The idea that most men who struggle in the modern sexual marketplace are socially inept is a blue pill caricature

Capital_Capsicum · 2026-07-07T09:56:26+00:00

It's pretty much a given that stupity and confidence is directly correlated.

A smart person will stop and think before they talk. They'll correct themselves if they do or say something wrong. They worry about stuff, because they can think about doing right and wrong. They self reflect, and self reflection leads to self doubt rather than self confidence.

A dumb person doesn't stop and think. They just do. Their words flow freely, because they don't think about what they're saying. The content of their words don't matter, only how they say it.

And women are attracted to confidence. They're not attracted to concern, consideration, and analysis. And not just women. Not just women, men as well. Men follow these confident men because our monkey brains think that a fearless monkey is more likely to kill their prey than the cautious monkey.

BitchImLilBaby · 2026-07-07T21:56:54+00:00

Yeah the highly college-educated men I know genuinely do worse in dating than those that either didn't finish college, only got an associates or just didn't go. It's baffling. You put it into words better than I could have. They want intelligence but only to a certain extent so as not to feel intimidated.

Terrible_Mixture_759 · 2026-07-07T13:21:40+00:00

An excerpt from the article above: "The latest National Survey of Family Growth shows that, for example, men with college degrees are half as likely to have had four or more partners in the last year as men with a high school education alone."

College educated men may have fewer partners but are more likely to be married and have that marriage last.

No-Professional-2276 · 2026-07-07T07:50:07+00:00

It's very obvious that a lack of social awareness and low iq gets you laid.

You always see at the club, the creepy ass guys who make women uncomfortable and get rejected like 10x won't go home alone because eventually someone will find his boldness amusing.

Women select for anti social and egotistical behaviour which they percieve as "confident". Being self aware, empathetic and overthinking are a massive ick and perceived as feminine.

What's funny is that the type of "creepy", pushy and misoginistic behaviour women say they hate - like men asking for sex after talking for 5 min in the club or being very touchy - is exactly what they reward. If this type of behaviour didn't work these men wouldn't act this way.

I've been most successful with women when I act like a retarded love island frat boy.

chriszenpaok · 2026-07-08T00:16:25+00:00

Yes, it makes people feel good to punch down on someone who they feel is inferior to them morally or socially which is why people tell themselves ‘incels’ are either evil or hermits or something else similar.

It makes them feel righteous that they fight the noble battle against such bad people

Lana_Sphyncter · 2026-07-08T06:42:00+00:00

The truth is hiding in plain sight but you guys don't want to swallow this bitter pill. Social skills are subordinate to attraction. You must be attracted to someone first to then evaluate their social skills. Nobody wants to admit that the guys who struggle in dating are just unattractive through no fault of their own.

sammyb1122 · 2026-07-07T07:29:22+00:00

Your heading and the body of your post seem unrelated to me. The actual evidence in the body of your post relates to education levels, not personality. You have given your personal opinion that the explanation of the evidence relates to personality, but I don't see any evidence to support your opinion. So your heading therefore is just your opinion. In my opinion, I disagree.

AutoModerator · 2026-07-07T07:10:39+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "Debate" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair according to these guidelines., just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Numerous-Month-7688 · 2026-07-07T08:51:49+00:00

im with the blue piller. you here it from men direct. im shy. im awkward. i dont want many friend. im autistic.

you think women care enough about men to come find little hiding autistic?

if you cant sing and dance like another man is sing and dance. the woman not going to come find you. they dont care to. they dont even care about the man they let entertain them. all to obtain desire capped 2%.

Downtown_Cat_1745 · 2026-07-07T12:39:02+00:00

Is having fewer than 4 partners a year considered not successful? If someone has a serious girlfriend, how many partners would they have?

Poppy_Luvv · 2026-07-07T10:25:22+00:00

"The latest National Survey of Family Growth shows that, for example, men with college degrees are half as likely to have had four or more partners in the last year as men with a high school education alone."

Why are you taking this as a "not good with women" thing and also taking it as a bad thing? How do you know these men are trying to be promiscuous and failing? That is not how you use data like this.

