Who chooses whom?

 

 

There is some dispute about the roles of the sexes in mate choice.

In the popular wisdom, the man is active and the woman is passive. The man chooses, the woman sits there and waits to be approached.

It is not surprising that classical feminism, in its attempt to ascribe to the women a role as active as possible in everything, as well as neofeminism in its pursuit to make men as passive in everything as possible, are looking for any arguments they can find to support their claim that, although externally the man's role in mating seems to be the active one, it's really the woman who has the say.

That seems to be the prevailing scholarly theory as well. The man is the pursuer, but the woman is the selector. (That's how the biologists actually describe the female's role in a typical mating game – the selector.)

Paradoxically, this point of view is also held by many masculists – probably because imagining the woman being in charge (and the man thus at the mercy of her decision) frees them from the thoughts of their own incompetence.

Some masculists insist that men are in a hopeless situation, with women having complete power over us, not only thanks to being given a privileged status by law and social customs, but also thanks to their superior cunning and lack of moral scruples. Unsurprisingly, those wannabe men's right activists suggest that it's actually the woman who chooses herself a partner, but since she leads him with subtle tricks of psychological manipulation, he ends up believing that he is the active partner. (Simon Sheppard has written a thick book dedicated primarily to this concept.) I've been trying to make up a name for this school of masculism, but haven't yet found a suitable one. Masculodesperatism? Masculoimpotentism?

Anyway, I propose a hypothesis different from both of the above theories.

I suggest that one who observes the reality closely, realises that no one chooses anything. A man pursues every woman who is not revoltingly ugly – unless, of course, he has something else to do that is very important or urgent, or is very tired or something. A woman, in turn, resists every man who is not a moviestar, playing guitar on a stage, or something comparable. At each such encounter, there is a certain probability that the man's insistence happens to be strong enough and the woman's resistance happens to be weak enough so the two end up having sex. After that, there's a certain probability that they have sex again, a certain probability that she gets pregnant, etc. It's all a game of chance and numbers.

Even though each one of us has preferences as to which members of the opposite sex are more desirable or less desirable, we men end up taking what we can get and women end up spreading their legs when they can't resist. There is no actual mate selection on either side, only selection attempts. I daresay all those books advising a female reader how to choose Mr. Right from among all her suitors are quite useless – except as sources of income for their authors and publishers, obviously.

The biologists like calling the female "selector", because it sounds a lot nicer than "resister". In reality the woman can't be a selector, because selecting requires decision-making. Anyone who has had significant experience with women, knows how poor women are at making up their mind. Women hate having to make decisions. For us, the freedom to make our own choices is a blessing to which we strive. For the (typical) woman, the necessity to make decisions is a burden. Indeed one of the most important functions of a man in a woman's life is to relieve her of that burden. In simpler words: a woman yearns for a man who will tell her what to do. But that's another story. The point of this article is: apart from rare exceptions, neither the man nor the woman actually chooses their mate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real hope for the introverts

 

It is extremely difficult to discuss introversion. That is because the people around us are either extraverts or introverts. The former couldn't care less what "vert" one or another person might be. Even when they get interested, they lose their interest half an hour later. Two weeks later, they can't remember the very fact of ever having discussed that topic with someone. That's how extraverts are.

 

The introverts in turn tend to be deeply troubled persons dedicated to convincing themselves that they are normal and in no way worse than the extraverts and don't have to be ashamed of being what they are. They get hostile when suggested that maybe introversion as such, not the unfair world and other people's prejudices, is their problem. I used to be like that for most of my life. However, I have reached the insight that it's manifestly absurd to suggest introversion is not a serious problem. Can you imagine an article or video titled "I am an extravert. What to do about it?" Yet almost every article or video that has the word "introvert" in its title contains advice on how to cope with being an introvert.

 

Now, I don't give a rat's ass about who is "good" or "bad", "normal" or "abnormal". All I care about is being as efficient in my life as possible. I want to know the truth in order to be able to make optimal choices, rather than be deluded to assume something that is not true and waste my energy on fighting the forces of nature. Should the truth be that introversion is a mental disease that can be cured, I want to know about it.

 

As I said, I used to be a proud introvert for most of my life. "Don't you dare tell me that one ought to try and be more extraverted. Introversion is my nature. Even if I could, I would never want to become like those joyful empty-headed jerks."

 

For the record, I still hold that we are better than those joyful empty-headed jerks. By my deeply subjective standard, that is. The sad news is, those joyful empty-headed jerks rule the world. For some reason, practically all life in society is tailored to suit the extraverts.

 

There's another sad news: we need to interact with that hostile world, because we need food, clothes and shelter to physically exist, and sex to have at least one reason to want to exist – and practically everyone of us has also other things he'd hate to have to live without that can only be acquired from the external world.

