Courting: Gender Divergence or Convergence
By animal instincts, men are predators driven to spread their genes, and women are prey in self-defence against becoming pregnant by a man with unsuitable genes. This is the result of evolution, which was not influenced by modern possibilities of birth control.
In a less drastic form, these instincts determine the different behavioral tendencies in courting and mating even today.
It is very important to be aware of the differences in the instinctive predispositions of men and women. But that does not imply any rational reason to accept these differences as good and as unchangeable.
For people, who accept egalitarianism and equality, who do not consider a relationship as a division of labor for the goal of procreation but as a unit for the happiness of two partners, accepting obsolete instinctive urges makes no sense and is very counterproductive.
An egalitarian man needs to overcome his predator behavior and learn to respect the woman's wishes and respect her abilities as a competent person. A woman has to learn to accept obligations in return for her equal rights, and not be a passive prey waiting for the predator to chase her.
Yet when I am reading the advice on dating sites for both women and men, the gist of all the advice is the acceptance of the instinctive tendencies of the other gender and submission. Men are encouraged to pursue women with the disrespect of not taking her expression of her wishes for serious, not taking a 'no' for a 'no'. (I already wrote entry 274 about this.) Women are encouraged to be exploitative instead of being fair, they are encouraged to play games like that of pretending to be hard to get. People play such insincere and disrespectful games during courting, but they are quite often neither aware of the problem, nor able to drastically change their attitudes after getting involved, when they would need to be mutually sincere and respectful as caring partners.
Predators focus on the success of the hunt, they are oblivious and unconcerned about what follows, once they have gained control over the prey.
By animal instincts, men are predators driven to spread their genes, and women are prey in self-defence against becoming pregnant by a man with unsuitable genes. This is the result of evolution, which was not influenced by modern possibilities of birth control.
In a less drastic form, these instincts determine the different behavioral tendencies in courting and mating even today.
It is very important to be aware of the differences in the instinctive predispositions of men and women. But that does not imply any rational reason to accept these differences as good and as unchangeable.
For people, who accept egalitarianism and equality, who do not consider a relationship as a division of labor for the goal of procreation but as a unit for the happiness of two partners, accepting obsolete instinctive urges makes no sense and is very counterproductive.
An egalitarian man needs to overcome his predator behavior and learn to respect the woman's wishes and respect her abilities as a competent person. A woman has to learn to accept obligations in return for her equal rights, and not be a passive prey waiting for the predator to chase her.
Yet when I am reading the advice on dating sites for both women and men, the gist of all the advice is the acceptance of the instinctive tendencies of the other gender and submission. Men are encouraged to pursue women with the disrespect of not taking her expression of her wishes for serious, not taking a 'no' for a 'no'. (I already wrote entry 274 about this.) Women are encouraged to be exploitative instead of being fair, they are encouraged to play games like that of pretending to be hard to get. People play such insincere and disrespectful games during courting, but they are quite often neither aware of the problem, nor able to drastically change their attitudes after getting involved, when they would need to be mutually sincere and respectful as caring partners.
Predators focus on the success of the hunt, they are oblivious and unconcerned about what follows, once they have gained control over the prey.
These leads to serious problems:
Both partners cannot know, if the other is playing the allegedly expected courtship game or just expressing the true personality.
If a woman accepts the disrespect of not being taken for serious in her expressed wishes during courtship, she cannot know, if the man would ever take her for serious or always disrespect her.
If a woman allows and accepts to be pampered during courtship, the man cannot know, if she is selfish and would forever take advantage of him or not.
By misinterpreting the other's unsuitable personality as only playing a game, people can end up with an incompatible and unsuitable partner.
Courting is the time before making a decision, therefore honesty and sincerity are of paramount importance during the time of courting.
If a woman accepts the disrespect of not being taken for serious in her expressed wishes during courtship, she cannot know, if the man would ever take her for serious or always disrespect her.
If a woman allows and accepts to be pampered during courtship, the man cannot know, if she is selfish and would forever take advantage of him or not.
By misinterpreting the other's unsuitable personality as only playing a game, people can end up with an incompatible and unsuitable partner.
Courting is the time before making a decision, therefore honesty and sincerity are of paramount importance during the time of courting.
In entry 310 I already described the situation, that by a man's instinctive affliction to be blurred in his judgement and getting involved as a result of infatuation with a body, a couple can discover too late, that as a person the woman is insignificant to the man. The woman suffers, when the man does not give her the emotional and intellectual commitment, that she craves. If a man plays the predator game, this enhances a woman's risk to end up as insignificant, when she confounds his pursuing her as prey with being significant for him.
In my opinion, all dating advice, that encourages men to take the role of a predator, and women to take the role of prey, is not only wrong, but dangerous. Instead, people should be encouraged to be honest and sincere, to show and to be guided by their true amount of interest, their true behavioral inclinations and needs. People should base their courting and the decision, whom to court, on a roughly equal amount of attraction and interest. Happiness for a long time and the importance of a committed relationship are too serious to play games.
