Dating : Moe Szyslak, the bartender from The Simpsons, used to be a boxer.

Moe Szyslak, the bartender from The Simpsons, used to be a boxer. Why did he never get a shot at the championship? As he explains, “I got knocked out forty times in a row. That, plus politics. You know, it’s all politics.”

Why does a woman settle for jerks? According to the author, politics! Society or the Patriarchy or Capitalism or something like that.

Karl Popper wrote, “A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.” There is no way to test a theory like this, and more importantly, even if its truth could be demonstrated, no way to do anything about the underlying issue. Bruiting the theory about is just a way of declaring the problem to be officially unsolvable and those suffering from the problem to be helpless victims.

But is the problem unsolvable? One piece of clear evidence to the contrary is that it isn’t universal. I have an acquaintance who used manipulation like “negging” to get women into bed. He said it worked on about 20% of all women.

The 80% it did not work on, they presumably grew up in society. Advertisement showed them women more beautiful than themselves; they were told they weren’t skinny enough, their breasts weren’t perky enough, their hair not glossy enough. Why didn’t they fall for negging?

There is an answer that sounds almost circular but is actually quite helpful: they chose not to.

Imagine you were standing with your back to an advertisement for lipstick or mascara and I asked you, “Without looking, do you guess you look more attractive than the woman in the advertisement.”

You would reason, “The lipstick or mascara company has literally billions of dollars at stake. They are able to search the world for the most attractive woman to use in their advertisement and then pay her to do so. Before the photograph was taken, they used the most skilled make-up artists and hair-stylists they could find to make her look perfect, and after it was taken, the image was retouched for days or weeks to remove any remaining flaws. Therefore, I can say that barring an unimaginable breakdown in the process, I cannot expect to be remotely as attractive as the photo.”

And, according to my gruesome pick-up-artist acquaintance, most women, when insulted (however slealthily) by him, do make a similar rational chain: “People who inside me are unkind and don’t like me. I prefer to spend time with people who are kind and do like me.”

Why do some women reason this way while others, apparently equally intelligent and equally reasonable, do not?

Again, they choose to. They made the personal choice that despite whatever influences in society, in their background, in their childhood, they were going to act in their own best interest.

“Society” is what it is. Lipstick manufacturers are not going to pay money to run advertisements with unattractive women in them to make you feel better about yourself. Podcasters are not going to suddenly agreeing with women they disagree with just to spare their feelings. Jerks are not going to stop being jerks. They made their choices too.

The only open question is whether you personally are going to be victimized by the choices of others. Treat insults as what they are, attempts to injure you, and not as demonstrations of other person’s actual superiority. Treat advertisements as what they are, attempts to convince you to buy a product, and not as evaluations of your personal worth. Treat disrespectful partners as what they are, inadequate people harming those around them, rather than forces of nature. Make those good choices.

Be the change you want to see in the world.