Disclaimer: Before we begin the thread I want to bring up that in the context of this discussion I would prefer not wasting any time on discussing men who "being themselves" means they have some obvious fundamental flaw like a lack of hygiene, no job/shit job, obesity, no fashion sense whatsoever, etc. This is low hanging fruit and it goes without saying that of course those traits will lead to no dating opportunities.

I saw two users arguing with each other over the common trope "just be yourself" as dating advice.

I agreed with one of the users who imo correctly points out that for many men (not all) you can't really "be yourself" when it comes to dating if you want any sort of diversity/ability to pick a partner in your dating pool of available options.

A lot of men have decent paying jobs, have hobbies, their own place, hygienic, etc however if they truly just act like themselves they will get nowhere with women or will have to settle with the perhaps very very small few (like so little you can count them on one hand) number of women who are interested.

Men here bring up the trope of "acting like a monkey" to keep women interested. It's the shared experience many of us have had that in order to attract women we have to put on this fake mask/persona (this often translates to acting louder/funnier/cockier/more extroverted/more confrontational than we actually are) and continue doing it to keep her interested.

Some men are lucky and are inherently attractive to a lot of women, so they can "be themselves" because they have the inherent character traits (extroverted, confidence/cockiness, funny), mainstream hobbies/interests (pop culture, sports, etc) that a large pool of women find attractive combined with having a decent enough physical appearance.

However for a lot of men, if you do not have certain character traits, hobbies/interests your potential pool of dating options from interested women drops dramatically. I want to make clear this isn't AWALT, this is recognizing that certain traits are found attractive by a much larger pool of people than others (for example being a "social person" is usually preferred over someone who is more of a wallflower, being thin is usually preferred over being fat, etc).

But the problem is that attraction is a two way street. Even if you find a woman who is interested in you, you want to be attracted/interested in her (duh).

I feel like women really do not appreciate however just how much our dating options and possible dating experiences dwindle into non existence if we "be ourselves" and combine it with actually having standards of our own/picking a legitimately satisfying partner for our needs/wants.

Fundamentally what I am saying is that because most women get so much more interest from men/have so much more dating options than men, "being yourself" and still having a large enough pool of dating options to pick and choose a satisfactory partner for your needs/wants is a luxury/privilege women have that they truly do not appreciate (yes not all women, yes some men).

Quite frankly women kind of live in a differently reality. Most women get the luxury to experiment around/date all kinds of different men and learn/grow from those experiences. Figure out what they like/dislike in a man all the while "being themselves." It's not just that women can be more picky/have more standards when dating than men, it's also that they get to actually experience a wider diversity of dating. They get to date all kinds of different men/have a wider range of experiences.

A lot of men on the other hand do not live in that reality. As I said before because most men live in a reality where very few women are interested in them to begin with, as soon as men start applying standards/things they would prefer in a partner (shared hobbies/whatever) their dating pool either vanishes completely or dwindles into a depressingly small puddle.

If these men want a larger dating pool/more dating diversity/experiences, they have to go with the choice of not being themselves. "Not being yourself" can range from putting on a fake persona/acting entirely different from who you are (which is probably mentally unhealthy if done for a long period of time), to something more mediocre such as taking up hobbies you actually have no interest in but will help a lot in having shared interests with a larger number of women.

I get the impression that a ton of women do not "get" this. Some may understand it, but they really only understand it in the abstract.

I don't think most women comprehend just how little power so many men have with dating/sex/romance/love compared to themselves. There's this huge and gaping disparity between the genders with this very important aspect of life.

There's a reason why when I hear so many women describe their dating life, it sounds as if they just went through a huge store and spent a lot of time carefully going through all the products/analyzing them in detail. As opposed to the reality a lot of men face which is where we have to make the choice between putting on a mask and breaking into another store with more products or we have to be satisfied with the store we are already in filled with empty shelves.

"Exploring" your dating and sexual life in an honest fashion as women often do in their youth is a privilege/luxury that women have. Most men have to choose between little/no exploration (low n count, don't get to date a lot of different women, forced to pick between a minuscule number of women) or being disingenuous to themselves (I.E. putting on the persona) in some fashion to gain access to that kind of exploration.

Women receive attention, affection, and validation from a very early age while being themselves. Most men simply don't and very often get little or nothing. It goes without saying that this probably has all sorts of mental health consequences for men that go unrecognized.

Alright I'm gonna stop here and open up the discussion.