If These 5 Signs Sound Familiar, He's Totally Undateable
The good news: Most of these things are fixable.
EugeneEdge/ Shutterstock Recently, I found myself thinking about a story my former client told me about a man he knew in the club scene. My client, Sugar, was telling me about a sad (but insanely wealthy) man he knew in Manhattan.
The guy in question is someone who we’ll call Ivan*. Ivan had a lot of money — to the point that I think my eyes would bleed looking at his bank account. He was single at 40 years old and had never been able to get with a girl he didn’t pay for.
His favorite thing to do was drive in a convertible Lamborghini (or Bugatti, something like that) through Midtown during the evening. His idea was that a girl would just hop right in his car, no questions asked.
Needless to say, this has never happened.
If you were to listen to a lot of men who believe that women only want wealthy men, you’d think Ivan was loaded with women who would date him. In reality, he was undateable — and yes, it happens even among the super-wealthy.
A lot of the men who call themselves "good men" don’t realize it, but they’re undateable. It has nothing to do with their looks or their bank account. Rather, it’s about their mentality and attitude.
These five signs suggest you may need to fix some things before you can actually get a date.
If these 5 signs sound familiar, he's undateable:
1. He assumes that having money or a career entitles him to women
There’s a very dangerous trap men fall into where they assume that women will only date them or like them if they have a lot of money to offer. This isn’t true with most women.
This is a major trap because of how it affects your view of women and how it affects the way you behave around them. Ivan and many tech bros have this problem. It makes you lose respect for women, often to the point that you no longer see them as people.
Women pick up on that and it makes them feel unsafe around you.
The vast majority of women I know want a man who’s emotionally mature, stable, confident, loyal and willing to provide some form of emotional support to their partner. Money is more of an afterthought in most cases.
Women can earn their own money if need be. What they can’t do is find a feeling of safety from a partner that makes them feel like an option.
In other words, women crave safety from their men — and that means they want a man who sees them as a full person.
Guys who think this way tend to be incredibly insecure about what they can offer a girl. Insecurity is a good sign that a person may end up harming you in the long run.
For women, this means they’ll see you as a potential abuser or someone who tries to "buy love," only to be resentful that it might not be real.
Needless to say, that makes you a massive red flag to women — a marker of an undateable man.
2. He believes that women "choose wrong" or that they "always go after the bad boy"
Who is this mythical bad boy? I actually asked this in one of my comments recently. Is he the guy with a motorcycle? The rapper? The rock star? The heroin addict? All of the above?
I got news for you, guys. Mr. Bad Boy does not exist. The guys you think are Bad Boys are actually attractive because they do fun things, have social skills and learned how to be charismatic.
Oh, and I want to point something out. It is possible to have "bad boy" hobbies like DJing and still be a great partner. I ought to know because I married a DJ in the underground rave scene.
My porn star ex? Yep. An amazing partner who is going to make the right girl very happy one day. What about my homie who was a SoundCloud rapper and underground party promoter? He’s a great dad to his kid, is apparently married, and lives in Vegas.
Let’s do a deep cut. How about my ex who died of a heroin overdose? Honestly, he relapsed and was a good partner to his girlfriends prior to going back to riding the white horse. He hid his addiction until it became too obvious and she dumped him.
When guys insist that women choose the wrong man, they’re blaming a victim of abuse.
No one dates someone who they think will hurt them. Abusers are masters at hiding how abusive they are until they’re locked in.
Look at what message you’re giving to women. You’re literally saying, "DON’T TRUST MEN!" and then wondering why women won’t date you. Here’s a hint: you’re blaming abuse victims for not choosing you. That’s what an abuser would say.
Almost without fail, the most abusive men I’ve ever dated were all the "geeks," "good Christian boys," and high-achieving college guys who were resentful about girls "choosing bad boys" over them. They took that resentment out on me, often with their fists.
But no one wants to talk about Poindexter with the glasses being the abuser and bad boy, right? Of course not. That breaks the nice little mirage that the big ol’ bruiser with tattoos is the bad guy 24/7.
3. He doesn't "adult"
I say this as a pansexual: there is nothing cute about a person of any gender, male or female or other, that goes, "Tee hee! Look at how helpless I am! I can’t adult today!"
