After reading the comments I realizing there are quite a few examples of women signaling interest that I was not totally oblivious of but completely unwilling to respond with anything but avoidance. I saw the sign but had no idea what to do with it.
Vox has been talking about these signals for years. We men can be quite socially dense.
It wasn't that long ago it hit me that multiple women in my past in telling me about their boyfriends were qualifying themselves to me. I was gobsmacked. Female displays of social proof as another indicator of interest at least doubled the number of times the door was being opened for me. That pretty fellow grad student from South Africa was interested and I had no idea. What a gormless doofus I was.
Anyway, men and women do not think the same. Back then I was thinking they were taken and off the market when in fact they were actively trying to prove their attractiveness minutes into the first conversation. No, I didn't ask them out. I was good boy and adhered to bro-code.
And every woman I dated told me about old boyfriends, every single one. At the time I was annoyed. Piece of advice to women looking for a husband, social proof does not work on men.
To put this in perspective I got used to being hit on pretty early in life. To avoid some of it I developed what can only be described as anti-game, targeted active discouragement or avoidance. Even so, as this piece of rectified ignorance proves, I was still ignorant and slow to learn.
Flirting by talking about boyfriends is one of those stupid, essentially feminist things women do because they assume that what works on them also works on men.
"Piece of advice to women looking for a husband, social proof does not work on men."
Don't assume they know what that means or have even heard of it. I hadn't until now, and I've been on the internet since the early 90s.
"And every woman I dated told me about old boyfriends, every single one."
If it's a given she's going to drop a steam shovel load, mine for treasure.
Is there, indirectly, flattery of you? "This is how you're better!"
Is she helping you to improve your possible perception of her? "I'm single right now for valid reasons, I am sure you will agree. ... ..."
Is there, if indirectly, helpful advice? Translated, "I like what I see in you and hope we have a future! In that interest, here's how to avoid making their fatal mistakes with me and also why I may react negatively if you ...! ...! ..!" "Messages received! I will certainly never require you to get a fraudulent vaccine. I would never pressure you to co-sign my student loan and then say it didn't matter whether I paid it back or not because we were getting married! I recognize and respect why you are now hyper-sensitive to manipulation and instantly become wary of the man who says, ''Don't you trust me?'"
"Don't assume they know what that means or have even heard of it. "
Women don't have to understand what they are doing or what it's called to act like women.
Social proof works on women. Women are more interested in men who have girlfriends/wives. It does not work that way for men. If you have a boyfriend and you're talking about him, I assume you intend to keep him.
But who wants to say anything when it's inevitably met with accusations of lying, exaggerating, posturing, and so forth? Posting one single picture of my wife was enough to generate literal years of people sincerely denying her existence.
I'm quite content to permit those people to wallow in their ignorance and failure. And I have absolutely no interest in ever debating anything with them.
No one can reasonably asked to invite that. Especially given all that you do do. Just my minuscule footprint has been enlightening. Extrapolation opens into the abyss.
Some Chili Peppers for the wallowers. “If you have to ask, you’ll never know”.
In college, I accidently sent a signal by fiddling with my hair while talking with a guy. The issue is I've been a fiddler since middle school and do it out of habit even when alone. A female friend of the guy had to point out that it was a habit, as he wasn't looking to date at the time. Ironically, by the time we left the 2 year Associates program, I'd definitely developed a crush on the guy, but if he had any interest in me, he didn't respond to my wallflower glances, undivided attention, and gladness over him being my designated escort to a class event. In general, consistently putting in the effort to be at least on the periphery of a guy's conversation, if not be someone he was talking to, didn't bring any results. The signals were too small.
