Now I Understand
by 
Eric Disco
…………………………………………
Posted in Miscellaneous | 
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128 Responses
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@Cameron:
What exactly does being “intellectual” really mean? Is it:
1) Being a “sensitive” artist?
2) Being a poet?
3) Pursuing higher education?
It seems relative to me.
Next, if women do not like guys who use their intellectualism to hide the ulterior motive of getting a screw, is it that much different than joining the football team to get cheerleaders? Or driving around with a new Mercedes or BMW? Or joining a band to get some groupies? Wouldn’t these all have the same ulterior motive to “get the girl”?
I think that no matter what form it takes, this still begs the bigger question of why a guy has to rely on his assets or what he does in order to get the girl instead of relying on WHO he is. Take him or leave him, right?
That said, I do agree with everyone’s general consensus that women do not like cowardice in a guy.
P.S. Sorry for the repeat post. I hit “submit” before I was ready.
Being intellectual means someone who is afraid of other human beings and has decided to distance himself from them as a way of avoiding the domination of realising he isn’t as cool as everyone else, that he is in fact strange and inferior.
No the intellectual who pretends to love books because he secretly wants to bang hot chicks is no worse than other guys , but hes certainly no better.
as for your argument that that why a guy should be able to rely on his personality rather than his assets…….lol you sound so fucking naive dude, why dont you find yourself a nice ugly fat girl and date her because of her wonderful personality? Or is it that secretly your just as superficial as everyone else?
You know there’s this mediocre looking girl at work who really fancies me and has tried to kiss me a couple of times, have i kissed her to make her feel better? Nope and im not going too either.
Why should I?
@Mickey
Women dislike men who use subterfuge of any kind. It’s weak. If I take girls for rides in my Ferrari but never make a move because I’m afraid of rejection, it is very unlikely that my Ferrari will compensate for my fear. On the other hand, an intellectual who takes chances and is not afraid to make his intentions known is very attractive to women.
Women love smart men. Why shouldn’t they? Intelligence is highly correlated with evolutionary success. Why wouldn’t nature give women the ability to detect it? There was a recent article in Slate – Why Are Smart People Usually Ugly? – that disproved the title’s fallacy and talked about a small positive correlation between looks and intelligence, which is another way of saying that even people who are not intelligent are attracted to the intelligent. Here it is:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2012/01/are_smart_people_ugly_the_explainer_s_2011_question_of_the_year_.html
The problem with the “intellectual” in the cartoon – in fact, we don’t know if he’s a thinker at all – is that he is using his self perceived special status as an excuse not to take action. I’ve been there. When I was young, there were girls I hung out with for years without telling them I was attracted. It was pathetic. I told myself all sorts of stories. The world didn’t understand me. I was too smart for the average woman. One day they’d see what a mistake they’d made. And the truth, all along was that I was just too weak and too scared to take action.
–Lee
@Cameron–
To be honest, it’s a bit hard to take you seriously because of this:
‘Being intellectual means someone who is afraid of other human beings and has decided to distance himself from them as a way of avoiding the domination of realising he isn’t as cool as everyone else, that he is in fact strange and inferior.
No the intellectual who pretends to love books because he secretly wants to bang hot chicks is no worse than other guys , but hes certainly no better.’
I mean…er…what?
And to be honest–you’re actually right in terms of what happened between me and that girl 10 years ago. But that was also 10 years ago. And a lot of it was my fault–yes. But she had lots of issues too.
@Lee–
I don’t like Sara because while she is right–in part–about this guy (who really is a pathetic loser), she also draws lots of false attributions which really hold little basis in reality. She equates ‘intellectual’ with spineless, calculating, pathetic, etc–and she places no value on them. She doesn’t unify sex with any potentially interesting attributes that guys might have to offer in addition to sexuality…. this PARTICULAR guy in the cartoon is, unfortunately, completely asexual and she’s right to call him on it. But there’s a lot that she doesn’t understand as well. I know a ton of ‘intellectual’ guys who women are attracted to–in large part–BECAUSE they’re interesting, and knowledgable, and adventurous, and can educate the girl. I myself have dated several who were attracted to me for those reasons.
This girl is rabidly anti-intellectual–she can’t meld a guy’s mind with sexuality. Those are some reasons why I don’t respect her–although again, she DOES offer some important advice for that particular character.
Mr Antiquity,
‘Being intellectual means someone who is afraid of other human beings and has decided to distance himself from them as a way of avoiding the domination of realising he isn’t as cool as everyone else, that he is in fact strange and inferior.”
This is an (gross) generalisation and is a bit of a silly statement on my part. I take it back.
“No the intellectual who pretends to love books because he secretly wants to bang hot chicks is no worse than other guys , but hes certainly no better.”
This makes perfect sense (at least to me) and I stand by this statement 100%.
