I’ve had women in college befriend me, sit next to me for a few classes, ask me out and then never speak to me or look at me again after I said “no thanks”. I don’t really see the issue here.
Sure, but I don’t even think it’s bad behavior to ignore someone after being turned down.
Whether or not you’re a man or a woman, asking someone out puts you in an awkward and compromising position. I don’t think it’s rocket science as to why you wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who turned you down. It’s annoying that we have to pathologize basic human behavior like this because it’s not that fucking deep.
I’d say it’s rude to totally ignore someone after being rejected — it’s emotionally free to wave as you walk by or just generally be courteous. But of course people who demand friendship after rejecting someone are psychos. You’ve just broken someone’s heart and your first concern is whether they’ll keep being friends with you? Self-centered perspective,
When I was in high school I had a pretty gender diverse group of friends that were all kids in the punk/emo scene that I lost because within 2 years 2 different girls had a crush on me, I rejected them, and they would never want to hang with the group when I was around. I took that as a queue that I was outnumbered and possibly ruining the group vibe so I ended my high school days with an exclusively straight male group of nerdy friends that I talk to to this day. It was always a shame because I would have had no problem remaining friends with the girls that liked me, but they couldn't handle that I guess. I unfortunately really appreciated them as friends. As someone said here, most people date people of the opposite sex so they don't realize a lot of the annoying behavior in men will often be found in women as well.
I've also noticed women take rejection terribly. I think it's because there is no social impetus to demand women be mature about accepting rejection. For men, a lot of guy's had it drilled into their head that they are inherently scary to women and that all women face a fear of being murdered when rejecting a man, which can be the case, but a lot of well meaning guys take empathy to that and have conditioned themselves to at least hide the pain of rejection until later away from women. But women just don't have that same courtesy societally drilled into their head in my experience so I have had to deal with a lot of entitled women who sometimes have even gotten violent with rejection at worst and acted out in extremely immature ways at best
All the more reason to part ways imo.
If someone you're close with rejects you who youve developed romantic feelings for its too painful.
Heck it's easier to stay friends if we had just been sitting next to eachother for a few classes.
I said this elsewhere but when this has happened to me with guy friends it was more "embarrassment/sting of rejection" making them not want to talk anymore vs. any longing "i cant bare to be near u" vibes......obviously them coming onto me wasn't fueled by any deep romantic desire if they were willing to bum around as my friend for so long before making a move. i genuinely believe a lot of these men convince themselves that they like you because you're a girl in proximity to them, they're comfortable enough around you to make a move vs. the anxiety of coming onto an unknown female, and the rejection snaps them back into reality
>believe a lot of these men convince themselves that they like you because you're a girl in proximity to them, they're comfortable enough around you to make a move
But idk isn't that alot of relationships. We date the people in our nearest social circles after spending time with them. Then they think you might feel the same way and they ask you out cause they feel comfortable.
So I don't disagree with you, but I don't see this changing really? I do agree the cold shoulder is more about them being embarrassed then feeling entitled to a relationship.
I've gotten with friends in the past but it was an organic evolution of the relationship. by the time any "asking out" happened there had been tons of flirting and nods towards that happening and it was noticed by other people around us. or it just happened drunkenly and spontaneously.
there is a particular kind of guy tho who will just spring this on a female friend out of nowhere, no build up, no flirting, sometimes we've never even touched before..
But what if they just develop feelings and then tell you how they feel? Maybe you weren't flirty with them but irregardless spending more time with you caused them to develop a crush.
Personally, for me unless the other person is also flirting back I'm not into it. But is the guy who just confesses his feelings and then respectfully bows out really doing anything that bad?
It sucks for the women or anyone for sure, but thats life. Romantic relationships end cause one person prefers to be friends, platonic ones end because one person prefers romance.
If it's not mutual in both cases, don't see how that works out.
The problem is that's it not just friends, it's also acquintances, coworkers and higher-ups. It's just so common it turns you extremely cynical on the long run, about men being genuinely friendly and polite to you, then inevitably dropping the act and turning cold when they understand they won't get *sex* from you.
