[Industrialblog,
May 24, 2005]
Be careful out there
Okay, so back into the dating pool, my initial thoughts: The reason many women are bitter, angry and lonely is that they have dated, and in many cases married and reproduced with, idiots. Men who do drugs any stronger than marijuana past the age of 22 or so, men who are marginally employed or chronically unemployed, men who lie to you, cheat on you and steal from you — these kinds of guys do not make good relationship partners.
Part of the problem: Women are attracted to self-confidence. Men who are sure of themselves help women feel secure and make them all gooey inside. But guess what? Assholes are every bit as sure of themselves as mature men, and in most cases, more so. It's a big part of what makes them assholes. It's important to be able to tell the difference between the groups.
How do you tell the difference, ladies? The same way men do when sizing up each other: Look for what justifies the confidence. What is the root of real confidence and maturity? Three things.
First, mastery. If a man is confident in something, then he should have attained a commensurate degree of mastery. The gap between the level of confidence and the level of mastery may be called the "achievement gap".
Second, degree of difficulty. Obviously, excessive pride in doing something easy is a little silly.
Third, honor. It's not enough to achieve mastery, after all in these days of Sith lords we all know you can achieve mastery of evil. But it's dishonorable. A man has achieved mastery in something that is honorable.
Similar to these lines is another factor: manners. Even if you're very good at something difficult, if you make others feel small, you lose credit. In almost all cases, there is someone better than you — a lot better than you — at something. Confident people recognize that. There's nothing wrong with real pride in real achievement. But you really aren't suppose to rub other people's face in it. It ignores our common humanity, and the fact that all of us are fellow travelers to the grave, and that time and circumstance happen to us all.
That's the top part of the equation. On the bottom are more mitigating factors: Leeway is granted for the following.
* Age. Is the person old enough to know better or not?
* Sample size. Is this person having a bad day, an awkward moment, and/or doesn't articulate himself well, or have we seen enough behavior of this person to know this is an accurate depiction of the person.
* Ego necessity. Mastery doesn't always precede confidence, in most people confidence precedes mastery ... a little. This is often called "stepping up" and is a good thing, as long as we see growth evidence (not just potential, evidence that the potential is being fulfilled). Growth sometimes requires your ego to get ahead of your achievement. It can be a good thing. But you need to see evidence of growth.
* Situational reasons.This might be called inspiration. But sometimes we need to call on deeper resources within us, be braver than we really are, or fight fear with a false and unjustified confidence in order to survive and get through a difficult situation. It's not blind faith, but it's something close to it, and it's a close cousin to ego necessity.
So our equation is:
Justified confidence = Mastery times degree of difficulty, plus or minus honor, plus or minus manners, divided by the sum of age, sample size, ego necessity divided by growth, and situational reasons.
JC = {[(Ms * DD) +- H] +- Ma} / [A + SS + (EN/GE) + S]
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to come up with individual scales for each variable.
Now, how do women who date assholes go wrong?
My guess is this: First, they fail to look enough for evidence. They fail to account properly for honor. And they mitigate too much. They give credit for ego necessity and situation where none is warranted. You need to see more than potential. Everyone has potential. You need to see actual growth movement to get credit for ego necessity. They explain away situations too much.
Let's give an example. Some men project confidence, both in person and in their voice. They are used to approaching women who are strangers and can get them talking easily. They can do so with a sense of authority and mastery. Is this person an asshole?
You don't know. This is important. You have no idea except the man has mastered the art of approaching women. A woman may think, "ah, now this is a man in charge of his life, who knows what he wants and goes out and gets it. This is a guy for me." Is this a good relationship partner long term?
Maybe, but maybe not. Because think about it. Look for the source of mastery. Is this because the man has mastered the art of talking to people and projects a real confidence in himself? Or is this because he's in his comfort zone when picking up women, a comfort zone that comes from years of experience?
There's more to this than this, but I better stop here. Do I know what I'm talking about?
Part of the problem: Women are attracted to self-confidence. Men who are sure of themselves help women feel secure and make them all gooey inside. But guess what? Assholes are every bit as sure of themselves as mature men, and in most cases, more so. It's a big part of what makes them assholes. It's important to be able to tell the difference between the groups.
