Why do women always seem to want a boyfriend they don't need to sleep with?

The BBQ Pit
141

FT: Neither do I but it doesn’t matter because she’s making it up. Women want us men to think that they think like that, but they really don’t.

:rolleyes:

As I’ve been saying all along, anybody who thinks that they personally don’t want or couldn’t manage the type of platonic opposite-sex friendship I’ve been extolling here can go on avoiding it for the rest of their lives as far as I’m concerned.

What I’m pointing out is that those who are projecting their own preference onto other people (by making generalizations like “If someone really turns you on, you DO want them either romantically or nothing” or “Women want us men to think that they think like that, but they really don’t”) are missing a big part of the picture. You may feel that such friendships are impossible or unsatisfying for you, but you shouldn’t assume that therefore nobody else enjoys them or that people who say they enjoy them are lying.

142

Well, I’m not sure my input will be much help to you because your generalizations don’t work for me. I think my friendships with people of both sexes tend to be about an even mix of your Typical Guy Friends and Typical Girl Friends traits. Our deep six-hour conversations tend to be more about impersonal things (politics, movies, real-world physics problems) than about personal revelations, though they often will include a good helping of Comforting and Giving Good Advice. (I don’t really do Compare Shoes or That Bitch How Dare She.)

Our shared friendship activities tend to involve sports (kayaking, hiking, biking) more than conventional “girl activities” such as Companionate Shopping or Giggling About Hotties (although both of those can be quite fun too). My Stay in Touch impulses in a friendship are quite strong but my Pick It Back Up After Years of Silence record is pretty good too.

I’m happy with that mix, since I don’t think either of your portraits of “typical” friendship sounds very appealing. The “Typical Guy” version would strike me as too low on real emotional connection, while the “Typical Girl” version sounds too smothering and a touch boring, with no room for shared outside-world interests beyond the strictly personal. However, for those who like that sort of thing, ain’t nothing wrong with it.

143

What Kimstu said. All of it, not just the bit quoted, aside from the kayaking. :wink: (Actually, most of my friends’ shared activities involve either cards or dice, with occasional leavenings of violence and religion.)

With a footnote addendum of, “And why not ask the specific person you’re dealing with what they mean by ‘friend’ rather than try to hack together a generic that will almost certainly fall apart on contact with reality?”

144

Oh, but of course, Kimstu and Lilairen. My friendships don’t parallel those very closely; as I said, I was mostly being facetious.

I hope my exaggerated contrast highlights the possible variations in what people think of with “friendship,” though. The guy could be getting angry over what he thinks is a brushoff when it’s not what the woman had in mind at all. (Or he could think that “friend” means “boyfriend” when she really is giving him the brushoff.)

No question, the most sensible thing to do is ask the person “if we continue to be only friends, what do you believe that will mean we should do together?” There’s no substitute to communicating honestly with the person to find out what he (or she) means by “let’s be friends.”

There’s a woman my age whom I’m not dating (and whom I likely won’t) and I don’t have a problem talking to her occasionally about her problems seeking a boyfriend, about movies coming out, about plays we both wish to audition for, about her job, her desire to move to Scotland, whatever. If that’s the level of interaction she wants, I can do that. (She kind of weirded out on the phone when I told her I had a date set up with someone, but hey, I wasn’t the one who set the “just be friends” boundary.)

145

Here’s the part I don’t get. If that’s what you think of me, why the fuck aren’t you in love with me? I’m wonderful, smart, funny, unique, and et cetera! What the hell else do you want? I mean, if I met a girl who I thought was wonderful, smart, funny, and unique, then I’d be in love with her. That’s what being in love is.

And then there’s this “spark” thing. I’ve got all these other wonderful qualities, but I don’t have that “spark.” Well, if I don’t have that, who gives a shit about all that other stuff? All I want is that spark. All those other great qualities aren’t getting me jack shit. In fact, you could slag me for all of them: call me boring, humorless, dumb, and unpleasant, I don’t care. If I’ve got that spark, I’m okay. The only way you could hurt me, is if you say I don’t have that spark. Which you just did. And what makes it worse is, you can’t tell me what I did wrong, or didn’t do, or could have done differently. Because, of course, there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just not right.

