Men with strongly Subtle tendencies typically have acute difficulties in relating to the opposite sex.
Women tend to be more socially oriented than men and this can be a huge obstacle for the least social of men who are also the least social human beings.
Relating to women is difficult because the highly social ‘girly girl’ is the polar opposite of a Subtle man. She is a creature of brightness, daylight, and fleeting passions while the Subtle man loves the safety of shadow, anonymity, and long term devotion.
If we envision a visible human spectrum, we could suppose we could find extremes in the infrared and ultraviolet. The most socially grounded females in the ultraviolet range, the least socially grounded men in the infrared. Ultraviolet females are a challenging personality for even the most social men when it comes to sustaining relationships, but their tendencies often seem to actually facilitate finding relationships in the first place. While there is most definitely intense competition amongst females, getting cut out of the gene pool entirely by competitors isn’t a huge concern like it is for men. An infrared male on the other hand has a huge disadvantage without any section of the female population to match his temperament. He lacks an asset, an edge possessed by all other males.
It is thus easy for an introvert man to come to the conclusion that he hasn’t the slightest thing in common with women and has very little place for them in his life.
On the other hand, a Subtle man is still a man. One of his strongest instincts is to desire a woman in his life. A life without sex and physical affection is difficult and lonely.
When it comes to girls, he is torn between the anger seeping from his lifetime of emotional scar tissue and his annoyingly unkillable hope for intimacy, love, and acceptance.
Thus we have the Girl Conundrum that is the torment of introverted guys everywhere.
Solution #1 – PUA
Many introvert men notice that they have never had success with women and they decide they need to change. Who do they need to become? The pickup artists who can seduce girls whenever they want, of course. The PUA community promises access to what was inaccessible, power instead of helplessness, and even vengeance intead of being trampled underfoot. All these together form an irresistible formula and indeed many gurus of pickup claim to have once been average frustrated guys with no ‘game.’ Indeed, many outcasts find a home in this place. This community has lots of philosophy and insight about human nature. It’s an exciting, stimulating place to be for bright, outcast men. There’s nothing to lose and no reason not to take as much from women as possible. After all, every introvert man has seen numerous times from his low ranking position how awfully, how truly condescendingly girls treat anyone they consider beneath them. He has no reason to offer any mercy or concessions. He would rather just be himself, but her unfortunately outdated packet of instincts precludes honesty. Against a lifetime of isolation and struggling for survival at the very bottom, the realpolitik philosophy of pickup makes sense.
Unfortunately it still doesn’t resolve the Girl Conundrum. Provided someone gets somewhere with PUA tactics, that’s definitely an improvement over isolation, but all the same issues remain. Reducing women down to a packet of instincts hardly fosters respect for them and yet he still has that desire for love and acceptance with a woman he respects and trusts. His desires remain in contradiction. Some introverted guys understandably relegate ‘loving relationships’ to the trash heap of other outright lies and unhelpful advice they’ve been given all their lives. Their anger is strong, but they would love nothing better than to learn that they’re mistaken. They remain torn between hate and hope.
I never got into the pickup community, but I definitely read some PUA works and benefited from them. For some people it takes the almost mechanical pragmatism of these books to awake from the reigning politically correct gender feminist garbage. It’s potentially a step in the right direction. Two out of four stars.
Solution #2 – MRA
I didn’t know these guys existed until I looked for them on the internet. A few years ago, I’d just returned from a foreign country where the girls had been much nicer and I was experiencing severe reverse culture shock in my home country. Surely someone had noticed that girls here were impossible! I entered search terms into google, probing for anyone out there who might have had the same thoughts. To my surprise there was a lively community of men who are tired of the contempt and disrespect that men regularly receive from women and the feminist establishment. Unsurprisingly, a good portion of these men seem to be introverts, who have seen mostly the very worst of the opposite sex.
For me, MRA writings have done more than any other source to get rid of cultural baggage and put maleness in its proper perspective. They have a broad focus and explain methodically with statistics how gender relations work in aggregate across entire societies. The system revealed by their analysis is one of stark injustice that stems from both the facts of biology and social expectations. MRA writers like to patiently and systematically point out all the ways that women are in fact privileged. One comes away from such reading with higher confidence and with lesser need to put women on a pedestal. However, this literature doesn’t endear women to the reader or bring one much closer to a loving relationship. Girl conundrum unsolved. Yet it is vital in teaching men how not to be exploited by the opposite sex. MRA writers provide a plan for independence from women, an end result they persuasively argue will benefit both sexes. This is not the solution to the problem, but it is most definitely a gateway and enabler. Four out of four stars.
Solution #3 – Use A Prostitute
Continued in the next post…
The Listener Test
“At work today, I was socializing with two extroverted co-workers. I wasn’t completely comfortable, but I was able to get a few words in every once in a while. Then, a third extrovert came up, and I found that whenever I wanted to say something one of the other girls beat me to it by one or two seconds. I started feeling extremely awkward, because I was just standing there and not contributing to the conversation.”
Full thread:
This forum poster described a phenomenon I’ve experienced very frequently. For one whom social interaction is competition for attention, one who enters the arena with other goals cannot possibly hope to compete. Those who talk at the competitive level are so saturated by Loud attention getting tactics that they don’t even notice someone who’s trying to talk normally any more. They’ve long forgotten that the main purpose of conversation is to convey meaningful information and have constructive discussions. The rat race has consumed them utterly.
Frustrated with being ignored, I resorted to a test while growing up to see if someone was worth my time. I would say something in a measured tone of voice at indoor volume. I would then monitor the response. Most of the time the eyes of the extrovert in question would remain glazed over with incomprehension, if indeed they were even aware of that I had been talking. They would quickly flit onto something they thought more stimulating. Appallingly few people passed this test and I would feel more alone than ever. But this test ultimately did help me find people who didn’t see people as advertising, who wanted more than shallow stimulation from conversation, and who wanted to be my allies, not my competitors.
The truth I have found is that most extroverts live amongst so much noise pollution that they quite simply can’t hear the spoken word until one keeps a sentence to no more than a few words, fires them out quickly, and puts great emphasis on all the stressed syllables. It seemed to me that to get a Loud person’s attention, I’d have to address them in much the same way as I’d address a pet dog. Such a realization was very discouraging indeed!