-

[millea]

Let people believe any fool thing they want, if it doesn't bruise me, why should I trouble myself?

I think the problem is that it does bruise, even if it's not you who's affected by such false beliefs. It can cause hurt to other people, that's why it's not okay.

[Thrasher Thetic]

So let them fight their own battles. For myself I'll chuckle and move on, it's not worth my time.

[Resign102]

-

[Thrasher Thetic]

I just think its funny seeing people get offended on the behalf of others in a thread that has, at least up to this point, been about how white-knighting is largely foolish and destructive.

[clarkt]

I just think its funny seeing people get offended on the behalf of others in a thread that has, at least up to this point, been about how white-knighting is largely foolish and destructive.

um,excuse me,but... why on the behalf of others? what makes you think that?

[Thrasher Thetic]

I think the problem is that it does bruise, even if it's not you who's affected by such false beliefs. It can cause hurt to other people, that's why it's not okay.

If something doesn't effect you, but you become offended because it might offend others, you're being offended on the behalf of others. That, in the context of a white knight thread, is hilarious.

[Mysterious Stranger]

I think the problem is that it does bruise, even if it's not you who's affected by such false beliefs. It can cause hurt to other people, that's why it's not okay.

If something doesn't effect you, but you become offended because it might offend others, you're being offended on the behalf of others. That, in the context of a white knight thread, is hilarious.

Oh wow, you're absolutely right. That's brilliant. Hah!

[geekahedron]

It's okay for people to be selfish, small-minded jerks as long as they don't hurt you personally. If you believe otherwise, you're a white knight and an even bigger jerk because nobody asked you to stick up for them. Jerk.

[Thrasher Thetic]

here, I'll make it all better.

[Mysterious Stranger]

It's okay for people to be selfish, small-minded jerks as long as they don't hurt you personally. If you believe otherwise, you're a white knight and an even bigger jerk because nobody asked you to stick up for them. Jerk.

Well, jerk, it's not that it's okay to be a selfish and small-minded jerk, it's just that human beings can and will act that way, and some of us are more acutely aware of that than others, regardless of whether they affect us directly or not. Therefore we tend not to make such a big jerking deal about it, since it's more constant for us. You big jerk.

[encrypted12345]

The major problem is that while heavy emotional manipulation may work in the short-run, it will simply not work in the long run. At the same time though, a little manipulation is natural in long term relationships since both people in the relationship know each other intimately enough to manipulate each other subtly. It's all very confusing to be honest.

[Al]

In the real world if you're too nice to women, they'll usually think of you as a doormat and will probably cheat on you or hook up with the school asshole.

These things don't matter if you're filthy rich however.

[Guest Poster]

In the real world if you're too nice to women, they'll usually think of you as a doormat and will probably cheat on you or hook up with the school asshole.

That generally tends to happen more often to guys who are "nice guys" rather than nice guys.

If something doesn't effect you, but you become offended because it might offend others, you're being offended on the behalf of others. That, in the context of a white knight thread, is hilarious.

It's not quite as hypocritical as you suggest. Actively trying to drag someone out of an emotional manipulative relationship is called white knighting. Being offended or disturbed by emotional manipulation of someone else or being offended/disturbed by propagation of emotional manipulation in general is called common decency. There's a difference.

[Nekken]

It's okay for people to be selfish, small-minded jerks as long as they don't hurt you personally.

If the selfish, small-minded jerks didn't ruin things for everyone else, you'd be correct. But that isn't the case.

Large areas of womens' dating lore are dedicated to avoiding creeps and jerks, for definitions of "creeps and jerks" that vary according to culture and personal experience, and the major methods for doing this throw a lot of false-positives. Given what's at stake, it's not really fair to blame women for developing and using this: a low false-negative rate (threats identified as non-threats) is a much higher priority than a low false-positive rate (non-threats identified as threats). But it makes finding and navigating relationships much more difficult for decent men, particularly since the basics of this are not generally taught to men. Worse still, some of these men, having never been able to figure it out, eventually fall to despair and start listening to the jerks, becoming jerks themselves, and so the cycle continues. But what can you do? Again, consider what's at stake, and blame the jerks for making this necessary.

As for myself, I've been quite happily out of the dating pool for many years, having had considerable luck in my own search. But I haven't forgotten what came before: neither the fits of youthful angst where I wondered if there was something wrong with me that was pushing women away, nor the somewhat traumatic realization that yes, actually, there was. I cannot avoid continuing to be exposed to the problem, because my wife is a teacher in a subject that, shall we say, attracts the nerdy -quite possibly the single group most prone to false-positives- and we are both active in the school community. So forgive me if I get perhaps unduly pissed off at people like this. You may not see what you do to other people, but I do.

If you believe otherwise, you're a white knight and an even bigger jerk because nobody asked you to stick up for them. Jerk.

I suppose I am a kind of white knight for this, but not the sort that this thread has thus far really been talking about. It would be inaccurate to say that I don't hate what the jerks do to women, but there are already plenty of people fighting the jerks on those terms. My chosen angle of attack has more to do with what the jerks do to other men: an indirect form of damage, to be sure, but the kind of damage that keeps the cycle going.

[millea]

If something doesn't effect you, but you become offended because it might offend others, you're being offended on the behalf of others. That, in the context of a white knight thread, is hilarious.

A previous poster explained it much better than I'll probably do, but since you called me out like this, I feel obliged to respond to you personally.

If you want to treat blatant misogynism and the encouragement of emotional manipulation as a joke, please do so. Go on and be part of the problem. But laughing at people who find such things disgusting and objectionable, and calling them 'white knights'... hah! The joke's on you, good sir. As it was said before - it's not called 'white knighting'. It's called 'human decency'.

In the real world if you're too nice to women, they'll usually think of you as a doormat and will probably cheat on you or hook up with the school asshole. These things don't matter if you're filthy rich however.

Bitter much? 'Ooooh women never go for the nice guys, they always go for the assholes oooh'. That's what you sound like. The textbook example of a 'nice guy'.