I'll repeat what I said on your earlier essay: the problem is men, and their inability to communicate emotionally or even be in touch with such things at all.
But simply exhorting men to "be better" is going to go as well as telling them to be taller, or worse.
We need to understand causes before we can come up with ways of improving matters, but no-one is interested in men's problems.
sidebar: It seems Marry Harrigton is indulging in a luxury belief. Cue Rob Henderson.
agreed and agreed. I saw a friend last night with whom I had a short fling at some point and he was telling me about how difficult it is for men to admit to their insecurities and problems, there is no space for them to do so, the expectations on them are silent and go unchallenged.
As an incel you wouldn't know this. But any man who has ever opened up to a woman has quickly discovered that it does not usually get a positive response and will at some point be weaponized against the man
All over the internet anonymously, yes. But one core belief many men have is that if they show fear or insecurity to their female partner, she will lose respect for them or contemn them, and leave. It has happened, so it's salient. The expectations on men are to be as stones.
How do we go about changing the culture by next weekend?
Women are not expecting men to be "as stones" - though maybe other men are. And men are not all hiding behind anonymity when insecuring on the internet. There are plenty of podcasts and face-show Youtubes and Tiktoks with men airing it all out. It's quite popular nowadays and some are even able to make a living out of it. Like. Click. Subscribe. And don't forget to join my Patreon.
"It is simply not true that women always want someone more or as financially successful as them. They want someone who can communicate at their level- "
This has been thoroughly studied in both academics and the real world. In both spaces women clearly do want a man who is as successful and as high of status as she is. He doesn't necessarily need to make more money than her. But if he doesn't he needs to make up for this in status (EG a struggling musician or starving artist or other influential person). They also want a man who meets a threshold level of attractiveness that is well above average. If you have spent any time around women you will know that they do not rate most men's physical appearance favorably. They are quite picky. These are the things that women want and they want it all. The supply of such men is limited however and as such the question for each woman becomes, which of these wants is less important to her and can be overlooked. What can she settle for. Chris Rock has a funny bit about this. "you know why your woman is always mad? Cuzz you were not her first choice"
Men get more rewards from accomplishment related efforts vs appearance improvements. If dressing better got men results they would do it. Being taller is the appearance factor that matters most and that is not buyable
overall yes, but the ~discourse~ has been accusing career oriented/metropolitan etc women of always wanting men who are richer than them and I think a lot of women of that milieu, myself included, just want someone who can communicate in the same wavelength, not looking for a provider, just looking for an equal partner who you can talk to
"They also want a man who meets a threshold level of attractiveness "
-- Obviously. That is normal and natural.
"that is well above average"
-- 5 is average. "Well above" an average 5 would be 8 thru 10. I think most women would still be attracted to "simply and/or moderately above average" like 6 and 7.
I read a piece recently (was randomly served to me on Notes, now I can't find it) describing some survey findings of how many single young people are not actively trying to date, and have been on 0-1 dates in the last year, even if they claim to want a relationship.
1) This was a call-out post I needed to read
2) Just like you say, this is crucial to understanding how the narrative around casual sex and lack of commitment is /entirely/ missing the point.
There are lots of young people out there who would like to be in relationships, many of whom could be great fits for each other, who are simply not trying - out of fear of rejection, career prioritization, pure exasperation or confusion at lack of agreed upon courtship rituals, or just plain inertia.
taking yourself out of the dating market prematurily or never entering at all out of social anxiety is a big problem which technology and safeteism has exacerbated for sure. I am very worried about this, the effects are already present in millenials and even worse in gen Z.
Reading this line "they are having less sex and are less socialised" - reminded me of a point Scott Galloway makes very often often. He says that young people (often men) are generally less sexually active for multiple reasons but technology and social media are obvious culprits. Eventually this inability to develop intimate relationships can lead to depression, polarization, and other cultural shifts that we're not ready to deal with.
and what you say is the crucial thing that I feel I see in my life too, I feel like people have lost the ability to 'built' a relationship apart from symbolic gestures
I'm just here to ask if that's your cat. :) That photo was completely irresistible, I stared at it for like 30 seconds. Nothing better than a big fat fluffy cat that'll just lay straight on his back, belly up like that.
Thanks for the call out. I'll admit I was somewhat freaked out by your essay on neediness because it was the first time I'd read you and perhaps took it as more earnest than it was, so the rawness of it was discomfiting. Though now I've read more of your work and understand your style better. I think you're a rock star.
FWIW, even though I live in Utah which I'm sure is like your nightmare, for some reason there's a sizeable Greek community here (not sure what the history is or how that got started). Anyway, a lot of the Greek women are real powerhouses...highly overrepresented in the legal community for example. In fact, one of the women attorneys who sits on the board at my firm is a Greek woman with about 27 syllables in her name, and she's one of those "has it all" chicks...in her 30s, major career, two little kids, etc.
