Contra A Review Of Dating Men In The Bay Area

I find this review of dating men in the Bay Area very interesting, which is why I'm going to write a long-ass post complaining about it.

In Defense Of The Men Who Opt Out

The author taxonomizes five kinds of men you meet dating in the Bay Area. Several of these I have never personally encountered: wherever the high-achieving startup founders who do ayahuasca are, they aren't dating homebody professional bloggers.

But one category, The Man Who Opts Out, made me groan with recognition.

These are men who have given up on dating, or never even attempted it in the first place...

The majority don’t fit this description, though. In fact, in the Bay Area, a large number of these men are very high-functioning members of society who are smart, respectful, and financially successful...

Dating feels impossible. After all, the goal of dating is to make someone fall in love with you, and how could someone love him when he’s so terribly unattractive?...

every attempt to flirt and date paints an entirely different picture of himself: he’s practically trembling with nerves, unsure what to talk about, prone to rambling about his niche interests until their eyes glaze over, terrified of accidentally being a creep, yet overly eager for the romantic affection that he desperately craves.

He’s a bit of an anxious, awkward mess, and most women don’t enjoy the vibes. One even starts a rumor that he’s a creep. The accusation brings back an aching self-consciousness he hasn’t felt in years.

So far so good. And then the author elaborates...

A date with a Man Who Opts Out is a losing battle. They arrive defeated and suspicious, certain they’re wasting their time, and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy...

These are some of the most painful dates I’ve experienced. The nurturing side of me wants to pull the man into a hug, to assure him he’s enough, to promise I won’t judge.

Yet the logical side of me knows I need to judge–ultimately, it’s a necessary part of dating. And a crippling lack of self-esteem is a death blow for the stability of any relationship. If I want a healthy relationship, I simply cannot date someone with that trait...

man with severe self-esteem issues is not likely to find a healthy relationship, no matter how many times he flings himself at the dating world. The core issue of self-esteem must be addressed.

For some, this means structured therapy or psychiatric treatment, for others, it means growing their social life until it’s vibrant enough to soothe the part of their soul that insists they’re not enough. Or maybe it’s a combo of all three or something else entirely. But action needs to be taken to address the lack of self-esteem; the man can’t just half-heartedly daydream about a woman who might swoop in to “love him just the way he is” and solve all his confidence problems.

At this point I started yelling at my laptop "no!!! NO!!!!"

Certainly, there are Men Who Opt Out whom no rational straight woman would want to date: who are bitter, or misogynistic, or so depressed that you catch their misery by spending five minutes in the same room as them. Most of them aren't. Most of them are completely fine partners.

I see these guys in my comment section, my emails, my life coaching practice, and my personal life. I do my best to help them, and I flatter myself that I manage. But let's be real here, there's a limited amount I can do.

What they need is a stable, loving romantic relationship with someone who admires their good qualities and thinks they're sexually attractive. With a little love and admiration, most Men Who Opt Out blossom. The problem is not generally a deep-seated belief that they're utterly worthless, as depressed people have. The problem is generally a completely well-grounded and rational belief that no one is romantically interested in them, because no one has ever been romantically interested in them before. Once they receive some counterevidence—that there exists at least one woman who is attracted to them—they shine.

Of course, the Man Who Opts Out's lack of romantic success is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because he believes no women could be into him, he misses the subtle ways women express interest. He gives up too quickly on the soul-destroying world of dating apps, where men with more self-esteem will keep plugging until they find someone. He assumes that ever asking a woman out, no matter how politely, is sexual harassment; after all, how could any woman welcome his interest?

But that doesn't mean that his beliefs are irrational. The reason the Man Who Opts Out has low romantic self-esteem is that he has accumulated a great deal of evidence that no one wants him. The solution is not therapy or platonic friendship; the solution is accumulating some evidence in the other direction.

Lack of romance itself causes mental health problems for many men. Sex itself is usually not the problem, in my experience. In our culture, romantic relationships are the primary way many people (especially men) experience emotional intimacy. Many long-term single men have no one to talk to about their feelings. (The author calls this the Man Who Is Not: "sad and lost and alone and frankly rather scared, like some sort of abandoned child.") Many also have no one to share their lives with: if they died in their apartment on Friday night, no one would notice until Monday morning. In the Bay Area, this is actually less bad than in many other places, because people have housemates. But if a man lives alone or with housemates he doesn't much like, it can be daunting.

