I Figured Out Why Men are Stupid - a dating manual

If you came here to be outraged, I'll have time for your arguments after the show. I promise.

Men try to build themselves up to an ideal and, man-style, hyperfocus on that archetype until they conflate it with reality. Reality, for our purposes here, means the entire world.

Next, men pick an Ideal Woman. Here, Ideal Woman means a collection of parts - the usual boobs, thighs, but also brain, manners, talents, adoration from all who follow her. 

But see, men are enumerating themselves as a collection of parts, too. This study is wrong: Our Brains do not see men as whole and women as parts. Hair (or not), physique, car, career...

Our society is so visually-oriented; we all do it. But I'm not here to talk about society.
click hear (ha ha) for an appropriate soundtrack by MC Mel

Once Ideal Woman is chosen (and it's always the same girl for all the guys - no, it is) men start deciding what sort of man should deserve this Ideal Woman, and start "working on themselves." They fortify the archetype-parts they think that woman deserves (conflating it with what she wants) and disregard fucking reality - which, remember, we've defined as the entire world.

GUYS, the woman already sees the parts of you that you've forgotten about while you work on yourself. She sees them, and when she gets sick of your shit, she'll casually point at one and ask, "What's that?" The guy gets all surprised that she was intelligent enough to find what he literally forgot about, because he's a guy. So of course he has to break up with her. 

She was tolerating your blustering façade and looking beyond it. Here's where women start screwing things up, but that's for later.

I watched a bro-versation this weekend, and had an ugly epiphany: guys are literally doing the same thing to themselves that they do to us, which we hate. 

Hiding their allegedly flawed parts from themselves. Hiding, because men are dicks to each other as well as to everyone else. To themselves.

Stoppit, guys.

Female persons:  Please know this entire setup can work the other way. Women are entirely capable of entering into a relationship under false pretenses (so false that the woman believes them, too) and trying to force partners into a relationship model that serves nobody. Capable of choosing a partner like a wardrobe accessory. Capable of hiding the parts of which she's ashamed, and forgetting they're evident.

People, as usual, need to be more like me. I bring all of me to the table and plop it the fuck up there in the middle of the good china. There isn't a dark underside, other than my cleanliness habits, and I'm willing to share pictures. 

But I've figured out why I can say NO so easily, like within 2 minutes of meeting a man who thinks he's interested. I recognize the presentation. I am lives-old and tired; I know myself. If you don't know yourself, I don't have time for this. I don't speak for everyone, just half of everyone. At least. 

And there's another thing: let's normalize NO as what it means, not a complete shoot-down of your whole carefully-constructed internal archetype. You aren't a horrible person; it's just no.

Ladies: leave him alone. Don't try to fix him. That's not your job; it's his, and he should have done it before he called you. Trying to fix broken men becomes an addiction; go clean out what's under your bed.

Further Reading: 

Our Brains See Men as Whole and Women as Parts - Scientific American 
Science is only as flawed as inherent bias. 

6 Gender Myths Busted - LiveScience 
I usually avoid listicles, but this one is (g)spot-on. 

12 Character Archetypes - No Film School 
These days, if you try to google Jungian Archetypes you get sucked down a woo-woo rabbit hole (not that there's anything wrong with that.) Everyone's into movies these days. Actually, if you want to discuss Carl Jung, you can call me.

Collection of Parts - Melinda Smith  My guitar player asked me to record myself reading this post, and didn't care that lingering laryngitis makes me sound like Diane Rehm. 

Conflate - Cambridge English Dictionary  If you didn't know this word, you've needed it all along. Make sure you understand it correctly. 

David Bowie Eyes, by Erin Bealmear - Rattle 

Erin Bealmear: “‘David Bowie Eyes’ began where it ends: in an airplane. While flying home from Oregon, everything I had experienced over the previous few days started rotating around in my mind, over and over again. The only way I could stop the loop was by scribbling it all down on the back of a boarding pass. Those flashes, and the feeling of being trapped inside a memory, would later inspire this poem.” (web)