I wrote this back in November 2005. It seemed appropriate to put back up today. The original post with comment section is here.
It struck me that no one has ever come up with a “dating tips for pro-feminist men.” I toyed with the idea for a moment, but then rejected it. After all, all such “tip lists” which offer ten or twenty suggestions for “scoring” with the opposite sex, or “picking up”, or even “meeting” partners have one fundamental problem. By their very nature, they turn sex/dating/romance into a project. They posit a problem and offer a solution.
But I’ve come to believe we make a terrible mistake when we see dating and sexuality as problems to be solved. The dating advice that Jill quotes at Feministe — and most other such advice I’ve seen elsewhere – is based on the assumption that women are a challenge to be mastered, rather than human beings to be engaged. There’s the suggestion that when it comes to love and sex, there are a finite set of absolute truths out there about men and women that a few lucky folks have understood and of which the rest of us are ignorant. But if we pay close attention (and pay money) to these “masters”, they’ll teach us their techniques and we can begin to practice them with greater success and confidence.
Yes, I do get asked for dating advice. (Few folks ask me — yet — for marriage advice.) I work with lots and lots of young people, and my life experience and field of interest suggests to them that I might be a good person to ask. Younger boys often ask for specific tips: “How can I tell a girl that I like her?” “How do I know if she’s into me, or if she just likes me as a friend?” “How do I know when it’s okay to kiss her?” There are lots of stock answers having to do with summoning up courage and the like, but I don’t dispense little bon mots of wisdom. I’m not sure I’m qualified, first of all, but more importantly, I think there are more important questions to ask.
Here’s a question I’ve often challenged my youth group kids with — but it works for older folks too: “Why should someone go out with me? What do I bring to the table?” When I first ask the kids to ask themselves that in youth group a few years ago, I got standard answers like the following:
“I don’t know.” “Because I’m pretty?” (complete with question mark) “Because I’m nice.” “Because once you get to know me, I’m really loving.” “Because I’m tall.” “Because I listen to tight music.” “I don’t know.” “Who would want to go out with me anyway?” “Because of my boobs.” “I don’t know. Because I can make people laugh.” “I don’t know.” “I don’t know.”
My experience with older folks is that they aren’t much better than 15 year-olds at answering that question! So many people are terribly focused on meeting new people, or finding a new relationship, or just “hooking up” with someone new — but they are reluctant to ask themselves the most basic question: “Why should someone be with me?” And if they do answer the question, they may answer it with the same “I don’t knows”, or a list of trivial assets, or cutting self-deprecation. But I’m convinced that a key to healthy, loving relationships (both sexual and non-sexual) is focusing honestly, without deception or bravado of self-loathing, on what it is that we genuinely have to offer. The list has to go beyond body parts and bank accounts and sexual skills.
Most of the lists I see are essentially techniques for more effectively cultivating a mask, a false image, an “idealized other.” Once we’ve “hooked” the other person, we then start to drop the mask in the hope that they’ll be sufficiently comfortable with us that they won’t run away when we show them all of our filth. But obviously, that’s both a dishonest and ultimately ineffective way of resolving the problem of human loneliness. Even in adolescence, the focus has to be on helping folks to become worthy of being dated, worthy of being slept with, worthy of being married! Though it’s trite to say so, you’re not going to be effective at getting other folks to like you — and stay around — if you aren’t clear on why it is that they should do so.
When I was first dating the woman who is now my wife, someone very close to us asked me this question: “Why should she be with you?” Of course, I made the usual silly remarks — I’m entertaining, I’m not unattractive, I have a state teachers pension — but then I did get serious. And I thought and thought and I said something like this:
“At my core I’m fundamentally committed to transforming myself, transforming my partner, and transforming the world. Because I see a good relationship as one where each person is simultaneously potter and clay — we are molding each other as we ourselves are molded, sometimes pushing and pulling and kneading, sometimes caressing, always being pushed and pulled and kneaded and caressed. Because in the end, I will never excuse anything I do by throwing up my hands and saying ‘That’s just the way I am, accept me, dammit!’ And I will never let my partner get away with that either.”
That was my answer, and of course other people will have different ones. But what I needed to do was see why it was that I was worthy of being truly loved by a woman as amazing as my wife. If I thought that I had tricked her into loving me, or if I thought that she just had poor taste, I would be unable to appreciate her. In order to love someone fully in relationship, you have to do more than thank your lucky stars that despite your faults they love you back! I think it’s essential that, without immodesty or excess pride, you honestly see yourself as being worthy of being loved and become committed to working every day to make yourself still worthier.
