If not feminist dating advice, what do you think has contributed to the rise of so many socially awkward men?

wuboo · 2016-02-13T02:42:32+00:00

There weren't socially awkward men in the past? That's news.

OfSpock · 2016-02-13T02:44:59+00:00

Society used to have much stricter rules. For example, there was a list of gifts you gave someone when courting them. A watch, for example, was the last gift you gave before the engagement ring. People knew where they stood. And it was considered bad to pursue a woman who'd accepted another man's (boy's) class ring or pin.

Other rules were very restrictive for women. For example, you couldn't turn down an offer for a date except for two reasons. You already had a date, or you weren't interested in going to the Prom. This put pressure on women, if they didn't want to go with a particular guy, they had to avoid him like the plague until the guy they wanted either asked them out or asked someone else out. It was your boyfriend's job to ask you straight away, of course. On the plus side, if a guy asked you out and you said you didn't want to go to the Prom and stayed home all night, he pretty much got the message about your opinion of him. If he didn't his friends would fill him in.

Breaking down tradtional roles was great for some people but others struggle nowadays.

Societal pressure made getting married and staying married the thing to do. That made a bit of a rush to the alter and pressure on women to settle rather than reamin single. The people who would get divorced today just stuck together, silently hating each other. And a lot of people who would rather be single today are (not to forget homosexuals who until recently weren't counted in the marriage statistics but have at least not been forced into heterosexual marriages).

People have smaller families now which leads to an increase in expectations for their life. With six or eight kids, you learned to navigate a small society at least. With one or two, people are a lot more pandered to.

circlhat · 2016-02-13T01:38:37+00:00

There is overall a lack of masculine/ tough guy roles in society.

wtknight · 2016-02-13T02:56:17+00:00

It's the relative lack of social skills developed by this generation as opposed to previous generations due to the proliferation of technology. Countries like Japan have this problem much worse than the west without the "feminist dating advice" that TRP likes to condemn.

bromance946 · 2016-02-13T01:32:48+00:00

How do you know we haven't always been here, but only see ourselves better now because of the Internet?

raindient · 2016-02-13T05:40:40+00:00

Why are there so many children with severe peanut allergies these days? 50 years ago you'd never hear of a school that banned peanuts, now it's pretty common.

Oh, right, because 50 years ago, if you were so allergic to peanuts that the mere smell of peanut residue could kill you, you died young or never left the house.

Social awkwardness, while not the exact same problem, has similar causes. Bullying used to be a lot more severe, a lot of men had no choice but to take physical labor jobs, you had to leave the house if you wanted to get certain necessities, and so on. Now there are more high-paying jobs that require you to use brain instead of brawn, the internet allows you to order pretty much anything without leaving the house, and thanks to internet, TV, and video games, never leaving the house is more fun than ever.

Conveniences of modern society have made it easier to live as a severely socially awkward person. Conveniences of modern society have made it easier to live with a severe peanut allergy. Therefore, it seems like there are a lot more socially awkward people and people with peanut allergies.

There are significantly more socially awkward women than there used to be, too. And I'm not talking about that cute shy wallflower always reading a book, nor am I talking about some random girl on Internet Forum #3 who seemed to be an absolute wreck yet still claimed to have a boyfriend. I'm talking about the shit ton of awkward girls writing weird fanfiction and living in mom's basement because the world is scary and if they don't hug their favorite stuffed animal every day they'll have an emotional breakdown. The kind that it wouldn't even matter if anyone asked them out because the only people they can emotionally connect with are anime characters. They're not as common as socially awkward men but hoo boy are they out there and their numbers are increasing. Unless feminist dating advice also caused socially awkward women, I'd say social awkwardness is on the rise because it has less drawbacks than it used to.

Wumpus1 · 2016-02-13T02:11:39+00:00

Being able to spend your entire life satisfied by the entertainment of a computer is my understanding of it. Women certainly don't force lame guys to stay home all the time. Let's have some accountability here.

Xemnas81 · 2016-02-13T01:43:44+00:00

Men fear being accused of harassment. Feminism's broad definition of harassment in the workplace and out has deterred a lot of men from approaching.

