His advice is so baaaaaad. He’s a popular successful blogger, so his dating advice basically boils down to “be a popular, successful blogger.” His disdain for dating docs and apps is just the usual “trying to get what you want is cringe” attitude. He says it makes you look desperate. Please. Nothing makes you look more desperate than worrying about looking desperate.
His advice isn’t all bad, but he fancies himself a dating guru and yet he has no answer for the basic question “how do you meet women?” This is the kind of advice that sounds good and will probably improve your life at the margins but doesn’t actually result in getting substantially more dates. It’s what drives men to pickup artistry because at least they’re trying to actually answer the relevant question.
1. I don't give a lot of specific instructional advice in this episode, aside from "figure out who you want and go to communities that select for people like that"
2. The landscape of specific instructional advice is so awful that PUA seems like a reasonable option
And you've concluded that I'm just retarded instead of entertaining the notion that specific instructional advice is just not the way to help people?
I've been reading your dating advice for close to ten years! I'm a huge fan of your blog and other output, but it think you have a massive blind spot here because your popularity gets you attention that other people don't have access to
This criticism would make sense if the advice I was giving was "just be yourself and let the girls find you"; even I'm nowhere near famous enough for that to be the main thing.
But I'm saying the exact opposite, including on this podcast. I talk about how so many people are passive and fatalistic, just being their "most dateable" selves waiting for a soulmate to drop on them. I talk about taking agency of the most fundamental things: not just how you message someone on Hinge but literally shaping the communities you spend your time in to help solve this multifaceted problem.
I often get "you don't have good advice" from people whose real complaint is that I don't give *easy* advice. There's no "one weird trick" to dating.
My criticism stems from articles like this one: https://putanumonit.com/2022/09/02/date-me-doc/. You regularly recommend that people should avoid being too open about their intention to find a partner (though date-me docs or dating profiles) because that looks desperate, and instead recommend that a person's whole online presence serve as their dating profile. I find this hilariously out of touch, as most people don't have a large enough online following to make this even close to a viable strategy. The strategy you recommend isn't exactly passive but it isn't exactly active either.
There is, in fact, one weird trick to dating, and it isn't easy: ask people out on dates. It's how I've managed to be relatively successful at dating despite being overweight, already married, and high on disagreeableness. I'm sure you've seen the graphs about how about half of men haven't asked a woman on a date in the past *year.* "Just ask people out" is by far the most effective way for a person (man or woman) to improve their dating life, and I'm frustrated that so few people advocate for it.
I don't take the advice as "be a popular successful blogger" I take it as: figure out what you want, figure out what you have to offer, ask yourself if you have the things the type of person you'd like to be with is looking for, if not can you get them or do you have ways to practice/improve? Assess the likelihood that you'll meet the sort of person you're looking for in the social circles you currently exist within. If it's low, consider if there are tangential circles which would filter for many of the things relevant to dating that your current social circles filter for but would have a more favorable gender ratio or would be more conducive to flirting. Don't focus so much on what the typical person wants, especially if you don't want to be with someone typical. Avoid spinning your wheels on things that make you feel you're making an effort and are the "normal" thing to do but which are very unlikely to help you with your goal. Think about what you want to do with a partner, what you want the relationship to be like rather than only what outwardly visible traits seem desirable. Related to that, consider if you're filtering out people on the basis of socially approved traits that are hard to find but don't actually improve the quality of a relationship for you.
The goal isn't to get more dates but to find a partner that's a particularly good match for you. And I think most people would find something new and useful in this advice.
As I said, it's the kind of advice that will probably improve your life at the margins, but it's not a high-likelihood way to meet the love of your life. "Figure out what you want," in particular, isn't helpful advice. It's nearly impossible to figure out what you want if you don't have any substantial experience dating. I recommend limiting the inquiry to lifestyle-based dealbreakers (do you want kids? Is there a particular location you need to be in? Monogamy?) and being open to most anyone else, at least until you get some experience. I completely agree with the part about not ruling people out because they're not what the typical person wants or because you want to be normal.
My advice to anyone looking to meet the love of their life would be to go on 100 dates with 100 different people. Date anyone who passed the minimal dealbreaker filters. Keep it up until you meet the person you want to marry. Once you've gone on 30 or so dates, you'll be able to tell when someone is special. I have a friend who used this strategy, and I completely believed her when she said she probably met her future husband. They're still together after several months, and I have the utmost confidence in the relationship.
Trying to figure out what you want is often counterproductive because it's really hard to predict what will make a good relationship. Ultimately, the most important thing is that you inspire feelings of love and devotion in one another (see https://livingwithinreason.com/p/love-is-all), but people are really bad at predicting what is going to do that. Often it's just a vibe and not anything you could know in advance. But it is something you can at least get a sense of on a first date. By the third or fourth date, you can almost always tell who has that kind of potential. So just go on dates!
I only disagree with the need to gather this info by dating a lot. I think that definitely helps and is likely a particularly efficient way, but I think you can figure out what you want by noticing who you want to spend time with in non romantic contexts as well, looking at examples of good relationships etc. I think you can tell someone is special just by living a social life.
