Maybe I should work on my communications skills, it’s taking forever to get this across.
I am a middle-aged virgin.
And when someone compares them to shy autistics, I think it’s fair to ask for an apology. I condemn rapists (date-, or otherwise) as much as anyone, but I don’t take references to them personally.
I never said any such thing. And I would like you to apologize for suggesting that I did.
If any men feel that I have slandered them (especially in a thread that includes the phrase “boys are dumb”), please speak up.
What do you think taking everything as a signal means? That’s the old “her lips said no but her eyes said yes”, which is rape. You indicated that such a man was better off than a virgin.
And don’t forget, he’ll tell all his friends what a cold bitch you are.
IME, the reason so many women try so hard to be subtle and hinting is because they have nothing to gain and lots to lose when a guy they’re not into hits on them. Typically, also IME and YMMV, if the woman is actually forced into saying “no, I wont date you ever” the man in question will never speak to her again. It’s a sad thing to lose an interesting friend, but dating someone to whom you are not sexually attracted to is also sad.
Yep, or tell you right to your face. I’ve had guys just suddenly hit on me and ask me out at, like, Meijer’s. Dude, I’m here to pick up some frozen veggies and toilet paper, not find a date. If you let them down politely (I say I have a fiance, because it’s TRUE and I HAVE A RING AND YOU’D THINK THEY’D SEE IT :: cough :: ), there’s a good enough chance they’ll turn nasty and say something like, “Oh, you think you’re too good for me, bitch?”
Oh yeah. That’s really going to make me want to date you. :rolleyes: More importantly, I was going grocery shopping and you think it’s nice to harass me because I don’t want to date you? What the fuck is wrong with you?
I can’t stand being hit on because I don’t know when you’re gonna get someone who’s that nasty, or at least not nice at all.
[sub]Ahhh, memories of walking to CVS in high school, and having a car full of 20-something guys go by and have them hang out their damn windows and scream BIIITCHHHHH! at me. I didn’t even know them![/sub]
Unfortunately, men in your position aren’t entitled to much of a break from society, unless of course you enter the Catholic clergy (and manage not to mess with the altar boys).
You’re to be commended for your candor, however, although that may be cold comfort to you at this point.
(I don’t mean to be harsh or belittling here, just to say that I’ve been in your position and it ain’t no picnic.)
Platonic female friends are a bit like cats - collect too many and you get a reputation.
Among certain women, there is a tendency to collect male friends as a sort of validation exercise. A few of us get sick and tired of being “nice” - being your substitute daddy/big brother/Yoda figure gets rather old at some point.
It’s perfectly valid to not want to add yet another platonic female friend to the pile.
Purposely blurring the issue - stringing along a guy - just to hope that a friendship coalesces somehow is unethical.
Friendships are not failed romances - friendships stand up in the face of “you’re ‘nice,’ but I’ll never never ever fuck you - wanna talk about the guys I actually like? Can I give you an honorary vagina?”
Many of us have functional, platonic relationships with females, yea verily, even those to whom we are not biologically related. A surprising number of us will serve that role - platonic friend, ambassador for Malekind if you are straight with us. It’s the passive/aggression that is the problem.
It’s better to get the issue out early on and in an open fashion.
As for female signals, fuck’em. At a certain point, the trouble versus benefits ratio in dealing with women romantically makes it easier to just shut the business down. And if a female requires an elaborate set of subliminal cues for relationship-related transactions, as opposed to that nifty overt language thing, then I suspect that the communication model in a relationship with her will be less than amenable to rational, direct discourse.
Yes, been there, but I’m not so certain of their motives. I do know that there have been times when I have tried to move the relationship to beyond friendship from situations like this, and the most common response has been shock – “I just never thought of you that way, Boyo”. Well, since you’re asking me out every week or so, maybe you should.
Again, because I can’t deduce motive, I can’t say whether this has been the case with me. I think women really want “safe” male friends, who are particularly hard to find if the woman is single and attractive and the man isn’t gay.
