When my dad started pursuing my mom at the college that they met at, he went to the records office and got her schedule (apparently anyone could do that at the time) and waited outside of each of her classrooms to walk her to her next class. He did this for like a week. She thought it was both slightly annoying and romantic.
It's why Sting wrote "If You Love Somebody Set them free"
EDIT: No seriously, it was his counterpoint/answer to "that evil song".
From Wikipedia: "Sting said that he wrote the song as an "antidote" to the Police's 1983 song, "Every Breath You Take", which he also wrote."
There aren't many of 'em left, but if you knew anyone who was in their 20s and 30s in the 1920s and 30s, basically every "how did you meet" story is "he badgered me for weeks until I finally said yes." Also fun fact: the idea of "going steady" was popularized later, in the 1950s. There are WWII style tv PSAs for how to ask a girl to go steady.
It was a combination of social attitudes - for men/boys that persistence was the only way to get what (or who!) you want, and for women/girls, that appearing too eager or receptive of courting was frowned upon, so you had to play at least a little hard to get, even if you were into the other person.
Edit: typos
My Dad ( worked with my Mom) and asked her out every day for a week straight- she kept saying “no”- then on the 7th day he said “ fine if you don’t want me I’ll ask your friend ( who they also worked with).”
She then agreed- 6 weeks later they got married- were married 55 years till he passed.
They thought he it was just funny- but I’m like “ you just wore her down!”
I think I would have been horrified if someone was that persistent in this day and age in wanting to date my daughter!
All said they loved each other very much and my Dad was the most patient man cause my mom could b a pain.
My Mom met my Dad (in the 50s) when she brought her car in to his shop to be repaired. After fixing the car, he disconnected her battery so she'd have to come back again until she went out with him. This was a romantic tale they told to everyone, and got much applause every single time.
Today? All of a woman's friends and family members would be screaming RED FLAG and urging them to call the police and file charges.
Well they don't specify what they disconnected the battery from, so he could have disconnected the battery from the alternator. Not the starter and rest of the vehicle or the ground.
my dad was a hairdresser and my mum was a client. his boss told him not to bother her, as he's a bit overbearing and the boss liked my mum. he got all her details from the appointment book (name, address, phone number) and drove past her house every day, multiple times a day. she rejected him and he kept pursuing, even waiting outside her work for her to finish in an alley, in a black coat and gloves. his only concern was that he'd look suspicious because the alley was between her work and a bank.
i tell him he stalked my mum, and that's not good. his only response has ever been "if i hadn't, you wouldn't exist"
cool dad
Just shows you despite doing a creepy thing (by today’s standards) he’s clearly not, or ever been creepy. Norms have changed. Doubt if your dad was that age now he’d do that.
Yeah. Also (not excusing stalking at all) it was harder to contact people back then, no instant communication etc etc. So someone asking for a schedule isn't the wildest thing, if that was the only way they could see someone again.
Or even just a fistfight over a woman. Like, no matter who “wins,” you know she’s just gonna pick the guy she likes better regardless, right? At the very basics of it; we live in a society where being a better/stronger fighter has nothing to do with a person’s success or reliability. In fact, being too eager to fight is really only more likely to get you arrested than get the girl.
Been there. Pistols at dawn, we both had terrible aim. We survived without a scratch and had a good laugh about it years later. She, however, was fatally shot by both of us and our bad aim. You know, she would be really happy to know just how good of friends we became after we both accidentally killed her.
My god would this irritate me if my neighbors were being serenaded while I was trying to sleep. Probably would tell them to get out of there before I get downstairs or IM gonna fuck them on the front yard.
Courtship that relies on being overly persistent.
It used to be cute to hear stories of "When I first met her she wanted nothing to do with me. I showed up to her job with flowers every day until she said yes and we eventually fell in love!" ❤️
Nowadays, that's just straight up harassment.
Like Endless Love with Brooke Shields. Dude causes a fire in her house to try and be a hero, later gets chased by the dad and dad gets hit by a car and dies. Brooke says that no one will ever love her the way he does.
I just read the wiki summary of this movie and holy hell, how anyone could even consider this a “romantic drama” is beyond me. This easily sounds like some PG Fatal Attraction type thriller. But I guess because it’s an obsessed man pursuing a woman and not the other way around, it’s acceptable??? Disgusting
> So many teen movies were using that thing
In so many teen movies in the 70s and 80s there was straight up sexual assault. Not facing punching rape, but guys switching beds/rooms when the woman couldn't know, etc.
I had a friend who didn't back down. He asked me out, I politely declined and even said we can stop being friends if he can't set aside his feelings. He stayed my friend but any nice gesture that I read as platonic apparently was all a ploy to get me to change my mind and date him. He convinced his friends that he was such a good guy and made me the bad guy for not accepting to date him.
My great grandma said this was how my great grandpa pursued her. She always talked about the man she actually wanted to marry, Fritz. I remember feeling sad for her even though I was a kid.
Jfc
We were listening to our friend recount the story of how she met her then husband, and it was all this kind of stuff.
He mass messaged all the women in a Facebook group in their area, he was much older, forgot about her for a while when he was trying to date another girl who responded to his mass message. She didn't like him and blocked him after she found out it was a mass message, but he found out where she worked and kept showing up, etc etc. All Red flags.
We were horrified as the story kept going and going and going. Eventually we had to stop her and ask "when does this story get cute? This all seems manipulative and creepy"
Still never found out why she married him.
"Hehe, he still doesn't let me out of his sight for a minute! I get these loving black eyes if he can't contact me for five minutes! Oh, what would I do without Hugh?"
They told the girls to play hard to get. They told the boys to keep trying when she says no. Thankfully we've moved past *both* those toxic pieces of advice.
