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1. The Loser
Description: The Loser is inherently lacking self-confidence for a variety of reasons. Despite all empirical evidence to the contrary, he believes that he is neither desirable nor worthy of female attention. Rather than appreciating himself for his gifts, his talents, and the good things he offers, he focuses exclusively on his shortcomings, his lacks, and his bad qualities.
Symptoms: Self-hate; negative feedback cycle (for example, feeling that women find him unattractive because he's fat, the Loser will become depressed and eat more nasty crap, thereby becoming fatter and fueling his depression, etc. etc.); inability to be sexually or romantically aggressive; has too many female friends who are just friends.
Behavior: Will engage in long-term crushes on a single female, singling her out as the object of all his desires, but will not say a word in fear that she will reject him out of hand. If she should display any sort of interest in him, she will immediately become undesirable, as The Loser cannot accept that a woman worthy of his desire could possibly find him desirable in turn. In social situations involving women, the Loser will freeze up and avoid/ignore their company, preferring to mask his nervousness at being around women by talking to his buddies all night.
While the Loser behavior is mostly harmless, one possible danger is that the Loser will enter Phase II and turn his self-denigration outwards. Reasoning that decent women cannot find him attractive, and feeling rejected by them, the Loser will date only women he inwardly finds objectionable, disgusting, or in some way unacceptable. Mistreatment is the only possible outcome.
Solution: Extensive psychotherapy on self-acceptance and self-esteem. Decrease the Desire To Action (DTA) Interval. (DTA Interval refers to the time in between formulating a desire and taking an action to further that desire, for example, seeing a hottie and asking her to dance. Cases have been reported where the DTA Interval in this scenario has lasted weeks, rather than minutes, requiring that the Loser frequent a particular establishment).
2. The Player
Description: The Player is often thought of as being the opposite of the Loser archetype. Further examination reveals, however, that the two are closely related - two sides of the same coin, as it were. The Player is also deeply insecure about himself and carries around a significant amount of self-hate. He deals with it, however, by continually reinforcing his masculinity through the conquest of women. All relationships, therefore, and all interactions with women take on the quality of a game with a "winner" and a "loser."
Symptoms: Self-hate; quantitative masculinity myth (believing that the manliness of one is directly related to how many sexual partners he has had); inability to be truly intimate; working out regularly out of vanity rather than health; spending more on clothing and partying than on savings; too many female "friends with privileges."
Behavior: Will engage in short-term flings, often one night stands, in an effort to feel better about himself as a man. Is out on the town at least once a week, if not more, to hunt. Counts Swingers as one of his all-time favorite movies, often quoting from it, with the overall message of the story apparently forgotten.
The Player is generally jovial and fun to be around and mostly harmless. They do know how to court a woman, how to make her feel good, how to make her feel special and appreciated - at least for a while. The Player will usually back off if the chase becomes too difficult since success lies in quantity, rather than quality. There may be some emotional pain involved for the naïve young woman who gets taken, but she is, after all, a consenting adult. She needs to stop feeling victimized and sorry for herself and recognize that she too had fun, while it lasted.
The danger may arise if the Player transforms into a far less benign form: the Playa. The Playa is basically a wannabe Player who does not have the necessary tools: looks, money, education, whatever. He therefore turns to deception, alcohol, and possibly more sinister means to secure sexual conquest.
Solution: Age, time, maturity, and some psychotherapy would be helpful. The Player is usually formed out of revenge for some trauma suffered by the man in question. Perhaps high school anxiety, or a failed relationship in the past, or an unfaithful girlfriend causes a man to question himself and to take out his pain on women. Usually, as the wound heals, the Player wakes up and starts wanting to change his ways. Self-awareness as a Player, and exploration of the root causes of Playerhood, are always helpful in coming out of this phase.
3. The Perfectionist
Description: The Perfectionist is most often found within the large Christian subgroup within the Korean American community, although they are not uncommon elsewhere. They compare every human female they encounter with a list of criteria or a picture of perfection in their head. They may even enter serious relationships - although every relationship is serious at least initially with this archetype - in order to discover more points of comparison. When the real-life woman fails to measure up to the list in his head, The Perfectionist will move on (albeit deeply conflicted and curiously heartbroken) in search of The One.
Symptoms: Guilt-ridden (even over the smallest things, like looking at a beautiful woman with lust in his heart); self-questioning; tends to investigate a woman rather than conversate with her; makes lists of qualities he is seeking; does not date even though women are throwing themselves at him; avoids sexual situations if at all possible.
Behavior: The Perfectionist is a very common profile, and often appears in conjunction with other archetypes - for example, a man can be both a Perfectionist and a Loser at the same time. A Perfectionist Loser would justify not taking action after desire formation by comparing the object of said desire to the list of criteria, rejecting her for failing to meet all of the criteria (for example, that she may not be tall enough, despite being a devoutly Christian investment banker writing her Ph.D. thesis at Harvard who models on the side), and continuing to look for The One. In one case I have personally heard of, the Perfectionist in question had a List of Criteria with 51 elements in them, one of which was that she speak at least four languages. When I suggested that he look into adopting a little girl from Korea and raising her himself, as he was unlikely to encounter anyone who met all 51 criteria, I was met with stony silence.
The commonality of the Perfectionist archetype within the Christian subgroup is due to (1) the difficulty of being a "good" Christian for mortals, (2) the ideals of perfect wife enforced by the more fundamentalist sects (e.g., Presbyterians and Full Gospel) which are common in the Korean American community, (3) the covert anti-intellectualism of most of these conservative sects, and (4) the ban on premarital sex combined with the implicit disapproval of romantic relationships (which do not lead to marriage).
A decent, intelligent, well-educated man of means will naturally fall into the Perfectionist archetype under such stress. He is constantly falling short of the "Glory of God" and guilt-ridden as a result - and a twenty something healthy heterosexual male will find it impossible not to fall short. While he fervently wants the Biblical wife, his native intelligence and educated tastes find it impossible to hold conversations with such meek ewes, and since he can't date a woman without intending to marry her, he refrains from dating anyone at all, preferring, rather, to wait for God to provide her to him.
Apart from religion, the other main cause of Perfectionist tendencies is the family. While a woman might be everything he wanted in a wife, she does not measure up to what Mom and Dad expect of a daughter-in-law. This usually happens to men who have lived up to every expectation of their parents: good school, good graduate school, good job, good looking, good boy, etc. ad nauseam. Combining his own list of criteria with his parents' list of criteria, we arrive at an ideal of perfection that is downright contradictory. For example, on his list might be: "strong, independent-minded, professional woman with her own career and life ambitions." On his parents' list, we have: "docile, obedient wife to our son, and mother to his children who will sacrifice everything for good of the family." Eventually, this form of Perfectionist will rely on his parents to provide her to him.
Solution: Extensive re-education in reality; forced change in church affiliation (if of this variety) or independence from familial expectation (if of this variety). May require counseling not only the individual in question, but his parents as well. An excellent line of reasoning might be: "What makes you think you're good enough for this perfect woman were she actually to exist in real life?" This plays into the inherent guilt extant in most Perfectionists. (Warning: this therapy may result in turning the Perfectionist into the Loser archetype.) Since many Perfectionists have no idea what a real woman is actually like, with all of her good and bad qualities, he needs to date a number of women for a long time before gaining the ability to deal with a woman as a human being with all that entails.
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05-12-2002 03:54 PM
now i feel hella dumb... :huh: 
