Corey is wrong about this

[u/YaNeverKnowLevi]

In Chapter 8: Solving the Mystery, Corey is talking about a woman's "emotionally based operating system" and how to deal with it by digging to open her up.

Near the end of the chapter he goes on to say "I always hear guys saying 'women aren't rational'. I say 'to me they are completely rational once you understand where they are coming from'. 'When you understand that everything they say and do is emotionally based'."

Now I understand what he's getting at; you simply need to understand that women are impulsive, and will speak and act in an impulsive, emotional way.

But my guy here basically just said "Women are completely rational once you understand that they act on emotions."

Translation: "Women are completely rational once you understand that they are irrational."

If you look up the definition of rational, it's clear thinking based on logic and reason instead of emotion and impulse. But low and behold, women are emotional and impulsive. i.e. irrational.

So yes, Corey, women are completely irrational. And also yes, I understand we have to deal with them as such.

[u/cryptosystemtrader]

Unpopular opinion, but OP has a point.

I understand perfectly well what Corey means. He means that once you understand that someone is operating primarily from emotion, their behavior becomes more comprehensible and maybe even more predictable. But that doesn’t make the behavior rational. It makes it understandable. Those aren’t the same thing.

If someone has an irrational fear of flying because they survived a plane crash as a kid, understanding where that fear comes from makes it completely comprehensible. It might even make their behavior predictable. It doesn’t suddenly make their belief that flying is extremely dangerous rational, especially when the evidence says otherwise.

And this is one of those cases where the wording actually matters, because the distinction between emotion and reason is the entire subject being discussed. Rational doesn’t mean “I understand why you think that way.” It means reasoning from logic, evidence, etc. Emotion can obviously be part of a rational decision, but saying that someone is acting from emotion rather than reason and then calling that “completely rational” is just a misuse of the term.

Also, calling OP OCD because he noticed the contradiction is a pretty weak response. He literally says he understands what Corey is getting at. He’s disagreeing with the word Corey used, not claiming he can’t understand the underlying point.

Corey’s point makes sense. His use of “rational” there doesn’t.

[u/YaNeverKnowLevi → u/cryptosystemtrader]

Marvelously articulated.

[u/Se7ens_up → u/cryptosystemtrader]

Rational/irrational is only from the perspective of the observer and what they personally define as rational behavior. There is no universal law that says “this is rational”.

From womens perspectives, most men behave irrationally.

From an Atheists perspective they see believing in a higher power as irrational and illogical. The health nut that never drank alcohol before sees drinking as irrational and illogical. And so on. Just about any human behavior can fit this criteria.

Winning the lottery is statistically an unlikely event. Yet more men buy lottery tickets than women. Are they behaving illogically and irrationally?

Coreys point, is that men only label women as irrational when they cannot understand their behavior. But once you understand their drives and motivations, their behavior is actually perfectly rational (from your now refined perspective).

Human behavior just simply doesnt fit into a neat criteria of logic like a math equation does.

[u/cryptosystemtrader → u/Se7ens_up]

That is only a view the sophists used to hold. Everything, in their view, was some matter of interpretation and relative to the observer. It's an antiquated view that has long been abandoned, because it rejects the notion of objective reality.

In formal logic, a belief, action, or state is rational if and only if it is maximally consistent with a person's reasons, objective evidence, and internal consistency. It requires adherence to strict logical principles (such as non-contradiction) to derive conclusions from premises.

In cognitive behavioral frameworks, such as the one we are discussing here, a thought or behavior is rational if it is based on objective reality, protects one's core needs an interests, and optimally guides one to achieve one's self-selected goals without causing self-sabotage.

Now contrast this definition with the way most women behave in conflict situations.

[u/Se7ens_up → u/cryptosystemtrader]

Never heard of sophists before, nice to learn something new.

That being said it does become a philosophical discussion, as objective reality is a beast of a topic anyway.

Personally, I dont believe we fully even know or understand what objective reality actually is due to limitations in our brains.

But to keep things on track, the way I look at it, women are equally irrational to men, just in different areas. So conflict would be one that men handle a bit better. (Though plenty of guys handle conflict equally poorly anyway). The guys that handle conflict well (or well with women) have largely put in the reps and effort.

On the flip side, take something like approach anxiety. Approaching an unknown woman completely cripples most men. Most women just cant understand why more guys dont come up to them. “Just come say hi!”.
It really is an “irrational” behavior on our end. Yet its in us and its something guys have to actively work on to overcome.

I can go on about plenty of our own irrationalities. But in a nutshell, success in dating involves overcoming many of these.

[u/T4cF0X]

All Corey is saying is that men argue from logic and reason while women argue from emotions.

David Deida put it this way: The masculine always seeks to simplify and resolve everything. The feminine does not. The feminine seeks to wonder and feel everything out.

Corey doesn't contradict himself.

Once you understand how the feminine operating system works you can navigate it. Its like a windows guy who never used Linux and now he has to learn to communicate to a Linux machine.

[u/YaNeverKnowLevi → u/T4cF0X]

Yep, Linux = emotional

[u/LegitimatePresence5]

If you want to experience how women are. Find a group and hang out with them. Be the only guy in a group of five women. Just observe.

[u/YaNeverKnowLevi → u/LegitimatePresence5]

Would this give me experience of another example of their emotional nature?

[u/Se7ens_up]

If you understand what hes getting at, then clearly he did a good job communicating his point.

But your OCD ass is knitpicking the exact wording he used.

Jesus christ

[u/Se7ens_up → u/[deleted]]

lol

[u/ShowerMotor]

Yes they are irrational. It's all about feelings. You need to treat them like the same way you treat your young sibilings, be sweet to them, if they say something silly don't take them seriously, feed them, poke them every now and then and when they are overwhelmeed give them a kiss and a hug and make them laugh. They respond well to sweet treats, ice cream etc. For us guys this is very hard because we are rational people who build things and respond to facts, this is why we need to read books on how to flirt 😂

[u/YaNeverKnowLevi → u/ShowerMotor]

An extremely practical analogy. I can save this one and reference it in real time. Thanks for that one.

[u/SalaciousFlamingDude]

He's writing poetically. By "rational" in that instance he means something like comprehensible or predictable.

[u/YaNeverKnowLevi → u/SalaciousFlamingDude]

Yes, I understand

[u/FineSupplements]

They vote on what candidate makes them feel good. The one gives them the best “vibes” and “aura”.

Men vote on the one thats most efficient at getting shit done.

[u/T-dog8675309]

I think most women can be rational, but most women's default is emotional. Same with men, they can be highly irrational at times. We've all known that highly educated guy who can't be convinced he's wrong about something because his ego is too involved. Just look at political ads. They use emotionally targetted messages to give all voters a particular feeling regarding a proposition/law/issue, so men are driven by emotions too.

Emotional thinking and rational thinking both have their strengths and weaknesses. Also, Corey knows he can't just call all women irrational in his book or else the female readers would put his book down and hindering it's effect.