Young Men Can Be So Clueless
Thanks to a comment regarding a post over at Hooking Up Smart (Player or Beta?), I came across the one of the funniest Reddit threads I have ever read. It’s here.
Expand all the comments. Put a plastic bag over your keyboard and then read the stories and comments.
While men might complain mightily that women are way too subtle with their signals, men are sometimes so utterly clueless that it’s comical. This goes doubly for young men.
Here’s a sample (and there are so many others, it took just a minute or two to find this example):
In high school, this chick I was sorta into was in my last class of the day, which happened to be biology. Anyhow, at the time I was 17, had a car, had a job, and I lived on my own in a small 1 bedroom apartment.
Anyhow, she approached me after class one day and asked if she could get a ride home with me. I said yes, of course, not being much bothered by it. As we left, she said “I’m bored, wanna swing by your place first?”, so we went to my place.
Long story short, we basically did not much of anything other than play some video games at my place. Once we got to her place, she invited me in, and we both sat and chatted on her bed for awhile. Then almost out of the blue (stronger hints apparently have no effect on me either), she said “I need to take a shower.” and just started stripping naked.
Not knowing what to do, and always being the gentleman, I said “well, I don’t want to disturb you, so I should probably be going. See you tomorrow in class.” and walked out the door. By this point I had already seen titties and vag (she stripped down pretty fast)…
I was so oblivious it makes me sad.
This is the generation of NiceGuys. Guys who’s mothers said “Be nice, be yourself”. This is the generation of men completely and utterly emasculated. This is the generation of men told that masculine sexuality is evil and must be so completely stifled as to create sexless eunuchs. It is the generation of men told that women have no sex drives and are pure and virtuous creatures…even though women practically threw themselves at young men.
I have stories like this myself.
We all do.
The Private Man 
yeah. sad to say, but guily as charged. i was lucky enough to have a best friend that was a genuine swordsman and took the virginity of almost half my junior high. when a girl that was trying to hook up with me (my best friend ahd already nailed her) make a suggestion i come over to her house, i obliged, but didn’t escalate. my boy found out i didn’t hit it because i didn’t know what to do (we made out, that was all) and he told me, “dude, just pull your d**k out, that’s all. either she’ll tell you to leave, or she’s gonna put out.” i didn’t believe it, until i tried it.
my life did a 180 after that.
D504, you never disappoint with your posts.
I had a moment happen that screwed my perceptions up for years afterwards, putting me a ways back.
I had this girl I was hanging out with one day all day. Good start, right? So we take a trip to this romantic waterfall at night. Again, AT NIGHT. Full moon yet still dark with sounds of water rushing all around us, we went out into the middle of the creek/pond and laid on this big black rock together. So, at a romantic waterfall at night, laying together while looking up at the stars and moon. It doesn’t get any clearer than that right? So, I leaned over and made my move and she pulls back not once but twice and is like, “What’s on your mind. I think you may have the wrong idea.” It screwed me up so bad, a couple of years later, another chick was laying in my bed with very little clothing on and I was like,”I wonder if she’s into it.” I got over it, but wow that was a curveball.
This is the first of two replies, and it it is about being clueless or not.
The “swordsman” of the earlier comment most likely was not more clued as to the signals girls give. As his «dude, just pull your d**k out, that’s all. either she’ll tell you to leave, or she’s gonna put out.» advice shows, like all high-count men his technique is simply to make a move on all girls that are remotely plausible prospects (“assume the sale”) and just coolly handle rejection.
It is not that high-count men are more emphatic or can read the minds of girls so they know who will put out; they just gracefully try a move with just about every girl they can, and they are fairly successful because girls want sex, and men who are forward (“assume the sale”) often turn them on because they look confident (“he takes what he wants”).
So perhaps high count men are not especially clued in the particular situation but only have the general clue that most all girls are horny at some time or another and making a move usually does not get them prosecuted for sexual assault but may get them laid or at worst rejected without consequences.
Shit me, even before I found Game I would have taken that as a hint. Probably why I accepted the teachings so well, it’s merely internalizing and making conscious what I already know at an instinctual level
Ah, the obliviousness of youth!
At least he learned now. “if see a little bit if vag, don’t pack your bags.”
«Then almost out of the blue (stronger hints apparently have no effect on me either), she said “I need to take a shower.” and just started stripping naked.
Not knowing what to do, and always being the gentleman, I said “well, I don’t want to disturb you, so I should probably be going. See you tomorrow in class.” and walked out the door. By this point I had already seen titties and vag (she stripped down pretty fast)…»
There is the chance that the reporter of this espisode indeed acted as he did purely because «always being the gentleman» he was indeed clueless, but I don’t believe that entirely, because it might have been in part self preservation.
Because I have been in the same situation many times in the distant past as I was a natural alpha (and when younger I was also apparently very handsome), and while being fully aware that she was putting a move on me, and that a “gentleman”should not disappoint :-), I was not happy with it.
