So Suave
2003-03-07 � 12:08 p.m.

Too...much...coffee...

Aisha — I'm vibrating!

I so swear to you that I don't go searching for these places, but I find them too interesting not to mention, so I have another link for you. So Suave, "The Don Juan Center — secrets of meeting, dating, attracting women and girls. Free advice, tips, articles on love, romance, relationships, body language, sex, pick-up lines, seduction, kissing, flirting, overcoming shyness, and more."

(I got there via a link off of FARK, if you must know.)

This site is actually really interesting, and not quite as sad as the Shy Man's Dating School or whatever it was called that I linked before. Of the tiny bits that I have read (and I did not visit the forums, where I gather a lot of the juicy stuff goes on), the "advice" is split pretty evenly between decent and bad, with the bad often being either disgusting or just groan-worthy. The decent advice is largely centered on stuff anyone should know — displaying confidence, being interested and interesting, etc. — with a healthy dose of stuff that makes you kind of think. Sometimes. A little. I really only spent about twenty minutes there, so perhaps I am slightly off base.

But the thing about this website is that it's huge. There are a ton of articles and what they call "Quick Tips" and like I said, I didn't even visit the forums.

So again, as with the Dating School, I have to wonder: what's going on out there? Is there suddenly a massive population of men that are/feel socially awkward around women, a generation of them, perhaps, created by the technological distancing devices of the television and the internet that did not previously exist? Or is it that this population has always existed and is only now finding the means to communicate with and support each other?

I find all this stuff fascinating because I often feel like I fit that social demographic. Not always, but often. (And though I am unsure what caused me to be this way, I don't think they are probably the typical causal factors, though that may be arrogance on my part.)

In a way, I think it's great that shy fellows have a place they can go and get some practical advice. Because, as one of the articles on the site said, most of the advice you get from friends and family are worthless garbage (Why Not Just Be Yourself?). I am, however, wary of the attitude prevalent on the site that the entire process is only a game, and a less than subtle misogynistic slant to a lot of the articles and advice.

So I'm curious — what do you think? What's with the apparently huge population of males who find themselves socially inadequate? Is this an actual social problem, or have I just kind of stumbled onto another fringe group that's found a niche on the internet? What do you think the underlying cause might be for these males' feelings? Social, technological, accidental? Something else?

And what about the site itself? Is it a valid representation of this population, or is it an exploitative travesty? Some of both?

I find this so interesting, I spammed all my friends with the URL.

-t

Currently Aurally Inducing: Hamasaki Ayumi, Kanariya (System F Mix)
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