How do ERE men attract women?

[7Wannabe5]

Also maybe try to get better at hitting on your wife/ being more sexually desirable.

I would offer caveat that part of getting better at hitting on wife (or anybody) is getting better at not hitting on wife (or anybody.) When I got tired of the hassle of being the one who always initiated sex with my ex, I suggested that we just take a 3 month reset hiatus altogether, and his unexpected response was "No, I want to fuck when I want to fuck." Stepping back in a strong pose can sometimes offer perspective on the power dynamic.

[Aspirant]

@7wb5
I think you have a point. I have been too concerned with the hypotethical discussions in my head and haven't been discussing in RL enough. Also the negative voice in my head is one issue I need to tackle some more. I have been working on it a little bit and its coming from depression. I am learning to regognize the thought processes and stop them before they get out of hand. Sometimes I can spoil a whole day over something pretty insignificant. I am trying to notice when a wrong kind of record starts playing in my head and change it to happier tunes. Not getting enough sleep amplifies negative emotions so I try to go to sleep earlier.

@Jin+Guice
Adter giving this some serious thought, I decided to start being a less resentful bitch and more active and attractive partner. I will do my chores at home without whining, excercise a little bit every day and generally just be nicer at home. I will try to get the financial issues to move into a better direction as well. I do my part and hope she will pick that up. If that doen't help, I will employ the heavier arsenal of stoicism and reframe my situation. If I come across Magic Mike I will check it out In this case some tenderness and humour will hopefully be effective.

[ertyu]

I decided to start being a less resentful bitch and more active and attractive partner. I will do my chores at home without whining, excercise a little bit every day and generally just be nicer at home. I will try to get the financial issues to move into a better direction as well. I do my part and hope she will pick that up. If that doen't help, I will employ the heavier arsenal of stoicism and reframe my situation. If I come across Magic Mike I will check it out In this case some tenderness and humour will hopefully be effective.

One resentful bitch trap that I have fallen into in the past that I would caution others against is, I'm unhappy about something, but instead of putting on my big girl panties and actually using my words (beause clearly we can't have that), I start acting grouchy and so forth. The idea here is that surely other people will read my mind, say "awww lil dude, what is iddle-widdle ertyu sad about tell mommy all about it" and change their behavior without me actually having to need to 1. process my own emotions around whatever it was, and 2. then approach my partner and communicate calmly and rationally like an adult to an adult.

In a twist completely unsurprising to anyone actually sane, acting out by being grouchy and pouty and throwing fits doesn't make anyone endearing or attractive. Putting my emotional work and the relationship work on the other person doesn't make me look like an equal, mature partner who deserves respect, it instead contributes to the "I feel like I have another child -- and wow, I feel so much freer and happier now that he's out of my life; I was afraid I'd be out of a helper but instead it's less work to do it all myself!" that you often hear on reddit [i've gotten a lot out of reading people who are not me complain on reddit. we're not such special snowflakes, in the end we're all immature and unskilled in predictable ways, and it's easier to understand and absorb the criticism when people aren't personally criticizing you].

The quoted post already suggests that you've decided to move beyond being this dude, which, good for you. The reason why I'm writing all this is that you're still hoping "she will pick it up" - in other words, you're still wondering what all 13457 things you could be doing so that she magically sees and intuits what you want and feel and gives it to you without you having to open your mouth and use your words like an actual adult. No one actually goes to therapy when I tell them to go to therapy, but read Difficult Conversations, some book on nonviolent communication (there's one being discussed in a book club, i gather), and some book on "how to be assertive" - there's tons of these out there. Even if you don't end up using all of it, you'll still get an actual idea of what putting your big girl panties on looks like.

[Jean]

It's a skill in itself to quickly identify that something is making us grouchy, identifying what this thing is, and communicate it quickly to our partner.
It is usualy much better telling one's partner that something our partner does is making us grouchy, even if it isn't even possible for our partner to stop doing it, than to just get grouchy.

[7Wannabe5]

"I feel like I have another child -- and wow, I feel so much freer and happier now that he's out of my life; I was afraid I'd be out of a helper but instead it's less work to do it all myself!"

BTDT- It sounds terrible, but I literally found myself dancing across the living room floor a few days after my ex moved out. Like an albatross had been lifted off my shoulders. OTOH, seriously my bad that I let it get to that point, because there was also work that I needed to do. For instance, I was semi-consciously so afraid that my kids would hate me if I left their father, BECAUSE I had unresolved issues around feeling like I hated my own mother when she manifested her bi-polar disease.

It is usualy much better telling one's partner that something our partner does is making us grouchy, even if it isn't even possible for our partner to stop doing it, than to just get grouchy.

Very true, although if both partners have achieved similar levels of perspective/maturity this may result in a "good divorce" within context of modern marriage. The key is to keep it civilized and focus on being revelatory rather than persecutory.

