But she made this statement after the warnings were issued. So your rationale is baseless.
Stranger
She made the statement before the warnings were issued. See her statement in post #54. On my version of the Dope, #54 comes before #100 and #108. In post #60 he all but admits she has a point to it. In fact, she didn’t post again after the warnings until you brought it up again. Your excuses are baseless.
Butterflies
See [post=11147294]post #113[/post].
Personally, I find it curious you focus on this rather than the more contentious meat of my post.
Stranger
Let’s try this again, shall we?
She did not post after the warnings until YOU brought it up again. YOU. Y-o-u. You questioned her about it and she declined to look for examples to satisfy you. You brought it up again and she declined.
One more time:
[ol]
[li]Warning issued[/li][li]You bring it up again after warning said to stick with the topic raised by the OP.[/li][li]She declined to go into it with you.[/li][/ol]
Honestly, it’s not that hard but you feel free to come back and make more excuses, I’m done with this hijack.
Butterflies
PS - I couldn’t care less about the “meat” of your post because your post is addressing things that SHE said, not me. Why should I care about your opinion of her ideas? My interest is that you want to continue to bleat about something that has been settled (see the OP’s post #60) and warned about.
Imagine the female equivalent of the man in question here: a woman who, after a date or two, is e-mailing you multiple times to remind you of your next date or to ask when it’s going to be, who wants to talk about marriage or your kid’s names after 5 dates, calls you all the time if you don’t call her, or without waiting for you to call her back, etc. Would you like that? Or would you feel like she’s clinging to you like a lamprey?
This is not male/female behavior. This “too available” behavior creeps most people out. Men don’t like it either, and men actually complain about it more than woman do, IME. Think about how much a guy gets teased if his girlfriend calls him 5 times on a night out. Try not to make things that aren’t gender issues into gender issues.
Yeah, thats creepy no matter who does it. But how many times have we heard where if the guy actually calls back ONCE “too soon” its a deal breaker for some women. If he has the gall to say he had a nice time and would like to do it again, its a deal breaker. If he’s actually available to go out again soon without consulting his calendar and fortune teller there must be something wrong with him. If he is actually considerate enough (or just not picky) to let the woman pick the activity he isnt assertive enough.
These threads always make me thank the gods I dont think like a woman. It must be a logical hell IMO that would make me suicidal.
Please do keep right on thinking like a man.
I’ve never heard anyone say this is a deal breaker. These kind of women have to be as rare as the guy who thinks a woman with anything less than a C cup is a deal breaker. Which is to say, so rare that it’s not worth getting your boxers bunched over them.
To be fair to those who take issue with my issues with the guy I mentioned earlier, I forgot to mention two details about him that actually are more relevant to my negative perceptions.
Almost immediately after we started exchanging emails, he looked me up on facebook and asked me to be his friend. This was only after I’d communicated to him once or twice. I didn’t actually grant him friend access until a few more exchanges had passed. At which point he started going through the contents of my profile, albums, and friends list with what seems a fine tooth comb. I say this because in later conversations, he’d ask me about so-and-so that he’d seen on my page, refer to my sister by name (info that I hadn’t told him), and throw in that he knew what my ex looked like because he saw him on facebook. Now I know that by making the guy a facebook friend, I was granting him access to these areas of my life, but it still feels intrusive and stalkeresque to have this guy hunting down information on me and recounting it when we’re casually talking. When I expressed surprise that he’d done this, his response was “but you made me your facebook friend”. This was the first indication that he and I have different ideas regarding boundaries.
The other indication weirded me out, too. During our first date, we realized that we live in the same neighborhood. I gave him the gist of where I live in relation to landmarks, but of course not the exact address. Then the conversation moved on to other things. At the end of the date, he walked me to my car, we said our farewells and I went home. The next morning, I head to my car and I notice his business card stuck to the driver’s side window. Apparently he looked for my apartment after our date, recognized my car, and decided to be cute and leave behind his card. But some reason I wasn’t charmed. I was moderately freaked out. In a semi-serious, semi-joking way, I told him this the next time we spoke and he got defensive “But you practically told me where you live.” He doesn’t seem to understand that simply because someone has access to information doesn’t mean they have to exploit it.
I’ve thought about it thoroughly enough that at this point I’m ready to give up on him. I gave it the ole college try, though. If it’s unreasonable for me to be turned off by his displays of interest, I can live with that.
