegade, or whatever he’s calling himself/themselves these days – believes that compatibility of values and sexual attraction are unrelated.  Moreover, it is not even necessary to conceal a difference of beliefs.  Says he:

You’re doing it wrong if you think dating ideologically dissimilar people is about keeping topics “under wraps”. It’s nothing of the sort. Real sexual attraction and love circumvent that type of defensively dull mechanistic dating jive. It’s irrelevant to men with tight game, because “major lifestyle differences” would hardly ever be summoned, purposely or inadvertently, to move a seduction forward. That is because what builds attraction is not a discussion over national health insurance or the blessings of having kids. Sustained sexual attraction is an ancient instinct that reacts to certain mate value cues, and political conformity is not one of them. If anything, a girl can be *more* attracted to a man who is ideologically different from her, as long as he is passionate about his beliefs without being charmless in explaining them. Girls are often shocked into arousal by the presence of a man willing to speak his mind and refrain from obsequiously parroting her opinions.

……

Now at some point down the road those arid and tingle-killing ideological, religious or political issues will rise to the fore. It is inevitable when you spend so much time with a girl that it becomes impossible to sequester zones of discussion in an unshared limbo. But ultimately it won’t matter if the girl loves the man. She’ll instead be more drawn to his standing firmly for his principles.

He’s not wrong – if all you’re going for is attraction for a hook-up, fling, or short-term relationship.  Even for a long-term relationship, differences of ideology and principles may not be enough to disrupt attraction.

Most people, however, will balk when it comes to marriage to someone with significantly different values.  Roissy, as someone who professes never to marry, will never face these concerns.  But most people do marry, and differences of values will almost certainly come into play for evaluating someone’s spousal potential.  And this is wise and prudent, because marriage is the mingling of two lives into one, a voluntary relinquishment of freedom and personal choice.  When you enter into an arrangement where (typically) finances are joined, families are joined, children are begotten, and your entire future has the other person tethered to it, differences start to matter very much.  What kind of man marries a woman with a very different attitude about spending money?  About expectations for standard of living?  About the importance of extended family?  About raising children?  About faith and politics?

A dating relationship is like a buffet, where you can choose the things you like and ignore the ones you don’t.  Marriage, on the other hand, is a “you have to clean your plate” sort of deal.  The more differences and incompatibilities there are, the more work it will be to maintain the relationship.  Hollywood likes to glamorize the “rich girl/poor boy” dichotomy, promoting the idea that “love conquers all” (never mind that in real life, male proles typically do not end up with wealthy blue blood heiresses) but in real life where there are bills to pay and aging parents to take care of and kids who need attention and lawns to mow and cars to wash, every difference between you and your spouse is a friction point.  When life’s stresses set in – and they will – loving and living with someone who is in opposition to your values will become incredibly difficult in a way that two more like-minded people will not experience.  (Which is not to say that Sam and Sue Sameness will never experience marital difficulty, only that their harmony of values will smooth over a lot of potential friction points.  Shared values can help sustain the bond between two people when ~feelings~ aren’t at the forefront.)

Compatibility of values is especially important when it comes to having children.  Most people marry in anticipation of having a family, and some marry because their little bundle of joy is already on the way.  This is where the values rubber really starts to meet the practice road.  How are you going to raise your child?  Will you spank or do time-outs?  Public, private, or homeschooling?  Sugary treats or celery sticks?  How many hours of Wii per day?  Of Disney Channel?  Will you take your children to R-rated movies?  Stay at home mom or daycare?  How old must your daughter be to wear makeup?  To date?  Will you take your kids to church?  To which church?  What traditions will you celebrate?  What will you teach your children about life?  About other people?  About him- or herself?

Obviously, most people do not find and marry their opposite-sex twin.  All couples will have matters on which they must surrender or tolerate.  I think it’s foolish, though, to marry primarily for attraction and not for shared values.  For men, especially – a woman is only going to be at her physical peak for a short amount of time compared to the amount of time you will be married to her.  What’s going to help keep you bonded after everything starts to sag and deflate?

