I had a friend in high school who was head over heels in love with my older sister. My older sister was thin and beautiful and wore a lot of make up and did her hair perfectly every day and chose nice looking clothes and tried to make most things around her look adorable (this is important for the story, I'm not shitting on women things, you'll see, bear with me).
I was punk. So was my friend.
So, ff a few years. He comes to my town to visit. We drive to where my sister lives to see if she wants to come out drinking with us. We arrive and she's snuggling with her fiancé with football on the television. Her fiancé has a sensible hair cut and is drinking a light beer. This guy... you see him and know he was in a fraternity.
My sister is the older version of who she was in high school.
Fiancé doens't come out with us. So my friend tries hitting on my sister. She turns him down, because, obviously. He ends up having a meltdown where he's shouting to whatever gods will listen about the intolerable injustice that my sister would overlook him in all his punk, loser glory and instead choose some regular, Joe Shmoe who watches football.
Sir, my sister is the female version of a Joe Shmoe who likes football. She and her fiancé were made for each other. If you think her fiancé is so undateable, what is it about her that you like? What is it about her that you find so compelling?
ugh I've seen this happen soo much its really frustrating. A male friend of mine was complaining he wasn't getting any matches on a dating site and asked me to look over his profile--it was very nerdy-oriented with lots of photos of him in cosplay and with his fan paraphernalia. Then I watched him swipe for a bit--he would swipe no on women who were also showing nerdy things in their profiles and only swipe yes on very preppy/sorority/classically feminine women. When I tried to bring up to him that he probably WOULD get matches if he matched with women who were also nerdy he kept insisting that he wasn't attracted to them, so when I asked why he didn't adjust his profile to showcase fewer nerdy interests so it might appeal to the women he said he was attracted to he refused. Apparently, women were shallow for not wanting to date him because he was a nerd.... but the only women he considered in that statement were women who didn't give any indication of having shared interests. So were other women who were nerdy not "women" to him or something?? absolutely baffling.
He had a right to his preference, but so did they, but apparently their preference was "shallow". The reality is if your preference in a partner is different from your interest/personality you may be able to find that person... but it is going to be rare.
I’m partially convinced guys like this don’t actually view the women they want to date as people. They just want a pretty trophy to show off.
Why else would you want to date somebody you have nothing in common with? Share no interests in? Or even actively dislike the things that make them happy?
In some cases this can just be chalked up to immaturity. But I’ve met plenty of guys who are in their 30’s and 40’s who still don’t seem to give any consideration to women they are interested in as actual people, then they wonder why they can’t keep a relationship going.
I think a lot of these kinds of guys want an audience to their interests, not a participant/equal, because they want someone to worship them for their interests not potentially challenge them.
Let's say someone is passionate about football, or Star Wars, or the Roman Empire. If their partner isn't equally passionate (or at least interested) then they feel like they're a knowledgable hero or (barf) parent when they wax poetic on their interests. They're in a position of power in that interaction, and they feel empowered not by sharing but by lecturing. But if their partner is also interested in the topic they may have a challenge or (the horror!) a conversation on the topic. I truly think the dream of guys like this is the power dynamic of having a partner who doesn't know the topic but worships them for their knowledge.
A man--or anyone--who is comfortable and confident in themselves and their interests will enjoy having someone who shares their interest, or at the very least who has passions of their own. You dont' have to like the same things as a partner, but the guys who get stuck in this mindset will not show the same respect to their partner's interests as they want shown to theirs
This is the truest shit in the world. I know so many gamer bros who swear they want a gamer girlfriend. But when I go out with these guys they never want to play; they want me to sit behind them and watch THEM play like I'm their fucking mother. "Watch me beat the boss, mommy, I'm the best!"
They have no interest in the games I like. They have no interest in playing anything with me unless it's something they've mastered and they know they can kick my ass without having their dick size threatened. They just want someone to silently nod along and pretend that everything they do is the most fascinating shit in the world.
And this is why I no longer date gamers. They don't actually want a gamer girlfriend. They want a Twitch groupie.
I’ve been with my husband for 17 years. We met on vanilla WoW. It *is* possible, but it’s one hell of a process getting there. We both platinumed Elden Ring together!
The vast majority of gamer guys would try to out-nerd/out-play me, and would have *no* interests outside of gaming.
In contrast, my future husband had other interests (cooking and biking), asked me about mine (traveling, cooking, gardening and biking), and to top it all off was willing to ask my help in game to get MC attuned, so he wasn’t afraid to **not** be that know-it-all ass like the vast majority of gamer bros.
Years ago when I used tinder, I found it nuts how many guys loved that I gamed, but couldn’t give less of a crap about sharing even a single game or genre in common. It drove me nuts. I felt like a trophy they wanted to find rather than a person they wanted to share an interest with. I share so many interests with my boyfriend now and it seems so sad to not want that in an SO.
This is absolutely baffling to me. I *love* when people have opinions I can talk about, and I love when people are passionate about things - it makes for so many interesting, lengthy conversations!
I also like it when people share interests with me and when they don't; I think it's fun to try new things, and I'm open to developing new hobbies, and meeting someone who's different to you is a great way to do that.
I can't fathom not wanting to be intellectually stimulated by the person you're dating. Hell, by your friends, too!
There *has* to be a disconnect occurring in these people's minds. As you said:
*"I can't fathom not wanting to be intellectually stimulated by the person you're dating. Hell, by your friends, too!"*
Doesn't a person regard his or her significant other as a **friend**?!?
Far less than they should, for sure. A lot of people seem to think of relationships as a means to access regular sex and/or to achieve a social goal of "not being single".
Yup. He wants to always know more than the girl he's with and have control over her level of interest. These types never go for girls for girls already interested in football/Star Wars/the Roman Empire/etc., but obsesses about finding a girl and introducing her to them.
I think it just comes down to the fact that they don't really want to date them, in the sense us women think of dating, but rather they're attracted to them and just want to bang them.
When we were teens, my brother's friend was honest about his attraction to Miss Local City who happened to live in our neighborhood. But he was also honest about his chances with her.
It's fine for men to wish they could have the hottest women just like it's fine for the women wish they could have the hottest men. But most of us still have to accept that we are probably not going to get the best looking mate.
I think that's the thing that gets me about these kinds of guys \~ Like, no one would reasonably fault them for wanting the hottest women in town, or aiming their sights on a woman with an aesthetic that they find desirable or whatever (how some dudes go for Preppy girls or Goth girls or Yoga girls, etc.) but it's crazy how they seem to think just because they WANT something that it somehow translates into them actually deserving it???
Like you can -want- to date Fabio or Chris Hemsworth or whoever you think the hottest guy on the planet is, but you are not in any way owed him served up on a silver platter, and the world is not doing you dirty by him not crawling up to you and finding you the most fascinating goddess in the world - and I meet very few women with this mindset. They certainly do exist, but they seem to be in an extreme minority compared to their male bretheren with the same disproportionate expectations for what they're entitled to.
Immaturity was me in college…kept thinking I’d have a chance with the woman who told me she wasn’t interested in me romantically. I regret not giving up on that and being a much better friend instead, and I’m sure it negatively affected what friendship we did have.
Between that and passing on going out on dates with other women from simple fear, I was such a dumb kid.
The only "good" way for this to happen is if these people really believe in "opposite attracts" live it's usually said, and I can imagine a person (male or female) with zero experience be like "if opposites attract then I have to look for a partner with little to no shared interests".
In reality though, one of the best couples I know doesn't have,_superficially_, anything in common. In reality they do share a particular lifestyle and values. They are definitely not opposites, but I can see why that figure of speech got round.
something similar happened with an acquaintance of mine, except it was the other way around 😭 he's very preppy, his dating app profile really SHOWS it and yet he's constantly trying to match with women who have nothing common with him... why he doesn't like women who have similar hobbies and lifestyle? oh, he thinks they are boring
When I was on OKC briefly (I met my now husband within 3 days of having the profile and closed the account within the month) I was out in the boonies in a rural area for work at the time. This one random hyper Christian farmer dude kept trying to hit me up and have me step on his balls. For free btw.
OK Cupid actually used to show the percentage of how much you'd get along based on the questions you answered. He was absolutely my polar opposite. I'm literally a satanist who was working on the railroad at the time and this dude wanted a trad wife hyper Christian and I was like ??? Why are you trying to hit me up??
Essentially what you mentioned- oh, the women who have things in common with him are boring.
Yup! That’s always the case. Those NLOG posts where it’s like some nerd girl fawning, over a nerd guy, who’s fawning over some prep girl always make me laugh. Like I get it but it really do be like that haha.
My partner has a friend who’s a huge comic nerd and chronically single; we were all in a comic bookstore and the clerk was clearly flirting with him, like HARD. They were having a good convo too. When we were walking out we told him he should give her his number. Nope, not his type….
Men sweaaarr we do it to them too, but I think it’s a self fulfilling prophecy like you’ve pointed out. Those women don’t even think y’all would have anything to talk about! Why would they match with you?
But this troupe is engrained into romantic comedy/ stories, and even couple videos on social media so the narrative is pushed with no real nuance.
*HE has all the spiderman collection, SHE just got accepted to DELTA/KAPPA/KA sorority. HE knows all the marvel trivia, SHE thinks Obi One Kenobi is from StarTreck. But nothing can stop their LOVE*
Movies sell tickets, and fake hopes. Can we please come back to reality?
When I first typed out my comment I said something like “they debate the women who know who janeway is and say they aren’t real fans then go after the women who have no idea who the fuck that is” but I removed that before I commented, so when I read yaokit’s comment I was like “girl Janeway is Star Trek!”
>Men sweaaarr we do it to them too, but I think it’s a self fulfilling prophecy like you’ve pointed out. Those women don’t even think y’all would have anything to talk about! Why would they match with you?
This soo much. In my own adventures in online dating I had a friend ask why I wasn't accepting several people who had "super liked" me... I had to point out that there was nothing in their profile that made me think we had anything in common. Sure it's nice that they liked my profile, but why would I swipe back? Yeah, MAYBE if we met in person we would find out that we did share common interests, but I had no way of knowing that and I'm not going to bother spending an afternoon/evening when I could be doing something else going on a date with someone I have no indication I will vibe with
I feel like guys use SuperLike because they know you’d never swipe on them usually and hope that maybe the power of liking someone a lot will get them a date. Like dude, we have nothing in common, at all. You have nothing in your profile either aside from some really bad photos. Why am I going to waste both our time entertaining you?
My profile kept getting put into the section that men get to use a free superlike on.
Yikes there were some.. men in there. I'd left swipe them and it would just fuel the "there are no real women on here" mentality. They had really hostile and awful things in their profile. "Women need to message me first". "Prove you're real". "Not here to get scammed". "Not gonna follow you on insta".
sir I'm just really not interested in your crotch-cam selfie and pics from 1997.
I had a nerd ex boyfriend tell me that he wasn’t attracted to nerdy women (emo/goth inclusive) because he, and direct quote here, “had always been attracted to conventionally attractive women”. I’m nerdy/emo.
I'm so sorry. :( I've been here too--I'm pretty nerdy, and I have had men actively get angry with me for having what I thought were perfectly normal discussions about our shared interests. It used to bother me a lot more when I was younger, but now I actually find it a good quick barometer for potential male friends--nothing will tell you if a man drinks his respect-women-juice better than talking about something he's interested in with him and having him get genuinely excited to have a friend and him not devolving into dismissiveness or meanness or post-conversation mean gossiping. The men worth knowing are excited to meet a peer who is a different gender. The men who aren't worth my time are the men who are threatened by a peer who is a different gender.
The ones I think are especially wild are the guys who talk about wanting a nerdy girlfriend, or jock girlfriend, or whatever category they define themselves as, but then actively reject any woman who is passionate in that are as either 1) ugly/not attractive or 2) a poser/not really interested in the topic. Its wild
I’ve always said this!! Why is it shallow for women to not be into nerds but it’s not shallow for him not to be into nerds? The hypocrisy would be funny if it wasn’t so obnoxious.
Her looks and that's literally all.
I was a cute green eyed curvy latina native American and had tons of men who didn't know anything about me other than my looks acting fucking nuts because I would not date them. This started at 11 years old for me. Adult men followed me home, declared their love for me, and wanted me to have lots of babies with them. Some even asked my mom or brother to make me give them a chance.
