I think this news story is appropriate:
Attractive Girls Union Refuses To Enter Into Talks With Mike Greenman
Thanks for letting us know that’s a link to a video, Mister Rik!
That’s because many relationships *are *awkward and sad. I find his relationship ones to be spot on, at least from my experiences.
Oops, sorry about that. I’m so in the habit of mousing over links to see where they go before I click them that I mistakenly assumed everybody else did the same.
Sometimes they are spot on, but not often with comical result. Well, it’s all is subjective :).
Its not so much fun/funny, just one of those things that captures the idea, and does so in such a small amount of space. I wasn’t laughing, more cringing at how close to home this hit (for my former years).
Same here, only not quite so former.
xkcd is sometimes funny, sometimes not, but it’s always, always spot on.
I don’t know…I’m normally a fan of xkcd, relationship strips and all, but this one sets me on edge a bit. Admittedly, this may only be because I’ve become a tad oversensitized to the idea that people can’t relate to each other as people without operating via bullshit sociological rules for every given type of interaction, or that it’s somehow wrong if you do. This type of thinking concludes that it’s wrong to want a romantic relationship to grow out of a geniune friendship, because the romance was your original goal.
My school of thought, on the other hand, holds that you treat the other person like you’d treat any other human being and see what develops from there, be it a friendship, a romance, a friendship that becomes a romance, or even mutual disinterest. A lot of people have problems with this notion, and mock those who won’t approach women (or men, substitute as needed) by using the predetermined social cues for “I want to bang you”; they accept the false dichotomy that you can’t be a guy who’s nice without being a “Nice Guy” (meaning either spineless self-pitying whiner or scheming emotion-manipulating jackass, the second being the type depicted in the comic).
I don’t think that’s what he was going for, but he could’ve been a bit clearer about it. As written, it could be interpreted that a platonic friendship with a member of your preferred gender – or any romantic relationship that may genuinely develop from same – somehow cannot be a good or genuine thing, which is patent bullshit of the highest order.
I think it was more pointing out the folly of relying on the “relationship from friendship” as the ONLY means. Sure it can happen, but it seems to me the lesson here (and I think it is a good one) is: Grow a pair and ask her out. If she says no, move on. It’s not the end of the world, and the other approach sucks.
I agree with your general sentiment, Roland, but the comic’s pretty clear that the man isn’t approaching the relationship as a blank slate that could turn into anything. He WANTS a romantic relationship, but thinks it HAS to go through a friendship because he fears rejection. All of which sounds like the way some people might think. I would imagine. Not anyone that I know, of course. Nosiree. No one here like that at all…
Yeah, that’s the same conclusion I eventually reached. My pet rant above was just to explain why I’m iffy about the strip.
(This can be verified by the fact that I only posted three paragraphs. Some may recall the length and tone of my posts in threads where this is actually the topic of discussion :D)
I’ll say something to this. But I’m not quite sure whether the comic actually applies to me. With girls back in high school (that ahem I ever actually imagined I had a chance with) I was never thinking explicitly “I’d like to get her into bed.” Still, I am sure that my desire to be friends with certain of the girls I did make friends with could be explained, shall we say, biologically?
Anyway, to respond to the post quoted above, there are those of us who simply can’t make conversation, one on one, with people we don’t already know fairly well. Call it a deficiency, a different style, or whatever you want. But we just can’t do it successfully. And it follows that, for us, just asking someone out on a date, cold, who we are not already friends with, is simply not in the cards. It is a guaranteed failure, even if the person says yes. For people like us, becoming friends with someone first is the only option.
With that said, I do think there’s something wrong with the “approach” described in the comic. In the comic, the primary motivation of the guy is to get into a Relationship with the girl, and his strategy is to become friends with her, hoping she eventually settles for him. That last bit is important, I think. The comic isn’t just about being in a friendship and hoping it develops into something more. An important part of the comic’s story is the hope that the other will settle. There’s something not quite right about that, I’ll agree. (Though on the other hand, all kinds of relationships work and work out well so I’d never issue a blanket judgment here.) But importantly, I’m not convinced that many people actually do this. Did you guys back then really hope the other would settle for you eventually? Or rather, did you simply hope that a friendship would become a Relationship eventually? Because the latter doesn’t seem so objectionable as the former, to me.