To the men who are saying, “Pfft.  I’m so alpha that my 8+ wife abandoned all of her beliefs and adopted my own!”:  then I posit that her beliefs weren’t really very important to her, if she didn’t struggle at all with giving them up.  (Some seed falls on the path and gets eaten by birds, some falls on rocky soil, some falls in the weeds….)

The timeless appeal of the reformed rake.

The various talk on this blog about the appeal of reformed rakes got me thinking about a chapter in one of my favorite books of all time, Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery.  Anne of the Island is the third book in the “Anne of Green Gables” series and covers Anne’s college years.  As the most romance-oriented of the novels, it has a lot of interesting observations on the mating dance – principally Anne’s friendship with Gilbert (midway through the novel, she rejects his proposal and they spend two years estranged while they date other people, until – of course – Gilbert contracts a life-threatening illness that forces Anne to acknowledge her true feelings for him), but also the courtship of Anne’s best friend Diana with local farmboy Fred, and Anne’s beautiful and wealthy college roommate Philippa with a poor, ugly theology student, among other stories.

Anyhow, the chapter I am referring to is called “Averil’s Atonement” and is a recounting of Anne’s attempt to write a story for publication.  Anne, who has always been a whimsical dreamer, wants to write a sweeping romance and become a famous author.  Her heroine is a strong-willed young lady named Averil.  The hero is named Perceval Dalrymple.  Need I say more?

Anne spends a few weeks slaving over the story and finally reads it to Diana.  But instead of being enthralled, Diana seems disappointed.

“Why did you kill MAURICE LENNOX?” she asked reproachfully.

“He was the villain,” protested Anne. “He had to be punished.”

“I like him best of them all,” said unreasonable Diana.

“Well, he’s dead, and he’ll have to stay dead,” said Anne, rather resentfully. “If I had let him live he’d have gone on persecuting AVERIL and PERCEVAL.”

“Yes — unless you had reformed him.”

“That wouldn’t have been romantic, and, besides, it would have made the story too long.”

“Well, anyway, it’s a perfectly elegant story, Anne, and will make you famous, of that I’m sure. Have you got a title for it?”

For the record, Anne of the Island was published in 1915, and the timeframe within the book is probably late 1800s.  Reformed rakes never go out of style – because they have always been in style.  (Also note that Diana dutifully tells Anne what she wants to hear in order to preserve the friendship – even though Anne’s story went against what Diana saw as reality.)

The chapter continues with Anne showing her story to her neighbor, the blunt Mr. Harrison.  Mr. Harrison, being a man, doesn’t mince any words and tells her the dialogue is too flowery and the setting unrealistic.  Says he:

“But your folks ain’t like real folks anywhere. They talk too much and use too high-flown language. There’s one place where that DALRYMPLE chap talks even on for two pages, and never lets the girl get a word in edgewise. If he’d done that in real life she’d have pitched him.”

Unless he was a Boundless blogger!

Anne, of course, disagrees:

“I don’t believe it,” said Anne flatly. In her secret soul she thought that the beautiful, poetical things said to AVERIL would win any girl’s heart completely. Besides, it was gruesome to hear of AVERIL, the stately, queen-like AVERIL, “pitching” any one. AVERIL “declined her suitors.”

Mr. Harrison then adds the worst insult:  he agrees with Diana about Maurice Lennox!

“Anyhow,” resumed the merciless Mr. Harrison, “I don’t see why MAURICE LENNOX didn’t get her. He was twice the man the other is. He did bad things, but he did them. Perceval hadn’t time for anything but mooning.”

“Mooning.” That was even worse than “pitching!”

“MAURICE LENNOX was the villain,” said Anne indignantly. “I don’t see why every one likes him better than PERCEVAL.”

“Perceval is too good. He’s aggravating. Next time you write about a hero put a little spice of human nature in him.”

“AVERIL couldn’t have married MAURICE. He was bad.”

“She’d have reformed him. You can reform a man; you can’t reform a jelly-fish, of course. Your story isn’t bad — it’s kind of interesting, I’ll admit. But you’re too young to write a story that would be worth while. Wait ten years.”

