[This is a comment left by Defenestrated in one of the male oppression threads. With her permission, I’m making it a post of its own. ((The original disagreement turned out to be a misunderstanding, but Defenestrated’s comments apply very well to several to self-proclaimed “nice guys” I’ve encountered, even if they were a little mis-aimed in the original context.)) –Amp]
So, for example, if a young UU man likes a young UU woman, what he does is he goes over to her and tries really hard to be harmless. He doesn’t want to oppress anyone by expressing interest or desire, so he just hangs around and acts cooperative. The more he wants her to like him, the more submissive he acts. Not surprisingly, the young UU women find this boring, frustrating, incomprehensible, and just not sexy. He doesn’t understand why this doesn’t work, or why all the young UU women are off dating “bad” men instead of “nice” men like himself.
I think that in this particular instance, there’s something to be said for having had the experience of living on the opposite end of it. There’s a reason that there’s a Nice Guy™ moniker, and it’s not because women don’t dig actual kindness.
From the young UU woman’s perspective, there’s this guy hanging around her (or, more likely, multiple guys doing the exact same thing), pretending to only be interested in friendship when, from your description of the situation, it’s clear that his interest doesn’t end there. Even if the attraction is painfully obvious, since it’s never stated the woman can’t very well come right out and turn the guy down for something he hasn’t asked for. If she does, trust me, she’ll get torn to pieces for being so full of herself (after which the guy will probably resume the kicked puppy pose).
The specific male quandary you’ve described stems from a belief that by hanging around and being “nice,” a man is entitled to female affection. I have a lot of sympathy for a lot of situations that hit men, but being upset by not getting what they won’t ask for (and will thus often try to extract through manipulation, like pretending to be a friend when the friendship is treated as a tedious and insulting means to something else) isn’t one of them. Also, many – by no means all, but enough to make it a more than reasonable concern – of the kinds of guys who make this particular kind of complaint are only a step or two a way from outright stalking the object of their desire. The use of the word ‘object’ isn’t accidental.
I sympathize with the frustration and confusion, but that’s not the same as sympathizing with the reasoning behind the complaint. When I hear one of my own male friends voicing these kinds of concerns (or other anti-feminist thoughts that since we’re friends I know don’t come from malice or any intentional disrespect) I’m happy to help him see the opposite side of his experience and understand why things are that way. What I won’t do is agree that he gets to complain that his female friends aren’t all over him for being so cooperative and friendly. Especially if it comes along with a blanket disparagement of the judgment and tastes of said women (who says the men they date are “bad”? The men they don’t date? Is there a bias there?).
That doesn’t make me an unempathetic person. It makes me a person who knows that to actually relieve this form of “harm” against men without them changing their own behavior would have to mean taking the right to choose one’s own partners away from women. It’s empathy that makes me more interested in pointing out and clarifying the communication disconnect than commiserating about how selfish these independent women are for not being available for every man’s every whim. It’s also empathy that makes me understand that the situation you describe is also difficult for the woman involved, and likely provokes a (well-founded) fear that the man in the equation probably hasn’t faced, and usually doesn’t register.
That’s . . . er . . . not defenestrated.
That’s me, quoting an ex-roommate of mine, Sharon.
—Myca
Ahhh, okay, I see what you meant. I thought you meant that the quoted portion was defenstrated, and the rest was your commentary.
It’s all good. Carry on.
Well put. I often contend that a.) people who content that “nobody likes guys when they’re nice” will find that the behavior these guys are demonstrating isn’t exactly nice, it’s just non-confrontational and passive; and b.) that it’s not just men who experience this problem, I just feel that there’s a little more pop culture group-think around the whole “nice guys finish last with women” idea. Your point about the fact that most women do in fact like actual kindness is a good way to articulate it.
I think you are completely off base on your in depth interpretation. Chicks dig assholes. Though it can be frustrating to try to rationalize that simple fact, its usually true (of course there are exceptions and degrees). As someone who has tried many techniques over the years and have observed friends successes and failures, adopting a somewhat snotty and arrogant attitude usually works the best. The only problem comes later when they find out that your not really that snotty or arrogant.
“When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. If you desire a consequence, you had damn well better choose the action that leads to it.”
–Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan
The original post makes a very good point. Regardless of people’s preferences, if you don’t ask for something you really have no right to complain if you don’t recieve it. This is true in general, and the things that it’s not true for tend to be those enshrined as fundamental rights. Even for those, it is often the case that if you don’t make an effort to get them, you will be deprived of them unjustly.
I’m happily out of the whole game. But I can attest that during my late teens and early 20s, when I was in fact an arrogant prick pretty much 100% of the time, my romantic success was absurdly good. During my 30s, when I started to turn it around (really) and develop some maturity, humility and basic decency, it seemed as if women found me much less interesting.
I’ve read various explanations for this, including the feminist ones about how the phenomenon doesn’t really exist and the people (men) who complain about it just feel entitled to sex and get resentful when they can’t get any. I think there’s a lot to those critiques; there ARE an awful lot of “nice guys” who are actually just (a) entitled and (b) passive/wimpy in their pursuit of sex with women.
But there also does seem to be a fairly large subset of women who seek out men who will treat them disrespectfully/badly, and who aren’t interested in mature, decent men. Which, in all likelihood, is simply demographics – we all start out immature and stupid, and gradually rectify those flaws with the passage of time and the accumulation of experience. I don’t see a whole lot of women in their 40s looking for bad boys.
Most likely, the perceived prevalence of the phenomenon is simple: many guys in their 30s and 40s are still more interested in women in their 20s and 30s. When you’re looking in a pool of people that is inherently less mature, of course you’re going to find a lot more instances of immature behavior and desires.
Like Robert suggests, there’s not really any contradiction here. Both things can be true, at the same time.
Yeah, some girls do like jerks. And yes, at the same time, there are whiny guys who expect girls to fall all over them for being “nice,” which is completely absurd — and when taken to a more extreme degree, leads into the territory of emotional manipulation and abuse to coerce sex out of someone. I have heard way too many horror stories about seemingly “nice” guys who flip out and turn into whining, demanding babies or raging victimized demons out for revenge when they’re denied sex. These kinds of guys are one step short of rapists in my contempt list… they use words and wheedling and guilt to try and get what they want, instead of force and taking advantage of women when they’re incapable of consenting.
The usual complaint you hear then is, “oh my god, how can I win? I’m not supposed to be a jerk, and I’m not supposed to be nice either! I give up!” The answer is, that’s right, you can’t “win.” There is nothing to win, this is not a game with a boss monster and a high score. If you expect (or feel entitled to) sex out of interactions with women, you are an asshole — and quite possibly not the kind ANYONE likes.
On the other hand, if you’re not an asshole of that sort, you might meet someone you like and who likes you, and you might manage to socially interact in a way where you’re both comfortable and can express mutual interest, and then maybe you can have a relationship that includes romance and/or sex! Fancy that! Amazingly, there seem to be plenty of people who manage to do this all the time — and they are not all jerks, or smooth operators, or the popular kids in high school, or rich, or jocks. They’re just not emotionally stunted sex-entitled babies.
See also this kinda mean, sardonic pop-culture humor version:
http://www.blacktable.com/elder040212.htm
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I agree both with the original post and Robert’s analysis. In my own experiences, I find self-labelled “nice guys” to typically be passive-aggressive jerks. They act nicely, but have underlying issues that come out later. So I’m wary of the guys who seem a bit too perfect. They’re often “nice” in the sense that they want you to make all the decisions, but making all the decisions means taking all the responsibility for them. Being “nice” is a useful tactic to avoid taking any responsibility for anything, yet appearing delightful.
And if you ditch a nice guy once you discover the reality, everyone thinks you’re just awful because he’s so sweet and innocent. I prefer an equal with a few flaws – just like I have, than someone to watch out for all the time.
On to Robert’s post – I had a student (high school) who was just the sweetest guy, and he was smart and cute and friendly. Another female teacher and I questioned why he didn’t have girls all over him. Then a male teacher said, “You like him now, but think back. Would you really have gone for him when you were 16?” I think he was right. He’s just not cool enough for the adolescent crowd. It takes a while for people to get over themselves enough to appreciate human decency.
UU??
UU
Unitarians.
Are we talking about fully enlightened, self-aware, feminist women making free choices about what kind of men they desire? Or are we talking about teenaged girls struggling to cope with media influence, family pressure, hormonal surges, etc? I don’t expect much maturity or strength of character from adolescents, not from girls or boys.
I have to wonder if these nice guys ever notice the nice girls (usually not the “hawt chicks”) who think the *exact* same thing about the nice guys. IE ” Im a nice girl but all he wants is a hot chick who ignores him and treats him like shit”.
Reproductive fission looks better with each passing year. Then we could all just be friends.
FormerlyLarry:
me:
FL:
Me:
Maybe if you didn’t think of women as machines who require the right code or “technique” in order to gain “success,” you might have better luck. Thank you, though, for bolstering my point.
_____________
Robert, on the other hand, makes good points. To me, the forty year old chasing twenty year olds (and thereby implicitly shunning women his own age) is no different from the guys pheeno described. Both whine about not being praised for their substance when substance is exactly the last thing they want in a woman.
OK, that’s all, I’m staying out of this. I had surgery two days ago, I should be sleeping. Thanks for posting this, Amp :D
Oh, but I like engaging in non-reproductive fnucking.
Could someone explain to me the rules regarding when a sense of entitlement is good and when it’s bad? Because I’m not getting it.
Brandon,
Do you recognize that individual interactions are embedded within larger power structures?
Do you recognize some things as being things that people are entitled to, and other things that people are not entitled to? Do you recognize that food and shelter are things that people need, but sex is not something that anyone actually needs?
Do you recognize that people’s bodies and what they choose to do with them are actually more personal than people’s property and what they choose to do with it?
If you don’t, then I’m sure I can’t help you.
If you do, then combine those things together. You’re smart, I’m sure you can work it out.
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I am a former Nice Guy(tm), so I will weigh in. I think there are actually several types of Nice Guys(tm), some of which are accurately described by your post, and some that have different motivations.
