I think nerds fantasize about women being more like men psychologically in the sense of them being the ones who take initiative and risk loss of face in courtship.
You know when you generalize about “Women”, you are probably going to annoy most the females on here, who tend to be less gender-normative. (I’m not saying it’s “right”, I’m just saying it’s likely to happen.)
For example, there are those of us who are quite willing to take initiative. I expect you’ll find a higher percentage of females in rationalist communities v. general population fall into this camp, as they are more likely to examine research which has shown that when a female chases a male, she is more likely to end up with a higher quality mate.
The theory is that if she waits for guys to ask her, she is operating in “rejection mode”, where instead of going after exactly what she wants, she ends up with the lowest common denominator of a guy she’s dated that didn’t get rejected. (I don’t have time to find and back this up with a link to said research, but feel free to post it if you find it, or if you find research that shows the opposite).
It has certainly been my experience that if i just go after a guy I am interested in (ask him out, make the first moves, etc), I am more likely to end up with what I want, versus if I only date guys who chase me.
You know when you generalize about “Women”, you are probably going to annoy most the females on here, who tend to be less gender-normative. (I’m not saying it’s “right”, I’m just saying it’s likely to happen.)
I was generalizing about male nerds, specifically their fantasies and perceptions not women.
You were doing both. Male nerds is obvious, women is more implicit:
women being more like men [...] in the sense of [X]
clearly implies a belief that, generally, women are to some degree less X than men. It’s possible that you meant to attribute this belief to the male nerds as well as the desire in question, but this was not clear in the post. The generalization, as well, may be correct or not—it certainly corresponds to traditional western courtship ritual of the past century.
You were directly generalizing about males, but indirectly generalizing about females. By saying “Men wish women took more initiative.” (paraphrased) Then you are indirectly saying that women don’t take much initiative.
True? Probably....But I assume less so in the LW community, and us LW females are only too happy to point that out.
Likewise, if I said “Women wish men weren’t so messy”, then there is an indirect generalization in that statement that “Men are messy”.
I didn’t think I was generalizing women, rather the generalizations nerds (and by this I obviously meant male nerds) tend to believe.
Whether the generalization itself was accurate or not didn’t cross my mind since it seemed mostly immaterial to the subject at hand.
Likewise, if I said “Women wish men weren’t so messy”, then there is an indirect generalization in that statement that “Men are messy”.
I read that as implying “Women think men are messy”. I’m not a native speaker, perhaps to avoid such miscommunication I should rather stick to my regular, more verbose style, English writing style. So thanks for the feedback!
But since we are on the subject. Men are messy. Women are more passive in romance. At least it seems more likley than not.
True? Probably....But I assume less so in the LW community, and us LW females are only too happy to point that out.
Why? Perhaps women adopting on average a more passive strategy is a good thing in some way. In any case I don’t see why talking about specific populations needs to be followed by disclaimers that people on LW might not be like that … well duh, the site is pretty non-representative.
research which has shown that when a female chases a male, she is more likely to end up with a higher quality mate
Was it an observational study or a controlled trial? If the former, then correlation doesn’t obviously imply causation here. For example, the female’s decision to chase could depend on the quality of the male.
Was it an observational study or a controlled trial? If the former, then correlation doesn’t obviously imply causation here. For example, the female’s decision to chase could depend on the quality of the male.
And if the latter then I’m rather impressed with the open mindedness of the ethics committee!
The Gale-Shapley solution the the stable marriage problem shows that suitors get their best choice among stable pairings. It seems like a reasonable conclusion to draw that women who behave as suitors will get a “better” match than those who are passive.
For example, the female’s decision to chase could depend on the quality of the male.
I don’t remember any of the details, but the fact that “the female’s decision to chase” relies on the quality of the male was pretty much how the whole theory worked...
(I am going to quantify/rank people’s matability, so that I can make my point quickly. But I do not necessarily think you should do this to actual people, IRL.)
Say Sue is a 6. She will probably be “chased” by 4s and 5s. If she doesn’t pursue men herself, then she will date these guys until she finds one that is good enough to not break up with, and end up marrying him.
IF however, she is willing to do the chasing, she will probably chase 7s and 8s (she has 4s and 5s knocking at her door. There is no reason to “chase” them.) Men have had less practice and experience being chased, and are therefore less likely to turn a female down.
Another way of thinking of it (for guys)- There might be girls that you wouldn’t bother to pursue, but if she pursued you, you would probably date her.
Say Sue is a 6. She will probably be “chased” by 4s and 5s. If she doesn’t pursue men herself, then she will date these guys until she finds one that is good enough to not break up with, and end up marrying him.
She will probably also get persued by 6s, 7s and lazy 8s—just not for long term relationships.
Another way of thinking of it (for guys)- There might be girls that you wouldn’t bother to pursue, but if she pursued you, you would probably date her.
Imagine a hypothetical world where every female has an equal chance of deciding to chase if the stars align just right: the man is above her rank+1, there’s a convenient opening, the circumstances are such that society won’t frown on her chasing, etc. In that world, the females who ended up chasing would have better mates, but that would depend only on random circumstances and not on the female’s inner dispositions.