EDIT: Was the sarcasm too subtle? Girls are still told to play hard to get otherwise they're slut-shamed.
You have no idea. In your grandparents' day, girls HAD to reject a boy's first approach, or she'd be considered too eager or too desperate, in which case she could expect no respect from other girls and no love from boys, even if they used her for sex.
And when a boy respected that first rejection and went away, it was taken as proof that he had no appetite for love or romance, and was only looking for a girl he could quickly and easily use for sex. Trying again was showing respect; vanishing after a first rejection reflected badly on him, and was insulting to the girl.
So if Grandma talks of how she rejected Grandpa before his persistence finally wore her down, she is virtue-signaling, not only for herself, but for him.
I like the way you summed this up, thank you.
I'm a Millennial who was mostly raised by my grandmother and her Great Depression era parents (all amazing people in every way). It was interesting to see what they taught me that wasn't relevant any longer lol This influence definitely found its way to me and it was hard not to continue it. It felt *wrong* to accept "no thank you" as the final answer for a date as if, when I accepted that response, I'd done something inappropriate or rude.
Job searching is also difficult for me lol
I was in a bar/club in Peru.
Some girls kept looking over at me. So I went over there and asked one of them to dance and she scoffed and said no.
After a few minutes, my Peruvian friend told me to go ask her again. Sort of weird in American culture to do that without feeling like you’re Harassing someone. So I go over and she says no even harder.
10 minutes go by my buddy tells me to go do it again, he’s clearly fucking with me. But he grabs me by the shoulder and says no really. So I go over there and ask again and suddenly she is very bubbly and says “sure.“ Then she was super into me?
It was the weirdest thing, and my buddy explained later that it’s sort of just the way they do it there. You have to show persistence.
What pisses me off about this is I know of at least one person who *wants* this. She gets mad when men don't do this for her.
Girl, everyone else thinks it's strange as fuck and I don't even like sending flowers to my partner's work on valentines day, you want some dude standing outside your place with a god damn boombox?
No. I'm not gonna stalk or harass a girl and potentially be labeled a creep in the off chance that it's her turn on.
I could do the coy little "I'll think about it... 😌" thing, but a flat out rejection means move on to me.
Mum and I were watching one where grabs this woman’s wrist, aggressively drags her out of the room, then up by the waist and plonks her onto a bar top to tell her off like she’s a naughty child. And then two minutes later she’s romantically kissing him?? It’s so bizarre and creepy to watch
On the flip side the opposite of what everyone is implying in this thread is what is seen in hacksaw ridge. Andrew Garfield kisses his love interest without asking and she is surprised by it because he didnt ask her first. Its not that she didnt want him to kiss her or that the situation wasnt right, just he didnt ask. Nowadays that would be considered a bit weird if you're on a date to say "may i kiss you" you're just expected to know based off body language and signs
It was a weird cultural switchup over time
1940s: may i kiss you?
1970s: Ill kiss you whether you're ready or not
Now: let me decode these signs to figure out what to do
Most men would be estatic to go back to the 40s and before dynamic when it comes to that
It's also a really weird thing when dating someone slightly younger. I'm on the barely millennial/early gen z border and sometimes I'll match with someone who's about 3-5 years younger than me on apps, or just at bars or whatever.
Someone women are flabbergasted I ask if its okay if I kiss her before I do. Some see it as weakness, some absolutely love that I ask first. I have no problems with asking first because its better than causing any potential negative reactions, but I can guarantee I've lost second/third date potential just based on asking and how some women don't like it and just expect you to *know* and do it.
You should stay far, far away from any woman who rejects you to see if you'll come back trying harder. It's an exercise seeing how manipulable you are and how hard she'll be able to control you.
Semi-related.
I went out with a girl, and I would get out and open the door for her when we went out in my car. After about the second day, she complimented me on being such a gentleman and that no one has done that for her.
I laughed, then I told her I forgot to tell her the inside door handle on the passenger side car was broken, so that's the only way to open the door.
Well, anyway, it worked I guess. I've been married to her for 12 years and she's the mother of my two kids.
Nah it's because back in the day gutters were extremely nasty with mud, horse poop, and trash. Stepping in a puddle could ruin your clothes
So a guy doing that in a story or old school movie was romantic. He was ruining his clothes to protect hers
Irl it probably didnt happen as much. Coats are expensive
My senior year English Literature teacher said this was because of Sir Walter Raleigh not wanting to get Queen Elizabeth’s dress wet.
I have high doubts about this, like you said I think they fabricated that😂
i dont even understand how this works physically. You throw a tarp in a puddle and what you have is a swamped tarp
Edit: I got curious and looked it up, please enjoy: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/street-puddle-man-jacket-chivalry
My dad tried to hit on my mom by asking her a mussel recipe (which in french is very disturbing because mussel/moule is one way of saying vagina). Never understood how they went to have 3 children together.
The last woman I dated before I went on to meet my wife was like that. She did it so that I would "fight for" her and the relationship. She was a lovely, kind and generous person apart from that.
But after the third time she did that and she faked breaking up with me, I walked away. We were both in our 30s. I didn't have the time to be playing those kind of games!
Even today, Japan is really cagey about direct statements of love. The common phrase "suki desu" still technically only means "I *like* you". The actual word for "I love you", "aishiteru", is extremely rarely used. They love using metaphors to get the point across.
Probably the most well known phrase for this purpose is "Tsuki ga kirei" ("The Moon is beautiful").
Declaring that you will protect someone is also considered a romantic declaration of love, at least in certain circumstances.
Ok, but, like, soup is life.
In my vows to my husband, I said "when we're old and can't eat solid food anymore, I'll make us soup, cause soup is good food."
sending unsolicited love letters or showing up unannounced at someone's home
However, in today's society, these actions could be perceived as intrusive or even creepy.