If the guy is acting this way, I see how it can look like he is just pretending to be interested in friendship when he really just wants to get her in bed. And that might be his motivations. But there are other motivations that can underly his behavior. He might not know how to express sexual interest in her. Maybe he is shy about it. Maybe he fears rejection. Just because he is male doesn’t mean that he can perform the male role of initiator. Many men are not suited for this role. If they don’t know an acceptable way to express sexual interest, then their only choice is to act like a friend, or even to act “harmless,” like the person quoting in the original post says.
So, a guy hanging around a girl he is attracted to can mean he:
1. Is manipulatively pretending to be friends in order to get in her pants OR
2. He has trouble performing his role as initiator, and is getting to know her as a friend because he doesn’t know what else to do.
I believe that some Nice Guys(tm) really do feel “entitled” to female affection. Other Nice Guys(tm) might simply believe that female affection will follow from their “nice” behavior, and be shocked when it doesn’t, or assume that something is wrong with the woman. This is still a skewed view of female desires, but it isn’t the same thing as an entitlement mentality. Rather than feeling entitled to female affection, I think many Nice Guys(tm) feel unworthy of female affection.
Are they upset about not getting what they won’t ask for, or about what they can’t ask for? Imagine that you are obsessed with someone. The more you are into them, the more you will fear rejection, and the more anxious you will be about asking them. Imagine you decide to ask them out. You decide to do it tomorrow. You wake up that day, and as soon as you wake up you think “oh shit! This is the day I have to ask that person out.” You immediately start feeling anxious, which lasts up until you run into that person.
As soon as you see them, you get an even worse anxiety attack, and your hands start shaking. Your vocal cords lock, making it difficult to force words from your throat, and making you stutter when you can. You try to find an opening to say what you want to say, but in your current condition, you just can’t find a chance, you can’t get them alone, or you can’t get the words out. Anyway, you have no clue what to do. You say goodbye to them and give them a hug, like, well… a friend. Then you beat yourself up for being such a “wimp.” You resolve to ask the person out the next day, or next week. You wake up that day, and start immediately feeling anxious, and you go through the whole ordeal again. Eventually, maybe you get it right. You probably get rejected, which is a blow to your self-esteem. With the next person you make advances on, you remember your past failure…
I don’t know how typical this kind of experience is, but these types of barriers, at either a less or more extreme amount than what I describe, are common for males who aren’t temperamentally fitted for the masculine gender role, and are a bit more anxious or shy or unassertive than average. The point is to show why a man might have trouble expressing sexual/romantic interest in a woman for other reasons than posing a facade of friendship.
I agree, and this was a hard lesson for me to learn. I think it’s important to realize where this mistaken view of female sexuality comes from. These guys have had the notion drummed into their head that the primary thing women want in men is nurturing, empathetic, cooperative, or altruistic behavior. (Women certainly want those qualities in mates, but they are not enough to create attraction on their own.) Men get these ideas from parents, romantic movies that show women swooning over male displays of devotion, books, magazines, and female friends who complain about what jerks guys are. A lot of supposedly “romantic” behavior in movies would really be stalking or just plain creepy if done in real life.
When the efforts of these men are unsuccessful, the only logical conclusion is that there must be something wrong with themselves, or with the women they are pursuing. The root of the problem is not identified: the cultural discourse that brainwashes them into an outdated view of female sexuality that is damaging to both them and the women they encounter.
I think there is a way to solve this problem without giving men a right to sexual access to women. The solution is for our culture to stop lying to men about how female sexuality works. That way, they will be less likely to shoot themselves in the foot when approaching women, and they will be less likely to hold unrealistic expectations about how women will, or should, respond to them. I’m pissed, because if only I hadn’t been lied to, I wouldn’t have had to spend so many years resenting female friends who didn’t reciprocate my attraction to them.
While women can be the victims of wrongheaded notions of female sexuality that have been brainwashed into men, men with these views are also victims in a different way, because their resulting behavior will be unattractive to women, or even drive them away, making it difficult or impossible to date or have relationships at all.
defenstrated,
To wrap up… If you are interesting in fully understanding the motivations of Nice Guys(tm), I would make several recommendations for how to look at their behavior. I can see that you are trying to empathize with these guys, but unfortunately that empathy is limited by the narrow way you are interpreting their behavior. Instead of understanding that men are people too, people with complex motives, people who can be confused, hesitant, or shy, it seems that your post just tries to interpret their behavior as cynically as possible. I understand why you would have a cynical interpretation: I can totally see how women could feel manipulated by Nice Guys(tm). Still, just because his behavior is perceived as manipulative, it doesn’t necessarily mean that his goal is to manipulate you. Likewise, just because Nice Guys(tm) are confused and hurt that women don’t want them after all their “nice behavior,” it doesn’t mean that they necessarily feel entitled to sex (though it certainly can).
I think you are underestimating the difficulty of playing the active role for men without stereotypically temperaments and personalities. By assuming that these men are being manipulative in not expressing their sexual interest, you may be ascribing misogynistic motives to a guy who just can’t perform gender very well. This is a triple whammy: not only does he have trouble approaching women he are interested in, but he and others view him as an unmasculine “wimp,” and to make things even worse, feminists view him as sinister and manipulative.
Something that’s interesting is to look at the piles of mail that male prisoners on death row get from women, and also the fact that women even marry lifers or men in jail for a long period. Ted Bundy got so much mail from women that he couldn’t keep up with the mail. Jeff McDonald (he was convicted of killing his wife and children; he claims it was intruders) even got married to a woman who is trying to get him out. There are lots of examples of that. I think these people are “bad boys” to an exceptional degree.
First I think that the label is a little too simple because it forces the assumption that the ‘nice guy’ only wants a relationship. I think it’s both possible and common that the nice guy wants a relationship, but also wants to be friends. Obviously there’s a subset that’s being deceptive and passive aggressive. I just think you’re broadening the label more than is appropriate.
I think women do this also, but in a different way. I have no data on the subject, but I’ve seen a number of situations where the girl likes the guy but can’t (or won’t) communicate well enough to be rejected and close the situation. Rather than passive aggressive (“No, I don’t mind walking you home from the bar. You really liked that one guy? That’s so cool.”) I’ve seen women become more provocative and end up in bed with the guy. Than there’s a lot of heart ache about that.
Either way, it ends ugly.
This above-mentioned belief is sometimes justified. It usually happens–having heard and had these conversations first, second, and third hand–because the women involved says that to the guy who has a crush on her.
And why does she/he say this? Not because they are eeeeevul, but because young humans of either sex are generally happier when a lot of people want to date them (the more the better) whether or not they intend to reciprocate. girls do it; boys do it.
that makes it a bit more of a two way street: the “nice guy” (or “nice girl”) involved tends to be poor at saying exactly what they want. And the other party often is, to some point, deliberately misleading them.
I mean, come on: don’t we ALL know someone–many people, perhaps–who openly profess to like ______ kind of partner, but whose actions differ 100% from their claims? maybe they just don’t like to say “I prefer abusive partners” but it doesn’t seem fair to blame others for believing them.
defenestrated
Though I appreciate your advice, I am sure the wife would frown on any attempt to further hone my date getting skills. Look, most male mammals have to fight and defeat rival males to get the girls to like them, our mating dance is just a little more subtle. And from a male POV there are certainly “techniques” that will improve your chances to get a date for Saturday night. Countless books have been written on the subject. I am not sure why you would deny that. I might have been a little more blunt, but I didn’t write anything that Robert didn’t repeat later in a post that you didn’t take issue.
Clinically stripping away the romantic veneer, if a guy wants to have a lot of female attention it will help tremendously to be rich, famous, infamous, or an asshole (and I will add as an honorable mention: very funny). I don’t think that’s controversial or even judgmental about women’s choices; its simply stating the obvious based on observations and experience. IMHO most men know this whether or not they are able to act on it.
Now all that might change with maturity. Just turning 40 and being out of the dating game for a while now, I don’t know. Maybe after women have past their reproductive years they look for different qualities in potential mates. Or maybe the choices are just more limited. Again, I don’t know, just speculating.
You can also thank all those romance novels for telling little girls that they can *change* the Bad Boy and if she’s just the perfect girlfriend and loves him enough, he will eventually LOVE HER SO MUCH that he will change, just for her. If she doesn’t give up on him, and loves him even though he’s an asshole, he’ll learn about True Love and they’ll have the fairy tale.
When those so called nice guys complain about those women, they’re complaining about women who believed the fairy tale. Meanwhile, Cinderella is sitting in the corner wondering why her prince charming is too busy drooling over the hot chick to even notice her.
And sometimes, we just want to have fun. We’re not looking for a *mate* we’re looking for someone to have fun with, adventure with and hot sex with. When we grow up, then we start considering what we actually want in a relationship thats going to last more than 6 months.
I’ve had several guys over the years bitterly inform me that they wanted to go out with me when we were younger and they resented just being friends. Evidently, my friendship wasnt valuable enough unless sex came with it. I point out they never asked me out and now that I know what they really wanted, Im glad they didnt. And then they get weeded out and dropped into the Asshole pile.
I guess I’m a little confused, Pheeno. You liked these guys enough to be friends with them, but finding out that they had wished for a more involved relationship but lacked the nerve to say so at the time is enough to make them assholes? And presumably, being “weeded out” means they’re no longer your friends, either.
Maybe I’m missing some information here.
No, finding out my friendship wasnt enough without the pussy attached is why I think theyre assholes. They’re pissed that I was just a friend. Im sorry, I thought I had offered friendship and not a big steaming bag of shit. Guess not, according them. Without the pussy, friendship is second rate crap or something.
They had me fooled, I thought they actually enjoyed my company and had no idea they were really resenting the fact I wouldnt hop into bed and be pleased and proud to have them bounce on top of me.
My translator must have been broken. I didnt realize “hey wanna hang out” really meant ” fuck me”.
Oh and to clarify it abit more, Im still friends with my friends from HS. I couldnt tell you where the guys I dated are now. Which do you think holds more meaning? The friendships that have lasted 20 some odd years or the 3 month long relationship with a guy I can barely recall?