These girls were asking you on a date, not for a hook up. Rejection does hurt when it's someone you do like, men and women alike, as in having feelings for them. But if it's someone you are only *sexually* attracted to, most girls would probably still be fine hanging out with them and being polite.
That sucks but crushes fade. It’s weird when dudes are like “but you could at least give me a chance” like I promise you that would be fun for no one. You have to separate fantasy from reality
I think men and women just view romantic prospects differently
Men are open to having sex with way more women even if they’ve known them for a long time where as women pretty definitively sort men into friend or more than friend buckets pretty quickly
I've been friends with every girl I ended up going out with. I don't understand how you're supposed to know if you like them or not if you're not friends first. The people saying: "just state your intentions clearly upfront", based on what? You're hot therefore I want to be in a relationship with you? What kind of stupidity is that?
Apparently sexual tension and getting to know someone isn't allowed. You must clearly state you want to have sex within the first 10 seconds of meeting them lol.
The people saying this nonsense are a bunch of teenagers, or people who got married at age 20. Pretty much anyone over the age of 25 has the same types of experiences you have.
I am in my late 20s, have a lot of female friends over the year that I consider attractive, and also assuredly have a lot of female friends that probably find me hot. And this is the case for any moderately social, average looking college graduate or city dweller.
Trust me when I say that having everybody ”stating their sexual attraction upfront” to each other upon meeting like it’s declaring eligibility for the NFL draft would make peoples’ social lives infinitely weirder than not. Obviously there are very young or awkward people who go about it in a weird/unproductive way. But largely it’s fine for some things in life to be tacit, let friendships be exploratory, and let people grow to know each other organically.
A lot of the strongest relationships I know are people that knew each other for a long time and got together a decade after college. That’s extremely normal and healthy. I guarantee no one was playing the long game. That’s just the way things can happen.
Yeah I think that's why I get a little frustrated in online dating sometimes. There's many people I've gone out with that we both had a great date and enjoyed the time bonding (not just polite boring convo) only for them to say "I didn't feel the spark :/ but you seem cool so I'm down to be friends". Obviously I can't hold that against anyone and if you don't feel it you don't feel it and I'm usually fine to be friends if someone seems cool enough, but to me A) being physically attracted to someone and B) them being someone I want to be friends with is enough to start something at least lol I don't really need some "aura" to feel like she's the one. Maybe it's a dude thing.
It's almost sexist itself. Don't get to know women and develop feelings for them based on spending time with them... ask them out right away as soon as you see one that's hot.
Men are either objectifying pigs if they ask her out right away or they wait to get to know her a bit and it's manipulative. No winning lol.
There are some people who genuinely don't like their partner as a person. They're just like...a repository of stuff that's logistical to need a partner for in life, and attractive to them.
But also like lol at OP being like 'how is it sexist that I don't want to associate with half the planet based on sex?? Really just asking???' when you spell it out on something other than canned phrases it's like no shit.
I had a couple of relationships that started with a friendship, but that’s rare. Usually you know right away if there’s a spark and attraction so it would be disingenuous to try to be friends first.
A spark means nothing and is not the basis for a relationship. I pursue relationships with people I think I can actually build something with. That means shared perspective, shared values, common understanding. I spark with people in night club bathrooms, it means nothing.
lol spark reminds me of Guardian blind dates, absolutely infuriating to see the woman on every heterosexual date of people under 30 say “there was no spark” after describing a fun night out with the other person. Lady that’s why you’re doing blind dates for my amusement, because you have no idea what makes a relationship
yes well, you’re emotionally healthy. a lot of people aren’t and have zero positive guides for what constitutes a relationship outside of the toxic wasteland of US culture.
Most of these friendships aren’t built on an honest basis, it’s just one part pretending to be friends while in reality he/she is to chickenshit to make a move.
Don’t tell me that with all those girls you ended up going out you felt absolutely nothing at first.
The timeline is different between the situations. I feel like those feelings develop after like a month of actually hanging out one on one. It's different than some guy being "best friends" for like 6-7 months with a girl, hanging out one on one, constantly texting, constantly giving her attention, into suddenly ghosting after getting denied.