I think you can see how this is a little frustrating. Especially after about the fiftieth iteration. Frankly, I wish the next woman who rejects me would just call me an asshole. At least it’s a tangible reason.

(Actually, the last girl who rejected me all but called me a loser to my face. And her I’m still friends with!)

146

Nooo no NOOO. :slight_smile: It’s not a value judgment, it’s a FIT judgment. Too many self proclaimed nice guys torture themselves to death with this idea that it IS a value judgment. And I, like a lot of girls have been on the receiving end of this sort of “attitude” from a “nice guy” that I just didn’t have chemistry with.

Men and women both need to understand that it’s not personal, that it’s about connection and chemistry. Yes, it feels awful when you’re really attracted to someone and it’s not mutual. But it has nothing to do with your worth, most of the time, not even in their eyes. And for most of us who have to give the “there’s no chemistry” talk, it hurts US to hurt a truly great guy. That’s probably why so many younger women are so awful at it, and end up saying nothing, or saying the wrong thing.

I heartily agree. I’m a HUGE believer in communication.

Well, those girls that said that were horrible at communicating well. That still doesn’t equal a man being truly NOT good enough. Women that dump you like that are the ones who aren’t “good enough” for you.

You’re absolutely right there. IMHO, there should be mandatory “life skills” classes starting in junior high, emphasizing communication between the sexes, take some of the agony and confusion out of it.

147

No. This is a message board. The only thing I have to go on is what I see written. It’s also the pit, and I can get away with snap judgements here, which I like to do, because I thought your first post on this matter (#83, more on that anon) was incredibly stupid

Cite, shite… Well, that’s how I read this sentence:

Granted, you didn’t say he should pick the woman in question as a friend, however, you did say that it wasn’t lonliness that was the factor here, it was horniness.

I dare, because that’s what I read. I can only go by your writing to try to figure out what you’re thinking.

The thing is - I have. And thankfully, most modern feminists are nothing like the ones during the 60’s.

You did break it down to simpler terms. Simplistic, even. Let’s take a look at that post:

q.e.d. Lonely guys are not lonely, they’re horny, which is why the company of a friend is not good enough.

148

Not necessarily true. I had a male friend all through college - well, there were three of us. I had a crush on D, and M had a crush on me. D and M were best of friends. D gave me the ‘Just friends’ talk (and we did indeed stay friends for a very long time) and M asked me to marry him. 5 times. I liked being friends with him. I just didn’t want to marry him (or have sex with him either). But we couldn’t stay friends with that tension between us. He was hurt, and I was sad. We went our separate ways rather painfully, married other people, went on with life.

But I cannot say to this day that I’m glad we separated. I miss my friend.

149

Daisy Mae, I’m afraid Gaspode is right. You do sound like a militant feminist. Your remark about horniness was rude.

150

Just a thought here. Maybe D had a crush on you too. But if M told D “I have a crush on Chotii”, D would back off from you. Maybe that’s why he gave you the “friends” line. This type of courtesy is common between good friends.

151

I would have a real problem defining friendship to someone else in terms of what “we should do together”. Do? Why do we have to do anything? Can’t we just be?

So I had another coffee, and wrote a long reply, until it occurred to me that it might be hijacking Lizard’s thread too much, because I’m really interested in how other people would define degrees of friendship, and I decided to start a new thread. Thanks, Fish for putting my brain through all that when I’ve just woken up! :slight_smile:

152

I was going to say something very similar to this. Well done.

153

No problems with that approach here. But bear in mind that if a woman wants to just be friends with a guy and he just disappears and never calls her, maybe he’s just being her friend but not showing it. Saying just be friends is where people run into problems with defining what friends are for.

