Long ago, after I read “The Female Eunuch”, (Greer) I realized that people are not property. One does not “steal” another’s girlfriend or boyfriend, as you might steal someone’s television set. No girlfriend or boyfriend can be “stolen” without consent and cooperation.
If someone steals your cab, it wasn’t your cab.–Taxi Driver Wisdom
There was an old Jazz tune from the 20’s…If Your Kisses Can’t Hold The Man You Love, Your Tears Won’t Bring Him Back.
Title says it all.
So the notion of blaming anyone for destroying or “wrecking” a marriage or relationship by being more sexually interesting that the current partner is all misplaced anger?
Nope, That it take 2 to break up a relationship__the Hunter & the Huntee.
Both bear the weight.
The genders are, for the sake of the argument, irrelevant.
The Ladies clearly lose more- if they are the Hunters more often cannot be as clearly shown.
I’ve been hit on a lot more when I’m in a relationship than when I’m single. One girl I met at university explicitly told me that even though I had a girlfriend she thought she could be a better one. None of my male friends or I have ever tried to interfere in a relationship before it was quite obviously as sour as vinegar.
“Stealing” an SO seems to me to be much more of a female than a male thing. Men will poach sex if they can get it, but most of the time they don’t want the relationship. The thinking is, “if she screws around on her husband/boyfriend, she’ll do the same to me,” and for many men infidelity is something that makes the woman worthless for a relationship.
There’s a quip about that: “What’s the best revenge against someone who steals your wife?”
“Letting him keep her.”
Hmm. Gender aside for a moment, I’d say that knowing someone is in a committed relationship tells you a great deal about that person that would ordinarily take you a long time to discover for yourself. It’s an ice-breaker even more potent than being in an all-singles’ club.
If some guy’s got a wife, this tells you his probable sexual orientation, and if it matches what you are looking for — if the guy’s married, the odds that he’s straight go waay waaay up. If you know the guy’s girlfriend, you know how he treats her, and she him; you may even have heard through the grapevine whether they’re happy together.
Most importantly, even if all you know is that the guy’s married, it takes off the presure to perform or conform. You can be yourself around a married other, and relax, and not worry about whether you’ve got something in your teeth or if you’ll be rejected or what your friends will think or if there are long-term marriage prospects here. Knowing it doesn’t matter if the person likes you is a great confidence builder, and that may make some people of either gender more inclined to appear flirtaceous, if even unintentionally.
Bringing gender back into it, I’d have to say in my personal opinion, society puts more pressure on women not to make the first move; it’s probably women’s behavior that changes more when that pressure is removed.
I’m suprised no one has mentioned Darwinism / natural selection.
Seems to me (un/educated guess - but then, check out my username) that natural selection might have a play in this.
Any speculation, theories or facts that would support this line of thinking towards the OP?
Female sees guy with an attractive friend - possibly something inherent tells the female that the man is quite capable of being a good mate. This drives the frend to ‘take necessary steps’ for producing offspring - or something along the lines…
Of course, putting the shoe on the other foot - the guy sees his GFs friend, he may want to ‘breed’ with her, but likely not be interested in any type of committed relationship.
There’s also the other side to this:
Are men more likely to screw around (or try to/want to) with their GF’s friends than woman are with their BF’s frends?
How am I going to meet interesting people without expending any effort? I just let my friends go meet them first.
My ex has a friend who regularly went after her friends’ boyfriends. She even went after me, and was pissed when I laughed her off. Why she wasn’t dropped from the group of friends is beyond me.
In my group of friends, there is one girl who comforted another after a hard breakup (she was really into this guy) and then took off after the friend’s ex. My friends and I were not too impressed but let it pass - though it was quite obvious that we didn’t want to hear about it.
After they broke up, the girl went for another’s ex and we all lost our shit, essentially. The girl whose ex it was said explicitly “I Don’t Want You To Do That. Please Don’t.” The offender blew her off saying she was too drunk to know what she was saying. After being essentially ostracized from our group, she apparently changed her mind but I can’t be sure if she hasn’t seen him secretly (she’s done it before). We’ll find out eventually. That said, both men were willing and able at the time; they found her quite attractive etc. but the first guy got a bit of a shock when he got to know her better and found her to be very different than he first thought.
Does that make sense??
At work (large organisation) there were boundaries- coworkers wives/ girlfriends off limits. I do’t know whether it worked the other way, although I never saw any evidence that it did.
I don’t know if those rules still apply.
[COLOR=“red”][COLOR=“DarkOrange”]A MALE FRIEND IS TRUE TILL DEATH. HE WOULD NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT LOOKNG AT HIS FRIENDS GIRL LET ALONE STEAL HER AWAY. IF HE DID IT WAS CAUSE FOR A GOOD ASS WHOOPING.NOW WOMEN ON THE OTHER HAND I HAVE FOUND OUT RECENTLY HAVE A DIFFERENT WAY OF LOOKING AT THIS. THEY DON’T HAVE THE SAME MORALS AS MEN. WHAT A SHAME THAT THERE IS A DOUBLE STANDARD FOR THIS.[/COLOR][/COLOR]
Little louder please?
What?! I can’t hear you; the previous poster deafened me.
Anyway, I was thinking about this again. I have been propositioned by men who, when told I have a boyfriedn, say “Does he treat you good?” or “Wanna upgrade?” They generally pass this off as a jokey-sort of thing, but it’s clear they would indeed follow up. They search for hints, and, when they don’t receive them, most of the time they bug off.
Women who will already chase another woman’s man, IME, will chase until they drop or until they get bored. Let’s be clear - that’s not ALL women, just women who already are in the habit of chasing other women’s men.
IME it’s not true. In my circle dating other girls’ exes was something to be cautious about–and it wasn’t a terribly large circle actually, it’s ridiculous how convoluted the connections got (and still are–my BIL’s wife’s best friend married the younger brother of the husband of my old roommate, who was dating my husband’s roommate when I got engaged to said husband…and I haven’t even told you about my old roommate’s sister.)
I knew one guy, one of the shy romantic types, who would invariably get interested in a girl only after she started dating someone else. He wasn’t a jerk about it, but it was like a girl was only attractive if she was unattainable. I had a crush on him for a while, but he finally asked me out much later, after I started dating dangerdad. He did eventually get married, but we always jokingly wondered how on earth he managed to get a girl with his ineffective methods.
Please ban that guy. Like, now.
FWIW, in my experience men are more likely to date friends’ hookups/exes after the first guy is done with them, but less likely to “steal” them while the first guy is still with them.
Was that post oranged by the orangist?
No anecdotes, but IMO, yes, women steal men more often than men steal women.
You can avoid telegraphing your desirability and availability, and you can decline to engage in any funny business.
I’ve seen both situations, though in my limited experience, it’s been the guy doing the poaching, not the girl. Most women I know have an unwritten rule that you can drool after a guy and hope he and his girlfriend break up, but you don’t go after him until he’s single. But, there was a girl who was married and kept asking my husband to date her. I felt a little bad for her - her husband didn’t pay much attention to her and would take off his wedding ring before going to the gym or a bar, presumably for added female attention - but at the same time, I also wanted to slap her. She sometimes hit on my husband in my presence which was really awkward and irritating.