That they’d rather have the fleeting 3 month “relationship” over being invited into my life for something thats meaningful enough to last over 20 years tells me they werent friends at all.
I date assholes because I believe in punching my own weight.
Ok, that’s mostly a joke. But this is the thing, really- and I do have to ask this- How on earth is a guy going to deal with actually dating me if he cannot get the balls up to make a move? Also- to be honest, most Nice Guys(tm) require a level of patience that I just do not have. I think a lot of the time, guys who are insecure will think that guys who are secure and confident are assholes. Sort of like how a lot of girls will think that a girl who is prettier than they are is a bitch. It’s not all that different a situation.
I dunno about this “girls like assholes” thing. My fiance is short, shy, he doesn’t talk to people very much, he’s feminine in a lot of his behaviors, and he’s very genuinely giving of himself and his time even when there’s no ostensible reward (read: actually nice).
He’s also had more sex with more partners and combinations of partners in more various ways than almost any other guy I’ve ever met.
a.k.a. If we’re going to battle about “anecdotes” and “common sense,” then I’m sure lots of people on the board can conjure opposing ones.
Mandolin:
How did he meet those partners, if he’s shy and doesn’t talk much?
OK, I lied. I’m not entirely staying out of it, but nor can I promise to make complete sense ;)
Brandon, introverts are a minority in a world of extroverts. We don’t have to talk much in order to frequently find ourselves having conversations – sometimes to our consternation or befuddlement, but sometimes not.
Hugh, in your observations about shy men, I think you’re missing the part where I’m talking about guys who aren’t just lonely, but who respond to their loneliness by making up some inherent flaw in women to blame it on, rather than by taking responsibility for their own behavior. You say:
But how are the parts I bolded any different from an ‘entitlement mentality’? Believe that x will follow = Expect x. Y being shocked and blaming X for not liking Y = Y feeling entitled to X’s affection. I know I’m on a lot of drugs right now, but the ‘unworthy of female affection’ thing strikes me as a total non sequitur after part about how they ‘assume that something is wrong with the woman.’
And what pheeno said, especially at #29.
Actually, in fairness, I do understand that underlying feelings of unworthiness create this sort of mindset. It’s just that even those feelings come from the basic sense of entitlement that underlies the concept of the “male initiator role,” which rests on a model of ‘courtship’ (or whatever) as a male-person’s active choice of a passive female-object.
Once a guy lets go of the idea that it’s up to him to initiate a relationship, 1) he can get to know a woman as a person rather than as a pussy who inconveniently brings along a person who must be won over, and 2) whether or not a woman has a reason to be interested in him gains relevance over whether or not he has used the right ‘technique’ in approaching her.
Do you ever ask yourself, “How on earth am I going to deal with actually dating a man if I can’t get the ovaries up to make a move?” If no, doesn’t that point to a certain level of feminine privilege?
I agree that there’s some truth to the idea that envy is often a part of why people think of their sexual competitors as assholes.
But I also think there’s reality to the evaluation as well. There’s a violent indoctrination which occurs with boys growing up, with the result that victimized boys tend to not have confidence, while bullying assholes do. Females tend to gravitate towards the alpha dogs. Obviously, not every confident, secure male is an asshole, but I think it’s fair to say they’re disproportionately represented in the mix. (I think there’s a similar dynamic revolving around the ‘mean, pretty’ queen bees.)
I’m reading this thread and being reminded of this post on From The Archives.
Battered women shelters exist: assholes are quite adept at getting women.
I think some of the effect commented upon by Robert @ #6 and similar comments must lie in that asshole behavior is, as a rule, “louder” — registers more — than non-asshole behavior. Not always, but as a general rule — i.e., you can have passive-aggressive asshole behavior (which, as has been pointed out several times, many self-labeled “nice guys” are doing) and then you can have “loud” non-asshole behavior, but it’s tough to perform the latter and make it work.
It IS possible. I’ve seen various versions of it. But frequently screwing it up makes for either asshole behavior or other versions of looking uncool. Maybe someone else can take the comment from here, as I’m not able to lay words on the versions of doing it right or not-right that I’d like to describe.
“Battered women shelters exist: assholes are quite adept at getting women.”
And every single one of them started off as a Nice Guy.
Its not like they walk up, slap you and say ” I beat women, drink too much, fart in my sleep hey, wanna go out?”
Hugh Ristik:
Your description of a certain type of nice guy in post #20 was dead-on accurate for what happens to me when I try to approach a woman to ask her out on a date. I don’t think anyone could possbily improve on it. It’s just so frustrating to be incapable of putting myself out there, and being told that I’m basically not a real man or simply not worthy of any woman. It’s so infuriating and humiliating to have spent my childhood being bullied and ostracized, and to now spend adulthood utterly alone and without any sort of romantic companionship because I’m too psychologically scarred to make an approach. I think I have a lot to offer. I’m reasonably intelligent, empathic, my friends all laugh at my jokes and say I’m very funny, I’m a good conversationalist on a variety of topics, etc. Alas, it seems I’ll never get to share it with a partner.
But I dare not complain about it, or I’m a Nice Guy who must secretly hate women. I don’t at all. But the sexually or romantically successful just seem to have no idea what it is like to be pigeonholed into role that demands I do the impossible, lest I be seen as some sort of untermenschen. I can only ask out women who I have known for awhile, so I get to know them as friends first. Sometime for years, until I feel utterly, completely at ease with them. The last time I expressed my feelings and desires to a woman it was after I had known her for ten years, and I’m certainly not going to stop being her friend, best friend, actually, just because she said she didn’t feel the same way. Hey, I still have a friend, right? But it does get so frustrating to never get any positive reinforcement, and sometimes I do complain about it. It’s not that I think I am entitled to the affections of any specific woman. It’s just that it doesn’t seem to be asking too much that in our society I should have had at least one relationship by the age of 29, and I think I have a valid gripe there in that the sole reason why I haven’t is because I fail to meet a standard that is unrealistic and unattainable for many men.
Anyway, I totally agree that every time the dreaded Nice Guy get’s brought up, there is no consideration for the fact that not all Nice Guys are the same. Yes, many are passive-aggressive whiners, and these guys are definetly not nice. But many are also just not capable of living up to the unrealistic and incredibly demanding societal norms that we place on males, and I don’t see why they should have to, either. I think I’m every bit as capable of being a loving partner as the next guy, but since I can’t just ask for a phone number within minutes of meeting someone I fancy, I and others like me get the Nice Guy label, even if we have nothing in common with the passive-aggressive ones everyone seems to be complaining about.
Hi, Glitch.
Let’s take this at face value. You are a genuinely nice guy, not a fake passive-aggressive nice guy. Okay.
With all due respect, I think you still need to explore the area that lies between asking for her number in the first few minutes and not expressing your desires for an entire decade. I realize, more than most, how hard it can be finding that middle ground — but just because something is hard, even incredibly hard, doesn’t mean that it’s unfair that it’s required.
Shyness sucks (and I know this from personal experience — almost every romantic relationship I’ve ever had, she had to ask me first). For men or women, the number one way to not have much romantic success is to be shy; and crippling shyness will cripple most people’s romantic life.
But — apart from arranged marriages — I can’t imagine any reasonable social system in which crippling shyness wouldn’t be a mortal blow to a person’s romantic life. We should certainly move to a system in which both women and men ask people out (and in some crowds we have moved to such a system), but waiting to be asked isn’t a solution, either — especially since the non-shy are also better at attracting people to ask them out.
In other words, I certainly agree with you that the “unrealistic and incredibly demanding societal norms that we place on males” ought to be done away with. But even after doing away with those norms, what I suspect is your essential problem — which is that crippling shyness can ruin (or prevent) people’s romantic lives — would remain in place.
That said, I also think you’re absolutely right about how scarring bullying and ostracization can be. Some people, for whatever reason, seem able to rise above it and leave that stuff behind once they’ve left school behind. For others, the scars and the limitations imposed by the scars remain for years, and maybe forever. This is one reason I think ending all bullying is an essential social issue, and not just a pity party.
But — and I’m really so, so sorry to say this — I have no practical advice to offer former victims of bullying and ostracization. It sucks, and I understand that it sucks, but know it sucks isn’t a solution. Frankly, if I knew how to get rid of those scars, I wouldn’t be carting around those scars myself.
By the way, I want to make it clear that in the past, I’ve done exactly what Defenestrated describes in this post — hanging endlessly around a female friend I had a painful crush on but refusing to ever take the risk of asking “can I kiss you”?
I don’t think this means that I was an asshole back then. I do think that the way I acted was wrong, however. My friendship was sincere; but my refusal to accept the risk and possible pain of being honest about wanting the friendship to become a romance put the woman I had a crush on in an uncomfortable and unfair double-bind (as Defenestrated describes).
In the end, all parties — me included — would have been better off if I could have made myself ask and be rejected. (Or not.)
She totally wanted you to kiss her, dude. Fortunately she found solace in my arms.
(Well, fortunately for me, anyway.)
Amp (May I call you Amp?):
The ten year wait was the very outer limit of my efforts. Generally, I get to know a woman for several months before I attempt to progress the relationship. Still seems like too long.
Also, I can’t speak for others, but while I am shy I wouldn’t call it “crippling”. I have friends, quite a few by my count. I’m perfectly fine with people who approach me, but I just can’t bring myself to approach strangers unless we are in some sort of rigidly defined role. Talking to a random stranger just to make conversation is not something I can do, but I can have a perfectly fine conversation if they approach me first. Likewise, I have no problem talking to store clerks, or asking directions from a police officer. It’s ambiguous situations where I might get emotionally hurt that I cannot willingly enter. Having been pretty cruelly rejected before, I just can’t force myself into it.
I really think that for a lot of “Nice Guys” who are really just shy and sick of being single, they would have vastly improved romantic lives if we lived in a society where a man could wait for a woman to approach and not be criticized as “not having the balls to approach.” Sure, they still would be missing out on a lot of opportunities with women who are themselves shy, but at least they would likely have some romantic experiences. They may very well go nowhere but just the feeling of being wanted can be pretty empowering and good for one’s self-esteem.