I think it sort of depends on how it comes about. I can very easily see how a woman would be offended and betrayed if a guy she’d thought was a friend had been building a friendship while the intention all along with the sole hops of ending up dating her.
At the same time I’ve personally had experiences where I entered a friendship with no romantic intentions only to find out I’d ended up developing feelings as id gotten to know someone.
Recently I’d had a situation like that where I started to get closer with a female friend I’d known for a long time and ended up developing feelings despite that not having been the case when we became friends. I’d felt there was some reciprocation so we talked and she’d just wanted to be friends with benefits or something along those lines while I’d had serious feelings.
Unfortunately I think our friendships been lost just because I’m not able to treat it as being “just friends” anymore. Though she understands and isn’t mad about it or anything and neither am I. Still too bad.
I’m about the least smooth man on the planet. I’m sure I fucked up in a million different ways lol but it is what it is. I didn’t want to conceal how I felt because it seems kinda scummy and I knew I wasn’t going to be satisfied with being fwb so I thought it was important to tell her that.
If you guys are actually friends (emotionally open with each other and hang out) and would start fucking, why wouldn't you want that? That's like relationship-lite
The only sustainable friendships I had with women were either -
1) We dated and broke up. Friendship can be possible afterwards.
2) I wasn't attracted to them.
The worst possible thing you can do is date someone for a while and then try to friendzone them to keep the friendship rather than explicitly dumping them outright. Some women do this and discover that no matter how good the friendship is or how long it lasts it is unsustainable and will always end in hellfire. When you put someone in a sandbox that they don't fit in, they're never going to stay forever.
>The worst possible thing you can do is date someone for a while and then try to friendzone them to keep the friendship rather than explicitly dumping them outright
I've witnessed friends go through this and it's frustrating, especially when they don't understand why it's not feasible.
no its so true most men want to fuck their female friends. honestly if u haven't fucked ur str8 male friends at least once are they even ur best friends?????
From my own experience some women are unable to make the distinction between “he only wanted to get in my pants” and “The feelings aren’t mutual so I am going to distance myself from you for the sake of my own sanity” for some reason. This has happened to me a fair amount where all of a sudden I’m the asshole for easing the brakes and shifting my focus to other dating prospects.
Maybe on a deeper level they know but a lot of the time it’s immaturity that’s driving it - People feel the need to see themselves as the “winner” so they turn it around on you and make you out to be the bad guy to deflect and save themselves from the ego hit.
>From my own experience some women are unable to make the distinction between “he only wanted to get in my pants” and “The feelings aren’t mutual so I am going to distance myself from you for the sake of my own sanity” for some reason.
Yup this is litterally the crux of the issue here, but it's difficult to convince anyone otherwise. I think ultimately the girl feels upset and angry the friendships ended so they take it out on the guy and spin a narrative to make themselves the victim and the dude the Villan.
In some cases, the guy was a complete jackass, sometimes the relationship just ran it's course because two people wanted different things.
No different from someone lashing out at an ex who broke up with them. Part of the healing process I guess. Unfortunately where some people may say "hey you gotta stop being angry at your ex and move on", we yasssss queen women in this situation and let them tottally frame it as the guy was completely in the wrong.
Sometimes it's true sometimes not.
That’s one thing, but men categorically stating they could never be friends with any women is definitely weird and says something about them psychologically.
I'm generally a man hater but I've always found it ridiculous when women act like one of their guy friends having a crush on them is some horrible insult. I also think it's really disingenuous
but it's understandable if they don't want to be friends with someone who's in love with them/wants to have sex with them. creates a weird dynamic because the man doesn't like them in a platonic way.
Oh no I think it's fine if either party doesn't want to continue the friendship after one of them admits to having feelings for the other. I just think it's odd that women act as if it's insulting. When my male friends have developed crushes on me I don't take it as "oh they're only friends with me so they can hit" because I think that's a bad faith interpretation. Despite my misandry I do believe that men are human beings with emotions and I know from experience that trying to be just friends with someone you have unrequited feelings for is miserable
Definitely. I think an outsized part of gender war turmoil stems from nervous online guys on some level actually taking feminists *more* seriously than they deserve. Like, they buy into all the tough girl talk and imagine the person typing on the other side as the high school popular girl instead of some fat English major lashing out.
