Awesome thread. I was just ranting and raving to my wing about how silly this is.
Indeed, it is a silly, silly set of games and dances. I have given it much thought. It is this way for two reasons. And mind you, these are my own theories.
Women themselves are the main reason for over-complicated dating/relationships. The "women's lib" movement has "empowered" females. Yeah, great. Now women believe that they can do everything just as well or better than men. Ok fine. But here's where it's getting screwy. Women believe in equality in everything from the workplace, to the car dealership, the Armed Forces, and even wearing the pants in a relationship. Women believe that they don't have a specific role in relationships - even though it is in a woman's wiring to be a mother figure. Men hunt and protect, women gather and nurture. In modern society, women have extended "to gather" to include having careers of their own. That seems fair enough.
Well, as you may have read in previous posts and in various places on the net, women are emotional whereas men tend to be logical. Women set up all these games and hoops to jump through in order to make an "emotional" choice of which male will be their mate. Of course, men don't understand women's choices or their criteria for which they base their "decisions". Why?
Women don't make their decisions by thinking or by their thoughts alone. Instead their decisions are based on a formula of factors.
I get in trouble for this theory all the time, but it needs to be repeated in this thread.
"Women's logic", if there is such a thing, is based on a collective. Sort of like the "Borg" in Star Trek. They have a central intelligence, or, hive mind. This "central intelligence" is the collection of thoughts/opinions/feelings of their peers, pop culture, marketing campaigns, and Cosmopolitan. So, after consulting the "hive mind" with a problem, a woman averages the "popular solutions" and compares that "average solution" to her feelings-based solution. It's like a decision making democracy. Her own solutions only count as one vote and all the other inputs count as one vote per input. If the "average solution" does not match her solution, then she is out-voted, and uses the "average solution". Now, factor in the time of the month which she makes a decision. One can easily see how women are confusing and incapable of individual decision making (this is in regards to dating and relationships - but you can see it in other facets of their lives as well).
The second reason why the dating game is so convoluted is because Corporate America has made it so. Big business (and women in marketing) has brainwashed women to pay attention to materialistic things. You know, a guy couldn't possibly put food on the table, a roof over your head, and shoes on your kids' feet unless he wears a platinum, diamond encrusted tie clip. Marketing has everyone convinced that we need to buy books, expensive clothes, cologne, a special razor, super-duper deodorant, a pimped out car, listerine pocket packs, jewelry, a health club membership, and teeth whitening goo just to even get a phone number. Before you call, you have to buy some how-to guides, decoder rings, a cape, and a super-cool cell phone. Once you finally manage a date, you better take her to a expensive restaurant... after all, that's where dates go on "Friends". All told, a successful date should cost you roughly $50,000. That's not counting any of the bachelor pad expenses. If you miss any part of the inventory, forget it, she'll have noticed. Ooops! Did you forget Valentine's Day greeting cards, chocolates, and roses? Did you get the huge diamond for your anniversay? When she recounts every single detail to every friend she has, skims her issues of Cosmo, flips over her 8-ball, and googles "relationship+Honda Civic+toilet seat up", she will come to a decision.
Think I'm way off about "collective logic"? Consider how and why isolation works during a pick-up. Since their b1tch sheilds aren't there to do the thinking for them, the only logic they have is their feelings - physical and mental. And here's something for you to seriously think about as well: How is one man having 2 or more wives possible?
The saddest part of all these games is the outcome. It's an endless cycle of dump the nice guy, get a jerk, everyone tells her he's a jerk, dump the jerk to get a nice guy, dump the nice guy, lather, rinse, repeat. I feel sorry for women just for this reason. And women, although they are doing it to themselves, try to convince men that they are to blame.
So silly. And, that's why we're here. Women are looking for Don Juans regardless of if they know it or not. Since "women's logic" is based on an average, we share thoughts/tips/tricks in order find average techniques to circumnavigate the average nightmare games and to avoid average terminated relationships.
P.S. I should say, I have noticed that women's logic seems to become more individualized with age. Young women don't think for themselves at all. It's not until around 30 that women really start to develop a sense of "self". And, of course, there are plenty of exceptions to my broad generalizations.