And I am a gentleman, which is apparently sometimes difficult to distinguish from being gay.
Not very many at all, but they tend to cast a long shadow.
On the other hand, I still think fondly of a party where I chatted with a charming flirtatious gent for hours - we both knew it was going nowhere and enjoyed the hell out of the time anyway. It was almost twenty years ago. I still grin when I think about it, I’m grinning now.
Way too many, I’m sad to report. Although many of these are probably decent guys under the influence of alcohol or the herd mentality. Or just the adrenaline rush of risk-taking that goes with asking someone out.
I have a lot of hope for your generation (and Cerberus’s, I think). Ya’ll seem to have an easier (and more socially acceptable) time making interracial and cross-gender friendships.
Yeah, the whole “reading signals” thing never gets any better. Last November Razorette sent me an e-mail with a hot link to Zales.com. Her message said, ‘Thinking about Christmas?" I e-mailed back with, “Yeah, but I’d rather have a set of chisels” and a hot link to garretwade.com. Didn’t get the chisels. Still payin’ for the diamond I bought at Jared. It was a “New Year’s gift.”
I took that BBC “what gender does your brain think like” test, I got dead fucking center, entirely androgynous (though to be fair it wasn’t a personality test so much as a “spacial relationships/memory/etc” test), I’ve never had a girlfriend, and (as stated above) has a LOT of platonic female friends.
Guess who can set his watch by the intervals between people asking if he’s gay?
I really hate to ask this, but I don’t understand the (my) bolded part. The only way I can answer that is that’s what friends… do? They hang out and screw around at the mall and see movies sometimes alone, sometimes with other friends. If this is happening consistently and you’ve never done anything conceivably romantic (and I don’t mean “romantic” as in location, I mean “romantic” as in “holding hands” or “peck on the cheek”). Why would you be surprised that a FRIEND didn’t think of you that way? If anything that would be the easiest to blow off, “oh, okay, was just thinking, oh well, back to <whatever you’re doing>.” I may be misinterpreting you here, but that sounds a little… entitled and expecting to assume just because she has a vagina and goes places with you routinely she must necessarily think of you semi-romantically.
I don’t understand the safe thing, women* don’t particularly care if you like them (at least I assume not considering I’m relatively certain at least two of the three female friends I’d had crushes on at one point picked up on it eventually), they just care that:
You don’t pursue it because they REALLY don’t want to hurt you if you press it, they’re not lying here, they never did think of you like that, and they like you enough to not want to hurt you. (“I never thought of you that way” is pretty much shorthand for “I’m giving you an out here to blow it off so I don’t have to explain myself and make you sad, because I REALLY don’t want to do that”)
If you DO pursue it you’re not going to keep pressing it, pressuring her, or at least accept it even if you jokingly bring it up now and then. (Hell, two of my friends have had an overt one-sided crush on the male side for 3 freaking years, they finally got together eventually, but she didn’t really mind it beforehand except for a little being peeved here and there when he was particularly emo, he usually took it in good stride and they were really good friends even if he joked about his liking her now and then). Sure, some girls may feel a little creepy afterwords, but oh well, they’ll get over it, and if not, well if you were only stringing her along to get her to be a mate then… hmmm, we’re back where we started with the genders switched. If you were still interested in just being friendly if she rejected you, well, it’s HER problem there, sucks that she can’t see that people can drop stuff like that enough to have a healthy platonic relationship despite feelings one way or another.
If by “safe” you mean what I said above (likely non-romantic ever). Well, that’s not entirely true either. I mean, part of the reason I’ve never had a girlfriend is that “oh, I might like to go out with her!” Rarely crosses my mind before I know her whereas most of society likes to start romantic relationships off romantically, I’m sure there are women that would love to have romance bloom out of a friendship (one or two females on this very board have expressed SIMILAR sentiments from time to time, I think Sleeps With Butterflies may be one of them, sorry if I’m wrong). Either way, you’re playing the numbers game here, sure you MAY get a girl who evolves a friendship into a romance (if so, tell me if she has a 19 year old clone please), and it happens, I’ve seen it now and then, but I think enough webcomics** have mocked the idea to indicate that you may want to try a different approach because there’s a fair bit of money wagered on it not happening that way. Ever.
