"Men are bad at picking up on women's hints." What are your actual thoughts on this sentiment?
"Men are bad at picking up on women's hints." What are your actual thoughts on this sentiment?
Either through memes or comments I keep seeing this sentiment pop-up from time to time. And I'm wondering what your (yes, you) consensus is on it.
I for one am too pessimistic to do anything with potential hints. Like even if there is a good chance I still just don't want to risk it.
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Proviso, comment is based on old memories.
There was some research done on how women flirt. Women particularly put out IoIs (Indicators of Interest). These include things like hair flick, lip touching etc. When a woman is attracted to a man, the rate of IoIs goes up, sometimes 200-300% baseline.
Unfortunately, the catch is the baseline. Women vary widely on this. Some normally use 2-3/hour, others all the way up to 120/hour. This is where men can often get in trouble. A woman sending them 60/hour might be a 20 flirting outrageously, or a 120 who is actively disinterested. Trying to advance things will get vastly different results with these 2 women.
Because of this, a lot of men get risk adverse. Even if they pick up on the hints, they are not sure if they are reading them right. Conversely, a few men go the other way. These men tend to have a disproportionate, problematic effect on women. This is why most men don't think that sleazy, overly handsey men aren't much of a problem, but women vastly disagree.
Basically, men are stuck in a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation. Even worse, the men who figure things out tend to find a good partner and pair up, taking them out of the pool.
To add to the confusion, what women say they want, and what actually works can be quite different. The same applies to men. However, since men are generally expected to make the first move, they tend to screw it up a lot more (and get burnt).
Even worse, the men who figure things out tend to find a good partner and pair up, taking them out of the pool.
Why does this get an 'even worse' qualifier?
Because it leaves the blind leading the blind, leading to really stupid ideas getting too much traction. Both in being too aggressive, and being too passive. Neither work well.
It also creates a biased pool, which helps fuel the really negative views of women.
It's the same effect as happens in weight loss groups. Those who succeed tend to move on. Those that hang around and gain "authority" tend to have failings.
Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing for the people involved, but bad for those left.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/27/news-58/
This is about only hiring the top 0.5% of software engineers, but it applies to dating too! The people in the pool the longest are the least attractive.