Women & Regret

Paradox on the SoSuave forum had an interesting question after reading War Brides:

在 SoSuave 论坛上，Paradox 在阅读《战时新娘》后提出了一个有趣的问题：

I’ve seen it mentioned here in passing but I would like to know how women handle regret.

我在这里看到过一些提及，但我很想了解女性如何处理后悔。

How do they handle decisions that may affect their destiny?

她们如何处理可能影响她们命运的决定？

Moments like: 比如这样的时刻：

Seeing someone on a train, bus, coffee shop, grocery store but not saying hello when the moment comes.

在火车、公交车、咖啡店、杂货店看到某人，但在那一刻没有打招呼。

Meeting someone great at a party but not exchanging numbers.

在派对上遇到一个很棒的人，但没有交换电话号码。

Not calling back a guy

没有回电话给一个家伙

I have seen low IL changed to high IL but do women generally waver in their interest level all of the time?

我见过低兴趣水平变为高兴趣水平，但女性通常会一直摇摆不定吗？

The funny thing about regret is, it’s better to regret something you have done, than regret something you haven’t done.

关于后悔的有趣之处在于，后悔做过的事情比后悔没做的事情要好。

Any observational answer I could offer here is going to have to be adjusted to account for women’s inherent solipsism – everything is about her, and everything confirms her assessments as the default. As such, you have to bear in mind that regret, for women, usually begins from a point of how a missed opportunity could’ve better benefitted themselves. The root of this is grounded in women’s constant, in-born psychological quest for security. Hypergamy, by necessity, makes for solipsistic women in order to best preserve the survival integrity of the species. That’s not to say women can’t sublimate that impulse as necessity dictates, but just as men must sublimate their sexual imperative, women begin at a point of tempering the insecurity that results from hypergamy.

我在这里提供的任何观察性回答都必须根据女性的固有自我中心主义进行调整——一切都是关于她的，一切都在确认她的评估是默认的。因此，你必须记住，对于女性来说，后悔通常是从一个错过的机会如何更好地使自己受益的角度开始的。这种根源植根于女性不断追求心理安全的本能。出于必要，超婚配使女性变得自我中心，以最好地保护物种的生存完整性。这并不是说女性不能根据需要升华这种冲动，但正如男性必须升华他们的性冲动一样，女性从一开始就从调节超婚配引起的不安全感开始。

Guilt and Regret 内疚与后悔

Using hypergamy as a woman’s point of origin, this affects how women process regret. At this point I should note that guilt and regret are not cut from the same vine. You can feel guilty about something you did or didn’t do, as well as feel regret for something you did or didn’t do, but the two are not synonymous. I want to avoid that confusion here from the outset, because guilt is associated with a lingering negativity, while regret comes from different motivations. If you did something you feel guilty about, you probably regret it, but you can regret something you have no feelings of guilt about. 以女性的择偶策略为出发点，这会影响女性如何处理后悔。在此我应该指出，内疚和后悔并不是同根生。你可以对做过或没做过的事情感到内疚，也可以对做过或没做过的事情感到后悔，但两者并不相同。我想从一开始就避免这种混淆，因为内疚伴随着持续的消极情绪，而后悔则源于不同的动机。如果你做了让你感到内疚的事情，你可能会后悔，但你也可以对没有感到内疚的事情感到后悔。

After you finish reading this post check out the ‘Missed Connections’ section on your areas Craig’s List. Read the differences in tone, vernacular and purpose of both men and women lamenting a missed chance at something they hoped might develop. There’s no guilt involved in this wishful thinking, only a regret for not having taken an action.

读完这篇文章后，去查看你所在地区的 Craigslist 上的“错过联系”部分。阅读男性和女性在错过他们希望可能发展的机会时，语气、用语和目的的差异。这种怀旧的思考中没有内疚，只有对没有采取行动的遗憾。

Women’s Regret 女性的后悔

Women’s experience of regret depends upon the degree or intensity of the encounter in relation to their own conditions. I know that sounds like psycho-babble, but let me explain. If, and to what degree, a woman experiences regret in the situations Paradox is describing, these are directly proportional to her self-worth versus the (perceived) value of the encounter.

女性的后悔体验取决于她们与自身条件相关的遭遇程度或强度。我知道这听起来像是心理呓语，但让我解释一下。如果，以及在多大程度上，女性在 Paradox 描述的情况下感到后悔，这些是直接与她们的自尊与（感知到的）遭遇的价值成正比的。

At the risk of coming off as shallow again, the fat chick who thinks she blew a shot at a Brad Pitt will regret it more than the HB 9 who happened to lose an “average” guy’s phone number. I’m going to catch fire for this I’m sure, but it’s really an autonomous response for human beings to make subconscious comparisons and employ a natural ego preservation. While it’s latent psychological function is to help us learn from experience, generally regret is painful, so our natural response is to defend against it. We tend to regret not capitalizing on situations where the perceived reward value is high. The psychological buffer of course comes in rationalizing the actual value potential of that missed opportunity or minimizing the negative impact of the taken opportunity.

冒着再次显得肤浅的风险，那个认为自己错过了与布拉德·皮特机会的胖女孩会比那个不小心丢失了“普通”男人电话的 9 分美女更后悔。我肯定会因此受到批评，但这确实是人类自主的潜意识比较和自然自我保护的反应。虽然其潜在的心理功能是帮助我们从经验中学习，但后悔通常是痛苦的，所以我们的自然反应是防御它。我们往往后悔没有利用那些感知回报价值高的情况。当然，心理缓冲来自于合理化那个错失机会的实际价值潜力，或最小化已采取机会的负面影响。

So the debate is really how do women in particular process this reward valuation with regard to men? Again, I’ll say it breaks down to subliminally recognizing their self-worth, modified by social affirmations and then comparing it with the value of the encounter. Even semi-attractive women (HB 6-7) have a subconscious understanding that most intersexual encounters they have are mediated by their frequency – how rare was that opportunity? Meaning if a girl is constantly reinforced with male attention (guys asking her out all the time, social media influences, etc.) the rarity of any one encounter is compared against the frequency with which guys are hitting on her. This is female Plate Theory in action. If you happen to be one among many of the throngs of her suitors she’s less likely to regret not following up with you in relation to the extraordinary (see Alpha) guy she perceives has a higher value than she’s normally used to being rewarded with.

所以争论的焦点是，女性尤其是如何处理这种奖励估值与男性之间的关系？再次强调，这归结为潜意识地认识到她们的自尊，受到社会肯定的调整，然后与遭遇的价值进行比较。即使是半吸引力的女性（HB 6-7）也有一种潜意识的理解，即她们大多数异性遭遇是由她们的频率决定的——这个机会有多罕见？这意味着如果一个女孩不断得到男性的关注（男人经常约她出去，社交媒体的影响等），任何一次遭遇的稀有性都会与男人追求她的频率进行比较。这就是女性板块理论在起作用。如果你恰好是她众多追求者中的一员，她不太可能因为没有继续与你交往而感到遗憾，因为她认为那些比她通常得到的奖励更有价值的（见 Alpha）男人更有价值。