Ol’ Timey Words: Prickly & Sour

“Prickly” is a word my mother used to describe both herself and any other woman she found to be rather off-putting emotionally. It’s an analogy to plants with small thorns. I strongly believe that it’s a southern word. A prickly woman is too quick to judge, too defensive, and renders negative opinions too often.

There’s a somewhat analogous personality type for men that is equally off-putting. This is a man who is “sour”. Just like a sour flavor in a food, a sour man is an unpleasant and unhappy sort. Like his prickly female counterpart, he’s too quick to judge and render a negative opinion on something. He generally finds unhappiness in every situation.

When it comes to attracting the opposite sex, neither prickly nor sour will yield success. Those personality characteristics are simply not attractive. We all know people like this. Such people have not gone through enough honest introspection to shift their world views to a more positive frame. Those folks are also likely to shun constructive advice. These are the people we need to maintain a healthy distance from.

Given the ol’ timey nature of these two adjectives, they can actually be used with fewer risk of incurring nasty return defensiveness. “Dude, you’re just sour” is better than “Dude, you’re just too negative”. “Girl, you’re too prickly” sounds infinitely better than “girl, you’re just a bitch”. There are times when some degree of diplomacy is required when dealing with sour men and prickly women.

If you think you’re either prickly or sour, know that you’re shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to attraction and dating. Your attitude towards other people – and life in general – needs a serious adjustment. For women looking to attract and meet men, I continue to tout this exercise. For men, my advice is much the same except that it should be applied to a broader view. Any social interaction must be analyzed to find something good about it. For both sexes, verbal restraint must be exercised to mute prickly and sour personalities.

The Mainstream Media Comes To The Manosphere

As Roosh predicted, 2013 is the year that the Manosphere starts getting serious attention from the mainstream media.

Note: the term “mainstream media” is well on its way to becoming an oxymoron.

Roosh was correct. The “news” program 20/20 on ABC was approaching Manosphere writers to look for something emotionally inflammatory to broadcast so as to gin up the ratings. They found enough, but barely.

The 20/20 show approached Matt Forney in hopes of finding some rapid fellow who would make himself look foolish on television. His reasonable and rational responses completely flummoxed them. He declined the public interview. Smart man, he is.  Actually, the vast majority of Manosphere writers are reasonable and rational and only resort to hyperbole when a truly important point must be made.

Matt’s excellent commentary about his experience with the producers of 20/20 shows just how much of an emotional hit piece this will be. FYI, 20/20 is airing tonight, October 18 at 10PM Eastern time [Edit – it was postponed]. I won’t be watching it. There’s a bit of a preview here. The authors of the written piece are both young women and not journalistic heavy-hitters. This is very telling and speaks of a throw-away broadcast segment. Seriously, 10PM on a Friday? Paul Elam’s sound bites are good but he’s taken on a losing proposition. The comments on the piece are many and interesting.

More edits: Matt has been quite active regarding his response to this media situation. He has written three excellent follow-up blog posts that should be read:

“ABC, 20/20 and the Manosphere: The Real Story“

“Are Alyssa Pry and Alexa Valiente Guilty of Journalistic Fraud?“

“Is Sarah Figalora Guilty of Journalistic Fraud?

It’s interesting that I was never contacted. Hell, I actually own the URLs “manosphere.net” and “manosphere.org” (I need to update my address for whois). Perhaps the 20/20 producers perused my blogs and discovered I was less about inflammatory speech and more about helping men to improve themselves so they can meet their relationship goals. That’s hardly good ratings material because reasonable, fact-based discussion (“hate facts!”) doesn’t generate sufficient emotions. It’s quite boring compared to the wailing and gnashing of teeth generated by unproven cyber-bullying from the grievance-oriented feminist ideologues suffering from rape Tourettes.

I agree with Roosh that 2013 will be the year that the mainstream media discovers the Manosphere. But given the general irrelevancy of entertainment programs like 20/20, such attention will crest and fall so quickly that most will never notice it. The Manosphere will soldier on, revealing Red Pill wisdom in a slow but amazingly strong way. The Manosphere is not a cultural tsunami. The Manosphere is cultural climate change.

Meet Space, It’s Trending

Humans are social creatures and so have a strong need to physically interact with other human beings. Even introverts need to be around other human beings every once and awhile. An older online term “meat space” was coined to describe real life out in the physical world. “IRL” (In Real Life) is the newer term. Regardless of the nomenclature, the difference between online life and IRL life is very, very different. This very applies to the changes going on in online dating.

Online dating has likely reached a plateau and crossed a threshold. Singles are no longer getting the results they want and are finding increasing disappointment from response rates (and the messages received) and from the people they actually meet via online dating. Response rates are so bad for many guys that a few are turning to automated computer scripts and macros that blanket Plenty of Fish accounts with “Meet Me” requests. Such automation makes that PoF feature pretty much useless.

As well, a simple profile and any online interactions don’t really match up with meat space chemistry. Here’s a little something with a good quote: “The scientists also note that online profile photos are poor proxies for the chemistry sparked by meeting in the flesh. Which leads to a lot of disappointing coffee dates. And many potentially successful matches never happen.” This, in spades.

Given our social nature, the marketplace is stepping up to fill a growing need for real life meet space. PoF has had live events for awhile and now that online dating website is getting into the speed dating market. It only makes sense for PoF because it’s got a bad reputation as the “Plenty of Freaks” online dating website. Match.com has also spun off live events.

Howaboutwe.com started with the premise of meeting in real life before the craziness and disappointment of online dating messaging really starts. Even Tinder can be considered a meet space enhanced online application because of the geographical element to it. I’ll be doing more research regarding Tinder.

Looking at the Pick Up Artist community, there are all sorts lessons about “day game” where a man actually ventures out during the day to meet women away from the sometimes awful night club scene. A fellow in the UK, Krauser, is just one example of a PUA who is doing the Day Game thing and teaching other guys about it. Of course, Roosh has a whole book on the subject.

For a social context to meet the opposite sex, Meetup.com singles events are exactly what is necessary. Such Meet Up groups are growing – at least in my neck of the woods, South Florida. The two groups I joined three years ago have since increased in membership over ten fold. My email inbox receives invitations for events almost daily. Speed dating is also a fine approach for meet space dating options. Such events are far more choreographed, so be warned. For guys over a certain age (after 40 or so), speed dating events often have too many women signed up. Bonus!

Online dating will always have its place. Indeed, it continues to grow. It can be convenient and successful. But online dating should never be considered as a replacement to actually meeting the opposite sex in a public setting for the purposes of getting a future date. This is why I recommend – to men, especially – that only 25% of overall “get a date” activities be focused on online dating. I also still recommend that the services of a professional online dating coach be strongly considered. Bobbie, Evan, and Moxie are three to check out. The ability to simply start a social interaction is part of our human nature and we’ve lost too much of that by using too much technology as a proxy.

TL;DR – We’re social creatures. Scale back your online dating endeavors. Go be social with IRL singles groups.