Mr. Harrison isn’t really advocating for criminality or acting like a jerk; he’s advocating for the hero showing some alpha characteristics.  Anne wrote a story about a placid beta and got nowhere with two disparate audiences.  Of course, what Mr. Harrison says about the possibility of reforming a rake is questionable advice, at least according to certain definitions of alpha….

(The dénouement to this story occurs three chapters later, when Anne receives a check for $25 in the mail from the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Co., with a congratulatory letter saying that “Averil’s Atonement” will be published in several prominent newspapers and in pamphlet form for Rollings Reliable patrons.  Anne is confused and then horrified when Diana reveals that she secretly submitted the story – with one small addition:

“You know the scene where Averil makes the cake? Well, I just stated that she used the Rollings Reliable in it, and that was why it turned out so well; and then, in the last paragraph, where PERCEVAL clasps AVERIL in his arms and says, `Sweetheart, the beautiful coming years will bring us the fulfilment of our home of dreams,’ I added, `in which we will never use any baking powder except Rollings Reliable.'”

)

You get what you pay for.

The dating advice thread strikes again.

Situation: Woman (I’m assuming late 20s-mid 30s; let’s call her Emmy) dates man for two years, during which time she regularly, loudly, proclaims to all who will listen that she deserves better than what he is giving her.

She breaks up with him.

But apparently is allowing him to live at her place while his apartment is being renovated.

He tells her that she deserves better than what he could give her.

She is privately devastated to hear this, and writes that hearing it was no vindication, that she felt no euphoria, pride, or triumph.  Instead, she felt only sadness as she asked herself repeatedly why she had spent two years in the relationship.

I think Emmy’s original problem was that she dated a downtrodden beta so she could have a relationship but, after the initial “I have a boyfriend!” euphoria wore off, never felt that he was higher value than she was.  Believing a man to be higher value than her probably would have offended her feminist principles.  (I am assuming she is a feminist because the majority of posters on the board are college-educated, non-religious, politically liberal women.)  Anyhow, she figuratively emasculated him to all who would listen, probably thinking herself clever, and then, after destroying the remaining dregs of attraction she had for him, finally broke it off.

But being a woman, her hindbrain (as Roissy might say) is not allowing her to make a clean, emotion-free break like an alpha male.  Instead, she is upset that he wouldn’t alpha up in the face of her colossal shit test of putting him down publicly, and is trying to give him a final chance to assert himself by allowing him to live with her for as flimsy a reason as his apartment being renovated.  (Seriously, does the man have no other friends?!  Women, never date men with no friends.)  When he parroted back to her the exact things she said to him during their dating relationship, she felt overwhelming despair because she realized she had allowed herself to have sex with an unfit man for two years.  Yet she can’t at all see what role she played in the demise of their relationship.

A smattering of advice from the regulars:

• Aww.  Let’s hang out and drink until you forget him.
• Sometimes you wish you had the chutzpah to shout that you could do better than his tiny penis.
• You’re the better person for allowing him to stay with you.
• Don’t worry, everyone has made this mistake.

Really, just where have all the good men gone?

The reason that men need to be strong with women is because women cannot be strong with other women.  A woman is socially obligated to tell her friend whatever it is the friend wants to hear, even if it completely contradicts reality.  A woman who goes around telling unwanted truths to her female friends will probably not remain friends with those women for long.  So, men, if you want better women, you need to be a better man first.  If you take control, women will follow.  Maybe not every woman, but a lot will.  If you tell a woman the truth, she will take it to heart if she has any respect for you at all, even if she throws a fit.