I’m not saying that world is our world, just that an observational study doesn’t provide an obvious way to distinguish that world from ours. Adopting the habits of successful people can sometimes help, but only if those habits are among the causes of success, not just correlated with it.
You know when you generalize about “Women”, you are probably going to annoy most the females on here, who tend to be less gender-normative.
Less gender-normative being key. We’re not complaining about the statistical outliers, as nice as you are, because most people aren’t lucky enough to find many of them.
You know when you generalize about “Women”, you are probably going to annoy most the females on here, who tend to be less gender-normative. (I’m not saying it’s “right”, I’m just saying it’s likely to happen.)
For example, there are those of us who are quite willing to take initiative. I expect you’ll find a higher percentage of females in rationalist communities v. general population fall into this camp, as they are more likely to examine research which has shown that when a female chases a male, she is more likely to end up with a higher quality mate.
The theory is that if she waits for guys to ask her, she is operating in “rejection mode”, where instead of going after exactly what she wants, she ends up with the lowest common denominator of a guy she’s dated that didn’t get rejected. (I don’t have time to find and back this up with a link to said research, but feel free to post it if you find it, or if you find research that shows the opposite).
It has certainly been my experience that if i just go after a guy I am interested in (ask him out, make the first moves, etc), I am more likely to end up with what I want, versus if I only date guys who chase me.
I was generalizing about male nerds, specifically their fantasies and perceptions not women.
You were doing both. Male nerds is obvious, women is more implicit:
clearly implies a belief that, generally, women are to some degree less X than men. It’s possible that you meant to attribute this belief to the male nerds as well as the desire in question, but this was not clear in the post. The generalization, as well, may be correct or not—it certainly corresponds to traditional western courtship ritual of the past century.
This.
My mistake then. Thanks to daenerys for pointing it out! :)
You were directly generalizing about males, but indirectly generalizing about females. By saying “Men wish women took more initiative.” (paraphrased) Then you are indirectly saying that women don’t take much initiative.
True? Probably....But I assume less so in the LW community, and us LW females are only too happy to point that out.
Likewise, if I said “Women wish men weren’t so messy”, then there is an indirect generalization in that statement that “Men are messy”.
I didn’t think I was generalizing women, rather the generalizations nerds (and by this I obviously meant male nerds) tend to believe.
Whether the generalization itself was accurate or not didn’t cross my mind since it seemed mostly immaterial to the subject at hand.
I read that as implying “Women think men are messy”. I’m not a native speaker, perhaps to avoid such miscommunication I should rather stick to my regular, more verbose style, English writing style. So thanks for the feedback!
But since we are on the subject. Men are messy. Women are more passive in romance. At least it seems more likley than not.
Why? Perhaps women adopting on average a more passive strategy is a good thing in some way. In any case I don’t see why talking about specific populations needs to be followed by disclaimers that people on LW might not be like that … well duh, the site is pretty non-representative.
Sorry for dragging down our average, guys!
Shun the group norm violator, he makes us look bad in front of others. Shun! Shun!
Was it an observational study or a controlled trial? If the former, then correlation doesn’t obviously imply causation here. For example, the female’s decision to chase could depend on the quality of the male.
And if the latter then I’m rather impressed with the open mindedness of the ethics committee!
The Gale-Shapley solution the the stable marriage problem shows that suitors get their best choice among stable pairings. It seems like a reasonable conclusion to draw that women who behave as suitors will get a “better” match than those who are passive.
I don’t remember any of the details, but the fact that “the female’s decision to chase” relies on the quality of the male was pretty much how the whole theory worked...
(I am going to quantify/rank people’s matability, so that I can make my point quickly. But I do not necessarily think you should do this to actual people, IRL.)
Say Sue is a 6. She will probably be “chased” by 4s and 5s. If she doesn’t pursue men herself, then she will date these guys until she finds one that is good enough to not break up with, and end up marrying him.
IF however, she is willing to do the chasing, she will probably chase 7s and 8s (she has 4s and 5s knocking at her door. There is no reason to “chase” them.) Men have had less practice and experience being chased, and are therefore less likely to turn a female down.
Another way of thinking of it (for guys)- There might be girls that you wouldn’t bother to pursue, but if she pursued you, you would probably date her.
She will probably also get persued by 6s, 7s and lazy 8s—just not for long term relationships.
This is definitely true.
Imagine a hypothetical world where every female has an equal chance of deciding to chase if the stars align just right: the man is above her rank+1, there’s a convenient opening, the circumstances are such that society won’t frown on her chasing, etc. In that world, the females who ended up chasing would have better mates, but that would depend only on random circumstances and not on the female’s inner dispositions.
I’m not saying that world is our world, just that an observational study doesn’t provide an obvious way to distinguish that world from ours. Adopting the habits of successful people can sometimes help, but only if those habits are among the causes of success, not just correlated with it.
Less gender-normative being key. We’re not complaining about the statistical outliers, as nice as you are, because most people aren’t lucky enough to find many of them.