Cock punch, so it’s not a stiff drink ?
Or maybe cock-punch him twice. :o
(Dear God, please don’t let that become the next “1920’s style death ray” gag).
LOL… I don’t know whats funnier - that or the previous post! Too funny…
Anyways to the OP, I’ve got the friends bit a few times with girls and I usually keep up the friend things afterwards. I’ve had mixed results. In some cases nothing developed, in some cases we ended up dating, sometimes for long periods (3 years in one instance). Was it worth listening to them gab and yap about their ex’s and whatever thoughts were on their mind?? I don’t know…
I know that I wouldn’t do this for just any girl - if an unattractive girl tried that on me I’d never call her again. However, I think most of us are doing this on very attractive girls, hence why we get the friends speech. If you insist on going for very pretty girls you got to learn to take some shit.
As I said before it’s worked for me to hang in there, at least two of my ex relationships I can attribute to this, and these two girls were hotties (they could have been strippers)…
If you think a woman is stringing you along with the “let’s be friends” speech, you have to lay it on the line. Simply tell her, “I’m sorry, but I already have plenty of friends and a good social life. What I’m looking for is one woman to have a relationship with. And I like you enough to feel we shouldn’t be wasting each other’s time. So I wish you the best of luck with your friend and hope he gives you everything you want and deserve in life. And I hope you’ll wish the same good luck for me.”
At this point, the woman will realize she can’t string you along. She’ll have to either decide to break up completely or commit to dating you. Having to make this decision may cause her to rethink her previous opinion of you. She may decide you’re a better prospect than she realized and with you walking out the door, she’ll now have to pursue you. The other possibility is that she takes you at your word. But at least you’ve made a clean break and left with no bitterness (after all, you’ve essentially told her you’re more attracted to her than she is to you). You’ll avoid the worst fate of all - hanging around a woman you’re attracted so she can complain to you about the men she’s having sex with.
Since when did this thread become about sex??? Did you notice, I never once mentioned trying to get sex? This is a relationship thread.
Also, regarding never calling her again, do you really think I should sit there while she regales me with intimate details about herself and her boyfriend, knowing full well that I had been interested in her? I thought that was a bit inconsiderate, and it is part of why I won’t call her again.
BTW, I care about both of these girls/people/young ladies (OK, “women” if you have to be PC about it, sheesh) and I wish the best for them. This is not a “F*** those b******” thread. It’s a plea for information, people!
You have some good insights about the “limbo” state, but you’re way too hostile. I think you should go take an empathy pill.
A couple of years ago I asked a woman out. She said yes, then came back later the same day to cancel. Apparently, her boyfriend wouldn’t like it if she dated me. Hah? Where did this boyfriend come from? Why didn’t she mention him when I asked here out? Does he really exist? Did she spend those 2-3 hours thinking up a name for him that would sound believable?
Anyway that’s when I learned that “I like you a lot” = “we’re never going to date.” with the side effect of stroking the man’s ego.
[junior mod hat on]
Umm … amore ac studio, that looked like a complete set of lyrics you posted.
You may wish to report yourself to a mod for re-Neduacation as it is specifically against SDMB policy to redistribute copyrighted material in its entirety when you are not the originator.
You may wish to drop a note to Coldfire, Cajun Man or Uncle Beer and request that you post be edited.
[junior mod hat off]
Word to jweb, Yersinia and cuauhtemoc for understanding me a little better than CrazyCatLady did. 
Zoe…I assume your name indicates you’re a woman? Want to go out? Even if things don’t work out, I’ll leave you the biggest, wettest smackeroo to remember me by! But, you have to promise me that you won’t slap me, cock-punch me, or call the police. 
[On a serious note, I think an unwanted kiss could be considered sexual battery, *if * the woman were mad enough about it to press charges, and if she had a good chance of proving it in court. Probably doesn’t happen much, but I bet it has happened sometime in the history of the world. I wouldn’t risk it, because I’m less afraid of being slapped or arrested than I am of being an intrusive macho jerk.]