I really, really do apologize if I don’t understand what you’re getting at here though. I know my post probably came off a bit condescending and it wasn’t meant as such, but I’m honestly absolutely confuzzled by some of these sentiments and the fact that you’re confused as well doesn’t help me interpret your meaning very well.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to steal a chalkboard so I have something to write “I will follow my own advice” on 600 times.
*Blahblahblah women are people, have wide ranges of personalities, some may be, will be, or ARE different, this may be an overgeneralization, <insert whatever disclaimers I missed here>. Do I really need to make this clear? Previous board overreaction/misinterpretation blowups tell me yes,.
**http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y157/Sidnaceous/16cbd229.gif
Yes, it is social manipulation, and YOU’RE the one stringing THEM along if I caught your meaning correctly, not the other way around. There’s also an xkcd one I’m not bothering to look up.
Common enough that, as a college guy, if I drive other college guys I have to give the stipulation that the windows ONLY come down if they agree not to do that, or they walk to where I’m driving them to and they never get the windows down again (God, it sounds like I’m punishing three year olds). It was… enlightening when I found out they legitimately think it’s a compliment, I’ve only seen it from the female’s side (the part where they grunt and shake their head obviously peeved), so I was really… um… when they said that and I took up about a 20 minute drive explaining exactly why we don’t do that in my car. Precondition: unless we know the girl personally and it would be EXCEPTIONALLY funny and she’d get to playfully yell at us later in the day for it, but I make that stipulation (called the “Rule of Funny” clause) for just about anything that doesn’t result in people dying.
Seriously though, if you find that you are getting slapped a lot, that’s a pretty good indicator that you are not reading signals properly.
And I think for guys who find themselves constantly in the “friend zone”, it’s probably because you aren’t sexualizing your interactions enough. I mean it’s okay for a girl to know you are hitting on her. Just don’t be a jerk about it.
Nope, “bitch” is meant to connote some sort of sexual “naughtyness” which is a complement because sex is… dirty or something and it means they’re attracted to them. I’m certain they weren’t leading me on either. They think everything from “bitch” to “will you sit on my face” to “nice tits” is a compliment.
I’m just as baffled as you are, but they were entirely sincere. And you can tell by the way the talk to their female friends (or “friends” as the case seems to be to an outside observer such as myself).
Jragon, I may be a bit oblivious myself,** The Devil’s Grandmother** seems to agree with you. Maybe I’m just more aware these days - sure that guy who caught my eye and rubbed his crotch (true story) made me shudder, but two other guys returned smiles and hellos without drama and another damned near went through his windscreen to stop for me at the crossing (the other sixty or so guys I saw that day left no impression). When I was younger, the crotch rubbing guy would have upset me for a long time and I probably wouldn’t have said hello as I passed anyone else, now he’s more just an oddity in an otherwise pleasant walk.
Had it been a dark night, or if he’d followed me even a short distance, or I’d been just out of a bad breakup, I’d have an entirely different reaction.
Gosh. I’m wondering now how women could clearly “signal” that they aren’t actually flattered by this sort of thing. The Thelma & Louise method (Video link, NSFW dialogue) is too extreme for real life, but I have to say that is my favorite scene.
when they said that and I took up about a 20 minute drive explaining exactly why we don’t do that in my car. Precondition: unless we know the girl personally and it would be EXCEPTIONALLY funny and she’d get to playfully yell at us later in the day for it, but I make that stipulation (called the “Rule of Funny” clause) for just about anything that doesn’t result in people dying.