Having multiple partners a year is higher risk behavior and indicates a lack of stable relationship formation. People with more education are generally a little more risk adverse and have rates of LTR/marriage.

Solondthewookiee · 2026-07-07T11:53:40+00:00

IQ and social skills do not correlate. The fact that you have to resort to disabled level IQs to make that argument proves that.

You're also doing exactly what every single red piller does and believing that only quantity measures success. People with college degrees are more likely to be married and have a stable relationship.

Your second link is about high schoolers and it goes on to describe that as a positive thing; it literally says lower IQs are a "risk factor." It never occurred to you that smarter kids are choosing not to have sex earlier? That they're focusing on school work and not allowing themselves to be pressured into sex?

Lacunaethra · 2026-07-07T07:23:00+00:00

well, yeah, it takes social skills to make sexual energy land with women beyond the tradwife-to-trailer-park demographic, this shouldn't be a surprise.

TankfarmMurdock · 2026-07-07T09:16:06+00:00

Wouldn’t knowing when to be low inhibition around women be a…social skill?

AutoModerator · 2026-07-07T07:10:39+00:00

Hi OP,

You've chosen to identify your thread as a Debate. As such you are expected to actively engage in your own thread with a mind open to being changed. PPD has guidelines for what that involves.

OPs author must genuinely hold the position and you must be open to having your view challenged.

An unwillingness to debate in good faith may be inferred from one or several of the following:

Ignoring the main point of a comment, especially to point out some minor inconsistency;

Refusing to make concessions that an alternate view has merit;

Focusing only on the weaker arguments;

Only having discussions with users who agree with your position.

Failure to keep to this higher standard (we only apply to Debate OPs) may result in deletion of the whole thread.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

wtknight · 2026-07-07T12:18:19+00:00

I don’t fully agree with this. I do think that there is a kind of “social intelligence” that lower IQ men develop in lieu of academic intelligence. Men who are “boors” rarely attract women regardless of their intelligence. I think that what one finds instead is that these lower intelligence men have a kind of “charm” that higher intelligence men just don’t develop, whether it’s because of background or because of being some degree on the autism spectrum, which is what aids in terms of much of their intellectual success.

PB-French-Toast-9641 · 2026-07-07T14:17:26+00:00

For anyone who disagrees with my hypothesis that higher IQ men are held to a higher standard of behavior

If you’re a “kid with a bright future”, a lot can get swept under the rug as “boys will be boys”

Ok-Ninja-8165 · 2026-07-07T16:01:18+00:00

"Boys with high IQ" often have more interesting things to do than to chase girls. There's a good chance that they won't just go for first girl that shown them attention. You can have high IQ and high social intelligence at the same time. Those things are more correlated than you think.

Substantial_Peak3682 · 2026-07-09T20:19:54+00:00

"The mere possession of ANY degree at all lowers a man's chances of a promiscuous sex life by a huge margin." i think you have the causality backwards. a man who is focused on getting a degree is just less likely to be interested in going out clubbing or whatever.

also, IQ has nothing to do with social intelligence. it's more instinctual, naturally social people aren't intellectually studying it like a science report, they're following their instincts.

Firm-Break-641 · 2026-07-11T14:55:36+00:00

I see more so an issue of men having a difficulty with adapting to the reality of numerous women staying celibate and waiting longer to form relationships, either by choice or due to some personal issues. There's some lack of acknowledgement that women (as well as men) in general are becoming more reserved to the idea of relationships and flings in particular.

The age of senseless hookups and easily impressionable teenagers is dying. Teenage pregnancy is at all time low, both women and men report being less sexually active in all types of celibacy.

Then, of course it will follow your observation. Less educated women and men, who also maintain the 'teenage pregnancy' percentages, are more likely to engage with sexual activity with each other much more easily.

And what follows, in my humble guess, educated men and women would rather abstain than engage with less educated and more easily persuaded individuals. (Especially in the 60 IQ territory which would be borderline illegal)

If a woman is disinterested in dating in general, there's not much you can do with any skill.

Cool-Survey-1436 · 2026-07-12T19:36:57+00:00

I agree. You'd think that as species we would sexually select for intelligence, but that's just not the case. I feel that smarter people in general, not just men, are favored only when they dumb themselves down. No one likes over thinkers, in fact most people hate using their brains, especially when it comes to romance.

