Just when you thought it was safe - OK CUPID PART 3: The Return of the WOO!

i think the less obvious definition of seduction is "getting to actually know you," which is a real thing that happens to real people, sometimes even before they sleep with each other

i mean, seductive things don't always have to be sexual things

"Seduction" as a word just has such overpowering associations with "getting someone to do something they don't really want to do" which is just so NAGL in any context, sexual or otherwise. Just... no.

Yeah, I can't say what's causation and what's correlation, but the times when I've been most successful at dating (in terms of attracting people to me and having a fun & easy time with it, not necc. in terms of being well-suited to long-term settlin' down) have been the times when I was generally pretty satisfied with the direction of my life and not really actively seeking out people to date. Basically, when I had my own shit going on and was satisfied with it. Conversely, I'm massively dissatisfied with most aspects of my life at this point in time and the interest from others has largely dried up. Make of those anecdotes what you will.

oh, ah, that too. i guess i don't really think of seduction that way!
xp

xxpost

I agree. The concept of seduction in my mind is just gross.

I am neither satisfied nor unsatisfied with my life, I'm just kinda bored with it.

I see seduction as that sweet spot between the people who want to jump right into relationships and those who want to jump right into sex. It's getting to know someone for the sheer joy of it, flirting, hinting at possibility (but not hammering it home), indulging in fantasy and playfulness. And either love happens, or sex happens, or things fizzle. But each person enjoys the process.

I hate flirting. It unsettles and confuses the hell out of me. I am clearly an anti-seducer and should just go home.

But each person enjoys the process.

Yeah, that's kinda the crux right there. The idea of seduction tends to dredge up a PUA connotation in my brain anymore, where her enjoyment isn't much of a factor. Hence my squicked-out-ness. It's nice to think that seduction can be a two-way street, though.

WCC, flirting can be as simple as holding your own and maintaining confidence. I think a lot of the more mechanical stuff that people get out of a book is bullshit. I mean, clearly it works for certain people, but those are people that will clearly always be just way, way the eff off my dating radar.

I'm not arguing for one definition or the other, but I definitely think "coercion with a 'gentlemanly' flair" when I hear the word seduction; super gross.

Lots of women like to be seduced. It's not always some creeptastic coercion. Sometimes it is, but that's not being seductive--that's being a bully.

I don't know that you can say "lots of." I think you can say you like it, and I don't, and leave it at that. I hate drawing conclusions about an entire gender based on 2 examples.

I didn't say all women. I said lots. A fair amount? Whatever.

FWIW, I don't think creepiness is inherent in the definition of 'seduction'. I just think the word has taken on more of that taint as a result of the prevalence of the PUA movement.

I think the word had that taint back as far as the Rake's Progress. It's not a positive-connotated word.

xpost

I mean, that's kinda the consequence of creepy dudes conflating 'seduction' with 'methodical mindfuckery'.

I agree with OL.

PUA's use the word 'seduction' a lot. I don't think it's an overtly negative word. It's supposed to be enjoyable in my view of it. At the end, both parties end up in love.

Or, in the Rakes Progress, with syphilis. Same thing, really?

I think the disagreement here is largely a matter of semantics. I'm grasping for a word/phrase that essentially means "well-intentioned flirtation with the intention of expressing mutual attraction and the accrual of mutual trust" but doesn't sound like a doctoral thesis. I'm down with that probably nonexistent word.

well, that's a good effort at avoiding making it sound like an information-gathering operation for the purposes of giving mutual consent to intimate involvement

I guess I am in the minority in that I enjoy mind games and mystery. I pretty much want life to be like an erotic thriller.

Ha. Clearly some people do enjoy those things. I am one of those people who is very adamant about basically having zero tolerance for those things. It takes all sorts!

It's mostly like: you can never really know anybody fully, and there are always going to be gaps in communication and understanding between yourself and most people. If I'm dating someone (and particularly if we're dating seriously), one of my overriding goals is to try and bridge that gap, to get to know someone else and let someone else know me as intimately as possible, and anything that stands in the way of that (e.g. games, headfuckery, any extent to which the expectation of societal norms diminishes someone's personality) kinda flies in the face of what I see as most of the point of partnering up. But that may just be me.

Hmm. I am having trouble really iterating what I mean by mind games and mystery. I have some examples, but none I feel comfortable posting on ILX.