Also, feminism gives women justification to act as rude as they want to men who approach. You'll hear a lot of this toxic nonsense in subs like r/askwomen who say men feel "entitled" to a woman's time when he approaches. Feminism is a toxic misandric ideology that thrives on placing a huge wedge between the genders.

Xemnas81 · 2016-02-13T01:39:22+00:00

Probably has something to do with how many more distractions we have today, both forced and optional. School was nowhere near as important 40 years ago as it is today. Kids who choose to waste their youth in school will obviously come out behind others in the social department. 20 years ago, video games (and other solo hobbies) weren't nearly as prevalent or accessible as they are today, and people choosing to spend their time doing those things will end up behind others as well. Mix these with a much more relaxed view on relationships and you end up with people just not giving a shit about their social lives till it's too late.

Xemnas81 · 2016-02-13T06:14:42+00:00

You're 19 years old. I have twice as many years on you, give or take.

There have always been socially awkward men. Buckets and buckets of them. You're just hanging out together and sharing experiences. In the past, you'd think you were all alone and you were the only one. Then you got on the internet and surprise, there are more of them.

It's like gay people, fetish-having people, or whatever. You think you're alone. You meet others and you're not. Surprise, muthafucka, as all the kids say.

lolobviously · 2016-02-13T06:52:46+00:00

Broken families.

Boys without dad's. It's 80% of societies problems from violent crime to drug and alcohol.abuse to rape, murder and more.

Xemnas81 · 2016-02-13T11:29:19+00:00

Sexual liberation and women's rights.

It's not that socially awkward men never existed, it just didn't matter in the past. In the past a woman did not work or get benefits and had to marry someone to provide for her regardless of whether she could find a handsome, exciting man to commit.

Xemnas81 · 2016-02-13T02:27:57+00:00

Men have more or less lost their way in the world. In almost all cultures through out history there has always been a male initiation ritual that turns boys into men that always had huge significance in their societies. We don't have this anymore. Men used to have fathers and uncles and grandfathers that used to mentor them and teach them how to be men. We don't have this anymore. I don't think it's so much feminisms dating advice as feminisms unrelenting attack on men, boys, and masculinity that breaks down that is creating these purposeless socially awkward boys.

bones_and_love · 2016-02-13T10:28:25+00:00

The internet surely helps weirdness and isolation. No matter how narrow or weird your tastes are, you can develop them online and meet people just like you. Before, the interest could exist, you could still be weird, but you couldn't cultivate it as quickly. You'd have to put some actual work to do that.

If you're busy doing weird things, you're not busy chatting up normal people. No practice, no experience, no expertise.

That's not to say people bad at fitting in haven't always existed. But I'd say the internet has made more of them.

feminist dating advice

I'm not even sure what this is, man. I'm assuming you mean things like sacrifice + treat her like a queen... but those things have been in stories for thousands of years well before women even had the right to own property. I can't fathom why you think such a seemingly core aspect of human storytelling/way of thinking is "feminist". Feel free to correct me if I misunderstood what you meant.

lbspredh · 2016-02-13T10:38:10+00:00

The stigma around unmarried women disappeared, back in the day if a lady got to like 23 without getting hitched people looked at her funny, there were always socially awkward men but it didin't matter because they got married because it was the best way to get laid back then and women were under a lot of pressure to settle down in their teenage years

Xemnas81 · 2016-02-13T11:48:44+00:00

One thing socially awkward guys do is not engage in conservations social interactions much. Now, with the internet, they can talk anonymously, which is way easier. Thus, there are more places where you can see how many there are. It's not that there are more, it's that you couldn't see them as well twenty/thirty/forty/fifty years ago.

fork4k · 2016-02-13T15:12:35+00:00

Probably the internet, it's not like socially awkward men aren't awkward around other men too. Also I'd say there's also been a rise in socially awkward women, it's just that noone recognizes they exist because they're not particularly attractive.

Xemnas81 · 2016-02-13T08:31:19+00:00

The red pill has a disproportionate number of socially awkward men.