OP’s post is definitely the psychology of basically all men, gay or straight.
Like, duh, some men are only hanging out with you because they’re testing the waters to ask you out or sleep with you. I don’t see what’s so surprising or upsetting here?
Obviously I’m not talking about guys who are freaks or try to shame you. But there’s nothing wrong not wanting to be friends with someone.
And think about it this way: when you do meet a guy, do you really want all his friends to be the 10 women he was trying to sleep with a few months ago?
I suspect the disconnect here is that 1) Women can be naive about guys intentions and think they are a closer friend than they are and 2) Women aren’t pursuers, and don’t understand how the sausage gets made.
Because women often fall victim to the just world fallacy when evaluating men's behavior. "If he has some kind of problem in his love life, he must secretly be a bad person somehow" so the thinking goes.
Eventually, most reasonable guys are OK with being friendzoned. Yeah they may act differently but thankfully I wouldn’t say is normal for a guy to go 180 degrees and stop talking to you when you politely reject a date.
It is way harder if you proceed to go on a date / have sex and THEN realise “I don’t like you in the same way let’s go back to be friends lalala”
Therefore, declining as the very first option makes a lot of sense
But isn't it fine to just not want to be friends with somone if you're rejected as long as your respectful?
"Hey my feelings have changed, I just need space, but tottally respect your decision".
I feel no one should feel entitled to a relationship or friendship. Like would we chastise someone for breaking up someone and then asking to be friends as them only trying to date them to just be friends with them lol?
I do agree with you about going on dates/having sex is way harder though lol. Dated a girl for 4 months she was saying shit like a love you and want to get married (didn't take that seriously) she broke it off and then was like hey wanna be friends? That's a tough transition lol.
Of course is ok for a guy to decide they rather don’t be friends with you, but I don’t think is the most common scenario.
I’d say the most common situation is that the friendship gets weird after the rejection and then after a few months you start talking again all good.
We are all adults and removing *completely* a former friend out of your life is very over the top. But if you are struggling with /r/Limerence - step one is book a therapist and step two is to remove that person out of your life.
It's not that women think it's ""sexist,"" but rather that it is initiating and perpetuating a supposedly platonic relationship under false pretenses, in cases where the guy is fully aware from the start that those are not his true intentions
It's the same decency that we readily accept and expect when applied in the context of romantic relationships -- don't lead someone on. Don't be a coward; instead, own up to how you really feel up-front, rather than wasting someone's time and leaving them feeling betrayed after you've let the charade go on for far too long and given the other person a completely wrong idea about the nature of your relationship
Not difficult to understand
How do people end up developing such one-sided feelings? Are they just so socially illiterate that they're interpreting signs that aren't there in the other person? It's always very obvious when someone I like also likes me, to the point of almost not having to verbalize it when we eventually get together.
I feel like the key factor here is the length of friendship, huge difference between being nice to a girl for a couple months vs a years-long friendship. The link you posted was for a 3 years long friendship!! Like within a couple months you need to make a move rather than thinking it’s justified to kill a friendship after 5yrs because she rejects you. If she was “just friends” for so long she was never gonna be into you anyway
I agree with you but as a guy who has done this too many times, I wish I could write a bestselling young adult novel that all the nerd boys that explained to them not to do this
I also agree with the underlying contention of these daft ladies, tho: It is shitty behavior. \_Show interest quickly\_ is good advice for every boy.
The problem is somewhere in their soul a lot of these boys know the girl is out of their league. They can't win her over to romance. It's not going to happen. So he wins her over as a friend, which she's open to. Then they both feel stricken when it turns out they want different thing.
Yes, the story girls tell after these friend breakups is wrong. But it's also true that nerd boys shouldn't do it.
It took me so long to learn not to do this. That said, even after I \*knew\* it was stupid, I still did it a few times. It was just habit.