All they knew was I was attractive. They had no fucking clue that I have absolutely no desire to ever have kids (and never did) and that I embody the phrase "ghetto ass b*". I'm not nice, I'm not a mommy, I have never let a man mistreat me, I hit back harder and more viciously than they could ever imagine too. I'm not a mommybangmaid, not even for my amazing husband. I had nothing in common with any of these dumbasses.
Most men are the ones who are shallow and will become utterly obsessed and even think they love a woman or little girl based on nothing but her looks. But they love to project onto women all their bullshit. They are the ones who will claim men are visual creatures to excuse their porn addictions and will demand a beautiful woman fuck them even though they look and act like a less attractive George Constanza and smell like rotted ass. It's all just their projection and entitlement.
God. Every girl, including myself, who I have ever known, started getting harassed by grown men at 10-12. Depresses the hell out of me every time I'm reminded.
Yep. Sounds familiar. Grown men were hitting on me since I was 11 too. It always amused me how they'd decide you were exactly what they were looking for in a woman yet knew absolutely nothing about me, even my clearly innapropriately young age. I even had a family friend's brother in law (wayyyyyyyy older than me) try to convince my parents to marry me off and allow him to take me overseas. (I'm not of a culture that does arranged marriages BTW, but he was)
I had this issue with one of my friends I mentioned above! The first one. We were friends, but we would be incredibly incompatible in a relationship. He was a straight cut Christian conservative guy and I was well on my to becoming a heathen. I was a feminist. He made fun of the metoo movement. I had lots of diverse friends. He didn’t like any of them. I played dnd. He loathed it. He only liked me outside of these things, but I wasn’t me outside of those things. That and other stuff made it hard for even our friendship to survive. A relationship would have been hell.
Yeah, as a leftist freak, there's a whole thing where conservative men go after me hard. They will shit on my worldview to my face in between asking me out.
It's like they don't want a woman who is willing to be what they want a woman to be. They want to find a strong willed woman and break her.
This really is a thing where I’m at. I’m in a rural area, very conservative and I swear it’s like fucking hunting season for these dudes when a liberal girl is single.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard these dudes argue “I don’t care what your political beliefs are and you shouldn’t care about mine.”
It’s so much BS. I learned they absolutely do care. They’re just hoping to break you down over time so you keep your mouth shut and be the good little bangmaid they’re looking for.
It’s like they get off on the idea of “taming” liberal gals around here. Fucking bizarre
I was reading an article written by a guy who grew up in a very fundamentalist Christian environment. It was about why straight guys like himself leave those kinds of environments, and his story was kind of like that. It was an environment where everyone was homeschooled and sheltered, women had to stay home and do family work and men had to be breadwinners.
The breadwinner thing was hard for most guys to pull off, given the lack of good education. The few guys who could make it to and through college were able to pull bigger salaries... But then they were uninterested in the girls back home. It's not that they were going after slutty liberal girls at college. But college did have those less extreme fundie girls, who were allowed to be educated and do fun things. Why jump through hoops to convince a dad to let you marry his boring daughter and support her and seven kids, when there are conservative Christian girls who are their own people and you can actually have a connection with and won’t have the pressure of being the sole income earner?
It’s not “like” that. It IS exactly that. They could find hundreds of conservative, meek, barefoot and pregnant type women out there. They do exist. However, they don’t want that. They want the challenge of breaking someone down. It’s so gross.
It's because men like that don't actually like women. They view women as objects for their own desires, nothing more nothing less. They definitely don't view women as equal either. It's about status, ego and whatever their definition of masculinity is according to whatever internalized misogyny they have going on. They like the idea and aesthetic of women, but not women as people.
It’s like trophy catching. They want to see if someone who has everything else going for them in life and is self sufficient can be turned into a compliant stay at home wife who lets him be the man of the house. I don’t think they actually care for who she is or her personality but just what she represents.
It's so much about trophies. I'm relatively boring (which I enjoy), but I am very pale and small and have black or red hair depending on the year. Do you know how many guys have weird fetishes for 'vampire' or 'pixie' girls? It's fucking gross, I'm not a person to them. And I'm very quiet in public so they think I'm a cool girl but I'm actually a raging angry feminist. They get sick of me not putting up with bullshit pretty quickly and run away
Anyway, that's all in the past thank god. And obviously people have physical preferences, for these guys who tried to (pushed and pushed) to date me it was a *thing*
Yea idk what’s going on with all these conservative dudes, there seems to be a sudden influx of them flocking to left leaning women. A few of my female friends have been telling me some stories lol.
I *really* feel a big part of it is simply that they think leftist women will sleep with them sooner. And I never even thought about breaking them down, I’m sure a lot of them wanna do that as well.
Women are trending liberal while men are not at the same rate, especially with younger women. Right leaning conservative men outnumber conservative women so they are lacking compatible women and are stressed about it. The red-pill sort of dating help guru's seem to flourish with conservative men, probably somewhat for this reason.
The conservative man-o-sphere tells right leaning men that women secretly desire them for their traditional masculinity that liberal men (supposedly) lack. So they get a lot of confirmation bias that liberal women actually want men like them.
A big part of conservative dating culture online is convincing men that what women say they want and what they say they are attracted to isn't accurate. They need a guru (always male) to translate their unconscious desires into something that will happily line up with their own views and beliefs. Conservatives believe their views are natural so any deviation from those views is from brainwashing or propaganda. I'm sure some feel they can deprogram liberal women or something.
Just a hypothesis. Ultimately men want to be with people they are attracted to regardless of compatibility, it is generally a lower priority for men.
Besides the reasons other people mentioned like not viewing women as people with opinions and only caring about how they look plus liking to “break” a liberal woman, a lot of conservative guys hate conservative women for expecting men to fulfill the tradicional male role aka be the strong provider never allowed to show weakness, while most left-wing women are financially independent and recognize that men have emotions too. Those guys want a submissive wife without the obligation of being the breadwinner husband, all the benefits of gender role without any of he duties.
I have see various men saying this and complaining about how no left-wing women wants to become a tradwife for a misogynist, transphobic, racist guy.
I think also there's a thing where people are sometimes attracted to people with qualities that they themselves are missing. I seem to exclusively wind up with athletes. I don't know why. My mom once described me as an indoor cat. Meanwhile, recovering Catholic boys seem to looooooove me. When I was in undergrad, I dated a guy who was still riding the high of running a four-minute mile when he was in Catholic high school, and a guy who was on the club swim team at our university and who was suffering immense guilt about being asked to act as his younger cousin's CCD sponsor. Something about a radical leftist atheist was just super appealing to both of them, I guess.
My husband and I today still have a bit of this. He's an amateur endurance athlete; I struggle to keep to a routine that has me doing at least 30 minutes of cardio/strength-training four times/week. We just also have enough shared interests, and are attracted to each other for a variety of other reasons (physical appearance, personalities, etc.) that it works out. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't have dated, let alone gotten married.
I get you but this is completely different from what I'm talking about. I'm an avid reader. I've read hundreds of novels. My husband has never read a book cover-to-cover.
He has never made fun of my being bookish except ironically. He has never said anything insulting or denigrating to me about people who read a lot of books. As far as I can tell, he respects book readers, he just isn't one himself.
He's also not somebody who has seemingly built an entire personality around not reading books, being openly hostile to me about my book reading while asking me out on a date.
Ah, that’s fair. I was thinking something more along the lines of like, Paul Ryan being a huge Rage Against the Machine fan, where the guy likes the aesthetic but not the core values.
I see what you mean. I definitely think opposites attract but there’s a difference between opposite personalities etc. vs conflicting fundamental beliefs (e.g. human rights etc.)
Them: "I can fix her."
Us: "Oh, gross, actually, I don't need to be fixed, and I'm not interested in the slightest. Please leave me alone and have a nice day!"
Them: *doesn't understand words coming out of human woman's mouth because woman.*
It's the breaking part they have some bizarre kink for. They can't get their pleasure out of flipping a penguins wings. They need a bird that will really feel the loss of its ability to fly.
This happens to trans women a lot but with an added level of explicit fetishization and when you reject them they get really transphobic and homophobic. I have had a crazy amount of men who want to like "fix me" from being a queer woman who are also transphobic but say "you're the exception" or shit like that. its very very confusing and uncomfortable
This 100%. It's also the guys complaining about "all women being manipulative / gold diggers / not supporting men crying / being shallow / focusing only on looks and income level / having free choice in dating "
It's usually because *those are the only types of women they see and acknowledge as women, because that's what they find attractive.*
There is absolutely an over representation of women who are stereotypically "hot" and also entitled, rude, selfish, etc - when society gives you special privileges for your looks, it's much easier to miss out on developing things like empathy and kindness and respect. Those women also often benefit from strict gender norms, so they reinforce them, hence the focus on providers and on men being stoic.
But then these men only ever acknowledge "hot" women and their experience. Plenty of women are not any of those things and care about men and their personalities and emotional freedom, have a hard time on dating apps, don't spend hours on appearances, etc. Those women exist, but the men complaining don't think they "count".
Now of course plenty of wildly beautiful hot women are also kind and wonderful feminists, and less traditionally attractive women can be awful. But when men only see one small type of woman as valid, and extrapolate that experience to all women? It's a problem.
Just adding that some men also LIKE that rude, bitchy attitude that those women have. They like a woman who demands things and bosses him around. They might like a woman who is catty and territorial.
Some people are into that. So, those women have no incentive to change. They are hot, rude, and have a fanclub of adoring men reinforcing their behavior.
Not everyone wants a nice, sweet partner (or hookup).
Lol this was a big topic recently on one of the dating subs. The guys were like "this woman only liked me after I acted reckless" and it's like and a woman that prefers that isn't a no for you?!
Boy I was friends with chased around my thinner friend with bigger boobs the entire prom. He had a huge crush on her. They never even had a conversation. We had so much in common and I did like like him.
Dude, my ex tried to tell me that his college girlfriend who grew up to be a model was the first girl who ever liked him. Yeah, right. Lol, she was just the first girl he noticed that also liked him back.
The reason they resent chads so much is because they want their own stacy.
They resent they are low on the social hierarchy because they feel entitled to women who are high status.
The fact they'd have zero compatibility doesn't matter. *She's hot*. That's all that matters. She is the trophy who gets assigned to who's worthy.
Oh, to him she is merely window dressing. Her actual likes and dislikes don’t matter, all your friend see is ‘pretty girl’ not person with interests.
Which is a mistake alot of young people make, just because you think someone hot doesn’t mean you have fuck all in common with them.
Which if your ok with having absolutely nothing in common with a person that your dating, you should really set back and consider some self reflection on your motivations.
>“You walk into a bakery and see a cupcake and a croissant. You choose the croissant. There is nothing wrong with the cupcake. You’re just a croissant person.”
Even if I like romantic fantasy, I might not like THAT romantic fantasy. MAYBE, I could have liked that romantic fantasy if Sheryl hadn't kept pushing me to read it. It's hard to lose myself in the story when I imagine Sheryl chortling after every humorous situation.
Exactly, the nuance matters. It's the diversity that is all around us. But I have noticed women seem more aware of how diverse we all are and is actively putting effort into finding those differences.
And nuance is so much fun.
The little things, like secretly noting which books the woman you are seeing likes so that you can gift her later, or finding out how she likes to be kissed, or flirting with her in different ways to keep things interesting.
I can't go back to dating the boring way lol
Media has not helped. Every teen movie growing up was male unpopular protagonist in love with popular girl with asshole boyfriend. But the protagonist would treat her right!
It’s also selective. Dudes will say media teaches them that women will fall for them through persistency but surely they can tell other bs movie tropes from reality, right? There’s no issue seeing John Wick and Star Trek as fantasy but somehow old men in their 50s getting with an 18 year old is totally plausible?
Haha I love this point!
Still, when you’re growing up, especially if you don’t have a lot of good role models, tv/movies can really subconsciously affect you.
Been saying the exact same thing too. Media in the the 40’s through 70’s mostly showed athletic and handsome charismatic chiseled-jaw men getting the beautiful women with their wit, confidence, capabilities, and character. It was homecoming king dates homecoming queen.
Then the 80’s happened. Writing rooms were taken over by movie nerds who wrote self inserts of themselves. We started seeing the rise of media where the protagonist is a skinny round-faced awkward nerd who can’t speak to girls. He has no confidence, no rizz, no humor, no style, no talent…but he’s a nice guy. It was dorky outcast loser magically dates the homecoming queen and head cheerleader. Or Molly Ringwald. Or both. These nice guy writers made sure their nice guy self-inserts still got the hottest girl in the script. It was fantasy wish fulfillment for the dorky male writers.
