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.

Singles’ Top 5 Relationship Temptations (according to Perry Noble).

A friend Facebooked a blog post by Perry Noble, pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina, discussing what he thinks are the top five temptations singles face when considering a relationship.  Here’s what he had to say:

#1 – Compromise! Hands down this is the first temptation…and I would argue that it is the girl that deals with this way more than the guy.  She begins wanting “Mr. Right” but will settle for “Mr. Right Now” if she perceives that all of her friends are getting married and she is not.  God has NEVER called His followers to compromise…EVER!!!  (And…ladies…if you are constantly having the defend the guy you are dating, then you know you are compromising.)

AND…ladies…if he is not pursuing you in a godly manner (which means he is not constantly trying to stick his hands down your pants) then drop him!

Yes, the abuse of exclamation points and ellipses is tedious, but if you can get past that, what we have is a grade-A example of the type of dating advice that leaves Christian singles single well into their 30s.  While there are plenty of marriage-obsessed young women out there who jump at the mere hint of any halfway decent man’s attention, this NEVER COMPROMISE advice is why there are numerous 30-year-old Christian girls who have never had a boyfriend.  I also think this type of advice plays into the pedestalization of women that the church is so (in)famous for – if you’re a female 4 who loves the Lord, waiting for your heroic Christian male 8 to wake up and realize you’re the one for him is just not going to work out well for you.

Re: men who are “constantly trying to stick his hand down your pants” – the most church alpha way of dealing with a woman regarding sexual desire is to acknowledge it openly and then draw a line in the sand and stick with it.  Constant pushing of limits can get you branded a pig who is just looking for a warm body.  Primly abstaining out of “respect” or pretending you don’t struggle with temptation will just make her angry.

#2 – Believing That Marriage Will Solve The Struggles You Are Facing While Dating! Marriage is a magnifier…and if it is a small deal when you are dating then I promise it will be a BIG HONKIN’ deal when you tie the knot!

Can’t argue much with this.

#3 – Going Too Fast! Anyone can fool anyone for a short period of time!  You need to date someone “until the new wears off!”  If two people are in a hurry to get married then it is usually because they are trying to hide something from the other person…or because they just want to have sex!

I don’t think that short courtships are a problem per se.  The problem is infatuation clouding good judgment.  Basically, if the only thing you like about the other person is making out with him or her, then you probably shouldn’t rush into marriage.  But if you have values in common and enjoy doing things together other than sucking face, then I don’t see how dating for 2 years versus 9 months is really going to make a substantial difference in the success of your marriage, especially when you’re out of college.

#4 – Trying To Be The Person That The Person They Are Dating Wants Them To Be Rather Than Who They Are – If you are having to lie about who you are to date someone…then you need to break up today!  Ladies…DO NOT SAY you love football and want to go to games with him if you don’t know the difference between the offense and the defense.  Dudes, DO NOT SAY you absolutely LOVE chic flics and want to watch them for hours if doing so drives you crazy!  If you are doing things you HATE to do…but have refused to be honest and tell the other person the truth…then you are being dishonest with them.

There’s a difference between being honest and being an intolerant stick in the mud.  If you don’t like football but your loved one does, be honest about it but be willing to participate without whining the whole time about your sacrifice.  Also, it’s okay not to do every single thing together as a couple.  Just because he doesn’t want to do something with you doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you.

#5 – Seeking Advice And/OR Affirmation From The Wrong People! Single people…please, if you want marriage/dating advice…then go to people who are actually married and have been so for a long time!  Why in the world would you ask a single person for marriage advice?  Why would you ask someone who has literally blown through relationship after relationship how to have a relationship?  Because they read a book?  Because they know some Bible verses?  REALLY?  If you want to know how to have a successful relationship…ask those who have one.

This is TERRIBLE advice.  By the same logic, you should not listen to teenage moms preach abstinence or alcoholics preach sobriety.  Truth is truth no matter whom it comes from.  It may taste better coming from someone who’s walking the walk, but marriage advice from married people isn’t necessarily going to be better than from an unmarried person.

Spectacular church alpha DLV.

This just in:  even a natural alpha is not immune to crippling DLV.

On Sunday two of my friends and I attended our church’s monthly after-service luncheon.  I think the luncheons are intended to be “a time of fellowship,” which generally means that people who already know each other table up together and share gossip what’s going on in their lives.  In other words, if you’re single, you’ve got about a 20% change of meeting the person who will one day become your spouse.

On this particular occasion, however, my friends and I had the good fortune of coming into contact with Wilhelmina, one of the church’s dowagers, who had zoned in on two male visitors and invited us to join them at their table so they would “feel welcome.”  Ha.  (Of course, now being schooled in Game, I took it as an indirect compliment that my looks are still viable.  Well, either that, or it was a pity invite, but my hamster will not allow that line of thought to dominate.)