I once knew a young guy who was from a very small, very conservative town.  He was the type who had sisters with rarely-cut, long, wavy hair whose idea of nice clothes were long, cotton-knit dresses with tiny flowers on them.  His upbringing was so conservative that he had been taught to stand up whenever a woman entered the room.  It was only when he came to the “big city” (population 100,000) to go to school that he discovered that this was the kind of behavior that made people stare in a bad way.  So he stopped doing it, which he semi-regretted.  One day he mentioned that he constantly had women throwing themselves at him – young, old, it didn’t matter.  They would actually tell him how attractive they found him and how much they wanted to date him.  Looking back, I can now see that this all stemmed from his impeccable masculine frame.  It’s rare to meet a man with that kind of frame, much less a very young one.  He wasn’t built.  He wasn’t particularly good-looking.  He wasn’t a snazzy dresser.  But he was so sure of himself in a quietly powerful way that women were falling at his feet.

This young guy was also a Christian, so he wasn’t having sex.  Strictly comparing him to the ex-boyfriend from the dating advice thread, he comes out inferior on paper, sex-wise.  After all, the ex-boyfriend not only got to have sex with Emmy for two years, he has now been able to convince her to house him for an indefinite length of time, and I am quite certain that if he wanted to resume having sex with Emmy, he could make it happen.  He’s about one wine bottle and a candle away from boom shaka-laka time.  But he really isn’t the more successful man, is he?

P.S.  I am not trying to say that women are not responsible for the choices they make.  Emmy got exactly what she paid for out of the relationship.  But because women are uniquely programmed to follow strong men, it behooves good men to take the lead and guide women into making good choices they might not have made on their own.

The perfect storm (stealth date follow-up).

In my last post, I discussed a Boundless post by Tom Neven about his daughter Hannah, who had gone on a stealth date with a male friend who she knew was interested in her.  Naturally, the readers, good Christians that they are, piled on in the comments on everyone involved — so much so that Hannah felt compelled to write a defense of herself.  Oh, Hannah.  This is something that I would never recommend doing except in a case of libel where it is imperative to your legal or job security that you right the record.  First of all, nothing on the internet is as important as people on the internet think it is.  It’s very easy to get into an internet echo chamber where every voice has an exponential effect on the noise, and before you know it, you’re swimming in the din over something as trivial as which objectively attractive actress is a 9 and which is a 10.  Second, who cares?!  Why get ruffled over what a bunch of keyboard critics whom you’ll never meet think of you, your beta boy, your dad, your approach to dating, or anything else?  Nine times out of ten, a person who takes to the internet to defend his or her opinion is only going to dig the hole deeper and give opponents more grist for the mill.  Let your opinion speak for itself.  If other people don’t like it, they can fight about it amongst themselves while you go out and do something constructive with your time.  Besides, most people are bad at putting out their own fires, hence the existence of the PR industry.

What Hannah wrote is not all that interesting, anyway.  Anyone with a clue about college-age church girls could have written a nearly identical blast (“blah blah blah, I am not shallow or vain, we don’t have any chemistry, why is everyone hating on me? I’m innocent and he needs to man up!”).  What is actually interesting is the variety of opinions expressed in the comments.  Boundless is only occasionally useful for advice, but it is eminently useful for taking the temperature of young evangelical thought.  Here is a smattering of “advice” from the Boundless commentariat (my paraphrases):

• The reason you don’t feel any sparks is because you didn’t start praying about it the minute he started giving you attention!  Elisabeth Elliot prayed when her third husband first started paying attention to her.
• You’re just an alpha chaser who is going to get her heart broken!
• OMG Hannah ur so wise and it was so totally not a date! U GO GURL!!11!
• Tom Neven, you’re a bad dad who humiliated poor Beta!
• Women should never initiate a DTR until they are asked out!
• We need to be more like Jesus!
• I am GRIEVED that I hurt you with my comments!  I am so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so sorry!
• Women shouldn’t turn down any dates because they will get a reputation for saying no and then no one will ask them out!
• Don’t give up on chemistry, Hannah!  My own personal experience proves that chemistry is important!
• Hannah, I know you are a woman of substance because I have gone through the same circumstance!
• Hannah has the right to date only men with whom she feels chemistry!
• Men need to stop bringing their hurtful baggage to these discussions so things can stop being so tense around here!
• OMG WHY IS EVERYONE SO MEAN HERE? JESUS WOULD NOT APPROVE.