They are people who missed the starting gun and now seek others to blame. I don't include you in this, Xemna, as you have extra issues to deal with that make you obsess over everything.

These men have always been around - they liked stamp collecting and making model railways or reading cowboy books in the days before the internet.

There were no glorious rites of passage into manhood for teenage boys, unless you lived in a tribe. You were just a small woman or man from the time you were a child and you were expected to become an adult quickly and get out to work.

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Xemnas81 · 2016-02-13T03:28:23+00:00

glorification of being beta in the media

alreadyredschool · 2016-02-13T10:36:47+00:00

Stupidity. Thanks to the Internet (distractions/a better alternative), helicopter parents/being a single child/growing up in a single household (prevention/shitty family dynamic) a victim mentality and some more factors (lack of talent) people are missing out the important first learning steps for becoming good at social skills. If you enjoy something more you will learn it faster. These people either don't enjoy it and opt out or miss the first steps and are left behind.

Now something else has to fix it, "ah I am a nerd, I am smart, I can use my superior intellect (my go to problem solving solution, it worked in the past so it will help me now)."

Well too bad mr nerd, your brain is too slow for social settings, you have to be quicker and you still can't manage to fake subconscious cues. But you keep using the wrong tool to fox it and further prevent yourself from learning how to do it. Social skills get worse and worse. Using your brain is tiring and you can't be 'social' all day. Yes, that is stupidity, instead of sharpening your knife (social skills) you picked the wrong tool out of the box and you are dulling your drill.

Lack of exposure and general inability (lack of talent) with continuous avoidance of learning it, lock that as my final answer.

^How ^much ^did ^I ^win?

Xemnas81 · 2016-02-13T12:09:42+00:00

It's more than just feminist dating advice.

circlhat · 2016-02-13T17:38:56+00:00

there was a study that said most people have social skills even socially awkward , in fact its not so much socially awkward but a environment you are comfortable in.

The biggest loser is only 2 thin lines away from the popular kid, when I went from a guy with 0 girls slept with to over 40 within a year I didn't change all that much.

My jokes where the same, my feelings where the same, its just I was walking away rather than trying to please people.

So don't look at yourself as socially awkward look at yourself as you, the more quirks you have the more interesting you will become.

FYI, socially awkward men can get girls , if they are confident and know basic game

voteGOPk · 2016-02-13T19:31:09+00:00

The internet allows them to come together now in similar spaces,

so it seems like there are more.

Also, back in olden days, awkward men made good friends with one another as they raided and pillaged villages since they were warriors and had a clearly defined role in their society as hunter-warriors

now they just play video games where they pretend to kill things

betterdeadthanbeta · 2016-02-13T23:31:44+00:00

We dont execute the genetically inferior as much as we used to. Its getting to be a real problem.

hashtag bringbackeugenics

Ghost_Hound · 2016-02-14T09:08:15+00:00

I suppose one answer might be the preponderance of Internet culture before physical culture. This didn't hold true of me so much but most of my friends also grew up on 4chan and forums and the like and most of our social interaction with our in-person friends (almost said meatspace friends) was D&D. I really think the reasons I am not socially awkward was because I was in bands too and because I had a strong father figure growing up.

I think feminist shit is a lot to blame for it but I also feel like my generation is a lot more accustomed to growing up online with online friends, some of whom over great distance, than chilling in real life with physical friends. The socialization rules and habits for these things are very different and happen in entirely different ways. It impacts things.

That's my best answer.

wzil · 2016-02-14T16:28:55+00:00

Daddy government means that men can no longer build a relationship off the fact they can be a provider. While there are some awkward men who also can't be a provider, the rise of daddy government has result in a large group of men being moved from the 'can achieve a relationship' to the 'can't achieve a relationship' status.

wazzup987 · 2016-02-15T13:59:02+00:00

Simple, really men are taught to be benevolently sexist toward women. This is interpreted by the precipitant as a good thing. its not a benevolently sexist person hold all the same views as a hostile sexist person they just sugar coat them. OR in other words a hostile sexist say women can do x therefore fuck them. a benevolent sexist say women can do x therefore i should help. they believe the same thing but react in different ways.

this notion has been around for a while and predates feminism. But what has exacerbated this are two things: A the self esteem movement which has crippled both boys and girls in distinct ways, more on that later. and the the next thing is feminists labeling any criticism of women in society and culture 'misogyny' double plus so if that person is a man; meanwhile try to change gender role while only allowing criticism and discussion of one gender role by both sexes and only allow criticism of the other by one.