For my own part I would personally insist that defining the kind of friendship you want to have must include some kind of boundaries of behavior. For instance, if I got the “just friends” talk I would hope the woman would still volunteer to pay for her own meals if we went to dinner some time. If I had had a thing for her, I would ask her kindly not to whine on about her new boyfriend if it were too painful for me to have to listen. If I were “just friends” with a woman I wouldn’t want to be obligated to remember all of the idiotic anniversaries (seven-week anniversary of the first time she called me on the phone, nineteen-month anniversary of the first time I cleaned the carpet after her cat puked, etc) or send her cards on every significant occasion. I barely remember once a decade to get my brother a card. (Sometimes in addition to remembering, I actually buy the card and sign it and send it, too.) If that happens to be what “being” friends means to her, we’re golden.

If not, she’s going to end up here saying “I asked him to just be friends and he doesn’t act like he likes me any more! Where are my cards and my anniversaries and my late-night phone calls and my free dinners? What did I do wrong? Who’s going to clean up after my cat now?”

154

I hate to post back-to-back, but it occurs to me that I’d like to respond to CrazyCatLady’s comment too.

From the few relationship books I’ve read (Barbara de Angelis, if it matters) I get the general impression that I’m not the only man to put a high degree of emphasis on my competence. If I do something I want to do it well; if I try something and fail I take it very personally and sometimes I work very hard just so I won’t fail at it again. I’m not saying this is a male-only trait, or that all men are like this, but that author, at least, seems to corroborate that state of mind in a general way among many men. We most often are praised as children, I think, for our achievements. It’s not surprising to me that I grew up with a guilt/shame complex when I fail to achieve.

The same author, in both the books I’ve read, attempts to establish the pattern that women are more comfortable thinking of themselves as what they are instead of what they do. Again, this is a gross generalization and I realize it may not always apply. I didn’t grow up as a little girl, but watching as friends raise theirs, the praise is often along the lines of “you’re so pretty,” “you’re so nice to your brother,” and so on.

I don’t know how accurate the above impressions are. If they’re remotely applicable, maybe it would explain a few things.

The let’s-be-friends speech hurts me because it implies I didn’t try hard enough on the relationship, or that I didn’t do something right, or that I didn’t measure up. That’s how I view failure, even if she doesn’ t mean it in that way. She’s trying to tell me I’m not right because of who I am and that it’s not personal. It’s also why I can’t imagine just being someone’s friend without some idea of what it means we’re supposed to do.

Of course, Barbara de Angelis may be a hack writer who is just spreading misinformation, in which case I wasted eleven bucks. But it was an entertaining eleven bucks.

155

I’m not sure if this is entirely relevant to the discussion, but here’s my take:

When in my early-to-mid twenties, I got fucking stomped on in the love department. I was living with my g.f., who was taking time off from school becuase here parents were having trouble paying the high costs of private tuition and threatening to only pay for state U. So, despite my absolutely pathetic income, I supported both of us while she took classes and worked odd jobs to fund that. Around that time, I had an epiphany: I didn’t want, to go to med. school. I loved science. I wanted to be a biologist, not a clinician, and the way to go was grad. school. Within six months of this announcement, I was dumped for a guy ten years my senior (another scientist, oddly enough), who could come up with a house and the means to support babies in a timely manner. I worked my ass off for her. I did everything I could to support her through her hard times, broke my back to keep us fed, gave everything of myself, and then, when my future was revealed, hey presto, I was history.

So I had me a rebound relationship (she was way more into into me than I her; I took advantage, I admit it) that went nowhere. After licking my wounds from that for a few months, I got very keen on another lady, and made it known. We had a couple dates, but it went nowhere. She gave me the “friend” thing, and despite the fact I was deeply hurt by the rejection, I did my best to be just that, a friend. Well, it always felt awkward for both of us; I just couldn’t act like she didn’t mean more well enough to make her comfortable, and since I was miserable in the process, that was that.

