Girls, Don’t Be Afraid to Make the First Move

Debunking the “cheap” label

I’ve been warned against behaviors that make me look “cheap” in the past. I’m sure every girl reading this has. There’s this looming question over our minds — what does “cheap” even mean? Why are some actions categorized as “cheap”? And should we care about being labelled “cheap”?

I’m not sure whether this is a cultural phenomenon — I’m from Indonesia — or is it a phenomenon worldwide. The behaviors someone must exhibit to be categorized as “cheap” are of many varieties.

These include but are not limited to: Wearing revealing outfits, falling for guys quickly, and — this is the one that irritates me most — pursuing our love interests.

We all intuitively know why this is a sexist concept. Briefly, it is an injustice suffered mainly by girls and rarely guys. When guys chase girls, he is seen as “cool” amongst his peers. When girls do it, their female friends aren’t likely to be on their side. Else, they want to be called “one of the sluts” themselves.

Simone de Beauvoir noted that men are thought of as human beings. When talking about men, it usually concerns their pursuit of passions. Men are highly revered for pursuing their desires, chasing what they want, and owning things they wish were theirs.

In contrast, women are always seen in relation to men — their role as men’s commodity.

This underlying perception of both genders is why virtues such as beauty, chastity, and submissiveness are highly valued in women. On the other hand, in men, the virtues most valued are courage, determination, passion, and so forth.

But worry not, fellow sisters. I’ll dive deep into why being “cheap” might even benefit those who use the principle wisely. Hopefully, by the end of this piece, we can all take pride in being “cheap” and use it to our advantage.

But before that, I’d start by debunking some of the most common arguments bigots provide.

“But it’s basic economics!”

The bigoted argument goes as follows: Women are the supply, and men are the demand. If the supply is excessive, but the demand is low, the price will drop. On the other hand, if the supply is limited and the demand is high, the price will increase.

They might elaborate further by saying that the artificial restriction of supply, or artificial scarcity, can increase demand — as seen in conspicuous consumption.

Yet, according to those principles, I should also not apply to jobs. The companies should apply to me because I am so rare! How can you expect a person to notice you if you do not make your presence known?

Relationships are more similar to the job market than the goods and services market. You are inputting labor to get a reward instead of purchasing the reward using liquid cash. The only difference is that with real jobs, we input our labor to get financial rewards. With relationships, with input our labor to get emotional rewards.

Furthermore, suppose some guy likes me just because artificial scarcity increases the perceived value. Therefore, he fails to accurately assess my — or any other prospective candidate’s — actual value.

I don’t want to be with someone who is not intelligent enough to see through the smokescreen and read people based on their actual merits.

It’s like purchasing a poor-quality item just because of pretty packaging or clever marketing tactics. It shows that this person is not wise enough to do research beforehand. Nobody should have to deal with such a shallow-minded partner — a point in which I will go into further detail later.

Lastly, I am aware that my analogy compares women to objects. I am using the wording of the bigots who might use these arguments in the first place. To refute a point, we have to get into the opposition’s frame of mind and start from there. Women have been perceived as objects for millennia — this type of wording would not be used against men.

“But it’s biology!”

The argument says that males produce plenty of sperm within a short period, and girls have a limited number of eggs. Therefore, it is “natural” that guys who flirt around are favored, while girls are expected to remain chaste because carefully choosing a partner shows wisdom on the woman’s side.

Whoever supports this argument must be delusional, their minds stuck in the past, unable to escape beyond a hunter-gatherer society in which people try to have as many children as possible. I do not need to explain why the number of children born per mother is decreasing — cost per child rising, better medical care, and so on.

Even the conservative nuclear family these people promote to be the best has two children as the standard. Therefore, their argument that acceptable behavior is based on the production speed of respective gametes is irrelevant.

Furthermore, anything that can happen in nature is “natural”. To say that something that happens in nature is “unnatural” is unnatural in itself — if we go by the meaning of the word in their usage.

Lastly, even if we agree that it is unnatural — whatever that means — to assume that artificial automatically implies something negative falls under the naturalistic fallacy.

If we extend this fallacy, they should also believe that houses made out of concrete, cars, and everything within industrial society are automatically damaging. Perhaps you should throw away your phone you are using to read this on.

We have refuted the two main arguments I see thrown around most often. They are used to perpetuate the silly narrative that girls aren’t allowed to confess first, or else they’re “cheap”.

Let’s move on to why being “cheap” is a good thing!

Being “cheap” is an excellent filter

Guys who chase girls for the sake of collecting “trophies” are all too familiar. We have all experienced being fervently chased by a guy. Yet, after we accept him, he suddenly backtracks and ignores your affections. This strange behavior is caused by the fact that he already feels accomplished — he easily won your heart.