If I may offer my opinion on your comment directed at Lee:
My interpretation of Saras comments is that she doesnt hate intellectuals generally, she just hates cowardly men who are afraid to express their emotions.
Her statements about intellectuals aren’t necessarily meant to refer to intellectuals as a whole, only to John.
Or if they are aimed at intellectuals she means specifically those intellectuals who are afraid of “putting themselves out there” and are basically weak bitter men who do nothing while jealously watching “dumb” guys date the women they secretly want (but rationalise they dont want, that the women are shallow or bad for dating the “savage” men).
My interpretation is that Sara would have nothing against dating an intellectual who possessed the qualities she desires in a mate.
I mean…er…what?
@Cameron–
OK. I was interpreting it to mean that intellectuals are, essentially, phony. Which isn’t true. But yeah–people who ARE phony are, indeed, worthy of scorn, so I agree with you there.
But I do feel like Sara is deriding a whole class of people based on one guy who is, sadly, unable to voice his feelings or act on them.
Of course….for crying out loud SHE’S A STICK FIGURE!!! :)
I know MrAntiquity, she is a stick figure…..
but theres so much too this little diagram, I certainly have seen myself in John, and I know a lot of guys have too (not that half of them would be willing to admit it),
for me it comes down to blaming Sara versus taking responsibility.
I choose to take responsibility.
This cartoon is funny and cruel. I reread it about every month to keep it in mind. But one thing I don’t quite agree with is this. Sara says she loves to fight with her boyfriends because it shows her that they are not afraid to voice their opinion about her. The lesson John should take away here is that he should begin telling an eventual girlfriend frankly what he thinks about her, but not aim to fight with them more often. In a relationship fighting is mostly useless. It only happens when you’re not in control of the power dynamic.
@Carl888
I completely agree. A real man has no reason to fight. I can see a woman throwing a tantrum to test a man’s response, even doing it without knowing why she’s doing it. But the proper response to tantrums is not yelling. A real man would shake his head, smile, and say something like “I am leaving.” No explanations. After a few of these, the tantrums would stop.
–Lee
Sara’s rant at the end doesn’t really convey much to me. It brings up a bunch of statements about John, and gradually becomes more generalized and insulting, tossing in some unproven philosophical platitudes and assumptions. Many of her statements seem to be based on information that is not supplied, or which is only implied, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions(I won’t say any more along that line…). If I were to base my judgement here on the most similar situations I’ve seen previously(not always a very good idea, depends on a lot of stuff) I’d come to one of two conclusions
1. John is a coward and also a very unusual, rare sort of human being. I’ve only seen people who are like that a couple times in my life.
2. Sara is just as selfish as she accuses John of being, anti-intellectual, and displays some very strong stereotyping behavior. And based of of what she says about her self, also an unusual sort of human being that I’ve only seen a few times in my life.
These are not exclusive.
I’m still in the dark as to what the point of this comic is, if it has one.
The point is to be a man blono, stop being overly intellectual as a way of not “getting it”. Take responsibility for your life.
And as for your other statements:
1 Your saying its very rare for men to be cowardly in their dealings with woman? I have to say that is completely false. I have many times seen beautiful women, scantily dressed (almost) literally crying out to be approached with no man willing to pluck up the meagre courage to take a few steps in their direction and try and chat them up.
Apart from me of course. :-)
2 Yes Sara is selfish, but she acknowledges and owns her selfishness, shes authentic about it. John has a false persona of “niceness” and “sweetness” that hides what a disgusting little pile of insecurities and complexes he is, constantly complaining that the world doesnt arrange itself to make him happy.
And finally, if you think women dont love drama, emotion and passion. Then you know absolutely nothing about women.
The comic, IMO, doesn’t do a very good job of presenting that point.
1. No, I’m certainly not saying that. I’m saying that it’s a rare man who both acts like John does in the comic, AND has all the qualities that Sara says John has.
2. That does little to make it better. And judging solely on the content of the comic, we have only Sara’s word that John actually IS this horrible, evil person. Like I said earlier, I’ve known guys like that literally only twice in my life. I’ve known guys who were by all appearances creepy basement dwellers, and guys who seemed to be cowardly nice guys, but rarely did the two intersect.
I could give you a counterexample, but I suspect that this isn’t supposed to be taken in a strictly literal sense, so I’ll just go ahead and say I more or less agree with you. I was saying that in general, very few girls actually like fighting with their boyfriends, or actually like assholes that they know to be assholes.
Something I didn’t really mention in my prior post, that actually really bugged me about this comic. Based solely on Sara’s statement about John(and ignoring for the moment all other information presented here), of “studying a wide range of knowledge that is largely supplied and accepted by previous social inadequates”, is likely more beneficial to others than “impregnating women and thus contributing to the continuation of the human race”. But it’s portrayed, judging by the language used, and being put with a bunch of negative stuff, as a bad thing.