Regarding bullying, if anything I think you might actually be underestimating it’s prevalence and effect on some “Nice Guys.” I am not aware of any studies on the notion of a link between being a victim of bullies and an adult life of unsatisfying or nonexistant romantic experiences. I do lurk of boards for people who have tremendous difficulties in romantic relationships (or any sort, really) and while there are some people who report fairly normal, pleasant peer experiences in their formative years, these people seem to be the exception to the rule. I think the enforced shyness (“Don’t trust people, they’ll hurt you.”) and impaired self esteem (“I have no friends, people are mean to me, maybe I deserve it.”) are very deletrious in themselves.
Also, consider the lost opportunities to learn appropriate dating/mating behavior when it is considered socially acceptable to do so. I spent my high school years as far away from my peers as possible. What few friends I had were pretty much in the same situation as me. We were all males and all alone, with no romantic prospects. We tried to pass the time thinking about anything else. Meanwhile, our peers were experimenting with dating and having sex. I thought things would get better when I got to college, but I found myself a 12-year-old boy in the body of an 18-year-old man. I didn’t know anything about romantic interaction and it showed. People didn’t think I was shy, they thought I was pathetic.
This is a pretty common complaint among both men and women on these boards I frequent. They feel like they are “out of step” with their peers or have “lost time.” Many complain of feeling like they never really transitioned into adulthood like their peers, since they never experienced what seems pretty common in modern high-school age adolescents. As time marches on they tend to either become very desperate (and thereby less attractive) or just give up entirely and commit themselves to finding peace with celibacy. It’s an unfortunate situation, and I’m mired in it myself.
I take you at your word that you don’t what to say to a survivor of bullying. I don’t either. I think if we made a much greater effort to stamp out childhood bullying in our society, we would likely wind up with far fewer unassertive or shy “Nice Guys.”
Glitch said:
That guy was me. This is a common experience for males who have a temperamental predisposition towards introversion and anxiety. These males are also particularly vulnerable to bullying (happened to me too). Thanks to my personality, and the bullying, I started off on the wrong foot with girls when I hit puberty, leading to painful initial experiences with women.
I did get past it once I got sick of it, but only with a lot of work. Some resources that might help:
– How To Succeed Socially: The general social advice may or may not apply to you, but the website has some great, non-sleazy but still practical advice with women.
– LoveShy.com: if it sounds like it applies to you, then check out the book on the website.
I don’t know whether you are at a place where you want to work to recover from inhibitions with women, but that stuff at least might help you feel better about where you are. If you (or any other of the nice guys that I know are lurking out there) want to continue discussing these issues in detail, or ask specific questions, you are welcome to come over to my blog (just post in any comments section, and I will respond).
And as you have found, by then it is usually too late for her to see you romantically.
Yes. Unfortunately, feminism is very unhelpful in helping guys in this position, and can even make them worse psychologically, because it just makes them walk on eggshells with women even more (that’s one of my main gripes about it). The first step in recovering for me was to realize that my lack of romantic success with women wasn’t my fault, but that it was my responsibility to change things if I wanted to be with a woman. Something else to consider is that the reason you are having trouble meeting that standard isn’t just because of you, but also because of the negative social experiences you have had. I believe that if I hadn’t been bullied and psychologically messed up from a young age, I would grown up feeling a lot more comfortable around women I was interested in. As I managed to undo more and more of that damage, approaching women because a prospect that was possible for me to contemplate, and eventually achieve.
Men don’t have the right to have sex or relationships with women. Yet men do have the right to not be psychological damaged and abused in a way that makes sex or relationships with women difficult or impossible (e.g. childhood bullying that wrecks self-esteem and social skills).
I take you at your word that you don’t what to say to a survivor of bullying. I don’t either.
Sometimes we say “I’m sorry”. Perhaps not everyone contributes to a bullying culture, but I know that I at least did as a child. My apologies for that.
pheeno, I disagree. I’ve known women in abusive relationships ( not always of the physically abusive type) and their male partners were never Nice Guys who one day turned into Assholes before the women’s very eyes. There were signs along the road leading to full-fledged assholery that were missed by the women, but almost always picked up on by those of us not invested in the relationship. Sure, I’m using the availability heuristic to make my judgement but I don’t know of any statistics that exist on this particular subject.
__________________
And now back to the topic of the post…….
Nice guys who complain about women not wanting them are usually under the mistaken impression that “nice” is synonymous with “passive-aggressive”, “boring”, “safe”, “unadventerous”, “wishy-washy”, or “bashful”. Sometimes being with a “nice” guy is like spending time watching pant dry–physically speaking there is nothing wrong with him and on-paper he has all of his ducks in a row but actually spending time with him is unenjoyable; and, instead of the guy recognizing his character flaws that make him unattractive or the fact that the two of you just aren’t compatible, he falls back on his persersection complex (making him even less attractive) and accuses you of not liking nice guys.
Is it any wonder these men get left for so-called bad boys ?
Glitch:
I had the same problem myself for many years. Here’s how I fixed it: I walked up to a young woman sitting on a bench* and said, “Hi! I’m practicing talking to strangers.” Yeah, it’s weird, but it serves the purpose of establishing a context and purpose for the conversation. This was possibly the single hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it got easier fairly quickly on subsequent attempts. The responses I got were almost all positive and supportive, and after about fifteen times, it became more or less effortless and I moved on to tougher things.
*This is an oversimplification. I actually walked about twenty yards passed her, paced for a while, sat down, thought about it, thought about it some more, and then went back to her.
Amp,
If we are talking about people who are extremely shy, at the level of psychological disorders like social phobia, avoidant personality disorder, or agoraphobia, I think shyness may equally destroy men and women’s romantic possibilities. At lower levels of shyness than psychological disorders, though, and maybe even including mild social phobia, I think shyness impairs men’s prospects more than it impairs women’s. A moderately shy women is better off in this regard than a moderately shy man. The simple reason is because men are expected to be the initiators. Note that Glitch isn’t describing generalized shyness; he is describing shyness primarily with women he is interested in.
So one of the only ways to get around shyness is when the other person makes the move. Who is more likely to encounter someone who will make a move on them so they don’t have to: men or women? Women, end of story.
Word.
Like you, I can also see the way that I may have made a couple of my female friends feel guilty. It seems that you are being too hard on yourself, however. You say that the way you acted was “wrong.” You also say that you would have been better of if you “could” have made yourself ask, which implies that you couldn’t. Yet if you couldn’t have done so, why do you call your behavior “wrong?” How can you hold yourself responsible for not doing something you were psychologically incapable of?
You seem to be saying that your behavior was “wrong” because it put her in an uncomfortable and unfair double-bind. This implies that you had a responsibility to put your self-esteem on the line in order to mitigate her guilt and confusion. But which is worse? You possibly getting rejected, which could have a lasting effect on your self-esteem and your ability to find relationships in the future (especially if you were at a young age), or her feeling a bit guilty and confused (something she could have dealt with herself by ceasing to hang out with you)?
It seems to me that in the kind of situation you describe, the guy is in the more vulnerable position and in the worse double-bind. If he doesn’t make a move, he pines after her and feeling like a wimp, hurting his self-esteem and ability to find relationships in a potentially lasting manner; if he does make a move, he risks being rejected, which is just another route to a similar negative outcome. (Of course, if the guy is being passive-aggressive, and trying to guilt the woman into being with him, or disparaging her for not doing so, then it’s a totally different scenario.)
It just seems that you are placing an unreasonable expectation on yourself to solve her double-bind, given the limited abilities you had at the time, and the even worse double-bind that you were in. Take this with a grain of salt, of course; I might be overanalyzing what you are saying.
Hugh Ristik: I’m reading your blog now. Interesting stuff. I have read Gilmartin’s work before (I used to own his book on Love Shyness, though I seem to have misplaced it). There’s a good deal of quackery in it, particularly the section on astrology, but his descriptions of love shy men, their upbringings and common experiences were dead on accurate.
Not sure I agree with your take on feminism vis-a-vis bullying. I would like to think everyone is against bullying. I might be inclined to agree that feminism, from what I’ve seen, just doesn’t seem to speak to the issue very much. Then again, that’s hardly irregular. No one seems to give a damn until some poor child goes completely ballistic and shoots up his school. There’s several weeks of, “How could this happen?” from the media, and nothing really gets accomplished. Maybe someday people will actually take concrete steps to address bullying and not mere school safety, but I doubt it. If we accept that people who are routinely bullied are at risk for developing poor social skills and low self esteem, it stands to reason that they are not going to ever attain the kind of power that will vault them into the legislature, where they could make a real difference.
Robert: Thank you. I don’t think anyone ever apologized to me before for that.
Back to the topic of “Nice Guys”:
Amp:
Having gone to Defenestrated’s site and read the full post, I’m not sure I see how this is putting the woman in a double-bind. Sure, the man in this situation becomes off putting and suffers for his inability to approach. But really, the loss here seems to be entirely his. He screws up his friendship and loses out because of it, but based on how Defenestrated’s description of how she perceived the Nice Guy’s behavior it sounds like the typical woman in this instance is probably pretty sick of the Nice Guy anyway, so what’s the loss?
For that matter, it is possible to suffer through an unrequited love for years and not let it show. I’ve managed it. I knew women who I knew very well would never have any sort of romantic inkling for me. We were friends, though, and I judged the benefits of their platonic love and affection to be much greater than the pain of the unrequited feelings. It’s not easy to keep these things bottled up, but it can be done and with time the unrequited love will often fade, leaving the platonic feelings intact. So if the NG can manage it, I’m not sure anyone is being wronged by his conduct.
