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Roissy makes a distinction
There are genuine assholes who are loved, and there are spiteful assholes who get nowhere. The difference is crucial.
Uncaring asshole = success with women.
Caring asshole = failure with women.
When women say they don’t fall for assholes, they are thinking of the second kind. A caring asshole comes from a place of bitterness and spite. His assholery is reactive rather than proactive. He is poor at calibrating which women will be responsive to his dick attitude. Caring assholes are crassly insulting and transparently invested in the outcome of their game.
Uncaring assholes are assholes as a consequence of their indifference. It is the aloofness of the man she loves that drives women crazy with obsession*, and that aloofness is manifest as asshole behavior. An uncaring asshole demonstrates clearly in his body language and tone of voice, not to mention his dearth of words, that he could take her or leave her.
Leaving aside the ethics of all this, a couple of points. First, speaking personally, being an a$$hole is a lot of work. When I really am indifferent, there are easier ways of showing it, and when I'm not indifferent, it's rather difficult to avoid falling into the "caring asshole" category.
Second, it doesn't seem consistent to say that the "[caring asshole] is reactive rather than proactive." If someone is proactive (i.e. takes the initiative), isn't he already putting skin in the game? Likewise, broadcasting indifference seems to require that the girl has already put herself forward in way to which he can respond. I'm skeptical that a man can seduce a random woman by walking up and being mean to her. But perhaps Roissy is saying that the meanness can't be obviously retaliatory.
5 comments:
It's not really on topic, but I don't have your email to email you this link, but I thought of you when I saw this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hluo9nyHBSs&feature=related
Mostly because of the Christian Girls dating non-Christian men, but also because the two of you have Calvinism (if little else) in common.
Outstanding!
I saw Half Sigma's note about this guy yesterday, but had not yet checked him out. Thanks for the link to his youtube videos.
Yeah, this particular commentary is right on. In my late twenties, when I was finally becoming competitive in the market for female attention, I formed friendships with a couple of girls that I hung out with and who built up their expectations for something that wasn't there. But since nobody forced the issue, I didn't have to face the fact that I was creating these expectations by some of the things I was doing. They certainly could have benefitted from the type of assertiveness, or intervention, that Driscoll recommends.
I am SO showing this video to my daughters.
So Driscoll made Calvinism cool, huh? The downside is that it's a damned short trip between "cool" and "cliche'". I'll be spending the next ten years explaining that, really, I was here first.
Glad you liked it. The NYT article that HS points to is really quite odd. In large parts it glides right past the counter-intuitively interesting part (counter-cultural religious conservatives) into the familiar "These people actually believe [insert something that millions of people believe to some extent or another], isn't that astonishing?"
On the actual subject of Roissy's post, here are my disorganized thoughts:
You know those Osteen-type preachers who suggest that faith in God will make you successful and rich? I don't know about Osteen in particular, but when people who are faithful do not become rich, the reason is generally presented that they are not faithful enough. This creates a win-win for the preacher. Success if God's (and, by virtue of his role as the conduit, the preacher's) but failure is yours.
It comes across to me that Roissy is setting up the explanation for failure. If being a jerk didn't work, it effects his hypothesis not a bit. They were the wrong kind of jerk. Or they were a jerk for the wrong reasons. Or something. Something that doesn't threaten his hypothesis that all women respond to jerks. This makes it so that every case I can find where a woman is attracted to a jerk is proof of his theory. Any counter-example, however, proves nothing. If you care enough to try doing what he tells you and it doesn't work, then you care too much.
The other thing that jumped out at me is when he stated plainly that any relationship problem is "almost always" instigated by the woman. I can't take this any more seriously than suggestions that all relationship problems are caused by male irresponsibility or the patriarchy or just men being men. Here again, though, you can point to any conflict, most of which both sides hold some responsibility, and point to whatever error the woman made and say "See?! That's what caused this!" To pull an old example, Elizabeth Edwards deserved what she got because she pursued the alpha male. The woman who cheats on her man is just proving how terrible women can be. It demonstrates the mental complexity of Eminem.
The background to the NYT article is that Arminianism (briefly, that each of us possesses freewill unconstrained by anything intrinsic to us) has been theologically dominant in American religious life ever since its adherents evangelized the post-Civil War west. So if strong-form Calvinism is really ascendent, I can't help but think that Worthen is right to treat it as pretty newsworthy, and surprising. Meanwhile, the counter-cultural aspects of Driscoll's ministry (if, by counter-cultural, you mean his disinterest in the outward trappings of traditional high-church Protestantism) are now widely present to some degree in evangelical churches, and frankly, don't stir my feelings one way or the other. So perhaps I am a little deaf to Worthen's condescension.
On the subject of Roissy: you are correct that many of his arguments, including this one, have a whiff of non-falsifiability about it, a problem that plagues easy Darwinian explanations generally.
And yet . . . few women would dispute the proposition that nothing turns them off faster than desperation in a man. It is therefore imperative that men dispel any appearance of neediness. As I wrote, the context in which "asshole game" can be effective in dispelling that appearance is probably much narrower than Roissy seems to think; however, within that context it might, amorally speaking, have a great deal of power.
Let me illustrate with an example. Mrs. Φ and I were canoodling this evening when I said to her in a mournful tone, "I hope you don't think I'm needy." I then affected a turned-up nose and said dismissively, "I don't need you!" And you know, darned if she didn't get all warm and kitteny at that. I mean, even fake assholery gave me a bounce!
I'll defer to your judgment on Calvinism. My knowledge is limited. Which, given that my knowledge is limited and given that I know there are plenty of people that believe it, I was surprised that the author considered it so newsworthy... though if it's the ascendancy of this believe, I guess that makes sense, though outside the success of the Mars Hill church I'm not sure that was adequately demonstrated (or maybe it was and I need to read the article again).
There is absolutely some truth to what Roissy is saying. If there weren't he wouldn't get anywhere and I would not worry about people taking him too seriously. Desperation is a terrible thing to give off. Further, indifference can definitely be beneficial, depending on the circumstances (it's one of life's cruel jokes). My objection is that while it can be useful as tips, as a philosophy it's harmful.
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