The simple fact is if you are going to meaningfully change gender role an aspiration i agree with you have to allow open discourse from both men and women. that means a cold assessment of what good in relation to how men act on women and what bad in regards to how men act on women. and of course this means a discussion on what good about how women act on men and what bad in relation to women act on men. feminist stifled the latter half of the discussion and a half of the former part of the discussion or reframed it as negative if a woman should benefit a man in her life in any way.

Red pill is toxic but it is symptom of larger society illness not the cause as some of my cohorts will suggest. The simple fact is that three modes of society functions. Speaking as an aggregate function in relation to gender relations in society traditionalist societies will work but are kind of stupid in the 21st century, egalitarian societies will also BUT ONLY IF the majority of the people behave in an egalitarian manner. this means that men have to stop being benevolently sexist which is an issues and it does negatively affect women in a lot of ways, and women need to not reward benevolent sexism or seek it (though less emphasis on this because it shouldn’t be an option in the first place). lastly yes matriarchal societies will work.

The core problem we have toward is a not insignificant amount of women & men are hostilely sexist toward men and this belief structure has been normalized and reinforced via the use of threat narrative and the deliberate measure take to make women weak via said scare tactics and gas lighting done by yes feminist on a society wide level. The other issues is women & men need to educated our of being benevolently sexist and putting women on pedestal (or in other word airports law). this will also fix the issues of some men being doormats and not having confidence.

But the vast majority of problem in society in relation to gender stem from three things A) we see men as agents and women as hypo agents and we as culture will invent a narrative to keep that being true in our minds. (IE a woman hit man we dont say hey dont do that we say what did he do to deserve it even though the women is the moral agent in that scenario not the man). B) Mens and womens benevolently sexist attitudes toward women and their hostility sexist attitudes toward men. C) we need to open up the other half of the dialogue on gender in a real way. pretending it doesn’t exist is how you get shit like red pill.

Oh and as promised the self esteem move wreck at least a generation by giving them false sense of self. For both men and women it made them think they had unearned worth. for women this is exacerbated by the issues discussed above via men being willing via benevolent sexism to coddle women in a way they wouldn’t other men so the effect for women i prolonged compared to men. you may notice that this doesn’t really apply to women from a lower middle, working class or poor background. this is because kids from poorer background know that you earn every thing in life so they smell the bullshit of the self esteem movement a mile away.

GaiusScaevolus · 2016-02-15T16:17:32+00:00

Less opportunity for passive social interaction.

Nowadays people interact with their smartphone, their laptop, and a core group of friends/family to the exclusion of everyone else. Our society has become borderline autistic in terms of face to face social interaction. Even women are effected here.

WrensPens · 2016-02-13T04:59:15+00:00

Helicopter parents. And victim mentality. Everybody who has some slight problem is being told they are oppressed. If your a fat bitch no ones wants to fuck, you're oppressed. If your religious and others don't want to live by your beliefs, you're oppreesed. If you have social problems or mental problems, it's oh you're oppressed by neuotypical society. Instead of suck it up and fix your shit. I really fucking wish my parents hadn't fucking coddled me. I acted like a fucking weirdo, and they let me instead of just telling me the hard truth.

Title	If not feminist dating advice, what do you think has contributed to the rise of so many socially awkward men?
Author	Xemnas81
Upvotes	6
Comments	144
Date	February 13, 2016 1:16 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/45hzed/if_not_feminist_dating_advice_what_do_you_think/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/if-not-feminist-dating-advice-what-do-you-think.276271 https://theredarchive.com/post/276271

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