Not always, though, which is why I confessed my feelings to my ten-year best friend. It just never really went away and got stronger all the time. I knew she would reject me, but I just had to unburden myself before it got worse. Thankfully, our friendship did suffer at all, and we are probably closer now than ever before. In that instance it’s probably better to take a leap in the dark, but the very real possibility that the woman will be uncomfortable and break off the friendship entirely is always out there. I wonder is this perhaps explains the behavior Defenestrated noted. Perhaps these men already concluded that there was no hope of having a romantic relationship with their unrequited love, but couldn’t go on in the same way anymore. They get caught in a viscious cycle of need, desire, fear and self-recrimination and are no longer capable of balancing their unrequited desires with the genuine platonic affection they feel for their friends. At the same time, though, they are incapable of taking the risk of losing their friend. It’s sort of rock-and-hard place setting. A thought, anyway.
Also, speaking generally I wanted to comment on the notion that Nice Guys are misogynists because they feel entitled to love or sex or whathaveyou. I think it’s important to again realize that not all NG’s are the same, and that the meaning and context of the words matter. I admit to sometimes saying, “I’m a decent guy, why doesn’t anyone want me?” What I was really trying to convey was much more complex, along the lines of, “I feel like I have qualities a woman would like and look for in a partner. My male friends are all partnered, and I feel like I am generally similar to them. We are all intelligent, we all can carry a conversation and listen well, we all are educated and love learning more, we all try to help each other out and be generally good, we can all tell a joke and have great senses of humor. I feel like I’m about as physically attractive as they are. I have a decent job. I know how to dress reasonably well and bathe regularly. Why am I the only one, out of all of us, who is all alone?”
Of course, the obvious answer is, “They weren’t fucked from the get-go by the horrid cirumstances of you family life and childhood bullying,” but I was in the midst of a ten-year battle with chronic and severe depression at the time. So in my defense, I really wasn’t capable of thinking straight during those days. I’m feeling pretty good nowadays, though, really.
Glitch, I cross-posted with your last post, and we seem to be talking about exactly the same themes.
Glitch said:
Gilmartin talks about this phenomenon in Shyness and Love, the book on Love-shy.com that I linked to in my previous post (sounds like you may have read it already). It’s not like generalized shyness, it’s shyness in informal social situations, especially ones with women one is attracted to.
I’m not aware of studies looking at bullying victims and measuring their later satisfaction in adult life and in romance. I have seen studies in the opposite direction, like Gilmartin’s, which find that men with severe shyness around women tend to have a history of bullying.
Looks like we cross-posted again, Glitch.
Oh, I should clarify what I meant. I do believe that feminists tend to be against bullying, and it’s one area of the victimization of men that they have a relatively good track record of opposing. I was saying that feminism isn’t very helpful to men who are extremely shy with women in romantic situations. Not only does it provide no practical advice (not that I’m necessarily saying it should), it can make them feel guilty for desiring women sexually (oh no! “objectification!”), and it can make them even more afraid of being assertive with women out of fear of sexually harassing or pressuring them.
I’ve found this a good strategy also. My crush on her actually faded after a year or so, and I realized that we were actually better off as friends rather than being in a relationship.
You have said everything else so well that I have little to add.
I think feminism would and should be helpful in terms of advocating and moving us towards a society where men don’t have an unequal and unfair pressure to be the initiators, the active partners, the pursuers, and all that. Because of course the flip side of that is that women aren’t supposed to do that, or are supposed to want men to act like that; and if you look at what some of the consequences of that are for women, they are very dire indeed… it may seem like we are generations away from really making that sort of shift, but if you also look back even a handful of decades, change has happened. Those changes and the continuation of that change are a feminist project that people of any gender can benefit from. That doesn’t necessarily address social anxiety and crippling shyness in general… but hopefully we can all agree that the situation would be less awful if it was not being reinforced by ludicrous and antiquated standards about gendered behavior, making people feel like they’re “not real” because they can’t perform to some kind of prescribed role standards.
“pheeno, I disagree. I’ve known women in abusive relationships ( not always of the physically abusive type) and their male partners were never Nice Guys who one day turned into Assholes before the women’s very eyes. ”
I never claimed they changed over night from Nice Guys into Assholes. They were always assholes, but they use the Nice Guy cover.
Oh baby, I LOVE you I’d never treat you like those other guys have. I just have a temper and I love you SO MUCH Im afraind you’ll leave me, I dont mean to be a jerk, please trust me, Im really just a Nice Guy blah blah..
They get you by acting like a Nice Guy. Then gradually you find out (usually too late) that they’re not.
Other people may see signs, but other people arent dating him and are rather irrelevant. Her perception is that he’s a Nice Guy.
A red flag for me is a guy who proclaims being a Nice Guy. If you *are* a true Nice Guy, you dont feel the need to point it out. Its obvious and your actions speak louder than words. A nice guy doesnt bemoan not getting the hot chick ( he realizes there’s more to life than looks) doesnt contemplate being an asshole just to get hot chicks and sure as hell doesnt resent frienship, he recognizes the value in it.
“I was saying that feminism isn’t very helpful to men who are extremely shy with women in romantic situations. Not only does it provide no practical advice (not that I’m necessarily saying it should), it can make them feel guilty for desiring women sexually (oh no! “objectification!”), and it can make them even more afraid of being assertive with women out of fear of sexually harassing or pressuring them. ”
Thats because feminism isnt a manual for men to learn how to get laid or find relationships. Its about women obtaining true equality as a human being.
It doesnt *make* a man feel anything. His misinterpretation of feminism is his own issue, not ours. If nothing in feminism translates into ” treat us like people” for him and he cant manage to work that into the dating scene, well..sorry.
Assertive doesnt= aggressive.
desire doesnt always mean objectification.
Sounds like guys who have this particular problem just need a dictionary.
Shy men take heart. A woman may come along who appreciates you and give you some encouragement. That’s how I ended up married to my “more reserved” husband. ;-)
Holly:
I’ll bite. What are they?
Glitch, I’m confused:
What Amp posted is the full post. I have a post up that talks about him putting it up, but it doesn’t really flesh out or add anything except a snarky aside about an early comment. Perhaps you mean you clicked over to read Myca’s side of the conversation. If you haven’t, I recommend doing so (I would just paste his comment, but my browser’s giving me trouble and I’m loathe to open another tab).
I have to say, I’m dismayed to see my remarks taken as a slam against shy men. I’m very shy. I sympathize, empathize, the whole shebang with shy men. This?
Story of my life. What I take issue with is men placing the blame for the outcome of their shyness on the women they’re attracted to. One thing I don’t think I misread (though I did some fine misreading overall, if I do say so myself) in what Myca quoted was the framing of mens’ issues with unassertiveness as a mess that feminism had made. On the contrary, the clearly harmful expectation that men must play the “male initiator” role is exactly the kind of b.s. feminists want to do away with. The individual freedom that leaves us with, though, is an individual responsibility – and has imo been very well addressed above, particularly by Amp at #42 and 43.
The sentiment I’ve run into and that I was responding to wasn’t It’s difficult to get dates if you’re shy, but It’s unfairly difficult for men to get dates in a world where women are allowed to be independent and men are expected to treat women with respect. For example, there’s a huge difference between saying “I can’t get laid because I personally have a hard time asking for what I want” (harmless shyness) and “I can’t get laid because men aren’t supposed to pressure women into sex” (worrisome asshole). I don’t dispute that it requires greater social skills to treat someone like an equal than to simply get to pick a mate who has been conditioned be submissive and will have to economically depend on you [general you], but I think we can all agree that it’s no great loss to have those avenues of ‘courtship’ closed.
In other words, no one’s an asshole just for pining after a friend. Once you start resenting the friend for not liking you back and complaining that it’s because she only likes jerks, then you’re an asshole. [general you, again]
pheeno said:
I think Jamila’s point is that plenty of assholes don’t bother with the Nice Guy cover.
I said:
pheeno replied:
I agree: see the bold part of the quote of my previous post.
Reading feminist concepts about being nonsexist, about not objectifying, pressuring, and sexually harassing women has an emotional impact. Men are not machines. This impact is even harder on men who who are shy and socially inexperienced. Unfortunately, feminism provides no boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, because those concepts are so vague and broad. Especially if you have no social skills, you can never be sure that making advances is OK.
You say that this attitude stems from a “misinterpretation” of feminism. If so, it is a misinterpretation that feminism invites. It’s true that the anxiety and lack of social skills of the men leads them to take on more extreme interpretations of feminist views on heterosexuality. Yet those interpretations aren’t necessarily any more extreme than the feminism of some radical feminists. As for feminists who don’t intend those extreme interpretations, they have provided no barrier against them.
Feminists should know by now that shy, anxious, and social inexperienced men exist, who are likely to take more extreme interpretations of feminist views on heterosexuality (these men have been crying out to feminists for decades). Men are not a monolith, and it is the responsibility of feminists to realize that different men will take their messages in different ways.
It’s all well and go to say this, but you still have provided no account of when desire isn’t objectification. But even if you can, the point is that this may not be an account that young men exposed to feminism are receiving.
But I can attest that during my late teens and early 20s, when I was in fact an arrogant prick pretty much 100% of the time, my romantic success was absurdly good.
Probably because in their teens and early 20s, women are so conditioned to believe that men are predatory assholes that “asshole lite” seems pretty darn attractive. Hey, he didn’t follow me in his car, grab my ass, or try to slip something into my drink–he’s like Mr. Right!
defenestrated said:
I see now that you are distinguishing between different motivations that guys calling themselves “nice guys” might have. This distinction wasn’t available in your earlier post, which I think is why Glitch and I felt that you were painting these guys with an overly broad brush.
Myca might not be making that point, but I am (one of my posts is awaiting moderation, though). In some cases, feminism is implicated in cases of men’s fear of asserting themselves.
I agree that this is what feminist theory would suggest. What I wonder is what practical efforts feminists have made to bring this about in a systematic way. There has been a lot of talk by feminists about how women should be able to take on the active, rather than just the passive role, but I don’t see feminists diverting much resources towards this goal. Feminism tends to divert its resources to teaching women how to say “no,” and teaching men how to hear “no,” yet I don’t really see it teaching women how to say “yes.”