Spouse 1: "I feel pain like many experience when they hear an alleycat scream during mating when I hear you attempt to sing along with banal pop song while in the car with me."

Spouse 2: " I feel deflated, like a balloon alone in the room in which a party will never again occur, or like a used condom lost forever in dark, dusty space under bed, when inhibited from expressing my joyful exuberance in song."

Spouse 1: "Is there perhaps another manner in which you could freely express feelings of joyful exuberance while in my presence that would not also cause me pain?"

Spouse 2: "Yes, but when I attempted to do that last Friday night, you said 'Take a shower, I can tell you just went to the gym.', and that made me feel angry like a human might feel when they would rather sock another human in the nose than express their joyful exuberance upon another protuberance."

[lillo9546]

in which real places are men and women most likely to meet and establish real relationships?

For example, those that have worked subjectively in the past:
circle of friends, church, school, work.

Haven't worked:
night club, events, gym.


May you delight us with your POV

[ertyu]

in which real places are men and women most likely to meet and establish real relationships?

not just men and women, anyone - people need familiarity and repeated interaction to become friends and bond. Becoming a couple is an extension to that. So the club and events will work only if you exchange numbers and agree to keep meeting and getting to know each other. At the gym, be friendly but don't be pushy and only hit on someone if they hit on you first.**

** gay men have slightly different rules here but this thread is about heterosexual relationships

[7Wannabe5]

There are many places it is no longer appropriate to directly hit on somebody. One thing I like about online dating is that is more formalized. It can actually be annoying to not know whether a man is just attempting to be friendly or hit on you. Kind of like he is trying to sneak under some barrier to entry. OTOH, this might just be a form of oblivious that I suffer from more than most. I'm always surprised when exes whom I consider to be in the friend-zone hit me up for sex. For better or worse, this is probably because I rate my value as a friend as higher than my value as a sex partner. Like if somebody texts me "Hey, do you wanna come over and help me figure out what kind of bug is eating my garden plants?", I will not immediately suspect sexual motive.

[chenda]

At the gym, be friendly but don't be pushy and only hit on someone if they hit on you first.**

Someone though has to make the first move. Probably the women, as women have more leeway on this in possibly inappropriate places.

I remember in my clubbing days how two guys on a night out would often meet and pair up with two girls. Alpha male does the heavy lifting and pairs up with hot girl, his beta mate by default gets paired up with hot girl's less attractive friend. We met lots of boys this way. It was like a binary foursome. So possible strategy for struggling young man; ride in the slipstream of your more attractive/competent bros.

I believe match making services still exist.

@7w5 - Society should really develop a code to avoid this confusion. A sort of ring system like wearing a ring on a certain finger makes clear to male friend that when you visit his garden you are not in anyway there to show him yours. Wearing it on another finger suggests the possibility otherwise. Engagement/married rings are too limited and we haven't adapted our rings to modern dating culture.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Agreed that I wish it was easier to make it clear when you don't want to be hit on. In my case, I dress like I'm someone's mother and act roughly like Andrew Jackson personality-wise, and still get hit on by men all the time. It also makes finding friends difficult because I can't always tell if a man is asking me do something for friendship or if I'm getting asked out on a date.

Women tend not to make the first move generally, which makes lesbian dating tricky. It's actually a known major problem in the lesbian community where many women just don't know how to make the first move because that social message of men as the pursuers is hard to unlearn. It helps to be an environment where this is expected behavior, like a gay bar or dating apps. I personally avoid dating apps because I want to meet the sort of women who don't use dating apps, but ymmv.

I feel like technology has evolved fast, and cultural ritual and norms are struggling to make sense of the new normal still, so we're in a liminal space for relationships. And it's not just dating. Friendships, civic organizations, religion, and family ties are all decreasing. Technology threw out the old social institutions but we haven't figured out what to replace them with yet.

[Jean]

@7wb5
yes, but he might not even have to stop singing, just having told that the singing hurt you might be enough for the pain to go away.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jean:

It's interesting that although my "Semi-Fictionalized Scene from a Dysfunctional Marriage Mid-Therapy Attempt" was gender-neutral, you assumed I was the Critic (Spouse 1) rather than the Enthusiast (Spouse 2.) The fact that I was effectively banned from singing in the car during my first marriage is a touchstone of my lack of regret in dumping the grouch. Would he have been content to just voice his displeasure while I continued to sing? No. He would have snapped the radio off or maybe even pulled the car over and off the road in a quick skid and then stalked away to smoke a cigarette, slamming the door behind him. So, generally, I didn't hazard ruffling his peacock feathers too often, especially since we had babies on board from the get-go. Of course, from my current perspective at age 58, the twenty-something year old versions of me and my ex were also "babies." Theseadays, 16 years post-divorce after 19 years married, we hug and chat quite amiably when we occasionally meet at events such as DD32's vocal performances. I very rarely think about him in my day-to-day life, unless discussing a topic such as this or dealing with an issue with one of our adult kids, but he still occasionally shows up in my dream-scape, very much like the sort of dreams where you find yourself back in high school dealing with a problem that has no relevance in current life.

