Notes About Blab (@Blab)

In my quest to find a web-based platform to facilitate real-time conversation, I was referred to Blab from Bobbi Palmer who had some very good things to say about it. It’s far more interactive than Periscope without the setup of Youtube live streaming. I never got into Google Hangouts because Google keeps changing things. Skype also lacks certain features needed for group-based discussions. I’ve been using Blab for over two weeks and have spent many hours hosting Blabs or watching and participating in separate Blabs covering a variety of/ topics.

Blab does have some great features that show great promise. Hosting a Blab is easy as is participating in a Blab (video/audio or just typed comments). The Blab can be recorded and replayed at any time. There is also a tie in with Twitter so that one’s Twitter followers are notified if that person is hosting or participating via video in a Blab. Having a Twitter account, however, is not a prerequisite to lurking in a Blab. The platform can be accessed via a web browser and mobile devices, too. I’ve only been using it through a browser (Chrome).

Yet Blab is not without some fairly serious issues that need to noted:

1. No clear and cogent step-by-step instructions to either host a Blab or watch a Blab. In fact, when I sent Blab an email about the absence of such instructions, I received a rather snarky email in response. “As they say…if you need a manual..you’ve already failed.” Um, who has failed? The software developers who didn’t quite get the user experience figured out or the user who needs real help? If Blab thinks it’s the user, then here’s my message to Blab as that user:

Go screw yourselves, you arrogant nerds.

I remember such arrogance from 1999 and 2000, right before the Internet 1.0 bubble burst and you nerds found yourselves unemployed by the hundreds of thousands. (Rant over)

I understand that Blab is still in a beta release stage. This is a poor excuse for the lack of solid support other than live Blabs with Blab support people. That live support, by the way, is very cool but I question if that’s sustainable with growth. The other type of support is users helping other users. This is also unsustainable in the long run. Business users, in particular, won’t be adopting Blab for internal business purposes unless the platform doesn’t require such hand-holding, regardless of who’s hand is being held or who is doing the hand-holding.

2. Small user base. Blab has been available since May of last year. That’s an epoch in Internet time. But the user base is still too small for the platform to be compelling with solid and diverse content. There are rarely more than a few dozen or so available Blabs to join, most with under a dozen participants. Blab, the company, is not releasing its user statistics. Sure, the current users are very enthusiastic. But that applies to all early adopters of a product that hasn’t yet crossed the chasm. For Blab, that chasm currently looks like a vast gulf.

3. User-created content is inconsistent. Some Blabs are well-structured and compelling. These discussions are usually focused around nerd talk or marketing talk. That’s understandable and serve to set a solid bar for future Blabs that don’t focus on these two topics. The rest of the Blabs are usually of folks simply talking idle chit-chat about the minutiae of their personal lives. This is understandable except that new users don’t know the other Blabbers and so don’t understand the backstory behind the personalities. Think of those Blabs like sitting down at a high school cafeteria table where everyone else is happily gabbing about stuff that the newcomer knows nothing about. That’s hardly a good way to get new users engaged with the platform.

4. Technical glitches still remain because the platform is still in Beta (for eight months?!). The streaming video/audio burps and farts way too much. This requires the user to refresh, restart, clear the browser cache, or a combination of all three in order to use the video feature (the “hot seat”) or even just watch as a lurker. As well, first-time users who want to participate via video don’t always get things to work right away. These issues may not be because of real technical problems. But without clear step-by-step instructions to guide newbies through the Blab process, such difficulties might as well be the result of technical glitches. Such glitches might also be the result of poor connection speeds or inadequate hardware but the user doesn’t know that without explanation of some sort. “I don’t know what’s going with Blab today” is a too-oft heard comment.

Frankly, Blab doesn’t yet know if it’s a platform for real-time discussions or a community of users who simply happen to be using the Blab platform for such discussions. If it’s a platform, there is much room for technical improvements. If it’s a community, the users need to up their game seriously with better on-topic Blabs and less of the “we’re the cool early adopters and you’re just barely welcome as a newbie while we gossip about other Blab users you don’t know” mentality.

As a blogger and Tweeter with a community of readers, Twitter followers, and blog commenters, I’m keen to have discussions within my community and invite others to join in. Right now, I don’t think Blab is the platform for that, yet. I’m going to keep trying with Blab. However, I will also be trying other platforms that seem less like a boot-strap endeavor and more like an effort with clear progress towards maturity and milestones of good software development.

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Racism In Dating?! (Not This Crap Again)

Start here. Read the article. Do some research on the author. Then come back to this blog post. Here’s a quote from the piece:

In 2014, the data-obsessed OKCupid calculated the odds of a user “liking” a profile on its Tinder-like service Quickmatch. When it comes to straight daters, they discovered that women expressed a strong preference for men of their own race. But one group of males fared particularly well outside of their race: Asian and Latina women showed above average odds of “liking” profiles featuring white men.