He is and he is just perfect. He always lays down belly up, he can stay like this for hours, he is a literal teddy bear. I call him Booby, which in Greek is just a childish name kids give to their stuffed animals. When I was young me and my brother fought over an English bulldog stuffed animal our uncle bought us which we called Booby and one day when we were only slightly older my mother threw him in the trash without asking us :'( I never got over it, lol. In Greece it is full of stray cats and because I didn't have many friends growing up I always gathered all the orphan kittens from the street and bottle fed them etc When I decided I would get my own cat in London I thought, I have raised enough strays and sed enough tears when they inevitably got sick and died on me because of all the diseases they picked up from the street, I will now get the most luxurious, spoiled pussy my politics salary can buy. So I got this ragdoll boy and he is perfect. Will post more photos of him in the future. He is very needy and loves attention like a dog.
Lol, I love your comments. I love reading about how I come across to strangers. It is so interesting and I feel like it improves my writing massively.
Not many places on earth would be my nightmare, apart from maybe somewhere like Dubai, because I get my joy from humans and find meaning wherever I go. For all their flaws, I love Americans, including those from weird landlocked Western states. Nice to hear about the Greek lady ion your firm, love it that she made it to the top and got it all.
"Ok, I am being flippant here, but I needed to illustrate the rediculusness of some of these people, including those who suggest I should move to rural US."
As someone with a lot of experience in rural areas. NO! If people are "lonely" in cities and suburbs, they will go out of their minds with loneliness in the countryside. People who make such suggestions are either people who grew up in a particular rural area and still live there and thus personally know most of the other people who grew up there OR they are city and suburanites who have a "grass is greener" or "good old days" fake nostaligia for something they never experienced, based on... movies and imagine showing up in a random, isolated rural area and the countryfolk showing up at their door with a plate of homebaked cookes welcoming them to the neighborhood. DOESN'T HAPPEN. If you think making friends as an adult is hard in the city, just try it in the country!
omg 100% this, I see this in Greece all the time, you are close to your parents sure but there aren't enough people to meet and socialise, you are basically constantly dating the same closed circle of people your friends dated, ends up being insestuous
You may want to get into Teal Swan talking about female containment. There are also gold digging guys out there. As someone who is not afraid to discuss intimacy and monogamy with a person of the opposite sex that I choose to entangle myself with and has thoughts and experience with how socializing with members of the opposite sex with alcohol can go sideways real quick I'd reccomended that women don't put themselves in situations where date rape or regret happens. I would rather sit at home and bake cookies with my non existent cats that deal with fuckboi losers who have tard level iq's and need to be mothered or worshiped. Learn to be comfortable in your own skin. Stop chasing and what you are looking for will find you. As far as women with degrees getting used for a paycheck or status how lonely. Women need to learn to say what they want and how they are feeling. The obsession with status,looks and money and fear of being alone and how that manifests in the culture is interesting and the behavior exhibited is not only curious but the levels of manpleasing that happens while the woman suffers puts them into a neurotic state that rivals Bridget Jones. Don't date or marry down ladies. Don't let unworthy men hit it as an endless supply of shitty sex with men that just really don't care if you're pleased are out there and we all know that there's no point in having sex with a guy that can't give you an orgasm or that's porn or video game obsessed and a selfish lover. We need reassurance and to know we are safe and protected no matter how big or small your paycheck is or if you do or don't like what you see in the mirror. If you don't like what you see in the mirror no matter if you could walk the catwalk or not try to find something that you like. Change what you don't and know if it's your soul that's making you project. No matter what you stupid fucking status is bc let's face it status chasing is ultimately a vapid,lonely, crazy making road and its not going to lead to fucking nirvana. Just my thoughts. Be well ladies. Don't suffer those ho ass men who don't deserve to be in your halls of glory and don't care if they get to see your O face. 😁🤣
the thing is Jessica, this is an interesting comment and I would engage with you more if I hadn't just read another comment you made under one of my posts saying I am sad and want to be a cumm dumpster. In this one you seem to realise a bit more that you are writing messages a real person is reading, rather than pixels on a screen.
No reason. I just posted it in case you are interested in her approach, since you mentioned Teal Swan.
"Don't let unworthy men hit it as an endless supply of shitty sex with men that just really don't care if you're pleased are out there and we all know that there's no point in having sex with a guy that can't give you an orgasm"
-- Never understood what women were getting out of casual sex hook ups and one night stands. Orgasms are not forthcoming in such scenarios. But most women are not engaging in them. The Manosphere exaggerates the hook up culture to make it seem like most women are out here riding the carousel. It's a projection because that is what they would be doing if they could.
Ahhh I see where you are going now! I completely agree with you. It's part of the lie men have been telling women to cheapen us and the "sexual revolution " amplified the lie and honestly the only ones empowered are men to have their pick with zero consequences or accountability. I'll check her out. I agreed with Swan and she was prominent enough to reference that others would hopefully get interested enough to stop getting conned into one sided non mutually beneficial situations that really only leaves the woman feeling further removed from herself than the place from where she started. Taking back our power is vital. It doesn't rest in another loving us it rests in ourselves to say that's wrong and you are not going to use me. Saying No is empowering.
"So many girls live with their parents till they get married (which could be their mid 30s) make 600euros a month and spend half of it on keeping their nails professionally manicured and on Zara hauls so that they can show up to the down-town bars in different looks every weekend, all in hopes that one of the male ‘entreprenuers’ will notice them."