So not long after, I actually got asked out by another fine thing (much to my amazement), and once I got over the astonishment, I became very, very enthusiastic about the whole idea. The funny thing was, it hadn’t even occurred to me prior to her advance; I figured she was out of my league or something. Well, I committed the cardinal sin of being too eager once the reality of her attraction sunk in. I sent flowers. I wrote flattering emails. I revealed how happy I was. What at turn-off, right? Why on earth would any woman want those things? Damned if I know. I guess I was just stupid. So, predictably, she wanted “space”, but did want to be friends. I guess I didn’t realize what “space” was until it dawned on me that meant “I’ll call you. Full stop.” Then I became designated fuck when whoever else it was she was fucking wasn’t in town. Think, like, a Tuesday night fuck, if she was in the mood. That thing Chris Rock said; how true, sometimes.

I don’t know how it happened. One day I woke up and realized I had a spine. Another epiphany, maybe. Hell with it, I thought, why shouldn’t I get drunk and fuck my roommate? She don’t look so bad after a few beers. So I did! Why not hook up in a bar occasionally and be a male ho? Well, I got freaked out by diseases, but I had some fun stringing on one drunk chick one night. Designating fucker would call, and suddenly I’d say, “nahhh”. What I meant, of course, was “FUCK YOU, AND YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING SEX. I HAVE HAD IT.”

Eventually she just vanished. Good riddance.

So I had another epiphany: “Fuck 'em. No, really, fuck 'em all. I don’t care anymore. I DO NOT fucking care. I’m done caring. What in the fuck has it gotten me? SHIT, that’s what. I’m not even going to try. What’s the point? If I get especially horny, and something comes my way, fine. I’ll give her cab fare the next morning. Otherwise, I’m not lifting my little toe for a woman ever again. They can put out for a change.”

Obviously, I was more than a little bitter. I’m not saying I was right, I’m just saying that was my mindset at the time.

It was like I was human crack. Women flocked to me like flies on shit. I’m serious. I’m no model or paragon of human charm, that’s for damn sure. It was…miraculous. I literally had three women after me at once at one juncture. I wish I could somehow bottle this state of mind and sell it, because it is the most powerful pheromone ever produced by a living organism.

Not caring. That was the key. Really, sincerely, not giving a shit if she likes me or not. I’ll be civil, I’ll make small talk, I’ll buy a round, but I will not be motivated to make advances or otherwise give one the slightest notion I am pursuing a romantic relationship. I’m alone, I’m loving it, and you can, quite frankly, kiss my hairy ass for all I care. That was my attitude, and it was the best mating strategy I ever implemented. Completely by accident. It worked so well, I married one of those three women, and we’re very happy. She was appalled by my attitude at first, but made short work of any residual snarkiness; and what a turn-on that was. Two people, fed up by the dating scene, really just looking to enjoy life, single or not. I remember, the first time I realized I wanted to kiss her really badly, I was so pissed off! You ruined it, you temptress! When she fessed up and said she was originally after me, I was astonished. What a poker face. Plus, she said, the other two were moving in, and she had to surrender some of her pride and get me alone in a somewhat obvious way. I was, nonetheless, fooled. And what was that about other women? ME?? Are you telling me THEY were interested in ME???

It’s still a complete mystery to me. I want them, they don’t want me. I don’t want them, they want me. They say they want to be friends; and yet when I really am able to be “just friends”, suddenly, that’s not enough! What the hell IS it with people?? Damne if I know. All I know is what people say in the arena of love, and what they mean deep down is sometimes in such opposition, it’s almost useless to try to approach love rationally.

But if she says “I want to be friends”, if you can somehow actually do just that, not ever with the hope she will change, but with the sincere knowledge that you, yourself, can honestly take the situation or leave it; well somehow that just changes everything. I don’t know how, I don’t know why. I certainly can’t say fake this stance, because they can smell it a mile away, like fear. No, you will really, truly have to feel that way. Perhaps the only advice I can give is get stomped on enough that you discover your own spine, and once it is firmly in place, things will happen. You can’t rush it. You can’t fake it. You probably won’t even know you’ve got it. But once you’ve got it, life will look up. If it could work for me, trust me, it could work for almost anyone.

156

Maybe similar life goals. Maybe you’re also high maintence. I have a very close friend who is all of those things, but he’s an athiest who will never want kids. I’m religious and one of my goals in life is to have kids. I see no reason to go through those fights and I see no reason to date anyone who I can’t see marrying at this point in my life. As much as he is a gorgeous, witty, bright man.