[Note: I’m ignoring the part about the online dating website about white folks seeking white folks]

I’ve written about this before and each time this accusation of racism in dating preferences erupts like an infected cultural cyst, it must be cleaned up with alacrity. First of all, “data-obsessed” is a great thing. Data shows patterns of human behavior. Data shows generalizations, a good thing for helping to understand human nature. Don’t like it? Tough shit, sociologists and psychologists need such data. OKCupid has some of the best research of real, honest human behavior based on real actions, not some bullshit surveys rife with sample bias.

Hey Tracy Clark-Flory, how about “my body my choice” be applied to attraction preferences between the sexes? Imposing still more social expectations on attraction and dating won’t make the process any easier. Such expectations only serve to increase personal frustration. If a woman prefers one type of man, where do you get the vile conceit that you can apply some sort of pressure for her to change her perfectly natural preferences? Dating preferences are private. Attraction happens between our ears, away from the prying eyes of politically correct busy-bodies anxious to transform dating into a delusional utopia.

Wait, there’s more!

In a blog post, OKCupid’s Christian Rudder refrained from labeling these preferences as racist. “On an individual level, a person can’t really control who turns them on—and almost everyone has a ‘type,’ one way or another,” he wrote. “But I do think the trend—that fact that race is a sexual factor for so many individuals, and in such a consistent way—says something about race’s role in our society.”

Good for Rudder. He’s a data guy, not a politically correct guy. He’s also clearly aware of the perils of collecting such data. Ever hear of the term “hate facts“? Rudder certainly has so he selects his words carefully. Private human behavior is not politically correct. What happens between our ears is the zenith of privacy if it’s not spoken or acted upon. Until the thought police becomes real, attraction can’t be enforced by social justice warriors or even shamed by that same group of cultural miscreants.

Tracy Clark-Flory is attempting to play the race card in a game where she, and her unpleasant ilk, are unwelcome. Think of a party crasher with bad manners and poor hygiene. Attraction is not a choice. It can’t be shamed. It can’t be negotiated. Anyone who falls for such nonsense is clearly not ready for dating. The ugly stink of political correctness must be washed off before attempting to start using online dating websites. As well, dating is not about achieving cultural ideals. It’s about fulfilling personal relationship goals. Let’s wrap up with a last quote from the article:

In other words, swiping right on a white guy seems more innocuous than navigating over to Where White People Meet, but on a societal level, it just might be a smaller expression of everyday racism.

“Everyday racism”. No, everyday social shaming from you, you horrible person. I recommend that every online dating user swipe how he or she decides based on his or her own personal preferences. This applies to everyone, straight or not. As someone who provides attraction and dating information based on reality, I will never shame a woman into desiring a short guy. I won’t shame a guy into desiring an overweight woman.

Something else I haven’t mentioned in this blog post, my own individual dating experiences and preferences. Why? Because it’s none of anyone’s fucking business.

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A Woman Responds To A Recent Blog Post

I sometimes get some great comments. The one that I received today is mid-range. It’s worth commenting on but not worth letting through moderation. The commenter, a woman, was motivated by this relatively recent blog post on feminine pleasantness.

The original comment is in italics, my responses are in boldface.

Wow. That post was really unkind and unreflective of reality. And by unkind, I mean misogynistic and lacking in human compassion. Women are human, just like men.

Misogynistic? I get that often enough. This is because I violate the 11th Commandment, “Thou shalt not criticize women”. Women are indeed human. They also have patterns of bad behavior and character flaws that cause huge problems when it comes time for them to find an intimate relationship with a man.

We also do not want to hang out with men who cannot control their moods and who are grumpy and sullen day after day. It is also not our job to make a man happy when he cannot find his own happiness.

I agree with this. Any adult, man or women, who doesn’t have at least some control over their negative moods is nothing more than a child. Men, in particular, must control those moods. Women are cut way too much slack in this area. Also, why is he grumpy and sullen? Bad day at work? 

We also are attracted to men who can remain calm and smile through adversity. Replace the female pronouns, etc., in your post with male pronouns and vice versa and your post would be equally true.

Again, I agree. Men must be stoic in the face of adversity. This is true strength and shows serious backbone, catnip to women.

Your idea that women are “naturally” one way and men “naturally” another way is false and silly.

This statement is idiotic. Common and predictable behaviors based on one’s sex are well-studied and well-known. Of course, you have an exception to those common behaviors which you mean to prove my assertions incorrect. Guess what cupcake, you’re using the logical fallacy of “the example of one”. Brilliant. #facepalm. Look beyond the solipsistic confines of your own experiences.

My husband had that attitude and that is why he’s now single. He believed he could stomp around the house and pout, take me for granted and treat me however he wished, and my job was to smile, bake cookies and give him a BJ.

His biggest mistake was stomping around and pouting. But, you said “yes” when he proposed. But was he always like that? Or did you encourage him to be more in touch with his feelings? Guess what, that stomping and pouting are expressions of his feelings.

Ummm, no. Not going to happen. Now he gets to smile at himself, bake his own cookies and make friends with his right hand, all while being a single parent 50% of the time and cleaning his own house and living off 50% less salary. See how that worked out? Granted, he is now working on finding the doormat of his dreams, but thankfully it won’t be me.