Look at date rape seminars, for instance: while they are necessary, they don’t really do anything to subvert the female=passive role. Their main effect is just to make men more passive too. But without women stepping in to pick up the slack, you just have two passive people, which means that nothing happens. Feminism is making men more passive at a faster rate than it is making women more proactive.
One of the best suggestions I’ve heard is that instead of eliminated date rape seminars to fix this problem, we should have both date rape seminars, and seminars in which males and females role-play taking on the role of the opposite sex. I don’t know if this would be practical, but I think it’s the right idea. Yet it’s not a feminist who is advocating it; it’s Warren Farrell.
There is third type of difficulty: “I can’t get laid because I don’t want to pressure a woman into sex, and I can’t stand feeling like there is even the slightest possibility that I’m doing so, but I have no idea how to make advances on a woman in a way that couldn’t be interpreted as pressure.” This is a guy trying his hardest to bring his heterosexuality in accordance with feminist principles. Yet it’s probably going to destroy his chances with women unless he can find a woman who is interested in him and who will make a move on him, and he doesn’t find some way to mess it up.
Wow, two comments in moderation…
It’s really like a “tragedy of the Commons” scenario.
Men whose actions mesh with informed feminism are at a disadvantage. This is because women who are feminist in dating are, IMO, a minority. they’re out there. but more rare.
So when a man acts “good” his actions make him less appealing to a majority of women, and more appealing to a minority of women. this penalizes him in dating.
The common sentiment “women like bad boys” may not be true. But, hmm, I think it’s safe to say that there are still a majority of women who expect their date to be paid for (all or most); to get something on valentine’s day that is “feminine” and probably bigger than the present they will give, to have the relationship initially be one of pursuit/pursuer, and so on. Most (not all, just ‘most’) women I have come across in my anecdotal life are not especially feminist. Not to my taste, but there it is….
It’s not that feminism is bad–it’s great! but the Message I have occasionally seen from feminism is “if men acted with more respect they’d have better luck with women” or something like that. I think the whole “nice guy” complaint stems from the fact that this statement is false.
They may have better luck with feminists. (Or not. because of course there’s the whole catch-22 of it that pheeno mentions. For some women, the concept that a man will do something “just” to be more appealing to the woman is, in and of itself, appealing. that sentiment, too, is IMO less likely to be true for feminists.)
So when a man acts “good” his actions make him less appealing to a majority of women, and more appealing to a minority of women. this penalizes him in dating.
If what you’re looking for is notches on your belt, sure.
If what a man is looking for is an ongoing relationship rather than a quantity of high-maintenance, short-term relationships, isn’t he at an advantage being appealing to a compatible minority?
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I had the same problem myself for many years. Here’s how I fixed it: I walked up to a young woman sitting on a bench* and said, “Hi! I’m practicing talking to strangers.” Yeah, it’s weird…..
…This is an oversimplification. I actually walked about twenty yards passed her, paced for a while, sat down, thought about it, thought about it some more, and then went back to her.
Sounds incredibly frightening and creepy from the point of view of the woman on the bench. Unless, I suppose, it was in a busy place, rather than some isolated park bench somewhere.
As another introvert (hey, we all meet up in the blogosphere!) having to make conversation with some stranger when I’m trying to be by myself is hellish. No reflection, necessarily, on the stranger.
If her perception is that he’s a nice guy, it’s becuase she isn’t paying heed to the signs. When a guy is apologizing every other day for jerkish behavior, that’s a big red flag that he has a few screws loose.
I think you made a good point when you said the following: “You can also thank all those romance novels for telling little girls that they can *change* the Bad Boy and if she’s just the perfect girlfriend and loves him enough, he will eventually LOVE HER SO MUCH that he will change, just for her. If she doesn’t give up on him, and loves him even though he’s an asshole, he’ll learn about True Love and they’ll have the fairy tale.”
Young girls are fed this fairy tale bs that if they love hard enough and long enough that they’ll be able to change their frog into a prince; thus, ignoring the signs of assholery or thinking that they can change him, the women continue to date the Bad Boy.
And sometimes women are just looking for Mr. Right Now/Mr. Exciting to have some fun with until they get ready for a serious relationship.
Hugh, I’m really curious as to how you think feminism “invites” the misinterpretations you’ve been discussing – which I kind of see as boiling down to: “treat women like people” sounds to some guys like “figure out different codes to enter on the woman-bot,” and they want the freaking code. How should The Feminists know what some dude’s love interest wants him to do to win her affection? She’s an individual with individual needs and desires, which ideally would factor into the guy’s interest.
Do you think that this conversation has never happened before and is original to this thread? The message has long been out there that feminists expect men to regard women as equals, not to be perfectly smooth in all romantic attempts; making sure that every last man on earth has heard the good news isn’t feminism’s job. After a certain point (decades, say), the ignorance is hard not to see as willful, especially on a cultural level.
Feminism does and has done plenty to help women to be more assertive. It’s true that feminists don’t spend a lot of time discussing the particulars of “how to ask a guy for a date or sex,” because it’s assumed that we covered that in Knowing What You Want 101 and the upper-level Speaking Up for Yourself courses (besides, that would be stealing Cosmo‘s market). To complain that feminism as a movement doesn’t focus enough energy on how to those skills to date and sleep with men strikes me as, well, funny.
How is this different from “I can’t get laid because I don’t know how to ask for what I want,” aside from providing a little background? It could just as easily be “I can’t get laid because I don’t want to creep women out with my second nose, but I have no idea how to make advances on a woman in such a way that she couldn’t see my second nose” [ok, not just as easily]. That a guy has a reason for not knowing how to assert himself doesn’t make it any less his responsibility to find a way of doing so. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not feminism’s fault.
**It takes me a ridiculous amount of time right now to form even that coherent and complete of a comment, and I’m sure that an undrugged me would have said more and/or said it better. Slack should be cut to me. Hell, for all I know I just seamlessly solved all the riddles of the universe, but I probably wouldn’t be able to tell by reading back through.**
Holly said,
I agree. Very strongly. In my experience, guys who swoop in like that (especially if they offer no conversation starter, since it’s apparently enough that you’re female and you’re there) usually don’t take very kindly to “I’d rather be by myself,” and insist that you’re personally insulting them by saying so.
Though honestly, unless as Holly says it’s somewhere busy, if the guy has been hanging around for a while, pacing and contemplating talking to me – we have eyes and aren’t stupid – I would probably be too scared for my safety to risk finding out what he’s like when he’s feeling insulted. I’d feel stuck playing along until I found a way to get away (or the bus comes, since this sort of thing happens to me most often at bus stops, where I’m ‘conveniently’ a relatively captive audience).
On the upside, though, the guy would get his “positive and supportive” response.
See? G’night, tubes.
For the record, it was in a fairly busy place, in broad daylight, and I was outside her field of vision while contemplating. I really don’t need to be told any of this, as I generally tend to err on the side of worrying far too much about how others will interpret my actions. So it’s probably a good thing we didn’t have this conversation before I tried it.
And I realize that since I’m atypical in many other ways, I may well be atypical in this way as well, but I’ve never been insulted, angered, or anything but disappointed by honest, explicit rejection (though I have a pretty low opinion of women who stop returning phone calls or e-mails with no explanation). If a woman doesn’t want me, it’s unfortunate, but I don’t see that there’s any reason to be offended.
Brandon – The busy location really does make a difference, so I’m glad you cleared that up.
Good for you – seriously – but no one’s going to know that until after they’ve rejected you. Maybe you’ll be insulted, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’re the kind of guy who’ll get violent, maybe you’re not. Hence the whole idea of approaching women in a non-pressuring way – i.e. making sure the situation and approach are such that the woman knows that “no” is a safe and acceptable answer – that’s apparently so problematic for some guys.
Yeah, yeah, I already said I was going to bed. I’ve been watching many consecutive episodes of the Simpsons. Now I’m going to bed.
defenestrated said:
I have always wanted to do the right thing. My mother taught me to respect women, and I have always taken this seriously. When I was younger, I wanted to respect women in the ways that feminists said. I did my best to follow feminist directives to not objectify, sexually harass, and pressure women. For instance, is it sexual harassment or objectification to tell a girl, “by the way, I think you are really cute”? Am I putting her in the role of an object that is subordinate to me? Is it pressuring to say “hey, we should walk downtown and get some food after school…”? Am I imposing my idea of what I think we “should” do on her? Is it sexual harassment to say, “here, come gimme a hug”? I didn’t know the answers to these questions. But I didn’t want to do the wrong thing and disrespect women, so I played it safe and behaved as conservatively as possible.
The result was that I acted like a complete eunuch, and I treated women like frail porcelain statues. I did such a good job of not pressuring women that I never went on a date, and never kissed a woman.
Was I misinterpreting feminism? It’s clear that I didn’t interpret feminist messages in a way that most feminists probably intend. Yet did I interpret the messages I received in a completely unreasonable manner? I don’t think so. Feminists want men to question their behavior with women from a moral standpoint. This mandate is one of the main goals of feminism, no? Well, I questioned my actions towards women; I questioned them so well that action became almost impossible.
I said that feminists invite misinterpretation of their directives to men, because those directives are extremely vague and sweeping, making it impossible for men (especially those lacking in social skills) to know the boundary between acceptable or unacceptable behavior in the feminist view. Feminists tell men not to objectify, sexually harass, or pressure women, but they don’t provide a clear account of exactly what behaviors are objectification, sexual harassment, or pressure, and which are not. Feminists don’t say “telling a girl she has a hot ass is objectification, but telling a girl she is cute is OK,” they just say “don’t objectify women,” which is somewhat like saying “don’t sin.”
It is the responsibility of feminists to explain what they believe is and isn’t objectification, sexual harassment, and pressure. It is not the responsibility of shy, socially inexperienced and impressionable young men to mind-read what feminists consider the boundaries of those terms to be.
When feminists give men urgent but vague rules about how to behave, some of these men are going to go overboard in following those rules, making it impossible for them to get anywhere with women. If feminists are going to give men rules, and insist on not qualifying these rules, feminism is going to harm some of these men. Maybe it can argued that messing up a few shy guys is a small price to pay in getting the message out that men shouldn’t objectify, sexually harass, or pressure women, etc.; yet if feminists are arguing this, they should be honest about it, and stop trying to pretend that their approach doesn’t hold the risk of harming lots of men.