Obvious question, but how much of this is about attracting a (male) mate, and how much is intra-female status competition? In my experience men mostly wouldn't notice, or care, if you were wearing the same outfit as last week - especially if you look hot in it anyway. It's other women who will sneer about it.
Yeah I think it's a complete myth that women dress up for or want to impress other women. They just say that because it's embarrassing to say you're trying to impress men. And it's funny to me that men actually believe this when it's so obviously untrue. I lived in an attic apartment above a house full of a dozen sorority girls in college...trust me, when there are no men around, they're not dressing up to impress each other. The sweats go on, the hair gets pulled back into a bun, the makeup comes off...they get comfortable. It's only when a guy comes around that suddenly they all run for their warpaint and cute outfits.
But similarly, and you'll have to trust me on this, I know of no single (English) men who've ever thought "fit, but I've seen that outfit before, so I'll pass". Far more likely is "I've no idea why she's attached two dead spiders to her eyelids, but nice body so I won't mention it"...
agreed for sure, it obviously depends on the men, but there are cultures, like Greek middle-class culture, where what a woman wears and how she beautifies herself is scrutinised with a toothcomb. I have heard men from my age and social group speak with horror about women with hairy arms for example. Then what happens is even men do not mind that you are wearing the same outfit twice, knowing that *in this economy* pretty girls are a dime a dozen and men will value your looks over other characteristics you try to maximise that attribute even if the return on investment diminishes after you have ticked all the basic boxes. Also, men love novelty.
Yeah I agree with Stella, this is totally dependent on subculture. I've lived in different places in the US without really changing my grooming/clothing standards and what is considered overdone and fake and try-hard in one place is considered slovenly and unattractive in another. What's considered high maintenance by some is just baseline acceptable grooming in another. Many of the Latino subcultures here are much like Stella describes of Greek men, where if you aren't wearing heels and full makeup, they think you look unfeminine and gross. Places with a lot of white people and outdoorsy elements like Vermont or Colorado or Oregon you're going to get a much more down to earth expectation and the overly done up look is a turn off as it's viewed as artificial. Totally depends on the particular subculture.
Regardless, women don't put on makeup and dress up in uncomfortable push up bras and heels for other women. That's just something they say when they're being accused by a jealous boyfriend of inappropriately dolling up for an event he isn't attending, or otherwise denying wanting to look good for men bc that makes you seem pathetic. And it may not even be that you are trying to attract sexual interest, but it simply makes your life easier and men will be nicer to you in general if they think you look good.
Greek men are extremely harsh on women's looks. They would not tolerate a woman witn unmanicured nails or unfeminine clothes. Obviously there is variation but the dating market in Greece demands impeccable beauty efforts. British men are A LOT more tolerating in my experince especially when it comes to thinks like natural beauty, for ecample a Greek guy would never tolerate a woman who has not had her naval region completely waxed like a child. British men will even tolerate armpit hair (social suicide behaviour in Greece).
I'm surprised to hear that about armpit hair and Greece. Wasn't most of Europe not shaving armpits as recently as the 70s? I thought the armpit hair shaving obsession was an American thing. And waxing navel region - this is the first I've heard of it.
in Greece, we are all expected to look like babies at all times, which is sad because Greek women are naturally more hairy, and we have darker skin, especially those who, like myself, come from Greek refugees from Turkey, which means laser hair removal is less effective and more painful.
Your comment about not wanting to date a poor and ugly man interested me. Some time ago OKCupid released their compilation of how men rated women's profile attractiveness, and men the women's - on a 7 point scale, so we'd expect 4 to be average.
It turned out that men rated according to a normal distribution - some women are ugly, some are beautiful, most average. Ordinary bell curve, 4's the average.
But women rated 81% of the male profiles as 1-3. They said 81% were "below average" in attractiveness. 12% were "average".
At this point I can hear a significant part of the audience crying that women can have high standards if they want - and I agree absolutely. But the more people you exclude as potential spouses, the harder your search will be. Your search is not made difficult by the men, but by your standards. Again, that's your right, absolutely, unquestionably. After all, you're hoping to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want to be happy with them.
But if 81% make you go "ick" and 93% make you go at best "meh", then you're going to have a long search. It's much the same with searching for a job, new house or whatever.
I really liked your original neediness article and said so in comments on previous posts. But I also thought Regan AG had a worthy caveat in hers and asked a reasonable question that you haven't really addressed?
Let's reverse the sexes a moment. A man writes: "I am going through a real dry spell. All the women I really want casual sex with want tangible evidence of commitment before sleeping with me. I want them to fuck me quickly, but they first want me to love them!". (It goes without saying that the man's neediness is for something much shallower than yours for love. But let's be realistic about the fact men want casual sex far more than women do, as you were in your piece.)
One could ask that man: "Are you pursuing women with precisely the kind of attractive traits that makes it easy for those women to find the loving relationships they want? The ones who are mostly taken and - when single - are not on the market for casual sex? They're not any more interested in loveless sex than you are in a committed relationship with them?" He could say absolutely that he isn't actually going for the feminine, busty blondes ten years his junior. Or he could say he is doing that but he still doesn't get why he's struggling to bed them. Or he could answer in another way.