-FrL-
That was the thing I was asking about earlier. The idea that a real, fulfilling friendship develops, and eventually turns into a relationship, is inherently mediocre and something someone would be settling for.
Although I see what people mean about how that being the plan all along makes the guy a game-playing spineless douche.
And I wonder if this really is what so many people on this thread did back when they were young. Did that many people really intentionally use this kind of strategy?
There is also the aspect of him becoming her friend to continually rip on her romantic interests, sabotaging her relationships until she is convinced he is the only one she can ever be with. That is one part of the “girls only like a-holes” meme that rarely gets brought up. To this guy, the fact that they are dating the girl is what defines them as a-holes. Once he has convinced her that all her choices are bad, then he is the only one left she can be with.
Jonathan
I see the “settling” thing as being more about the fact that the kind of person in the comic is somebody who just wants things to work out, without ever being willing to make them work.
Many relationships can, and do, grow out of friendships, but the key there is that they grow. At some point, the attraction is put to the test; somebody makes a move. The “Nice Guy” in the comic is only being a friend to the girl because he can’t take the thought that she wouldn’t be interested, and so he keeps the friendship going on the off chance that she’ll “come around.” The problem being, of course, that many of those types of relationships are one-sided, and since he’s not making the move, the relationship isn’t growing, only stagnating. He’s obviously not in it just for friendship, she’s obviously not in it for the romance, and since nobody addresses that problem, it’s a toxic situation. That kind of stuff most definitely happens all the time.
I guess most people have pretty clear “I want to spend time with this person for the purpose of [friendship/banging/romance/whatever]” categories. If you treat a person in a totally different way depending on whether you want to be friends with them or have a romantic relationship with them, then I can see deliberately using the friendship angle as a plot to gradually move in on another angle.
But to me - the same reasons you’d want to be with a person romantically (except pure physical attraction, but I’ve never sought a relationship solely or primarily on that basis) are the reasons you’d want a friendship with them. You find them interesting, your personalities mesh, you enjoy time you spend with them, etc. In that case I could see a friendship or romantic relationship forming along similar lines.
It’s a way to deal with insecurity, and it happens in steps.
- You want to be with this person but are afraid of rejection.
2, You become friends with the hope that the person will see you are the right one for them and boom, you get in the relationship without taking a risk. - When that doesn’t work, you have to either accept that your self image of being the perfect person for her is wrong, or there is something wrong with her for not seeing it.
- To protect you ego you recast her as someone flawed and attracted to the wrong person (not you).
- All the people she dates are the wrong people (not you) and you need to help her see that and support her through her bad times (not dating you).
If you are lucky you snap out of it before it gets to far. If she is lucky she can see through your crap and not let you sabotage her relationships or rub her nose in her mistakes(we all make them). Things get ugly when you use her mistakes and breakups to convince her that she has a problem.
At the big issue is this pattern is re framing your insecurities into the other persons faults.
Jonathan
The problem with the “nice guy” in the comic is that he’s insincere. He doesn’t really want to be her ‘friend’. He’s planning to prey on her insecurities. The humour comes from the fact that he is carefully explaining this (which is something, of course, directly contrary to insincerity).
The reason it raises hackles, I think, is that it is easy to read into it an implication that all platonic friendships are similarly insincere, which is something that some people definitely believe to be the case (but which I very strongly believe isn’t true).
I suspect many people cringing at the comic were/are not, in point of fact, like the fellow in the comic, but rather had mixed motives in a friendship - maybe were friends with someone and also lusted after them. That is different again.
The message in the comic is correct: don’t be friends with a girl that you’re interested in.