Why 50% less salary? Oh, right… alimony and child support? Wait, no child support, 50% custody. You’re still getting child support with only 50% custody? Oh my. Regardless, since you’re getting alimony in the form of 50% of his salary, that means he was the primary breadwinner. Congrats, you won the divorce game! There’s a lesson here, guys.

Additionally, women would not be required to be so strong and independent if they could actually rely on men, but the biggest complaint I hear from women my age (early 40s) is that having their husband is like having another child.

Men of a certain age have been taught, by women, to let the women be more strong and independent. You think men want to be hopelessly dependent? I agree, that’s awful. But here’s a solution to all you strong and independent women disgusted with the state of men today, date other women. As for men being like kids in the house, how are they at work? Oh, right, those women have no clue. But I’m sure they reap the benefits of those men’s salaries.

You know what’s a huge turn off for a women? Being incapable. Emotionally, psychologically, verbally, around the house, with the kids, etc. If your wife has to take care of you like a child, she doesn’t want to sleep with you too. Because, that’s gross. She doesn’t want to service you at night after doing all the stuff you were incapable of doing all day in addition to her own tasks.

Um, back to his salary, he seems to be capable of that. And please don’t spew that “it’s all about his money” crap. You’re taking alimony, remember? That’s his money. However, in the scenario you described, perhaps he’s getting alimony from you! If that’s the case, you go guy!!!

She doesn’t want to have to help you “identify your feelings” and “use your words” in conversation and then do you later. Not sexy, guys. And if you don’t want to hear a women speak her mind, get a prostitute. I think it was Billy Idol who said, “I don’t pay to sleep with them. I pay for them to go away.”

That was Charlie Sheen, by the way. OK, you’re contradicting yourself here. On one hand, you want the man to be stoic in the face of adversity and now you’re talking about helping him with identifying (and expressing, no doubt) his feelings. Pick one. Guys, while she’s trying to sort that out without her brain overheating, let me help. Be stoic in the face of adversity.

Also, when a woman speaks her mind, is it valuable to him? Does it really add to the conversation and even the relationship? If not, women must activate that ol’ verbal filter. Far too often, “speaking her mind” is code for “I’m gonna bitch and moan and inject verbal drama in your life but don’t stop making a salary”.

If you want your wife to sleep with you and then pretend she doesn’t have thoughts, feelings and concerns in life, marry a prostitute and pay her day rate every day.

There are more than a few guys who think that’s the current state of marriage. Of course, they’re still not getting the sex they paid for. Doh!

This whole comment is nothing more than “men do it too!” Yeah, some do. But I don’t write like that. I also stand by my assertion in the original blog post that kindness, pleasantness, and caring are wonderfully feminine traits and men must screen for those type of women during the dating process. Keep those comments coming!

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Frame – Three Quick Personal Stories

It is both a blessing and a curse to live in a town where all the locals know, or know of, everyone. It’s a unique place because it’s surrounded by a large metropolitan area, Fort Lauderdale. But once across the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway, the city is left behind and the smallish seaside town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea takes over.

There is a healthy turnover of tourists and part-time residents (“snowbirds”). Separate from that population are the folks who live here permanently. That’s me and a small few thousand. During the off-season, summer, when the hot and humid nastiness smothers us, the local population is together. Normally, we all mostly get along with a polite friendliness and some typical gossip. Of course, familiarity does breed some contempt.

There are three local women who loathe me. They are all older than me, if not in age, in hard-bitten experience with too much tough living along with past and present bad decisions. I won’t go into details of a life in the sun does to the skin. All three have this problem. With their tough hides come tough personalities. Sophisticated, these dames ain’t.

Why they loathe me, I have a hunch why but it’s not particularly relevant here. I pay them little attention aside from being briefly cordial. I know they loathe me from a few verbal exchanges that were inflicted on me. For each of the three woman, I took a different tactic but held to my strategy of having very strong frame. Some background here… in each exchange, the women were drunk to some degree.

The first incident happened at my local neighborhood dive bar. I was sitting across the bar, not talking to anyone, my dog at my feet. I was fiddling around with my smart phone. My dog, sitting on the floor next to me, barked a couple of times.

“Andrew! Shut that fucking dog up!” screamed a woman from the other side of the bar. This was one of the women in town who loathes me.

I just looked at the woman and didn’t say anything. The bartender, a good guy and almost standing between us, wasn’t getting involved.

In an attempt to escalate, the woman continued and screamed at me again. “You’re a fucking scumbag!”. Having a good frame, I came back with a classic agree and amplify.

“You’re right Laurie! I’m a scumbag! I come from a family of scumbags!”

She glared at me. I continued.

“My father was a scumbag, my grandfather was a scumbag…”

Her glare got worse.

“but my great-grandfather was a total douchebag!”