I’m by no means a perfect husband. But I often ask myself a question these days when I’m contemplating an action or making a choice: “Is what I’m about to do consistent with the man who is worthy of being loved so much?” That is not the same as making my wife an internalized audience! I’m not turning her into a parental super-ego! Rather, it’s about recognizing that I have an obligation to myself to continue to see myself as worth a magnificent, exciting relationship — and the choices I make as to what I do and don’t do help shape that self-perception.
Heavens, I’ve wandered off topic! Maybe ten hours sleep total the last three nights and way too much cold medicine has made me loopy. But if you’re still reading, I hope my basic point is clear. If we want connection, if we want relationship, if we want eros at its magnificent best, we can’t disguise ourselves to capture it! We may not merit Christ’s agape love, but we will always attract the very level of people whom we believe we truly deserve. My old friend Jack always said it like this, and it still stands as the best dating advice I know:
“If you want something you haven’t got, you’re going to have to become someone you haven’t been. And in order to become someone you have never been, you’re going to have to do things you’ve never done.”
Every day, I push myself to do things I’ve never done before, in the hopes of becoming someone I haven’t been yet, in the assurance that if I do so, I will continue to merit the love of a woman whom I know is pushing herself as hard as I am, with that same mix of faith and joy and relentless perseverance
Hugo,
I’m thinking that “dating advice” and “relationship advice” are two nearly completely different things.
This is constructing a false dichotomy. Of course, women are human beings to be engaged, but that in itself doesn’t say anything at all about how to do that, which can indeed be quite a challenge to be mastered. When you’re learning another language, you’re trying to do so to engange other human beings. Learning it can indeed be quite a challenge.
That said, there is a fascinating - emphatic - study (a BA thesis) about the so-called pickup community by Elana Clift, a gender studies / American studies student from the University of Texas at Austin. It’s called “picking up and acting out - politics of masculinity in the pickup community”.
https://webspace.utexas.edu/ejc329/ElanaCliftThesis.pdf?uniq=-wk7fye
“I think it’s essential that, without immodesty or excess pride, you honestly see yourself as being worthy of being loved and become committed to working every day to make yourself still worthier.”
I find it interesting how much this point - in different language, to be sure - is emphasized in the pick-up/seduction community (and in the female counterparts to that community that are starting to appear - Paige Parker, for example).
Well, it makes sense that there’d be some overlap. The key for me is that you not project a false front, but rather, work to become what it is that you would like to project. The goal isn’t seduction, it’s mutual growth and healthy relationship. But the langauge is similar, in that ambition and confidence and self-worth are often deeply attractive qualities.
“If you want something you haven’t got, you’re going to have to become someone you haven’t been. And in order to become someone you have never been, you’re going to have to do things you’ve never done.”
This one is worth remembering. Thanks, Hugo.
Actually, Frank, I think my eighth grade football coach said something like it. Or maybe my first TAC in OCS. Whichever, I remember it.
Innyway, somebody writing on PUA ism noted, source unknown, th percentage of relationships which go anywhere at all, not necessarily for life or years, by beginning in bars or clubs with the generic pickup amount to the mid-single digits. Let’s triple that for other venues in which a guy walks up to a woman and starts a conversation.
That leaves, say, 85% of relationships where the guy goes up to a girl HE ALREADY KNOWS and tries to convert the relationship from friend, classmate, colleague at work, partner in a club or project, into a romantic or personal relationship.
Which means he’s already been seen, and, most likely, watched and even judged.
Which means, you can’t fake it long enough.
You have got to make an effort to be somebody. Somehow.
What that may be doesn’t matter as much as the personal qualities manifested in the quest. Hm. Did I say “quest”?
Freudian slip, there, I expect.
Anyway, if you’re not on your way to being somebody, guys, your chances are pretty slim. As they should be. We have to keep an eye on the gene pool.
If you’re not on the way to being slim and pretty, girls, your chances are pretty slim, but still better than the average man’s. And millions of frustrated, unsatisfied men will make it their mission to keep you down. As they should be. After all, you’re keeping an eye on the gene pool.
Feh. “Gatekeeper” role is how we got the nasty side of pick-up (early Ross Jeffries, early Tyler Durden)and blatantly marketed misogyny in the first place.