Observing the online "Dating Advice" community of men
A pre-cursor to understanding the mindset of males that fail at dating, and why
So, I'm really interested in the sexes and their struggles, as everyone here is aware of by now. Researching the male struggle has led me to appreciating the fact that so many men struggle to find romantic partners. That struggle has led me to wanting to better understand how, and why men fail. One day, I think I might like to become something of a philosopher - maybe even write a book. If I do, I would like very much to be able to help men better understand women, and achieve a higher degree of romantic success. I think a lot of society's issues could be resolved if more men felt more fulfilled in life.
I also find this research helpful in understanding females, how females respond to men's advances, and the communicational disconnect between the sexes...a lot of instances where I have said women, in general, are like this or like that, come from this research, but I felt like talking about the research, itself, would come across as arrogant, so I used personal anecdotes as supporting evidence.
So for about 7 months or so, I've been analyzing an online community of men who seek, or give other men dating advice. There appears to be a whole culture behind this, and the people that compose it are fascinating. Men become veritable wells of information when detailing their struggles and experiences to a group of male peers who are willing to lend a sympathetic ear to their plight, and validate their feelings. So there is a lot of data to be had here, and it's very insightful, because I find the best way sometimes to understanding human suffering is to find the humans that are suffering the most, and who are eager to discuss their experience.
From a sociological standpoint, I feel that men of this category are at high risk for joining hate groups and engaging in porn related to pedophilia, abuse, or murder, and possibly, even engaging in crimes such as school shootings. There seems to be something of a "descent into madness" that some men can experience, to varying degrees, when their freedom of speech has been repressed and their suffering has gone either unnoticed, or uncared about for long enough. In the case of hate groups, men often seem to be indoctrinated at an early age because loneliness, a lack of education, poverty, and other factors have left them particularly vulnerable to being sought out by those looking to enlist them as soldiers for the cause.
Because of this, I think that observing men in the online dating advice community can be a very valuable psychological and sociological experiment, which could potentially lead to studies that may help to better identify the early warning signs of a man who is a danger to himself or society, and intervention strategies which may be implemented to help the individual achieve mental clarity, and integrate into society.
Disclaimer:
No one here was used in the making of these observations, and as far as I know, no one here is part of this community. Although, if you identify with this, there's really no need to share that information. Asking for dating advice online is, obviously, a great idea, and I think most people do it. You get a privileged insight into the experiences and views of others, that you wouldn't normally get if you asked someone for advice in person. The dating community is different. They're a group of men who band together to discuss their struggles with women, and learn tactics, techniques, and strategies to improve their chances of getting a mate. For these men, the dating community is an outlet, and a sort of therapeutic practice in achieving acceptance and sharing unconventional ideas that society won't allow them to express. I have a lot of empathy for most of them. There's a few I can't really empathize with, so I dish out begrudging sympathy if it's possible - which is probably more of a manifestation of pity than anything else. It's hard to empathize with people who have absolutely no empathy for others, or are actively using and abusing people in pain.
I'll discuss demographic data that people here might find offensive.
I'll also be doing a hell of a lot of generalizing, because, without generalizations you can't make groups, and without groups, you have way to discuss how different groups of people behave differently, and imagine the possibilities for why that may be. Essentially, without generalizations, research like this just doesn't exist. The same goes for labeling people into categorial groups. It's just necessary, sorry.
Keep in mind that when you read things such as references to MRAs, or people who enjoy Nietzche or Jordan Peterson - I'm discussing these topics within the confines of a very specific demographic of people. These observations in no way represent a majority of men. If I were to make a wild guess based on some demographic data and a few vague statistics, I might guess that these men compose about 15-20% of the population. So if I say "MRAs" I mean these specific MRAs, not MRAs in general or as a whole.
Also, even though its tough, please refrain from thinking that if you don't attack my stance and try to say that it stems from deep psychological issues, past trauma/abuse, or an anti-male agenda, that I will somehow get some lunatic ideas about dismantling the patriarchy and repressing men, and that I'll run off and join some feminist coven. I'm really not a radical person. I'm just a person that thinks we shouldn't be afraid to talk about topics just because the PC culture has decided they should be taboo. Pardon my French, but fuck that nonsense. Big supporter of freedom of speech, here.