With that, the bartender burst out laughing. Several other patrons overhearing the verbal exchange also started laughing. I quickly went back to my smart phone. I didn’t waste a further look at the woman.

The next incident came from my neighbor, a woman I’ve written about her previously. She often spends her evenings sitting outside, smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap beer until she gets obstreperous with the drink. The booze melts what little of a verbal filter she still possesses. Because of temporary Internet connectivity issues I had to walk past her towards the back of the building to capture a Wifi signal on my phone. She was ready at ambush me verbally when I walked past the old lady and gave her a polite greeting as I always do.

“You going back there like the loser neighbor?”

The neighbor in the front unit also sometimes does the same thing because of Wifi issues.

“Yup, I have connectivity issues” I replied.

“You’re a fucking loser like her” was her pithy retort. I was not fazed because I’ve experienced this kind of stuff from her previously. I simply laughed and continued walking.

On return a few minutes later, she continued. “You piss me off so much because…” She spouted off a things about my work schedule (I work a lot from home) and that I had no shame or some such nonsense, yadda yadda yadda. I actually stopped to address her, with a smirk on my face.

“Your emotional response to me is not my problem. That’s your problem” I said pleasantly. “I actually make you angry? That’s something you have control over.” This stymied her completely. She was expecting a defensive, snarling response from me.

“I’ll remember that…” she said with a stammer. I didn’t know if it was a defensive comment or an acknowledgement. I didn’t care. I was still focusing on my frustrating ‘Net connectivity issue.

As I walked into my place, the old broad had a classy parting shot.

“You’re such a loser, you can only date niggers!”

“Wow, stay classy” was my calm response and I closed the door behind me.

Yes, she escalated to that point because she was desperate to break my frame by using a personal attack that is actually true. I was indeed involved with a lovely black woman and my curmudgeonly neighbor had met her on several occasions. This black woman was also from England with an hilarious Birmingham accent to go along with her lovely and dark-skinned visage. She thought I was a wanker and I thought she was a pain in the butt. Ah, ain’t dating grand? [Update, 01/01/2016 – P is reading this now]

It is now at least a month later and my old lady neighbor does not even acknowledge my existence. No matter, I still offer a pleasant greeting each time I see her. I thank that galls her in some way. Excellent.

The third woman in this string of estrogen wonder confronted me at my local pub hangout. She and another woman were bitching about Lucy, my ugly dog. I was ignoring them while I sipped ginger ale and worked on a blog post on my laptop. There were some comments about how I took care of my dog (Lucy the ugly dog was with me, as usual) but nothing really personal as my old lady neighbor had done.

Later in the evening, one of the women moved to the other side of the bar because the other had left. I was only vaguely aware of her move until she started yelling at me.

“You’re a jack ass, Andrew!” The place was pretty crowded so her loud insult wasn’t heard by many. I glanced up at her and said nothing. I looked down at my keyboard because I was gnawing on a stubborn sentence. She yelled something at me again. I completely ignored her. Eventually, she lost interest and began bothering the guy sitting closest to her. Poor fellow.

In all three instances, I never let my frame waver. I used several of the tactics I learned from reading Manosphere blogs. There was agree and amplify, amused mastery, and completely ignoring someone. The unflappable man doesn’t let words faze him. None of these three women did anything physical. They were attempting to start a fight with words. I didn’t let it happen.

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Attraction, Dating, And Aspirational Lying

Researching, observing, and experiencing attraction and dating has taught me that human beings are not particularly honest. We lie. This is central to the human experience. Of course we talk a good game about honesty because we’re socially expected to be honest and talk about being honest and expecting everyone else to be honest. That’s mostly true but quickly falls apart when verbal behavior crosses swords with attraction and dating.

The dark triad man is remarkably adept at aspirational lying. That man will say almost anything to achieve his goal, especially in the social context of seduction. The female equivalent of the dark triad man, the Cluster B woman, behaves in the exact same way but with different content in the lies. Call this meta lying. We state who we want to be, not who we are.

Since I couldn’t find a solid, concise definition of aspirational lying, I’ll provide one for my astute and intellectually curious readers:

Aspirational Lying – A type of dishonesty where an individual makes untrue statements describing herself/himself as what they aspire to be or how they currently behave. The purpose of this type of lying is to increase one’s self-esteem and ego or increase one’s attractiveness and desirability to others.

Here’s some additional background for your edification and intellectual fulfillment.

This form of lying pops up in predictable places. Certainly it’s painted thick on online dating profiles. A 43 year old woman states her age as 39. A man who is 5’7″ tall describes himself as 5’9″ tall. This is incredibly common. It’s so common that even the most naively honest feel pressure to also aspirationally lie on his/her online dating profile.

Aspirational lying can easily ruin socialogical studies. It’s a crime against intellect when both social researchers and journalists fail to recognize that survey answers reflect how the respondent want to be perceived, not how he or she actually feels or behaves. Stupidly, this even applies to anonymous surveys. Human beings can too easily wallow in such profound stupidity when affairs of the ego are involved. Such lies are not for the survey-takers, the lies are for the person responding to the survey.