Ironically, the men who are the most conscientious about following feminism’s dictates are most likely to have their romantic lives impaired, like mine was. Even worse, when you bring this up to feminists, they often blame you, when all you were trying to do was follow what they were telling you. You get accused of believing that you are entitled to sex with women, or of viewing women as robots that just need to be fed the right code. Or you get accused of requiring feminists to give you concrete and detailed instructions of how to behave.
Doing my best to follow feminism’s directives contributed to me being lonely and rejected by women for an extended period of time. To me, this felt like a betrayal. Thanks to these experiences, and other reasons, I have become a critic of feminism. If feminists are fine with impairing the relationships of some of the men most likely to support their cause, in a way that can result in those men later becoming alienated from feminism, then they should keep doing what they are doing.
I think ‘nice’ is the first word they teach aspiring writers not to use. The word is pinballing here to mean whatever anyone needs it to mean to make their own arguments work. (Certainly, I don’t know what ‘adventuresome’ is supposed to mean, nor how you measure it in someone.) Niceness is assumed to mean passive, shy, and unconfident, but it doesn’t have to. The question I’m trying to ask is, is there something inherent about being an asshole that some women find attractive? Or is it just that being an asshole comes commonly packaged with confidence and boldness? Now, nemo’s post #23 has the faint whiff of urban legend about it, but it strikes me as plausible and probably does so to most of you as well. If it’s true, then there’s something inherent about violent and brutish behaviour that’s seen as attractive and the entire discussion that assumes a nice/passive and jerk/assertive polarity is incomplete. The romance novel mentality mentioned by pheeno perhaps doesn’t cause it, in my view, but perhaps conditions women to tolerate more of it before they realize that it’s not worth it.
We should perhaps generalize and consider nice guys and gals both, and the difficulties that they both face. Nice guys shoulder the burden of having to be the initiator, but nice girls feel themselves more restricted by a rigid pecking order based on attractiveness. (Let’s face it, all else being equal, what’s being assumed here ‘nice guys/girls’ are those whose credentials in other areas are otherwise lacking.) A nice guy who puts in enough time and effort with a girl is expected to get payoff, while a nice girl gets no reprieve anytime anywhere if she doesn’t have the goods. Or she does, but only if it involves an extreme makeover that involves a crooked doctor from Florida carving your face up with garden tools. Girls, after a certain point, are expected to put out when he’s done enough, or else they’re stone cold bitches. For guys, if she’s not at least a 6.5 out of 10, hey, we understand.
I don’t think anyone’s opposed to gender equality, at least here. The question is, should it be achieved by allowing women to be as shallow as men are allowed to be with equal impunity? Or by setting expectations of men that are more in line with what’s expected of women? The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but I’m leaning toward the latter. I’m not just leaning, I’m reclining.
“A nice guy doesnt bemoan not getting the hot chick ( he realizes there’s more to life than looks) doesnt contemplate being an asshole just to get hot chicks and sure as hell doesnt resent frienship, he recognizes the value in it.”
Oh, come off it. ;) That seems to be an impossibly high standard. Like the average nice girl considered fat and unattractive doesn’t secretly dream of the hawt boi, or consider all sorts of ill-advised methods, some of them harmful to more than just herself, to get a leg up on the game? I realize the distinction is one of degree – it all is. When does guilty fantasy become contemplation? What’s niceness and what’s actual kindness? For that matter, how do you even differentiate the two in real life, without the benefit of hindsight? These sorts of words belie an inability to sympathize with guys like Hugh and Glitch. Having been through an unfortunately long awkward phase myself, that is one area of empathy where I am not lacking.
Some advice I can give you guys to get out of your funk is, for starters, to start working out. It did wonders to my self-esteem. Also, engage in more activities where charisma and gutsiness are requirements one and two. Have you considered volunteering in soliciting donations? Generally, the more creative and off-the-script you have to be, the better.
I dunno if I agree with that. I lean towards the “you never know” theory. the woman who i happen to be madly in love with, and married to for almost ten years…. well, at the time I started dating her i didn’t see it being more than a fling. her predecessor and I, OTOH, were “in love”; thank god we didn’t get married. The more folks you date (within reason), the greater your chances of meeting someone with whom you an have a good, ongoing, relationship.
Hugh, you’re “getting accused” of making the demand because you just made the demand.
Probably because at root you still see women as other than men. Otherwise you would not stumble over the “am I objectifying her if I tell her she’s attractive.”
I’m so sick of men whining about how feminism castrates them. How in the hell can someone confuse objectification with expressing interest? Is the objectification of women so socialized into men that they can’t even parse their own emotional reaction to specific women from their encultured response to women as a whole?
I have dated and slept with many, many women and have never had this disconnect between who I am, how I wish to be treated, and treating another woman in the same light. I’ve never felt the need to objectify another woman, ever. Which of course would require me to objectify myself, so I guess I have a leg up on the dudes. But seriously. How do you men envision having an adult relationship with a woman when you can’t excise the objectification and othering from your view of who and what women are?
And why the whining from men under 30 about not dating? Why is this being misplaced onto women? Christ, do we have to do everything for you?
That’s not true. Someone can be very intelligent and still be socially incompetent. Actually, I’d hazard a guess that very intelligent people are more likely than average to be socially incompetent, because our minds often work differently from normal people’s.
So check your sociotypical privilege at the door, please.
For instance, is it sexual harassment or objectification to tell a girl, “by the way, I think you are really cute”? Am I putting her in the role of an object that is subordinate to me? Is it pressuring to say “hey, we should walk downtown and get some food after school…”? Am I imposing my idea of what I think we “should” do on her? Is it sexual harassment to say, “here, come gimme a hug”?
Context is everything. If you meet a woman in a bar (hopefully you won’t meet any girls there, but underage sneaking in does happen), chat with her for a while, and then say “by the way, I think you’re really cute” that means something different than if you say the same thing to a junior high school girl who is a student of yours and whom you have met to discuss what to do about her poor grades. Likewise, “Hey, we should walk downtown and get some food after school” means something different depending on if you’re both teachers or both students or if one of you is a teacher, the other a student (or one the principle and the other a teacher). It also means something different if you’ve said the same thing 13,204X before and always been told “get lost” or if the girl you’re talking to is a stranger versus if the girl in question is a friend who you often hang out with. That goes even moreso for “give me a hug”. If you say that to a girl who is a close friend or romantic partner or even a reasonably friendly acquaintance who is having a hard day and is into touchy-feely things, it is different from if the girl is a stranger, someone who has rejected you in the past (and showed no signs of reconsidering), or someone who is is dependent on you in some way.
This is, of course, not the official Feminist(TM) position or anything other than my idea of what is and what isn’t acceptable. But the general rule, IMHO, is look at the situation, evaluate whether the person is receptive to you or not, and absolutely avoid anything that could be construed as a sexual advance when the person is in a position such that you have power over him or her. When in doubt, no one will fault you for being a little more distant than necessary. In the end, I don’t think that this issue is really about “feminism” so much as not putting people in an uncomfortable position–ie where they feel pressured to get closer than they want to or endangered.
“If her perception is that he’s a nice guy, it’s becuase she isn’t paying heed to the signs. When a guy is apologizing every other day for jerkish behavior, that’s a big red flag that he has a few screws loose. ”
That is a perfect example of women being told the wrong things to look for, that they should always be polite and forgive, never make anyone feel bad ect. Its not her failure to see the signs, its his success at manipulating her into dismissing them.
I think that something that’s worth discussing here is that for many people, power is erotic. I know it is for me. I exclusively date strong, smart, self-reliant women.
It’s because of feminism that so many more women are free to be strong, smart, and self-reliant without stigma, and from both a self-actualization standpoint, a mental/emotional/social health standpoint, and a ‘Myca’s dating life’ standpoint, that’s a really good thing.
Part of the difficulty, though, is that many men who embrace feminist principles have seen how male power has historically been abused, and, rather than focusing on ways to be powerful without being abusive, tend to be very wary of any sort of expression of power at all. I think that’s what Sharon’s original essay was about.
Do I think this is feminism’s fault? Well, not really but sort of. Kinda. I think feminist thought has exacerbated the problem in some ways, but I also think that it will provide the ultimate solution, a world in which we’re all able to have power without abuse. I think what we’ve got now is a temporary state of affairs, and possibly a necessary one.
Contrary to many of the dismissive comments here, though, it’s not always clear what’s ‘oppression’ and what’s not. It’s not always clear what’s offensive and what’s not. Discard your notions about entitled men for a moment, and put yourself in the person of a 17 year old kid who really really likes a female friend of his. He wants a romantic relationship, but he also likes her as a friend. Now read what Pheeno wrote in post #29. What the hell does he do? Express interest? He doesn’t want her to hear that he considers her friendship a pile of crap, and he doesn’t, but at the same time, he likes her as more than a friend . . . and that’s not, in itself, a bad thing.
Also, of course, it doesn’t help that ‘let’s be friends’ has become the stereotypical blow-off line, because that devalues friendship. It makes friendship the consolation prize.
—Myca
Oh, and also, I agree completely about the difference between actual nice guys and self-proclaimed “NICE GUYS.”
And I wanted to add real quickly that I think it’s important to realize that the overwhelming majority of the time that you hear a guy complain about how ‘women only date jerks’, it’s not an argument or a philosophy or a sociological analysis, it’s a rant.
It’s a rant in the same way that I hear women complain about how ‘guys only want to date bimbos with big boobs’ is a rant. That is, it’s not true, but the frustration is understandable, and when I hear that, I don’t immediately assume that the woman ranting is an overentitled twit who feels like she’s got a right to affection whether or not she’s any fun to be around . . . I assume she’s just had a painful experience, and she’s blowing off steam.