Quasimodem…what can I say! Like I told Wang-Ka, I envy you your problems. 
burundi, Maureen and lel seem to following CCL’s lead in assuming that I am interested in sex and not friendship. Ahem, please see my response to CCL, above. If a lot of women automatically assume that you’re after sex even when you haven’t mentioned it, then there definitely is a problem with society and not with me.
(Maureen: I keep asking out women who are emotionally unavailable because I don’t know, when I ask them, that they are emotionally unavilable. I would stop doing it, if I could. I try to go by the “signals,” but the “signals” are unreliable. Or perhaps, like George Costanza, I should just assume that the opposite of the obvious is always true???)
I do want a woman to be my friend! I just want her to be more my friend than anyone else’s, and to be committed deeply to that friendship for a long time. Isn’t that what relationships are all about? And the sex, of course, is a great perk.
Some great advice from Queen Tonya, Zhen’ka, Vriggs and Little Nemo. Z and V’s comments give me hope that maybe this “friend” thing will lead to good results for me after all – so maybe I should discard the typical thirtysomething attitude of “no more ‘friends’, pleeeeeazzzze, I don’t want to waste time!” Now as for QT and LN’s advice…well, I hope I’m man enough/brave enough to just lay it all out on the line like that. Sometimes those things are hard to say, and you have to work your way around to it. You know? Shyness is definitely a problem.
Yes, London__Calling, both of these women are in their late twenties, but it startled me that they used the same phrase when they are both so different. Date #1 is a poet, somewhat bohemian, a random traveler, doesn’t want to have kids. Date #2 is serious, goal-oriented, knows what she wants from life, and might be thinking about settling down.
Yes, Vriggs, I suppose there is a little bit of “looksism” involved in my choices. I guess I am as afflicted by it as everyone else is these days, including females. But I should point out that Date #1 is very overweight, although with a very pretty face.
I still don’t know what to do about Date #2. I still don’t know if she was genuinely interested in me, I don’t know if she’s “shelving” me in the event some condition is fulfilled, I don’t know if there was any prospect of romance with her, and damn it, I still don’t know if I did the wrong thing in asking about her single friends. (I was a little cocky when I said it, like a defense mechanism. But, you know, she wouldn’t even dance with me! Like Ludovic said, isn’t a little cockiness called for???)
My instinct is to leave Date #2 alone for a while, then try to get together with her and mutual friends in a mutual-interest activity. If there is a “shelf” involved, it could be either that “talking” friend of hers, or it could be that she’s waiting for me to become more physically appealing. (There’s the looksism again!) She kept talking about her exercise habits, so she could have been dropping hints. I can deal with that; two years ago, during my last relationship, I lost 30 pounds in four months. I could do it again; but on the other hand, I had more of an incentive last time, because my ex and I were already, er, “talking,” and I wasn’t operating merely on the potential possibility of better “talks”.
Thanks all who have written in so far. It is especially good to get a mix of male and female posters. After all, that is why I post and read here: to get an idea of the wide varieties of people’s experiences.
–T.
Sorry, but you have got to be kidding me. Since when is it insulting to want to have a romantic relationship with someone?
If I ask a woman on a date, and I make it clear that I’m interested in her romantically, and then she says, I’m not interested in you in that way, I respect that. I’m dissapointed, of course, but I don’t consider it a “heinous offense” and I don’t lay a guilt trip on her.
I just accept the fact that the “relationship” that she wants to have with me is not a romantic relationship. By the same token, she should respect the fact that I am looking for a romantic relationship. And just as I should not lay a guilt trip on her, she should not lay a guilt trip on me either. Can we be friends? Yeah, sure. I’m not going to put her picture up on the dart board just because she said no.
But if I am in a mode where I am looking for a woman to date, then it is unlikely that I am going to devote a great deal of energy to starting and maintaining a relationship with a woman who I have just met who has made it clear that she does not want to date me. I find it incredible that anyone would be insulted by this.