Business marketing is chock full of aspirational lying. It’s so pervasive that it’s easily ignored. “Most”, “best”, “greatest” are superlatives that have become effectively meaningless. Or, such marketing becomes part of confirmation bias. A product’s attributes are described by the marketers and the consumer of the product goes through some mental exercises to justify a purchase decision. based on those described attributes.

On something of a side note, actually working to improve one’s self is the opposite of aspirational lying. Such efforts are the actions, the lying is just the words. However, a woman’s efforts that are simply cosmetic (no analogy intended) are a bit less clear-cut because make up is a temporary effect. Plastic surgery is a clear-cut (groaner analogy) example of actions over the mere words of aspirational lying.

When it comes to dating, it’s important for a man understand and account for such dishonesty. I’ve already brought up this is in a recent blog post. But that’s simply the online dating profile. Cluster B women present a very different scenario of lies. This requires a level of serious observation and the willingness to overlook the extraordinary sexuality of such women. “Crazy in the bed, crazy in the head” is not just a locker room aphorism shared amongst the guys. Men need to be completely aware of common and predictable feminine behavior, the good and the bad.

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Online Dating Profiles – How To Figure Out Women’s Lies

It’s well-established that most of us lie to some degree on our online dating profiles. There are plenty of websites and blogs to help women find the lies on men’s profiles. Because my primary priority is to help men, I give you the list of potential lies that men must face when evaluating a woman’s online dating profile. I also give some solid tips for identifying those lies.

1. Fuzzy photos. Cell phones and digital cameras have gradually improved over the years. The megapixel count has increased and this means generally sharper images for recent photos. So if you see a fuzzy photo, it might be older. Bear in mind that some online dating websites will re-sample images to make them smaller in terms of memory. Photos may also have an upward memory limit. This will make photos less than crystal clear.

2. Outdated fashions. Women typically chase fashion styles and are willing to spend lots of money to be up to date. If the photo has outdated fashion styles, it’s an older photo. This requires, of course, that a guy has to know what’s in style now. Consult some women’s magazines on this and pay careful attention to what women are wearing as you are out and about. This includes shoes, accessories. A woman’s age does certainly impact her fashion she wears in public.

3. EXIF data. This is meta data hidden in digital images. It includes when and where the photo was taken among other information I’ve experimented with some Plenty of Fish photos and haven’t found much in the way of EXIF image data. However, it’s worth checking, regardless. It’s very easy to do and this Google search results page provides links to websites that look for that data in images.

4. Stolen photos/fake profiles. For free online dating websites, this can be a huge problem. Thankfully, there are ways to do searches to find similar images.
Google images and Tineye are good resources. Use them both.

5. The “angles” and lack of a full body shot. The younger men talk about the “secret Internet fattie” (SIF) and it’s a thing. If a woman identifies her figure as “average” and doesn’t have a full body shot, it’s very likely that she’s a SIF. Women are also very good at posing and fashions to tone down the curves. By the way, “curvy” is fat.

6. She’s too good to be true. If a guy gets a message or return message from a truly sexy dame, it’s time to be really suspicious of a fake profile. Use the photo searching tips from item four before responding to the message.

7. The age factor – 29, 39, 49, 59… This is a classic. If any woman claims her age to be any number with a nine as the trailing integer, add at least four years to her age. Verify that by taking a very hard look at her photos. Hands and facial wrinkles don’t lie. Actually, add at least two years to every woman’s claimed online dating age to get a more accurate estimate of her actual age.

8. Various hair lengths in the photos. Here’s a general rule of thumb – the shorter the hair, the more recent the photo. I have yet to meet a woman who grows out her hair as she gets older. Eventually, they all become Q-tips after about 60 years old.

9. Her self-described figure. Average is generally overweight because the average American is over weight. There is a huge exception – foreign-born women. When they say average, it’s actually slender or athletic when compared to American female bodies. But guys, if you’re overweight as well, you’re not going to get a good response rate from slender or athletic women.

There might be more and I’m sure my clever and thoughtful readers will contribute in the comments. As well, perhaps validated profiles will squash many of these lies. Such lies are what drives matchmaking services.

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The Future Of Online Dating

Sean Rad, Tinder’s CEO recently gave an interview that was described as cringe worthy.

He  says he has a lot of theories about “hook-up culture”, including “that feminism has led to it because now women are more independent and pursuing their desires. And that leads to both parties being more sexually active. It’s not because of Tinder.”

Tinder is owned by Match Group Inc. This recently formed online dating conglomerate was forced to update its SEC IPO filing because of Rad’s extemporaneous remarks.

The future of online dating is going to be determined by one primary factor – the self-reporting nature of online dating profiles. In effect, too many people lie. These aren’t necessarily malicious lies. They are most often lies of omission and lies of aspiration. We don’t tell the whole truth and when we make an attempt at truth in our online dating profiles, we say what we want to be, not what we are.

