As for the threat factor, IRC’s point that romantic situations are different to your CFO in her office is really good. We evaluate not only immediate, physical danger, but also whether the man is safe to get close to. If you’re asking a woman to engage in a relationship you’re asking her to be much more vulnerable to harm than a CFO in her own office building.

Can you…say this again? Please? Could you elaborate?

I think the point I was originally trying to make was exactly along those lines…

You want to talk about facing injustice on a daily basis? And you say you want someone who’ll put her emotions on the line the way you do? Every time women go out in public we’re considered to be on display, and fair game for judgement by strangers! We get comments on how we look, our facial expressions, how much or how little random strangers would like to use our bodies! Sometimes they try to do just that without caring whether we want it or not, they just grab like a toddler grabbing at sweets! Just navigating the world with a female body requires an emotional resilience that men don’t even notice.

AND you say you ‘have no problem getting women’, and then you have the audacity to suggest we’re all lazy and cowardly, because what? You’re not getting ENOUGH women? Or it just takes a bit too much EFFORT? Even your description of this terrible, lonely male existence includes ‘a few short relationships here and there’! I have beautiful, talented friends (even conventionally beautiful) who have never had a single relationship, despite even going against their socialisation and asking men out! But because they’re women and don’t have your ludicrous sense of entitlement, they think it’s because THEY’RE ugly, or fat, or unloveable in a million different ways.

I was engaging with you in good faith, but upon re-reading your original comment I’m astonished that you can be so entitled as to be successful with women and STILL accuse us of making life wantonly difficult for you, just because we’re cruel and lazy. Plenty of women manage to go through life never being desired at all, or only being desired as a tool to produce an orgasm, and we don’t become bitter and say men are lazy and cowardly because we didn’t believe we were OWED relationships in the first place!

If you can’t ‘get women’ (even though apparently you can) then I feel sorry for you, but you are not being denied a fundamental human right. You are not being wronged or deprived or the victim of a conspiracy, you’re just unfortunate. People don’t owe you love or sex, and any relationship is to be cherished as a gift, not counted as a debt being paid. Further down Anthony told you that everyone deserves respect and consideration, but nobody is owed affection or affirmation. I hope that idea sinks in.

Ooooh – you know, I think maybe I get what you’re saying.

If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, well – does this sound like what you’re saying? -

“The reason why women blow shy or socially awkward men off is not based purely on the threat factor – a shy, nervous, or clumsy person is no more or less dangerous than someone who is assertive, charismatic and bold”.

The easiest way to read your original sentence is in a way that says that women *never* blow off guys based on the threat factor, and that isn’t true – I’ve seen girls try to get rid of assertive and bold guys before. It’s far less likely for them to try to get rid of someone charismatic, though part of being charismatic is seeming awesome without seeming pushy.

Ironically, they often seem far more willing to say things and try to shame the shy or socially awkward exactly *because* they’re less of a threat factor than the muscle bound workout-shirt guy, and the shy or awkward guys are far less likely to make an emotional scene than the aggressive guy who might blow up. They’re much more “in your face” to the shy or socially awkward.

I’ve seen them play the “really trying to avoid them” game, or the “I’m leaving right now because I don’t want to run into that guy again” game with the assertive and bold though…