The most serious cause of depression in long-term single men, however, is touch starvation. Many people require regular hugs and cuddles to be happy. Our society has no way for single people (and especially single men) to receive those, other than having a pet or paying a masseuse or a sex worker. Touch starvation can be very serious. I have seen multiple cases of severe depression lift because someone suddenly had a regular source of hugs. Again, no amount of therapy or self-work or non-cuddly friendship will help with this; you can't work on yourself until you stop having needs, and even if you could it wouldn't be desirable to do so. The solution is hugs.

In some lucky cases, a single romantic relationship convinces a man that he's attractive and sets up a virtuous cycle where he is capable of flirting, asking women out, becoming mind-bogglingly promiscuous, and so on. However, in many cases, the man concludes that only this woman is interested in him; if she breaks up with him he returns to Opting Out. This is problematic for any attempt to scale up dealing with the problem of Men Who Opt Out, as even the most dedicated poly woman can only maintain a harem of six to eight men at once and there is no guarantee that a year of her attention will fix the problem. But it is no issue at all for the clear-minded woman who knows her own best interest.

Women of the Bay Area! There are so many men out there for you! Sweet, kind men who will be absolutely devoted to you! Men who are eager to commit and would never dream of a 'situationship'! Or, depending on your preference, who will put up with you situationshiping them! You can select for any rare and widely desired trait you like: height, intelligence, muscles, sense of humor, wealth, dick size, Internet fame, propensity to travel to Brazil and take ayahuasca, etc. Admittedly, Men Who Opt Out tend to be shy and anxious, there's no way around that. But if those traits are acceptable for you, there are men for the taking.

All you have to do is:

1. Ask him out, explicitly, in unambiguous words (I find "I think you are hot and want to go out on a date with you" to usually be sufficient, although in severe cases "I want to have sex with you" is necessary).

2. Initiate kissing and sex for the first time (on your own timetable).

3. Override your instinctive sense that any person who looks that anxious doesn't want to be here and you're sexually harassing him. Instead, communicate explicitly and then trust him to tell you whether he’s interested.

4. Tell him very explicitly that you think he's hot. You really can't overcompliment these guys; the more compliments you give, the more quickly he'll realize that you're into him and the less time you have to spend dealing with his neuroticism. In particular, say specific things about his body that you like. They go wild for that stuff.

5. Be patient and gentle with his inexperience. Reassure him that he's doing fine. Let him know that you don't care about how experienced he is. Really, isn't it adorable?

And then you will get a fantastic boyfriend! The awkwardness is front-loaded, because he doesn't have the amount of practice in early dating that you're used to. But after the first six months or so, he has exactly the same amount of experience as any other boyfriend in dating you. And then you will get some incredibly desirable boyfriend that no one else has snapped up because they're all idiots who don't realize that you can ask men out. You don't have to be an idiot! Take matters into your own hands! Become the master of your destiny! ASK THE SHY BOYS OUT!

Therapy is also nonsense advice for the Men Who Opt Out themselves. The only solution to romantic inexperience and anxiety around romance is to go on more dates, so you get practice dating and realize that there exist some women out there who are attracted to you. (Which there are.)

Many Men Who Are Trying To Stop Opting Out get trapped in an endless cycle of working on themselves, which is actually avoidance. “Oh, I need to resolve my childhood trauma before I can date… oh, I need to learn to feel secure in my body… oh, I need a robust community of platonic friends… oh, I need to get a raise so I can support a family… oh, I need to have a six-pack and to be able to bench twice my body weight… oh, I need to learn game… oh, I need to learn authentic relating… oh, I need to become a world champion juggler…” It’s the large-scale version of me noticing I have to send a scary email and then suddenly cleaning my entire house, writing two blog posts, baking a cake, and starting an urgent debate on which authoritarian dictator is my favorite.¹

You can always come up with more tasks you have to do before you could possibly do the thing that scares you. Unfortunately, if you want to get married and aren’t part of a culture that still has arranged marriages, you have to go on dates. There are any number of broke, ugly, traumatized, emotionally immature men with girlfriends; you can be one of them. Everything else you do that isn’t going on dates is procrastinating.

On Scripts For Men