My theory is that the women in this case are committing a Typical Psyche Fallacy. The women I ask about this are not even remotely close to being a representative sample of all women. They’re the kind of women whom a shy and somewhat geeky guy knows and talks about psychology with. Likewise, the type of women who publish strong opinions about this on the Internet aren’t close to a representative sample. They’re well-educated women who have strong opinions about gender issues and post about them on blogs.
What statistical evidence do you have for this claim? It seems to me that this is a True Scotsman fallacy: either women behave the way the men in question ascribe to them, or they are “educated and opinionated” and thus don’t count.
There are valid reasons why the discussion between “jerks” and “nice guys” turns the way it usually does. For example, both camps tend to see womens as goals to be conquered, like, I don’t know, video game NPCs who respond to certain key phrases—as opposed to complex people like themselves. These so called “nice guys”, as opposed to genuinely nice guys, think that if they treat a woman nicely, she’s somehow obligated to fall in love with him. Reality, alas, does not work that way.
This explains the poor luck of “nice guys,” but if Yvain knows the acquaintances in question to be actual nice guys, then it resolves nothing.
When people think about “Nice guys who can’t get a date,” they tend to recall self proclaimed nice guys publicly railing against the unfairness, rather than thinking of all the legitimately nice people they know, and thinking if they’ve ever known them to go on dates. This doesn’t mean that “nice guys” actually outnumber genuinely nice dateless guys.
Privileging “women secretly want jerks” as a hypothesis seems rather absurd given the evidence presented.
“Yvain says he has nice but dateless friends” is incredibly easy to explain without assuming “women only date jerks”. For one, it’s entirely possible that Yvain isn’t a very good judge of character here, or is falling victim to the “Halo effect” (they are, after all, his friends).
Amongst other things, I get the impression that he’s male, and I’d wager none of these nice friends has attempted to start a relationship with him, so he presumably doesn’t have a ton of direct experience with their methods, with the experiences of a female dealing with relationships, etc..
(Obvious disclaimer: I don’t know Yvain, or his friends. It’s entirely possible they’re genuinely nice! :))
What statistical evidence do you have for this claim? It seems to me that this is a True Scotsman fallacy: either women behave the way the men in question ascribe to them, or they are “educated and opinionated” and thus don’t count.
There are valid reasons why the discussion between “jerks” and “nice guys” turns the way it usually does. For example, both camps tend to see womens as goals to be conquered, like, I don’t know, video game NPCs who respond to certain key phrases—as opposed to complex people like themselves. These so called “nice guys”, as opposed to genuinely nice guys, think that if they treat a woman nicely, she’s somehow obligated to fall in love with him. Reality, alas, does not work that way.
This explains the poor luck of “nice guys,” but if Yvain knows the acquaintances in question to be actual nice guys, then it resolves nothing.
When people think about “Nice guys who can’t get a date,” they tend to recall self proclaimed nice guys publicly railing against the unfairness, rather than thinking of all the legitimately nice people they know, and thinking if they’ve ever known them to go on dates. This doesn’t mean that “nice guys” actually outnumber genuinely nice dateless guys.
Privileging “women secretly want jerks” as a hypothesis seems rather absurd given the evidence presented.
“Yvain says he has nice but dateless friends” is incredibly easy to explain without assuming “women only date jerks”. For one, it’s entirely possible that Yvain isn’t a very good judge of character here, or is falling victim to the “Halo effect” (they are, after all, his friends).
Amongst other things, I get the impression that he’s male, and I’d wager none of these nice friends has attempted to start a relationship with him, so he presumably doesn’t have a ton of direct experience with their methods, with the experiences of a female dealing with relationships, etc..
(Obvious disclaimer: I don’t know Yvain, or his friends. It’s entirely possible they’re genuinely nice! :))
The delicious irony of Yvain (alias Scott) possibly committing a True Scotsman fallacy...