I feel like you're trying to say that you like romance, which gets a bad rap and is somehow embarrassing to admit? Nothing at all wrong with it imo, but connotatively I think a lot of people find "romance" repulsive. Most romance signifiers aren't particularly cool. I am not talking about stupid shit like roses and calling each other sweetpea. I'm talking about actual romance. Tension that ebbs and flows, etc. Romance.

Uhh...yeah, 'romance' certainly works for my purposes. Ha ha. A-doy.

I actually kinda do want all that stupid old shit like letters and sodas.

Oh, I am unabashedly romantic. Love letters, sap, mush. Bring it on.

btw is there a chance this thread could be deindexed at all?

yes

xpost to messiahwannabe: that response was really intended for myself.

tks Jim :)

connotatively I think a lot of people find "romance" repulsive

Wow, seriously? That is doing my head in. How can romance be repulsive? :/

The whole idea of swooning over someone, mix tapes, flirting, letters, standing outside staring at stars/sunset/the sea, smooching, all that jazz. I'd die if I didnt get that from a relationship.

Or more to the point, die of boredom.

“Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.”

I think she's saying that a lot of people see stock romantic tropes as hokey or trite. I guess it isn't for everybody. Some people are probably also just too uncomfortable in their own skin to let themselves be gooey and sappy with another person. I dunno. I'm just speculating because I don't get that, either.

Like, a lot of the appeal of coupling to me is finding someone you can just let yourself go with and indulge in all that stuff that makes bitter single people want to barf.

Haha yep pretty much :) I mean, it doesnt last long! Make the most of the rosy glasses part!

Sometimes it does last, though! I definitely felt that the last time 'round. Like getting a call at 2 AM that she's fallen and hurt herself and ignoring the fact that I'm bedridden with the flu to travel to her place in the rain so we can spend the night together and take the following day off of work to lie around and nurse one another in our sorry states and just generally enjoy one another's company. And that was a year and a half in. We'll just ignore the part where she abruptly left me a week and a half later.

Yeah, shit. Probably undercut my whole point there...

Ouch!

In other news, the Wiccan mentioned upthread wrote me a message beginning with "good eventide."

wow this thread blew up while I was on vacation!

Is there a difference between hanging out and hanging out with intent? Because this is the second night in a row of hanging out ... With no culmination ... I might as well be back in high school, when people had the time to nurture these ambiguous relationships.

I've been silently bemoaning the fact that I haven't received an OkCupid message in a while, and then I realized just now that my mailbox was full. Oops.

haha oh crap! :)

Guy Im lined up with a date for tomorrow just made an awesomely terrible Howard Jones joke over email. I like this guy =)

howard have thought

haw

an information-gathering operation for the purposes of giving mutual consent to intimate involvement

^^^^Is it just me, or does this just sound really, really hott?

But, y'know, sorry, I'm one of those awful horrible people who really, really doesn't like romance.

Part of it is just feeling really uncomfortable with the heteronormative aspects of it, and I just really instinctively rebel against anything where I am expected to play the "Girl Role". I don't think that's me being uncomfortable in my own skin, it's more me being uncomfortable with roles I am expected to play, because of the body that my skin covers.

But also that whole thing of, like, tension... I don't like tension. I like knowing where I stand with people, and what they expect from me, and what I can expect from them. Relations are hard enough when you're being straigthforward with someone. Trying to deal with someone who is playing little games because they think it's delicious and ~fun~ just... NO.

Two things: one, it seems to me that one of the best things we can do for ourselves (not just in terms of dating but just as people living life) is to stop harshly judging all of the supposedly aberrant aspects of our personalities that are intrinsic to who we are. Like, if they aren't sociopathic tendencies that are causing others harm, they're really just...okay, and they're what make you who you are. And they're the things that people who are similiar to you are going to zero in on. Which is to say that being anti-romance is really a value-free thing that will appeal to certain people and not to others. You may have been mildly facetious in your disparagement so my affirmation may not really apply, but it's probably an important thing for everybody (myself most definitely included) to keep in mind.

Two, romance (or any palatable derivative thereof) is by no means inherently heteronormative unless you play it that way. I personally would never be comfortable with romance where I was the only one doing the romancing. It's awesome when it flows in both directions, though.