But would you be convinced if he said that to ask him these questions drips with contempt for his 10/10 status?
Hey Tom, thanks for engaging so deeply with this debate. I think I am struggling a bit when people vascialte between the wider debate and my personal circumstances (which obviously strangers on the internet can only imagine) and personal essay (which as I said was meant as a creative expression and used artistic license liberally). It ends up with me having to defend my real life and self and dodge questions as you say because they simply don't apply to me. E.g. I don't actually sleep with men who I want to have relationships with but who won't commit to me. So if you are asking me specifically I have dated a variety of men, some of whom one would argue where beneath my 'market value' - whatever that dreaded phrase indicates. If we are talking about women more generally I agree with Regan that SOME BUT NOT ALL successful metropolitan women have stupid standards, especially materialistic ones. I said as much in this essay. I also answerd Regan's post now. (as I said, trying to keep on top of the comments but genuinely I have received hundreds, inclduing private emails and messages on other platforms about this exact post, if I addressed every single point made in response to this piece I would need to write a short book instead of the follow up post I did here- this is also why Regan maybe felt I was being unfair andexagerating her sentiment, it is because I had to group similar arguments, obviously the stregth of the opinions varied, and I can only guess that without knowing Regan and the other commenters' opinions more intimately.
To be honest I didn't read ALL of your Female Neediness pieces because they are quite long. But I liked what I did read....kind of stream of consciousness. And I read enough to be able to say that - good as they are - they do one usual thing in sex journalism....which is to not give nearly enough emphasis to the huge differences in dating/mating experience between what I call (in this piece of my own) the More and the Less Desired: "What always strikes me when I read this kind of journalism is how it is always framed in terms of a generic species called ‘Women’ and a generic species called ‘Men’.......But many (of both sexes) are capable of feeling that the sex and romance cards are stacked against them. Others are prettier, richer, smarter - or just luckier - than you. It has long been understood that male desire for a woman tends to be driven primarily by her physical attractiveness whereas women place much greater value on personality traits like confidence and ‘charm’ – especially when they have led to social success and/or wealth. There have been attempts recently to try and quantify these tendencies using various online dating metrics..... What then of the distribution of those ‘attractive’ male personality traits? A study on the dating app Tinder found that men “liked” more than 60 percent of the female profiles they viewed, while women “liked” only 4.5 percent of male profiles. So Nature it would seem is also unfair in its distribution of this rare 4.5% of male animal magnetism. There is, in other words, ‘unfairness’ in the mating experience for both sexes." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-less-desired
Wow…you clearly don’t live in New York City or the land of the uber-free aka USA.
Many of the women that I know and have tried to date don’t want to date in their 20s and go to great strides to stay unmarried before age 30. They are busy with grad school, getting work promotions, traveling internationally, and maybe start looking for husbands in their early 30s.
This relationship neediness you write about has been stamped out of the hearts of upper middle class American women.
Perhaps the game is different in London and Athens 😎
I just don't believe it. I know enough women of all sorts to know you are describing a tiny minority. Even in London I know so many high flying career women who SAY they don't need commitment only to be reduced to a puddle when they don't get the thing they said they didn't want in the first place. They speak words their hearts don't believe. They say they are having so much fun just dating around and I am not sure whether they are trying to convince me or themselves. Of course, authentic exceptions of women with high sociosexuality exist but they are a minority. The rest are larping disney princess hopefuls.
Like he said, they are enjoying grad school, career advancement, international travel, etc. On top of that if they have a solid community in their Church or with friends, they are going to feel socially fulfilled as well. I also know a lot of religious women who are not looking to marry in their twenties. They want to experience something of the world or life before settling down to hearth, home and kids which is automatically expected of them anyway.
What a lazy argument. It not a fault of men to be unable to read women's minds. Perhaps if women had the courage to speak publicly what they so passionately write about in their intellectually comforting spaces, communication would get somewhere. But that would require some level of discomfort.... oh my what a vicious paradox.
I stumbled into these articles out of curiosity and small bits of clarity, and turns out the trope is the same whether you use 10 words or 10000000.
I'll repeat what I said on your earlier essay: the problem is men, and their inability to communicate emotionally or even be in touch with such things at all.
But simply exhorting men to "be better" is going to go as well as telling them to be taller, or worse.
We need to understand causes before we can come up with ways of improving matters, but no-one is interested in men's problems.
sidebar: It seems Marry Harrigton is indulging in a luxury belief. Cue Rob Henderson.
agreed and agreed. I saw a friend last night with whom I had a short fling at some point and he was telling me about how difficult it is for men to admit to their insecurities and problems, there is no space for them to do so, the expectations on them are silent and go unchallenged.
They are all over the internet admitting to their insecurities and problems.
As an incel you wouldn't know this. But any man who has ever opened up to a woman has quickly discovered that it does not usually get a positive response and will at some point be weaponized against the man
My username is "Incel Theory" not "I Am An Incel".