Yeah, I think that's probably true. There's nothing magical about a "date" vs. a different way of spending time with someone. The key is to expose yourself to lots of people in contexts where you're able to have one-on-one or otherwise intimate interactions
His advice is so baaaaaad. He’s a popular successful blogger, so his dating advice basically boils down to “be a popular, successful blogger.” His disdain for dating docs and apps is just the usual “trying to get what you want is cringe” attitude. He says it makes you look desperate. Please. Nothing makes you look more desperate than worrying about looking desperate.
His advice isn’t all bad, but he fancies himself a dating guru and yet he has no answer for the basic question “how do you meet women?” This is the kind of advice that sounds good and will probably improve your life at the margins but doesn’t actually result in getting substantially more dates. It’s what drives men to pickup artistry because at least they’re trying to actually answer the relevant question.
So you've noticed that:
1. I don't give a lot of specific instructional advice in this episode, aside from "figure out who you want and go to communities that select for people like that"
2. The landscape of specific instructional advice is so awful that PUA seems like a reasonable option
And you've concluded that I'm just retarded instead of entertaining the notion that specific instructional advice is just not the way to help people?
https://www.secondperson.dating/p/review-h2nda
I've been reading your dating advice for close to ten years! I'm a huge fan of your blog and other output, but it think you have a massive blind spot here because your popularity gets you attention that other people don't have access to
This criticism would make sense if the advice I was giving was "just be yourself and let the girls find you"; even I'm nowhere near famous enough for that to be the main thing.
But I'm saying the exact opposite, including on this podcast. I talk about how so many people are passive and fatalistic, just being their "most dateable" selves waiting for a soulmate to drop on them. I talk about taking agency of the most fundamental things: not just how you message someone on Hinge but literally shaping the communities you spend your time in to help solve this multifaceted problem.
I often get "you don't have good advice" from people whose real complaint is that I don't give *easy* advice. There's no "one weird trick" to dating.
My criticism stems from articles like this one: https://putanumonit.com/2022/09/02/date-me-doc/. You regularly recommend that people should avoid being too open about their intention to find a partner (though date-me docs or dating profiles) because that looks desperate, and instead recommend that a person's whole online presence serve as their dating profile. I find this hilariously out of touch, as most people don't have a large enough online following to make this even close to a viable strategy. The strategy you recommend isn't exactly passive but it isn't exactly active either.
There is, in fact, one weird trick to dating, and it isn't easy: ask people out on dates. It's how I've managed to be relatively successful at dating despite being overweight, already married, and high on disagreeableness. I'm sure you've seen the graphs about how about half of men haven't asked a woman on a date in the past *year.* "Just ask people out" is by far the most effective way for a person (man or woman) to improve their dating life, and I'm frustrated that so few people advocate for it.
I don't take the advice as "be a popular successful blogger" I take it as: figure out what you want, figure out what you have to offer, ask yourself if you have the things the type of person you'd like to be with is looking for, if not can you get them or do you have ways to practice/improve? Assess the likelihood that you'll meet the sort of person you're looking for in the social circles you currently exist within. If it's low, consider if there are tangential circles which would filter for many of the things relevant to dating that your current social circles filter for but would have a more favorable gender ratio or would be more conducive to flirting. Don't focus so much on what the typical person wants, especially if you don't want to be with someone typical. Avoid spinning your wheels on things that make you feel you're making an effort and are the "normal" thing to do but which are very unlikely to help you with your goal. Think about what you want to do with a partner, what you want the relationship to be like rather than only what outwardly visible traits seem desirable. Related to that, consider if you're filtering out people on the basis of socially approved traits that are hard to find but don't actually improve the quality of a relationship for you.
The goal isn't to get more dates but to find a partner that's a particularly good match for you. And I think most people would find something new and useful in this advice.
As I said, it's the kind of advice that will probably improve your life at the margins, but it's not a high-likelihood way to meet the love of your life. "Figure out what you want," in particular, isn't helpful advice. It's nearly impossible to figure out what you want if you don't have any substantial experience dating. I recommend limiting the inquiry to lifestyle-based dealbreakers (do you want kids? Is there a particular location you need to be in? Monogamy?) and being open to most anyone else, at least until you get some experience. I completely agree with the part about not ruling people out because they're not what the typical person wants or because you want to be normal.
My advice to anyone looking to meet the love of their life would be to go on 100 dates with 100 different people. Date anyone who passed the minimal dealbreaker filters. Keep it up until you meet the person you want to marry. Once you've gone on 30 or so dates, you'll be able to tell when someone is special. I have a friend who used this strategy, and I completely believed her when she said she probably met her future husband. They're still together after several months, and I have the utmost confidence in the relationship.
Trying to figure out what you want is often counterproductive because it's really hard to predict what will make a good relationship. Ultimately, the most important thing is that you inspire feelings of love and devotion in one another (see https://livingwithinreason.com/p/love-is-all), but people are really bad at predicting what is going to do that. Often it's just a vibe and not anything you could know in advance. But it is something you can at least get a sense of on a first date. By the third or fourth date, you can almost always tell who has that kind of potential. So just go on dates!
I only disagree with the need to gather this info by dating a lot. I think that definitely helps and is likely a particularly efficient way, but I think you can figure out what you want by noticing who you want to spend time with in non romantic contexts as well, looking at examples of good relationships etc. I think you can tell someone is special just by living a social life.
Yeah, I think that's probably true. There's nothing magical about a "date" vs. a different way of spending time with someone. The key is to expose yourself to lots of people in contexts where you're able to have one-on-one or otherwise intimate interactions