Because I examined my instinctive reaction and I found it right, and it was that either I was an extra in some fantasy crush of hers, and the sex was offered as a bribe to get me to perform in her fantasy, or that she thought that I could be the enabler of some neurotic fix she craved, and the sex was the payment for the fix, or she just needed a flesh dildo and she though I could give her a mechanical ride. Basically she was trying to corrupt me and to wound my sense of self, and to get me to willingly agree to that.
The key to that is indeed in the example above: she had done nothing for “clueless boy”, to establish a personal (instead of functional) connection to treat him as a person, to show him he was appreciated and welcome. Had she made him even just a sandwich, even just asked him personal questions, things may have been different.
So I looked around and found that high-count friends had essentially all unwittingly fallen for it without realizing the downside, and they were affected by it, and I determined, being very wilful and somewhat competitive, to try to find a woman who would actually be in love with me, and found a good operational definition of that. And I achieved that, with a lot of patience and practice, and I developed a good way of achieving that, and it worked.
And then I found that this made the girls worried and resentful: worried because they were scared by feelings they never had before and they were totally surprised by (because loving someone had never happened to them, and it is very different from crushes/butterflies/gina tingle, even if their gina tingled for me too), and resentful because they thought it gave me too much power over them, never mind that I was in love with them too and so we were even.
The result is that these worried, resentful girls were too scared to be with me, psychologically or physically. They much much preferred to be either addicted purely to just their gina tingle or to manipulate men into being their extras etc.; they seemed to prefer to see me as either a supplier or a customer, and it seemed that the last thing that they wanted was to be actually in love with someone and they found it much easier to use or be used by a man.
It was a very painful realization, and I even eventually figured out (I think) why this happened, which was even worse. Don’t hate girls for what they do to you, however corrupt, because they are amazingly sad inside for systematic reasons, in ways that most men cannot imagine or relate to.
Women who actually like men and have the courage to have sex with a man because they actually like him are exceptionally few, and most girls strictly channel men into cock’s length favour-exchange client/supplier relationships, and high-count men just subconsciously or consciously accept that. That’s an essential part of game, but many gamesters eventually realize the downside and don’t feel good about it, because eventually you become what you fuck (paraphrasing Nietzche, if you fuck the abyss, the abyss fucks you).
So, if the reported of the episode above did not act because he really felt bad as to how she treated him, he was not totally clueless; but it is completely different if he did not act because he could not care less how he was treated as long as he got a fuck, but was too unsure.
A real beta/AFC is a guy who actually just wants to get laid, never mind the bollocks of feelings, and then believed the social propaganda that supplication/pedestalization is the way to buy sexual favours from girl players, when instead it is “game”.
I have stories similar to Elias. I had a habit of falling for left-brain, STEMy and frigid types which meant that seemingly obvious invitations to escalate were followed up with “I think you’ve got the wrong idea, McFly.”
Danny’s friend is right, though – make your move, if she tells you to leave, leave, otherwise keep gaming.
Most guys just aren’t taught this. Now I know that if a woman is alone with you, 19 times out of 20 she wants to be gamed.
“Now I know that if a woman is alone with you, 19 times out of 20 she wants to get laid.”
fixed.
Yeah, but it’s that twentieth woman who will screw a guy up. There are just enough women in the world who fall outside behavioral “norms” that make a guy, particularly a young one unsure as to what he can get away with.
Its funny that my beta days followed a very different pattern.
Escalation was never a problem. But my over-eagerness to please, pedestal issues and overweening desire put a girl on lock-down once I had slept with her that created problems for me.
As for Reddit, it seems to be a magnet for the clueless. I’ve noticed that before in very different subject areas.
I dunno. When you are that young, having sex can be devastating if it gets her pregnant. Maybe it was for the best he was oblivious. If your in your 30’s and that happens, then you need the manosphere.
Thanks for the link, Private Man. I agree that Reddit thread is great. I shared it with some young women and they all have been there – and felt so rejected! Of course they assume the guy just has to say OK – they have no idea what turmoil might be happening in his brain.
Susan, that’s fascinating. Just as game requires comfort as well as attraction, booty-calling a guy you like requires him to have some comfort with the situation as well. Inviting him over and taking your clothes off is an extremely crude seduction tactic, and only a small set of men are going to pop on over and pound you on command.
Women tend to think their signals are stronger than they are, so maybe they also tend to think there’s a lot more rapport and comfort with a guy than there actually is from his perspective.
Badger-
“Women tend to think their signals are stronger than they are, so maybe they also tend to think there’s a lot more rapport and comfort with a guy than there actually is from his perspective.”
whenever i talk to guys and they’re telling me their stories i can easily tell she’s attracted and he just isn’t getting the hint. learning IOI’s (which most of them are universal) can completely turn the tide for a guy. but as i like to say, “when in doubt, lock eyes wirh her, smile, and move in for a kiss.” if she turns you down, no sweat…..at least now you know where you stand and can tell her you’re not down with LJBF.