DXBrigade · 2026-07-14T23:38:35+00:00

It's a known fact that nerds have low social skills. Also smart people are less interested in sleeping around.

TopShelfSnipes · 2026-07-07T07:26:00+00:00

#1 needs to adjust for age factors. When comparing people with no degree (which can easily include high schoolers) to people with post doctorate degrees who in some cases are more than 25 and looking at their most recent year, there are social differences in that age. The dataset didn't make this distinction (if it was considered at all) clear.

Of course an 18 year old college freshman who would check "high school" as his highest level of education is going to be more likely to have 4 sexual partners over a year than a 25 year old who just finished grad school and is now looking for a wife.

#2 actually makes sense. People who are intelligent vastly tend to overthink things (especially when it comes to dating), which is not conducive to action. Furthermore, some people who are really intelligent lose the ability to relate to ordinary people. It's impossible to be attracted to someone bloviating about obscure things, or constantly using SAT words. Even if you understand what they're saying, it can come off pretentious. And heady, intellectual talk (for most people) doesn't build attraction.

Likewise, dumb people also kill attraction. Every look at a woman who seemed like a total smoke show, then she opens her mouth, both brain cells fall out, and it's just...gone? It's a thing.

The rest of your post addresses willingness to action, which can manifest as confidence. The thing is, not all sexually forward behaviors are created equal. If you can be forward without being lewd, that's the sweet spot. It's the pornbrained idiots asking women about kinks and anal who are woman-repellent.

OTOH, a guy flirting with a woman, if he's reasonably good looking, is stating his interest in a socially accepted way. Intelligents hate flirting because it doesn't follow predetermined rules, and it requires subtle things like reading body language, or other EQ skills that IQ doesn't cover. And dumb people hate flirting because it's confusing, and they don't understand why hamfisted direct approaches don't work.

You talk a lot about "leeway" for behaviors - you can behave however you like no matter who you are. Obsessing over what other people think is one of the surest ways to end up unhappy, single, or both.

I'm not Bluepilled (I'm very much purple pilled), but there is an attractiveness in when somebody just lives their life not worried about what other people think and is willing to buck convention from time to time. Yet pillers insist that doing so makes one a "bad boy" which is ridiculous.

It doesn't take redpilled fake-assholery to become your own person and start doing things for you in socially accepted ways without looking over your shoulder to see if Mommy and Daddy (and "society") approve of your every action.

EugeneCezanne · 2026-07-07T16:16:20+00:00

vague, warm, fuzzy and wholesome language such as "confident", "charismatic", or "funny". There seems to be a kind of allergy towards describing things in any real nitty-gritty physical detail.

The simplest explanation here is that it's difficult. Encapsulating a personality takes a lot of craft and most people here aren't writers.

There's a snippet of conversation between a creative writing student and his teacher, famed novelist David Foster Wallace, recorded in Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself:

Dave: "To have the narrator be funny and smart, have him say funny, smart things some of the time."

On the surface, this is just a glib take on fairly standard writing advice. But it reveals a truth relevant to us here: you can't convincingly explain a personality, especially a good one; the audience has to experience it themselves to understand. Trying to explain it will just have you saying vague qualifiers like "smart" and "funny," "charismatic" and "cool." And unfortunately, most of us don't have a journalist following us around to capture word-for-word how smart, funny, charismatic and cool our companions can be.

So what would be a good description of those behaviors? Well, first let's go over some data:

This is fundamentally the wrong approach to understanding social skills, because it isn't how most (neurotypical) people experience social interaction. But it's your thread, so let's do it.

men with college degrees

First, if you're suggesting that degrees are a good proxy for intelligence, particularly the specific aspects of intelligence that are easy to utilize and communicate in a social setting, that would be a mistake. Nor, for that matter, is number of sexual partners necessarily a proxy for success. We could just as easily speculate that men with college degrees are more likely to have long-term relationships.