Like how whenever we buy things in the store, we realize that all we wanted was owning the item but not loving it. When we have it in our possession, the item feels “cheapened”, and we don’t value it as much. Such is their psychology.

There are many other instances in which guys stop liking girls — or never liked them in the first place. All just because he thinks she’s “cheap” or “easy”, making her undesirable. In my experience, guys don’t like it if I confess first because that doesn’t give them enough of a challenge.

Here’s the thing, though: We’re not interested in the chase, just the results. I used to consume advice given by the people around me without questioning them.

Technically, their direction isn’t wrong: If we play the game and pretend to be apathetic, we’ll get more admirers.

However, there is fundamentally no point in having these people fancy you. They are not worth your time. Therefore, I now deliberately make my desires evident from the onset.

If I like someone, I won’t give hints and wait for them to make the first move. I will explicitly tell them that I fancy them, and if they reject me, that’s perfectly alright.

A lot of guys reject me because of that — they like chasing instead of being chased. If that’s the reason why they don’t return your affection, don’t worry — you’ve dodged a bullet.

Guys who fall for cheap tricks such as playing hard to get are closed-minded and think short-term. Closed-minded because they still adhere to primitive gender norms — you might as well be dating a living dinosaur. Short-term thinking because they are focused on the process instead of the results.

A wise person knows the honeymoon phase is not wanting to rely on when maintaining a relationship. The hormones won’t last indefinitely. Instead, we should focus on observing someone’s nature and virtues and see whether it is compatible with ours.

Guys who do not like a girl just because she’s the pursuer is also likely not to be very intelligent. My assumption is because they fell for the D.E.N.N. technique.

The D.E.N.N. technique is utilized by Russian and Chinese spies who use seduction to gain information. They seduce their target using these steps chronologically:

1. Demonstrate value. The most effective method of demonstrating value: establishing that many people other than your target desire you. For example, a woman whom many men want has a higher probability of getting the man she likes to value her. It could be because he confuses jealousy for love, or it could be a value signifier. Similar to how in the market, more expensive goods are subconsciously associated with higher quality — although that isn’t always the case.
2. Engage physically. Rub your legs against theirs under the table, lightly brush your fingers over their arm — that kind of thing. It’s self-explanatory.
3. Nurture dependency. Suppose you want someone to be indefinitely in love with you. In that case, you have to cultivate trust and nurture emotional dependency on yourself. Whenever your target has an emotional problem and comes to you, you’re on the right track. Once they’ve arrived at this stage, spies are 100% certain they’ve caught their prey.
4. Neglect emotionally. Spies use this to extract information out of them. An average person can use this so the target will put more effort into the relationship, thereby engaging with you further. A good comparison is when the consumer invests more and more of their time and into a brand, their loyalty increases.

If you want a foolproof way to make an idiot fall in love with you, go ahead, try out this technique. But I’m too lazy to do it, and I’m fine failing a thousand times if it means escaping a relationship with a buffoon.

Some people might tell you your standard is too high. So be it! Your ideal is only too high when you want a specific set of criteria and expect to meet this person.

In other words, you won’t accept it if you don’t end up meeting this person. But if your standard is high with the knowledge that it’s okay if you never meet this person — don’t drop that standard.

Being single and lonely sucks, but what sucks more being in a relationship that stresses you out. Don’t try to seek a relationship if you’re not perfectly fine being alone.

Being “cheap” problematically and being “cheap” virtuously

One of the behaviors labelled as “cheap” is confiding in our emotional problems too quickly. In the sense that the other person does not have to spend time and effort to know us better.

It is acknowledged that we can only reveal our emotional problems when close. Only until then can we show our secrets to them little by little.

This behavior is problematic if we are using the person to vent out our emotional problems only. However, being vulnerable to people who do not know that well can be virtuous when displayed in open confidence.

The context received is, “I am human, and I make mistakes, and I don’t mind being open about these to you.”

Expressing our affection towards someone can become problematic, however. It is so when the person receiving love understands it not as, “I value you as an individual.” Instead, it is perceived as, “I cannot live without you — I cannot stand being alone.”

Making the first move is virtuous when you are expressing your love genuinely and for itself. The other person must know that your expression of love is independent of whether or not they will like you back. Otherwise, it will feel disingenuous, and they will lose respect for you.

Conclusion

Not all “cheap” behaviors are destructive. A lot of them are helpful. To test whether an action typically labelled as “cheap” is positive or negative, imagine a man doing it.

If it’s okay for him to do it, it’s okay for you to do it too!

Suppose you get disadvantaged doing it because you’re a girl — such as not being considered a high-value woman because you pursue your love interests. In that case, know that your “disadvantages” upon closer inspection aren’t so.

They are not bugs. They are features — features to help you filter out the buffoons from the rational individuals.

If you want to spend your precious time with people who look at your true nature instead of those who fall for cheap psychological manipulations, don’t feed into the narrative!