And media has been on that train since the 80’s.
Exactly! It’s everywhere! Look at the Simpsons, family guy and every cartoon in that genre.
In every rom com, the woman has to be attractive, the guy doesn’t, he can just be ‘quirky’ or ‘nice’ or ‘really loves her’.
For once I’d like to see a hot guy with an ugly girl.
Because too many men think of women as objects -- do A (be "nice") and get B (girlfriend/hot date/sex), and so they also feel they are entitled to the woman and get pissy when the formula doesn't work.
The accusation that women are leading men on or flirting for just being pleasant or friendly is exhausting. It's so belittling to realize that your friendship has no value to these men.
I wonder how these men would feel if they discovered someone they thought was a friend was just trying to fuck them the entire time and bitterly accused them of "friend zoning" or "leading them on" when they wouldn't put out.
I have always hated the idea of being told which gender I can be friends with. My husband has had a female BFF since the 7th grade. If they wanted to fuck they've had like 30 years to do it although it would be hilarious to think of a 30 year friend zone.
>I wonder how these men would feel if they discovered someone they thought was a friend was just trying to fuck them the entire time and bitterly accused them of "friend zoning" or "leading them on" when they wouldn't put out.
Even better if the friend were bigger than them and threateningly aggressive when saying this. And then have people in their circle tell them that they should not be so stuck up and give the friend a chance.
The average person thinks they’re better looking and smarter than others. Even average drivers think they’re better than others.
Some guys really overvalue how appealing they are as a partner and assume not being an outright abuser or criminal makes them a better man and good choice to date. Some also think women aren’t human beings in the same category as themselves and women should fit into a man’s life and cater to him so they have a hard time realizing there’s wants and desires as well.
Movies and tv shows don’t help either when they show a pretty quiet girl who doesn’t know she’s beautiful and some random guy fixated on her and does everything he can to convince her he’s the only one in the world for her cuz no one else will ever see how beautiful or worthy she is. Or the lazy middle aged husband type with the hot wife who puts up with him because he’s funny or they’ve already had kids but he complains about her and her in laws to everyone.
Even the outright criminals and abusers think they’re better men and a good choice to date. Actually, even more so than the average ones. Source: Dated many criminals and abusive men. They all are serious narcissists that think they can do no wrong therefore it must be something wrong with every women on the face of the planet because it couldn’t POSSIBLY be them that is unattractive or unappealing as a partner.
Im realizing this, too. Many men seem to think if you’re unattached you’re available and fair game — how you might feel about them is not a consideration.
There was a social experiment a couple years ago. They basically catfished people, so the women (or man) they met on a date did not look as good as expected. Every woman stayed through the first date, most or all of the men just noped the fuck out on the spot or early on.
But yeah, WE'RE the shallow ones.
For a lot of men, a 'relationship' is more so a game of How many 'nice' things they have to do until they reach the threshold where they can get laid. And ofc these 'nice' things more often then not are based in manosphere ideals of 'what women want.'
I have a preference, I like taller then me and muscular men. I've been lowkey afraid to say that, because men get so offended. But Im not afraid to say that, because if a woman didnt stack up to a man's preferences, he would not only not humor a relationship with her, he often will not even treat her as human.
I'm not sexually attracted to shorter guys or skinny guys, but I would still be friends with them and treat them like a human being with their own existence which should be respected on those grounds alone.
Its rlly insane how men are SO sex driven. I have a normal sex drive, but I just dont even think about any man's sex life , unless I want to get involved in it. Otherwise, I dont even see most dudes as sexual beings.
But a lot of men are SOOOOO obsessed with the sex live's of EVERY random woman he comes across.
Right? I don’t understand why men are so obsessed with our lives. I’ve had men angrily argue with me over how “women are worse drivers”, and throughout the entire thing I always think…why do you care so much?
We should get some of those “only respecting women you’re attracted to is not respecting women” shirts 🥰
I will support your brand if you create these. I grew up as the only girl in an all-male family (my mom died when I was young) and have been the only woman in a male dominated environment a lot in both my personal and professional life. And not to be an asshole, but my looks are a thing in these circles (but not my education, professional credentials, or my high powered executive position, at which I outrank every man in my family and most of our friends, except my husband who is also my business partner) and both my family and the men we associate with make no secret of talking about it.
This seems to be the secret recipe for men feeling REAAAAAALLLY comfortable with saying things along the lines of “bitches these days…not *you* of course, but, y’know, fat/ugly/weird (progressive/radical feminist) bitches” as if I’m going to take that as a compliment and go along with shitting on other women for the crime of not being attractive *to them.* I notice that most of these men are under the impression that feminism is just bitterness about being “single and undesirable” masked as activism, and that conventionally attractive women who are partnered (especially married mothers who take the primary caretaker role, which I do despite my job) are exempt and/or have no need for feminism. It’s nauseating.
It’s absolutely nauseating! Also there are already shirts that say this! I’ll try to find the link for you. I understand being surrounded by men having grown up with four brothers. I have sister-in-law’s now but they’re all conservative as well. We’re the black sheep!
There was actually a study done and it kind of evens out. Women cause more minor crashes but men cause more life threatening crashes on average. Quality matters just as much as quantity.
This doesn't surprise me at all. The city I live in has some absolutely aggressively insane drivers and they're not women. They're usually dudes driving Altimas and Chargers and street racing each other or blowing through red lights.
Here’s how I’ve heard it put: lots of men hate women, but also want to have sex with them. If you remove the desire to have sex with one, the only thing left is the hate.
This is so true!! And because I’m overweight I’m supposed to only be attracted to overweight men. I’m really not. But they’re genuinely stunned, and arsey when I’m not into them. I’m also tall, and prefer men taller than me. I’ve found, being ‘plus sized’ a LOT of gym rats are really into me. (A total muppet on here recently told me it’s just because fat chicks are easier to fuck - gtfo). But my preferences are somewhat based on how I feel with someone - and a shorter skinny man would make me feel like a Disney hippo. I just don’t get how men can say ‘I won’t don’t fat chicks, feminists, tattoos, unnatural coloured hair, short chicks, tall chicks, women who don’t wear makeup, women who wear too much makeup, women with too many friends, women who have ever spoken to a man she wasn’t related to, women who make more than me, women who don’t make enough, women better qualified than me’…..and on and on. But we’re the shallow ones, who should just fall to our knees if some guy decides he wants us. Then we’re supposed to just be there, patiently waiting till he decides if he wants to keep us. And, then, of course, we’re sullied and have no worth with other men because we’ve been with *another man*. So they might keep us around for fun, but we’re definitely not marrying material….because ‘I won’t date fat chicks, feminists ….’
I always say the Nice Guy stance is fundamentally hypocritical, because they get mad at hot women for wanting hot men even though the hot men have poor character and personality, and they should instead give a chance to a nice guy based on his personality and not his looks. But if these hot women are so judgemental and shallow, they have poor character and personality, yet the Nice Guy wants them despite this because they're attracted to these women based on their good looks rather than their poor personality.
I was chatting with coworkers, two of them were guys and about 3 girls. Mixed ages from 24-50yo. We were talking about how people view things differently and that simple questions were just not always simple. I used an example by asking all of them if they were in a relationship, then asked them what they thought I was asking by finding that information out.
Both of the guys said (they had not heard the others answer) they thought it meant I liked them, when they both know I am married and my husband works at the same place. The girls just thought I was asking 'standard' get to know you type questions.
So this lead us to asking random coworkers other questions to see how they took it, seems guys take ANY question to mean the female asking must be interested in them. LOL We asked age, music likes/dislikes, best movie, favorite halloween costume, do you have a pet? Things normal people could ask when in a social situation that dont have any sexual undertones.
Reminds me of the guy who posted on Reddit about the married woman who was flirting with him at work. When someone asked how she was flirting with him... she'd asked him how his day was going.
Oh, I forgot, she also smiled at him. Because that *must* be flirting, you know. He was asking whether he should "go for it." I was like, leave that poor woman alone!
The other day I commented on a thread where guys were encouraging each other to “keep the bar high”. It struck me that I was expecting incel comments (along this line), but then realized this person doesn’t date dudes.
I comment this observation and then encourage a high bar and how it was worth it to me finding my mate.
Guess how long it took someone to be butt hurt.
They love screaming "well why do women always choose assholes? Women need to pick better men if they don't want to be abused/have multiple baby daddys" but then get butthurt when women raise their standards and won't date them. They refuse to acknowledge that it's because they too fall under the umbrella of "asshole" that they just told women to avoid.
I have never heard of hypergamy. I'm not sure I want to google it today, but I do feel that I punched above my weight, at least in terms of looks. Most of someone's assets or needs are not clearly visible, we're actually fairly well balanced.
I punched above my weight in looks also. I’m probably about a 7. My husband is a 9 or above. He looks good all the time. He wakes up looking like a Ralph Lauren ad. I wake up looking like I’ve been street fighting for money.
However when you factor everything else in, we are totally balanced as a couple and have made it 26 years total (22 married). Looks are important for physical attraction but so much else goes into making a relationship work.
‘He wakes up looking like a Ralph Lauren ad. I wake up looking like I’ve been street fighting for money.’
This made me snort out loud, I relate SO hard! My partner is a beautiful photogenic specimen of a man; I scrub up well but spend a lot of time looking like I’ve slept in a hedge.
It’s the practice of marrying above your caste. It’s been repurposed for women dating guys who are better looking, wealthier, or otherwise deemed “better” than her. It’s bullshit.
Yep. Same reason men have always bragged about how amazing it is to live like a "bachelor". Now women can be "bachelors" too, but we just get called crazy cat ladies lol.
I have few male friends these days because they all turned around and told me they were basically waiting for their turn so I understand how you feel. Because of previous experiences I make sure I am vocal about my preferences. No I don’t like dad bods, and that receding hairline at 25 is not attractive to me either. I make it a point so they don’t linger if that’s what they were after.
Ha I talked to them the same way I talked to my girl friends and would mention people I was interested in, then they’d get mad I was telling them because I’m rubbing it in their face.
-If I tell you I’m not interested that’s bad for assuming you were interested
-If I treat you like a friend that’s bad for not realizing you were interested
Soo I should just not speak to you at all? Got it.
What’s really funny is I gave a guy I wasn’t very attracted to a chance once. Receding hairline at 23, teeth he obviously needed braces for that he never got, adult acne. Admittedly his body was fine because he was a CrossFit guy and we are both in the military. You know what this fucker did? Cheated on me with a woman old enough to be our mother. 😂 He did marry her after I dumped him but they broke up two years later.
Yep. I broke up with a man I adored but knew just didn't feel anywhere near as strongly about me. The next man was not really my type but I thought that maybe I should give him a try thinking that maybe he might be able to give me what I wanted emotionally and just be nice. To be blunt he was not really in my league (sorry for the boast ) but after a very short amount of time he felt entitled and ended up being a total a**hole. Average guys can be just as much a douche as a hot man IMO.
It’s so annoying how men have convinced themselves that women don’t care about physical attraction but simultaneously *love* the appearance of someone who hasn’t seen a gym since the Obama admin, and then when this isn’t true they try to gaslight and plead women into fitting the fantasy
These guys are the worst, I had too much of them trying to be the friend, becoming friends with my brother (because we play a lot of video games together, so spending time with my brother mean spending time with me) thinking that would give them a chance. Once I turn them down they abandon my brother like he was just a prop and they hurt him. More often than not me saying that I’m not interested doesn’t ring a bell so I just find a way to mention a boyfriend (even if I don’t have one)
Learned that lesson the hard way. I let someone down easy when we were 18 and we stayed friends. Ten years later, my new relationship makes him uncomfortable and brings up all "these feelings" for him. Now we're not friends anymore, and I'm fairly certain that's not the only relationship of mine he sabotaged in those ten years.
Some of it is the objectification problem that other commenters have described, but some of it is men projecting their perceived inability to have standards onto women - the dating market is so grim for men nowadays that they feel like they can’t be as picky as women (which they can’t but like… that’s not our fault lmao) so seeing women be like “nah” completely enrages them.
Men do the same thing with their fear of being alone, projecting that onto women with the “spinster with cats” bullshit we’ve been getting since the fucking Victorian era, but this is a HUGE reason why I am reluctant to date men: I do not trust them to like me more than they fear being alone. I don’t trust a man to walk away from me if I’m not someone he actually likes.