Off-topic question: regarding a common piece of advice, "don't bother with a woman who abandons her current boyfriend to be with you because she's gonna do the same thing to you later", with the reasoning being that she must be branch swinging because of her bad character. This is bunk advice, right? I think that 1) the men who say this are deltas or gammas who are pedestalizing women by repeating this advice, and 2) common sense says you're closer to the top of whatever level she could pull than he was so it's less likely she'll upgrade from you
There is a kernel of truth in it. If a MARRIED woman cheats on her husband with you, the odds highly favor her eventually cheating on you whether you marry her or not. But breaking up with a boyfriend because someone better came along is not even close to the same thing as committing adultery.
The dangers are very different, as are the probabilities of future failure.
The quote by a female commenter also helps you understand how they feel about it:
I’m a bit baffled to learn that men think monkey branching behavior is immoral. None of the women I was close to in college when we were all looking for husbands considered themselves off the market until they got engaged. Nobody two-timed, but dumping a guy because you had a better option wasn’t just morally neutral, but was considered the moral thing to do. “It’s not nice to keep leading him on when you’re more interested in someone else.”
One of the most unexpected offers I got was when my wife and I were test driving a Saab 900. My wife is sitting in the back seat looking out the window, and the sales babe was sitting in the passenger seat. As I was driving the car and she was describing the features, she put her hand on my thigh. Caught me off guard for sure, but I did not react except to look over at her. She smiled and pulled her hand back. I thought to myself that she might be behind on her quota for the month.
Failed signals: staring, talking, suggesting that we visit a place of mutual interest together and giving out my phone number.
Other failed signals: just giving out my phone number for a plausibly deniable reason, avoiding eye contact, asking questions about topics of his interests that I don't really care about, playing video games I don't like, etc., etc. much more success with online things.
There few occasions I tried to initiate conversations with men I was attracted to or curious about. It didn't go anywhere. I just assumed the attraction wasn't mutual and moved on. Eye contact, smiling, and making myself available outside the group I was with were my main methods of flirting.
You think you were being obvious, but to many men you probably just came across as friendly and personable. Them finding you attractive or not wasn't in play as they probably didn't believe you were attracted to them in the first place.
Yes I can see that too and there is certainly something to be said for that with young women. At the same time, as a woman, I'm not going to come on to a man. I want to be pursued so i created the opportunity if the man found me attractive. If I have to crossover to pursuing the man then the attraction is largely lost. i would not feel feminine and desired being the pursuer. . I'm sure there is some sort of happy medium btwn normal quiet flirting and being the pursuer.
“One thing that is apparent, upon reflection, is that the more attractive a woman is, the bolder and more shameless she tends to be about sending an interest signal.”
This is probably true for higher status men. For me (Delta) as a young man, I was always being fondled, groped, harassed in social settings by drunk 5s.
All of these seem less like signals and more like giant flashing billboards at ground level. Anyone who can't or won't figure these out, doesn't deserve anything until they do.
Well, looking at a guy 4 seconds longer than you usually look at a guy is NOT a signal to him, because he has no baseline of comparison. Or he might think that YOU think he looks weird. Or that you're annoyed with him and thinking about calling HR for something that he's unaware of. "Subtle" doesn't cut it, especially in this day and age of women going on false-accusation rampages for merely paying attention to a woman who doesn't find him attractive.
This is the environment which women have created for men, so it's now the environment that women have to work in, because no man is willing to risk going to prison for a woman's action which falls into the classification of plausible deniability.
Well yeah, that's the point. Vox's point is for girls to make the signals they send men to be like big giant Las Vegas neon light billboards so that the men will be able to notice them and feel confident enough in their chances of success that they work up enough courage to ask these girls out.
When I read the real-world examples Vox provided I might as well have been reading about some lost tribe in National Geographic. Such experiences are completely foreign to me. The best I got was one time a slovenly dressed drunk girl said I had a nice behind and another time a chubby girl slipped me her number... that's it bros, that's basically all I got.
Same here. I had an obese 2 bake me a cake, and a less fat 3 gave me her number and bought something for me.
More recently an actually cute girl at work kept looking and smiling at me but thats only because she knew nothing about me. I knew I had no chance so I never bothered talking to her.
Its hard to be at the bottom but you get used to it.
