By AI
A few years ago I attended an event organized annually by A. Schwarzenegger’s wife – Maria Shriver. I distinctly remember how during one of her speeches, Shriver urged parents not to spoil their children by paying all their bills as long as possible, because, according to her, making your children too comfortable domesticates them and robs them of their drive and ability to survive and grow. It takes away both, their hunger and their ability to hunt for themselves. And, when the time comes to use their claws, they are not sharp enough to grab onto anything that’s worth having, because they haven’t been sharpened over the years as they should have been.
As I was listening to Shriver, I couldn’t help but draw a mental analogy to how antibiotics hurt us by weakening our immune system when they fight the infections that our body should be fighting and winning on its own. Indeed, this is yet another situation, in which if you don’t use it, you lose it.
Online dating has a similar affect on our ability to build exciting single and dating life for both men and women. While creating so many opportunities to meet so many people that you would have never met otherwise, the online dating world robs its users of the ability to meet people in real-life casual situations, and thus deprives them of the excitement that comes with approaching, starting conversations and flirting with people in cafes, bus stops, libraries and other public places.
Online dating is especially effective at robbing us of the opportunities to flirt in the real world because it attacks both sexes. The men are becoming far less aggressive. They no longer turn around and look at a hot girl when she walks by, and they no longer stare at someone they like to look at like they used to. Why bother? He would much rather open his laptop and send a message to 20 single women in an hour about how much he likes their profiles, and how much he agrees with what they have to say. However, the problems is that when a guy leans on the online dating crutch for too long, he becomes unable to walk without it – he becomes completely incapable of approaching and meeting women outside of online dating sites, even in situations when he should make a move and when it should be very easy for him to come up to a woman and talk to her – i.e. when she makes it clear that she is interested with her eye contact and body language.
Women, on the other hand, become far less outgoing and far less enthusiastic as a result of talking to guys on the internet. Why bother and make eye contact with the guys around and why look available and interested? After all, when she comes home, she is going to have 10 messages in her OkCupid inbox from 10 different guys, who want to talk to her and ask her out for dinner. She has no reason to hope to meet a guy the “Hollywood” way – at a grocery store or at a coffee shop . Therefore, she is completely dedicated to texting and wearing her headphones when she is out, eliminating any chance of having any kind of casual chat with the guys around her. She neither has interest in meeting guys when she is out and about, nor hope that a guy would approach her and would try to meet her, because, as noted above, the men became so passive.
Thus, it appears that there is no longer need for guys to be aggressive and for women to make themselves look interested and available. This takes the excitement and the rush of meeting someone new in person out of the picture, which is very sad news for the world of romance and spontaneity.
I wonder how quickly people would revert to their older ways, if the option of meeting people online was completely taken away from them for a few months. Would we see an increase in men’s assertiveness? Would women make more eye contact with the guys around them and will stop wearing sunglasses and headphones everywhere they go? Would women stop texting as much when they are out and would make an effort to flirt with the guys they meet because they won’t have that option on their computer?
Since online dating sites aren’t going anywhere any times soon, the only thing that single people can do to simulate that kind of situation is to deliberately limit their use of the online dating sites, so that they don’t forget that meeting someone new in the “real” world is so much more compelling and exciting. Limiting the use of online dating sites might just force you to take more action in person, and it will also remind you that meeting someone special at a grocery store, at a coffee shop, or at a bus is a fantasy that can come true, if you make yourself a little more available and assertive, and you don’t block the world around you when you are out.
By PracticalHappiness.com – Practical Dating and Relationship Advice
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m just a little bit baffled. How is this a MRM issue?
Nostalgia is over-rated. I don’t even buy the premise that antibiotics weaken the immune system. Surviving a serious infection can still do damage to your body that may shave years or decades off your lifespan. The lack of antibiotics when my mom was young means that a chunk of her heart was eaten away from bacteria. Now that she is in her 70s, it causes her a lot of problems. Cars may reduce exercise, but you can still walk if you want that exercise.