I thought that I’m getting good at noticing hints/IOI’s etc – generally, I’m 90% sure that I’m right in knowing whether a girl is interested.
Which is why I’m looking back at the other night in confusion, trying to work out precicely what I missed… I was out with friends, there’s a girl there I’ve met a few times before, but we don’t really know each other. She’s cute (particularly in this dress), and we get on, but I’m not picking up any interest. After the bars close, we (she, me and another friend) go back to hers for wine and conversation – a couple of hours later, the friend goes to sleep in the spare room, at which point girl says “well, lets get to bed then” and we go upstairs for sexy fun.
The thing is, until that moment, I had absolutely no idea things were moving that way, and was still not 100% sure until she actually started undressing. It’s thrown me right off – what the hell was I missing???
Still, had a happy ending at least.
Rusty-
first off…..good on you for getting the shag. but your write up doesn’t tell me what she was doing so i can’t fill you in as to the IOI’s she was displaying. but i KNOW she throwing them out there.
i’ve ALWAYS told guys……..”if she’s interested, you’ll know.”
as far as i can tell, the interest is: wanting you to go back to her place after the bar closed (were you aware that the “friend” was of no interest to her….how did she treat/act towards him). look, when the local shuts down, and she still wants you around (if you are not a platonic friend), she’s looking some joy. she wanted you to come back to her place b/c she had a “getting laid” agenda.
and she did. you fell into her trap.
Oh, yeah, that was more of a rhetorical / aimed at myself “what was I missing?” Clearly I did miss something. Several somethings. Probably big somethings. It’s a good eye-opener actually, that I’ve got plenty of a way to go (hence the “90%” sure opening, proving just how wrong I must be in that department).
Here’s what I think happened – I made a decision early on that it wasn’t there, so I then filtered everything I saw through a “we’re just a group of mates out together” lens. Which – I have to admit – I reckon may have done me a favour, in terms of coolness / nonchalance / whatever you want to call it. Point being, I either stopped looking for or stopped noticing IOIs based on the conclusion I had already reached. Interesting lesson there for Rusty.
The friend was another girl, and I know neither swing that way, so that was really a non-issue. Or, in actuality, played a bit into that conclusion I’d drawn – everything’s closed (and we did try a couple of places before she said “well, I’ve got some wine at my place” – plausible deniability, perhaps?), the three of us still up for hanging out… if it had just been she and I, it would be a whole different thing and I’d have snapped into ‘pulling mode’. But being the three of us just had me thinking we were carrying on the evening, as I have so many time with my buddies…
So, yeah, lessons to be learned from that one.
Oh, and as for “you fell into her trap”… I think I can live with that this time…
I have tons of these!
My sophomore year of college, I orbited this hot upperclassman I met the spring before. We spend quite a bit of time together, but I never made a move. One day, her sister (cute), her (hot), and their friend (smoking hot) called me up, and invited me to go skinny dipping. No other guys.
And since I’m posting this story here, you know what happened.
Then again, maybe they invited you because you were fun and they thought you were “safe” (ie would not make a pass at them). Women will hang out with men that they have no attraction to.
Ah yes, this is true. One of my friends was saying (enviously) about how this other guy had all these hot girls on his facebook etc and I made the comment ‘well they think he’s safe’ and he just didn’t get it. (and before anyone feels sorry for the ‘safe’ guy for being friendzoned, he is married in any case, but he does have that vibe).
“This is the generation of NiceGuys. Guys who’s mothers said “Be nice, be yourself”. This is the generation of men completely and utterly emasculated. This is the generation of men told that masculine sexuality is evil and must be so completely stifled as to create sexless eunuchs.”
Would it really have been different in times gone past though? Would the 1950s guy or the 1920s guy have been any different? Perhaps the 1920s guy would have keeled over in shock that the flapper girl had boobies under her frock.
Pre-feminism, women were expected to “love, honour and OBEY” their husbands.
That’s hardly Nice Guy (TM) stuff is it?
keoni posted a great article about how no fault divorse has saved women from a life of “marriage to a beta”. it used to be socially unacceptable to divorce (man or woman), with no fault divorces a woman can marry……trap a man in a gov’t sanctoined contract, dump him, and collect benefits form him when she leaves.
f*******ck that.
divorce. fml.
I know, I’m replying to an ancient post. So sue me.
I did recognize myself in the clueless chump. How about this one: Me and a preacher’s daughter, both of us 16 years old, in the front seat of my Chevy parked at the end of a dead-end street. We’re going at it hot and heavy when I breathe in her ear, “Let’s go all the way.”
“Why not?” she says. “I guess I’ve got to learn sometime.”
So, she’s a virgin. I’m a virgin. And what do I do? I put the brakes on. “Oh no, your first time should be SPECIAL. Not in the back seat of a car. There should be lace curtains and candles.”
Anyone who has been paying attention to anything on the manonsphere can predict the outcome: We never went out again. My failure to take her when she was ready to be taken caused my value to drop to nothing as far as she was concerned.