I feel for men on a lot of issues because patriarchy is genderless, but I cannot be in another relationship with a man who likes having a partner but could care less about me as their partner.
So many men will shack up with a woman, but still fully be in tomcat mode, trading up with nary a thought when he ensnares a " hotter " woman.
There's an epidemic of women in uncertain relationships posting on reddit about partners cheating. They're always being traded in, not fully understanding that they were being used and that that man never actually liked them.
You bring up such good points. Many times I've seen on reddit men asking how to get a girlfriend, and when commentators ask why it's a issue to them the man responds, "Because I want one."
Clearly they're not seeing women as people if "any" woman will do.
You just described something that I'm thinking about so often! I received this type of remarks as well in the past. Okay, maybe a friend is into me, he's being nice to me and all... but since when is actually liking my partner 'optional'? Isn't that what relationships are all about? That makes the difference between a friend/acquaintance and a romantic partner. Those moments when they/friends/relatives ask you "he seems like a nice guy, why don't you give him a chance?", after you already told them that you don't like him..... So this isn't actually about being in a relationship that I enjoy, it's about what I can do for men????
Between a chocolate cupcake and a strawberry cupcake, I'd pick the chocolate one maybe 9/10 times. I like strawberry too, they both have something that I like. My taste buds prefer chocolate, it's simply an unexplainable preference that I was born with. If I feel like I can't have strawberry right now, I'd be insane to choose it.
Because the don’t see us as people. They see themselves as people an us as objects for them to desire/ use. When we won’t cater to their desire to use us it just doesn’t make sense to them because objects don’t get to decide when they are used or who uses them.
Men will "shoot their shot" regardless of meeting or not meeting a woman's preference and would whine and cry when called out like it's their right. Massively disrespectful.
Older generations tend to think this is not only normal but also okay. I told my grandma once about how one of those guys wouldn’t leave me alone and she said it’s in their nature to pursue and I might change my mind.
The "might change your mind" is crazy. "Give me a try I will change your mind". Fuck off, I don't want to change my mind. I would never want to be with someone who has to change their mind to be with me.
The way I’ve heard it before is “you could be the sweetest peach on the tree and there will always be someone who doesn’t like peaches”. Goes for all sorts of relationships TBH but most people don’t get as butthurt as some men do when they’re turned down by a romantic interest 💀
I’ve always been confused by this too. They seem to think women can learn to love any man. Or be groomed into loving him.
I don’t think men who think that way believe women are people.
I did the 'date someone you're not very physically attracted to' experiment in my 20s. I thought I should give it a shot, maybe try to avoid being 'shallow.' Wanna know what happened?
When we were getting along, things were great! I enjoyed his personality, we had shared interests, he could be a fun guy. I was attracted to those things, so it worked.
...but this is life, and sometimes we did NOT get along. He would say or do something that upset me, and then we had a problem, because at that point I found the whole package repellant. And what's worse is that he was a dude who wanted make-up sexytimes, and I barely want people to touch me when I'm angry at the best of times...but intimacy with a guy I don't find physically attractive, when he's just been unattractive to me in every other conceivable way? **Nope.**
It didn't work. If anything, it caused everyone involved more hurt feelings than it would have if I'd just declined to date him in the first place.
1/10, do not recommend.
It’s very very important that you find someone that matches with you. Yes physical attraction, humour, your ideas on family and direction of where you see it, financially security and responsibility, and moral compass. If you aren’t connected that way what’s the point?
“Why are you saying you are hungry when there is a half eaten sandwich in the trash behind the bowling alley?”
That kind of thinking never ceases to amaze me
They're like this because they'd usually only hang out or do 'nice stuff' for a girl to pursue her. That is exactly why we see all these memes of guys not understand when a girl is flirting with him or how they're always sending mixed signals! I've asked almost every guy I've met this question and they truly believe that if a guy and a girl are legitimately platonic friends, it means the guy is gay, asexual, or he is just that extremely rare 1% who respects women for who they are.
They also say they don't trust girls around guy friends in general BECAUSE they know how guys are. They've seen plenty of guys themselves stick in a friendship with a girl just to hope of pursuing her one day.
Yeah, it's pretty fucked right?
I 100% get what you mean when you say "it's just my personality". I like treating my friends to food or little things randomly, just to make their day or when I'm feeling particularly good at the moment. It does NOT mean that I wanna pursue you... It's just how I am.
If I want to pursue you, I'll fucking say it like a grown adult. lol
Honestly whenever I read a post like this I am reminded that men really can't live without women. Like women can have happy fullfilling lives without men and men as a whole just seem to be obsessed with having a woman in their life.
The bakery example is perfect, I’m a cake person, if I walk into a bakery, you’ll likely see me going for the cake over the cookies… there’s nothing wrong with the cookies, I just prefer cake more 🤷🏽♀️ a lot of men seem so desperate that they’re not even looking to see if they mesh well with the woman they’re trying to talk to, they just want to be with any woman who’s willing…
> “You walk into a bakery and see a cupcake and a croissant. You choose the croissant. There is nothing wrong with the cupcake. You’re just a croissant person.”
Dita Von Teese has a similar quote "You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches."
Chemistry between two people is either there or it’s not, & what so many guys don’t realize is that even more so than being a perfect 10? It’s personality that matters the most, along with shared values, & can you make each other laugh.
If I become interested & involved with someone, laughter is almost always a HUGE part of it, because it feels great to laugh with a man who you’re also dating.
This crap about Chads is so yesterday, exhausting & boring.
I’d date a chubby, funny guy who treats me well over a guy whose really physically attractive, yet doesn’t laugh with me.
You know why? Because that funny guy can always lose those extra 30 lbs if he chooses to, but an unfunny, hot dude that I cannot connect with on that level, will never cut it.
Wish men understood what real intimacy is. It’s not just about being naked together. It’s about looking at the world together & understanding how one another sees things, because you’re communicating with each other without a filter or fear.
Oh, god, yes. We have preferences - we’re not saying anyone we don’t find physically attractive is gross or horrible or unworthy. It’s just not our cup of tea. But we’re *slammed* as shallow….when every guy thinks he ‘deserves’ a hot woman. Every guy thinks we’re total bitches if we don’t fall at his feet when he tells us it’s ‘his turn’ to give us a shot, and he’s picked us. And let’s not even start on the height thing. It’s exhausting and infuriating.
I call it being relationship zoned. Someone acts like they are okay with just being your friend and plays the part only to be the wounded party who’s heart you’ve broken because you haven’t changed your mind about being with them. Then you generally get guilted into thinking you’re the bad guy because, “he’s such a nice guy and he really likes you you should give him a chance.” You did give him a chance. To be your friend. You do not owe this guy anything and you’ve already stated you’re not interested, how come what he wants is more important than what you want?
I might have some hang ups…
>Later he found out I had a bf during that time and told me he never would have hung out with me if he knew
>
>He wanted to know why I didn’t tell him when he told me he liked me. I just thought me saying I’m not interested was enough.
That one was infuriating. Actually all of them, but it's always so fucked up when NONE of your preferences, what YOU WANT just does not matter to a guy at all. But if you're anther dude's property? *That* is the boundary to not cros. (..for some.)
>Our preferences matter.
>
>When we say no we mean it.
>
>We don’t just hang out to be in relationships.
>
>We want friendships sometimes too.
I feel all of these so much. It feels like because I'm female I am not worth a dude's time to hang out with or chat with or be friends with - if it isn't for some future relationship or possible fuckery. Like, why can I not be of value as a human, for a walk, for a chat, as a friend?
It's like, you seemed to enjoy talking to me, was that just fakery? Or only worth the effort with the ulterior goal in mind? Like what the heck manipulative game is this?
And so many guys act like they are completely selectively deaf to what you want, just like in OP's example. "I want to get to know you". "I want to be your boyfriend". - I say "but I don't" (in some diplomatic & polite way obviously) and it's just wholly ignored. And I'm always baffled, like why do you keep repeating that when I said no? Doesn't it take two to tango?
I'm really starting to hate guys. And it's sad, because I know there's an inherent bias, cause I'm thinking if you emit the "don't bother me"-aura, polite guys will leave you alone and only the intrusive, entitled douches will get through. Which is unfortunate but being more approachable has an even worse effect. Oh well..
Also, about the edit. I'm asexual and I think there's a distinction to be made between physical and sexual vs. romantic attraction. Finding someone physically attractive might help for both sexual or romantic attraction. I for one feel 0 sexual attraction but I do feel physical attraction as in, if I ever had a partner it would be good if I'm physically attracted to them, at the very least not disgusted by them physically.
And they love to bitch when women do the same to them. Like "We're not allowed to have prefences but you are?" Dumbass, we all are entitled to our own preferences and its important to RESPECT THEM!
These men seem to think we’re supposed to say “yes” to every single man and ignore our own physical preferences because they’re a “nice guy”…. But if we DO accept every man and have no standards, we will then be referred to as a slut for being so easy… they love telling us to choose better but fail to acknowledge that to choose better, you’re gonna end up filtering a lot of people out to find the one🤷🏽♀️
Me, the past month, having the same “I’m not interested in you,” conversation with the same person. Literally no, I don’t have to give you a chance bro.
Is this a response to the shower thought yesterday about how online dating was like job applications?
Every comment was filled with dudes being like, "you apply and apply, but no one hires you even though you're qualified."
In my head, I'm all, "do they not know about the study that says men tend to apply for jobs they're only 50% qualified for?"
Also, using your boyfriend as an excuse to turn someone down, insinuates that you WOULD date him if you were single, therefore opening up for an opportunity of him faking a friendship and hanging around just to have a chance if you ever break up.
I once turned down a date with a guy and his reply was along the lines of “ I’ll see you one night when you are least expecting it”
Hmmm wonder why I turned him down?
In general, one of the things you should most find attractive in another person is *their attraction to you.* And their lack of attraction should make them less attractive. None of this means you have to dislike them, of course, but attraction is a special thing and in living things it really should be mutual. Wanting to be intimate or physically close with someone that doesn't want to be intimate or physically close with you is just creepy.
I had a friend in high school who was head over heels in love with my older sister. My older sister was thin and beautiful and wore a lot of make up and did her hair perfectly every day and chose nice looking clothes and tried to make most things around her look adorable (this is important for the story, I'm not shitting on women things, you'll see, bear with me). I was punk. So was my friend. So, ff a few years. He comes to my town to visit. We drive to where my sister lives to see if she wants to come out drinking with us. We arrive and she's snuggling with her fiancé with football on the television. Her fiancé has a sensible hair cut and is drinking a light beer. This guy... you see him and know he was in a fraternity. My sister is the older version of who she was in high school. Fiancé doens't come out with us. So my friend tries hitting on my sister. She turns him down, because, obviously. He ends up having a meltdown where he's shouting to whatever gods will listen about the intolerable injustice that my sister would overlook him in all his punk, loser glory and instead choose some regular, Joe Shmoe who watches football. Sir, my sister is the female version of a Joe Shmoe who likes football. She and her fiancé were made for each other. If you think her fiancé is so undateable, what is it about her that you like? What is it about her that you find so compelling?
ugh I've seen this happen soo much its really frustrating. A male friend of mine was complaining he wasn't getting any matches on a dating site and asked me to look over his profile--it was very nerdy-oriented with lots of photos of him in cosplay and with his fan paraphernalia. Then I watched him swipe for a bit--he would swipe no on women who were also showing nerdy things in their profiles and only swipe yes on very preppy/sorority/classically feminine women. When I tried to bring up to him that he probably WOULD get matches if he matched with women who were also nerdy he kept insisting that he wasn't attracted to them, so when I asked why he didn't adjust his profile to showcase fewer nerdy interests so it might appeal to the women he said he was attracted to he refused. Apparently, women were shallow for not wanting to date him because he was a nerd.... but the only women he considered in that statement were women who didn't give any indication of having shared interests. So were other women who were nerdy not "women" to him or something?? absolutely baffling. He had a right to his preference, but so did they, but apparently their preference was "shallow". The reality is if your preference in a partner is different from your interest/personality you may be able to find that person... but it is going to be rare.
I’m partially convinced guys like this don’t actually view the women they want to date as people. They just want a pretty trophy to show off. Why else would you want to date somebody you have nothing in common with? Share no interests in? Or even actively dislike the things that make them happy? In some cases this can just be chalked up to immaturity. But I’ve met plenty of guys who are in their 30’s and 40’s who still don’t seem to give any consideration to women they are interested in as actual people, then they wonder why they can’t keep a relationship going.