Online dating has given me the opportunity to practice PUA and making a connection with the ladies that never really existed for me before the internet. The knowledge that there is always someone else to talk to if I strike out, provides confidence to try out new techniques.
Success at chatting, meeting, and then having sex with hot babes has completely changed my view about life. My online dating practice has even led to flirting with people I meet at work and elsewhere. Occasionally, I even get a chance to get lucky with one of them. I would never have been able to learn the skills or gain the confidence without the online practice.
Maybe some guys love the challenge of finding a lady offline and good for them, just like I enjoy the challenge of a long hike or solving a math problem in my head without a calculator.
For many of us though, online dating is the greatest thing ever developed.
Online dating sites provide women with the illusion of an infinite supply of beta orbiters. Thus there is no need for them ever to commit to any one man. It is likely that online dating sites merely reinforce the 239 bullet-point non-negeotiable list aspect of women as well.
Online dating sites are more useful for men, as shown above, because they allow men to run many cold approaches.
On the whole, online dating is probably a lot like online gaming – provides the illusion of doing something, but nothing really happens. Probably it would not be difficult to create an online-dating profiel generator that would spam sites with nonextestent people, that would email back and forth, thereby reducing the whole thing to an AI bot.
Online dating thus is in a way an imitation of real life, not real life.
Sort of like commenting on MRA blogs, for that matter….
I met my ForeignBride in 5 minutes on VietnamCupid.
Claws sharp enough to grab hold of a bunch of Arnold’s cash.
That online dating thing never worked for me. There are so many things you are missing by avoiding face to face contact. Also, I do believe you’d have better chances .
Why is it that anything which gives men more options is considered a bad thing according to the establishment: prostitution, foreign brides, porn, game, mgtow, and in this case online dating.
Online dating has nothing to do with men being more “passive”. You can thank sexual harassment guidelines and women finding everything “creepy” for that.
I don’t use online dating now. I don’t feel like competing with 50 other guys for a scrap of attention from some fake profile or fat single mom.
I hope this kind of article won’t become a habit at the Spearhead.
I met my wife through an online search. As a scientist, I did a back of the envelope calculation of how many women would be available with her Meiers-Briggs temperament in the nation in the 25-34 year age group… the odds were 1 in 750,000. The other criteria I had: she had to be a woman, not a little girl (without the ability to restrain her hypergamy); she had to share my religious beliefs; and she had to not be a feminazi.
I found her, married her, and I couldn’t be happier.
Online dating allowed me to avoid the fems who were bad news. I am all for it.
I will say that online dating sites do enable women to be very picky and look for desperate men. That happens anyway, so BFD.
Now that I can go online like I did Saturday and arrange an interracial threesome with two girls I never met before off backpage.com in the space of an hour and a half and for a grand total of $118.00, I really long for the days of going out night after night to loud, crowded clubs, getting blown off and even downright insulted with each and every approach, and going months without sex.
Ah, the good ‘ole days.
Actually, now that I read what I wrote above, I realize I accidentally misrepresented something. I didn’t arrange an interracial threesome for $118; I only arranged a one-on-one with a cute 19 year-old for $80, but her black girlfriend joined in for free and I decided to tip them another $30. Online dating really sucks.
Pro or con, great and thought provoking comments as usual from Spearhead and commentators. I personally especially liked the one from the science guy. The aspect that you can better attempt to pinpoint the exact type of woman you want in a sea of women you don’t want. Wow! Tell me that that doesn’t mean something to the majority of Spearhead readers.
“Practical Dating and Relationship Advice”
Go check out “The Dating Advice Distraction” http://omegavirginrevolt.wordpress.com/category/the-misandrist-dating-advice-distraction/
Haha. Classic Dirk Johanson.
