So I’m confused by what the OP is saying. If he’s saying he’s given up on romantic relationships because he’s had numerous romantic relationships end in terrible hurtful ways that weren’t his fault. Not going to argue with you there, we’ve all had that happen, and known loads of people who’ve gone through that* I can totally sympathize with someone who says “screw it I’m done”, after been chewed up and spat out by yet another relationship". That’s not being a coward.
But what’s that got to do with women being scared of men? Is the OP saying that his romantic relationships have ended terribly because women are scared of men? How did that happen? If not then the relationship stuff is a non sequitur, you are deciding to disengage emotionally because it bugs you that women are (justifiably) scared of men. That’s a bit cowardly IMO
* - I would add that while I know loads of men and women who’ve gone through that (it’s literally part of the human condition) unlike the men the women’s stories of terrible breakups almost all include physical violence, the threat of it or actually being in fear of their life.
Avoiding people who hate you is a logical and healthy choice. Assuming that 50% of the planet hates you based on your gender is less logical. Even in the context of men and bears, the lesson is supposed to be to realize that women have been conditioned to feel threatened by strange dudes and to act with that knowledge when you’re the strange dude, not to abandon all contact.
Yeah, pretty much the same. I’ve had a couple of occasions where I obviously made someone nervous despite being a non-threatening person. Just give the other person space or get past them so you’re not behind them. Getting mad about how unfair it is doesn’t help, working to quickly end the scenario is what helps.
I haven’t really experienced much in overt hostility for simply being a man. I’m not especially blessed in personality and looks so it’s not women setting aside their hatred based on my sheer magnetism, I’m pretty sure it’s just because most women don’t automatically hate all guys. It’d suck if you had a coworker who does but heaven knows I’m not going to run my outside life based on some weirdo coworker.
This is begging the question. The OP’s ongoing experience has not been mine and offering it as a given poisons the well. As @iiandyiiii stated, if that’s your experience and this is how you choose to react to it, have at it. But enough with the incredulity that this isn’t self-evident to all.
BTW, this is not to suggest that women have never reacted in a fearful way in my presence. It is a repudiation that male-female relations are irreparably toxic. Not my experience at all.
That’s not for me for sure. I’m a straight guy, married 27 years. Not had a lot of romance in my life, but 3 of my best friends are women. No I have not been ‘friend zoned’.
One, is my wife. I consider her my best friend. We are a team and have carved out a great life. We really know each others strengths.
Another is a cousin. She was born a week after I. We can just sit and talk all night. Yeah, we are family, but more importantly best of best friends all our life.
Another is a former colleague. I’ve known her for 36 years. I sometimes stay at her home because she lives an hour and a half away, my wife is cool with that.
I consider these all emotional involvement. We all care about each other. And would move mountains to help each other.
I am perfectly happy with a loner life though. I work from home, my wife does not.
Say you ask a friend if they want to see Dune with you. “No thanks,” they respond. But before you can acknowledge that, they continue: “Dune is part of a global conspiracy to make people accept blue-eyed Aryans as the rightful rulers of the universe, and also to think that Fentanyl is safe and effective!”
Their demurral of your invitation is totally legitimate, even if their reasons for the deferral are crazypants.
That’s kind of how I feel reading your post. If you’re happy not having a romantic relationship, that’s legit. If your romantic life was full, and now it’s over, and you’re at peace with that, fantastic, I’m genuinely glad that your life is going in a way that’s good for you.
But a lot of your reasoning is completely bonkers to me.
Let’s go through some of it:
Stop right there. This isn’t a game, and there aren’t two sides. There are a little more than 8 billion sides at last count. #Notallwomen are bigoted against men or afraid of all men; #notallmen are bigoted against women or toxic toward women.
Again, not a game, and there are no “rules” to play by. There’s just being a decent person. And yes, in life you can suffer setbacks, in relationships and in everything else. Sometimes that’s because people are insecure. Sometimes it’s because people are predatory. Sometimes it’s because people aren’t compatible.
That one woman you’re talking about sounds like someone I’d want to keep a good distance from; and if I somehow ended up on a date with her, there wouldn’t be a second date. But last I checked, your colleague isn’t part of the WIMMIN HIVEMIND. She wasn’t elected as spokeswoman for all women. She doesn’t set female international policy. She’s just one schmoe with an opinion.
I was certain the next sentence would be your asking her, “So what WOULD be enough?” That is, after all, the obvious question. Maybe she’d have a good answer for it, or maybe she’d blather something stupid, I dunno–because instead of asking that question, you turned it around into something that sounds kind of self-pitying and self-centered to me.
You can talk to someone else. Or you can continue talking to them, find out what they would think “enough” would be, and evaluate whether that opinion is dumb or reasonable.
Again: I am happy if you’re happy with your current relationship with various people including women. What I strongly object to is your reasoning–specifically, the idea that disengaging totally from emotional involvement is the only smart thing to do. That’s suggesting that I, and other guys who don’t disengage from the women in our lives, aren’t being smart. When you say that “that the topic of relationships is utterly poisoned,” you’re telling me that my loving marriage of 21 years is “utterly poisoned,” and that’s just flat-out wrong.