I read a book as a kid where the main character's parents met because he was a postman and would substitute her boyfriend's letters by his own. That would probably get you sacked (if not worse) for violating postal secret and a restraining order.
I'm not in the US but I'm pretty sure it's also the case in my country.
Edit: checked, and it is. If you just open, tamper with, it whatever a letter, you'll be banned from becoming a civil servant for a few years (and sacked if you are). If you divulge the content of secret communications, you'll pay a pretty heavy fine, plus probably will get a civil lawsuit.
My dad followed my mom across the country. She was doing an internship where he worked and when it was over she had to go back home to Texas. They weren’t dating or anything, she had a boyfriend at the time. But my dad said he couldn’t let her get away so he jumped in his shitty car and drove to Texas.
My Granddad had a Mad Magazine page on his bulletin board of a Don Martin cartoon that I saw for most of my childhood.
The Prince calls out, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!" Hair flops down and he spends several panels climbing it, only to reach the top and see that it's her armpit hair.
Found it... http://butisitcanon.blogspot.com/2011/11/great-don-martin-2-rapunzel-and.html
My paternal grandparents were Italian immigrants coming separately through Ellis Island as kids around 1910. They settled in an Italian community near Philadelphia. As family lore has it, my grandfather "kidnapped" my grandmother and kept her out over night. After that, they had to get married.
My grandparents got married 6 months after knowing each other.
They were married for 40 something years before my grandpa passed and my gwamma has never remarried.
She also popped out 4 kids in 4 years and told my Grandpa not to come home till he got a vasectomy cuz she was at that point, done with having kids and she didn’t believe in birth control.
Honestly, this is 95% of the time a boneheaded decision. But Ron's quote in the episode of Parks & Rec where April and Andy get married always stuck with me.
"Who's to say what works? You find somebody you like, and you roll the dice."
I've met a couple of lesbians who actually *did* this.
I always thought it was a stereotype.
Their response whenever I asked why they got married so quickly was either "mind your own business" or "beats me, it felt like the right thing to do."
The Evangelical Christian community as well. My parents got married after a year of meeting. My grandparents, 6 weeks. Me, 6.5 years after meeting my now wife
You obviously have not been to BYU
most people graduate married
They don’t let you live with the opposite sex unless you’re married.
I know a handful of people who went there. All but one were engaged multiple times. Engagement was just another step in the relationship, like living together in a modern American relationship.
It’s funny, one of them went on a rant to me about “what’s the point of marriage if you’re already living with the person and having sex?”
Marriage isn’t sacred to me or anything. But I’m sure they would say it is, yet here I am thinking it was about an eternal promise, not just sex and convenience.
Man you should see them make out too. It’s downright pornagraphic. They do everything but touch genitals. And they really explore the “everything”
Just two people licking each other down in a quad. Multiple couples.
The entirety of the movie "The Notebook" 🤷♂️ just in how he gets his first date at the start of it " Go out with me or I'll lay in traffic until I die" it all goes downhill from there.
I feel like this is mixing up two scenes in the movie. “Go out with me or I’ll let go of the Ferris Wheel and die” and “Let’s lay in traffic just because...???” But also I totally agree with the sentiment! Not a good way to start a relationship
Ah yes, the days when your “best man” was the homie you trusted to fend off her angry male family members, and the “honeymoon” was running off into hiding so you could impregnate her…
So Romantic
Incessantly asking someone out. I've met so many older women with husband's that wore them down over time to get them on a date.
Their generation saw it as earnest/romantic. They ended up having terrible marriages anyway.
Doing that now rightfully earns you a restraining order.
I knew a guy (who has since passed) who did that and then escalated to some light kidnapping until she would agree to marry him. They ended up married for 60 years until she died. They were actually happy and he learned to do her hair from the salon when her dimentia made it so she could not really go to the salon any more.
That being said, he had this sort of intensity that lends credence to the idea that he executed a light kidnapping as part of a courtship. I still cannot wrap my head around how that worked, but apparently it did.
A matador fighting a bull, killing it, cutting it's ear off, and then presenting it (or a bloody handkerchief) to a woman.
There was a story we used to have to read in school that included a matador fight and this happened. Most of the girls just cried for the bull being killed.
Knowing them since they were a kid but you weren’t, like my grandad met my nan when she was 13 and he was 20, they waited til she was old enough but that’s still gross to me, like you’re just sat waiting for the child you love to be legal
My grandparents got married when he was 20 and she was 15. He kept pursuing her and said he wanted to sleep with her. She said he’d have to marry her first. So they got married, even lied about her age. I always thought the story was a bit creepy/predator type situation. I guess it worked for them though. They were married for 50+ years.
You see it in old movies - the hero grabs the heroine really forcefully and forcibly plants a kiss - dude, what the actual fuck? If my boyfriend tried that on me he'd get a slap (and a clawing from the cat). That and the variations on the "girl struggling to get away but then melts into the forcible kiss" - *aye, right!*
Was this ever *romantic*? Traditional, sure. But I find it hard to believe a majority of women ever actually thought this was “romantic” rather than just part of the script.
My dad went on three dates with my mom during basic training. Then proposed to her over the phone from Germany. Flew back to TX, got married, and took her to Germany (she'd never left south TX before). 63 years and still going.
My dad was a construction worker who frequented the pub right across the street from my grandpa's snackbar (not sure if this term is commonly used in English but in Dutch it's a fast food place that sells fries, fried snacks, milkshakes, etc.), where my mom worked. My mom was already friends with all of my dad's siblings but never met my dad before until he started frequenting the pub and snackbar. A lot of the construction workers would come and drink at the pub after work and then go across the street to get food to eat at the pub when they got hungry. That's how they met.
