Thread: 5 Harsh Truths About Dating (And What You Can Do About It)

I want to tell you some harsh truths about dating. Truths that, when you understand them, will explain why dating can be a nightmare. However, once you’re able to face those truths, you’ll find that dating will actually be simpler and more enjoyable.

And the key to understanding them starts with gambling and religious pigeons.

OK, I freely admit this sounds like I’ve had a stroke, but trust me, it will all make sense in a second.

So here’s your first harsh truth: dating isn’t nearly as difficult or as complicated as people think it is. The reason why it can be a ****storm of Michael Bay proportions is because… well, because of people. The single biggest reason why folks would rather look into recreational dentistry than get back on the dating scene is because of the way people aren’t honest about dating. And this is a truth that crosses sexuality and gender lines; gay, pan or straight, cis or trans, guys, gals and non-binary pals… damn near everyone isn’t honest about dating. Not with others and — more often — not with themselves.

That’s not to say that people are maliciously lying. It’s more that folks don’t like admitting the truth to themselves. It’s easier to take comfort in the fictions we tell ourselves than to face the truth. Even when those lies are actually contributing to making dating a miserable experience.

Accepting these truths — and they’re not the ones you think — will change how you approach dating. And this will make dating that much easier, less stressful and more satisfying.


#1: You’re Addicted To The Illusion of Control
So let’s talk about those pigeons for a moment. In 1947, behavioral scientist B. F. Skinner tested the concept of operant conditioning in part by taking hungry pigeons and putting them in boxes. Each group had a mechanism that the pigeons could operate. In the control box, when the mechanism was pressed, food would be delivered. In the other box, the button wouldn’t actually deliver food. The timing of the food was completely at random; pellets might be delivered when the button was pressed, it might not. Other times, pellets would just be dropped into the box.

But the pigeons didn’t realize it was completely random. They, like humans, try to assign meaning and order to chaos. And so, they would start to adopt behaviors that they were performing when food pellets were dropped into the box. If the food was delivered when they spun in circles, they’d spin in circles in hopes that this would bring more food. If they were hopping up and down when they got food, they’d hop. And if the behaviors didn’t work, they’d combine behaviors in hopes of summoning the food.

This ultimately ended up with what amounted to religion in pigeons as they created increasingly elaborate rituals to appease the Food Gods and starting internecine wars with the apostate crows who realized the whole thing was bull**** and taught each other break into the machines instead.

Space marines from Warhammer 40k. The text reads "We're going to need more bolters for this heresy"
It’s a little known fact that the Emperor of Man is, in fact, a rock dove. Why do you think it was the HORUS Heresy?
Of course this sounds absurd; what the hell do Skinner boxes and superstitious pigeons have to do with harsh dating truths? Well, it’s the attempt to impose order on chaos, to find meaning in what seems meaningless. And it comes down to a simple truth: people don’t like feeling like they’re out of control. It bothers them, especially when they feel like it’s something that they should have influence over. If they don’t have actual control over something, they’ll try to find something that gives the illusion of influence… even if it doesn’t actually work.

That’s why the harsh truth is that you need to recognize is how little control you actually have when it comes to dating. People like to approach dating as though it were a formula or a game of poker — do X, Y and Z in order and you’ll “win”. If you pay enough attention and play the “right” way, you’ll beat everyone else and win the pot. This belief is the foundation of about 90% of dating advice. The Rules, Think Like a Man, Act Like a Lady, Mystery Method, Real Social Dynamics… these are all founded on the idea that if you play the game correctly, you’ll win. Behave in this particular way, don’t act in this other way and you will get what you want.

The particularly sinister ones will promise something akin to mind control or changing someone’s entire personality. The whole premise of The Rules and Think Like A Man, for example, is that if you behave in specific ways and follow explicit rules, you’ll compel a guy to stop ****ing around and settle down. PUA schools teach similar techniques, treating human interaction like a flowchart of if-then statements and advocating methods of persuasion based on high-pressure sales tactics. Particularly ****ty ones that line up with the Red Pill philosophy will actually encourage the same sort of manipulative and coercive behaviors that abusers use to keep their victims in line.

salesman negotiating price of car with female car buyer
“Look, this offer of my getting into your pants is only good for the next thirty minutes, after which I’m going to have to accept that you’re not worth my time and I’m going to find someone who’s hotter than you and you’re going to be left wondering what’s wrong with you that I was able to replace you so easily, so tick tock honey…”
The problem is how little of this advice actually works. Some of it is based on inaccurate ideas about male and female sexuality, some of it is based around increasingly outdated gender roles and a whole lot of it is just straight magical thinking — about as reliable as pigeons spinning in circles to get more food. A lot of pick-up artists invented their techniques out of whole cloth, very much like those pigeons. Mystery et. al would discuss what they tried, focus on things that worked once or twice and decided that these were rules of the universe.

In reality, a lot of successes came despite their techniques; they would frequently end up being at least partially right, but for all the wrong reasons. Like a kid floundering his way through Algebra II, they got the right answer almost by accident; the way they got there simply doesn’t work.

But the benefit of those rules and flowcharts is that they provide the illusion of control. This, admittedly, can have its benefits; for someone who doesn’t have much social experience or suffers from social anxiety, having rules to follow is helpful. In a way, they’re like training wheels on a bicycle; they help you practice and give you a little confidence boost while you’re trying to learn how to ride. But they aren’t guarantees.

The issue is that dating isn’t a program, where you can run the code, input the correct data and get the results you want. Nor is it poker. Dating is blackjack. Through careful play, you can increase your odds of success and tilt things in your favor. However, you can’t guarantee success because there’re other people involved and you can’t control for that. It has nothing to do with logic or biology or attraction switches, nor does it have anything to do with looking like an MCU Chris. It has everything to do with the vagaries and peculiarities of life.

People have preferences and interests that are going to be incredibly diverse and impossible to control for. While there’re many things that are broadly appealing — good hygiene, confidence, kindness and assertiveness, emotional intelligence and such — there are so many influences on what decides who we do and don’t date that you can’t cover all of them. And even if you could, that wouldn’t guarantee you success. As Dita Von Teese famously said: you can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, but there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches. You could run into someone who is looking for a guy who has your exact specifications, but the day you met them was the day they discovered their ex had been cheating on them for years and they really can’t stand the idea of dating right now.

Hell, they may well be really into you but aren’t in a place where they’re able to act on that attraction.

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