The lies in profiles make online dating a very bad experience rife with disappointment and frustration. For online dating companies, the challenge is privacy. Verifying information is actually a straightforward technological process. The blockades to truthful, verified online dating profiles are mostly about laws and our own human behavior.

We want to lie on our online dating profiles. We actually need to lie on our online dating profiles because there’s an arms race of bullshit even if unintentional. When one person lies on an online dating profile, it becomes tacit permission for another person to lie. The cycle has been repeating every dating cycle since online dating was invented. In an effort to make us more marketable, we exaggerate, we obfuscate, and we prevaricate.

There’s also a need to control our personal narratives. When we link up to other databases (if we could) such as credit ratings, employment records, marriage and divorce records, police reports, we lose control of our own information. With our digital past in hot pursuit, we can’t craft a new life away from our previous mistakes. For post-divorce singles, this is especially significant because the end of a marriage comes the opportunity for personal change and transformation.

A secondary factor is the catalog mentality – especially in major metropolitan areas – where we happily reject a person knowing full well that there will be yet another profile to evaluate. Some mobile apps are attempting to deal with this. I wrote about it previously.

Here are my predictions for the future of online dating –

1. Mobile apps will continue to grow and possibly overtake PC, browser-based online dating. Delayed matching will be a common feature intentionally or because of premium pricing structures. The culture of sexually hooking up will still be the order of the day for the younger demographics and will also bleed up into the older demographic. The expectation of sex isn’t ending any time soon in the context of dating. Sean Rad was only somewhat right in his interview, feminism did unleash the unrestrained sexuality of youth but it needed something like Tinder to facilitate that unrestrained sexuality.

2. Validated profiles will seriously divide online dating subscribers into two categories with pros and cons for each group. Singles that pay will select validated dating where profiles are checked against existing databases through a background check. It’s already starting with ValiDATE, an online dating service that is being rolled out in various cities as it grows. The expense of validated dating will also serve to weed out the validation queens and entertainment seekers. Paying fees keeps people serious about their dating endeavors. Online dating services without validated profiles will get short shrift. Of course, hackers or the seriously dishonest will find ways to work around the database connections that are used to validate profiles.

3. Videos will gradually become a greater part of all online dating websites and applications. The ability to store and display videos will add a very important dimension to profiles far and above the ordinary photos. Good videos will allow for much better expressions of one’s personality. This, of course, will create specialists who will help create those videos for online dating profiles. It’s up to the online dating services to solve the technical issues.

4. Traditional matchmaking will continue to grow but assisted with online dating so the matchmaker can use it to find a larger pool of singles to match with clients. Regardless, validated online dating and traditional matchmaking will become serious competitors unless clients have the deep pockets to afford the matchmaker’s fees. Online dating can go from the low-end of free online dating websites and mobile apps to high-end of validated profiles. It can not, however, compete with full-service matchmakers.

5. Niche online dating websites will chip away at the big boys from Match Holdings until that company buys them up. This will be an ongoing process. I strongly suspect that entrepreneurs behind niche online dating websites have an exit plan of being bought by Match Holdings so they can profit handsomely. Business is business, after all.

Online dating can’t fix the issues of human behavior. The best that the technology behind it can do is to facilitate how us humble humans can meet one another. It was an excellent idea for online dating websites to organize live events. But such events are not the core competency behind the algorithms and databases driving online dating technology. People still need to meet face to face. After all, the purpose of online dating is to stop online dating. However, that’s actually not good for business.

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Go Ahead, Shame Men

Confession time for The Private Man. In 1992, I worked seriously with the South Carolina Democratic Party when I was living in Charleston. That’s right, I’m a Democrat. When Bill Clinton was running, Hillary became a negative to his campaign efforts. She caught flak for being a “strong and independent” woman. At the time, there was a standard response to ANY criticism of Mrs. Clinton:

You’re just intimidated by a strong and independent woman.

Back in the early 90s, a few years before the Internet and the spread of knowledge of human behavior to about a zillion guys, this comeback was reasonably effective and shutting up the critic. Even in 1992, the ideology of progressive had a strong hold on our culture. In 1988, George Bush (the original model) cleverly turned the word “liberal” into an insult during his campaign against Michael Dukakis. This is one of the main reasons why those on the left now refer to themselves primarily as “progressives”. Yeah, I like social and cultural history.

The insults to shut down discussions haven’t stopped. It’s a standard rhetorical tactic. There’s a whole list of them here. It’s also in my blog roll so my readers have the tools to prepare for such insults. However, the words, by themselves, ultimately end up being meaningless when confronted with the end result actions. It’s the general disrespect of men and masculinity that spurs men into actions.

When the social contract between the sexes broke down, a new era of conflict between men and women erupted, most often through ideological proxies. As men and women are so vastly different, some form of verbal conflict is inevitable. But when that conflict inserts itself into strong social expectations, the social manifestation becomes very clear if completely unintentional.

The current conflict between the sexes is a fuzzy mix of ideology and biology. The fuzz is exacerbated when attraction, dating, and relationships are stirred into the mix.
Let’s make it even worse with personal agendas and conflict within individuals. The conflict within ourselves is between resolve biology with social expectations.