The two male visitors were Vlad and Pushka, whom I immediately recognized as the two guys who had sat behind me and my friends in the service and talked the whole time in another language.  It turned out that they were Armenian Persians who were doing some church cruising.  Vlad was fat, dark-haired, and had a unibrow that would make Bert from Sesame Street envious.  He seemed nice but was not super-talkative, probably because his English was so-so.  Pushka, on the other hand, was the most alpha single guy I’d come across at a church in a long time.  He had a shock of unruly thick, red hair and the physique of a guy who enjoys weights, and he was very sociable.  Even better, he had an interesting backstory that added to the contrast of his being able to claim Iranian citizenship while sporting very red hair.  Before moving to the U.S., he spent ten years living in Spain – which allowed him to speak Spanish with my Spanish-speaking friends.  Nice move!

I was starting to think that this guy had incredible, natural game – he even had the presence of mind to act surprised and insist we looked much younger when he found out how old we were – when he mentioned his Canadian “almost-fiancee.”  When my friends pressed, he said that he wanted to propose to her soon, and that he had met her online through video games.

I’m pretty sure you could hear the crash of a boulder falling from a 70-story building when he dropped that knowledge.

While online dating has grown in acceptability, in church circles that’s more or less limited to eHarmony.  Among Christians, I’ve never heard of a couple being matched through any other service.  In addition, video games are pretty much the fastest way for a man to kill any desirability he may possess.  Even though gaming is a huge industry, video gamers – at least white, male gamers – are consistently considered bottom-of-the-barrel mate material.  And guys who use online gaming to meet chicks?  That they want to marry?? Forget it.

Here’s a clip from How I Met Your Mother that nicely sums up people’s feelings about those who gets their dates this way:

Pushka said that he and Vlad would come back to our church next week.  I wish him all the best.  And I hope he doesn’t talk as much during the service.

Try-hard: dog-walker edition.

I’m dog/house-sitting this weekend and took the pooches out for a morning stroll before I have to rush off to church, and before it gets too hot for the big, old dog.

On my way down the hill, another dog-walker passed me at a run.  He looked like he was in his mid-40s, clean-cut hair, physique of one desperately fighting the middle-aged spread.  Not too exceptional – except for the fact that he was running (a) shirtless, and (b) had “Mi familia, Mi vida” tattooed across his back between his shoulders in gothic lettering.

Game aficionados might be saying, “Ooh!  Contrast game!”  After all, it’s not common for middle-aged wealthy white guys to have thug-lite, Spanish tattoos on their backs.  And obviously he must have been very confident to run shirtless, right?

This didn’t strike me as contrast game, though…it struck me as “very misguided try-hard game.”  There will always be an exception to the rule, but for the most part, rich white guys, especially when they’re older, need to be very careful about adopting, er, cultural markers not their own.  It’s too easy to cross the line from “pleasant, intriguing surprise” to “unfortunate SWPL poser” where the woman’s brain is going, “Okay, dude…REALLY?”

Now, I don’t know this guy and have never seen him before.  Maybe he has a colorful, unpredictable past, and the tattoo is a vestige of that life.  Maybe the words have real, deep meaning to him.  But given his looks, his general demeanor, where he was running, and the type of dog he had, I’m thinking that he had a SWPL-y impulse to do something “rad” – so rad it would be permanent, because it was rad and meaningful – and the tattoo is the end result.

I think the reason tattoos on wealthy white guys are so off-putting is because of what they say.  They don’t say that the man has a dangerous, exciting edge; they say that the man leads such an innoculated life that a tattoo is his most dangerous means of feeling blood.  That’s not what women respond to.  Also, tacky tattoos are pretty ubiquitous these days.  (Of course, in Los Angeles, it is completely plausible that such a man could also be a druggie alcoholic with ten mistresses and escorts on speed dial.  But I’m speaking more generally.)

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….)

GirlTip: learn to walk in dress shoes.

This is apropos of a situation I’ve been dealing with on an ongoing basis for quite a while.

Women, please learn to walk in dress shoes.

There is little that signifies an off-putting lack of femininity more than a woman’s clomping around in dress shoes, each step a thunderous thud that shakes the earth as her body bobs up and down, pitched forward at the waist to keep balance.  When a woman walks in heels (and, for that matter, in general), she should not bring to mind a hiker with an imaginary backpack trudging up a trail, or a floppy rag doll filled with sand.

Whether the heel is one or four inches, the back should be straight, the shoulders back, and the steps light.  The neck through the waist should be as one, sustained in the core, never breaking, like a pillar balanced over the hips.  Arms should swing naturally at the side.  Movement from Point A to Point B should resemble a smoothly flowing stream, not a piston chugging in a factory.

An awkward, galumphing walk can undo all of the good of:

• a pretty dress
• a manicure
• perfectly styled hair
• pristine makeup
• a good personality

Okay, maybe not all of the good, but it will severely weaken the effect of all of the above, assuming you have any of those to begin with.  (If you have none or few of the above, you will ensure with a poor walk that no men will approach you with any romantic interest, and you will also damage your standing in a career setting.  No one will send someone who walks like Sasquatch to charm the clients.)

If you have a bad walk, practice until you have a better one.  YouTube has a bunch of tutorials on how to walk in heels.  I would also suggest trying ballet, yoga, or pilates:  these will help you develop the kind of carriage that is more conducive to walking in heels.