The Dating Community's Dogma : Status Dating
Those who influence the dating community are BIG into darwinism, evolutionary biology, and male dominance theory. Although, to them, none of these things are theoretical - they are incontrovertible facts.
As a result, the dating community's influencers believe that all humans date for status. Women date to gain status vicariously through men. Men date women that have the superficial appearance of high status.
If anyone is interested to hear some of the advice that the community gives, I'm happy to share it, but I'm not including it here because (A) this post is a long one, and (B) its extremely trigger-worthy material, and I think it will cause many people to jump on the idea that I think all men behave this way/believe these things, and that I've been somehow abused or traumatized and that has lead me to be bias, and that I need to have my opinions corrected because otherwise, I could be some kind of dangerous feminist. I say that because I honestly don't think you guys would receive said advice well, because the men on this forum appear to be intelligent people who value independent thinking, analysis, and appreciating the intricacies of different situations - and the advice the community gives is not geared for that kind of individual. Men who have a high level of independence and value self-reflection, critical thinking, and similar, don't really appear to be represented in this community. If they occasionally grace these areas of the internet, it seems to mostly be out of curiosity, and they move on pretty quickly.
To summarize the advice, though, just read the spark notes for The Game, The Art of Seduction, The Art of War, and listen to Joe Rogan's podcast for a while, and I think you'll get the general idea!
The Macro Categories
The Influencers:
Most of the people in this community don't influence it. Rather, they compose a body of men who are isolated, alienated, awkward, lonely, depressed, physically weak or out of shape, and often emasculated, who are looking to come together within a group that accepts and understands them, under the leadership of a perceived alpha male who has faced their struggles and overcome them. Said alpha male appears to often be narcissistic, and not only seeks out this adoration from men he views to be his inferiors, but often financially profits from it. In the 7-ish months of looking into this community, I haven't yet seen an influencer who is not an MRA (which makes sense). The worst of them appear to be members of MGTOW. Obviously, not all MRA are MGTOW, and in fact, many MRA (what seems to be the more intelligent among them) appear to have disgust and contempt for MGTOW.
The Followers:
The followers in the community appear to be men who really lack a sense of belonging and have deep seeded insecurities. Many of these men appeared to either lack a male presence in their childhood, or their fathers were very absent, inattentive parents. This need to be accepted by male peers seems to motivate these men to seek out male groupings to identify with, and socialize with online. Since these men feel as though they cannot integrate effectively into society, they seek to integrate online.
There's an interesting psychological distinction that seems to manifest between the newbies in the community. Some of them are sweet men, others, not so much. I haven't really seen examples where the "sweet newbies" appear to stay in the community for a long time (a period of more than 2-4 years or so), so I must imagine that these boys are going through something of a personal crisis, and they probably leave the community once they find a girl and get into a successful relationship. The sour newbies seem to have a lot of hate for the world, even at a young age, and they appear to have something of a thirst for abusive content, which seems to strengthen as they become long-term members of the community. They also seem to represent people with mental illnesses, except for autism. Those that claim to genuinely be diagnosed with autism (rather than thinking that they may be autistic - big difference), appear to either being in the sweet newbie segment, or astoundingly neutral. I've yet to meet an autistic who I would put in the "sour" category. Actually, I find they can be really charming, intelligent, and engaging - probably because we're both sitting at keyboards and my face isn't mindfucking their ability to express their thoughts and feelings. Of which they have many. I love the autistics. Cheers.
Why the community is attractive to suffering men, and how other men profit from attempting to help
The community operates under and anti-empathy psychology. The idea, here, is that in order to understand how the world "really is", you have to strip yourself of the instincts to empathize with women, and yourself. The underlying fallacious belief is that reality must be cold, so therefore, if the viewpoints someone is espousing are harsh and cold, they are probably "the truth" - the truth you're not supposed to know, that will give you a real edge over other men.
People are vulnerable to this feeling because their feelings of rejection, alienation, and isolation have led them to have an unrealistically negative view of the world. Depressed people are almost guaranteed to see most of life in a negative light. Men are also culturally groomed to think that empathy is a woman's trait, and that having it makes you weak. So many men blame their empathy for their feelings of self-loathing and their perceived lack of worthiness/value.