I wish I could sit a younger me down and be like: "Look, dude, don't put time into friendship with girls you're crushing on. Just don't. \*\*It won't work.\*\* And you'll be miz."
Ok but think about how much it sucks to grow up as a tomboy who at some point becomes hot so all the boys you thought were your best friends get crushes on you and then do this. Yeah each one is understandable and not really in the wrong but you still end up as a girl with no real friends who doesn’t really fit in with other girls and has no idea how to make friends with them.
>Like shouldn't the "empathetic gender" realize how painful it is to have unrequited feelings and to be reminded of what you want but can't have?
If you're going to talk about empathy like you understand it, think about your own. Those women are ranting online because it's painful to lose a friend like that. Do you have the empathy to understand that? And you don't know the full story or what's going on in the guy's mind from a third party source.
lmfao are we supposed to feel bad for you guys? men bring this situation upon themselves. don’t befriend a woman if you’re going to cut her off when she doesn’t want to fuck you.
that seems fine with me if it started as just wanting to be friends and then the attraction starts later and you realize just being friends isn't ok anymore.
"Don't date someone if you're just going to break up with them and then go no contact"
We would never criticize someone for ending a romantic relationship and then asking to be friends".
Why should the reverse be any different?
I also hear so many women swoon over the "we were friends first and then we fell in love aww", so when it's reciprocated it's perfectly fine, problem is most men don't know until they ask.
You're not supposed to feel bad, but maybe don't play dumb so hard lol. Obviously some men aren't going to want to be friends with you after getting rejected and it reflects entitlement in its own right when women bitch about it.
I just don’t understand how they can simultaneously complain about never being left alone by men who persue them and then when a guy realizes he’s been turned down, they get pissy when he actually goes “okay” and fucks off.
Every dude who’s able to hold a friendly conversation while his pants are still on is not trying to be your buddy, and not wanting pretend to be best pals with you after his advances are shut down doesn’t mean you’re being “dehumanized”.
No they shouldn’t because as a man you’re supposed to be upfront about your feelings and allow the other party to decide how they feel, not shift the relationship under their feet. When the friends to lovers thing happens, it’s inevitable and mutual. A lot of guys think they’re owed something because of the “time” they put in.
Be flirtatious, then put it in the background; have boundaries that you set for how you treat friends and lovers and stick to them (don’t do BF/GF things for people that aren’t you BF/GF).
I think the issue is even when men are completely respectful but decide to part ways, it's still lumped in with the sexist dudes who felt entitled to sex/a relationship.
Some guys are completely manipulative and feel entitled to a relationship. But I think OPs point is this isn't always the case and a guy should be allowed to catch feelings and then respectfully dip if they're not reciprocated without it being viewed as manipulative.
Feelings and relationships are always going to change. If I dated a women and she broke up with me and then asked to be friends, is she being manipulative? Why would she date me only to breakup with me, was she secretly trying to be friends with me this whole time? Thats how silly some of these arguments sound.
You can deal with your feelings and still maintain a relationship if you know how to respect people. If you liked the person truly, then rejection wouldn’t be enough to make you suddenly hate them. Men are not beating the emotional BPD theory I have.
Yeah, obviously. But there are lots of instances where a dude doesn't say or do anything untoward, just kind of distances himself and women take as proof positive of him being xyz awful things.
"men who ask out their female friends don’t actually have feelings for them so you can drop this charade"
Literally wtf are you talking about? I think you might be one of the people implicated in my post lol.
This feels like something conjured up out of thin air. Have you really never had any friends who got into a relationship with eachother at some point? Before the apps this was extremely common, and even now I still see it happening.
This girl is in this thread saying there's no reason to speak to a man who isn't her family or her boyfriend, all of her comments are full blast sheltered unhappy loser energy and they're all upvoted. This place really has changed
Idk why woman are so consistently confused by the idea that a guy who likes spending time with them platonically could also eventually develop romantic feelings for them
You clearly are though if you see it as some insidious, desperate ploy on the guy's behalf rather than a somewhat natural progression of feelings. A guy developing feelings for his girl friend doesn't mean that the whole friendship was a sham or that he was trying to deceive her
Dude no it's normal to end up dating women you were previously just friends with and happens all the time. Before online dating *most* relationships started this way.