All over the internet anonymously, yes. But one core belief many men have is that if they show fear or insecurity to their female partner, she will lose respect for them or contemn them, and leave. It has happened, so it's salient. The expectations on men are to be as stones.
How do we go about changing the culture by next weekend?
Women are not expecting men to be "as stones" - though maybe other men are. And men are not all hiding behind anonymity when insecuring on the internet. There are plenty of podcasts and face-show Youtubes and Tiktoks with men airing it all out. It's quite popular nowadays and some are even able to make a living out of it. Like. Click. Subscribe. And don't forget to join my Patreon.
"It is simply not true that women always want someone more or as financially successful as them. They want someone who can communicate at their level- "
This has been thoroughly studied in both academics and the real world. In both spaces women clearly do want a man who is as successful and as high of status as she is. He doesn't necessarily need to make more money than her. But if he doesn't he needs to make up for this in status (EG a struggling musician or starving artist or other influential person). They also want a man who meets a threshold level of attractiveness that is well above average. If you have spent any time around women you will know that they do not rate most men's physical appearance favorably. They are quite picky. These are the things that women want and they want it all. The supply of such men is limited however and as such the question for each woman becomes, which of these wants is less important to her and can be overlooked. What can she settle for. Chris Rock has a funny bit about this. "you know why your woman is always mad? Cuzz you were not her first choice"
As a counterpoint, do men not get away with putting a lot less effort into their appearance than women?
Men get more rewards from accomplishment related efforts vs appearance improvements. If dressing better got men results they would do it. Being taller is the appearance factor that matters most and that is not buyable
Sincce these slovenly men are more likely to be single, I'd say no, they don't get away with it.
overall yes, but the ~discourse~ has been accusing career oriented/metropolitan etc women of always wanting men who are richer than them and I think a lot of women of that milieu, myself included, just want someone who can communicate in the same wavelength, not looking for a provider, just looking for an equal partner who you can talk to
> I think a lot of women of that milieu, myself included, just want someone who can communicate in the same wavelength
What does this look like? If you know of anyone who’s written about this I’d be interested.
Great piece btw, your writing is always interesting.
"They also want a man who meets a threshold level of attractiveness "
-- Obviously. That is normal and natural.
"that is well above average"
-- 5 is average. "Well above" an average 5 would be 8 thru 10. I think most women would still be attracted to "simply and/or moderately above average" like 6 and 7.
I read a piece recently (was randomly served to me on Notes, now I can't find it) describing some survey findings of how many single young people are not actively trying to date, and have been on 0-1 dates in the last year, even if they claim to want a relationship.
1) This was a call-out post I needed to read
2) Just like you say, this is crucial to understanding how the narrative around casual sex and lack of commitment is /entirely/ missing the point.
There are lots of young people out there who would like to be in relationships, many of whom could be great fits for each other, who are simply not trying - out of fear of rejection, career prioritization, pure exasperation or confusion at lack of agreed upon courtship rituals, or just plain inertia.
taking yourself out of the dating market prematurily or never entering at all out of social anxiety is a big problem which technology and safeteism has exacerbated for sure. I am very worried about this, the effects are already present in millenials and even worse in gen Z.
Was it from Zvi Mowshowitz by any chance? If not, I do recommend his dating roundups as a good call-to-action
Yes thank you! I spent some more time after writing that comment trying to search for it but still couldn't find it.
Reading this line "they are having less sex and are less socialised" - reminded me of a point Scott Galloway makes very often often. He says that young people (often men) are generally less sexually active for multiple reasons but technology and social media are obvious culprits. Eventually this inability to develop intimate relationships can lead to depression, polarization, and other cultural shifts that we're not ready to deal with.
and what you say is the crucial thing that I feel I see in my life too, I feel like people have lost the ability to 'built' a relationship apart from symbolic gestures
I'm just here to ask if that's your cat. :) That photo was completely irresistible, I stared at it for like 30 seconds. Nothing better than a big fat fluffy cat that'll just lay straight on his back, belly up like that.
Thanks for the call out. I'll admit I was somewhat freaked out by your essay on neediness because it was the first time I'd read you and perhaps took it as more earnest than it was, so the rawness of it was discomfiting. Though now I've read more of your work and understand your style better. I think you're a rock star.
FWIW, even though I live in Utah which I'm sure is like your nightmare, for some reason there's a sizeable Greek community here (not sure what the history is or how that got started). Anyway, a lot of the Greek women are real powerhouses...highly overrepresented in the legal community for example. In fact, one of the women attorneys who sits on the board at my firm is a Greek woman with about 27 syllables in her name, and she's one of those "has it all" chicks...in her 30s, major career, two little kids, etc.
He is and he is just perfect. He always lays down belly up, he can stay like this for hours, he is a literal teddy bear. I call him Booby, which in Greek is just a childish name kids give to their stuffed animals. When I was young me and my brother fought over an English bulldog stuffed animal our uncle bought us which we called Booby and one day when we were only slightly older my mother threw him in the trash without asking us :'( I never got over it, lol. In Greece it is full of stray cats and because I didn't have many friends growing up I always gathered all the orphan kittens from the street and bottle fed them etc When I decided I would get my own cat in London I thought, I have raised enough strays and sed enough tears when they inevitably got sick and died on me because of all the diseases they picked up from the street, I will now get the most luxurious, spoiled pussy my politics salary can buy. So I got this ragdoll boy and he is perfect. Will post more photos of him in the future. He is very needy and loves attention like a dog.
