Desperation: Need better scientific understanding

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It is common knowledge that desperation is unattractive. And it can turn people away and do the complete opposite of what a desperate person want; to find someone.

The thing that I cannot understand is why do many desperate people appear desperate if there is no evolutionary benefit in behaving this way in the first place. I don’t understand why every desperate person has not evolved a way of hiding their desperation to the extent that I have.

How do you "hide" your desperation? Does your desperation lead you to other, more enjoyable, safe, and healthy pastimes than dwelling on lack of romantic success? If so, then you are doing well. Not everyone has accomplished this.

i think you over-simplify a lot of evolutionary psychological things. i can imagine lots of ways desparation could evolve. you have to understand that our environment is completely different than when these types of things evolved... and it's not like theres' been enough time to "deevolve"... not that it even has to. and again, not everything is adaptation... especially for love. you have to keep that in mind as well.

but one example that comes off the top of my head is: rape. desparation can lead men to rape a female, if he's unable to get one legitamitely. what better way to get your genes out with the least investment? plus as i mentioned above, desparation is not just a sexual/romantically linked thing... so asking why it applies to relationships is somewhat limiting.

why don't you go get that book i PMed you about. it's talking about all these questions you have.

try reading philosophy of biology books in general... they're gonna have more educated view on all these topics. plus they're fun and (most) aren't too bad to read and actually have great narrative.

Desperation comes from being sexually starved, so no wonder that rape becomes an issue (not for everybody) when a man is desperate. So to keep the desperation under control, a man must find a way to get sex. One way is to lower your standards to rock bottom. Another way is paying for it. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with either solution.

I am not talking about sexually desperation as such as my anti depressant kill my sex drive, but it doesn’t kill my loneliness.

I am not discussion why loneliness and desperation exists, as I clearly understand it. I am talking about why in some people desperation is so apparent. Why hasn’t Mother Nature give that person the incentive to hide their desperation away from other people and how comes it doesn’t came natural for others while it comes a little more natural for me.

My conclusion is that there are some benefits in showing a little bit of desperation. It is nothing to do with lack of ability to appear happy because I believe that ability exists in everybody but Mother Nature simply decides not to turn it on in everyone.

You must not make the error of confusing lack of ability with lack of natural will. As for example you can understand that Aspies lack of ability to form relationships is a tradeoffs with other abilities. But appearing desperate from my understanding has no apparent tradeoff.

Desperation = I have no one

I have no one = I'm not good enough for anyone

I'm not good enough for anyone = why the hell should anyone bother?



Self-defeating.

However...

Confidence = I know I could get someone

I know I could get someone = I have something to offer that's desirable

I have something to offer that's desirable = ZOMG I MUST HAVE SOME OF THAT GOOD STUFF!



But...

Arrogance = I'm better than you

I'm better than you = I will pwn you

I will pwn you = why the hell would I wanna be a nothing to someone?



Mother nature didn't specifically design desperation in the way you're looking at it. It's more a survival of the fittest remnant if you think about it.

Find that happy medium between desperation and arrogance... know that you have something to offer for someone, rest easy in that knowledge. That calm, humble confidence is attractive because to prospective partners that's simply walking around with a bag or suchlike with a hidden something special in it. They can see there's probably something interesting in the bag that they may want, but you're not flaunting it around with a 'can't touch this' attitude. Desperation...that's running around screaming 'I HAVE NO BAG LOLZ, LET ALONE SOMETHING SPECIAL, BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HAVE ME ANYHOOZ LOL!!11one'

mother nature doesnt consciously "give" desparate ppl the ability to hid their desparation and appear "more attractive"... it doesn't even choose not to...

all nature does is provide a huge variety of combinations of these traits cause these things happen by chance... pure and simple. mother nature cares not for people's feelings.

so, to look at it how you are thinking. evolution has randomly generated people, some of who are "desparate" and some who aren't... and of these "Desaparate" people, there are those whom are better at/worse at hiding (or dealing) with their desparation...

natural selection will then see which combination of traits gets passed onto the next generation. it's possible to explain it any of several ways... you could even argue that there is selection for maintaining these "Rapist" qualities found in some of the desparate people who (because they have raped) could be considered bad at hiding it. though, it's more easily explained why some of the desparate people who are better at hiding it, contribute more to the gene pool.


as for your meds... it's easy to dull a predominantly physical state (being horny and whatnot)... but you can't get rid of self-awareness (loneliness) with a pill that easily.

guess i'm still unclear what you're trying to get at... as your second post is kinda diff than the original.

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeahokay.

that made no sense.

and I'm the res psych around here.

i see you saying that on a few threads around...... .........

w/e

what makes no sense? how natural selection doesn't have a motive and happens randomly by producing a variety of heritable traits?

that's evo 101

edit: sorry... but i don't like random-nondescript-quazi-rude comments like that... especially when they don't even make an attempt to explain what doesn't make sense.

I understand that Mother Nature does not care about our happiness. It uses all kind of emotions to control us. And while it is true that mother nature create many different verity, if the particular verity is very weak, that person will die out with the dinosaurs. For example how often do you see people who hate money so much that they will not touch it.

Appearing desperate is not down to the weakness of the lack of ability to change. While having the lack of social skills is. This might not be true by a personal viewpoint as some people find it hard to hide their desperation. But from mother natures viewpoint the conclusion is that their must be an advantage in appearing desperate or alse with would not appear desperate not matter how desperate we are.

not sure i can help clear this up... can you use a specific example of desparation again so i can see what you mean?

couple things to keep in mind... the patterns of evolution can't really be explained by examining any single generation (individuals)

and that all traits (such as desparation) have a genetic and environmental compontent to them... so you could have the crappy "desparation" gene... but be in a more conducsive environment so that you overcome your "desparation" genes... yet when you reproduce... you still pass on those crappy "desparation" genes and the offspring is back to square one (being at the mercy of its environment)

^^does that make sense? it's kinda like why having contacts will correct YOUR vision... but odds are that your kids will need contacts too.

Desperation is attaching to much of you self to an outcome, i.e. trying to hard, having unrealistic firm expectations of what the outcome should be.

Real "Desperation" is trying to hard to get into a womans pants after she's made it clear that she's not interested, and then you act in a whiny way .. you act like she is a potential wife and you throw a fit like she was the only woman in the world.... thats desperate

darwinism is for simple-minded people.

Desperation is there from the word go, most of the time...not necessarily only further along the track after all is said and done and the guy in question is still pining for the girl. Trust me...it's evident from even before he opens his mouth to speak

Interesting; If a desperate person behaves like this, we must come to the conclusion that it must work sometimes. And it is the best option that a desperate person has at that given time.

We do have to acknowledge that there are environmental changes that as happened since hunter-gatherer times. And how they might have a bearing on the why the weakness of appearing desperate is so common.

Living in big cities with lots of people is either going to favour or hinder desperate people compared to the small tribes of the hunter-gatherer. But as yet, I don’t know what the effects would be.

If Christianity is really the truth of the universe, that statement still remains as a simply way to manipulate others and isn’t true. It is the only case that the only people who would attack Darwinism in a non-scientific way is to make room for something else in its place that has opposite views of Darwinism.

People who are into Darwinism are into so many other interesting sciences too just like I do. I am not simple minded, unless you think I am really an arrogant NT, who believe into sciences that I can never understand and sees his own view superior then professional who have 7 year degrees in psychology.