As a result, these men are predisposed to believe that dating advice, seasoned with a sense of scientific, objective detachment, which reveals that the world is colder, crueler, and more harsh than the layman believes, must be true, because it resonates so deeply with a man who is suffering in this way, and who feels like they are not manly enough. I hope that makes sense. Not sure if I explained it well.
Once indoctrinated into this community, many men will continue to engage with it on a regular basis for the therapeutic benefit of sharing their feelings, worldviews, and experiencing the sensation of acceptance from a group of male peers. It would seem that men who show more promise for dating do not become long-term members of the community. (I'm assuming they got themselves girlfriends and moved on).
Some men see this community as an opportunity for profit, fame, or to achieve their desire to become a leader. I think many of them are genuinely interested in helping their common man, but, at least in one situation, I did see an example of a person who was a very poor researcher, and who gave very dangerous advice based on fallacious reasoning, while creating content that was heavily targeted and highly branded, with keywords that were intensely relevant to some of the hottest topics, and titles which were extremely click-baity...and said person was also eager to sell counseling sessions to the people that viewed their media. Other media influencers appear to be content with using sensational click-bait titles to build their YouTube following and profit off of advertising and patreon. Obviously, it's not wrong to do that - but I'm skeptical about whether or not all of these people actually believe their bullshit. In which case, they're just profiting off of people's pain, which I find hard to sympathize with.
The Micro Categories
Sweet Newbies:
Empathy: High
Intelligence: Moderate-High
Sexism: Mild-Moderate
(however, their sexism is generally friendly and stems more from naiveté/inexperience)
Dating Potential: Medium
Arrogance: Low
Dating Standards: Low-Moderate
Feelings: Shy, afraid of women, insecure, confused, lonely
Females: Respect, sometimes bordering on reverence
Behaviors: Withdrawn, isolated, quiet, thoughtful, fantasies of love/belonging/acceptance, polite (often ridiculously so), often "straight-edge" (don't drink or do drugs). Optimistic, friendly, compassionate, naive, often believe that the world is predominantly good, hungry for love, happy to get friendship. Often feel alienated, isolated, ignored. Non-aggressive.
Other: Perpetually "friend-zoned"
My heart breaks for these upstanding examples of the male race. I salute you men. You deserve love, and you're the biggest anti-feminism pill out there. Even bitter, cynical women can't encounter these men without feeling for them. They often seem to bring out a woman's protective instincts.
Sour Newbies: Low on the meter of "good"
Empathy: Low
Intelligence: Low-Moderate
Sexism: High
Dating Potential: Low
Arrogance: High
Dating Standards: High
Feelings: Selfish, conceded, arrogant, high in self-conviction, stubborn (especially about beliefs), contemptuous, angry, frustrated, resentful, bitter, dark sense of humor
Females: Highly objectified. Women are like achievements you get from playing video games. They're valuable in the sense that they produce and raise children, and give sex. Otherwise, little value. Women are less intelligent, weaker, and meant to serve men.
Behaviors: Rude, aggressive, trolls. Enjoy shaming others. Dark sense of humor. Generally dark enjoyment of media. Idolizes psychopathic tendencies, rape stories, and murderers. Strong belief that they behave this way because they're honest about dark tendencies that all humans have, but other people are masking/hiding/too stupid to see in themselves. Believes that the world is dark, humans are naturally evil/self-serving, and feels elated by themes of abuse. Strong sense that these feelings make them part of an "underground" community that really "understands human nature" in a way that the brainwashed sheeple do not.
Other: Incels in the making
A lot of these guys aren't bad guys, really. They're just very much defined by the philosophy of the communities they drown themselves in. Often online forums - places like 4chan or reddit, or else, MMORPGs. They spend a disproportionate amount of time engaging in this media, as a sort of escapist behavioral pattern. A lot of hackers seem to be represented by this type, but they appear to compose the most prevalent body of hackers - script-kiddies and similar. Those that don't usually discover hacks for themselves, or create programs, but are able to use the techniques and tools given to them by the people they spend most of their time engaging with.