You know you really hate the comment blono because John is you.
Your statement takes as an implicit assumption the idea that I am john, as it is not possible to know something without that something being true. That assumption is, to the best of my knowledge, false. I’m going to assume that you don’t literally mean that I am the character in the comic, or even any real life analogue of him. Prior experience with similar statements leads me to believe the most likely meaning of your statement is that I either see myself in John, or that I am a person who possesses many or all of the characteristics that John is portrayed as having in the comic. Now, it is my previously stated opinion that most of the things Sara says about John are unsubstantiated, and at odds with his behavior in the comic, but I also suspect, due to the form of the comic, that “authorial intent” is that all those things are true. Now, if that’s your claim, then based on my own memories, such as I recognize them, I can safely say that I am not very similar to him. To some extent I see/saw myself in him, in as much as he looks like trying to be nice to people through the first few panels, although authorial intent seems to be that he is actually a nefarious person, which I at least hope I’m not.
Back when I actually thought there would be some net benefit to “relationships” with people in any romantic sense, I tried talking to them with probably similar language, although the times I did it, I did so very soon after meeting them, as opposed to waiting years. These days I don’t see any net benefits to such a relationship, either for me, or the other party(unless they were completely using me, which seems fairly uncommon). Enumerating all the differences between him and me would take up a ton of space and I won’t bore you with it when I’ve already written a fair chunk, and I don’t have any reason to believe that you’ll actually take my word on any of this. If you ask me to, I will.
And the only comment in there I hated was the one I mentioned in my prior post.
If you really have no interest in getting a girlfriend blono, then why were you visiting this site?
I saw a link on another site that only had the name “approach anxiety”, and no description. I assumed it was a website for helping deal with anxiety issues, which is a problem I certainly have. After I got here I realized the site’s nature a few moments later, but found some interesting things, and a couple things that bugged me. In particular, the main thing that brought me to comment was the anti-nice-guy views that seem, IMO, to be widely present here. I’ve seen these views come up a few times before, but never really talked with the people who had them, because most of the websites presenting them seemed to either not be open for comments, or were hostile to any dissenting views. I looked at a few comments here, noticed that dissenting comments appeared and were often responded to in a, IMO, reasonable manner. So I gave it a shot and put up a couple comments, hoping to elicit some info on why people think there’s something wrong with trying to be nice.
I’m not *entirely* uninterested in getting a girlfriend. I just think that the probable costs(and I mean this mainly in terms of overall unhappiness/pain vs. happiness/pleasure) of doing so, based on my previous experiences with girlfriends, would be much greater than any benefits it would bring to either of us. I wouldn’t be averse to brief “hookups” either, but I’ve only rarely seen those in the wild, and have little idea as to how risky they actually are socially, legally, etc, how much time and money are usually involved, or what the costs and benefits for the other party are. So there is some interest, but I generally try to ignore it since I think there are both more productive uses of my time, and that it would not likely be ethically justifiable for me to enter into a relationship with another person.
Ultimately, theres two way of listening.
1) You look at peoples arguments and try and prove them wrong
publically in an effort to prove how smart you are and convince yourself of your own superiority.
You generalise, intentionally misinterpret the other sides arguments and pounce on their “straw men” in a blind and desperate attempt to win the argument.
I have no interest in this kind of listening.
2) You actually listen and try and understand their point of view (while acknowledging the weaknesses in their arguments privately). You take a hard look at yourself and think about what you could learn from them.
You avoid rationalisations that make you feel better.
Its up to you to make that choice.
@Crebral
So well said. I can also pick apart Sarah’s narrative but that’s not the point. The writer is allowed to be heavy handed in trying to make you see things from Sarah’s perspective. Here is a synopsis of Sarah’s points (without the heavy handedness):
1) Men who don’t have the balls to make themselves vulnerable by facing rejection are not attractive to women.
2) Women prefer men who take those risks, even if taking risks is sometimes associated with other types of behavior that are not as desirable (such as being a bit of an asshole
3) Men who are afraid to make themselves vulnerable by taking risk often rationalize their behavior by blaming society for ostracizing intellectuals. Often, this is not because they are true intellectuals, but because they hide their fear in pursuits where failure is impossible to detect.
4) It is patronizing to women when men treat them as if the choices they are making are obviously wrong and if they just knew better they would wind up with someone who is better for them. Yes, this happens, but the opposite also happens: women decide to be with men who are more capable of hurting them because these men are more alive and more interesting.
Can anyone truly disagree with these points?
–Lee
Lee – I have been reading so many of your articles, just trying to put myself in your shoes to find the right point of view. Men who
have the balls to make themselves vulnerable for rejection DO get rejected. These guys then have to be the guys whom appear capable of hurting women so they can appear alive and interesting? an, what an awful game. You must be really good at this!