 

Telling ourselves "I am normal, I don't have to change, I don't have to be ashamed, I am normal, I don't have to change, I don't have to be ashamed, I am normal..." day in, day out, does nothing to get our needs satisfied. In order to satisfy our needs, we need to either:

a) change the outer world;

b) get to know the outer world and learn to use it as well as we can.

Feel free to try the first. I am certain that focusing on the second option yields far higher returns on your energy spent.

(For the slow of understanding: "c) convince ourselves that we are just as good as the extraverts" is not an option. It's self-tranquilization that is actually counterproductive, because it deflects our energy from getting what we want onto forcing ourselves to believe that the grapes are sour. "I LIKE sitting home alone instead of going out and doing things. There's nothing wrong with that!" No, there isn't – until the next utility bill arrives and you have no money.)

 

But what is introversion and extraversion? Years ago, I came up with the hypothesis that interpersonal interaction causes, by and large, the extraverts to absorb energy from the introverts. It's a kind of energy which no scientific devices known today can measure, but which we can still all feel. That's why the extraverts want to be among people and hate being alone, while introverts get exhausted by social interactions and need to be alone to recharge their batteries.

 

It seems that the law of conservation of energy doesn't apply to that unresearched bioenergy. This means a group of extraverts can spend time together and become more energetic each, without anyone losing anything, whereas a group of introverts can still get tired from being together even when there are no extraverts present. The fact that introverts gain energy from solitude (without anyone present to take that energy from) while extraverts start feeling awful when they have to be alone for a considerable time (remember how the COVID restrictions were driving them insane?) seems to support that hypothesis. So we can rephrase the above definition more accurately like this: the extraverts gain bioenergy in the presence of other humans and lose it in solitude, and the opposite is true for the introverts.

 

It seems to make sense to presume that the reason why the extravert dreads the return to an empty apartment after a day at work while the introvert yearns for the same is because their brain remembers numerous past experiences when the presence of other people has made them more energetic or less energetic, respectively, and being alone has had the opposite effect.

 

The open question is: is introversion inborn or acquired? In other words: is every human being born with the inclination to extraversion or introversion, or do we become introverted because our brain acquires great many experiences suggesting we can't handle being around people?

 

In yet other words: are there really two diametrically opposite ways of exchanging bioenergy with our environment, or does that thing that appears to be bioenergy essentially boil down to growing to shun human contacts because of great many painful experiences with the same (such as a child being constantly being condemned by his parents for expressing honestly his thoughts and feelings until his child brain grows afraid to say anything to another person)? When we are alone, do we really get some scientifically unstudied form of energy from the environment, or are we simply resting from the tiringness of the outside world we are unable to handle? When an extravert is alone, is he really losing said energy, or is he simply unable to endure his own thoughts and has nothing to deafen them with – possibly because he is incapable of lasting attention and unable to take anything seriously, and therefore has no serious interests?

 

I don't have an answer to that question, but until convinced otherwise, I have chosen acquired introversion as my working hypothesis. That is because it gives one something positive to strive for. We are not doomed to getting crazy when among people for too long. We feel the need to be alone because we lack social skills, and that is something we can improve. Step by step, we can figure the world out and learn not to go crazy when among people for too long. The hypothesis of inherent (and therefore incurable) introversion is a hypothesis of damnation. The hypothesis of acquired (and therefore curable) introversion is a hypothesis of hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How self-help books can destroy you

 

Have you noticed that the large majority of self-help books that promise (and usually even make a serious, laudable attempt at delivering) one or another method of improving one or another area of your life, start with a  tragic story of either the author himself or another, really or supposedly real person finding himself in a state of unspeakable misery? Like, one author started his book by telling in great detail how he was shot in the stomach by a street thug and suffered horrible pains when getting cured at a hospital. Some books describe someone's extreme injuries, some awful diseases.

The thing it, it gets really devastating. By the time you have seen twenty such books, you can easily end up convinced that you can never get your life in order unless you lose a limb, get cancer or at the very least have your home burn down first.

Of course, when accused before court, the self-help authors could defend themselves by claiming that they never said a terrible injury or disease was a prerequisite for happiness; they were trying to say their method works even when you have cancer or such. From the legal point of view, that's true. But we know and they know that our subconscious isn't capable of this kind of logical reasoning. The subconscious reads "How to become happy... John had cancer", "How to have perfect health... Mary was born blind" etc. dozens of times and it connects life improvement with extreme misery. That's how brains work. So your brain can easily end up convinced that good health and happiness are unattainable for someone who has all four limbs, functioning senses and has no uncurable disease. You won't be aware of it consciously, you just notice how each new self-help book will be more difficult to open until you stop and ask: hey, what the hell is wrong with me? And you realise eventually that there is nothing wrong with you. It's the destructive self-help authors who are writing their books in a monstrously wrong way.