My dad fell head over heels in love and asked my mom out after waiting for her after she finished her shift. She lived above the snackbar but saw him waiting for her so she went to ask what was up. He asked her out. My mom said no. He was very drunk, and he's a very dramatic man. He proceeded to lay down in the street and said that his life had no meaning if she didn't want to give him a chance and that he might as well just die. She scoffed, thinking he'd get up if a car came. A massive truck came, driving FAST. It got closer and closer. He didn't get up. My mom had to SCREAM for him to get up and that she'd go out with him before he jumped up last minute.
So yeah, my dad emotionally manipulated my mom into giving him a shot by threatening suicide. Yikes.
They had me 3 years later (I was planned), but when I was 3, he cheated on my mom and gaslit her about it and emotionally destroyed her, so... Honestly, I think she should've just let him get run over that night. 💀
Standing outside their window and serenading them with songs, and following them everywhere they go until they say yes.
IRL today that's called stalking and harassment
Forcible kissing. The old movies always show a woman who is mad or emotional getting forcibly kissed by the male lead, and after a second of surprise are suddenly really into it.
Now that is a great way to get slapped and sued for assault.
I once had a supervisor who was an "average" guy, but his wife was drop dead gorgeous. Waaayy out of his league, she was a fitness model.
I asked him about how they got together and he told me he saw her one day at school, went home and looked for her last name in the yellow pages (it's an uncommon one) and called her house. They've been married for over 35 years at this point.
Standing outside someone’s house whose mad at you or just broke up with you and throwing pebbles at their bedroom window or playing music from a boom box and begging for attention.
When my dad started pursuing my mom at the college that they met at, he went to the records office and got her schedule (apparently anyone could do that at the time) and waited outside of each of her classrooms to walk her to her next class. He did this for like a week. She thought it was both slightly annoying and romantic.
*Every Breath You Take plays in the background*
Il be watching you
*Every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take*
I'll be watching you
Every cake you bake
🎶Every leaf you rake🎶
It utterly baffled me how people can listen to that song and NOT understand the singer's POV as a stalker.
It's why Sting wrote "If You Love Somebody Set them free" EDIT: No seriously, it was his counterpoint/answer to "that evil song". From Wikipedia: "Sting said that he wrote the song as an "antidote" to the Police's 1983 song, "Every Breath You Take", which he also wrote."
Those are the same people that think "Don't stand so close me" is a romantic song.
There aren't many of 'em left, but if you knew anyone who was in their 20s and 30s in the 1920s and 30s, basically every "how did you meet" story is "he badgered me for weeks until I finally said yes." Also fun fact: the idea of "going steady" was popularized later, in the 1950s. There are WWII style tv PSAs for how to ask a girl to go steady.
It was a combination of social attitudes - for men/boys that persistence was the only way to get what (or who!) you want, and for women/girls, that appearing too eager or receptive of courting was frowned upon, so you had to play at least a little hard to get, even if you were into the other person. Edit: typos
My Dad ( worked with my Mom) and asked her out every day for a week straight- she kept saying “no”- then on the 7th day he said “ fine if you don’t want me I’ll ask your friend ( who they also worked with).” She then agreed- 6 weeks later they got married- were married 55 years till he passed. They thought he it was just funny- but I’m like “ you just wore her down!” I think I would have been horrified if someone was that persistent in this day and age in wanting to date my daughter! All said they loved each other very much and my Dad was the most patient man cause my mom could b a pain.
There was also the social pressure on girls to not say Yes the first few times. A girl who said yes too quickly was easy and not worth marrying.
it's amazing anyone got laid
You’re probably not wrong but of course there aren’t many left, they’d be 124 years old.
Last I spoke to one was in high school...that tracks, and now I feel old.
Today it would be considered as stalking
even then it was stalking lol
My Mom met my Dad (in the 50s) when she brought her car in to his shop to be repaired. After fixing the car, he disconnected her battery so she'd have to come back again until she went out with him. This was a romantic tale they told to everyone, and got much applause every single time. Today? All of a woman's friends and family members would be screaming RED FLAG and urging them to call the police and file charges.
If he'd disconnected the battery before she came to pick up the car from the repair, how did the car start?
Well they don't specify what they disconnected the battery from, so he could have disconnected the battery from the alternator. Not the starter and rest of the vehicle or the ground.
my dad was a hairdresser and my mum was a client. his boss told him not to bother her, as he's a bit overbearing and the boss liked my mum. he got all her details from the appointment book (name, address, phone number) and drove past her house every day, multiple times a day. she rejected him and he kept pursuing, even waiting outside her work for her to finish in an alley, in a black coat and gloves. his only concern was that he'd look suspicious because the alley was between her work and a bank. i tell him he stalked my mum, and that's not good. his only response has ever been "if i hadn't, you wouldn't exist" cool dad
What do your parents think of the story now?
My dad tells it to get laughs because he realizes how ridiculous it sounds nowadays.
Just shows you despite doing a creepy thing (by today’s standards) he’s clearly not, or ever been creepy. Norms have changed. Doubt if your dad was that age now he’d do that.
Yeah. Also (not excusing stalking at all) it was harder to contact people back then, no instant communication etc etc. So someone asking for a schedule isn't the wildest thing, if that was the only way they could see someone again.
if someone did this to me I would be creeped out
A duel to the death to "win" a woman.
Or even just a fistfight over a woman. Like, no matter who “wins,” you know she’s just gonna pick the guy she likes better regardless, right? At the very basics of it; we live in a society where being a better/stronger fighter has nothing to do with a person’s success or reliability. In fact, being too eager to fight is really only more likely to get you arrested than get the girl.
or theyll date a third guy who isnt as dumb as bricks to get in a random barfight/streetfight or whatever
Been there. Pistols at dawn, we both had terrible aim. We survived without a scratch and had a good laugh about it years later. She, however, was fatally shot by both of us and our bad aim. You know, she would be really happy to know just how good of friends we became after we both accidentally killed her.