Lol, I love your comments. I love reading about how I come across to strangers. It is so interesting and I feel like it improves my writing massively.
Not many places on earth would be my nightmare, apart from maybe somewhere like Dubai, because I get my joy from humans and find meaning wherever I go. For all their flaws, I love Americans, including those from weird landlocked Western states. Nice to hear about the Greek lady ion your firm, love it that she made it to the top and got it all.
"Ok, I am being flippant here, but I needed to illustrate the rediculusness of some of these people, including those who suggest I should move to rural US."
As someone with a lot of experience in rural areas. NO! If people are "lonely" in cities and suburbs, they will go out of their minds with loneliness in the countryside. People who make such suggestions are either people who grew up in a particular rural area and still live there and thus personally know most of the other people who grew up there OR they are city and suburanites who have a "grass is greener" or "good old days" fake nostaligia for something they never experienced, based on... movies and imagine showing up in a random, isolated rural area and the countryfolk showing up at their door with a plate of homebaked cookes welcoming them to the neighborhood. DOESN'T HAPPEN. If you think making friends as an adult is hard in the city, just try it in the country!
omg 100% this, I see this in Greece all the time, you are close to your parents sure but there aren't enough people to meet and socialise, you are basically constantly dating the same closed circle of people your friends dated, ends up being insestuous
You may want to get into Teal Swan talking about female containment. There are also gold digging guys out there. As someone who is not afraid to discuss intimacy and monogamy with a person of the opposite sex that I choose to entangle myself with and has thoughts and experience with how socializing with members of the opposite sex with alcohol can go sideways real quick I'd reccomended that women don't put themselves in situations where date rape or regret happens. I would rather sit at home and bake cookies with my non existent cats that deal with fuckboi losers who have tard level iq's and need to be mothered or worshiped. Learn to be comfortable in your own skin. Stop chasing and what you are looking for will find you. As far as women with degrees getting used for a paycheck or status how lonely. Women need to learn to say what they want and how they are feeling. The obsession with status,looks and money and fear of being alone and how that manifests in the culture is interesting and the behavior exhibited is not only curious but the levels of manpleasing that happens while the woman suffers puts them into a neurotic state that rivals Bridget Jones. Don't date or marry down ladies. Don't let unworthy men hit it as an endless supply of shitty sex with men that just really don't care if you're pleased are out there and we all know that there's no point in having sex with a guy that can't give you an orgasm or that's porn or video game obsessed and a selfish lover. We need reassurance and to know we are safe and protected no matter how big or small your paycheck is or if you do or don't like what you see in the mirror. If you don't like what you see in the mirror no matter if you could walk the catwalk or not try to find something that you like. Change what you don't and know if it's your soul that's making you project. No matter what you stupid fucking status is bc let's face it status chasing is ultimately a vapid,lonely, crazy making road and its not going to lead to fucking nirvana. Just my thoughts. Be well ladies. Don't suffer those ho ass men who don't deserve to be in your halls of glory and don't care if they get to see your O face. 😁🤣
the thing is Jessica, this is an interesting comment and I would engage with you more if I hadn't just read another comment you made under one of my posts saying I am sad and want to be a cumm dumpster. In this one you seem to realise a bit more that you are writing messages a real person is reading, rather than pixels on a screen.
Jessica, what do you think of Mina The Universe Guru?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psAQxYWkJqo
Never heard of her.
Well, I provided a link to her work above.
Why should I click your link?
No reason. I just posted it in case you are interested in her approach, since you mentioned Teal Swan.
"Don't let unworthy men hit it as an endless supply of shitty sex with men that just really don't care if you're pleased are out there and we all know that there's no point in having sex with a guy that can't give you an orgasm"
-- Never understood what women were getting out of casual sex hook ups and one night stands. Orgasms are not forthcoming in such scenarios. But most women are not engaging in them. The Manosphere exaggerates the hook up culture to make it seem like most women are out here riding the carousel. It's a projection because that is what they would be doing if they could.
Ahhh I see where you are going now! I completely agree with you. It's part of the lie men have been telling women to cheapen us and the "sexual revolution " amplified the lie and honestly the only ones empowered are men to have their pick with zero consequences or accountability. I'll check her out. I agreed with Swan and she was prominent enough to reference that others would hopefully get interested enough to stop getting conned into one sided non mutually beneficial situations that really only leaves the woman feeling further removed from herself than the place from where she started. Taking back our power is vital. It doesn't rest in another loving us it rests in ourselves to say that's wrong and you are not going to use me. Saying No is empowering.
exactly, it is a tiny tiny percentage of women who have a lot of casual sex, they just so often happen to be more visible
"So many girls live with their parents till they get married (which could be their mid 30s) make 600euros a month and spend half of it on keeping their nails professionally manicured and on Zara hauls so that they can show up to the down-town bars in different looks every weekend, all in hopes that one of the male ‘entreprenuers’ will notice them."