“That seems to be an impossibly high standard. Like the average nice girl considered fat and unattractive doesn’t secretly dream of the hawt boi, or consider all sorts of ill-advised methods, some of them harmful to more than just herself, to get a leg up on the game? ”
Doesnt seem to be, Ive met many men who’ve met and exceeded that standard.
There seems to be a distinct lack of articles, cliches, catch phrases ect about those nice girls never getting a guy and it being the GUYS fault. Those girls tend to internalize it, view it as their fault (usually because they’re overweight or dont fit some beauty standard) and give up, settling for any guy who so much as looks their way. She usually finds an asshole, because he sees an easy to control target.
Those girls arent whining about it. They’re giving themselves eating disorders.
Do you see the difference here in who nice girls blame?
Who gets the eating disorders? Girls. Who gets the blame when a guy cant get a date? Girls. Who’s the bitch? Girls. Who has some fem bot code to be cracked? Girls.
I dont know about you, but I have a problem with this.
“Now read what Pheeno wrote in post #29. What the hell does he do? Express interest? He doesn’t want her to hear that he considers her friendship a pile of crap, and he doesn’t, but at the same time, he likes her as more than a friend . . . and that’s not, in itself, a bad thing.”
Now go back and read what I wrote and see where they were PISSED at me because they wanted more. Not just wistfully hoping and well sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesnt. They *resented* just being my friend.
Thats what makes my friendship just a pile of crap to them.
They wanted pussy, and the person attached to it was purposely holding out and just giving them the person and not the all important pussy.
If *thats* how that poor little 17 year old sees it I have an idea of what he can do.
Hugh tried to discuss the subject reasonably, and he got called stupid. Multiple times.
Any wonder why he prefers pickup to engaging with feminists for dating?
Do feminists have this sort of hostility towards the obesities that men aren’t sexually attracted to? Women who complain that they get called dude?
Right, I see what you’re saying.
What I’m saying is that some of that is because we treat ‘let’s just be friends’ as a brush-off, and some of it is probably because, well, unfulfilled longing can turn to resentment, because as you watch your friend (whom you’re in love with ) go through bad relationship after bad relationship, you keep thinking “Jeez, I would never treat you like that.”
You ever hear Ani’s “Untouchable Face”? It’s like that. She doesn’t say “fuck you’ because she’s pissed off, she says ‘fuck you’ because it hurts.
Anyway, the point is, speaking as someone who once was a 17 year old boy, there’s a real fear at that age that expressing romantic interest will be seen as a betrayal of the friendship . . . that expressing romantic interest will be seen as, “I just want pussy, and don’t care about the person attached,” which was, for me, untrue.
—Myca
I don’t know, Bean, I don’t think that asking ‘How can men express both power and romantic interest so as to not be oppressive or off-putting to women’ is a question utterly unrelated to feminism.
YMMV, of course.
Myca: Power isn’t erotic. You have eroticized power. Lots of folks do.
Men can be both powerful and romantic. No big deal. It’s when dominance that is based on gendered differences gets confused with power that feminists get critical.
Personally, I don’t see the relevance of a 17-year-old’s failed romance to feminism, but that’s just me.
Is it sexual harassment to say, “here, come gimme a hug”? I didn’t know the answers to these questions.
You should. As with all human interactions, they depend on context. Playfully telling your wife “gimme a hug” when you’re curled up watching TV is very different than saying the same thing to your secretary. Telling a fellow student in your 300-person undergrad class “I think you’re cute” in the hopes that she’ll ask you out on a date is probably fine; saying “I think you’re cute” to your boss in the middle of a shape-up-or-ship-out lecture pretty obviously isn’t.
Of course it’s not always 100% clear. Our species hasn’t evolved mind-reading. But the solution to “how can I be assertive without being an ass?” is not to complain that feminists are big meanies, or that it’s women’s problem if it doesn’t always turn out perfectly.
Right! And that’s why I never said that.
I what I said was that this was a temporary and possibly necessary state of affairs.
Put another way, under the patriarchy, there’s a certain paradigm (or several paradigms) for male/female relationships. Under feminism, there’s another (or many other). I think part of what’s happening here has to do with the confusion that accompanies a shift from one to the other.
In that sense, feminism is partially the ’cause’ but it’s not a bad thing. The medicine tastes bad, but you need it. The scab will itch as it heals. That’s what I’m talking about.
The new paradigm is healthy, the old one was not. The shift is necessary. The confusion may be inevitable, but it’s what needs to happen.
Also, of course, it doesn’t help that ‘let’s be friends’ has become the stereotypical blow-off line, because that devalues friendship
That line, per se, certainly, but there are other ways of expressing the concept. How do you think that the hypothetical 17 year old in question would react if his friend said, “No. I value you as a friend but I’m not attracted to you/ready to have a relationship/interested in going there with you.”? At that point, does he say, “Ok. I won’t bring it up again. If you change your mind please feel free to bring it up to me.” and continue to be her friend? Or drop the friendship, whether out of embarrassment or because he didn’t get what he really wanted out of it? If the latter, then he should probably be prepared for her to feel hurt and betrayed by him.
Agreed.
Why should she feel betrayed? Friendships change. Motivations change.
Certainly, I have fallen in love with friends in the past. Some affections were returned, some not. Of the latter, some friendships were too odd following the proposal/rejection, some weren’t. I’m still friends with quite a few of my high school friends/crushes, but not all.
Pheeno: That someone didn’t want to be friends with you after you said no to their dating proposal doesn’t mean they didn’t like you as a friend at first, or even when they got romantic, or even when you said no.
Because that’s not the only ball in the game, ya? Folks can have both positive and negative feelings, towards the same person, at the same time. I can be angry at, or hurt by, or rejected by, a friend. And even though I may still value their friendship, if those negative feelings are big enough then the friendship ends.
It’s not a one way street, is all. People don’t just “feel” hurt and betrayed, they usually are also made to feel hurt and betrayed. Choosing two different examples from my own high school life: One friend, when I confessed a new-found crush on her, was understanding but not interested. I was disappointed; she was polite; we’re still friends 20 years later.
The other friend, when i did the same, got odd and distant. perhaps she–like you, apparently–believed in the narrative that one could only be friends or have a crush, not both. Perhaps she thought my friendship earlier was “fake” (it wasn’t). But for whatever reason, her reaction was, let’s just say, not as nice. We weren’t friends for long thereafter. Perhaps she felt betrayed because she thought my friendship was fake. I recall that I felt betrayed, because she was so willing to believe that about me merely because I had the bad luck to develop a crush on her (bad taste, it seems…)
Those results were different because of the INTERACTION BETWEEN BOTH PARTIES, not because an eevul man (me, in this case) ruined the friendship. isn’t that obvious?
“What I’m saying is that some of that is because we treat ‘let’s just be friends’ as a brush-off, and some of it is probably because, well, unfulfilled longing can turn to resentment, because as you watch your friend (whom you’re in love with ) go through bad relationship after bad relationship, you keep thinking “Jeez, I would never treat you like that.””
But again, your treating/believing friendship is a blow off isnt *my* issue. Its yours. You’re applying your ideas of what it means to my motivation, without even asking. You’ve assumed its a brush off and run with it.
Who’s fault is that? Hers or his?
Maybe the answer is that it’s complicated.
Ending a friendship because she did not reciprocate your romantic interest could mean that you’re a bastard who just pretended to be friends because you wanted pussy. It could also mean that spending time hanging out with someone you really want to be with romantically is just too much to handle.
Conversely,
Ending a friendship because he expressed interest you did not reciprocate could mean that you’re a selfish bitch who considers it offensive that a friend might want to go out with you. It could also mean that spending time hanging out with someone you know is pining for you is just too much to handle.
After an unsucessful attempt to take a friendship into romantic territory, in my experience, it’s the pursued as often as the pursuer who ends the friendship.
—Myca
Well, no, maybe it’s a brush-off. I guarantee you that the sort of person who would use that as a brush off also wouldn’t say “heck yeah, it’s a brush-off.”
Why should she feel betrayed?
As Myca said, because she may feel that the friendship was a pretense.
Myca, do you notice a certain lack-of-parallel here?
What if she considers it offensive that her friend wants to go out with her because (as we’ve been talking about), she feels like the guy has been pretending to be friends?
There is no corresponding, The guy pretends to be friends because he feels like she’s a selfish bitch. Why are the standards for bastard and bitch so very different?
Oh wait, that’s the whole point of gendered insults.
Defenestrated, you’re being unfair.
My point is that there are both men and women who will end a friendship after a romantic advance, and some of the time it’s for perfectly good reasons. Some of the time it’s not.
‘Whether or not it’s reasonable to end a friendship’ does not depend on your gender. ‘Whether or not it’s reasonable to end a friendship’ also doesn’t depend on whether you’re the pursuer or the pursued.
Heck, if you would like something more directly parallel, how about:
Look, I DON”T THINK THAT WOMEN ARE THE BAD GUYS. What I’m saying is that in terms of ‘friendships ended after a romantic advance’, they’re not always the good guys either.
Motivations are complicated.
I had a nice response to Myca, but it took so long to compose that I blew it off because I was sure things had moved right along. Now it’s taken forever long again, but I’ve decided to just click “Submit” and get on with life …
On the subject of “Let’s Be Friends(tm)”, there are a lot of reasons that “Let’s Be Friends(tm)” can be better than “Take A Hike”. One is that the reason a relationship is a bad idea might be a friendship-killer. I’m increasingly unwilling to date outside my religion and social class. Yet, I have friends, including friends who’ve expressed an interest in dating me, who aren’t in my social class and don’t share my religion. If someone pushes for a reason, which happens when “Let’s Be Friends(tm)” is used to put off or end a relationship, I’m not sure I want to tell them why because that same pair of reasons has nothing to do with friendships.
And while I respect Myca’s comment that it can be hard to spend just-friends time around someone you’re attracted to, I think that’s more a reflection of the person’s belief that they really know “what’s best”, which was something I mentioned in my now-discarded post — I want my friends to have good relationships, even if they aren’t with me, and knowing how I decide between friends and lovers, I know that other people very likely go through the same mental calculus.