Differences between sweet and sour newbies:
Levels of empathy. View of humans and the world (sweet newbies appear to be overly optimistic, sours are the opposite). Pets - sweets seem to have pets more often. Sours don't seem to want the responsibility. Between the two, sweets seem to have a much higher rate of having cats. (I've been relating this to potentially being correlative with attitudes towards women. Some sours enjoy very abusive references to animals, but cats in particular.) Sweets seem to engage much more with the real world, and have a much more accurate view of the way it actually is, albeit a bit naive. Sours seem to confuse fantasy with reality, and harbor a belief that the opinions represented in their online community reflect the way the world really is. Sours appear to have more mental illnesses, often don't work, and do a lot more drugs.
What they have in common:
Weight problems or slight physical frames (short, or slimly built), often raised by single mothers and among sisters, usually more intelligent than the average person, but the sour newbies appear to have a large subgroup of men that would be on the lower end of the intelligence spectrum, generally introverted.
The next group of people have been part of the "dating advice" community for longer, and their personalities seem to have manifested in more concrete ways.
Incels & Outcasts:
The profile for this is largely the same as that the sour newbies. Sour newbies seem to use the dating advice given to them by the community. Some sour newbies (I think the more intelligent ones) will often succeed in getting a relationship, but fail to keep it. These men seem to be your "outcasts". Most women are turned off by how much time these men spend online/playing games, and how steadfastly they refuse to engage in the real world, as well as how harsh/cruel/critical they can be in a relationship. These kinds of men seem to resent having to spend time with their partners. Surprisingly, they're pretty good at admitting that they were the problem in the relationship.
Incels, on the other hand, have often tested this dating advice and failed to get a relationship. In general, they appear to be less intelligent, and seem to really struggle to hide their sexist sense of arrogance and entitlement. They often seem to have physical qualities that women find particularly off-putting, particularly, the stare. I personally think that many of these people may have issues with mirror neurons.
Note: While autistic men often seem to be incels, they seem to more commonly fall into the category of "sweet newbies", and they don't seem to really develop a sense of hatred for females. Autistics appear to be outliers.
MRA:
Note: This ONLY applies to MRAs I've observed in the dating advice community...ie, they either can't find themselves a partner, or they fancy themselves to be players/dating connoisseurs, who are determined to "make a man" out of their lesser, beta-male peers.
Empathy: Low
Intelligence: Moderate-High
Sexism: High
Dating Potential: High
Arrogance: High
Dating Standards: High
Feelings: Narcissistic-like personality traits, big fans of dominance, obsession with hierarchy, firmly defensive of the patriarchy, cold, calculating, contemptuous, condescending, egotistical, selfish, thoughtful, philosophical, assertive.
Females: Females are dangerous, manipulative, and abusive. Females trick males into believing they are innocent. Secretly, females quest for dominance and power and want to oppress men. Females are the weaker, less intelligent, less logical sex, and need men to dominate them so they will accept their place in life. Females must be guarded against other men, because they females will cheat if they are ovulating, and/or will have sex with men if that male has more money or power. Females will always favor the most dominant male. When they are properly dominated by men, females become docile and nurturing. If they are not dominated, they become dangerous and manipulative. Females cannot organize or manage a social hierarchy. Females are incapable of large-scale projects, high levels of education, etc. Females do not know how to raise male children properly. Husbands should rule the household.
Behaviors: Men like this often seem to love engaging in debates, they relish in winning an argument, and in shutting people down or "melting a snowflake". They seem to be heavily conservative, and there appear to be more religious men in this group. These men seem to view themselves as leaders and advocates - the voice of men, protecting men from the oppression of women. They have a very high degree of self-assurance and conviction in their beliefs, and will often lean on the argument of darwinism or evolutionary biology to prove their case. They tend to cherry-pick sources and studies which demonstrate differences between the gender, and use these to construct a larger argument that appears valid because parts of it may be true or are backed by science/statistics. Appeal to authority is a popular technique. Men in this group consider themselves to be ruthlessly logical, and even discussion in which the opposition disagrees is a battle - especially if the opposition is female. These men seem to love history, politics, philosophy, business, physical fitness, ultimate fighting, and have a large respect for the military and a strong contempt for anything they deem to be feminine, including their mothers. (Although, they always seem to value having respect and love for ones mother, and profess that they do...then they attach a "but" and will often proceed to explain why their mother's weakness caused them to have a lack of manliness early in their life.)