Perhaps a bigger issue is self-selection: people with college degrees are more likely to socialize with each other, which raises the question of whether lower rates of casual sex are actually a product of the culture of the professional managerial class. Or to put it differently, if you took the guy with lots of lover and no degree and put him in a room with filled with degree-holders, he too would end up with fewer lovers. His "success" depends, to some extent, on his social cohort.

To use a analogy, it's like noting that the average NBA player makes more than the average NFL player. It doesn't mean that basketball players are more athletic than football players; they're just playing in different leagues.

So he keeps the approach much more toned down and eventually gets friend-zoned.

The thing is, learning how to flirt with women without being offensive is also a social skill. What you're saying is that the higher IQ boy lacks it, which pretty much defeats your whole point.

At this point you might ask: Why can't the high IQ boy just copy the low IQ boy?

I would not. This whole thing gives the impression of a false binary: as if there are only two (bad) options, taking tons of bad shots or being too afraid to shoot at all. It shouldn't take too high of an IQ to realize that the whole point of developing any kind of "skill" is to take fewer shots but hit a higher percentage.

the key behavioral difference between average looking boys who get laid a lot vs those that don't is likely not social skill but rather social/sexual aggression combined with greater leeway to exhibit those behaviors.

You are describing a social skill. You've even correctly identified the role of the social environment. I don't see how you aren't putting this together when you have all the pieces in hand.

Even in a social context where sexually aggressive advances are commonplace, there are still better and worse ways to execute them. A smooth-talker alluding to sex in a way that seems funny, fun, novel, exciting, etc, is going to have a higher success rate than a guy who say "I want to fuck someone and you're hot." Even the explicit, successful guys have cultivated some degree social-and-self awareness for their specific environment. That's "social skills" in a nutshell.

TLDR:

Your whole argument is predicated on the idea that the high-IQ guy has better "social skills" than his low-IQ contemporary. Your mistake is in defining "social skills" according to the standard of the high-IQ guy's society. What behaviors are effective as "social skills" depends primarily on one's own social context. The low-IQ guy may, in fact, be more skilled for his particular arena.

0MWSpuds · 2026-07-07T17:37:17+00:00

Once again, posts like this show people have no idea what good social skills looks like. It's also not bluepill at all since mainstream doesn't teach men good social skills, it just tells men to be nice feminist allies. In reality developing an attractive personality if you aren't born with it is harder than developing an attractive physical appearance.

Some smart men struggle especially bc they have leaned into their book smarts their entire life causing them to approach social intelligence incorrectly. They go about it in a clinical overly analytical way that makes them come across as stunted and borderline autistic if they aren't already. Couple all this with a healthy dose of arrogance they've acquired over the years due to having been repeatedly validated for their academics.

Then they become esp confused or indignant, because they know they are so smart, how can they be failing with women when they've crunched all the numbers. They then conclude social skills must not matter. I would not be surprised if many redditor men fall directly into this camp.

UziInYourFace · 2026-07-10T01:11:45+00:00

anomalocarus · 2026-07-07T07:22:25+00:00

The mere possession of ANY degree at all lowers a man's chances of a promiscuous sex life by a huge margin.

Did you consider that maybe men who have earned degrees arent interested in having promiscuous sex and thats why its so low for them?

GhostofTomJoadRATM · 2026-07-07T11:51:34+00:00

Going through such lengths to find any evidence for why you can’t get laid, instead of using that time to try and get laid is the ultimate self cuck.

GhostofTomJoadRATM · 2026-07-08T03:21:24+00:00

They are not socially inept. They are just too needy.

Suspicious_Glove7365 · 2026-07-07T12:48:45+00:00

I’m just scratching my head because you are claiming that a college degree is the CAUSE of a less promiscuous sex life, rather than a correlation. You even admit that IQ and social skills don’t perfectly correlate.

And I don’t know why you need such a detailed description of terms like “charisma” and “social skills.” It seems daily self explanatory. Charismatic people draw people to them, are able to have engaging conversation with all types of people, are generally likeable by many, and are remembered by those who interact with them. There are many different ways to be charismatic. Sometimes it involves the person in question having such undeniable authenticity that people are simply fascinated by them. Sometimes it involves the person being so good at reading people that they can have conversations that make everyone happy and comfortable, no matter who they are.