For fuck sake, get a grip man. Don't get used to it, do something -- do anything. Just buy a new shirt or get a new haircut, no one could fuck that up. Go to the Gym. Gold's Gym is $40/m where I live. You have $40/m.
The funny thing about all three of those traits you say you lack is that if you just act like you're someone with them, eventually you'll snap out of it and become that person. This requires some serious self-gaslighting but I promise it works pretty quickly. I speak from experience. Pop off, king 👑
Well yes, if your default assumption is that nobody will ever possibly be interested in you, then it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy and you will be forever alone.
Or
You could do what Vox suggested, and simply walk over next time she smiles at you and say, "Hey." Let things develop from there.
I mean, you've already gamed it out in your head to the worst possible outcome, can reality be any worse?
Oh she gave up after several weeks of inaction from me. And I dont work there anymore. I dont regret not acting since I had no chance anyway and there were potentially negative consequences.
Maybe quit 'hunting' where you work? Or, rather, refusing to hunt?
Do you take pleasure in being 100% convinced you're never going to be liked? Is that reasonable? WHY do you think you're unlikeable? Ever looked into that?
I often tell people that the gap between low-status and high-status is massive, but it's clear that most men still have no idea that it's more akin to the Grand Canyon than a little ditch.
And it becomes an endless pit for some, low status behaviour leading to more low status behaviour in an endless vicious cycle. I guess at least being honest to yourself and realising it stops the fall, and starting to try to change the behaviour is a slow climb back up.
Oh I never, NEVER dared grab a mans bicep and request he flex! Not until my husband and I were MARRIED! thank! you! very! much!..........I might have asked for a photo of him flexing while we were engaged BUT THAT IS ALL!
Jokes aside- those are all very assertive examples. Some are concerning. Most women are more subtle and shy. Gamma's will absolutely be triggered by this list, they likely have never experienced a woman wanting them like this.
In my experience, if a woman feels your muscles she thinks you're attractive, even if she's not interested. So best to respond playfully, like flexing or posing, to see if there's more to it.
Think of it as a bell curve. On one end you have the minority of 9-10's that are very assertive, & confident of their approach when it comes to what they want. Then on the other end are the 3-4's which are completely unabashed in their slutty approaches and poor behavior.
The great majority of women, 5-7's, are more normal. They're generally more subtle in their hints and approaches to men.
You need to catch the signals. You need to notice that slight look of interest, that slight "look of love", shall we say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNEdxZURTaI
After reading the comments I realizing there are quite a few examples of women signaling interest that I was not totally oblivious of but completely unwilling to respond with anything but avoidance. I saw the sign but had no idea what to do with it.
Vox has been talking about these signals for years. We men can be quite socially dense.
It wasn't that long ago it hit me that multiple women in my past in telling me about their boyfriends were qualifying themselves to me. I was gobsmacked. Female displays of social proof as another indicator of interest at least doubled the number of times the door was being opened for me. That pretty fellow grad student from South Africa was interested and I had no idea. What a gormless doofus I was.
Anyway, men and women do not think the same. Back then I was thinking they were taken and off the market when in fact they were actively trying to prove their attractiveness minutes into the first conversation. No, I didn't ask them out. I was good boy and adhered to bro-code.
And every woman I dated told me about old boyfriends, every single one. At the time I was annoyed. Piece of advice to women looking for a husband, social proof does not work on men.
To put this in perspective I got used to being hit on pretty early in life. To avoid some of it I developed what can only be described as anti-game, targeted active discouragement or avoidance. Even so, as this piece of rectified ignorance proves, I was still ignorant and slow to learn.
Athor Pel
Flirting by talking about boyfriends is one of those stupid, essentially feminist things women do because they assume that what works on them also works on men.
Talking about boyfriends is an instant turn-off.
Christian boyfriend is my brother in Christ. He can keep you.
Non-Christian boyfriend means she has poor spiritual maturity and judgement. Next.