Obvious question, but how much of this is about attracting a (male) mate, and how much is intra-female status competition? In my experience men mostly wouldn't notice, or care, if you were wearing the same outfit as last week - especially if you look hot in it anyway. It's other women who will sneer about it.
Yeah I think it's a complete myth that women dress up for or want to impress other women. They just say that because it's embarrassing to say you're trying to impress men. And it's funny to me that men actually believe this when it's so obviously untrue. I lived in an attic apartment above a house full of a dozen sorority girls in college...trust me, when there are no men around, they're not dressing up to impress each other. The sweats go on, the hair gets pulled back into a bun, the makeup comes off...they get comfortable. It's only when a guy comes around that suddenly they all run for their warpaint and cute outfits.
But similarly, and you'll have to trust me on this, I know of no single (English) men who've ever thought "fit, but I've seen that outfit before, so I'll pass". Far more likely is "I've no idea why she's attached two dead spiders to her eyelids, but nice body so I won't mention it"...
agreed for sure, it obviously depends on the men, but there are cultures, like Greek middle-class culture, where what a woman wears and how she beautifies herself is scrutinised with a toothcomb. I have heard men from my age and social group speak with horror about women with hairy arms for example. Then what happens is even men do not mind that you are wearing the same outfit twice, knowing that *in this economy* pretty girls are a dime a dozen and men will value your looks over other characteristics you try to maximise that attribute even if the return on investment diminishes after you have ticked all the basic boxes. Also, men love novelty.
Yeah I agree with Stella, this is totally dependent on subculture. I've lived in different places in the US without really changing my grooming/clothing standards and what is considered overdone and fake and try-hard in one place is considered slovenly and unattractive in another. What's considered high maintenance by some is just baseline acceptable grooming in another. Many of the Latino subcultures here are much like Stella describes of Greek men, where if you aren't wearing heels and full makeup, they think you look unfeminine and gross. Places with a lot of white people and outdoorsy elements like Vermont or Colorado or Oregon you're going to get a much more down to earth expectation and the overly done up look is a turn off as it's viewed as artificial. Totally depends on the particular subculture.
Regardless, women don't put on makeup and dress up in uncomfortable push up bras and heels for other women. That's just something they say when they're being accused by a jealous boyfriend of inappropriately dolling up for an event he isn't attending, or otherwise denying wanting to look good for men bc that makes you seem pathetic. And it may not even be that you are trying to attract sexual interest, but it simply makes your life easier and men will be nicer to you in general if they think you look good.
Greek men are extremely harsh on women's looks. They would not tolerate a woman witn unmanicured nails or unfeminine clothes. Obviously there is variation but the dating market in Greece demands impeccable beauty efforts. British men are A LOT more tolerating in my experince especially when it comes to thinks like natural beauty, for ecample a Greek guy would never tolerate a woman who has not had her naval region completely waxed like a child. British men will even tolerate armpit hair (social suicide behaviour in Greece).
I'm surprised to hear that about armpit hair and Greece. Wasn't most of Europe not shaving armpits as recently as the 70s? I thought the armpit hair shaving obsession was an American thing. And waxing navel region - this is the first I've heard of it.
in Greece, we are all expected to look like babies at all times, which is sad because Greek women are naturally more hairy, and we have darker skin, especially those who, like myself, come from Greek refugees from Turkey, which means laser hair removal is less effective and more painful.
Is this a relatively recent thing? Back in the or even 70s or even 80s wasn't it different?
Hmm no clue, I was born in the 90s
Your comment about not wanting to date a poor and ugly man interested me. Some time ago OKCupid released their compilation of how men rated women's profile attractiveness, and men the women's - on a 7 point scale, so we'd expect 4 to be average.
https://tinyurl.com/3ayw3cp4
It turned out that men rated according to a normal distribution - some women are ugly, some are beautiful, most average. Ordinary bell curve, 4's the average.
But women rated 81% of the male profiles as 1-3. They said 81% were "below average" in attractiveness. 12% were "average".
At this point I can hear a significant part of the audience crying that women can have high standards if they want - and I agree absolutely. But the more people you exclude as potential spouses, the harder your search will be. Your search is not made difficult by the men, but by your standards. Again, that's your right, absolutely, unquestionably. After all, you're hoping to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want to be happy with them.
But if 81% make you go "ick" and 93% make you go at best "meh", then you're going to have a long search. It's much the same with searching for a job, new house or whatever.
I really liked your original neediness article and said so in comments on previous posts. But I also thought Regan AG had a worthy caveat in hers and asked a reasonable question that you haven't really addressed?
Let's reverse the sexes a moment. A man writes: "I am going through a real dry spell. All the women I really want casual sex with want tangible evidence of commitment before sleeping with me. I want them to fuck me quickly, but they first want me to love them!". (It goes without saying that the man's neediness is for something much shallower than yours for love. But let's be realistic about the fact men want casual sex far more than women do, as you were in your piece.)