Now, in addition there are plenty of women out there who like to have at least one guy, and maybe a few guys, in orbit. This means that he does things that indicate romantic interest, like paying for dinner and entertainment, planning said dinner and entertainment, etc. The woman gets a confidence boost, meanwhile telling herself that she and the guy are just friends. This is stringing the guy along and I think it’s kind of crappy manipulative behavior. The solution of course, is not to fall for it. If a woman makes it clear that she’s not interested, then don’t keep panting after her, just cut your losses and go try to find someone who is interested.
I date almost all hearing women & they don’t know enough sign language to give me any kind of speech. They can write it out, but then that takes too long
I might get a letter or email about it later.
Nice to know I’m appreciated.
tclouie, don’t get discouraged. You can become friends with women who’ve turned out down for a potential relationship. Sometimes it takes awhile before you can talk with them again (the hurt emotions factor and all that), but it does happen. I know, I’m going to one friend-girl’s wedding in a month (Incidentally, she’s now marrying the guy she dated instead of me).
Also, again speaking from experience, friend-girl relationships can turn into girlfriend relationships. Not necessarily very often, but it does happen. I’m living proof.
There are some downsides too, unfortunately. One recent situation comes to mind. I had become great friens with this certain lady. We’d talk almost every day, and hang out quite a bit on weekends if we were both in town. I had asked her out on 3 or 4 occasions, but always got the friends talk, combined with “I don’t really want a boyfriend now anyway” bombshell. No problem, I thought, I still like hanging out with her as friends. This continued for almost a year, until suddenly she almost completely stopped talking to me. Not sure how to react, I eventually found out that she did, in fact, find herself a boyfriend. And apparently she just didn’t feel like talking to me AT ALL anymore (well, I still talk to her on occasion, but it’s never more then the akward conversation that random strangers have). I’m not sure what to think about this situation, and quite frankly it hurts to think that I’m not good enough to talk to. But hey, I just have to think ‘fuck it, it’s her loss, not mine’.
Hopefully my last story didn’t depress you too much. Best of luck to you, man. Keep your head up, thing’ll work out for you. And remember, sometimes the best things in life happen to you when you’re least expecting them.
Is it at all possible that these women found you attractive, would have liked to go out with you to get to know you better, and were being polite in ‘laying their cards on the table,’ so as not to have you consider them – well, you know what kind of teasers they’d think you might consider them otherwise?
I’m well past this age and stage now, but I think you young ones are very ‘with it’ and considerate of others’ feelings. Maybe the ladies just need some time with you to determine whether or not they want to let you into the competition! One or two dates might settle this, for all parties involved.
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This includes copyrighted song lyrics. Do not do this again, amore ac studio.
Zenster, please use the report this post option . . . don’t play junior mod.
Cajun Man ~ SDMB Moderator
My experience suggests that, with some rare exceptions, this policy leads to infinite recursion and is best avoided.
Never try to figure women out. Life’s too short. Just accept that women are wonderful and fantastic and fascinating, and that we should love and respect and admire them, whether we understand them or not (and it’s usually not). When they’re nice, that’s very nice, and if some of them are occasionally not very nice well, they have their reasons, we’re strong enough to take it on the chin, and it’s all part of life’s rich tapestry of experience.
As for the OP, there’s a lot to love and enjoy about female company. The occasional cliched ‘speech’ is nothing to worry about, it’s usually a way of trying to send a signal with tact, and in any case they have to put up with a lot worse from us.
Quasi sings: “How to handle a woman? There’s a way said the wise old man…The way to handle a woman is to love her, simply love her, merely love her. Oh, just love her!”
:Quasi ducks and runs:
Q
In my experience, simply saying “Oh! I’m sorry! I misunderstood. I was interested in a relationship and I thought you were interested too.” has a very high rate of success. I immediately proceed toward an unhurried, but definite, conclusion to the evening (e.g. I make it clear that I’m not embarrassed or upset, and tell her to to take her time with dinner, because I’d been enjoying her company, and mention some productive use I can make of the now-free evening)
Of course “high rate of success” is relative. Of the cases I though of as I read this thread, one third were soon firmly involved with the other guy (so I wouldn’t have had a chance anyway), and all but one-and-a-half changed their tune by the end of dinner.