My mother had three boyfriends/suitors the day she told my father, "Get me the ring tonight, or I'm going to the opera with Allan."
Allan had been giving her 6 dozen tulips a day.
"I was thinking they were taken and off the market"
She's not taken and off the market until there's a ring on her finger.
And you can confidently tell her that.
And you can tell it to her boyfriend if he says anything. "Where's the ring?" And you can walk off if you like, you've served.
I understand that last paragraph.
"Piece of advice to women looking for a husband, social proof does not work on men."
Don't assume they know what that means or have even heard of it. I hadn't until now, and I've been on the internet since the early 90s.
"And every woman I dated told me about old boyfriends, every single one."
If it's a given she's going to drop a steam shovel load, mine for treasure.
Is there, indirectly, flattery of you? "This is how you're better!"
Is she helping you to improve your possible perception of her? "I'm single right now for valid reasons, I am sure you will agree. ... ..."
Is there, if indirectly, helpful advice? Translated, "I like what I see in you and hope we have a future! In that interest, here's how to avoid making their fatal mistakes with me and also why I may react negatively if you ...! ...! ..!" "Messages received! I will certainly never require you to get a fraudulent vaccine. I would never pressure you to co-sign my student loan and then say it didn't matter whether I paid it back or not because we were getting married! I recognize and respect why you are now hyper-sensitive to manipulation and instantly become wary of the man who says, ''Don't you trust me?'"
"Don't assume they know what that means or have even heard of it. "
Women don't have to understand what they are doing or what it's called to act like women.
Social proof works on women. Women are more interested in men who have girlfriends/wives. It does not work that way for men. If you have a boyfriend and you're talking about him, I assume you intend to keep him.
It’s unfortunate the Gamma infestation of the internet disincentivizes sharing useful experiences.
95% of related blather would vanish if most people had any idea of what high status socialization is like.
But who wants to say anything when it's inevitably met with accusations of lying, exaggerating, posturing, and so forth? Posting one single picture of my wife was enough to generate literal years of people sincerely denying her existence.
I'm quite content to permit those people to wallow in their ignorance and failure. And I have absolutely no interest in ever debating anything with them.
No one can reasonably asked to invite that. Especially given all that you do do. Just my minuscule footprint has been enlightening. Extrapolation opens into the abyss.
Some Chili Peppers for the wallowers. “If you have to ask, you’ll never know”.
In college, I accidently sent a signal by fiddling with my hair while talking with a guy. The issue is I've been a fiddler since middle school and do it out of habit even when alone. A female friend of the guy had to point out that it was a habit, as he wasn't looking to date at the time. Ironically, by the time we left the 2 year Associates program, I'd definitely developed a crush on the guy, but if he had any interest in me, he didn't respond to my wallflower glances, undivided attention, and gladness over him being my designated escort to a class event. In general, consistently putting in the effort to be at least on the periphery of a guy's conversation, if not be someone he was talking to, didn't bring any results. The signals were too small.
Off-topic question: regarding a common piece of advice, "don't bother with a woman who abandons her current boyfriend to be with you because she's gonna do the same thing to you later", with the reasoning being that she must be branch swinging because of her bad character. This is bunk advice, right? I think that 1) the men who say this are deltas or gammas who are pedestalizing women by repeating this advice, and 2) common sense says you're closer to the top of whatever level she could pull than he was so it's less likely she'll upgrade from you
There is a kernel of truth in it. If a MARRIED woman cheats on her husband with you, the odds highly favor her eventually cheating on you whether you marry her or not. But breaking up with a boyfriend because someone better came along is not even close to the same thing as committing adultery.
The dangers are very different, as are the probabilities of future failure.
Yeah it's bunk. Vox talks extensively about this here: https://sigmagame.substack.com/p/the-monkeybranching-dilemma?utm_source=publication-search
The quote by a female commenter also helps you understand how they feel about it:
I’m a bit baffled to learn that men think monkey branching behavior is immoral. None of the women I was close to in college when we were all looking for husbands considered themselves off the market until they got engaged. Nobody two-timed, but dumping a guy because you had a better option wasn’t just morally neutral, but was considered the moral thing to do. “It’s not nice to keep leading him on when you’re more interested in someone else.”