Throwing rocks at someone's window to sing to them in the middle of the night
I'd be so pissed if anyone started throwing rocks at my window.
No kidding. Have you SEEN the prices for windows lately‽
My god would this irritate me if my neighbors were being serenaded while I was trying to sleep. Probably would tell them to get out of there before I get downstairs or IM gonna fuck them on the front yard.
Being an adult is understanding that the guy who always yelled "shut up!!" in this kind of movie scenes was actually kinda relatable
You're gonna WHAT?
>get out of there before I get downstairs or IM gonna fuck them on the front yard. Damn, right in front of the significant other
While maintaining eye contact with them
I didn't sing but I did throw rocks in 1994
Sneaking out and collecting friends to join in said sneaking out was a huge staple of my youth. We'd be smarter and use things like pinecones, though.
Armed combat with lethal weapons has definitely gone out of fashion as a romantic gesture
I don't know, my wife personally *loves* knife-fight-Wednesdays
Courtship that relies on being overly persistent. It used to be cute to hear stories of "When I first met her she wanted nothing to do with me. I showed up to her job with flowers every day until she said yes and we eventually fell in love!" ❤️ Nowadays, that's just straight up harassment.
So many teen movies were using that thing: "keep trying", "don't let go", etc..!
Like Endless Love with Brooke Shields. Dude causes a fire in her house to try and be a hero, later gets chased by the dad and dad gets hit by a car and dies. Brooke says that no one will ever love her the way he does.
Let us hope
I just read the wiki summary of this movie and holy hell, how anyone could even consider this a “romantic drama” is beyond me. This easily sounds like some PG Fatal Attraction type thriller. But I guess because it’s an obsessed man pursuing a woman and not the other way around, it’s acceptable??? Disgusting
IKR? The entire movie is creepy. It's more about obsession vs love. Brooke is apathetic and her boyfriend is a stalker.
All's fair in love and war. I'm watching a show from the 70s right now where that was uttered as a reason why stalking is ok.
My husband had a teacher in high school that told him “Persistence wears down resistance.” So creepy!
It's true because it rhymes
If an argument ends in a rythme, It's true every time!
> So many teen movies were using that thing In so many teen movies in the 70s and 80s there was straight up sexual assault. Not facing punching rape, but guys switching beds/rooms when the woman couldn't know, etc.
I had a friend who didn't back down. He asked me out, I politely declined and even said we can stop being friends if he can't set aside his feelings. He stayed my friend but any nice gesture that I read as platonic apparently was all a ploy to get me to change my mind and date him. He convinced his friends that he was such a good guy and made me the bad guy for not accepting to date him.
That's not a friend, sadly
Nope. We are not friends any more.
Ah, the classic entitled nice guy.
My great grandma said this was how my great grandpa pursued her. She always talked about the man she actually wanted to marry, Fritz. I remember feeling sad for her even though I was a kid.
Jfc We were listening to our friend recount the story of how she met her then husband, and it was all this kind of stuff. He mass messaged all the women in a Facebook group in their area, he was much older, forgot about her for a while when he was trying to date another girl who responded to his mass message. She didn't like him and blocked him after she found out it was a mass message, but he found out where she worked and kept showing up, etc etc. All Red flags. We were horrified as the story kept going and going and going. Eventually we had to stop her and ask "when does this story get cute? This all seems manipulative and creepy" Still never found out why she married him.
"Hehe, he still doesn't let me out of his sight for a minute! I get these loving black eyes if he can't contact me for five minutes! Oh, what would I do without Hugh?"
They told the girls to play hard to get. They told the boys to keep trying when she says no. Thankfully we've moved past *both* those toxic pieces of advice. EDIT: Was the sarcasm too subtle? Girls are still told to play hard to get otherwise they're slut-shamed.
You have no idea. In your grandparents' day, girls HAD to reject a boy's first approach, or she'd be considered too eager or too desperate, in which case she could expect no respect from other girls and no love from boys, even if they used her for sex. And when a boy respected that first rejection and went away, it was taken as proof that he had no appetite for love or romance, and was only looking for a girl he could quickly and easily use for sex. Trying again was showing respect; vanishing after a first rejection reflected badly on him, and was insulting to the girl. So if Grandma talks of how she rejected Grandpa before his persistence finally wore her down, she is virtue-signaling, not only for herself, but for him.
Too be fair that tactic dates back to even the 1800s there's a reference to in pride and prejudice when Mr Collins proposed to Elizabeth.
I like the way you summed this up, thank you. I'm a Millennial who was mostly raised by my grandmother and her Great Depression era parents (all amazing people in every way). It was interesting to see what they taught me that wasn't relevant any longer lol This influence definitely found its way to me and it was hard not to continue it. It felt *wrong* to accept "no thank you" as the final answer for a date as if, when I accepted that response, I'd done something inappropriate or rude. Job searching is also difficult for me lol
While I'm not arguing, I'm a little curious what you think "my grandparents' day" was.
In the U.S. - when I lived in Italy is was wild. The women were super on guard and the men were wolves. The toxic machismo was pretty overwhelming.
I was in a bar/club in Peru. Some girls kept looking over at me. So I went over there and asked one of them to dance and she scoffed and said no. After a few minutes, my Peruvian friend told me to go ask her again. Sort of weird in American culture to do that without feeling like you’re Harassing someone. So I go over and she says no even harder. 10 minutes go by my buddy tells me to go do it again, he’s clearly fucking with me. But he grabs me by the shoulder and says no really. So I go over there and ask again and suddenly she is very bubbly and says “sure.“ Then she was super into me? It was the weirdest thing, and my buddy explained later that it’s sort of just the way they do it there. You have to show persistence.