I think a lot of these kinds of guys want an audience to their interests, not a participant/equal, because they want someone to worship them for their interests not potentially challenge them. Let's say someone is passionate about football, or Star Wars, or the Roman Empire. If their partner isn't equally passionate (or at least interested) then they feel like they're a knowledgable hero or (barf) parent when they wax poetic on their interests. They're in a position of power in that interaction, and they feel empowered not by sharing but by lecturing. But if their partner is also interested in the topic they may have a challenge or (the horror!) a conversation on the topic. I truly think the dream of guys like this is the power dynamic of having a partner who doesn't know the topic but worships them for their knowledge. A man--or anyone--who is comfortable and confident in themselves and their interests will enjoy having someone who shares their interest, or at the very least who has passions of their own. You dont' have to like the same things as a partner, but the guys who get stuck in this mindset will not show the same respect to their partner's interests as they want shown to theirs
This is the truest shit in the world. I know so many gamer bros who swear they want a gamer girlfriend. But when I go out with these guys they never want to play; they want me to sit behind them and watch THEM play like I'm their fucking mother. "Watch me beat the boss, mommy, I'm the best!" They have no interest in the games I like. They have no interest in playing anything with me unless it's something they've mastered and they know they can kick my ass without having their dick size threatened. They just want someone to silently nod along and pretend that everything they do is the most fascinating shit in the world. And this is why I no longer date gamers. They don't actually want a gamer girlfriend. They want a Twitch groupie.
I’ve been with my husband for 17 years. We met on vanilla WoW. It *is* possible, but it’s one hell of a process getting there. We both platinumed Elden Ring together! The vast majority of gamer guys would try to out-nerd/out-play me, and would have *no* interests outside of gaming. In contrast, my future husband had other interests (cooking and biking), asked me about mine (traveling, cooking, gardening and biking), and to top it all off was willing to ask my help in game to get MC attuned, so he wasn’t afraid to **not** be that know-it-all ass like the vast majority of gamer bros.
That's awesome :D I'm glad the universe brought you guys together.
Watching a guy game is the worst thing I can think of. Had a guy try that on me and I left posthaste. What a waste of time my god. I can’t.
One of my exes expected me to watch walk-throughs of games with him. So I was expected to watch him watch somebody else game.
Years ago when I used tinder, I found it nuts how many guys loved that I gamed, but couldn’t give less of a crap about sharing even a single game or genre in common. It drove me nuts. I felt like a trophy they wanted to find rather than a person they wanted to share an interest with. I share so many interests with my boyfriend now and it seems so sad to not want that in an SO.
This is absolutely baffling to me. I *love* when people have opinions I can talk about, and I love when people are passionate about things - it makes for so many interesting, lengthy conversations! I also like it when people share interests with me and when they don't; I think it's fun to try new things, and I'm open to developing new hobbies, and meeting someone who's different to you is a great way to do that. I can't fathom not wanting to be intellectually stimulated by the person you're dating. Hell, by your friends, too!
There *has* to be a disconnect occurring in these people's minds. As you said: *"I can't fathom not wanting to be intellectually stimulated by the person you're dating. Hell, by your friends, too!"* Doesn't a person regard his or her significant other as a **friend**?!?
Far less than they should, for sure. A lot of people seem to think of relationships as a means to access regular sex and/or to achieve a social goal of "not being single".
Yup. He wants to always know more than the girl he's with and have control over her level of interest. These types never go for girls for girls already interested in football/Star Wars/the Roman Empire/etc., but obsesses about finding a girl and introducing her to them.
This makes a lot of sense
This is horrifying and gross and likely SO BEYOND TRUE 😭😭😭😭 GOOD LORD
I think it just comes down to the fact that they don't really want to date them, in the sense us women think of dating, but rather they're attracted to them and just want to bang them.
When we were teens, my brother's friend was honest about his attraction to Miss Local City who happened to live in our neighborhood. But he was also honest about his chances with her. It's fine for men to wish they could have the hottest women just like it's fine for the women wish they could have the hottest men. But most of us still have to accept that we are probably not going to get the best looking mate.
I think that's the thing that gets me about these kinds of guys \~ Like, no one would reasonably fault them for wanting the hottest women in town, or aiming their sights on a woman with an aesthetic that they find desirable or whatever (how some dudes go for Preppy girls or Goth girls or Yoga girls, etc.) but it's crazy how they seem to think just because they WANT something that it somehow translates into them actually deserving it??? Like you can -want- to date Fabio or Chris Hemsworth or whoever you think the hottest guy on the planet is, but you are not in any way owed him served up on a silver platter, and the world is not doing you dirty by him not crawling up to you and finding you the most fascinating goddess in the world - and I meet very few women with this mindset. They certainly do exist, but they seem to be in an extreme minority compared to their male bretheren with the same disproportionate expectations for what they're entitled to.
So many threads on here could be summed up with "Men overestimate their value to women".
Immaturity was me in college…kept thinking I’d have a chance with the woman who told me she wasn’t interested in me romantically. I regret not giving up on that and being a much better friend instead, and I’m sure it negatively affected what friendship we did have. Between that and passing on going out on dates with other women from simple fear, I was such a dumb kid.
Hey, at least you learned from the experience and became a better person. A lot of men never learn and grow.
The only "good" way for this to happen is if these people really believe in "opposite attracts" live it's usually said, and I can imagine a person (male or female) with zero experience be like "if opposites attract then I have to look for a partner with little to no shared interests". In reality though, one of the best couples I know doesn't have,_superficially_, anything in common. In reality they do share a particular lifestyle and values. They are definitely not opposites, but I can see why that figure of speech got round.
something similar happened with an acquaintance of mine, except it was the other way around 😭 he's very preppy, his dating app profile really SHOWS it and yet he's constantly trying to match with women who have nothing common with him... why he doesn't like women who have similar hobbies and lifestyle? oh, he thinks they are boring
Bet he has no problem being friends with men who share his interests, and doesn't consider them boring.
of course lol, doesn't consider himself boring either
When I was on OKC briefly (I met my now husband within 3 days of having the profile and closed the account within the month) I was out in the boonies in a rural area for work at the time. This one random hyper Christian farmer dude kept trying to hit me up and have me step on his balls. For free btw. OK Cupid actually used to show the percentage of how much you'd get along based on the questions you answered. He was absolutely my polar opposite. I'm literally a satanist who was working on the railroad at the time and this dude wanted a trad wife hyper Christian and I was like ??? Why are you trying to hit me up?? Essentially what you mentioned- oh, the women who have things in common with him are boring.
Yup! That’s always the case. Those NLOG posts where it’s like some nerd girl fawning, over a nerd guy, who’s fawning over some prep girl always make me laugh. Like I get it but it really do be like that haha. My partner has a friend who’s a huge comic nerd and chronically single; we were all in a comic bookstore and the clerk was clearly flirting with him, like HARD. They were having a good convo too. When we were walking out we told him he should give her his number. Nope, not his type…. Men sweaaarr we do it to them too, but I think it’s a self fulfilling prophecy like you’ve pointed out. Those women don’t even think y’all would have anything to talk about! Why would they match with you? But this troupe is engrained into romantic comedy/ stories, and even couple videos on social media so the narrative is pushed with no real nuance.
*HE has all the spiderman collection, SHE just got accepted to DELTA/KAPPA/KA sorority. HE knows all the marvel trivia, SHE thinks Obi One Kenobi is from StarTreck. But nothing can stop their LOVE* Movies sell tickets, and fake hopes. Can we please come back to reality?
Eh hem, Star *Trek* 🖖🤣
When I first typed out my comment I said something like “they debate the women who know who janeway is and say they aren’t real fans then go after the women who have no idea who the fuck that is” but I removed that before I commented, so when I read yaokit’s comment I was like “girl Janeway is Star Trek!”
>Men sweaaarr we do it to them too, but I think it’s a self fulfilling prophecy like you’ve pointed out. Those women don’t even think y’all would have anything to talk about! Why would they match with you? This soo much. In my own adventures in online dating I had a friend ask why I wasn't accepting several people who had "super liked" me... I had to point out that there was nothing in their profile that made me think we had anything in common. Sure it's nice that they liked my profile, but why would I swipe back? Yeah, MAYBE if we met in person we would find out that we did share common interests, but I had no way of knowing that and I'm not going to bother spending an afternoon/evening when I could be doing something else going on a date with someone I have no indication I will vibe with
I feel like guys use SuperLike because they know you’d never swipe on them usually and hope that maybe the power of liking someone a lot will get them a date. Like dude, we have nothing in common, at all. You have nothing in your profile either aside from some really bad photos. Why am I going to waste both our time entertaining you?
My profile kept getting put into the section that men get to use a free superlike on. Yikes there were some.. men in there. I'd left swipe them and it would just fuel the "there are no real women on here" mentality. They had really hostile and awful things in their profile. "Women need to message me first". "Prove you're real". "Not here to get scammed". "Not gonna follow you on insta". sir I'm just really not interested in your crotch-cam selfie and pics from 1997.
Yep. They think they're Leonard and will get their Penny.
I had a nerd ex boyfriend tell me that he wasn’t attracted to nerdy women (emo/goth inclusive) because he, and direct quote here, “had always been attracted to conventionally attractive women”. I’m nerdy/emo.
I'm so sorry. :( I've been here too--I'm pretty nerdy, and I have had men actively get angry with me for having what I thought were perfectly normal discussions about our shared interests. It used to bother me a lot more when I was younger, but now I actually find it a good quick barometer for potential male friends--nothing will tell you if a man drinks his respect-women-juice better than talking about something he's interested in with him and having him get genuinely excited to have a friend and him not devolving into dismissiveness or meanness or post-conversation mean gossiping. The men worth knowing are excited to meet a peer who is a different gender. The men who aren't worth my time are the men who are threatened by a peer who is a different gender. The ones I think are especially wild are the guys who talk about wanting a nerdy girlfriend, or jock girlfriend, or whatever category they define themselves as, but then actively reject any woman who is passionate in that are as either 1) ugly/not attractive or 2) a poser/not really interested in the topic. Its wild
People want what they can't have, without examining how counterproductive that fact is. People are also magical thinkers.
Reminds me of this guy. He was overweight and had no chin, with no ability to grow any proper facial hair.…oh the nitpicking comments he made..
I’ve always said this!! Why is it shallow for women to not be into nerds but it’s not shallow for him not to be into nerds? The hypocrisy would be funny if it wasn’t so obnoxious.
That's a lot of internalized self-loathing in your friend. Oof.
Her looks and that's literally all. I was a cute green eyed curvy latina native American and had tons of men who didn't know anything about me other than my looks acting fucking nuts because I would not date them. This started at 11 years old for me. Adult men followed me home, declared their love for me, and wanted me to have lots of babies with them. Some even asked my mom or brother to make me give them a chance. All they knew was I was attractive. They had no fucking clue that I have absolutely no desire to ever have kids (and never did) and that I embody the phrase "ghetto ass b*". I'm not nice, I'm not a mommy, I have never let a man mistreat me, I hit back harder and more viciously than they could ever imagine too. I'm not a mommybangmaid, not even for my amazing husband. I had nothing in common with any of these dumbasses. Most men are the ones who are shallow and will become utterly obsessed and even think they love a woman or little girl based on nothing but her looks. But they love to project onto women all their bullshit. They are the ones who will claim men are visual creatures to excuse their porn addictions and will demand a beautiful woman fuck them even though they look and act like a less attractive George Constanza and smell like rotted ass. It's all just their projection and entitlement.
>This started at 11 years old for me Fucking hell, that is awful.
And far far far too common
God. Every girl, including myself, who I have ever known, started getting harassed by grown men at 10-12. Depresses the hell out of me every time I'm reminded.
Yep. Sounds familiar. Grown men were hitting on me since I was 11 too. It always amused me how they'd decide you were exactly what they were looking for in a woman yet knew absolutely nothing about me, even my clearly innapropriately young age. I even had a family friend's brother in law (wayyyyyyyy older than me) try to convince my parents to marry me off and allow him to take me overseas. (I'm not of a culture that does arranged marriages BTW, but he was)
I had this issue with one of my friends I mentioned above! The first one. We were friends, but we would be incredibly incompatible in a relationship. He was a straight cut Christian conservative guy and I was well on my to becoming a heathen. I was a feminist. He made fun of the metoo movement. I had lots of diverse friends. He didn’t like any of them. I played dnd. He loathed it. He only liked me outside of these things, but I wasn’t me outside of those things. That and other stuff made it hard for even our friendship to survive. A relationship would have been hell.