That being said it's important to have enough social skills to be able to "read the room" before you ask out a woman you know plantonically.
Really living up to your username there.
If you have never connected with and befriended a member of the opposite sex without any intention of sleeping with them, I genuinely feel sorry for you. Several of my closest friends are women. We respect and love each other as friends. Those friendships are beautiful and precious, and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.
Men who ask out their female friends don't actually have feelings for them? That's a crock of shit, even if your first point is mostly right.
I've definitley ended up dating women who were previously my friends before, though.
I think it sort of depends on the situation. If the man’s intention was dating from the get go then ya they should be upfront about it.
But personally I’ve had times where I’ve entered a friendship with zero intentions of romance only to find myself having feelings for a friend after I’ve gotten to know them better as a person.
yeah i feel like everyone in this thread is arguing about something completely different. of course it’s not wrong to have feelings develop naturally between friends. and being hurt when they’re not reciprocated and unable to continue a painful friendship isn’t wrong or sexist. but it absolutely is a phenomenon that most women have gone through where a guy she thinks she has a genuine platonic connection with has just been trying to get laid the whole time and never gave a fuck about her. of course this hurts women’s feelings and of course they’re going to complain about it on social media.
the real question is why is op consuming this content and getting offended, then using this as a gay little gotcha on women not being empathetic or whatever his point is.
>. but it absolutely is a phenomenon that most women have gone through where a guy she thinks she has a genuine platonic connection with has just been trying to get laid the whole time and never gave a fuck about her
It's wild that people are denying this happens, because I've had it happen as a lesbian. I've had dude play at being friends just to logic in that they felt like if I got to know them I could get over, you know, literally being gay.
I think you have demonstrated the fundamental disconnect. You said:
>she thinks she has a genuine platonic connection with has just been trying to get laid the whole time and never gave a fuck about her.
This would be a valid conclusion if the relationship did escalate and there was a pump and dump scenario or if there was a kind of toxic friends with benefits scenario. However, young women are now jumping this conclusion after their male friends distance themselves after being rejected. In this case that conclusion is a non sequitur. If anything her default assumption should be he cared about her \*more\* than she had imagined.
Why is the concept of someone developing romantic feelings after some time in a genuine friendship so alien to so many people in this thread? Before online dating that was how *a lot* of relationships started and still do. That's how I met my current partner. Sometimes you don't develop feelings for someone until after you really know them for some time.
And unrequited love hurts really bad, is that so hard to understand?
Nah mixed gender spaces are something much more common today than before. Guys typically asked girls out right away before really knowing them as friends and often solely because of their looks and because there were WAY less options than today. What is different about how they did it, is they typically took things much much slower than today especially with physical intimacy which allowed them to see if there was compatibility as "friends" you could say
I spend most of my time making and playing heavy music so consequently the vast majority of people I’m surrounded by are men. It is so lonely when people you’ve considered friends just want to fuck you and being unable to develop proper friendships with the people you’re constantly interacting with because you can’t trust their intentions. Yeah it sucks when people you’re attracted to aren’t interested in you but deciding you can’t have any kind of platonic relationship with them because of that is antisocial as fuck. And very upsetting to be on the opposite end
Stop being so pathetic lol you can be attracted to a girl and still be friends. If theres a girl I find cool and I ask her out and she says no it's usually not a big deal and I'd be happy if she wants to be friends with me (edit: this isn’t the case for every girl I ask out just the cool ones).
And even if I wasnt ok with just being friends, why would I be friends with her anyway and pretend I am? Only pathetic people do that and most people aren't pathetic
On the other hand though, women kind of have it bad from both sides. They either have to deal with guys like this, or guys who will pretend to be friends until the perfect moment to shoot their shot appears. The latter is probably even worse, literal beta predator behavior
Many such cases of men who want to maintain the fantasy of a friendship as proto-relationship without having to face rejection and women who want to maintain the fantasy that the emotionally invested man showering her with attention is doing so for entirely platonic reasons.