If you want even greater detail, you’re going to have to outline a scenario specifically. But just thinking of male celebrities we’ve seen interact with people, some ultra charismatic ones include Mamdani, Paul Rudd, Stephen Colbert…

Outside_Memory5703 · 2026-07-07T15:09:40+00:00

Why so? Its logical to conclude that if you never talk to women you will never have sex with them

kerfufflewhoople · 2026-07-07T15:31:46+00:00

Your point on IQ is invalid. IQ does not equate with social intelligence. You can have an IQ of 60 and be socially intelligent.

Social intelligence is also different from social skills. It included attunement to the other’s emotions, empathy, the ability to see others as complex human beings, the instinct to respond with kindness and care.

I’ve seen hundreds of people get together and fall apart. I’d say the biggest predictors of a quality, long-lasting relationship are:

1) similarities between personality types or compatibility of personality types and personal values

2) high social intelligence on both ends (both are attuned to the other’s feelings and complexity)

TheColdWoman · 2026-07-07T17:57:12+00:00

Once again, men here reveal that their only judge of a successful man is how many women he fucks. He could be a dirt bag drug dealer destined for a life behind bars and an early grave, but if he fucks twelve heroine druggies with no teeth in the back of a sagging trailer, he's the biggest Chad.

I've already said my now boss would be considered a Chad by looks. Partner at a large lawfirm, six feet, full head of hair, military, former athlete, funny as hell, and utterly devoted to his wife and children. But since he's faithfully married (as much as I can tell) since his late 20s, he isn't out there spawning sixteen illegit kids with 20 heroine addicts. And you'll tell me he's less successful than the drug dealer.

Number of sexual partners and number of kids is not what defines a successful man or woman. We are animals, but thinking and long planning animals. Our reproductive success focuses on high investment in few offspring, not spray and pray. Having a few kids who are very successful with a pretty and intelligent wife is more successful than having a bunch of kids who receive none of the care with drug addled unhealthy women.

I'd use my husband as an example too, but he's under six feet, so he won't "count" in your eyes, even though he was a soccerplayer, boxer, marksmen, and highly successful IT dude.

Any-Use8599 · 2026-07-08T12:44:24+00:00

Those Blue Pilled cucks dont get it and I doubt anyone on this comment section will say it, so here it goes. As a collective whenever women saying things that are (or at least comes across) as discouraging, fellas you can bet your pinky finger that it’s a shit test or she finds you genuinely unattractive. It’s either one of the two 9/10.

Confident-Ad-6978 · 2026-07-09T04:01:31+00:00

Men who struggle at dating are busy staying inside and jerking off

RakeChapman13 · 2026-07-07T09:52:12+00:00

The bigger factor when it comes to men and the number of women they have sex with is pursuit and thus confidence and assertiveness. Looks and all these other things matter alot but it’s not the biggest factor. It’s a numbers game. The more often you pursue women and casual sex, the more women you hit on the higher number of dates / sexual encounters you will get. It’s not complicated.

There’s a difference between struggling to get laid vs a lack of getting laid as a result of not trying much. The former implies a lot of effort. The reality when is when it comes to incels is the overwhelming majority of them are really not trying. Yeah typically they are physically unattractive ( the amount of good looking ones would surprise a lot of people though ) they typically are awkward but they could get laid being awkward if they shot their shot with a lot of women.

So it’s confidence and assertiveness more so than social skills or being charismatic.

But yeah this post has weird energy behind it. It’s weird how you are eager to frame successful men who are deemed charismatic and to have good social skills in a bad light. Are a lot of these guys guilty of that? Sure but the far majority are not.

Just_Fisherman4910 · 2026-07-07T13:49:14+00:00

What is your actual point?

Title	The idea that most men who struggle in the modern sexual marketplace are socially inept is a blue pill caricature
Author	Occams_clipper
Upvotes	167
Comments	208
Date	July 7, 2026 7:10 AM UTC (1 week ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1upnl3z/the_idea_that_most_men_who_struggle_in_the_modern/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/the-idea-that-most-men-who-struggle-in-the-modern.1584442 https://theredarchive.com/post/1584442

Comments