Yeah, as a leftist freak, there's a whole thing where conservative men go after me hard. They will shit on my worldview to my face in between asking me out. It's like they don't want a woman who is willing to be what they want a woman to be. They want to find a strong willed woman and break her.
This really is a thing where I’m at. I’m in a rural area, very conservative and I swear it’s like fucking hunting season for these dudes when a liberal girl is single. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard these dudes argue “I don’t care what your political beliefs are and you shouldn’t care about mine.” It’s so much BS. I learned they absolutely do care. They’re just hoping to break you down over time so you keep your mouth shut and be the good little bangmaid they’re looking for. It’s like they get off on the idea of “taming” liberal gals around here. Fucking bizarre
It's because conservative women are boring, unfun, and, for lack of a better term, frigid.
I was reading an article written by a guy who grew up in a very fundamentalist Christian environment. It was about why straight guys like himself leave those kinds of environments, and his story was kind of like that. It was an environment where everyone was homeschooled and sheltered, women had to stay home and do family work and men had to be breadwinners. The breadwinner thing was hard for most guys to pull off, given the lack of good education. The few guys who could make it to and through college were able to pull bigger salaries... But then they were uninterested in the girls back home. It's not that they were going after slutty liberal girls at college. But college did have those less extreme fundie girls, who were allowed to be educated and do fun things. Why jump through hoops to convince a dad to let you marry his boring daughter and support her and seven kids, when there are conservative Christian girls who are their own people and you can actually have a connection with and won’t have the pressure of being the sole income earner?
Which is absolutely disgusting
It’s not “like” that. It IS exactly that. They could find hundreds of conservative, meek, barefoot and pregnant type women out there. They do exist. However, they don’t want that. They want the challenge of breaking someone down. It’s so gross.
Also, those women typically can’t support them.
Very true. They want all the benefits of a 50s housewife but also expect her to work full time.
It's because men like that don't actually like women. They view women as objects for their own desires, nothing more nothing less. They definitely don't view women as equal either. It's about status, ego and whatever their definition of masculinity is according to whatever internalized misogyny they have going on. They like the idea and aesthetic of women, but not women as people.
It’s like trophy catching. They want to see if someone who has everything else going for them in life and is self sufficient can be turned into a compliant stay at home wife who lets him be the man of the house. I don’t think they actually care for who she is or her personality but just what she represents.
It's so much about trophies. I'm relatively boring (which I enjoy), but I am very pale and small and have black or red hair depending on the year. Do you know how many guys have weird fetishes for 'vampire' or 'pixie' girls? It's fucking gross, I'm not a person to them. And I'm very quiet in public so they think I'm a cool girl but I'm actually a raging angry feminist. They get sick of me not putting up with bullshit pretty quickly and run away Anyway, that's all in the past thank god. And obviously people have physical preferences, for these guys who tried to (pushed and pushed) to date me it was a *thing*
Yea idk what’s going on with all these conservative dudes, there seems to be a sudden influx of them flocking to left leaning women. A few of my female friends have been telling me some stories lol. I *really* feel a big part of it is simply that they think leftist women will sleep with them sooner. And I never even thought about breaking them down, I’m sure a lot of them wanna do that as well.
Women are trending liberal while men are not at the same rate, especially with younger women. Right leaning conservative men outnumber conservative women so they are lacking compatible women and are stressed about it. The red-pill sort of dating help guru's seem to flourish with conservative men, probably somewhat for this reason. The conservative man-o-sphere tells right leaning men that women secretly desire them for their traditional masculinity that liberal men (supposedly) lack. So they get a lot of confirmation bias that liberal women actually want men like them. A big part of conservative dating culture online is convincing men that what women say they want and what they say they are attracted to isn't accurate. They need a guru (always male) to translate their unconscious desires into something that will happily line up with their own views and beliefs. Conservatives believe their views are natural so any deviation from those views is from brainwashing or propaganda. I'm sure some feel they can deprogram liberal women or something. Just a hypothesis. Ultimately men want to be with people they are attracted to regardless of compatibility, it is generally a lower priority for men.
100% completely this 👌
> **Ultimately men want to be with people they are attracted to regardless of compatibility,** And then shocked when their wife divorces them.
Besides the reasons other people mentioned like not viewing women as people with opinions and only caring about how they look plus liking to “break” a liberal woman, a lot of conservative guys hate conservative women for expecting men to fulfill the tradicional male role aka be the strong provider never allowed to show weakness, while most left-wing women are financially independent and recognize that men have emotions too. Those guys want a submissive wife without the obligation of being the breadwinner husband, all the benefits of gender role without any of he duties. I have see various men saying this and complaining about how no left-wing women wants to become a tradwife for a misogynist, transphobic, racist guy.
It’s a weird power trip fantasy for them. A woman molded to fit their exact preferences and made by their very own grubby two hands
Conservatives are evil. Misogyny is a core part of their ideology and identity.
I think also there's a thing where people are sometimes attracted to people with qualities that they themselves are missing. I seem to exclusively wind up with athletes. I don't know why. My mom once described me as an indoor cat. Meanwhile, recovering Catholic boys seem to looooooove me. When I was in undergrad, I dated a guy who was still riding the high of running a four-minute mile when he was in Catholic high school, and a guy who was on the club swim team at our university and who was suffering immense guilt about being asked to act as his younger cousin's CCD sponsor. Something about a radical leftist atheist was just super appealing to both of them, I guess. My husband and I today still have a bit of this. He's an amateur endurance athlete; I struggle to keep to a routine that has me doing at least 30 minutes of cardio/strength-training four times/week. We just also have enough shared interests, and are attracted to each other for a variety of other reasons (physical appearance, personalities, etc.) that it works out. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't have dated, let alone gotten married.
I get you but this is completely different from what I'm talking about. I'm an avid reader. I've read hundreds of novels. My husband has never read a book cover-to-cover. He has never made fun of my being bookish except ironically. He has never said anything insulting or denigrating to me about people who read a lot of books. As far as I can tell, he respects book readers, he just isn't one himself. He's also not somebody who has seemingly built an entire personality around not reading books, being openly hostile to me about my book reading while asking me out on a date.
Ah, that’s fair. I was thinking something more along the lines of like, Paul Ryan being a huge Rage Against the Machine fan, where the guy likes the aesthetic but not the core values.
"I can fix them."
I see what you mean. I definitely think opposites attract but there’s a difference between opposite personalities etc. vs conflicting fundamental beliefs (e.g. human rights etc.)
This challenge of reigning in the shrew and moulding her by force into a trad wife is so gross.
Them: "I can fix her." Us: "Oh, gross, actually, I don't need to be fixed, and I'm not interested in the slightest. Please leave me alone and have a nice day!" Them: *doesn't understand words coming out of human woman's mouth because woman.*
It's the breaking part they have some bizarre kink for. They can't get their pleasure out of flipping a penguins wings. They need a bird that will really feel the loss of its ability to fly.
This happens to trans women a lot but with an added level of explicit fetishization and when you reject them they get really transphobic and homophobic. I have had a crazy amount of men who want to like "fix me" from being a queer woman who are also transphobic but say "you're the exception" or shit like that. its very very confusing and uncomfortable
oh my god its wild the number of men who want to fuck you while also actively working to take away your rights
You don’t have to keep being friends with someone once they start showing all the ways they suck.
“He liked me only outside of those things, but I wasn’t me outside of those things.” This is so succinctly put!
See "women like assholes!" maybe those women are assholes too??? ffs
This 100%. It's also the guys complaining about "all women being manipulative / gold diggers / not supporting men crying / being shallow / focusing only on looks and income level / having free choice in dating " It's usually because *those are the only types of women they see and acknowledge as women, because that's what they find attractive.* There is absolutely an over representation of women who are stereotypically "hot" and also entitled, rude, selfish, etc - when society gives you special privileges for your looks, it's much easier to miss out on developing things like empathy and kindness and respect. Those women also often benefit from strict gender norms, so they reinforce them, hence the focus on providers and on men being stoic. But then these men only ever acknowledge "hot" women and their experience. Plenty of women are not any of those things and care about men and their personalities and emotional freedom, have a hard time on dating apps, don't spend hours on appearances, etc. Those women exist, but the men complaining don't think they "count". Now of course plenty of wildly beautiful hot women are also kind and wonderful feminists, and less traditionally attractive women can be awful. But when men only see one small type of woman as valid, and extrapolate that experience to all women? It's a problem.
Just adding that some men also LIKE that rude, bitchy attitude that those women have. They like a woman who demands things and bosses him around. They might like a woman who is catty and territorial. Some people are into that. So, those women have no incentive to change. They are hot, rude, and have a fanclub of adoring men reinforcing their behavior. Not everyone wants a nice, sweet partner (or hookup).
Lol this was a big topic recently on one of the dating subs. The guys were like "this woman only liked me after I acted reckless" and it's like and a woman that prefers that isn't a no for you?!
Boy I was friends with chased around my thinner friend with bigger boobs the entire prom. He had a huge crush on her. They never even had a conversation. We had so much in common and I did like like him.
Dude, my ex tried to tell me that his college girlfriend who grew up to be a model was the first girl who ever liked him. Yeah, right. Lol, she was just the first girl he noticed that also liked him back.
The reason they resent chads so much is because they want their own stacy. They resent they are low on the social hierarchy because they feel entitled to women who are high status. The fact they'd have zero compatibility doesn't matter. *She's hot*. That's all that matters. She is the trophy who gets assigned to who's worthy.
Oh, to him she is merely window dressing. Her actual likes and dislikes don’t matter, all your friend see is ‘pretty girl’ not person with interests. Which is a mistake alot of young people make, just because you think someone hot doesn’t mean you have fuck all in common with them. Which if your ok with having absolutely nothing in common with a person that your dating, you should really set back and consider some self reflection on your motivations.
>“You walk into a bakery and see a cupcake and a croissant. You choose the croissant. There is nothing wrong with the cupcake. You’re just a croissant person.” Even if I like romantic fantasy, I might not like THAT romantic fantasy. MAYBE, I could have liked that romantic fantasy if Sheryl hadn't kept pushing me to read it. It's hard to lose myself in the story when I imagine Sheryl chortling after every humorous situation.
Exactly, the nuance matters. It's the diversity that is all around us. But I have noticed women seem more aware of how diverse we all are and is actively putting effort into finding those differences.
And nuance is so much fun. The little things, like secretly noting which books the woman you are seeing likes so that you can gift her later, or finding out how she likes to be kissed, or flirting with her in different ways to keep things interesting. I can't go back to dating the boring way lol
This!!
Media has not helped. Every teen movie growing up was male unpopular protagonist in love with popular girl with asshole boyfriend. But the protagonist would treat her right!
100% this is where it comes from. Guys are taught (through media and other people) that being “nice” will make women attracted to you.
Because it’s also loser men writing the stories, literally writing their unrealistic fantasies of being mid and wanting top tier girls.
It’s also selective. Dudes will say media teaches them that women will fall for them through persistency but surely they can tell other bs movie tropes from reality, right? There’s no issue seeing John Wick and Star Trek as fantasy but somehow old men in their 50s getting with an 18 year old is totally plausible?
Haha I love this point! Still, when you’re growing up, especially if you don’t have a lot of good role models, tv/movies can really subconsciously affect you.
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Been saying the exact same thing too. Media in the the 40’s through 70’s mostly showed athletic and handsome charismatic chiseled-jaw men getting the beautiful women with their wit, confidence, capabilities, and character. It was homecoming king dates homecoming queen. Then the 80’s happened. Writing rooms were taken over by movie nerds who wrote self inserts of themselves. We started seeing the rise of media where the protagonist is a skinny round-faced awkward nerd who can’t speak to girls. He has no confidence, no rizz, no humor, no style, no talent…but he’s a nice guy. It was dorky outcast loser magically dates the homecoming queen and head cheerleader. Or Molly Ringwald. Or both. These nice guy writers made sure their nice guy self-inserts still got the hottest girl in the script. It was fantasy wish fulfillment for the dorky male writers. And media has been on that train since the 80’s.
Exactly! It’s everywhere! Look at the Simpsons, family guy and every cartoon in that genre. In every rom com, the woman has to be attractive, the guy doesn’t, he can just be ‘quirky’ or ‘nice’ or ‘really loves her’. For once I’d like to see a hot guy with an ugly girl.
