No, no, that is the most appropriate method available. But that’s more because explosions are cool than it being effective… (though I suppose it’s that as well)
Yes, yes, yes. Entitles is exactly what it seems like, and I just don’t get it. Are these men who feel this way only a woman’s friend because they’re hoping it will go somewhere else? Doesn’t sound like a friend I’d like to have.
It’s ok, but you’re wrong 
I’m enjoying being single. Sometimes I’ll bitch on here that a good fuckbuddy is hard to find, but commitment isn’t my thing right now.
From what I’ve read from you here and in a few other threads I think the girls in your college are missing out.
Not entirely, there are really weird subsets of [del]guys[/del] you know what? People. People who think like this in my experience, some are certainly this way, but there are some that do a weird “projection” where this kind of thinking only occurs when they like the person (the “projection” comes in where the immediately project him/her reciprocating) and end up getting pissed off when it’s NOT reciprocated exactly like they imagined, but are otherwise entirely fine and platonic with female/male friends if they don’t have present romantic interest in them. (Note: If you want a prime example of this thinking regardless of gender go to your local middle school and watch 14 year olds, especially the particularly squee-ee girls, for a week) I’ll (shamefully) admit I’ve had to talk myself out of similar thoughts once or twice, that goddamn imagination of mine needs to learn to shut up and sit down when the rational thoughts are talking (and that applies to the week after horror movies too, you got me, brain?), I think I’ve mostly turned it off though.
Ah yes, I see now, I was having muddled memories of posts like this, which with a sufficiently hazy memory could be extrapolated that way, but rereading it that’s clearly not the case. Sorry 'bout that! NONETHELESS, there are certainly people that express similar sentiments to the one I brought up.
D’aww, thanks. (Where’s my “blushy but modest” smiley?)
On review, where I said guys are sincere in the yelling “bitch” thing, I obviously meant those specific ones I knew. I’m certain there are some who are just being rude for the sake of being rude which, come on, everyone has done in some form at one point or another whether it be hollering at people or spiking the punch iwth ex-lax, even if it is unbecoming behavior (don’t ask about the “get in the jacket” thing, it was a social experiment for my friend’s statistics class, we swear! Well, it actually was, but it was also unbelievably rude.). I was illustrating at least a certain number of them DO think it’s the “correct” way to act. I’m not sure which way the slant is though, my optimistic side wants to say it’s just kids doing it for shits and giggles, my “weeps for humanity” side says there are a few too many people past 50% that think like that.
Hey, I’m a member of a wretched minority! Is there a lobbying group for us, with a celebrity spokesperson (Don Knotts is gone, maybe Mr. Magoo)? We could call ourselves the IDIOTS (I Don’t Interpret Others Too Smartly) who suffer from UCID (Unspoken Communication Interpretation Disease).
Now that I think of it, I’m getting mad about how I have been treated as a member of this minority! Accommodations, accommodations must be made! Counseling sessions, eHarmony discounts, appearances on Dr. Phil, free eye & ear exams.
And I want reparations, dammit, or at least a tax credit for half of all the money & time I’ve spent on dates I didn’t know were going nowhere and for all the beer I’ve cried in.
Now is that look you gals are giving me one of interest, or of pity? 
Fred, I think pretty much everybody has trouble interpreting unspoken communication; Dangerosa nailed it in post 75. Everybody who has ever communicated with another human face-to-face This does not give anyone carte blanche and say “oh well, since I’ll never get it, I might as well go around harassing 90% of the people I want to date” as RobotArm seems to be suggesting.
I disagree with this. Maybe the consequences seem worse to you, personally, but pushing unwanted active attention on 90% of the women you speak to (your number, not mine) isn’t good for anybody – not the women you harass, and not the society that’s harmed by the perceptions and behaviour you’re reinforcing, and ultimately not you, because you perpetrate the broken parts of the ‘dating game’ and not the ones that work.
