The process of using the linguistics of a culture or social group to analyze the inner mechanics of the social fabric is not a new methodology. Here, I attempt to apply it to the modern woman’s mating strategies. Maybe what I’m writing about is not news to anyone, but I think it’s interesting and still worth discussing.
Two of the colloquialisms I’ve heard exclusively used by women (meaning men don’t use them) in relationship (c wut i did thur?) to the males they are interacting with is describing them as “good (or bad) catches” and thinking about select males as “the one that got away”. Now these phrases I’m sure aren’t used by every woman, but they are used by at least a significant portion of the population, as evidenced by the recent success of the Katy Perry song. Similarly the conclusions I draw from these phrases I’m sure don’t apply to every woman, so please don’t think I’m over generalizing. This is food for thought, not some proclamation of transcendent truth.
Both of those phrases, to me, brought into mind the functioning of fishermen (fisherwomen?). Good or bad “catches”, and that “one that got away” all are obliquely referencing how a fisherman might feel about the fish that he catches. I think this is incredibly revealing (unless you knew all of this already. Remember that I am male, and as such will be forever doomed to an eternity of attempting to understand the female, but never quite getting there).
Women fish for men. They dangle their good looks, flirtatiousness, and attention into the water as a lure hoping to snag a target male. This is interesting for several reasons. First, it explains a bit of the general confusion in mate selection. Remember that lures are designed to catch fish in general, not one specific fish. Same goes for men and women. Women dangling lures in the water will often encounter unwanted advances from men they are not targeting. Furthermore men, targets or not, often have difficulty determining whether a lure is therefore actually meant for them or not. Some men respond by not biting on lures meant for them out of uncertainty, others bite on all of them, either out desperation, or out of an overriding confidence and inflated picture of themselves.
Is there a way out of this confusion? Probably not. One solution may be if women changed their strategy to be more like that of the typical male’s. If I were to continue with the fishing metaphor, (other then being the fish the fisherwomen catch) I’d describe males as more like the hill-billy hand fishers. Also note that I haven’t actually seen the show, I’m just going off of the caricature in my head based off of the title. I’m not saying this strategy is superior to the female strategy, but it is typically more efficient in determining intentions, though I’m sure many a frustrated female would disagree. If females behaved in the male way, people would be constantly reaching out and either hitting or missing each other without much in between-ness. Such bluntness, I think, would create a lot more heartache but a lot more successes as well. Overall not necessarily “better”, but perhaps a world with less confusion and mistaken intentions.
At any rate, it doesn’t really matter what possible solutions there are. We’re all evolutionarily programmed to pursue certain mating strategies to the exclusion of others. Two more notes to conclude:
-I appreciate that these assertions are gross generalizations. As i said before these are not definitive statements but rather food for thought.
-In the future I think it’d be fun to pick up on more phrases from both genders to delve into this further. Unfortunately for any female readers, In my experience male colloquialisms are generally variations along the theme of “dude, she’s so hot”. I’m not sure any exciting insights reside within that kind of dialogue.