This is not bad character at all.
One of the most unexpected offers I got was when my wife and I were test driving a Saab 900. My wife is sitting in the back seat looking out the window, and the sales babe was sitting in the passenger seat. As I was driving the car and she was describing the features, she put her hand on my thigh. Caught me off guard for sure, but I did not react except to look over at her. She smiled and pulled her hand back. I thought to myself that she might be behind on her quota for the month.
The car was red, and I wanted green.
Flirting from women trying to sell you something isn't likely to be flirting.
Failed signals: staring, talking, suggesting that we visit a place of mutual interest together and giving out my phone number.
Other failed signals: just giving out my phone number for a plausibly deniable reason, avoiding eye contact, asking questions about topics of his interests that I don't really care about, playing video games I don't like, etc., etc. much more success with online things.
It doesn’t appear you’re doing anything wrong in general.
There few occasions I tried to initiate conversations with men I was attracted to or curious about. It didn't go anywhere. I just assumed the attraction wasn't mutual and moved on. Eye contact, smiling, and making myself available outside the group I was with were my main methods of flirting.
You think you were being obvious, but to many men you probably just came across as friendly and personable. Them finding you attractive or not wasn't in play as they probably didn't believe you were attracted to them in the first place.
It was probably a good idea to switch tactics.
Yes I can see that too and there is certainly something to be said for that with young women. At the same time, as a woman, I'm not going to come on to a man. I want to be pursued so i created the opportunity if the man found me attractive. If I have to crossover to pursuing the man then the attraction is largely lost. i would not feel feminine and desired being the pursuer. . I'm sure there is some sort of happy medium btwn normal quiet flirting and being the pursuer.
"Requested escort to strip club for her super-hot best friend’s birthday party crew."
Sorry, but that one might mean she thought you were bi.
Turning that one down because you thought she thought you were bi would be an "end scene of Dumb and Dumber" level facepalm.
I think Jerry thought Vox was saying she asked him to escort her to a strip club for women, you know, with a male stripper.
Don't be ridiculous. It was because I knew the owner and several of the dancers.
As a high delta, I was pretty oblivious a lot of the time. Years later a girl I knew said "I kept making passes, you kept ignoring me."
I wasn't interested in her, but she was correct that I did not notice it.
“One thing that is apparent, upon reflection, is that the more attractive a woman is, the bolder and more shameless she tends to be about sending an interest signal.”
This is probably true for higher status men. For me (Delta) as a young man, I was always being fondled, groped, harassed in social settings by drunk 5s.
Did you ever receive signals from sober women?
Yes but not that aggressively.
High and low status difference is that the high status learns from experience and can figure some of this out and implement it.
Low status are oblivious.
Empirical best results are always from decisive action.
That's because they have no chance to aquire that experience.
All of these seem less like signals and more like giant flashing billboards at ground level. Anyone who can't or won't figure these out, doesn't deserve anything until they do.
Well, looking at a guy 4 seconds longer than you usually look at a guy is NOT a signal to him, because he has no baseline of comparison. Or he might think that YOU think he looks weird. Or that you're annoyed with him and thinking about calling HR for something that he's unaware of. "Subtle" doesn't cut it, especially in this day and age of women going on false-accusation rampages for merely paying attention to a woman who doesn't find him attractive.
This is the environment which women have created for men, so it's now the environment that women have to work in, because no man is willing to risk going to prison for a woman's action which falls into the classification of plausible deniability.
Well yeah, that's the point. Vox's point is for girls to make the signals they send men to be like big giant Las Vegas neon light billboards so that the men will be able to notice them and feel confident enough in their chances of success that they work up enough courage to ask these girls out.