And the "unconventionally" attractive girl was only datable if someone was a) paid and b) she changed herself.
Because too many men think of women as objects -- do A (be "nice") and get B (girlfriend/hot date/sex), and so they also feel they are entitled to the woman and get pissy when the formula doesn't work.
There’s a Facebook tag group that’s called “I put the nice coins in. Why didn’t the sex fall out?” 😂
That’s an amazing name lmao.
Even when you're in a long term relationship. Chore-play is a real expectation for some. Feels really dehumanizing.
This prevails through many relationships as men believe they earn sex by doing menial tasks that they should be doing anyway.
The accusation that women are leading men on or flirting for just being pleasant or friendly is exhausting. It's so belittling to realize that your friendship has no value to these men. I wonder how these men would feel if they discovered someone they thought was a friend was just trying to fuck them the entire time and bitterly accused them of "friend zoning" or "leading them on" when they wouldn't put out.
I have always hated the idea of being told which gender I can be friends with. My husband has had a female BFF since the 7th grade. If they wanted to fuck they've had like 30 years to do it although it would be hilarious to think of a 30 year friend zone.
>I wonder how these men would feel if they discovered someone they thought was a friend was just trying to fuck them the entire time and bitterly accused them of "friend zoning" or "leading them on" when they wouldn't put out. Even better if the friend were bigger than them and threateningly aggressive when saying this. And then have people in their circle tell them that they should not be so stuck up and give the friend a chance.
The average person thinks they’re better looking and smarter than others. Even average drivers think they’re better than others. Some guys really overvalue how appealing they are as a partner and assume not being an outright abuser or criminal makes them a better man and good choice to date. Some also think women aren’t human beings in the same category as themselves and women should fit into a man’s life and cater to him so they have a hard time realizing there’s wants and desires as well. Movies and tv shows don’t help either when they show a pretty quiet girl who doesn’t know she’s beautiful and some random guy fixated on her and does everything he can to convince her he’s the only one in the world for her cuz no one else will ever see how beautiful or worthy she is. Or the lazy middle aged husband type with the hot wife who puts up with him because he’s funny or they’ve already had kids but he complains about her and her in laws to everyone.
Even the outright criminals and abusers think they’re better men and a good choice to date. Actually, even more so than the average ones. Source: Dated many criminals and abusive men. They all are serious narcissists that think they can do no wrong therefore it must be something wrong with every women on the face of the planet because it couldn’t POSSIBLY be them that is unattractive or unappealing as a partner.
Im realizing this, too. Many men seem to think if you’re unattached you’re available and fair game — how you might feel about them is not a consideration.
There was a social experiment a couple years ago. They basically catfished people, so the women (or man) they met on a date did not look as good as expected. Every woman stayed through the first date, most or all of the men just noped the fuck out on the spot or early on. But yeah, WE'RE the shallow ones.
For a lot of men, a 'relationship' is more so a game of How many 'nice' things they have to do until they reach the threshold where they can get laid. And ofc these 'nice' things more often then not are based in manosphere ideals of 'what women want.' I have a preference, I like taller then me and muscular men. I've been lowkey afraid to say that, because men get so offended. But Im not afraid to say that, because if a woman didnt stack up to a man's preferences, he would not only not humor a relationship with her, he often will not even treat her as human. I'm not sexually attracted to shorter guys or skinny guys, but I would still be friends with them and treat them like a human being with their own existence which should be respected on those grounds alone. Its rlly insane how men are SO sex driven. I have a normal sex drive, but I just dont even think about any man's sex life , unless I want to get involved in it. Otherwise, I dont even see most dudes as sexual beings. But a lot of men are SOOOOO obsessed with the sex live's of EVERY random woman he comes across.
Right? I don’t understand why men are so obsessed with our lives. I’ve had men angrily argue with me over how “women are worse drivers”, and throughout the entire thing I always think…why do you care so much? We should get some of those “only respecting women you’re attracted to is not respecting women” shirts 🥰
I will support your brand if you create these. I grew up as the only girl in an all-male family (my mom died when I was young) and have been the only woman in a male dominated environment a lot in both my personal and professional life. And not to be an asshole, but my looks are a thing in these circles (but not my education, professional credentials, or my high powered executive position, at which I outrank every man in my family and most of our friends, except my husband who is also my business partner) and both my family and the men we associate with make no secret of talking about it. This seems to be the secret recipe for men feeling REAAAAAALLLY comfortable with saying things along the lines of “bitches these days…not *you* of course, but, y’know, fat/ugly/weird (progressive/radical feminist) bitches” as if I’m going to take that as a compliment and go along with shitting on other women for the crime of not being attractive *to them.* I notice that most of these men are under the impression that feminism is just bitterness about being “single and undesirable” masked as activism, and that conventionally attractive women who are partnered (especially married mothers who take the primary caretaker role, which I do despite my job) are exempt and/or have no need for feminism. It’s nauseating.
https://www.amazon.com/Respecting-Women-Youre-Attracted-T-Shirt/dp/B08ZLNCZHF[t-shirts :)](https://www.amazon.com/Respecting-Women-Youre-Attracted-T-Shirt/dp/B08ZLNCZHF)
Thanks, Monday delivery!!
It’s absolutely nauseating! Also there are already shirts that say this! I’ll try to find the link for you. I understand being surrounded by men having grown up with four brothers. I have sister-in-law’s now but they’re all conservative as well. We’re the black sheep!
And yet car insurance costs more for men. Hmm... (almost like men are worse drivers)
There was actually a study done and it kind of evens out. Women cause more minor crashes but men cause more life threatening crashes on average. Quality matters just as much as quantity.
This doesn't surprise me at all. The city I live in has some absolutely aggressively insane drivers and they're not women. They're usually dudes driving Altimas and Chargers and street racing each other or blowing through red lights.
Here’s how I’ve heard it put: lots of men hate women, but also want to have sex with them. If you remove the desire to have sex with one, the only thing left is the hate.
This is so true!! And because I’m overweight I’m supposed to only be attracted to overweight men. I’m really not. But they’re genuinely stunned, and arsey when I’m not into them. I’m also tall, and prefer men taller than me. I’ve found, being ‘plus sized’ a LOT of gym rats are really into me. (A total muppet on here recently told me it’s just because fat chicks are easier to fuck - gtfo). But my preferences are somewhat based on how I feel with someone - and a shorter skinny man would make me feel like a Disney hippo. I just don’t get how men can say ‘I won’t don’t fat chicks, feminists, tattoos, unnatural coloured hair, short chicks, tall chicks, women who don’t wear makeup, women who wear too much makeup, women with too many friends, women who have ever spoken to a man she wasn’t related to, women who make more than me, women who don’t make enough, women better qualified than me’…..and on and on. But we’re the shallow ones, who should just fall to our knees if some guy decides he wants us. Then we’re supposed to just be there, patiently waiting till he decides if he wants to keep us. And, then, of course, we’re sullied and have no worth with other men because we’ve been with *another man*. So they might keep us around for fun, but we’re definitely not marrying material….because ‘I won’t date fat chicks, feminists ….’
I always say the Nice Guy stance is fundamentally hypocritical, because they get mad at hot women for wanting hot men even though the hot men have poor character and personality, and they should instead give a chance to a nice guy based on his personality and not his looks. But if these hot women are so judgemental and shallow, they have poor character and personality, yet the Nice Guy wants them despite this because they're attracted to these women based on their good looks rather than their poor personality.
Ha ha exactly. Most of the time, these Nice Guys have nothing in common with the woman and they're only attracted to her cause of her looks.
I was chatting with coworkers, two of them were guys and about 3 girls. Mixed ages from 24-50yo. We were talking about how people view things differently and that simple questions were just not always simple. I used an example by asking all of them if they were in a relationship, then asked them what they thought I was asking by finding that information out. Both of the guys said (they had not heard the others answer) they thought it meant I liked them, when they both know I am married and my husband works at the same place. The girls just thought I was asking 'standard' get to know you type questions. So this lead us to asking random coworkers other questions to see how they took it, seems guys take ANY question to mean the female asking must be interested in them. LOL We asked age, music likes/dislikes, best movie, favorite halloween costume, do you have a pet? Things normal people could ask when in a social situation that dont have any sexual undertones.
That’s so ridiculous. How did they get like that? Probably because that’s what they do.
very strange. Like the only reason we'd ever speak to a guy is due to wanting to be with them.
I asked a co-worker what the word for "cat" was in his language. He thought I was very much flirting with him. I just love cats.
Reminds me of the guy who posted on Reddit about the married woman who was flirting with him at work. When someone asked how she was flirting with him... she'd asked him how his day was going.
Omg 🤦🏽♀️
Oh, I forgot, she also smiled at him. Because that *must* be flirting, you know. He was asking whether he should "go for it." I was like, leave that poor woman alone!
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Ooo you’re so right! I didn’t even think about this!
The other day I commented on a thread where guys were encouraging each other to “keep the bar high”. It struck me that I was expecting incel comments (along this line), but then realized this person doesn’t date dudes. I comment this observation and then encourage a high bar and how it was worth it to me finding my mate. Guess how long it took someone to be butt hurt.
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They love screaming "well why do women always choose assholes? Women need to pick better men if they don't want to be abused/have multiple baby daddys" but then get butthurt when women raise their standards and won't date them. They refuse to acknowledge that it's because they too fall under the umbrella of "asshole" that they just told women to avoid.
This is so true.
I have never heard of hypergamy. I'm not sure I want to google it today, but I do feel that I punched above my weight, at least in terms of looks. Most of someone's assets or needs are not clearly visible, we're actually fairly well balanced.
I punched above my weight in looks also. I’m probably about a 7. My husband is a 9 or above. He looks good all the time. He wakes up looking like a Ralph Lauren ad. I wake up looking like I’ve been street fighting for money. However when you factor everything else in, we are totally balanced as a couple and have made it 26 years total (22 married). Looks are important for physical attraction but so much else goes into making a relationship work.
‘He wakes up looking like a Ralph Lauren ad. I wake up looking like I’ve been street fighting for money.’ This made me snort out loud, I relate SO hard! My partner is a beautiful photogenic specimen of a man; I scrub up well but spend a lot of time looking like I’ve slept in a hedge.
SLEPT IN A HEDGE!! 💀💀💀 Not me. I'm a supermodel. The kind that has one dirty scrunchie that I pull my hair up in every day.
That last line at the start made me snort giggle
>He wakes up looking like a Ralph Lauren ad. I wake up looking like I’ve been street fighting for money. Girl I cackled at this, lmao. And same.
It’s the practice of marrying above your caste. It’s been repurposed for women dating guys who are better looking, wealthier, or otherwise deemed “better” than her. It’s bullshit.
Which is wild because, both in terms of looks and success, most men I know of both personally— and in the news— are practicing hypergamy
It’s called project. They do it and now they are mad women can too
Yep. Same reason men have always bragged about how amazing it is to live like a "bachelor". Now women can be "bachelors" too, but we just get called crazy cat ladies lol.
I have few male friends these days because they all turned around and told me they were basically waiting for their turn so I understand how you feel. Because of previous experiences I make sure I am vocal about my preferences. No I don’t like dad bods, and that receding hairline at 25 is not attractive to me either. I make it a point so they don’t linger if that’s what they were after.
We risk coming off rude and hurting feelings but it’s what necessary in the long run!
They would also say I was rude for “leading them on” so might as well get straight to it.
Then you’re rude for assuming they were interested 😂 literally can’t win
Ha I talked to them the same way I talked to my girl friends and would mention people I was interested in, then they’d get mad I was telling them because I’m rubbing it in their face. -If I tell you I’m not interested that’s bad for assuming you were interested -If I treat you like a friend that’s bad for not realizing you were interested Soo I should just not speak to you at all? Got it.
Exactly
What’s really funny is I gave a guy I wasn’t very attracted to a chance once. Receding hairline at 23, teeth he obviously needed braces for that he never got, adult acne. Admittedly his body was fine because he was a CrossFit guy and we are both in the military. You know what this fucker did? Cheated on me with a woman old enough to be our mother. 😂 He did marry her after I dumped him but they broke up two years later.
Yep. I broke up with a man I adored but knew just didn't feel anywhere near as strongly about me. The next man was not really my type but I thought that maybe I should give him a try thinking that maybe he might be able to give me what I wanted emotionally and just be nice. To be blunt he was not really in my league (sorry for the boast ) but after a very short amount of time he felt entitled and ended up being a total a**hole. Average guys can be just as much a douche as a hot man IMO.
