So you're
a nice guy and time after time the women you want to be with just
want to be 'friends' with you. You're frustrated, you're pissed, you're
romantically unsuccessful and you're considering turning yourself
into an Insufferable Jerk just to prove a point. The point being that
if women want Insufferable Jerks well then goddammit, you can be as
Insufferable as anyone else!
Except that
unfortunately, you don't actually want to be an Insufferable Jerk.
For one thing, it's too much work. For another thing, it makes you
feel foolish and miserable and unnatural when you try. And finally,
you aren't even very convincing at it. Bummer! So what you are actually
going to do is sulk, and feel very sarcastic. While you are doing
that, you are going to read all about yourself here at prettyfedup.com
until gradually you have wasted a lot of time and feel much better
about everything. Enjoy!
First of all,
your problem is not that you are not Insufferable. You are not in
the least bit Insufferable Deficient and in fact, are quite talented
at it. You just haven't had the proper opportunity to display your
hidden talents. We'll fix that, but first, we have to lay out
the root evolutionary causes of your dilemma. If we do not
do that, an insufficient amount of time will have been wasted and
the process will not work and you will never ever ever find a girlfriend.
Horrifying! So let's get right to it.
Evolutionary
Root Cause #1: Sex brains like genetic diversity.
Notwithstanding
the recent interest in cloning, genetic diversity makes sex brains
drool. Your sex brain is constantly on the hunt for genetic diversity
and Foreign Chemicals. What it does not want is Similar Chemicals.
Especially not These Fucking Chemicals Are So Similar, This Person
Could Easily Be Related to Me. That's a big no no as far as your sex
brain is concerned. It is also the root of your problem with women.
We'll explain why in a minute. First, a few words about your sex brain.
It
wants as much genetic diversity as it can find in another human being
within the limits of the Ugly Children Parameter. Your sex
brain is very concerned about the possibility of Ugly Children and
will therefore shy away from certain potential partners who are brimming
with Foreign Chemicals. It has its limits.
This
is because your sex brain
is very concerned about children in general, namely yours. It makes
the vast majority of its choices based on its calculation of their
effect on the survivability of your potential offspring. And it could
basically really give a shit about anything else. Genetic diversity
is good for the survival of your potential offspring. Ergo, it seeks
genetic diversity. Sex brains love genetic diversity so much that
they will even kiss another person to find out if it exists!
Yes,
some people unromantically refer to kissing as 'swapping spit'.
Your sex brain doesn't think there's anything the least bit unromatic
about swapping spit. It finds spit investigation incredibly rewarding.
While
you are closing your eyes and moving your tongue, your sex brain is
extremely busy scoping out the immune system of the person you are
kissing. It is doing a detailed and intensive chemical assay of that
person's spit, looking eagerly for a Major Histocompatibility Complex
foreign from its own. The Major Histocompatibility Complex chemicals
so very conveniently found in spit, along with a host of other DNA
markers your sex brain finds positively fascinating, tell your sex
brain what sort of infectious diseases the person you are kissing
is ideally equipped to fight off. Your sex brain finds this even more
interesting than their bank account or bra size because infectious
diseases are a major evolutionary driver, being that they are ever
so fucking efficient in killing off vast hordes of people. And your
sex brain is not in a good mood about the possibility of them
killing off your own personal little rug rats.
When
your sex brain finds a way foreign Major Histocompatibility Complex
very different from its own, it knows that your potential offspring
will be better than you. Not only will they get DNA from you to fight
off the diseases whose butt your MHC kicks, but they will also get
DNA from this heavenly foreign MHC carrier that will allow your kids
to fight off a whole bunch more diseases. Your kids will get double
the disease-fighting power.
When
your sex brain detects foreign MHC while kissing, it goes into such
trembling ecstasy that it sets your whole body on fire. It races around
every portion of you screaming 'Oh my fucking god, check out the
Major Histocompatibility Complex on this one! Oh my god, I am
in love. Oh shit! Think of the disease-free children we're
going to spawn with this one! Oh my god, I get so hot just thinking
about it, vast quantities of healthy disease-free children running
around, propagating my genes and making me so fucking happy I could
die. I have hit the mother lode. I am in Major Histocompatibility
Complex heaven. Oh jesus. Must get pregnant now. Sex now! Pregnancy
now. Now, now, now...' And so on.
If
you think I am exaggerating your sex brain's enthusiasm for a Major
Histocompatibility Complex unlike your own, you have been sorely deprived
of worthy kissing experiences. Stumbling on a foreign Major Histocompatibility
Complex is one of your sex brain's most important goals in life and
it will reward you handsomely for achieving it.