One could ask that man: "Are you pursuing women with precisely the kind of attractive traits that makes it easy for those women to find the loving relationships they want? The ones who are mostly taken and - when single - are not on the market for casual sex? They're not any more interested in loveless sex than you are in a committed relationship with them?" He could say absolutely that he isn't actually going for the feminine, busty blondes ten years his junior. Or he could say he is doing that but he still doesn't get why he's struggling to bed them. Or he could answer in another way.
But would you be convinced if he said that to ask him these questions drips with contempt for his 10/10 status?
Hey Tom, thanks for engaging so deeply with this debate. I think I am struggling a bit when people vascialte between the wider debate and my personal circumstances (which obviously strangers on the internet can only imagine) and personal essay (which as I said was meant as a creative expression and used artistic license liberally). It ends up with me having to defend my real life and self and dodge questions as you say because they simply don't apply to me. E.g. I don't actually sleep with men who I want to have relationships with but who won't commit to me. So if you are asking me specifically I have dated a variety of men, some of whom one would argue where beneath my 'market value' - whatever that dreaded phrase indicates. If we are talking about women more generally I agree with Regan that SOME BUT NOT ALL successful metropolitan women have stupid standards, especially materialistic ones. I said as much in this essay. I also answerd Regan's post now. (as I said, trying to keep on top of the comments but genuinely I have received hundreds, inclduing private emails and messages on other platforms about this exact post, if I addressed every single point made in response to this piece I would need to write a short book instead of the follow up post I did here- this is also why Regan maybe felt I was being unfair andexagerating her sentiment, it is because I had to group similar arguments, obviously the stregth of the opinions varied, and I can only guess that without knowing Regan and the other commenters' opinions more intimately.
To be honest I didn't read ALL of your Female Neediness pieces because they are quite long. But I liked what I did read....kind of stream of consciousness. And I read enough to be able to say that - good as they are - they do one usual thing in sex journalism....which is to not give nearly enough emphasis to the huge differences in dating/mating experience between what I call (in this piece of my own) the More and the Less Desired: "What always strikes me when I read this kind of journalism is how it is always framed in terms of a generic species called ‘Women’ and a generic species called ‘Men’.......But many (of both sexes) are capable of feeling that the sex and romance cards are stacked against them. Others are prettier, richer, smarter - or just luckier - than you. It has long been understood that male desire for a woman tends to be driven primarily by her physical attractiveness whereas women place much greater value on personality traits like confidence and ‘charm’ – especially when they have led to social success and/or wealth. There have been attempts recently to try and quantify these tendencies using various online dating metrics..... What then of the distribution of those ‘attractive’ male personality traits? A study on the dating app Tinder found that men “liked” more than 60 percent of the female profiles they viewed, while women “liked” only 4.5 percent of male profiles. So Nature it would seem is also unfair in its distribution of this rare 4.5% of male animal magnetism. There is, in other words, ‘unfairness’ in the mating experience for both sexes." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-less-desired
Wow…you clearly don’t live in New York City or the land of the uber-free aka USA.
Many of the women that I know and have tried to date don’t want to date in their 20s and go to great strides to stay unmarried before age 30. They are busy with grad school, getting work promotions, traveling internationally, and maybe start looking for husbands in their early 30s.
This relationship neediness you write about has been stamped out of the hearts of upper middle class American women.
Perhaps the game is different in London and Athens 😎
I just don't believe it. I know enough women of all sorts to know you are describing a tiny minority. Even in London I know so many high flying career women who SAY they don't need commitment only to be reduced to a puddle when they don't get the thing they said they didn't want in the first place. They speak words their hearts don't believe. They say they are having so much fun just dating around and I am not sure whether they are trying to convince me or themselves. Of course, authentic exceptions of women with high sociosexuality exist but they are a minority. The rest are larping disney princess hopefuls.
The upper middle class women that I know are all Catholic and are living chaste lives. Marriage isn’t high on their priority list in their 20s.
Oh ok, to be fair I have never met a woman go is both religious and a virgin and not wanting to marry, let alone want to stay that way till her 30s
Like he said, they are enjoying grad school, career advancement, international travel, etc. On top of that if they have a solid community in their Church or with friends, they are going to feel socially fulfilled as well. I also know a lot of religious women who are not looking to marry in their twenties. They want to experience something of the world or life before settling down to hearth, home and kids which is automatically expected of them anyway.
"the problem is men" *eyeroll*
What a lazy argument. It not a fault of men to be unable to read women's minds. Perhaps if women had the courage to speak publicly what they so passionately write about in their intellectually comforting spaces, communication would get somewhere. But that would require some level of discomfort.... oh my what a vicious paradox.
I stumbled into these articles out of curiosity and small bits of clarity, and turns out the trope is the same whether you use 10 words or 10000000.
Reading your stuff is like witnessing the existential and spiritual equivalent of a collapsing dam. Were I not already a misanthrope, I would be now.
Incel….Femcel… Fakecel… Sounds like America is the country of some-cels now.
It's a large, tornado-producing storm. A super-cel.
Speaking of British politics, watching George Galloway carve that twerp from Sky News up like a Christmas goose was most satisfying.