I’ve followed this advice exactly for many years, and it lead me to a simple conclusion: These things that make me happy don’t connect in any way to relationship possibilities, and relationships will not make your life any happier. In short, dating is for chumps.
With the rate of obsessive angry men in the world, I’d be amazed at any woman brave enough to give a straight “No” instead of a nonspecific answer used to get themselves out of the situation.
People aren’t just dealing with ”No”, but “No, and the chances that you’re a rapist are high enough I’m now scared of you and won’t give you a straight answer”.
this meme is specifically promoting the notion that how attractive you look directly correlates to your ability to date people
There are behavioral studies showing this to be completely true. As someone who is honest about how I probably wouldn’t date an unattractive person, I freely admit this tracks; and, unlike incels, I absolutely don’t blame either gender for this fact. It’s just how our brains are wired.
Do you want a friend, or a relationship? That seems very unclear from your phrasing.
The least you can do for people is be honest. Even if it leads to mild rejection heartbreak, it’s dishonest and hurtful to falsely claim you just want a friendship. Some women are just trying to make friends so they have people to fall back on socially, and find out the only three people they hang out with planned to get into their pants at some point. That’s not good for anyone.
I definitely agree the attempt at directly correlating gym plans to dating is often mis-played. But, there’s solid advice out there about using basic fitness and exercise to combat depression and mood problems. Even if lifting iron won’t do a whole lot for you, occasionally going out for a walk or riding on a bike/kayak/etc will often improve your attitude. And yeah, in the end being less depressed is probably good for dating - just not good to form the direct expectation.
Like many, I have not seen any success, or really attention (to share my social skills) in dating apps. That step is wholly decided by physical attractiveness.
I’d be happy to throw away any attempt at using those sites, but unfortunately much of the dating world has moved to them; and the people in relationships I do know generally used them.
What we know of those sites suggests the only men receiving attention on them are in the top 10% in terms of appearance. I’ve also anecdotally heard from women who admit to using the environment more for attention seeking behavior than actual relationships. I certainly wouldn’t call myself “ugly” for being in the bottom 90 percentile. I am okay with my appearance - I just know I’m not a perfect Adonis. I’m even okay with that behavior from the opposite gender - you can’t help what you like. Even if one of my friends was a granite-chinned gigachad, I wouldn’t fault him for just refusing to work through such a toxic environment - even if he has trouble finding such relationships elsewhere.
This is a complex situation not faulted to any one gender. The net effect, though, is that it’s not a good idea for anyone to date unless you’re blinded towards the survivorship bias you see from those that make it through, or are unconventionally attractive.
I really would’ve thought the context of being in a conversation about how people gain relationships would’ve made clear I was asking about ‘what you’re seeking’ when you give this theoretical relationship advice, rather than suddenly attempting a lifelong connection via internet comments, but hey, whatever floats your ego (even if that’s clicking a ‘down’ button).
Sure, people that can completely ignore physical appearance exist; it’s a bit of a straw man to say any claim is about 100.00% of people. The point is that appearance matters to a majority of people - and that it’s often the first attractor that even leads to any further discovery. Romantic comedies tend to put “opposites” into quirky unexpected circumstances that lead to that discovery, but that won’t happen for a lot of people.
But as to your second and third paragraphs, you are completely correct - and it may have been a missed expectation thinking I was arguing against that. People should be happy on their own. It might just be me thinking that the meme is originally pointed towards people expressing that relationships are something everyone should seek, because it has nothing to do with attractiveness - and that is what I consider untrue. But yes, people can still choose to be “ugly” (by mild comparison) and happy. Nothing totally excuses toxic behavior from people’s rejection.
I wouldn’t claim recipients of rejection are “victims”, since being rejected is a perfectly normal interaction; but this is so close to victim blaming it’s not even funny.
I’m reminded of playing through Class of 09, and 60% of the endings resulting in people claiming “If everyone is ganging up on you, Nicole, then maybe you’re the one at fault?” Real smooth judicial logic there.
are you sure? (lemmy.world)