Virtue alone is not enough.

One of the dirty little secrets that no one tells you growing up in church is that virtue alone is not enough to attract a mate.  Keeping your pants on, never telling lies, and praying and reading the Bible are all fine and good and important, but if this is all you bring to the table, it’s going to be very difficult to interest someone.  This is because nobody wants to be with someone who is bland.

But – you sputter – how can virtue be bland?  It’s VIRTUE.  It’s what we should aspire to!  God calls us to be virtuous!

Yes, but…how can I put it?  A perfectly serviceable couch is more appealing to a buyer if it’s presented in a showroom that complements and enhances it, as opposed to, say, sitting on the side of the street.  In other words, in the moments when you’re not telling lies and not having sex and not reading the Bible or praying, you still need to be interesting and socially adept.  A man who refuses to tell lies and can also tell interesting stories and play the guitar is going to be more interesting and attractive than a man who refuses to tell lies and rarely engages with other people and has no particular interests.

Additionally, I think there is also a tendency for the bland virtuous to start becoming resentful of others for not being attracted to virtue.  This undoes all of the good of being virtuous in the first place…and suggests that maybe you’re not as virtuous as you think you are, if you’re going to get all bent out of shape at others for not prizing your virtue.

In short:  if the main good character trait you can use to describe yourself is “I’m a virgin!” (or “at least I don’t do X and Y like everybody else”), you’re probably not going to get too far with the opposite sex.

Eat lots of pasta, Pray…sort of, Love yourself more than anyone else in the world.

On Sunday night two of my friends wanted to see Eat Pray Love, the new Julia Roberts movie based on the memoir of the same name by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Having glanced through the book at Borders a while back and therefore knowing what the movie would be about, plus not being a terribly big Julia fan, I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing it.  However, I played the good sport and went with them.

Here is a good logline for the film:

After divorcing her husband because he doesn’t fulfill all of her wildest dreams and make her feel “alive” every minute of the day, a selfish, self-centered woman embarks on a fling with a younger actor and when he doesn’t fulfill all of her wildest dreams either, she takes a year to stuff her face with pasta in Italy for four months, then try to meditate in India for four months, then study with a guru in Bali, where she meets a swarthy Brazilian divorcé and falls in love and doesn’t spend all that much time with the guru anymore because she’s too busy having sex.

From a production standpoint, the film is very nice to look at.  The locations are real and lovingly photographed.  The movie also contains a lot of witty one-liners, thanks to co-writer/director Ryan Murphy, the creator of Glee and Nip/Tuck.  And props to the cinematographer, hair, makeup, and wardrobe peeps for keeping Julia Roberts perfectly groomed and dressed throughout.  Sure, she looked way too glamorous to be believable in the settings her character was in, but that’s Hollywood for ya.  (Even more Hollywood for ya:  the amusing casting of the men in the movie.  The guy who played the supposed schlub loser husband:  Billy Crudup.  The guy who played the young, hot, loser actor:  James Franco.  So who do they get to play Liz’s one true love, since clearly we’re not supposed to believe either of Crudup or Franco is man enough for Liz?  Javier Bardem, one of the few actors today who can portray dangerous masculinity.)

For all the beauty of the movie, though, and all of the exhortations for us to believe that we’re watching Liz’s journey of awakening and self-discovery blah blah blah, I didn’t feel that the film was ever able to convince us (or at least me) that Liz did the right thing in ditching her husband and traveling around the world in search of ~feelings.  There is a brief scene in the movie where Liz and her lawyer meet with Crudup’s character.  He has decided to represent himself, because he believes that Liz is going through a phase and that she’ll eventually come to her senses and come back to him.  Liz tells him they are incompatible.  (Later in the movie she tells others that they got married too young and grew apart…which could possibly be believable, except that Julia Roberts is 42 and the characters were married for only 8 years.)  Crudup doesn’t believe it.  He loves her.  They took vows for life.  Exasperated that he’s not just rolling over and taking it, Liz tells him that he needs to choose a direction for his life.  Apparently he killed all the tingles by dabbling too much and not committing to a life path that made buko bucks.  Crudup cries, with all of the pain of a man whose love has been rejected, “YOU!  I choose YOU!”  To which Liz has nothing to say, because she knows she is doing a monstrous thing and wants desperately not to feel guilty about it.

That’s really what the movie boils down to:  Liz’s journey to find people to entertain her so she won’t have to do any work in a relationship.  She makes friends in Italy, but their relationships seem to be about constant eating and entertainment.  In India she is very bad at meditating, yet she finds a cantankerous (sexually unattractive) older man to hang around with who negs her all the time.  In Bali she is supposed to study with a guru, but then she meets a Brazilian who won’t leave her alone.  I think we’re supposed to believe that he opens her up to love again, but it just comes off as her finding someone who makes her feel a certain way and whom she doesn’t have to do anything for in return.  The really strange thing about this movie is that I thought the men were written and portrayed with deep, real honesty, while Liz was the selfish delusionoid.

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.