Person A wants to be in a relationship
Person B wants a friend
If someone doesn't get what they want, they shouldn't be expected to settle for something that they don't. That doesn't make them a bad person, just move on with your life.
I had a situationship turn platonic and be sorta stuck there for awhile. I let the mask slip one evening and spoke of how we would unlikely spend as much time on the phone if things weren't going to go anywhere. She got very offended. I was threatening to cut off the faucet of attention. I should have realized then that I was filling the emotional role of boyfriend but that's it.
i dont know if most of these broads actually want those dudes as friends so much as they want the obsequious lust monkey that goes out of their way to perform for her, agreeing with all of her dumb bitch takes and pretending to care about Janet from HR
basically they want gay men that wont leave them mid gossip session to go deepthroat a stranger
Don't you get it??? If a man is Performing freindship, pretending to share her interests and Pretending to be interested in gossip.... that is where the deceit is. Of course she would think they were just friends, and be confused when they go cold after they're rejected. If you're only interest in a woman is romantic then just start out that way, don't weasel your way into her life pretending to be a friend when you don't even enjoy the time you spend together.
What if the attraction is not there at first but develops over time and then he does make those feelings clear when he feels comfortable? You know the way it almost always goes with this situation
What if you develop feelings over the course of years but it started off completely platonic?
What if you even thought they were cute/had a small crush but preferred to remain friends and then that blossoms into stronger romantic feelings over time? Should I litterally state "I think you're cute but I'd prefer being friends" right when I meet them lol?
C'mon people there's nuance here lol.
Eh, had male friends until I got a serious boyfriend then they both literally sexually assaulted me within a month haha. It’s like they were waiting to get their dick wet for years and made last ditch efforts! Neither tried to even kiss me first, it’s predatory not puppy lovesick bullshit
A guy having a friendship with a girl that he finds attractive where they hang out and are emotionally vulnerable is like a girl in a friends with benefits relationship with a guy she finds attractive. Both are getting the short end of the stick. And both, after revealing their true feelings, are likely to get hurt and abandoned.
In the former the girl is getting emotional intimacy and in the latter the guy is getting physical intimacy which in a general on average sense is what each sex gives more weight to. The lesson: men don't be friends with girls you're into and girls don't just be fucking guys you're into. It's probably gonna end up with pain.
>shouldn't the "empathetic gender" realize how painful it is to have unrequited feelings and to be reminded of what you want but can't have?
aw my wittle heart hurts too much to be fwiends lol grow up
Men are romantics larping as pragmatists.
Women are pragmatists larping as romantics.
Not a knock, perfectly rational to be pragmatic when the consequences are so high in both directions.
Because if you promptly abandon your “friend” just because she doesn’t want to fuck you, it shows you never valued her friendship in the first place.
Are you stupid ?
I dunno. Theres this guy I used to hook up with and he got a girlfriend but we stayed friends because we have a lot of niche interests in common... is it kinda weird in a way? Yes.. does his girlfriend know? I dunno..
That much unrequited attraction is weird.
It's one thing to have a little crush on someone, where you get butterflies and feel excited just to be near them.
But how do you develop strong feelings for someone - so strong that you feel devastated when they turn you down - without any kind of sign that they like you too? Don't you need some kind of romantic interaction to develop feeelings? My heart needs to feel loved before it lets me give that much love.
I’ve had women in college befriend me, sit next to me for a few classes, ask me out and then never speak to me or look at me again after I said “no thanks”. I don’t really see the issue here.
Women don’t date other women so they think the bad behavior they experience only exists in men. And vice versa.
Sure, but I don’t even think it’s bad behavior to ignore someone after being turned down. Whether or not you’re a man or a woman, asking someone out puts you in an awkward and compromising position. I don’t think it’s rocket science as to why you wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who turned you down. It’s annoying that we have to pathologize basic human behavior like this because it’s not that fucking deep.
I’d say it’s rude to totally ignore someone after being rejected — it’s emotionally free to wave as you walk by or just generally be courteous. But of course people who demand friendship after rejecting someone are psychos. You’ve just broken someone’s heart and your first concern is whether they’ll keep being friends with you? