Passed both maths and verbal reasoning for the charity graduate scheme.

I've now been put through to the 'shortlisting' process. We'll see where things go from there.

Happy to have done the tests and passed them without having a mental breakdown. For all the guff about people telling me how overconfident I am and how I overestimate my intelligence, my experience of nervousness and feelings of inadequacy that crop up when doing things like tests that I'm nevertheless able to pass let me know this isn't true.

Good job on passing those tests!

Rasta, I'm referring to the article you posted in the Sex is Weird thread.

Nobody with a healthy understanding of adult relationships wrote it.

Abusers function along some of the same lines as pedophiles. A pedophile (at least the one I knew), possesses almost a sixth sense of which child will keep her mouth shut and which will run screaming to mom or dad. They recognize and prey on children with self-esteem and confidence issues and manipulate and shame a child into believing that it is the child's fault for enjoying the attention to begin with.

Men who abuse women function along the same lines. They can sense the same confidence and self-esteem issues in a woman, even if she is outgoing and/or beautiful.

The manipulation and eroding that goes on in these relationships is breathtaking. While the woman may end up believing that she loves the man and can't live without him, she is, in reality, so beaten st and fearful, it's impossible for her to believe that she CAN function without him.

These are not healthy relationships. Neither the predator or the prey are happy human beings. It's inconceivable to me that the article would use this as an example of a "bad boy" being successful with women. These are wounded human beings in unhealthy relationships. Nothing to aspire to, or envy.

A bad boy is just a nice guy that isnt a complete pussy.

If you are talking about a man like Sam Elliott, I will concede this point.

I'm fine in that regard.

BUT. Quiet wimpy kids shouldn't shoulder the blame for being quiet and wimpy.

granddam.

Fair point and very much taken on board. The only thing I would say is that he didn't admire the guy, he was just admitting that he couldn't quite help feel a little jealousy at the fact that nasty guys can get laid whilst he can't. That's not a terrible thing to feel in my eyes.

I disagree, and don't understand his jealousy. Should I feel jealous of the woman in this instance, since, even though she is being abused, at least she is not alone?

Of course not. She also sounds like someone not to be admired if she's complicit in the guy having an adulterous affair.

But from the point of view of the nerdy guy in this story, his bemoaning his loneliness relative to this horrible creature is kind of understandable.

I mean, I guess its a bit like a poor, hard-working, Frank Grimes type of guy bemoaning the fact that there are a lot of drug dealers who get wealthy and successful with far less effort than he puts in.

Are the drug dealers good people? Are their customers happy, consenting and well-adjusted? Course not.

But that's kinda beside the point. A lot of drug dealers do really quite well in terms of earning money thank-you-very-much, and I don't see an awful lot wrong with a poor, yet hard-working guy feeling more than a twinge of jealousy.

Rasta, I am frustrated and tongue-tied. I am trying to compose a post that would sufficiently explain the major flaw in your logic, and I'm afraid that it would take a book with at least two chapters to get my point across.

Look at your own circumstances. Last year, he would have placed yourself in the same category as "men who can't get a woman". You now have one. What changed? You did.

I can pretty much guarantee that it won't be long before your unsuccessful male friends will begin to grate on your nerves because they would rather whine and do nothing than listen to your suggestions on becoming more successful.

I'm kinda curious why you are still identifying so strongly with this group, when you yourself have moved beyond them. Why aren't you writing a blog about your success. Don't you feel that unsuccessful men could learn a lot from your experience?

Well by all means feel free to write as much as you'd like, I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

Ah, now here's the thing, you might have missed me talk about my issues.

I was never a man who 'couldn't get a woman'. Indeed I've probably 'made out' with 30-ish women throughout my life and had direct opportunities for sex with five or six willing partners prior to posting on here, three of which I ended up naked and in bed with.

The issue for me was anxiety-based erectile dysfunction. I was just never comfortable and relaxed enough to get it up, which meant that every attempted one-night stand wound up with embarrassment and things getting worse and worse.

As a result, I gave up on one-night stands which meant that I kept my virginity to a socially disapproved-of age, which in turn, meant that losing it with an actual girlfriend was something I presumed would be harder (because I'd have to admit to her that I was virgin and as you've seen, that's a huge red flag for women). So, I was in a catch-22.

But yeah, I've never been undesirable to women. I'm a decent-looking and sociable guy. I mean, recently I'm obviously older and living at home/earning ****ty money so there's that, but in terms of me as a person, I do fine with women and people in general. I'm not the nerd stereotype I'm defending.

Right, this is where I think we start to diverge the most. The unsuccessful male friends I'm referring to are foreveralone through no fault of their own and I'm not sure you quite believe this. They're normal, well-adjusted, friendly guys, but because they're just not handsome, charismatic or talented and because good-quality, handsome and sociable guys are available to most all girls, all girls have a better option, leaving the less-than-desirable guys screwed and lonely.

Now, that doesn't mean that they should hate women for their misfortune, but they have every right to be disappointed.

Well that's very flattering of you to say that I might serve as an example of positive improvement but like I say, it doesn't quite correlate. My problem was ED, not appealing to women in the traditional sense.

I do share your curiosity though about why I identify with that group so strongly. I honestly can't answer it. I just feel instinctively protective over a group of people that I know for sure is being victimised. Its society picking on the weak and I don't like it.

I'm afraid the math doesn't work out on this one.

Refresh my memory, please. Which thread did you originally post in when you discussed your particular circumstances. I don't remember coming away with the impression that your priority issue was ED. It seems to me that there was a combination of lack of money, status, living with parents that was hindering your success with women. These issues have not changed for you, am I correct? Thread, please.

I'm afraid it does Didace.

As I and many people my age (25 years old and younger) commonly observe, there are far greater swings in male sexual conquests than than there are in females.

I know several men who have at my age, slept with fifty or more women, as well as many who've literally had maybe one drunken one-night stand in Malia when they were 18, another in Uni and that's literally it. That or they're still virgins.

For women, its a much more even spread. Very few girls run around sleeping with that many men (very few of them feel the need to), but a vanishingly small number are involuntarily celibate, as willing partners are easy to find for even the ugliest women.

People's personal experiences bear this out, but so do the stats as well as the biological accounts of human evolution; in a sexual free market, women end up 'sharing' the highest value males.

Now, I personally wouldn't have it any other way. I'm a libertarian who believes in freedom with all things, including sex. However, I'm not blinkered enough to deny that there won't be helpless losers who aren't picked: people who through no fault of their own, get screwed over amid the ruthless competition of any free market.

We accept that such people exist in economics; that there are people who work hard and mean well, but don't have the intelligence or capacity to work their way out of poverty. We consider these people deserving of (at least) sympathy as they suffer through no fault of their own.

Why not with the dating market?

I'm not advocating a 'sex tax' where beautiful people have to 'donate sex' to the ugly and unfortunate here. I'm just advocating a degree of sympathy and awareness that such people exist.

I believe that we turn this blind eye largely down to the fact that frustratingly, society still doesn't quite believe that there truly are helpless losers in existence.

Take granddam's response. She assumed that the guys I referred to were complaining or whiny/bitter/flawed or whatever (actually one of the guys I'm referring to is a small and skinny Sri Lankan dude who I've literally never spoken to about his romantic life - I don't even think any of us in our group have - we just all kind of collectively assume that sex and romance doesn't and isn't going to happen for him barring an arranged marriage).

But yeah, granddam (sorry if it sounds like I'm picking on you here) tacitly assumes that the incels are all deserving of their loneliness, and I'm sorry but that does betray a basic unfamiliarity and female unawareness of what its like to actually be a low-value male.

So why do we turn a blind eye to them? Why are we as a society in such denial?

I'd put it down to two things:

In a modern, sexually-liberated culture we don't want to:

1) face the issue that male and female sexuality is profoundly different, and that in what for everyone is a significant part of life and fundamental happiness, have it easier.

2) face up to the fact that no, the slut/stud dichotomy isn't any sort of double-standard whatsoever, but two differing reactions to two different courses of action of two different kinds of agent facing two different kinds of challenge.

Overall? I largely believe feminism is a good thing. However, its success and progress hasn't been without inflicting a degree of collateral damage on the weak and innocent.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...tting-1495874/

Okay, Rasta - I pity those incels who, for whatever reason, will never know the touch of a woman.
If this what you want to hear? That it's ****ty for them? Yeah, it is.

Good because that would be disgusting (and something people bring up any time an unhinged incel goes on a "I hate women" killing binge)

If society weren't in denial - what would you want to happen?
If everyone woke up tomorrow and said, "you know, those poor lonely geeky boys, those guys women just for some reason always overlook - they can't get laid and that sucks".

What's the next step?

Rasta, stop putting words in my mouth. I never said ANYONE deserved to be lonely.

You were talking about getting laid. NOT being in a relationship. You can have sex every day of the week and still be lonely. Which issue do you want to address? Having sex or being lonely? Please pick one and stick with it.

Thank you both for listening and giving me genuine responses.

The next step in my eyes has to be acknowledging and attempting to the solve the problem of virgin/incel/almost-incel-shaming in the same way that feminists have made excellent progress condemning that of slut-shaming (something that they have my full backing on).

Now I'll be the first to admit that a major (possibly even the main) reason why this doesn't happen is because of male competitiveness, which also has its roots in evolutionary biology. It is, for a lot of men, nice to feel that you are not merely genetically lucky, but also more skilled than other men. That you've beaten out the competition via a kind of conquering expertise.

But, women and feminists do have to hold some responsibility too; because whilst you both say (and I believe you're both sincere) that you do feel sympathy for the lonely and acknowledge that they exist, I do feel that your responses betray a tolerance of those who don't. "Meh, what do you want me to do about it?" *is* a problematic response to being told about other peoples' discrimination.

Many people, both feminists and competitive males, simply don't believe, or worse, do believe and deny, that there are undeserving, lonely, discriminated-against incels.