Red Pill knowledge is partially about sorting out the conflicts and personal agendas through understanding human behavior with its consistency and predictability. We’re not special snowflakes. We’re Homo sapiens complete with 500K years of psychological and behavioral evolution behind us. Civilization is a finger snap of time and social expectations require the blunt forces of culture, religion, and social enforcement. The enforcement element is most often

Shaming is an example of such social enforcement. The shame is expressed through insults. Men catch a raft of such insults, especially when they have the unmitigated gall of questioning social expectations or. worse, act on their own self-interest. As men, we know all know the insults – man-boy, Peter Pan, commitment phobe, whiny baby, and so many others. I’m particularly fond of “man up!” because that one has two meanings depending on who is saying it.

I had originally envisioned this blog post as advice for men to cope with such insults. It doesn’t require a long essay. It boils down to this – ignore the insults and do what you want within the law. It’s encouraging to read that the actions of growing numbers of men are demonstrating that they are indeed ignoring the shaming language and doing what they choose to. From this we have men’s rights activism (MRA), men going their own way (MGTOW), and masculine self-improvement (MSI). PUA is part of MSI.

The Internet allows men to find strength to resist the insults and sundry bullshit that comes with destructive, anti-choice social expectations. That strength comes from talking among ourselves as men. It’s the new men’s club. With some righteous masculine solidarity, insults and shame mean nothing. We can share well-researched but socially unpopular statistics and truths. Better, we can help each other to resist.

This strength among men is getting some serious push back. The insults get meaner, the attacks get personal, and men’s livelihoods are threatened. This push back can be handled relatively easily with humor and increased anonymity. Digital insults are just words. Men are responding with actions. The biggest example is the decline of marriage. The other great example is men understanding that “strong and independent™” are great for sex but not worthy of commitment

As for that push back, there is a huge threat that looms large and it’s already starting. Freedom of expression is under direct attack. Changing the laws is the next tactic wielded by those with hostility towards men and masculinity. In the interim, denying a place for public speech (in real life) is the current tactic. It’s only a matter of time until “hate speech” (any words or ideas that run counter to “accepted” speech) is outlawed with the power of law enforcement and criminal courts used to back it up.

There is a counterattack to that, thankfully. Use the laws equally, regardless of the ideology that promulgates the “hate speech”. It’s a short-term solution, at best. Any laws restricting free speech can completely stifle ANY free expression. This will result in a culture incapable of critical thought and open discussion.

What this means for men trying to improve themselves is that verbal caution is still necessary. The Red Pill subreddit and other forums tell many tales of MRAs don’t need that and haven’t been restrained in their words. The MGTOW crowd can simply keep on the same path because, frankly, when it comes to fucks, none are given from them.

It really doesn’t matter if a man is “intimidated” by  a “strong and independent woman”. It doesn’t matter if he’s a “man-boy” or that he “whines”. Those are simple subjective descriptions. If manhood and masculinity is denigrated enough, men act. They pull away. Men aren’t stupid, they respond to incentives and disincentives. Social shaming is a tremendous disincentive for strong and independent men to following social norms.

Heaping shame and disrespect on men’s head will cause him to rightfully turn to tactics and strategies to accomplish their own goals on their own terms. This is encouraging. When I learn of men improving themselves or responding in other ways such as becoming MRAs of MGTOWs, I rejoice, as must all men. Here’s the punchline: if men taking social shaming seriously and then adjusting their behaviors to toe the social line, they lose respect from men and women alike.

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“Journalism” Meets The Red Pill

With increased frequency, hide-bound and agenda-driven mainstream media outlets are making a stab at writing about Red Pill wisdom. Usually, the stab hits air. The Telegraph, a UK news outlet recently published an opinion piece written by a young woman who seemed eager to throw some written poop at Red Pill thought. She hit air. with especially runny poo. Read it before continuing to read this blog post:

“Welcome to the Red Pill: The angry men’s rights group that ‘knows what women want’”

The piece was clearly written hastily and with the weakest of research. The author, Rebecca Reid, is a mere freelance typist who churns out content for the “Wonder Woman” section of The Telegraph online. As best as I can tell, her content is only to provide a marginally useful function for some idle electrons in The Telegraph’s idle electron storage facility. That facility is shared with the Huffpost Women’s section.

I was actually moved to comment on the piece, something I rarely do in a mainstream media outlet. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve ever done so. My comment is buried a bit so here it is:

“Feminists want men to become something that women are not attracted to.”

As an aside, Red Pill ideas are certainly not limited to one subreddit or the various subreddits linked to it. There are dozens upon dozens of websites, blogs, and forums where Red Pill thinking is discussed and where men and women are learning some elemental, biologically based truths about human behavior and its essential predictability.

