Previously in sequence: Navigation by Moonlight

Cross-posted from SecondPerson.dating.

I’m very proud of Navigation by Moonlight, and not just because it got a warm reception and resonated with many readers. I’m proud because I didn’t understand it well enough to write about even six months ago. Which, coincidentally, is when I submitted Second Person as a book proposal. Thankfully, my book agent gave up on me and a friend convinced me to start a Substack instead. I’m grateful to both!

Writing a Substack on some topic is the best way to actually learn and understand that topic. People hear what I do and rush to share their ideas about dating, their personal stories, their book recommendations. And, naturally, their critical feedback on my posts.

I won’t rehash my disagreements with feedback in mainline posts, but it’s worth following up on two points that came up repeatedly:

That by encouraging yin I’m giving bad advice.
That I’m ignoring all the women who date with yang and the men who yin.

#1 is completely wrong — I’m giving no advice at all. What I’m trying to encourage is understanding: of the approaches available to you, and of the approaches taken by the people you’re trying to date. And in this pursuit of understanding, I want to explore #2: what works and doesn’t work when women adopt a more proactive approach and men seek to yin?

After all, that’s what I’m doing myself.

Reverse Advice

The chapter on why I refrain from giving unambiguous instruction can be summarized in three words: dating is anti-inductive. There is no alpha in generic “dateability” advice, and nothing I could instruct without knowing you that would reliably help you. Even if the advice I gave was right for you, there’s some reason you’re not already doing it that won’t disappear because you read it in one more blog.

In fact, it’s even worse for general advice givers: the advice that filters to a reader without being personally tailored to them is more likely to be the opposite of what they need to hear:

When a young person is looking for job advice, I worry that all the artsy creative people whose heads are already way too high in the skies will be reading books by artsy creative people who urge them to follow their dreams, and so be even less mindful of the importance of a secure future. And all the hard-headed down-to-earth people will naturally gravitate toward reading Have A Very Secure Fu

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Coupling for Decouplers