“The men are becoming far less aggressive. They no longer turn around and look at a hot girl when she walks by, and they no longer stare at someone they like to look at like they used to. Why bother? He would much rather open his laptop and send a message to 20 single women in an hour about how much he likes their profiles, and how much he agrees with what they have to say.”
Uh… no. He would much rather not has some woman cause a scene and call him a creep or call the police on him because he had the temerity to approach her without being her perfect ideal and also fabulously wealthy. So if anything, it isn’t lack of male aggression that keeps men from approaching women in person, it is the overwhelming drive for self preservation. The age of the approachable woman is over. Feminists and the law destroyed it.
I’m with the other guys here. This article is not up to Spearhead standards. This seems more like something that should be in one of those women’s anti-male “shame and blame” magazines.
Oh and Maria Shriver? If this wasn’t The Spearhead, I would ave stopped reading right then. I gave it a chance but to be honest, I feel duped because, appearing on the Spearhead I ended up reading exactly the sort of article I would expect in one that name drops Maria “Nobody Knows The Trouble Regular People Like Me Have” Shriver.
TYPO! That should have read:
I feel duped because, *despite* appearing on the Spearhead I ended up reading exactly the sort of article I would expect in one that name drops Maria “Nobody Knows The Trouble Regular People Like Me Have” Shriver.
Ode wrote:
Why is it that anything which gives men more options is considered a bad thing according to the establishment: prostitution, foreign brides, porn, game, mgtow, and in this case online dating.
Because of their potential to undermine the business model of using sex
as a means of extracting wealth from men.
“Limiting the use of online dating sites might just force you to take more action in person,”
I found exactly the opposite to be true. One of the main selling points of online dating is that it removes some of the sting of rejection as well as the question as to whether a given women is “taken” or not.
“- and it will also remind you that meeting someone special at a grocery store, at a coffee shop, or at a bus is a fantasy that can come true, if you make yourself a little more available and assertive, and you don’t block the world around you when you are out.”
That’s not a very viable option, as most of the women I see out and about – for the last decade or so – are constantly glued to their phones and totally engrossed in whatever conversation they are having. So really, it is THEY who are blocking out the world around them.
As one, I’m quite content to read whatever the owner of this site decides to publish. Including guest submissions.
Some aired content may result in it being questioned by readers. This is a men’s blog where free expression with tasteful limits are applied and observed. Just as running the topic of web flirting sites appears so the criticism of such as well.
Again, as one, I’m happy to read both a topic, its feedback, and more. Reading the thoughts of others is appealing. We’re on-line communicating amongst other men, comparing notes, in ways our fathers, etc. never had option to.
“He would much rather open his laptop and send a message to 20 single women in an hour about how much he likes their profiles, and how much he agrees with what they have to say.”
Sure, and probably never hear from any of them except one who mysteriously stops answering after the second email.
I think that only works for the 10 percenters.
I think my article is a little misunderstood by some readers. I never suggested abandoning online dating altogether, and the value of online dating to meeting infinitely more people than ever before cannot be disputed. What I urged people not to do is to rely on online dating as an exclusive means to meeting people. If one’s dating life is fueled strictly by meeting people online, it will necessarily weaken his/her social/flirting skills with strangers in person, which still can come in handy today.
To old/indifferent to social media and to those whose lives revolve around media. It seems to be making people autistic, socially unintelligent, and open to direct propaganda/surveillance from the Powers That Be. I don’t even own a cellphone and don’t want one.
Talking about my own experiences with online dating, I have found it to be so frustrating and boring and time-consuming, that I have stopped doing it altogether. I don’t believe that anyone can seriously expect to meet a potential mate on these sites. The women are just too jaded. Most of them are simply on it for ego gratification! To see how many responses they can get and then turn them all down. The guys that frequent these sites must have skins as thick as an Alligator’s or are as stupid as a Mule to put up with all the frustration and humiliation.
After reading these comments, it is obvious that for some men it (online dating) is a gift from heaven, while for others it is an exercise in frustration. The different responses are probably due to the fact that a different subset of skills is required for online dating success vs. real life dating success.