[Henry]

I broke out into the Marshall Tucker Band the other night and was told to stop. My wife had the same face she had when she told me after a night out eating two plates of nachos that if I farted one more time she was going to leave me. I'm spending the cooling off period figuring if it's humanly possible to fart out Can't You See.

[7Wannabe5]

@Henry:

LOL- As a male, you are likely better inured to expressions of aesthetic disgust from your partners. Although I am naturally cheerful and rational, as a female I had lower tolerance for that sort of criticism. The rule of thumb for core romantic gender dichotomy is whether you would better tolerate a romantic partner saying something like "You are ugly and you stink." or "You are useless and disappointing." I had a very good relationship with my father at age 6, so my core self-esteem is pretty solid, but after almost 20 years married to the Critic, I was significantly damaged. Shortly after we separated, I went bathing suit shopping at the mall, and I couldn't objectively decide whether I looked okay in the mirror or not, because I couldn't get his voice out of my head. I only lose my temper to the point where I flame out about twice a decade, but my ex called me that same evening, and I screamed "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" at him and slammed down the phone.

I was so scarred, I actually thought the first few men who asked me out for dinner were only being nice because they felt sorry for me. Luckily, the second lover I happened upon post-divorce was a semi-famous rock photographer who found my writing amusing. He did one of the White Stripes albums, worked for a major museum, and often photographed models for their portfolios, etc. Sexually, he preferred curvy women, so I was exactly his type, and he restored me to a place of body confidence.

[Henry]

I was so scarred, I actually thought the first few men who asked me out for dinner were only being nice because they felt sorry for me. Luckily, the second lover I happened upon post-divorce was a semi-famous rock photographer who found my writing amusing. He did one of the White Stripes albums, worked for a major museum, and often photographed models for their portfolios, etc. Sexually, he preferred curvy women, so I was exactly his type, and he restored me to a place of body confidence.

If I didn't know better, this could be an excerpt from Katy Perry's most recent Vogue profile.

[7Wannabe5]

If I didn't know better, this could be an excerpt from Katy Perry's most recent Vogue profile.

Damn, you frightened me for a moment. So, I asked the gentleman who up-thread compared me to a Subaru whether I had any traits whatsoever in common with Katy Perry, and he took a full 20 seconds to run it through his engineer's mind before solidly stating "No. Nothing in common." Whew! My own thought on the matter was that I would only maybe resemble (EsFP) Katy Perry if I started my days by chasing old-school high dose estrogen birth control pill with more than a couple shots of Absolut. However, it is the case that Russell Brand is not entirely dissimilar in personality type to my ex, so Katy and I do have an unfortunate tendency towards attraction to tall, skinny, dark, moody hipsters in common. Luckily, that is not my only type.

Anyways, what I was attempting to communicate with my more than somewhat rambling reminiscence was my perspective on divorce, (which is an assumed possibility in modern marriage), many years post a fairly long marriage. Also, the difference between having "neg" and being "neg" , like my ex, Russell Brand, or Gregory House. One of the members of my marriage/divorce support group was a younger male player who actually somewhat admired my ex for his ability to keep me sexually interested after 20 years of marriage, because he assumed that he must have "game." (as opposed to the less likely possibility that there might exist a female in possession of both high sex drive and ability to honor contract.)

[chenda]

Katy Perry did much to bring bisexuality to the mainstream, of which I will always be grateful.

[7Wannabe5]

@chenda:

That's true. It's mostly the tendency towards tearfulness and flamboyant wardrobe choices that I would not care to emulate. I did take high dose estrogen for a few months when I was 20 and it turned me into somebody who cried all the time while compulsively writing very bad poetry and the last time I wore a sequined body suit with sheer skirt was likely a tap dancing performance when I was 8.

[chenda]

@7w5 Yes that happened to me when I was about 25, I was somewhat obsessed with Katy and tried to emulate everything about her look but the only girl I managed to attract at the time was a female bouncer who spent our first date telling me how she managed to persuade her ex boyfriend to drop the assault charges against her.

[Henry]

Damn, you frightened me for a moment.

Sorry, it wasn't my intention. Katy Perry was a relatively arbitrary choice. I did a quick mental scan of zaftig female singers. Mama Cass seemed dated and more obese than curvy. Courtney Love too insulting even for me. Adele lacked the public drama. The sister/cousin from Wilson Philips would require googling and arcane to the younger generation. Bette Midler too old and show tuney at this point. Ann Wilson was a serious option but Katy Perry brought a timeliness that I felt make her the best choice. Glad the car guy talked you off the ledge.