Now
of course man cannot live on Major Histocompatibility Complexes alone.
In fact, your sex brain actively scours your environment and the Other
People you come in contact with for a whole bunch of chemical information
transmitted through sweat, smell, taste, touch, sight, and mysterious
invisible chemical transmission routes, such as those used by pheronomes.
There you are, sluffing off on the couch, watching a football game,
while your brain is busy getting a Ph.D. in organic chemistry. And
they say you have nothing upstairs!
Naturally,
of course, every woman you meet is doing the same chemical assay on
you that you're doing on her. And even more thoroughly. And here's
what's happening that is fucking up your love life. You are flunking
the Foreign Chemical Test! You are pumping out 'These Fucking
Chemicals Are So Similar, This Person Could Easily Be Related to Me'
chemicals around the women you are attracted to. You are sending
out chemical signals that are telling women you are their brother!
You dork! This is not good! And what's worse is you know this
is happening because they even say things to you sometimes like 'Jeff,
you know you're like a brother to me and I'll always love you but
I just think we ought to stay, you know....friends.' And so on. Aaaaggghhh!
This is a disaster!
(If
you are a woman, they are saying things to you - and out loud even
- like, 'Shelly, you know you're one of my favorite people, you're
like a little sister to me.' Aaaaaggghhhh!)
Now
how on fucking earth could you be sending out chemical signals that
say you are related to the women you are attracted to when in fact
you are not from Arkansas and you are not lusting after women who
are related to you? How could such a major inconvenient chemical
fuck-up occur? What causes this incredibly common love life disaster?
Here
is where it helps to know a little bit about evolution. Or actually
here is where it helps to be the webmistress and to have an advanced
gift for making up Crackpot Theories about evolution. One of the two.
So understand that
when humans were at their busiest evolving, they were basically hanging
out in loose Clumps of people more or less related to themselves. Some
people like to refer to these Clumps as hunter-gatherer tribes but the
technical, scientifically accurate term is Clumps. Because that's what
they were. People loosely clumped together based on chemistry, necessity,
and lack of any better ideas.
These Clumps of
genetically and chemically similar people hung out together and provided
each other with assistance, support, protection, shelter, defense, cooperation
in obtaining necessary foodstuffs and lots of other happy, fun things
that made them seem more or less like a socially cohesive group fond
of happy funness as well as bickering, internal strife, envy, grumpiness,
lingering resentments and all the other things that make an extended
family-type group such a goddarn barrel of wonderfulness. It was a great
system.
Digressionary
Note: Sometimes, even within families, there is sufficient genetic
diversity that someone is produced with a markedly different chemical
signature. This is the Black Sheep Syndrome. The family member
that doesn't fit in, that is treated like and feels as though they are
foreign even within their own family. Chemistry is important!
Special Note
to Black Sheep: It's not your fault your family hates your chemicals.
It's not their fault that you hate theirs. It's genetics, it happens.
Just bail the fuck out as soon as possible and go find yourself a chemically
compatible clump. No need to fuck up the rest of your life by going
around with the attitude that everyone is going to hate your chemicals
for some mysterious reason. Not true. Only your family will.
No need to transmit unconscious repellent I Know You're Going To Fucking
Hate Me Everybody Does Chemicals. Unless you'd just like to. Your call.
Meanwhile, back
to our story of the Chemically Similar Clump. Of course you tried
to avoid getting pregnant with any of these chemically similar people
since that would violate the genetic diversity rule and make your
sex brain mad at you. But day in and day out you associated your brothers
and cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and so on (anthropologists
like to call these peope 'kin' because anthropologists are so
dorky!) with the basic help and coming through for you in a pinch-ness
that makes friends and relatives so valuable and rewarding. The women
who are driving you insane with frustration and pushing you toward
Insufferable Jerkness think you are one of these people.
You can even tell
by the way they treat you - they look to you for social protection,
assistance, support, necessary foodstuffs and so on. They think you
are part of their Clump. It's so fucking easy to see once you know
the pattern. Think about it! You know it's true. They don't think
you're a potential mate - they think they can borrow your truck to
move their furniture! You're like family! And family members are not
supposed to fuck each other.
Technically however,
you are not. You are actually from a Foreign Clump and therefore a
potentially suitable mate. There is nothing genetically or morally
wrong with having sex with you. Why can't they see this? What's
going wrong?
