memes

How about:

Many men, and women, and every other kind of human, often mistake confidence and decisiveness ... for competence, reliability, trustworthiness, responsibility.

...

This is by no means totally specific to a sex or gender, it applies broadly, in all kinds of social situations, business relationships, etc, between all kinds of genders and sexes.

This innappropriate or overweighted heuristic tendency also tends to lessen with age, as people gain first hand experience and knowledge that this heruistic, this intuition, this assumption... is actually often not accurate.

...

Anybody with decent charisma, which a huge component of is an above average, but not overwhelming level of outwardly displayed confidence, stands a better chance at convincing most people of basically anything, intentionally or unintentionally.

Lots of overly confident people bulldoze into a situation, legitimately believing they were well equipped to handle it in an ethical way, only later to realize... oh, I am in way over my head, I fucked up.

Lots of overly confident people also just know they are full of shit, and intentionally bulldoze through, and then either gaslight about how they did nothing wrong, or just fucking vanish.

This again works beyond just interpersonal romantic relationships:

For every bonafide grifter con artist (crypto for dudes, cosmetics MLMs for gals), there is a well intentioned new boss or manager who basically accidentally fucks up the entire department out of inexperience and hubris...

And both of those are often aided by their natural, above average levels of confidence and charisma.

A better way to say it might be like “some assholes prey on women’s insecurities”. Keep the focus on the person who is the problem, not the victims.

idk I think that's needlessly condescending to women, not all of them dating assholes are victims, some just like assholes because they like asshole behavior because they're also an asshole.

This also takes away agency from people. In fact, I am sure that there would be a way to diagnose every single relationship ever as a form of abuse in which someone takes advantage of someone else's something.

Adults are responsible for their choices, and particularly in the case of "assholes", that is often associated with being assertive, dismissive and some people just like that kind of "I am the main character" features. Maybe there are even some deep rooted evolutionary reasons for that, I don't know. Anyway, painting anything as victim-oppressor dichotomy IMHO is nonsense.

When you say things like "some assholes prey on women's insecurities" it's incredibly condescending, especially when you consider that women can also be assholes.

Like begets like. I've known too many couples where both of the people in the relationship are trash.

I keep the focus where I want, that doesn't change the asshole-victim situation, and I won't save anyone if I change the wording.

It's not just preying on their insecurities. Everyone has insecurities, but not everyone will let you into their pants just for calling them a worthless piece of shit or something. The women in question must have some deeper issues. Because I also have a friend who demonstrated to me how you can just go on Tinder and write horrible shit to women and get surprisingly good results.

That's just a loop like how people ask which came first.. hen or egg