Being a full adult is hard, but it’s a necessity. Full stop. If you’re over 18 and want to date a normal person, you need to be able to do certain things:
- Support yourself and pay taxes. You can have roommates, sure. You can be in hard times and need help, sure. But you have to have a job and at least try to pay your own way. I’d rather date a guy working minimum wage than the loser doing nothing at all — and so would most other women.
- Cook your own food. If you can’t handle making rice and beans on your own, you have no business trying to be in a relationship. You need to sort yourself out first. This is not women’s work, this is adult work.
- Pick up after yourself and do your own cleaning. Laundry, taking out the trash, mopping, wiping down counters. All of it is adult work. It’s not women’s work. Women are not your moms. Men, don’t put up with a woman who can’t "adult" enough to pick up after herself, either. It’s not okay.
- Clean yourself and maintain your body. No woman in her right mind is going to stay with a man who can’t wipe his own butt.
- Communicate your needs and wants effectively, and listen to others. You can’t stonewall, mantrum, and stomp your feet into a healthy relationship. This is true whether it’s with friends or spouses. If you cannot constructively argue or state needs clearly, you’re not an adult.
If you don’t do all of that and continue to do it when you meet someone, you’re undateable.
Dating and relationships are partnerships. They don’t mean you just get someone to manage your life and act as a servant to you.
4. He has anger and insecurity issues he can’t control
The men who scare women the most are angry, insecure men who lash out. These are men who women see as a danger to them. They are often controlling boyfriends, if not downright abusive.
When women pick up on rage issues in men, they run. Like, not a normal run. They run faster than an Olympic race team on steroids after they finished drinking an Ossiana-sized batch of energy drinks.
If you realized you hate women, don’t even try to date them.
First, they won’t date you because any woman who’s sane will see that you’re undateable. Second, you have way bigger issues to deal with.
5. He has no social skills, manners, empathy, or introspection
A lot of the worst blind spots we have as people can only be discovered if we listen to others. This is especially true when it comes to dating. Sometimes, you have to listen to others — ideally, a trusted female friend in this case.
Think about the past couple of interactions you’ve had with others. Have any of the following happened?
- Women have repeatedly told you that you’re unnecessarily rude, warned you that you’re "acting weird/desperate," that you are being creepy/coercive, or told you to move on. These are all signs that you’re not picking up on simple social cues — specifically ones that involve a certain level of empathy. If you got to this point, you really messed up. Most people do not have the guts to say you’re out of bounds. If you repeatedly get women saying this, you are probably the problem.
- Male friends have told you that they’re uncomfortable with how you treat women or talk about them. Rare is the moment that another man will try to talk to you about your behavior. If it gets to this point, you really messed up.
- You’ve called other men a "simp." "Simp" is a term that has long since devolved into a slur used by men for treating women with respect or even just doing nice things for a woman. If you really look down on men for being good partners, you’re undateable because you really don’t like women enough to be a good partner to them.
- You didn’t respect when women told you "no," and refused to take no for an answer. This is not a rom-com. Learn to accept no.
- Someone has asked you to leave an establishment due to your behavior. Being kicked out of bars and clubs is not cute. It’s terrifying. The same can be said about being unable to hold a job. This should be the moment when you ask yourself why you got kicked out of that venue or job.
- You’ve verbally abused and lashed out at someone who rejected you. This is a clear sign you’re undateable — doubly so if you tried to justify it by saying she deserved it for saying no to you.
- You’ve blamed others for your behavior. This is not okay. The only person’s behavior we can control is our own. It’s your responsibility to police yourself. Blaming others for your behavior is what abusers do, and this is a warning sign that you’re an abuser.
All of these warning signs point to a lack of introspection, personal accountability, and empathy. This suggests that you’re undateable because your personality is mean, selfish, and aggressive.
You’re not going to be able to find a relationship if the only person you care about is YOU.
Men who have the warning signs above generally don’t want to work to be better. In fact, personal accountability doesn’t factor into what they do at all.
The funny thing is that you can become dateable and even attractive if you reach out for help with this. Therapy and social skills coaches can both help. However, it’s still on you to change at the end of the day.
No amount of advice will help unless you really take it in.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.