[The “half” was a woman who began acting more flirtatiously, but I never learned if she was taking a last shot at stringing me along (some stringers can be fairly persistent) or was genuinely changing her mind, because I soon learned (based on things she said) that I was no longer interested in her.]
Not all the cases where the woman changed her mind led anywhere in the longer term, and some ended annoyingly, but I felt better about those particular evenings than I ever do when I play the hint game.
It’s not always about having a clue. A major reason for such indirect speech is to convey one meaning while being able to claim another. It’s not alway because they want to string you along, they might feel nervous on the date or undecided about their situation and want to keep their options open as they go home and sort it all out.
The very fundaments of casual dating are built on ambiguity and indirection. You ‘ask someone to dinner’, but asking 'Would you like to go on a date?" can sound ‘weird’. The ‘softened’ invitation is preferred partly because the implication that it is a date is clear, but a pretense that it’s just a meal or friendly conversation is still possible. You might not want that plausible deniability, but bypassing that social convention can cause awkwardness.
Remember “going steady”? I knew people who used that term (and did it) as late as college, but it’s all but dead in even Jr. High these days. Even when I was a kid in the 70s, you could be accused of ‘cheating’ after a single date -or even after telling a girl you liked her and recieving a reciprocal response- so ‘going steady’ died because it didn’t mean anything. “Boys have to sow their oats” was dying as a casual social homily (though it persisted as an embarrased social bandage for deeper sexual iniquities). Gone are the days when “It wouldn’t be right/ to leave your best girl/ lonely on a Saturday night” because the notion of even having a ‘best girl’ -one of many- was no longer seen as an unquestioned good. Girls were no longer expected to sit by the phone, waiting, as they once were.
I wrote a lot about the dislocations and invented imbalances caused by the fairer reconciliation of gender roles when I was a teenager. (In any change, someone is likely to get pinched between shifting expectations and established standards) but I never dreamed that so many would persist a generation later!
I find that life is too short, and opportunities too plentiful for me to waste much time on some of the subtler social conventions. With each refreshing frank and open long term relationship, we lose some of our patience for it, don’t we? The trick is to avoid the temptation to backslide, because the results are never pretty.
I think training myself to try and be frank and polite in equal measure (an ongoing struggle, and I’m not always on the winning side) is not just socially useful, but satisfying and downright good for me as a person.
Then again, I think the SDMB is good for me as a person, so clearly my judgment is open to question.
Talking is like CrazyCatLady said its part of the limbo stage.
The minute you meet someone you think yes I wanna give it a try or no just friends and see from there.
You cannot instantly commit to someone.
If it’s an ex and she has been ‘talking’ you’re right to back off right there. The feelings havent went away and they wont for him for a long time.
If thats all you’re out for is a date and not a friend if it doesnt work out… You might wanna reevaluate the way you are approaching potential dates.
Ah, I remember the time when my Cheatin’ Ex ™ came to me for a spot of sympathy because this guy she’d been seeing for about a week found her intense enough that he’d been forced to give her “The Speech”.
I guess she just wanted to be his semen receptacle. And me to be her arm candy for the wedding reception she was off to a coupla days later. Well, one out of two isn’t bad. But it’s afforded me plenty of schadenfreude over the years.
It’s okay. After receiving the semen of a number of married men, she eventually found one to divorce Wife MkII and install her as Wife MkIII, and for all I know, they may be deliriously happy still. All’s well that ends well.
No, kissing isn’t illegal, but forcing yourself on someone, who is expressing in no uncertain terms that she isn’t interested, is.
Not to mention it’s also extremely audacious and arrogant.
Hey, some men pay good money for that sort of thing, just cos I’m willing to extend these services for free doesn’t make me a sicko… no wait…
oh oh oh oh oh! Have I spawned the next Most Irritating Phrase on the SDMB, rar! Cock-punches all round!
Suddenly I’ve just remembered a prior unavoidable engagement which just happens to coincide with the next Londope that Tir will be at…