Other: Believe all men would cheat if given the chance, men and women can't be friends, a person's value is determined by what is on the outside (appearance, dominance, wealth, power). Only young, beautiful women are valuable in a dating sense, and dominant men only date valuable women. A lot of these men seem to reference Nietzche, Jordan Peterson, and enjoy Joe Rogan.
Not all MRAs come from this community, obviously...I would think there's quite a few MRAs out there who have had success with women and never really became involved in the dating advice community.
The ones that are in this community appear to have very narcissistic-like personality traits and a bit of a god complex surrounding their own sexual value. They enjoy being surrounded by men that they view as weak, and who adore them, and this desire to be revered seems to lead them to taking of the mantle of being dating advice experts for their peers. Their dating advice centers around how to be a man, and these people often have a story to share about how they, themselves, became a real man. They're philosophy is that if you are a real man, women will flock to you, and that sleeping with as many of them as possible is healthy, natural, and good. They justify this hypersexual attitude with references to testosterone, darwinism, and evolutionary biology - all three of which have a god-like influence on their world view. They view testosterone as the biggest proof of genetic, and sexual superiority, and anyone who disagrees with darwinism or evolutionary biology as something of a truth denier or science denier. These subjects are intrinsically related to their identity as a man, so they cannot afford to question their validity. Testosterone is also intrinsically tied to their identity, as is the fact that it is responsible for the fact that males are, in almost every way except for in childcare, superior to females.
Often times, this grouping seems to catch the more physically fit and intelligent neo nazis, white supremecists, and other members of gangs and hate groups, which, I think, is what gave Jordan Peterson such a bad reputation with the media. Only the really extremist MRAs seem to be from these groups, however. Most of them recognize equality in men across all races, despite their beliefs in survival of the fittest and in strengthening genetics through selective breeding. Many seem to feel that races should not intermingle.
MGTOW:
While there are MGTOW members in the community, evidenced by the beliefs they share, MGTOW has a pretty bad reputation, and most of the people in the online dating advice community try to definitely, for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whole-heartedly (yes they are that unrealistically emphatic about it) convince everyone that they do not actually "hate women", but that they just have some unconventional opinions that maybe, sort of make them seem that way. The bottom-line, misogyny isn't really socially acceptable within this community, which makes sense, because many of the men who are joining it aren't affiliated with hate groups yet, and would not be receptive to such an agenda. The leaders of the community are aware that their media reception and their ability to be welcoming and inclusive to new members, is an important aspect of how successful they will be in their role.
MGTOW members seem to include the body of men that I would categorize as "2 steps from hell", and others who are not quite as bad, or are just testing the waters to see whether or not this is a movement they can, in good conscious, get behind...and who are subsequently exposed to repeated brainwashing and conditioning from the 2 steps from hell crowd.
I've not yet met a self-proclaimed member of MGTOW who I would describe as someone who is not dangerous to society...the less dangerous members don't seem to want to own up to the label, or they try it once or twice and spend the rest of their online activity trying to convince people that they're not actually part of that group.
So, yeah, overall, I would say that this group isn't really represented in the online dating advice community, and where I suspect there may be MGTOW members, they don't exactly proclaim themselves. So it would be hard to know for sure.
Obviously, there's a few of them here and there...there just really isn't enough for a category.
Why men fail to date women
Description of topic :
How this research highlights the qualities of men who are unsuccessful at dating, and provides clues as to the thoughts, behaviors, lifestyles, actions, and beliefs that cause men to be unappealing, and (subjectively) why women respond to these men the way that they do.
Coming Soon to a forum near you....
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Plus you have no value as human if you don't hit on everyone who you spend slightly more time with than others. That's normal life and everyone does that. Everyone suffers like that everyday, it's perfectly normal and have nothing to do with your personal problems or anything.
. I like what you said about taking it chill and show interest here and there while having no stake in the outcome and not taking it too seriously. 