War is what's
going wrong. War is fucking up your life. You see, occasionally
one of these Clumps would fall on hard times. They'd run out of food
and resources in their territory, the weather would change, droughts
would occur, flooding would ruin everything and the Clump would have
to pack up its shit and go looking for another territory. Frequently
when it found a suitable replacement territory it would already be occupied
by Another Clump with Foreign Chemicals. Yes, unrelated humans would
have their asses parked on a luscious resource-rich territory and would
be busy scarfing up its goodies. Following the Starve or Kill Imperative,
the two Clumps would then face off against each other and try to kill
each other's motherfucking asses. War would ensue.
Based on many
occurrences of this scenario, your body figured out in its evolutionary
way that suddenly finding yourself face to face with a quantity of
unfamiliar Foreign Chemicals was very bad news. This probably
wouldn't be happening unless they had every intention of kiling you,
raping your women, stealing your stuff, plundering your territory
and obliterating your humble little evolutionary existence. Which
is why to this very day, your body has an innate suspicion against
and dislike of Unfamiliar Foreign Chemicals. You hate those goddamn
foreign chemicals, particularly in quantity - they make you uptight,
suspicious, defensive, and inclined toward prejudice, racism, fear,
and general unease. (Just in case you were wondering why you and your
brethren exhibit those traits. Side note.)
More side note:
You have by now already figured out why wartime rape is so popular.
Genetic diversity! Why let hatred, suspicion and the Starve Or Kill
Imperative stand in the way of a little genetic diversity? Foreign
chemicals - healthy children. Wartime rape.
Be that as it
may, your Clump and the Foreign Clump would get busy trying to kill
each other until one or the other of you basically succeeded. At
that point, it would be determined which Clump had the ability to
exploit the territory and things would settle down. One hitch though
- a few members of the losing clump would often be left. In a normal
war, not everybody on both sides get killed. A few accidentally
survive. But what are these stragglers from the now Minority Clump
to do?
Let's think this
through. You are way outnumbered. You stick out like a sore thumb,
transmitting your foreign chemicals right and left. Very tense situation.
Your very body chemistry, appearance, and so on, are a chemical trigger
inviting aggression against you. Yet, now would probably not be a
good time to be aggressive yourself, due to the way fucking outnumbered
factor. It's not going to do you or anybody else any fucking good
for you to die now. Hmmmm....perhaps now would be a good time
to be....nice. Yes sirree bob, that's the ticket. Assimilate.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do, since there are a fucking lot of
them. Adapt. Blend in. Avoid death.
And because evolution
is way fucking cleverer than anything you would ever think up on your
own, it figures out how to actually alter your chemical signature,
by hiding your true foreign chemicals and adopting masking chemicals
that resemble the chemicals of the Prevailing Clump. Your body
literally tries to fool the Other Clump into thinking you are one
of the family. You are kin, entitled to and providing protection,
assistance, support and all that other crap. No one wants to kill
you, they think you're their brother!
What a great
fucking idea! And even better, it works. This little bit of chemical
deception has been helping little individual humans survive for a
long long time. It helps heal the wounds of war, promotes genetic
diversity through assimilation and is just generally a great fucking
deal for everyone.
Some of us are
better at masking chemicals than others. Some have a very poor ability
to mask their chemicals and they stick out like sore thumbs wherever
they go. You do not have this problem. You are chemically advanced.
You are a Master Chemical Deceiver. You don't do this on purpose.
You don't even know you are doing it. You don't know how to turn it
on and you don't know how to turn it off. It just happens and there
you are busily transmitting Assimilating Similar Chemicals instead
of the Foreign Genetic Diversity Chemicals that will win the heart
of the woman of your dreams.
This chemical
ability you have is a very good thing. It helps your life in many
ways. It really does help you blend in, avoid conflict, be nice, assimilate,
adapt, prevail, win over, participate in goodie-sharing and all sorts
of wonderful things. And on the few occasions when you don't successfully
chemically mask and you are in the chemical minority, you get a taste
of just how unpleasant it can be not to be able to hide your chemical
signature. So you do hide it. This is great. Except that it fucks
up your love life.
Because, ironically,
it is precisely when you are attracted to a woman that your chemical
deception kicks into gear. You are attracted because you have sensed
the presence of Foreign Genetic Diversity Chemicals. Meanwhile, the
Foreign Genetic Diversity Chemicals are precisely the trigger that
tells your Social Brain that you are in Enemy Territory and must immediately
transmit false chemicals for your safety. The more you like her
-the worse it is! The more you like her, the greater the danger
your body perceives you to be in, the greater the deception, the more
she thinks you are her brother, the more hopeless everything becomes
and so on and so forth. Aaaaagggghhhh! You'll never get laid!
Okay, now that
we have laid out your situation in excruciating detail we can get
into the practical stuff of how you can overcome the dreaded Brother
Syndrome.
prettyfedup.com