I question whether this stuff really happens. The things you’re talking about are just common courtesy. Where they start to run afoul of “fucking annoying” is when they get taken to extremes.
Calling back too soon: if the lady in question really does flip out because you called once, then she’s just playing games with you. Usually, though, the people calling back “too soon” are a lot more like Mikey than they care to admit.
I’ve never heard of anyone being shot down because they said they had a nice time and would like to do it again. I would guess there were other issues involved.
In re an open schedule: I think a lot of the time when you’re not really interested in someone, you lie and tell them you’re going to be really busy. If they take the hint, then nobody has to explicitly reject anybody. If the rejectee doesn’t get it, then it can turn into a kind of desparate pleading: “you must be free sometime. How about I meet you at 4am Tuesday. Are you working then?” It gets to be pathetic.
Also, “letting the woman pick an activity” is different from
“Do you want to go out sometime?”
“Sure, what would you like to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know, what would you like to do? I’m up for anything!”
The thing about all of the reasons for rejection that you find unreasonable and crazy is that a lot of them turn out to be open to interpretation, Rashomon style. Did you seem available, or desperate? It’s hard to tell from the inside how you look from the outside.
ETA-- In response to you with the face, everybody knows you sift through the girl’s facebook profile, but you pretend that you didn’t. Duh! You’ve got to be subtle.
Oh, for pity’s sake. Nobody is saying that you can’t ever call or have to pretend you don’t like her or any of the other ridiculous crap guys are claiming.
What people are saying is that you should use the same sort of basic common sense you use in non-romantic social interactions. If you had a potential business contact, you wouldn’t call them constantly nagging about when you can set up a meeting, you know? It would be off-putting and couterproductive, right? So why would you think it would go over well with a potential date? That sort of thing. Women really aren’t some bizarre species, we’re just people and want to be treated like it.
And ArrMatey!, yeah, it really is kind of hard to tell a guy he needs to be more aggressive. For one thing, it’s not really our place or our job to be your freaking life coach. Most of us already have enough projects and don’t need any more, to be brutally honest. For another thing, guys (people in general, really) tend not to take kindly to an honest assessment of their personality flaws. Telling people just exactly what’s wrong with them…it kind of gets you all sorts of unpleasant labels. Like the names that always get trotted out in these threads. Why should we put ourselves through that?
[Official Moderator Warning]Focus on this-When I said to stay on topic, I meant it. There are no excuses for stirring up shit in IMHO, since both the “Report this post” button and The BBQ Pit are both available to you.
The next person to post something that is off topic for this OP will also get a warning.[/Official Moderator Warning]
Puppies will grow up. Men should be grown up.
How many times HAVE we heard it? My guess-- never.
Again, I’m guessing this happened circa never. These seem like trumped up behaviors attributed to women to vilify them. I know lots of women, probably more than you do, and I’ve never heard of a woman rejecting a man because he called too soon, or because he said he wanted to go out again. Literally, never. Generally, men are rejected for the borderline stalkerish behavior that you with the face is describing. These boundary issues likely manifest in other aspects of life and are either disturbing or annoying. Simply returning phone calls or expressing desire to go out again is neither of these.
If the guy has zero will of his own, he probably shows this in other areas of life, not just picking the place for the date.
If you make stuff up that no one ever said or done, then call it “thinking like a woman,” then you really have no idea how women think and aren’t interested in finding out. Thanks, though, for contributing to the nasty tone and misconceptions that run rampant in these kinds of conversations.
Someone should tell that to the sales reps of the vendors who call me every day. I think it’s the same mentality. And I think it’s a leading cause of “blowoff” (as in “I can’t believe she blew me off!”). If you corner someone with high pressure sales tactics, whether it’s in a business situation or a social encounter, they may be too polite (or frightened) to tell you straight up to fuck off. But what they might do is give you a “yes” to get you the hell off their back and then never reciprocate.
A few years ago I had a vendor who called me all the damn time. We elected to use a different vendor, and he’d call me throughout the implementation trying to get us to change our mind. One day I said to him “look, you are becoming like that ex-boyfriend who you start to wonder if you need a restraining order against - that probably isn’t the impression you want to leave with me. I know your sales manager is pressuring you to make these calls, but they have become counterproductive.” He laughed, apologized, and drops me an email every six months.
