Ok, I don’t want to make this a poll because I don’t want to give anybody ideas.
I would like to have your first thought about this and your gender because I found it interesting that in general men answer one way and women another.
My friend’s two sons play football, two different teams for two different ages. The father of two of their teammates died. My friend was talking to the widow, and she was telling him how hard it’s been dealing with the death and the two boys and everything she needs to do, etc. He offered to let her boys spend the weekend with him and his boys so she could have a little time to herself. He told me that he wouldn’t be able to spend time with me that weekend because he’d be busy with the boys which was no big deal for me because I had to work anyway.
First thought? Confusion. Did he (your friend) make plans with you that he is now cancelling? Is he just throwing that out there in case you wanted to get together over the weekend and he’s just letting you know he won’t be available?
He -your friend- seems to making a heartfelt offer to this woman. I’m not sure what else to make of it, or where you come in - is there more to this story? More to your relationship with your friend? If not, then it appears to be a guy reaching out to a grieving woman with a no-strings-attached offer of help.
Isn’t that what team is supposed to be all about? Dad sees someone that needs help and makes an offer. Bing team-mates, the boys should have fun together.
What sorts of responses have you been getting that you would start this?
Male…sounds normal enough to me. As an adult male without children I can’t see a situation where I’d offer to let two teenage boys who are not related to me stay at my house for a weekend. But that’s because I don’t see how I would really entertain two teenage boys, I’ve never been a parent etc. But if I had two sons of my own as your friend does, I’d be all for it…since I’d be a parent myself in that scenario and the two children of the widow would have my own two children who they were already friends with to hang out with.
Sounds like a nice, neighborly thing to do. It reminds me a lot of my mother, who was always doing kind things for the neighborhood kids who needed a little extra care when their families were going through various issues.
If I am reading the scenario right and the OP has a problem with this, then IMO the OP is the one with a problem if you know what I mean.
If I was the nice football guy and the OP had a problem with me doing this and I found that out, that would be a giant “get off this sinking ship poste haste” red flag.
Seriously, unless some important details are missing I can barely imagine what the problem here is.
On my first read-through I reached the line about how he couldn’t spend time with you, thought to myself, “How did I miss the fact that she was talking about her husband?” and read through it again looking for the word “husband.” Because if it’s not your husband coming up with a reason not to spend time with you, I’m with everyone else–I can’t figure out what the problem is supposed to be.
Female, totally fine with it. Sounds like some Guy Time is just the ticket, for all four boys. My ovaries are fairly quivering with the manly responsible dad vibes this guy is giving off.
Female. This sounds like a cool thing to do. Second thoughts, if this was happening in my life I’d ask if he wouldn’t want me around to help out – looking after kids is hard work.
Female here. I think that was very thoughtful of your friend. To give a sleepover with your friend’s sons may help not only the bereaved mom, but the bereaved sons as well.
So, is this friend your boyfriend? Because even if he is, I really don’t see the basis for complaint.
Assuming your friend’s interest in young boys is not of the unhealthy variety, sounds like a very kind thing for him to do for the mother. Let her have some down time while the kids are off somewhere safe with other kids they’re presumably reasonably friendly with (if your friend’s sons don’t like these other two kids, OTOH, he’s in for a rough weekend).
I’m female, not a parent, did have a pedophile father (so I do tend to eye men showing a great deal of interest in kids with what I admit is probably too much suspicion).
Which is probably the point behind the OP- women are supposed to answer “No way I’d let MAH MAYYYYN do something like that- that there widow will just take it as an opening for her to work her feminine wiles.” Or, conversely, it’s a way for the guy to hone in on a damsel in distress using the simplest of ways.
There aren’t enough :rolleyes: in the world for either of those scenarios. Sounds like the gentleman in question is recognizing that two young boys are suffering and a woman is likely in desperate need of some alone time to grieve the loss of her husband. Men and women should answer the OP the same way- good on him.
OoooOOOOOOhhhhhhhh… Yeah. I totally missed that; didn’t even occur to me. I thought maybe it was “How DARE he cancel our plans, I mean I’m working anyway, so I don’t really care, but how DARE he?”
Ok
I’ll answer now and I appreciate all your honest answers.
I hope anybody else answering doesn’t read ahead and answers honestly as well.
I thought it was very nice of him, didn’t give it a second thought, and had no problem with it being just the guys.
I told one of my co-worker friends and her response was that it was a nice thing to do, and then one of the men at work said, ‘you have to be kidding me, he’s only doing it to get in her (the widow’s) pants and next thing you know he’ll be cheating on you’.
That thought never occurred to me, so I started asking around the workplace. Almost every woman said it was a nice thing to do, every man except one said he was doing it to get into her pants. My friend asked her husband and his first response, he was trying to get into her pants. Several of the men told me I was naive and stupid to think he didn’t have an ulterior motive.
Well I trust him and think I know him well enough not to have worried, but it was interesting to me and so I thought I would ask here.
My opinion though, is that it said more about the men who thought he was trying to get into her pants than it says about men in general.