Young deltas are a mix of obtuse, naïve and cowards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa-4IAR_9Yw
When I read the real-world examples Vox provided I might as well have been reading about some lost tribe in National Geographic. Such experiences are completely foreign to me. The best I got was one time a slovenly dressed drunk girl said I had a nice behind and another time a chubby girl slipped me her number... that's it bros, that's basically all I got.
Same here. I had an obese 2 bake me a cake, and a less fat 3 gave me her number and bought something for me.
More recently an actually cute girl at work kept looking and smiling at me but thats only because she knew nothing about me. I knew I had no chance so I never bothered talking to her.
Its hard to be at the bottom but you get used to it.
One of my favorite songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-EDyyGGCeQ
For fuck sake, get a grip man. Don't get used to it, do something -- do anything. Just buy a new shirt or get a new haircut, no one could fuck that up. Go to the Gym. Gold's Gym is $40/m where I live. You have $40/m.
I have been going to the gym for a year. A guy like me needs a lot more than this.
Good for you 😊 👍
What got you motivated and helped you keep going?
The desire to improve my health, plus the fact that Ive always been jealous of guys that are fit or strong.
If you were to be deadly honest to yourself, what is it that you lack?
Id say i lack self esteem, courage, and social skills. Im a loser by nearly every measure so I dont think I deserve a woman.
The funny thing about all three of those traits you say you lack is that if you just act like you're someone with them, eventually you'll snap out of it and become that person. This requires some serious self-gaslighting but I promise it works pretty quickly. I speak from experience. Pop off, king 👑
Well yes, if your default assumption is that nobody will ever possibly be interested in you, then it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy and you will be forever alone.
Or
You could do what Vox suggested, and simply walk over next time she smiles at you and say, "Hey." Let things develop from there.
I mean, you've already gamed it out in your head to the worst possible outcome, can reality be any worse?
Oh she gave up after several weeks of inaction from me. And I dont work there anymore. I dont regret not acting since I had no chance anyway and there were potentially negative consequences.
If anyone of these commenters gets you to change your self-defeating attitude, write back here which one clicked.
I have so many teenagers now who are black-pilled on personal success at anything.
For some it's an excuse to stick with their cheap vices: weed, cell-phone stuff. But some really have sold themselves short.
When you figure it out and get on track withprayer and support from other Christian guys, give back by working with teens.
I dont really have any advice, other than it gets harder as the years go by.
Maybe quit 'hunting' where you work? Or, rather, refusing to hunt?
Do you take pleasure in being 100% convinced you're never going to be liked? Is that reasonable? WHY do you think you're unlikeable? Ever looked into that?
I dont take pleasure in it, I just accept it as my fate.
Seduction is a learnable skill, just like throwing a baseball.
I often tell people that the gap between low-status and high-status is massive, but it's clear that most men still have no idea that it's more akin to the Grand Canyon than a little ditch.
And it becomes an endless pit for some, low status behaviour leading to more low status behaviour in an endless vicious cycle. I guess at least being honest to yourself and realising it stops the fall, and starting to try to change the behaviour is a slow climb back up.
Oh I never, NEVER dared grab a mans bicep and request he flex! Not until my husband and I were MARRIED! thank! you! very! much!..........I might have asked for a photo of him flexing while we were engaged BUT THAT IS ALL!
Jokes aside- those are all very assertive examples. Some are concerning. Most women are more subtle and shy. Gamma's will absolutely be triggered by this list, they likely have never experienced a woman wanting them like this.
In my experience, if a woman feels your muscles she thinks you're attractive, even if she's not interested. So best to respond playfully, like flexing or posing, to see if there's more to it.
Yes, proceed with caution.
Think of it as a bell curve. On one end you have the minority of 9-10's that are very assertive, & confident of their approach when it comes to what they want. Then on the other end are the 3-4's which are completely unabashed in their slutty approaches and poor behavior.
The great majority of women, 5-7's, are more normal. They're generally more subtle in their hints and approaches to men.
It's very dynamic with many factors at play.