Most of the modern dating sites allow you to begin chatting with any girl that is currently on that site too. Be sure to use a neg shortly followed up by having to leave. A sense of humor goes real far here, unlike real life where your primary asset is the way you look.
BTW, the complaints of this not being real life is lame. These chats turn into real life encounters.
In a similar line, I also do a lot of traveling to third world countries. I have learned from talking to the girls (and a few co-workers) that probably only about 10% of the men will ever travel out of the USA to meet one of these girls.
My beta co-workers tell me that they are afraid to travel out of the USA. My attempts at reassurance or even inviting them to travel with me fall upon deaf ears.
What ever happened to courage?
Weird. There seems to be some sort of redirect sabotage going on here. I mean, I definitely clicked The Spearhead, but seem to have ended up reading an article from the Good Mangina Project’s slush pile.
Someone needs to look into this.
I can’t help but feel that the scales have tipped in favor of online dating as the most viable way of meeting someone new, especially if you’re in your mid 30′s onward and your social circle has started to shrink as friends get paired off. It may be healthier in some sense to limit dating site use, but the average person may feel that this is best option left.
I suppose I should add some reasons for my criticism, rather than simply spouting easy snark. And my criticism is this: the tone of this article reads like a typical mainstream Man Up/Where Have All The Good Men Gone blame-and-shame, in that it bashes men for lacking backbone and neglecting their duty to be the dashing blade that dearie deserves.
There may be a trend of men becoming reluctant to approach women, and this may be compounded by an over reliance on online dating but, so what? That’s no more than a sensible response to the hostile environment we live in these days – an environment the femtards wanted and aggressively sought to create, don’t forget – and men are adjusting to it. If it turns out not to be a bed of roses for cupcake, who gives a shit? Not me. And not – I’m betting – the majority of this site’s readership.
Really, the core of my problem with this piece is that it strikes me as prescriptive, not merely descriptive, and in the worst possible way. Men congregate at places like The Spearhead after they’ve already walked away from the bullshit dating scene and all its bullshit entanglements, be it online or irl, so what’s with this bullshit article attempting to steer them back into the grinder? [Oh wait, see below]
What also grates is the pandering inclusivity. There just had to be a But What Aboout Teh Wimminz plea included in this dismal screed, didn’t there. As if we’re somehow responsible for how bitches feel about the world they’ve made for themselves, and how we should change to fix it for them, as if we fucking care.
I would expect to find this kind of generic, sermonizing, politically correct garbage at the HuffPo or the Atlantic (or the Good Mangina Project, or any other organ of The Narrative) so I’m genuinely disappointed to see something like it here. It rests upon the assumption that we’re still bothered with what women want, and by what women think (hint: we already know all too well) so I think you picked the wrong audience for that approach, AI.
…
One more thing that irks me (and this’ll probably mean my comment never makes it past moderation) is that the link to the ‘featured guest’ writer’s domain leads to a commercial site, the business of which is to sell “Powerful” audio programs and books, as well as offering phone and e-coaching (the latter at a very reasonable hundred bucks a pop). Meaning that this article is hardly a well-intentioned opinion piece nor even a guest blogger’s honest – if misguided – thoughts, it’s a fucking infomercial. It’s surely none of my business, but I’d be fascinated to know who paid who to have this thinly disguised promotional guff appear here.
C’mon AI, the least you could do is include The Spearhead on your Links and Partners page, our host here is sending customers your way, the least you could do is return the favour. Or are you concerned about appearing slightly hypocritical?
Everyone has to make a living, but is this really what it’s come to? Monetizing the MRM? I guess this place is full of bitter losers who can’t get laid, right? What a market! Ripe for exploitation!! The basement-dweller dollar!!! Do you really have that much contempt for your readers, Price?
What shall I take, the Red Pill or the green…
{ 1 trackback }