No, you want some of the other qualities and spark. (I did the “just spark” thing. The guy was a hideous loser, but we sparked madly. Felt like my heart was breaking for about three days after I figured out it was just some random chemistry thing with no possibility of him actually being a decent person. I got better.)

Its negotiating a puzzle. You have all of these pieces you want (that probably don’t even fit together all at once) and some of them are more important than others. Spark is a deal breaker - but there has to be more than just chemistry.

157

Oh christ, how will I sleep tonight?

158

Or, as a wise man once told me: Communicate without second-guessing.

The problem with this is: communication takes time. It takes energy. And it takes caring enough about the relationship to take the time and expend the energy. Relationships are hard work, and this is the hard work, at least in my experience. Personally, if I were going out into the world today to start a new relationship, I’d want to make sure I had the kind of new relationship that was worth this kind of communication - and that the other person was capable of this kind of communication with me - before I shared my body with them, because sex brings in all kinds of emotions, and past experiences, and past baggage and ‘issues’…and if you can’t talk about them, things are likely to fall apart sooner or later. Probably sooner.

I felt sad when I read that bit earlier where somebody talked about a woman ‘yapping his ear off all night’. Communication between two respectful adults would say rather, “I’m awfully tired. Can we talk tomorrow? I’m afraid I’m going to fall asleep on you, and I’d hate to do that.” If some guy called my talking ‘yapping’, he’d never get me in bed again. That kind of disrespect of me/my mind, my feelings as a person would make me unwilling to share my body either.

If I could wish one thing for Lizard, it would be that he could find it in himself somehow to sit down with his girlfriend-type-person and really talk. About his feelings, and his hopes for the relationship, and how he views her suggestion of ‘just friends’. Without accusations (no “You hurt me!”), without leaping to absurd conclusions (no “Do you hate me or something?!?”) Better questions might be, “Do you feel threatened by my being attracted to you?” (a great many women are afraid of a man’s attraction to them, and they unfortunately have been given reason) and “Would you want to stay ‘just friends’ with me if you knew that I would keep being attracted to you the whole time, even if I never said anything, or would you want me to go away?”)

But this kind of communication is slow, and painful. And there’s no guarantee he would get what he wanted in the end (her changing her decision about going to bed with him, or having a deeper relationship).

159

Oh, I dunno.

My experience has been not some much that she’s threatened by his feelings, but rather that the guy is somehow boring for showing them. Too available. Too eager, like a happy little puppy. Ick, get down, boy, down.

I could be wrong, but I think one of the biggest “sparks” is self-confidence and independence, to the point of being aloof at times. It sounds totally conterproductive, but that’s just been my experience. If you actually communicate your heartfelt feelings too soon or too earnestly, it’s a total dealbreaker.

The rules seem to be, if she says “I’m not interested”, that means she’s not interested. Unless later on she is. Either way, the guy will never know if or when that time will come. Worse, the more he tries to make that time come, the more unnatractive he seems. The guy’s only recourse is to move on. If he can’t truly be friends, then move on means little or no contact from that point on. If he can be friends, more power to him. If he not only can be friends, but honestly and sincerely is OK with that option to the point of being happy to have future prospects with somebody else, the effect can be paradoxially transformative.

Sadly, as I said above, there’s no way to feign this outlook. Perhaps some are born with it, while others, like me, have it beaten into them.

I guess I would tell any guy if she says “now way”, then believe it, and MOVE ON. Assume nothing after that except that you will get over her, you will meet somebody who is attracted to you and wants a full-blown relationship with you. Don’t look back. If that means severying ties, so be it. If you can be friends, great. Just MOVE ON. Heartfelt pleas for her hand are likely going to fall flat on their face, and only turn her off more to you, whilst you squander whatever shred of dignity you have left. DON’T let that happen. Keep your head up, keep your pride, and look forward.

160

sorry for the attrocious spelling above, typing very quickly…