Assuming too little and asking for clarification when you’re confused never hurt anyone. And when I say “hurt” I don’t mean “left a little lonely and sad”, I mean “assaulted”. You may not be one of those guys, but you make it harder for women to remember and believe that they aren’t the majority.
For men who shout things from cars, I’ve found a good, firm “FUCK OFF, ASSHOLE” communicates displeasure fairly clearly. Or, IDK, maybe Jragon’s friends would take that as engagement and therefore expression of interest.
I suspect this changes as you get older. I have always had a lot of male friends and certainly male friends I’ve never thought of that way. But it would possibly shock a number of my male friends that I would have dated them at one point or another. In fact, I asked several of my friends out - people I’d been hanging with for years - and got the “I don’t think of you that way” speech! (Actually, its the 'you really aren’t my type - I’m a thinner woman and they both like women with significantly more padding than I have…imagine that). And I married a man I started dating after eleven years of friendship - three years where we were really close friends and he was dating someone else.
Now, some of my male friends did ask me out and indeed - they did face the big rejection of “I can’t even make myself pretend there is sexual chemistry here.” Or, frankly, the more likely - “we are good friends and I enjoy your company - but your life goals and my life goals are a little different, I’m past the unemployed musician stage of life - and you really aren’t the person I want to introduce to my corporate coworkers as a life partner - that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you and don’t completely support your right to have tatoos and facial piercings and be my friend - but you don’t fit into the parts of my life I need a spouse to - and I’m on a marriage track.” That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy their company and aren’t happy to hang out with them and don’t think they are really cool…but there has to be some chemistry, it can’t be faked. And there has to be compatible life goals - I’m really not interested in being someone’s mother or housekeeper even if there is chemistry - and I know some of my friend’s well enough to understand that is the dynamic that would develop.
Interesting, interesting. Your use of 90% reminds me. I knew someone waaaaayyyy back in college. He was the brother of a friend of mine. He was three years younger and when he decided to attend the college I was at I offered to “Show him the ropes” We hung out a little after that, but really didn’t have that much in common. We did end up at the same party at one point and this guy was just… Humm not sure what to call him . His MO was start talking to a girl. Within ten minutes he would ask some variant of “Do you want to go fuck?” I asked him what the hell he was doing and he explained it. “90% of the time the answer is no, or even hell no, or get away from me you pig. But about ten percent of the time the answer is yes. I don’t want to waste all night, or even weeks deciding what it means if she asks me to go get her another glass of punch. Or if she’s playing with her hair because she’s good to go, or if she’s just got dandruff. Girls know. In the first ten minutes they’ve decided where you fit into their world, and I’m not interested in being friends. I’m just cutting to the chase” I have to admit that I thought he was a dick, but I guess that was sort of the point, ‘cause he did get laid a lot more than I did. 
I’m not sure where that fits into the discussion, but it was interesting.
As one who lived on the shy side of the street for many of my “good” years, I strongly urge all shy/so- called nice guys to take notice of this. Read it. Learn it. You will get no better advice on the planet.
It would have changed my life if someone showed this succinct pearl to me during my university days. As it stands I learned it the hard (and lonely way). Don’t be me.
Did this happen at Binghamton? We were told of a guy who did this by our RA. Supposedly one girl was so mad she reported him and the complaint went to the RD (director of the dorms). He asked if the guy was violent or threatening in any way. The girl said no, and the RD said that he’s perfectly free to continue in this manner; that he wasn’t doing anything illegal. But none of us had the nerve to emulate him. I assumed the guy got a punch or two from angry boyfriends.
See, ShotgunZen, I can totally get behind that! (I should point out that the 90% figure was RobotArm’s not mine.) As long as your friend accepted the rejections and immediately left the women who turned him down alone. It’s honest, it’s unthreatening, and there’s absolutely no potential for mixed signals or miscommunication. If I were feeling it, I would say yes.
I think this might have been the disconnect between you and Robot Arm–it had seemed to me that he was only advocating continuing until he was sure that the answer was “no”, but that his signal-reading was sufficiently impaired that he only took specific verbal cues for that.
