The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

You’re Too ‘Empowered,’ Darling

Posted on | December 19, 2015 | 55 Comments

Amanda Leigh is a funny writer, who writes about dating, and is capable of clever sentences like, “If you can’t tell whether he’s gay or straight, he’s gay,” and “Finding a tall employed man with values in Los Angeles is like finding a unicorn.” But her dating life is actually a failure, as is the case of most people who write about dating. What is the object of the game? To find The One. So as long as you’re still dating, you’re a loser.

The only dating advice young people should ever listen to is advice from happily married people. Their advice will likely be “old-fashioned.” Why? Because old-fashioned works. Old-fashioned is good. Amanda Leigh is not old-fashioned:

I can read a man like a book. But I haven’t always been that way. I had to get seriously played to learn the game. . . . In other words, I’ve been hurt, surprised, upset, shocked, duped, and manipulated enough to consider myself a seasoned dater.

This is the modern “empowered” feminist attitude: All of her previous romantic relationships were failures, so listen to Amanda Leigh, because she knows what’s she’s talking about!

Ladies: Do not follow the herd. Do not let yourself be “played.” Do not imagine that you are going to become the first woman ever to survive the hook-up culture without damage. Talk of promiscuity as “empowerment” is nonsense. Speaking of nonsense and failure, Amanda Leigh tried dating via Tinder:

I’ve gone out on over 10 dates and communicated with at least 50 guys since joining. . . .  An accountant told me he was afraid to ask me out again because he felt intimidated by me. Someone needs to grow a set. I had a great date and make out sesh with a hot photographer. He said he wanted to see me again and then disappeared.

You see the problem. Amanda Leigh is a type. The caution accountant, a shrewd just of risk, found her intimidating. The “hot” guy got a make-out session on the first date, but she can’t understand why he “disappeared” after that.

Amanda: You were being tested. Lots of girls want to make out with the “hot” guy. He might have been impressed if you had resisted the opportunity. Be old-fashioned, and especially strive to resist the guys you find irresistible.

But some of your advice, frankly, is just plain crap:

If he refuses to get a pedicure because it’s not manly, he will not go with you to see a therapist to work on your relationship issues. He has too much pride.

WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS? A guy has to get a pedicure in order to prove he’s willing to “see a therapist to work on your relationship issues”? This is a flashing red-light warning, guys. She’s thinking so far ahead, she’s got your first therapy session planned, because you have “too much pride.” The accountant’s caution was so wise, in retrospect.

Therapy causes divorce. There, I’ve said. The belief that your “relationship issues” require intervention by “experts” is a surrender flag, a confession of incompetence. As a matter of fact, I would advise against dating anyone who uses a phrase like “relationship issues.” That kind of therapeutic jargon indicates either she’s got “issues” of her own — which probably explains why she doesn’t already have a boyfriend –or else she’s the type who sits around reading self-help psychology books about “relationships.” She’s a compulsive over-thinker, in other words.

Confident people aren’t always second-guessing their decisions. They don’t sit around critiquing their partners or relationships. Confident people are decisive. They take action, and accept responsibility for the consequences.

So much feminist talk about “empowerment” is a counterfeit substitute for real confidence. “Empowerment” is whistling past the graveyard, pretending you know what you’re doing, no matter how badly you’re doing it. By contrast, real confidence is based on success. You are confident because you are competent, and you don’t need a therapist to tell you how to cope with your problems.

Why do we get such horror stories from the dating scene? Because all the good people are already in relationships, that’s why. The good people found each other and are living happy lives together, which leaves the dating scene full of bad people. It may be tempting for an attractive young person to develop a perfectionist attitude, to keep chasing around in search of romantic adventure, but it’s like a game of musical chairs. The world seems full of exciting possibilities when you’re 18 or 21, but if you stay in the game too long, you begin to get the sense that you’re picking through a pile of castoffs and discards — dating people who weren’t good enough for somebody else. They’ve been dumped and rejected, and are carrying around the emotional damage they suffered as a result of those broken promises and broken hearts.

If you find somebody good, close the deal. Get married and stay married, and make a point of being happy about it. Do not for a moment envy those single friends of yours or think about whether the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Be old-fashioned and enjoy grazing in your own pasture. Consider the story Amanda Leigh tells about how she thought she’d found the perfect guy, only to get dumped once again:

Men consistently say they don’t want to hurt a woman’s feelings but they do it in ways that seem so ridiculous, uncaring, and avoidable. Many men project that having a relationship is a bad thing — that all women are a hassle or take up too much time because they have been in relationships with unhealthy women in the past. It’s not fair to those of us who are healthy, self-sufficient, independent, creative, and understanding. I’m not your ex-girlfriend or your ex-wife. My intention in partnership is to both thrive and be more successful together than we are apart. Not to weigh anyone down. Myself included.
How does someone go from full speed ahead to a screeching halt like that? If he had told me in the beginning that he isn’t looking for a relationship I would not have gone out with him.

Amanda: You are too “empowered,” darling. If you want to domesticate a male, be domestic. Cultivate your inner June Cleaver. Strive to convey that you are not part of the dating herd. You are old-fashioned — the marrying type — and you are not looking for a mere “relationship,” but a ring and a wedding, a picket-fence suburban home and three kids to drive to soccer practice. If you are confident in your own value, why sell yourself short?

Be old-fashioned. Old-fashioned works. Old-fashioned is good.

 

Category: Sex Trouble

Comments

55 Responses to “You’re Too ‘Empowered,’ Darling”

  1. Daniel Freeman
    December 20th, 2015 @ 7:40 pm

    I’m looking for attentive and sweet.

  2. Jason Lee
    December 20th, 2015 @ 7:46 pm

    Find a Mormon or SDA or some very conservative Christian. If you’re not in the South or Utah or rural flyover country, pack your bags.

  3. JT
    December 20th, 2015 @ 9:35 pm

    36-24-36 is 3 dimensions.

  4. NeoWayland
    December 21st, 2015 @ 9:34 am

    Yeah, but you can only talk about that so long.

  5. Art Deco
    December 21st, 2015 @ 2:44 pm

    Some of the prominent feminist agitators (outside the academy and the crazy crew RSM has been writing about) had fairly orderly domestic lives, among them Eleanor Smeal, Molly Yard, Bella Abzug, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin. I’m guessing the proverbial corpus collosum was severed and one half of their head proceeding on its own paying no attention to the other half.