Many of the responses in the Sexodus thread amounted to precisely that attitude.

"Lolz its not a real problem"
"Yeah lol virgins have it worse than black people"
"So what if some bitter woman-haters can't get laid? Start with the woman-hating that's your first problem"

Didace is quite a useful opponent for me in this regard, as I recall him saying, without irony, "oh, you think that virgins are discriminated against because that's how they're portrayed on TV. I get it, you don't understand the difference between real life and fiction". *

Of course, when Sgt Rj popped up to say words to the effect of "well I'm sorry, and this is harsh, but yeah, being a virgin past a certain age is kind of off-putting to us women... really sorry but it does imply a certain lack of social ability or underlying issues"** Didace happily enough came out with a predictable stream of straw-men and insults trying to silence me in response to probably the biggest example of him being proven demonstrably wrong.

In essence, I am, in this small sphere, asking you to check your privilege. Literally in exactly the same way that commonly-derided 'social justice warriors' (the reasonable ones) ask men to do. I'm not saying that what these 'nice incels' suffer is as severe a societal problem as sexism/racism...***

...I'm simply saying this:

Remember the Sri Lankan friend I brought up earlier? I love him. I wish the best for him. And in the frightening and depressingly possible scenario that he never gets to experience love, I want him to know that he has a safe space away from mockery and discrimination where he can receive human compassion.

And...here's the thing...

I DON'T want that one safe space for him to be on a woman-hating MRA board.

I hear you. As much as these 'nice incels' exist, many of them aren't. Many of them are bitter. Many of them have issues.

Want less of those guys? Help to combat shaming men for their lack of sexual conquests. This will literally improve the lives of men, women and the relationship between them.

Why do I still identify with this group? Because I sincerely believe that they're experiencing social injustice; the kind of which the world would be a better place without.

That's basically it.





* And by the way, how on Earth does negative portrayal in pop culture *not* count as a form of disrespect and discrimination?

** I completely respect Sgt RJ's honesty on this one. This is just a heterosexual woman being honest about her involuntary sexual desires, despite the sexist climate in which we live where women are still shamed for doing so.


*** I'm not quite sure why I have to specify that. Even making the point that there are other priorities isn't how you deal with something that you think is a genuine problem in any sense whatsoever. Doctors don't shrug their shoulders at the guy with the flu and inform him that there are people with AIDS and cancer.

OK, you're losing me again. If you and your friends never talk about it, and they never whine or complain, how do you know that they are suffering so?

Are you sure you're not just projecting your own feelings onto them?

Also forgot to mention that I believe that Sgt explained that some things were 'red flags' to her, not to all women. We ALL have things that are red flags to us as individuals. Overly anxious, aggressive men send me the wrong signals.

How about you, Rasta? Do you find ALL women dateable?

So the universe of results in your world is 50+, 2, or 0? I doubt it. You're projecting.

Yeah, maybe they're perfectly happy with a loveless life and they're not keen on affection and companionship.

C'mon. I'm making an assumption that I think couldn't be more justified.

Hmm, not totally sure about that one. I think she was making the point that virginity and a lack of sexual conquest largely tends to be unattractive to women in general (I'm sure there's the odd exception). I'm sure there are exceptions but I think there's a general trend she's referring to. Check the quote if you like.

Do I have red flags?

Well, I'll go you one better (the following is kind of an exaggeration but just bear with me for the sake of argument):

Many men, find women with fewer sexual partners attractive insofar as we'd always rather the number was lower.

The reason for this is that women are generally perceived to be able to have as much sex as they'd like, but be keen on relationships. A high number of sexual partners implies that a woman is easily conquered and disloyal. It implies that whilst she'd like a relationship and is indeed desperate to show how available she is to other men yet no man takes her up on the offer.

Every man can have her and form a relationship with her, yet no-one has. No-one wants to be left with the used up girl that no-one else wanted, so men are less attracted to her.

Suppose someone said that and you were to respond by saying "well hold on a second! That's slut-shaming! If you get to do that then why don't we get to shame virgins?"

...and that's kind of the point. Its both or neither.

Feminists are more than happy to criticise the above attitude and fight slut-shaming, yet don't realise that virgin/nerd-shaming is the other side of this coin (because they don't want to admit that anything whatsoever could possibly be harder for guys).

If you want the above attitude to die, you have to combat virgin/incel-shaming as much as slut-shaming, as both carry on the stereotype of men conquering and women being the gatekeepers of sex.

I said nothing of the sort and its very disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Let me ask you; do you think that the bell curve is any different in number of sexual partners for men and women aged...lets say 25?

As in, for women it hovers around the average far more, whereas for men they are far more in both extremes.

WRONG! You did not go me one better. You very deliberately dodged my question. Do YOU personally have any red flags? Please don't quote some nameless person in some obscure article.

Fwiw I think it's fairly decent to assume a woman of, say 30, who has never had a long term relationship (regardless of number of men slept with) has some red flags.