How do you tell the difference, ladies? The same way men do when sizing up each other: Look for what justifies the confidence. What is the root of real confidence and maturity? Three things.
First, mastery. If a man is confident in something, then he should have attained a commensurate degree of mastery. The gap between the level of confidence and the level of mastery may be called the "achievement gap".
Second, degree of difficulty. Obviously, excessive pride in doing something easy is a little silly.
Third, honor. It's not enough to achieve mastery, after all in these days of Sith lords we all know you can achieve mastery of evil. But it's dishonorable. A man has achieved mastery in something that is honorable.
Similar to these lines is another factor: manners. Even if you're very good at something difficult, if you make others feel small, you lose credit. In almost all cases, there is someone better than you — a lot better than you — at something. Confident people recognize that. There's nothing wrong with real pride in real achievement. But you really aren't suppose to rub other people's face in it. It ignores our common humanity, and the fact that all of us are fellow travelers to the grave, and that time and circumstance happen to us all.
That's the top part of the equation. On the bottom are more mitigating factors: Leeway is granted for the following.
* Age. Is the person old enough to know better or not?
* Sample size. Is this person having a bad day, an awkward moment, and/or doesn't articulate himself well, or have we seen enough behavior of this person to know this is an accurate depiction of the person.
* Ego necessity. Mastery doesn't always precede confidence, in most people confidence precedes mastery ... a little. This is often called "stepping up" and is a good thing, as long as we see growth evidence (not just potential, evidence that the potential is being fulfilled). Growth sometimes requires your ego to get ahead of your achievement. It can be a good thing. But you need to see evidence of growth.
* Situational reasons.This might be called inspiration. But sometimes we need to call on deeper resources within us, be braver than we really are, or fight fear with a false and unjustified confidence in order to survive and get through a difficult situation. It's not blind faith, but it's something close to it, and it's a close cousin to ego necessity.
So our equation is:
Justified confidence = Mastery times degree of difficulty, plus or minus honor, plus or minus manners, divided by the sum of age, sample size, ego necessity divided by growth, and situational reasons.
JC = {[(Ms * DD) +- H] +- Ma} / [A + SS + (EN/GE) + S]
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to come up with individual scales for each variable.
Now, how do women who date assholes go wrong?
My guess is this: First, they fail to look enough for evidence. They fail to account properly for honor. And they mitigate too much. They give credit for ego necessity and situation where none is warranted. You need to see more than potential. Everyone has potential. You need to see actual growth movement to get credit for ego necessity. They explain away situations too much.
Let's give an example. Some men project confidence, both in person and in their voice. They are used to approaching women who are strangers and can get them talking easily. They can do so with a sense of authority and mastery. Is this person an asshole?
You don't know. This is important. You have no idea except the man has mastered the art of approaching women. A woman may think, "ah, now this is a man in charge of his life, who knows what he wants and goes out and gets it. This is a guy for me." Is this a good relationship partner long term?
Maybe, but maybe not. Because think about it. Look for the source of mastery. Is this because the man has mastered the art of talking to people and projects a real confidence in himself? Or is this because he's in his comfort zone when picking up women, a comfort zone that comes from years of experience?
There's more to this than this, but I better stop here. Do I know what I'm talking about?
That and DENIAL
I'm sure there's probably some evolutionary rationalization of why we do it.
Plus, frankly, you don't know what most people will do until you test them, and young people are not often very tested.
And, don't forget, that someone liking you is quite an aphrodesiac. Particularly popular people are somewhat less affected by this, I think, but by and large having someone profess attraction to you is quite intoxicating, and people will do nearly anything when intoxicated.
They're also more likely to be eaten or killed, and a dead provider will only provide daisies, and only then if you plant them on his grave.
As I forget who once said: for every problem there is an answer which is complete, simple, and wrong. A general rule: any time someone says, "The evolutionary reason is simple." you know that they're wrong. Biology is way to friggen complex for anything to be simple :)