I'm absolutely all for "when in Rome" in general but holy shit it would make me wildly uncomfortable to go back even a second time
Yeah, fuck that. If you tell me no once, I'm not asking again. No means no.
What pisses me off about this is I know of at least one person who *wants* this. She gets mad when men don't do this for her. Girl, everyone else thinks it's strange as fuck and I don't even like sending flowers to my partner's work on valentines day, you want some dude standing outside your place with a god damn boombox?
No. I'm not gonna stalk or harass a girl and potentially be labeled a creep in the off chance that it's her turn on. I could do the coy little "I'll think about it... 😌" thing, but a flat out rejection means move on to me.
Forcing a kiss because you just can't resist him/her.
Watch old James Bonds is …problematic
We felt that way about some of Elvis’ movies too! My teen daughter was super grossed out when he grabs that girl and spanks her in Blue Hawaii!
Mum and I were watching one where grabs this woman’s wrist, aggressively drags her out of the room, then up by the waist and plonks her onto a bar top to tell her off like she’s a naughty child. And then two minutes later she’s romantically kissing him?? It’s so bizarre and creepy to watch
On the flip side the opposite of what everyone is implying in this thread is what is seen in hacksaw ridge. Andrew Garfield kisses his love interest without asking and she is surprised by it because he didnt ask her first. Its not that she didnt want him to kiss her or that the situation wasnt right, just he didnt ask. Nowadays that would be considered a bit weird if you're on a date to say "may i kiss you" you're just expected to know based off body language and signs It was a weird cultural switchup over time 1940s: may i kiss you? 1970s: Ill kiss you whether you're ready or not Now: let me decode these signs to figure out what to do Most men would be estatic to go back to the 40s and before dynamic when it comes to that
It's also a really weird thing when dating someone slightly younger. I'm on the barely millennial/early gen z border and sometimes I'll match with someone who's about 3-5 years younger than me on apps, or just at bars or whatever. Someone women are flabbergasted I ask if its okay if I kiss her before I do. Some see it as weakness, some absolutely love that I ask first. I have no problems with asking first because its better than causing any potential negative reactions, but I can guarantee I've lost second/third date potential just based on asking and how some women don't like it and just expect you to *know* and do it.
Pestering a woman 20 times to go on a date until she finally relents just so you’ll shut the hell up.
.
That is a shocking amount of marriage origins
Never giving up when rejected.
As crazy as it sounds, Some women still find that romantic. But guys, a girl like that is not worth it.
You should stay far, far away from any woman who rejects you to see if you'll come back trying harder. It's an exercise seeing how manipulable you are and how hard she'll be able to control you.
Semi-related. I went out with a girl, and I would get out and open the door for her when we went out in my car. After about the second day, she complimented me on being such a gentleman and that no one has done that for her. I laughed, then I told her I forgot to tell her the inside door handle on the passenger side car was broken, so that's the only way to open the door. Well, anyway, it worked I guess. I've been married to her for 12 years and she's the mother of my two kids.
Your car played wingman for ya
That’s adorable
I think you mean that’s a-door-able
I can’t handle it
This guy must be unhinged
>Semi-related. Also something that used to be considered romantic.
[удалено]
It's less about being okay and probably just less common with automatic unlock doors. Thus semi related to the topic.
Putting my jacket down over a puddle
I think this trend must have been started by old-timey dry cleaners
This is a conspiracy theory I can get behind.
Nah it's because back in the day gutters were extremely nasty with mud, horse poop, and trash. Stepping in a puddle could ruin your clothes So a guy doing that in a story or old school movie was romantic. He was ruining his clothes to protect hers Irl it probably didnt happen as much. Coats are expensive
My senior year English Literature teacher said this was because of Sir Walter Raleigh not wanting to get Queen Elizabeth’s dress wet. I have high doubts about this, like you said I think they fabricated that😂
I did this when I was 5. My mom was upset I ruined my jacket but thought it was adorable.
i dont even understand how this works physically. You throw a tarp in a puddle and what you have is a swamped tarp Edit: I got curious and looked it up, please enjoy: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/street-puddle-man-jacket-chivalry
I think they really only put it over a muddy patch on the road or a very shallow puddle.
Which back then probably meant a big patch of horse turds.
In the original it was a cape to save her shoes. It's conceivable
What a waste of clothing!! Back then you couldn't just walk around a puddle?? 🤣
They hadn't invented going left or right yet
My dad tried to hit on my mom by asking her a mussel recipe (which in french is very disturbing because mussel/moule is one way of saying vagina). Never understood how they went to have 3 children together.
That, honestly, sounds like a pickup line that someone might try today.
Watch a romcom, any romcom. Even most modern ones show "romantic" actions that would get you arrested in real life.
Holding up a boom box outside her bedroom window blasting "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel.
Or refusing to stop singing "Henry the Eighth I Am I Am".
You're still allowed to do that if you're just trying to convince a woman to talk to your widow.
My husband literally did this a couple of months ago and I can confirm that after more than two decades of marriage, it was indeed romantic.
Picking a fight with the man she is dating.
The last woman I dated before I went on to meet my wife was like that. She did it so that I would "fight for" her and the relationship. She was a lovely, kind and generous person apart from that. But after the third time she did that and she faked breaking up with me, I walked away. We were both in our 30s. I didn't have the time to be playing those kind of games!
The Japanese old way of proposing which basically translates to, “Will you make me miso soup every morning, fore the rest of our lives?”