Hm. I guess I agree on the ‘life coach’ thing, but let’s do this with different variables: You’ve dated a guy twice, three times, and he says to you, “I’m sorry, you dress too well for me.” And breaks up with you. You think to yourself, “Hm. He’s the second or third guy who says that I dress too well. What’s wrong with my fashion sense?”
Well, it’s not your fashion sense. It’s the fact that the guy doesn’t like people who spend money on clothes. (Or some other variable). The problem is that he’s not telling you the truth. Whether it’s to spare your feelings or not, or avoid some label, the fact of the matter is that you’re not going to change whatever the underlying problem is because you’re not being -told- what the underlying problem is.
I’m hoping that makes sense, no? I’m wondering, too, if perhaps ‘nice guy’ might be a cop-out term. That is to say, by employing the ‘nice guy’ addage, the female can feel as if they’re not hurting the guy’s feelings (and trust me, it usually hurts anyway) when whatever reason they might have might reflect poorly on themselves.
A caveat: I’m not trying to point fingers here; I have been the ‘nice guy’, but once the code was actually spelled out to me, I realized what the problem was. I’m just fascinated by why it has to be a code at all, and would welcome input into the matter.
It’s not code. It’s shorthand for a constellation of annoying behaviors associated with many self-proclaimed nice guys.
When a woman says “You’re a nice guy, but…” her usage of “nice guy” is in the literal sense. It’s a ego-sparing way of expressing disinterest, which could be due to any number of things.
Yes, precisely. These guys are like sales reps who, when you tell 'em you’re not interested in their product, tell you what a self-absorbed piece of shit you are and how anyone who doesn’t want to buy from them must be mentally and emotionally defective. And then when you tell somebody about this, they tell you how you ought to be nicer to these poor sales reps who work so hard to make a living. Really, would it kill you to give them a chance? I’m sure whatever they’re selling is perfectly nice and would serve your needs just fine, whatever it is.
After a while, you’d really start to fucking hate these people. Not all sales reps, but that particular type. You’d think and talk about them…well, the way women talk about Nice Guys. You’d wonder what the fuck was wrong with these people, and additionally what the fuck was wrong with the folks who berate you for disliking them.
Why would you want to change something about yourself to please someone you hardly know? And is it really a problem? I guess, if the same criticism keeps coming up, you could take the time to try and figure out what it really means, if you’re convinced that it’s a code for something. Ask your female friends or your sister about it. I’m not sure that you should assume it’s something you wanted to change, though, if it’s something superficial like, “I don’t like people who spend money on clothes.” If you like to spend money on clothes, and can afford it, find someone who likes that or doesn’t mind. Don’t change it to please someone who already dumped you.
It has to be a code because no one really wants to say, “You creep me out” or “I don’t find you attractive at all.” There’s a good chance, if you say that, the guy will tell you that you’re a bitch, or something like that, and it will get nasty. People try to exit situations gracefully, without being hurtful. If you just take it upon yourself to tell someone what’s wrong with them, that can come off as cruel. Why would someone want to do that, after only few dates? You’re not owed an explanation, really, and the risk of unpleasantness often outweighs the desire to be honest. Now, if you’d been dating for a year, then by all means, have it out. Short term stuff merits no such requirement IMO.
It seems like, if a person presses you for reasons why you don’t like them, they are putting you in an untenable situation: if you don’t tell them why, you’re being oblique and using code; if you do tell them, you’re being mean. I think it’s best not to force someone you hardly know to give you a run-down of why they don’t like you, because it’s bound to be based on something superficial. Instead to reflect, ask friends, try to read between the lines. Do your own work and most of all, be honest with yourself, because that’s much more of a requirement than it is of someone you only dated a few times. The reason might simply be that she didn’t get you and wasn’t right for you, not that there’s something wrong with you that you need to change.
We’ll leave aside for the moment whether it is a code, but it’s hard to believe that you honestly are asking why women don’t just tell someone “Look, you seem fairly pleasant and inoffensive, but you also seem to be utterly lacking in any backbone or interests of your own, and I find that off-putting.” Even a basic, cursory awareness of the most fundamental rules of social interaction ought to explain to you why we don’t say that. Asking why we have to be so coy about it…it smacks of precisely the sort of passive aggressive crap we hate so much about the Nice Guy.