You might not be willing or able to engage in a healthy relationship with women, and that’s fine if it’s fine with you. But don’t put your issues on me. I, and millions (billions? i dunno) of other guys, are figuring out every day how to be part of healthy relationships with women, and we’re not stupid for continuing to do so, and we don’t see relationships as “utterly poisoned” because you have an opinionated colleague.
With the OP, consider this. OP is not some “incel” (and keep in mind that that there is no equivalent insult for women that’s in as use as much as that is), he’s someone who has felt that his overall experience of interactions has brought more complaints than he has had complaints himself. So he feels a debt, but he has no idea really of how to fix this issue. He feels as though he will be bothering women somehow pretty much no matter what he does.
I know I have read of surveys where men and women look at pictures of women and men respectively. And the women record fewer numbers of men they find attractive than the men do women. Now perhaps the men “aren’t doing enough” to make themselves attractive and can improve on this.
Or perhaps the difference is innate between men and women, and there is no way for the men to bridge this gap. There are certainly biological reasons why there would be such a gap, due to the cost of pregnancy. So it behooves women to be more picky about a choice that has that sort of cost. That cost isn’t going away regardless of how safe men make her feel in total, by the way.
Men don’t face a pregnancy cost. They do face a cost in not being chosen by women as being sufficient. So it’s not as valuable for a man to be picky. Now there are societal reasons why he might choose to be more picky, but the underlying biology is always going to be different between men and women.
We are not very accepting of these sorts of conversations at present, because it gets into issues of “so you’re saying women can’t do A through Z.” If we need to discuss everything on the macro level, it’s going to be difficult. We would need to be able to get into details.
My personal opinion is that it is unlikely we can create a society where women like men as much as men like women. Regardless of what men do. We should not be coercing anyone to do things they do not want to do. But we then need to recognize that this gap is unbridgeable and perhaps just focus on the most important and most damaging of interactions, and let the rest go.
Perhaps physically. But women also seem to rank what they’re looking for in a partner differently than men. And tons of people of both genders have partners who are perhaps not the epitome of what they’d sculpt from clay but have other positive qualities that more than make up for it.
And yet, plenty of men manage to go through life without “bothering” women (at least, to a greater degree than that to which any of us sometimes bother other people). So that probably has more to do with an internalized worldview than any objective reality.
You are making a whole lot of leaps of logic there.
If women are less likely to rate men attractive based on images in a magazine, that proves to you that women just don’t value men as much? That seems like a stretch. For example, maybe women pick partners based on factors other than visual appearance in a magazine - behavior, personality, etc.
Anyways, the “biological realities” you point to aren’t nearly as concrete as you seem to believe; they can be morphed by culture, even cultures much more primitive and simple than any human culture. Case in point: the two members of the Pan genus, Chimps and Bonobos.
Do men “like” women more in our society? Certainly men are on the whole hornier than women, and that may well have an underlying biological cause; but are men more likely to desire and pursue committed and monogamous relationships, for example?
If a man wants to fuck around with a dozen women, and a woman wants to settle down and build a life with a single man who she picks based on parameters that aren’t obvious in magazine photos, does the man “like” women more than the woman “likes” men?
An excellent question. The whole thing reads like a script that OP has written for himself so that he can blame all women everywhere for his being alone. His vow of disengagement says nothing about turning away from any women who might be pursuing him, after all. It frankly sounds like another Incel’s lament, not the usual 20-something living in the parents’ basement, but a born-again Incel who finds middle age has added to his other issues in appealing to women, so he has picked up his marbles (such as they are) and is heading home.
Okay, that’s harsh. I’d be interested in hearing the OP come back and speak to some of these questions though.
OP as self reported has had MORE interactions with women, higher satisfaction than normal. Including a marriage with children and other relationships. So I’m curious as to what criteria a man needs to meet to avoid “born again Incel” shaming.
It seems to show that the happiest people are married women, followed by married men, followed by unmarried men (without children), followed by unmarried women, followed by (dead last) unmarried men with children.
I dunno, I’d have to look at some studies. I just don’t think that you can take “women pick less hot guy photos” and stretch it into “Women are less interested in men”. Especially if you’re trying to bring pregnancy into it since there’s definitely better choices for a father than “hot guy in a photo”
At the risk of repeating myself, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a guy deciding he’s done with romantic relationships with women. Consider these possible posts:
I was married, and I had a several relationships before that, but that part of my life is over.
I had several romantic relationships, but I honestly don’t have the energy for romance anymore.
I don’t want to make myself vulnerable in the way you have to be vulnerable in order to date.
I’m no longer attracted to women romantically or sexually.
I’ve never been romantically or sexually attracted to women.
I’ve been unsuccessful dating, and have given up.
None of those would come across as noxious.
Contrast that with what’s actually been written–in which it’s stated that the smart thing to do is to disengage, because relationships are utterly poisoned.
The example statements are perfectly legit statements of a personal approach to life. The actual statement was a ridiculously distorted view of the world.
I’d think it’s pretty weird since taking lifelong religious vows should probably be based on something besides “My ex-boyfriend is a jerk”. If she’s also joining because she says that men hate women and there’s no way to connect with men because of the toxic environment, I’d definitely think she was misguided.