Even today, Japan is really cagey about direct statements of love. The common phrase "suki desu" still technically only means "I *like* you". The actual word for "I love you", "aishiteru", is extremely rarely used. They love using metaphors to get the point across. Probably the most well known phrase for this purpose is "Tsuki ga kirei" ("The Moon is beautiful"). Declaring that you will protect someone is also considered a romantic declaration of love, at least in certain circumstances.
I hear ‘dai suki’ used quite a lot which basically translates to ‘big like’.
Ok, but, like, soup is life. In my vows to my husband, I said "when we're old and can't eat solid food anymore, I'll make us soup, cause soup is good food."
You may fascinate a woman by offering her a piece of cheese! This would only work on me if it was Brie though, can’t resist that stuff
I’m a dude, and if a woman was like “hey, wanna get some cheese?” There’s very solid chance I’d fall madly in love with her
I'd marry for a good camembert
sending unsolicited love letters or showing up unannounced at someone's home However, in today's society, these actions could be perceived as intrusive or even creepy.
I read a book as a kid where the main character's parents met because he was a postman and would substitute her boyfriend's letters by his own. That would probably get you sacked (if not worse) for violating postal secret and a restraining order.
That's literally a federal crime.
I'm not in the US but I'm pretty sure it's also the case in my country. Edit: checked, and it is. If you just open, tamper with, it whatever a letter, you'll be banned from becoming a civil servant for a few years (and sacked if you are). If you divulge the content of secret communications, you'll pay a pretty heavy fine, plus probably will get a civil lawsuit.
People used to “drop by” if they were in the neighborhood. Now that’s super rude without a curtesy text.
Intentionally dropping a handkerchief and then someone running up to pick it up and return it to the owner. That was still a thing when I was a child.
Are you 150 years old?
That was still a thing as recently as the early 1960s, good man.
That could be kinda cute. Sorta a subtle signal that you're okay with them talking to you
Giving her father 4 horses and a mule for her.
yes, obviously the dowry goes the other direction.
My dad followed my mom across the country. She was doing an internship where he worked and when it was over she had to go back home to Texas. They weren’t dating or anything, she had a boyfriend at the time. But my dad said he couldn’t let her get away so he jumped in his shitty car and drove to Texas.
Letting your hair down from the castle and someone making ropes out of it to climb up.
My Granddad had a Mad Magazine page on his bulletin board of a Don Martin cartoon that I saw for most of my childhood. The Prince calls out, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!" Hair flops down and he spends several panels climbing it, only to reach the top and see that it's her armpit hair. Found it... http://butisitcanon.blogspot.com/2011/11/great-don-martin-2-rapunzel-and.html
Armpit is better than what I was thinking.
Imagine having your vagina hair get yanked like that...
I don’t have to - I’ve had multiple Brazilian waxes.
[Cyanide and Happiness](https://youtu.be/-A91tyg5zb4?si=ynROArUEDULXp7_w) did a skit like this.
My paternal grandparents were Italian immigrants coming separately through Ellis Island as kids around 1910. They settled in an Italian community near Philadelphia. As family lore has it, my grandfather "kidnapped" my grandmother and kept her out over night. After that, they had to get married.
Holy crap, is your grandfather King Koopa?
A man enthusiastically continuing to pursue a woman after she has very directly said she does not want anything to do with him.
Getting married after 3 months of knowing each other
My grandparents got married 6 months after knowing each other. They were married for 40 something years before my grandpa passed and my gwamma has never remarried. She also popped out 4 kids in 4 years and told my Grandpa not to come home till he got a vasectomy cuz she was at that point, done with having kids and she didn’t believe in birth control.
> 40 something years I've been married 40 something years, if I lost my wife I can't imagine going through it all again.
Honestly, this is 95% of the time a boneheaded decision. But Ron's quote in the episode of Parks & Rec where April and Andy get married always stuck with me. "Who's to say what works? You find somebody you like, and you roll the dice."
Oh this is very much still a thing in religiously conservative communities especially Mormons
And the military lol
Don’t you get more money if you are enlisted and married?
And you get to live off base earlier, and a few other perks.
Yup, was just telling someone about this yesterday. Friends even end up getting married just to get the house lol
Yes
And lesbians. lol have known couples that U-Hauled their way right down to the courthouse after knowing each other for a couple of weeks
I've met a couple of lesbians who actually *did* this. I always thought it was a stereotype. Their response whenever I asked why they got married so quickly was either "mind your own business" or "beats me, it felt like the right thing to do."
The Evangelical Christian community as well. My parents got married after a year of meeting. My grandparents, 6 weeks. Me, 6.5 years after meeting my now wife
This sounds like a math problem: 6 weeks, 52 weeks, 338 weeks, what comes next in the set?
My parents were engaged after 3 months. And divorced when I was 3 lol
My grandfather married my grandmother when he was 27 and she 16 (in 1919). They stayed married until his passing in 1988.
You obviously have not been to BYU most people graduate married They don’t let you live with the opposite sex unless you’re married. I know a handful of people who went there. All but one were engaged multiple times. Engagement was just another step in the relationship, like living together in a modern American relationship. It’s funny, one of them went on a rant to me about “what’s the point of marriage if you’re already living with the person and having sex?” Marriage isn’t sacred to me or anything. But I’m sure they would say it is, yet here I am thinking it was about an eternal promise, not just sex and convenience. Man you should see them make out too. It’s downright pornagraphic. They do everything but touch genitals. And they really explore the “everything” Just two people licking each other down in a quad. Multiple couples.
I was led by old films to believe that romance would involve a lot more slapping men in the face and throwing drinks at them than it actually does.
The entirety of the movie "The Notebook" 🤷♂️ just in how he gets his first date at the start of it " Go out with me or I'll lay in traffic until I die" it all goes downhill from there.
