Introducing the Sun Heuristic 🌞🧠❤️
A new way to analyze men's words . . . 🔥
Me capturing a sunset at the dawn of the pandemic, March 2020, the Bay of Green Bay.
I have a thought experiment to share with you today . . . You can customize this and use it in your own life for whatever. Here is the group member’s question that sparked it (taken from a Facebook post this morning):
Why do profiles stating they want to meet a "nice" or "kind" lady/girl really irritate me? Or "fun" or "someone who knows how to enjoy themselves". Am I alone in this?
Here is my response:
All of these words are coded for “looking for a tradwife” pattern, not because they all actually want that or are even aware of what it currently means, but because they do not conceive of women as equals; they conceive of women as sidekicks to them. This is why it annoys you, because you know this in your bones. It’s minimizing and trivializing and reductive.
It’s important to understand that the men spouting this stuff actually don’t mean anything by it --- they just think this is normal.
One of the critiques I frequently receive sounds like this: “You’re overthinking and overanalyzing; men don’t give that much thought to their words.”
Yes. I know that. It doesn’t matter. It actually makes their words MORE revealing.
The beauty of CDA (critical discourse analysis, the branch of applied rhetoric this whole method is premised upon) is that it teaches you to understand what men are revealing when they DON’T intend to, which is the actual information you need. Anyone can present well online or at the beginning of a relationship for a while. What we do with this method is cut through all that right from the first interactions, and if they’re using these words in the first interactions, it’s already over.
Here’s a related example: Many men will go on and on about how much they respect their mothers, how they’re grateful for these mothers who “put everyone before themselves,” who “gave and gave and gave and never asked for anything,” who “put family first.”
This all sounds fine and good superficially until you realize that every “good” thing they believe about women is directly related to sacrifice and lack. It actually has nothing to do with their mothers. They don’t even recognize their mothers (or any women) as three-dimensional human beings.
These words: nice, kind, fun, etc. (called “glittering generalities” in political rhetoric) are descriptors for MEN’S experiences of these hypothetical woman; they’re not characterizations of her actual personality or human complexity or lived experience.
Let’s look at two different ways to describe the sun:
1. The sun makes me feel warm and happy and in a good mood.
2. The sun is an enormous ball of fire that powers the entire world with its light, heat, and energy. We’d all die immediately without it.
See how the first description isn’t even about the sun? It’s about the person benefitting from the sun. That’s how these guys describe women.
You can do this ^^^ with all kinds of things. If a man’s communication isn’t sitting right with you, but you can’t figure out why, ask yourself what his words REVEAL, not what they STATE.
In order to do this, you can employ the sun heuristic by asking yourself this question: How would these words apply to the sun?
Let’s use another dating-app-dude quote that a member shared on Facebook. This is his opening message to her:
“Just wanted to say that you have an incredible smile and I would love to get to know the woman behind it! Looking to start as friends and see where things go. Let me know what you think. Whether we are a match or not, stay beautiful!!!!”
Okayyyyyyyyyyy (🙄🙄🙄)
Let’s try to re-write this within the context of the sun and see how it goes . . .
Statement 1:
“Hi Sun! I like looking at you and want you to pay attention to me. Give me feedback. Continue to look the way you look.”
That’s absurd, right? The sun doesn’t care about this man or even have an awareness of his existence. The sun definitely is not taking orders from this man of whose existence she is unaware.
Statement 2:
“Hi Sun! I’m so interested in how you manage to anchor and power the entire solar system while also maintaining a full-time job in [your profession] and devoting time to [your hobby/family/church, etc]. Do you have the time or interest in meeting me? If so, I would love to learn more about you.”
If I were the sun, I’d date Statement #2 Guy but not Statement #1 Guy.
Statement #1 Guy is “Me, me, me, I’m the boss” (Disciplinary/Directive Rhetorical Pattern, ugh).
Statement #2 Guy is interested and interactive and wants to engage in a two-way pattern of communication.
My book goes into a lot more detail about dating heuristics and how to design your own. Please share your tips below! 🔥
This reminds me of the "test" I learned about many years ago, one that made the rounds through online relationship discourse, etc., and was repeatedly demonstrated through many recorded real-life examples. The test is meant to gauge whether or not a man sees their wife or girlfriend as a whole, multifaceted individual rather than a caretaker/plaything/extension of themselves. All one needs to do is ask the man what it is about his partner he loves and admires.
Unsurprisingly, the answers overwhelmingly land in the "stuff she does for ME" category. The way she makes him feel, the services she provides, the emotional labour she takes on, how pretty she is, etc. Rarely does he mention anything about her personality, skills, talents, depth, etc.
And this will tell you everything you need to know about the relationship.
Thanks Jennie, absolutely brilliant analysis! I think when women say things like “but men aren’t putting that much thought into this” they are operating from the perspective that we are chiding men for the way they speak, when what we’re actually doing is evaluating them, something we haven’t really been taught to do (until now!).