@dave
I think you’re missing my point. Men who have a strong sense of self take bigger chances and are more attractive to women. Those men also tend to be less accommodating, less compromising, and unlikely to accept something less than they feel they deserve. Is that bad? I don’t think so. I think everyone – men and women – should be honest about what they need so when they finally do find that special person, both parties know that it’s not a matter of compromise or convenience. Women are not attracted to men who are incapable of taking action for their own happiness. They are less worried about the hurt they may experience when a man decides to move on. I think this is perfectly rational.
@Crebral: This seems to me to be a false choice. There are many ways of arguing. One can, for example, make a sincere attempt to understand the other’s arguments and what one can learn from them, while, at the same time, pointing out what you see as incorrect. This is what I try to do, even if I am not sure I succeed all the time, because I think it leads to a fuller understanding of other’s arguments. Simply shutting up about anything you disagree with often actually leads to misconceptions, as oftentimes the other person has very good reasons for their views that you are not aware of, or you can have good reasons for your views that they are not aware of. Believe it or not, I actually do change my views due to arguments I’ve had on the internet, and frequently admit when I am wrong.
If I’ve misinterpreted your argument at any point, then tell me how I have, so I can fix that mistake. I’ve mentioned several of the assumptions that I was working with, although that was certainly not an exhaustive list of them, just the ones I thought warranted listing for clarity.
@Lee I’m sure *someone* can disagree with those points, but it’s not going to be me, unless you’re expecting me to take things in an entirely literal sense, which I don’t think you are. There’s some specific supporting assertions made in the comic that imply ideas I strongly disagree with, but it is what it is, and like you said, it serves little purpose trying to pick the narrative apart, unless you’re one of those people who thinks a failure to disagree is agreement.
There’s one more general point that I view the comic as implying though, which is the idea that being nice means that one is a bad person, with some evil ulterior motives. Not only do I disagree with that, but I think adopting such a viewpoint is actually harmful.
“There’s one more general point that I view the comic as implying though, which is the idea that being nice means that one is a bad person, with some evil ulterior motives. Not only do I disagree with that, but I think adopting such a viewpoint is actually harmful.”
Just as long as you acknowledge that this is something you infer from the comic.
That is neither stated explicitly nor (in my interpretation) deliberately implied.
Oh and thanks for the support Lee. :-)
You know something? I am totally the guy in the comic, but I have zero expectations of anything like marriage. I also barely process language and am hypersensitive and you know something else? I am totally attracted to bad girls which is funny. I want to do all kinds of things but it’s hard to make my own opinions. And another thing, it takes a long time for me to come out about anything. I mean, when I finally did this to a girl, she was actually single but I friendzoned her and she got pissed. At least I think that’s what happened but as much as I liked her, I didn’t feel like she liked me.
This guy is desperately struggling with relationships and what they mean. If you’re like me, you probably think relationships are evil and until you met this person you didn’t want anything to do with anyone out of fear of hurting them and cannot read a girl to save your life.
Another caveat I will give for myself is that the other person is genuinely abusive or harsh a lot of the time but you feel this is what you deserve because you can’t hurt them, but this it turns out is not true. I eventually left the person who I saw on a daily basis because she and I could only step on each others feet and stockman should’ve given up on her too before it came to this.
I guess I’m mostly talking about myself.
I disagree that the girl is right per se. But the guy probably already hates himself. They both probably do. They’re both compensating, which is the irony.
And if this is the guys first relationship, then can you blame him? I think it’s awful that she actually hated him all this time and didn’t say it. What if the guy understood her the whole time, put up with her abuse and selfishness, and didn’t just want sex? Just a person to listen to him sometimes, even though he listened to her all the time. What if it was she who played up to the cuteness and being pretty but she was actually hopelessly bossy? Then the roles would be reversed, she’d be the whore and he’d be a “sensitive” intellectual, especially if she were trying to seduce him or control him and he didn’t want it.
Coif – I guess that I had zero expectations ALL the time when I was actually doing these things. What are you willing to put up with? Do you ever imagine what it would be like just to be able to have a pleasant conversation with a woman without the s–t tests and games?
Maybe you are talking about a lot of us — not just yourself.
Dave–
Keep this in mind–a lot of guys don’t need to really play the ‘game’ that much at all–but it’s usually because they’re not afraid to move things forward. This stuff is helpful for people who didn’t learn the skills, or who need things spelled out for them.
But there is the danger that if your conversations are too ‘pleasant’, they simply won’t go anywhere–the lukewarm date, the ambiguous friendship, things like that. All the ‘game’ does is help you push the envelope so that you can get yourself some romantic/sexual relationships, not just friendly interactions.