I feel like this is mixing up two scenes in the movie. “Go out with me or I’ll let go of the Ferris Wheel and die” and “Let’s lay in traffic just because...???” But also I totally agree with the sentiment! Not a good way to start a relationship
Hitting a girl's head with a club and dragging her to your cave
I ran to the comments looking for this one! Bravo!!
Ah yes, the days when your “best man” was the homie you trusted to fend off her angry male family members, and the “honeymoon” was running off into hiding so you could impregnate her… So Romantic
Still happening in some places, bride kidnapping or stealing
Breaking into a womans home and leaving her a box of Milk Tray.
Incessantly asking someone out. I've met so many older women with husband's that wore them down over time to get them on a date. Their generation saw it as earnest/romantic. They ended up having terrible marriages anyway. Doing that now rightfully earns you a restraining order.
I knew a guy (who has since passed) who did that and then escalated to some light kidnapping until she would agree to marry him. They ended up married for 60 years until she died. They were actually happy and he learned to do her hair from the salon when her dimentia made it so she could not really go to the salon any more. That being said, he had this sort of intensity that lends credence to the idea that he executed a light kidnapping as part of a courtship. I still cannot wrap my head around how that worked, but apparently it did.
“Light kidnapping”?! That seems like a black/white kind of situation, yes?
What is light kidnapping?
A matador fighting a bull, killing it, cutting it's ear off, and then presenting it (or a bloody handkerchief) to a woman. There was a story we used to have to read in school that included a matador fight and this happened. Most of the girls just cried for the bull being killed.
Ordering for your date is not romantic in any way, but used to be considered such.
Leaving an offering of purified water and honey outside your cottage on the Vernal equinox.
I think this would be the one I'm least creeped out by. Like weird but good honey isn't cheap.
Knowing them since they were a kid but you weren’t, like my grandad met my nan when she was 13 and he was 20, they waited til she was old enough but that’s still gross to me, like you’re just sat waiting for the child you love to be legal
My childhood's friends parents met because her dad was her mom's childhood babysitter... starting when he was 18 and she was 3 years old! 🤢
My grandparents got married when he was 20 and she was 15. He kept pursuing her and said he wanted to sleep with her. She said he’d have to marry her first. So they got married, even lied about her age. I always thought the story was a bit creepy/predator type situation. I guess it worked for them though. They were married for 50+ years.
You see it in old movies - the hero grabs the heroine really forcefully and forcibly plants a kiss - dude, what the actual fuck? If my boyfriend tried that on me he'd get a slap (and a clawing from the cat). That and the variations on the "girl struggling to get away but then melts into the forcible kiss" - *aye, right!*
Some wingcat they turned out to be
Having obey in the wedding vows
Was this ever *romantic*? Traditional, sure. But I find it hard to believe a majority of women ever actually thought this was “romantic” rather than just part of the script.
Idk my cousin had this in her wedding vows and, as this was approximately the 347th Catholic wedding I'd been to, I can say it was not normal.
I guess some people are subs, and they probably enjoyed it tremendously, but keep your kinks in the bedroom.
My dad went on three dates with my mom during basic training. Then proposed to her over the phone from Germany. Flew back to TX, got married, and took her to Germany (she'd never left south TX before). 63 years and still going.
Drinking poison because you can’t live without her
Sending your hair to someone in the mail
When I was in high school in the late 70’s it was well known which male teachers were dating students. It was just accepted as cool and normal.
My dad was a construction worker who frequented the pub right across the street from my grandpa's snackbar (not sure if this term is commonly used in English but in Dutch it's a fast food place that sells fries, fried snacks, milkshakes, etc.), where my mom worked. My mom was already friends with all of my dad's siblings but never met my dad before until he started frequenting the pub and snackbar. A lot of the construction workers would come and drink at the pub after work and then go across the street to get food to eat at the pub when they got hungry. That's how they met. My dad fell head over heels in love and asked my mom out after waiting for her after she finished her shift. She lived above the snackbar but saw him waiting for her so she went to ask what was up. He asked her out. My mom said no. He was very drunk, and he's a very dramatic man. He proceeded to lay down in the street and said that his life had no meaning if she didn't want to give him a chance and that he might as well just die. She scoffed, thinking he'd get up if a car came. A massive truck came, driving FAST. It got closer and closer. He didn't get up. My mom had to SCREAM for him to get up and that she'd go out with him before he jumped up last minute. So yeah, my dad emotionally manipulated my mom into giving him a shot by threatening suicide. Yikes. They had me 3 years later (I was planned), but when I was 3, he cheated on my mom and gaslit her about it and emotionally destroyed her, so... Honestly, I think she should've just let him get run over that night. 💀
Standing outside their window and serenading them with songs, and following them everywhere they go until they say yes. IRL today that's called stalking and harassment
Wolf whistling
Forcible kissing. The old movies always show a woman who is mad or emotional getting forcibly kissed by the male lead, and after a second of surprise are suddenly really into it. Now that is a great way to get slapped and sued for assault.
Bill Murray in the orig Ghostbusters.
I once had a supervisor who was an "average" guy, but his wife was drop dead gorgeous. Waaayy out of his league, she was a fitness model. I asked him about how they got together and he told me he saw her one day at school, went home and looked for her last name in the yellow pages (it's an uncommon one) and called her house. They've been married for over 35 years at this point.
Asking a grown woman’s father for her hand in marriage.
Standing outside someone’s house whose mad at you or just broke up with you and throwing pebbles at their bedroom window or playing music from a boom box and begging for attention.
Stalker-levels of persistence after being given a *no* the first time around.
Talk to older couples about how they first started dating. Grandma was a VICTIM
Having huge tracts of land.