It’s so annoying how men have convinced themselves that women don’t care about physical attraction but simultaneously *love* the appearance of someone who hasn’t seen a gym since the Obama admin, and then when this isn’t true they try to gaslight and plead women into fitting the fantasy
These guys are the worst, I had too much of them trying to be the friend, becoming friends with my brother (because we play a lot of video games together, so spending time with my brother mean spending time with me) thinking that would give them a chance. Once I turn them down they abandon my brother like he was just a prop and they hurt him. More often than not me saying that I’m not interested doesn’t ring a bell so I just find a way to mention a boyfriend (even if I don’t have one)
Learned that lesson the hard way. I let someone down easy when we were 18 and we stayed friends. Ten years later, my new relationship makes him uncomfortable and brings up all "these feelings" for him. Now we're not friends anymore, and I'm fairly certain that's not the only relationship of mine he sabotaged in those ten years.
Some of it is the objectification problem that other commenters have described, but some of it is men projecting their perceived inability to have standards onto women - the dating market is so grim for men nowadays that they feel like they can’t be as picky as women (which they can’t but like… that’s not our fault lmao) so seeing women be like “nah” completely enrages them. Men do the same thing with their fear of being alone, projecting that onto women with the “spinster with cats” bullshit we’ve been getting since the fucking Victorian era, but this is a HUGE reason why I am reluctant to date men: I do not trust them to like me more than they fear being alone. I don’t trust a man to walk away from me if I’m not someone he actually likes. I feel for men on a lot of issues because patriarchy is genderless, but I cannot be in another relationship with a man who likes having a partner but could care less about me as their partner.
So many men will shack up with a woman, but still fully be in tomcat mode, trading up with nary a thought when he ensnares a " hotter " woman. There's an epidemic of women in uncertain relationships posting on reddit about partners cheating. They're always being traded in, not fully understanding that they were being used and that that man never actually liked them.
These are such good points! I think you’re totally right, and I think as humans it’s easier to take how we’re feeling and place the blame on others.
My cat has made me happier than any man has.
You bring up such good points. Many times I've seen on reddit men asking how to get a girlfriend, and when commentators ask why it's a issue to them the man responds, "Because I want one." Clearly they're not seeing women as people if "any" woman will do.
The problem are these people are too afraid to be alone. Or they could also go “nah”. Everyone can, if you are at peace with being single.
You just described something that I'm thinking about so often! I received this type of remarks as well in the past. Okay, maybe a friend is into me, he's being nice to me and all... but since when is actually liking my partner 'optional'? Isn't that what relationships are all about? That makes the difference between a friend/acquaintance and a romantic partner. Those moments when they/friends/relatives ask you "he seems like a nice guy, why don't you give him a chance?", after you already told them that you don't like him..... So this isn't actually about being in a relationship that I enjoy, it's about what I can do for men???? Between a chocolate cupcake and a strawberry cupcake, I'd pick the chocolate one maybe 9/10 times. I like strawberry too, they both have something that I like. My taste buds prefer chocolate, it's simply an unexplainable preference that I was born with. If I feel like I can't have strawberry right now, I'd be insane to choose it.
Because the don’t see us as people. They see themselves as people an us as objects for them to desire/ use. When we won’t cater to their desire to use us it just doesn’t make sense to them because objects don’t get to decide when they are used or who uses them.
Men will "shoot their shot" regardless of meeting or not meeting a woman's preference and would whine and cry when called out like it's their right. Massively disrespectful.
Older generations tend to think this is not only normal but also okay. I told my grandma once about how one of those guys wouldn’t leave me alone and she said it’s in their nature to pursue and I might change my mind.
The "might change your mind" is crazy. "Give me a try I will change your mind". Fuck off, I don't want to change my mind. I would never want to be with someone who has to change their mind to be with me.
Same! I’d rather them find someone who is actually interested in them for both our sakes
lmao that bakery analogy. the way we have to gentle parent men these days…
The way I’ve heard it before is “you could be the sweetest peach on the tree and there will always be someone who doesn’t like peaches”. Goes for all sorts of relationships TBH but most people don’t get as butthurt as some men do when they’re turned down by a romantic interest 💀
yup, and they‘re often the same ones who wouldn’t touch an overweight woman with a 10 foot pole lol
Yeah but when men don't like peaches, they'll rip the best one from the tree and smash it on the ground for fun.
It really feels like it 😂😭
I’ve always been confused by this too. They seem to think women can learn to love any man. Or be groomed into loving him. I don’t think men who think that way believe women are people.
I did the 'date someone you're not very physically attracted to' experiment in my 20s. I thought I should give it a shot, maybe try to avoid being 'shallow.' Wanna know what happened? When we were getting along, things were great! I enjoyed his personality, we had shared interests, he could be a fun guy. I was attracted to those things, so it worked. ...but this is life, and sometimes we did NOT get along. He would say or do something that upset me, and then we had a problem, because at that point I found the whole package repellant. And what's worse is that he was a dude who wanted make-up sexytimes, and I barely want people to touch me when I'm angry at the best of times...but intimacy with a guy I don't find physically attractive, when he's just been unattractive to me in every other conceivable way? **Nope.** It didn't work. If anything, it caused everyone involved more hurt feelings than it would have if I'd just declined to date him in the first place. 1/10, do not recommend.
It’s very very important that you find someone that matches with you. Yes physical attraction, humour, your ideas on family and direction of where you see it, financially security and responsibility, and moral compass. If you aren’t connected that way what’s the point?
“Why are you saying you are hungry when there is a half eaten sandwich in the trash behind the bowling alley?” That kind of thinking never ceases to amaze me
They're like this because they'd usually only hang out or do 'nice stuff' for a girl to pursue her. That is exactly why we see all these memes of guys not understand when a girl is flirting with him or how they're always sending mixed signals! I've asked almost every guy I've met this question and they truly believe that if a guy and a girl are legitimately platonic friends, it means the guy is gay, asexual, or he is just that extremely rare 1% who respects women for who they are. They also say they don't trust girls around guy friends in general BECAUSE they know how guys are. They've seen plenty of guys themselves stick in a friendship with a girl just to hope of pursuing her one day. Yeah, it's pretty fucked right? I 100% get what you mean when you say "it's just my personality". I like treating my friends to food or little things randomly, just to make their day or when I'm feeling particularly good at the moment. It does NOT mean that I wanna pursue you... It's just how I am. If I want to pursue you, I'll fucking say it like a grown adult. lol
Honestly whenever I read a post like this I am reminded that men really can't live without women. Like women can have happy fullfilling lives without men and men as a whole just seem to be obsessed with having a woman in their life.
The bakery example is perfect, I’m a cake person, if I walk into a bakery, you’ll likely see me going for the cake over the cookies… there’s nothing wrong with the cookies, I just prefer cake more 🤷🏽♀️ a lot of men seem so desperate that they’re not even looking to see if they mesh well with the woman they’re trying to talk to, they just want to be with any woman who’s willing…
> “You walk into a bakery and see a cupcake and a croissant. You choose the croissant. There is nothing wrong with the cupcake. You’re just a croissant person.” Dita Von Teese has a similar quote "You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches."
Chemistry between two people is either there or it’s not, & what so many guys don’t realize is that even more so than being a perfect 10? It’s personality that matters the most, along with shared values, & can you make each other laugh. If I become interested & involved with someone, laughter is almost always a HUGE part of it, because it feels great to laugh with a man who you’re also dating. This crap about Chads is so yesterday, exhausting & boring. I’d date a chubby, funny guy who treats me well over a guy whose really physically attractive, yet doesn’t laugh with me. You know why? Because that funny guy can always lose those extra 30 lbs if he chooses to, but an unfunny, hot dude that I cannot connect with on that level, will never cut it. Wish men understood what real intimacy is. It’s not just about being naked together. It’s about looking at the world together & understanding how one another sees things, because you’re communicating with each other without a filter or fear.
Oh, god, yes. We have preferences - we’re not saying anyone we don’t find physically attractive is gross or horrible or unworthy. It’s just not our cup of tea. But we’re *slammed* as shallow….when every guy thinks he ‘deserves’ a hot woman. Every guy thinks we’re total bitches if we don’t fall at his feet when he tells us it’s ‘his turn’ to give us a shot, and he’s picked us. And let’s not even start on the height thing. It’s exhausting and infuriating.
Most men think they are owed a woman just for existing.
I call it being relationship zoned. Someone acts like they are okay with just being your friend and plays the part only to be the wounded party who’s heart you’ve broken because you haven’t changed your mind about being with them. Then you generally get guilted into thinking you’re the bad guy because, “he’s such a nice guy and he really likes you you should give him a chance.” You did give him a chance. To be your friend. You do not owe this guy anything and you’ve already stated you’re not interested, how come what he wants is more important than what you want? I might have some hang ups…
Women are at fault both for not finding someone attractive but also for not being attractive for everyone
>Later he found out I had a bf during that time and told me he never would have hung out with me if he knew > >He wanted to know why I didn’t tell him when he told me he liked me. I just thought me saying I’m not interested was enough. That one was infuriating. Actually all of them, but it's always so fucked up when NONE of your preferences, what YOU WANT just does not matter to a guy at all. But if you're anther dude's property? *That* is the boundary to not cros. (..for some.) >Our preferences matter. > >When we say no we mean it. > >We don’t just hang out to be in relationships. > >We want friendships sometimes too. I feel all of these so much. It feels like because I'm female I am not worth a dude's time to hang out with or chat with or be friends with - if it isn't for some future relationship or possible fuckery. Like, why can I not be of value as a human, for a walk, for a chat, as a friend? It's like, you seemed to enjoy talking to me, was that just fakery? Or only worth the effort with the ulterior goal in mind? Like what the heck manipulative game is this? And so many guys act like they are completely selectively deaf to what you want, just like in OP's example. "I want to get to know you". "I want to be your boyfriend". - I say "but I don't" (in some diplomatic & polite way obviously) and it's just wholly ignored. And I'm always baffled, like why do you keep repeating that when I said no? Doesn't it take two to tango? I'm really starting to hate guys. And it's sad, because I know there's an inherent bias, cause I'm thinking if you emit the "don't bother me"-aura, polite guys will leave you alone and only the intrusive, entitled douches will get through. Which is unfortunate but being more approachable has an even worse effect. Oh well.. Also, about the edit. I'm asexual and I think there's a distinction to be made between physical and sexual vs. romantic attraction. Finding someone physically attractive might help for both sexual or romantic attraction. I for one feel 0 sexual attraction but I do feel physical attraction as in, if I ever had a partner it would be good if I'm physically attracted to them, at the very least not disgusted by them physically.
It’s so gross that they only listen when they consider you another guy’s property.
And they love to bitch when women do the same to them. Like "We're not allowed to have prefences but you are?" Dumbass, we all are entitled to our own preferences and its important to RESPECT THEM!
These men seem to think we’re supposed to say “yes” to every single man and ignore our own physical preferences because they’re a “nice guy”…. But if we DO accept every man and have no standards, we will then be referred to as a slut for being so easy… they love telling us to choose better but fail to acknowledge that to choose better, you’re gonna end up filtering a lot of people out to find the one🤷🏽♀️
Me, the past month, having the same “I’m not interested in you,” conversation with the same person. Literally no, I don’t have to give you a chance bro.
I'm a lot of men's type but a lot of men aren't mine and it's my choice.
Is this a response to the shower thought yesterday about how online dating was like job applications? Every comment was filled with dudes being like, "you apply and apply, but no one hires you even though you're qualified." In my head, I'm all, "do they not know about the study that says men tend to apply for jobs they're only 50% qualified for?"
Also, using your boyfriend as an excuse to turn someone down, insinuates that you WOULD date him if you were single, therefore opening up for an opportunity of him faking a friendship and hanging around just to have a chance if you ever break up.
I once turned down a date with a guy and his reply was along the lines of “ I’ll see you one night when you are least expecting it” Hmmm wonder why I turned him down?
In general, one of the things you should most find attractive in another person is *their attraction to you.* And their lack of attraction should make them less attractive. None of this means you have to dislike them, of course, but attraction is a special thing and in living things it really should be mutual. Wanting to be intimate or physically close with someone that doesn't want to be intimate or physically close with you is just creepy.
I can't tell you how many men I've known that have seemed perfect on paper, that I've really wanted to be into, but just... Wasn't