The entire dating coach industry is built upon Red Pill truths that help men and women understand each other from a realistic and not fantasy point of view. Most dating coaches, however, won’t self-identify as Red Pill practitioners, they will even deny it. Yet looking at what the successful dating coaches teach, it is very clear that in order to be successful, the dating coach does indeed teach difficult, Red Pill truths, just delivered in more palatable ways. If the dating coach gives bad, fantasy-based advice, he/she will simply go out of business leaving behind clients still single and still frustrated.

As the writer of the opinion piece brought up The Red Pill subreddit, it’s important to know that this subreddit is now in the top 300 of all subreddits and has over 137,000 members. It’s also important to know that the subreddit is mostly populated by young men because these are the men most frustrated and confused by the massive conflict between “progressive”, ideologically-based social expectations and hard-wired, DNA-based behaviors of human beings, especially in the context of attraction between men and women. So, these young men turn to sources of truth and reality, away from the fantasy world of contemporary social expectations.

These young men also turn to pick-up artists (PUAs) to learn both the science and art of being more attractive to young women and the skills required to fulfill their relationship goals, even if that goal is for a one-night sexual encounter. PUAs are often excoriated in the mainstream media and web-based media targeted at women. But it makes little difference because men want honest answers and the truth wants to come out.

Finally, the Cassie Jaye movie only covers the MRA branch of Red Pill wisdom. PUA and MGTOW is not part of its content. But given the extraordinary fundraising success (via Kickstarter) of her upcoming documentary, perhaps she will have a couple of follow-up films that cover the other two branches of the Red Pill/Manosphere approach that increasing numbers of men are using to improve their lives.

Another comment (by Isaac T. Quill) also caught my attention. It was an absolutely brilliant bit of biting satire and needs to be shared:

A Little known fact that Rebecca Reid missed completely. Red Pill vs Blue Pill is a long-standing debate from the 1840’s. … that’s right she’s out by over 160 years.

Blue pill refers to a gentle laxative made with mercury chloride, and the red pill an alternate Mercury laxative made with Mercury oxide. In days of old Physicians would be red pillers to blue pillers depending upon their prescribing habits.

Not a lot of people know that – and evidently Rebecca Reid doesn’t and also can’t be bothered with basic professional research… so could she stop calling herself a Journalist. I’m sure it breaches the Trades Descriptions Act (1968) under section 2.1.(d) “fitness for purpose, strength, performance, behaviour or accuracy;”.

The Red Pill is going to get lots more attention in the future. It will not be pretty but it will be lots of fun. I might comment more depending on the content.

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It’s Not Your Fault! (Actually, It Is)

I read a lot. I read articles written for men. I read articles written for women. I read articles about cultural trends that affect the relationships between men and women. Even if I loathe the topic of the article, I still read it. I recently Tweeted that 80% of articles in women’s magazines and websites have one theme regardless of topic: “It’s not your fault”. I was exaggerating to make a point. There are plenty of other themes that women write about to each other.

When not excusing stupid and shitty female behavior because it’s not her fault, women’s magazines and articles do write about female self-improvement. This most often is about hair, fashion, and makeup. Such self-improvement is about looking more feminine. If we could only have more articles helping women to ACT in a more feminine manner. Writing for women is all about feel-good, emotionally validating, you go grrl content.

Contrast this with Red Pill articles and discussion threads written by men and for men. That writing unhesitatingly excoriates male readers for stupid or shitty life decisions. The strongest language is reserved for men who behave in ways that prevent them achieving the goals in their lives. Such a tone is not all about shame. Many men need a strong kick in the ass as motivation. Red Pill/Manosphere writers wield a powerful boot when it comes to these key areas where legions of men need improvement because of:

• Limited Social Skills
• Supplicating Behaviors
• Lousy Style
• Poor Diet and Health
• No Confidence
• General Invisibility To Women
• Defeatist Mindset

Once the initial sting of the Red Pill foot-to-derriere has subsided, men have vast amounts of online resources to consult. There are blogs, message boards, videos, and consulting/coaching services. Few, if any, of such resources are available through mainstream media channels. Rollo’s or Cappy’s books aren’t available in bookstores. Ever hear of a Red Pill psychologist or counselor? Graduate schools simply don’t teach it because of the political incorrectness.

It’s particularly encouraging that many young men see the problems of the mainstream cultural lies they are told. Given their direct and personal experience, they know something’s dangerously wrong. The Manosphere gives them a place to find answers and direct advice on how to address those lies through honest self-improvement away from the stifling mainstream influence that attempts to suppress masculinity.

When read those “it’s not your fault” written by and for women, I roll my eye in wonderment at the ridiculousness. I then read the letters to dating coaches where women express their supreme frustration when they can’t meet their relationship goals. Do they not see the connection? I think that dating coaches are secretly and cleverly writing those articles to drive up demand for their business.

Most men are not stupid. This especially applies to young men not raised with the notion that they must put women on a pedestal while also being in touch with their feeeeeelings. I am encouraged by such young men. They easily navigate the Internet to find resources and information. They inevitably stumble into the Manosphere and other Red Pill websites. They are also quite willing to seek and consult other men for advice. I hope that older men can do the same.

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