Sometimes when I read comments like these, I wonder if there is any hope for harmony between the sexes in Churchland.  I suppose the most salient point is that Betas now have even more motivation to “man up,” because of the fear that their target’s dad might take to a widely read blog to advertise their beta-ness.

Possibly the worst comment of all, more for its substance than its attitude, was that of a young woman who had dated a man for an entire year while not being at all physically attracted to him.  She writes:

A few years ago I had my first boyfriend whom I dated for about a little over a year. He was a great Christian guy, a true gentleman, always paid for me, and even remembered the exact calendar day of when we first started talking and our first date. The problem: I wasn’t physically attracted to him. We held hands once but I never wanted to do it again. I never let him kiss me either. Sure, he would have made a great husband and if I never broke it up, we would probably be planning our wedding right now.  The point is that I believe attraction and spark should be among one of the top priorities in a potential spouse. [AH:  my emphasis in bold]

OH MY GOODNESS.  I CAN’T EVEN WRAP MY HEAD AROUND THIS.  IS SHE A ROBOT?!?!?!  (…IS HE A ROBOT?!?!?!)

The stealth date and the tease.

stealth date: when a male friend asks a female friend for a one-on-one outing, during which he tries to exert date-like behavior such as paying for the food/activity, going somewhere non-casual, or making exceptional plans for the outing, all the while never specifying that he wants it to be a date.

Over at Boundless in an article entitled “Help, I’m on a Date and I Can’t Get Out!”, blogger Tom Neven writes that his teenage daughter Hannah recently went on a stealth date with a beta male friend.  Hannah and beta male friend were talking about getting frozen yogurt, which turned into a trip to get said frozen yogurt.  Neven says that Hannah had a paralyzing moment of indecision as she ordered, suddenly realizing that she might be on a stealth date.  Which she was, as Beta Male Friend offered to pay for her as “his treat” before Hannah could pull out her wallet.  Neven writes with fatherly amusement that Hannah now faces the “not-fun task of letting him down — easily.”  Poor beta male.  He played it safe, and now it’s going to blow up in his face.  At least he will have the memory of one blissful afternoon of paying for Hannah’s Fro-Yo to sustain him during the inevitable darkness.

Normally I would put 99% of the blame on Beta Male Friend for not making his intentions clear at the outset, but Neven, after telling this story, then blithely reveals that Hannah knew that Beta Male Friend had a crush on her.  This changes EVERYTHING.

Ladies, do NOT go on one-on-one outings with male friends who you know have crushes on you.  This is usually called “leading him on” or “being a tease.”

I will cut Hannah some slack because she is a teenager and therefore probably doesn’t know better, but did she really think that she could go out one-on-one with a male friend who had already expressed interest in her, and not give him hope or the wrong impression?  It’s clear from Neven’s post that Hannah had not previously made it clear to Beta Male that she had no romantic interest in him.  She knew, yet continued to buddy around with him and voluntarily went somewhere alone with him and allowed him to pay for her.  What do you think was going through Beta Male’s head?  Yay, I love being platonic friends!  She will so appreciate my paying for her!  Tonight I will finish reading Wild at Heart and tomorrow I will think of doing something manly that will actually make her like me! Hardly.

But even if Hannah HAD said “No, there are 500 guys in line ahead of you that I’d rather date/marry/have sex with,” she still went out with this guy on an outing that had every appearance of a date, all the while knowing that he was romantically interested in her.  How is that not textbook teasing (albeit of the chaste, church teen variety)?

Yet Neven does not even acknowledge this.  Instead, he treats the situation as a rite of passage, an unavoidable bump on the road to maturity, and commiserates with guys who have had the LJBF talk.  Nowhere does Hannah receive any blame for what happened.  In Neven’s mind, this whole ordeal appears to be just a little adolescent misunderstanding, tee hee.

But this just demonstrates how deeply embedded secular dating values and feminism have become in the church.  On the one hand, we have a poor little beta male who can’t muster the courage to ask a girl out directly.  And on the other, we have a girl who leads on her interested male friend with nary a reprimand from her Christian father.  And people think that what churches need are a hip worship band and more social outreach projects.