Bwana no it was actually at…
wait for it
Morehead Yeah really.
Well Tracy it really worked for him. He was only there for a year before I graduated so I don’t know how it worked out for him long term but he had a lot of success with it while I was there.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t work, since he was only looking to get laid - he is right about not wanting to waste time with women who weren’t going to sleep with him. Why bother, if that’s all you want?
If he wants a relationship in the future, however, this might not be the way to go.
My ex husband would do that - and slept with some very attractive women (while we were married but that is a separate story) - and he wasn’t very good looking.
He was funny and charming.
He did it fairly respectfully - he’d talk to a person for a few minutes. He’d give her a not icky compliment (you have nice eyes, you have a nice smile).
Ask a lot of women, and don’t be too picky about the women you ask - ask in vaguely respectful way. Respect them when they say no (and sometimes if you do that much they come onto YOU next time). And eventually someone will have sex with you.
I think the guy who asks everyone and the guy who hardly asks anyone are two sides of the same coin. Neither one is picking up cues very well, if at all. The difference is that one doesn’t mind being called a pig nine times out of ten, and the other is upset at it happening once. In both cases, they are getting no signals or maybe pure noise from the woman. It is easy to construct signals out of noise, and I suspect every “nice” guy has gotten rejected being totally convinced that there had been a signal.
I met my wife when she was visiting a friend in college. She tells it that our first connection was when we were bridge partners. I tell it that it was when she came into my room asking if I wanted to play in the snow - mostly because my door was open. I asked her out more because I was mad at her friend than anything else. So, no good communication. After being married 30 years, and raising two daughters, I think I’ve got it right 80% of the time. She has learned to be a lot more explicit, but we still get into “didn’t you know I wanted you to do that” discussions.
This is an intuitive thing, so I can understand why many women just don’t get how men don’t get it.
Here I’ve been getting all bitter about relationships and signals, and I GOT one at dinner today, and I was totally stunned, and I don’t know how whether I responded properly.
The waitress and I had chatted a bit, but absolutely nothing I interpreted as a come on. Then she asked me why I came in so late tonight, presumably because one of the waiters mentioned I had been coming in earlier. I’ve become a semi-regular there just in the last couple of weeks, because I’ve been going to that part of town to cat-sit for my travelling sister. Haven’t met this waitress before, though.
Anyway right after this exchange, she gives me the bill and says, “I want to see you here next week, same time. Give me your number, I’ll call you to remind you.” Then she posed her pencil over her order book. I was shocked and said, “Don’t ask for what you don’t want”, and she laughed and put her pencil away.
So I put my business card on the table with my bill and money before leaving.
I do plan to go back next week, though I didn’t say so. So you sign interpreting people, will she call me?
Now, having written this up, I’m beginning to understand better what a spectacular idiot I am. She wasn’t giving me a signal, she was issuing as explicit an invitation as I am ever likely to get.
I just couldn’t believe it. I’m a 50 year old fat guy. Ok, maybe I don’t look 50 years old, but I do look 50 years fat. :rolleyes: And she is this slender, fit looking woman who doesn’t look more than 25.
And this is a long term issue with me – thinking, jeez what must be wrong with her if she’s attacted to me.
Wow. Thank you. Very well stated.
Quite a lot. You don’t even have to be a woman to know that, either. Don’t you know other young guys? Go to high school? Listen to other guys talk about their conquests with each other? Or about women in general? We’re horrible.
Just read the personal accounts about male gaze in this thread. Imagine how weird it must be for a 12 year old girl to realize every man she meets is looking her over. Creepy. Of course, if it were reversed – female gaze – guys would say that would be pretty awesome. But that’s one way we’re different.
And yeah, regarding the *general *passive women vs. active men relationship model: AFAIK no society ever studied operated differently, so the idea of this ever changing in the absence of genetic engineering strikes me as unlikely.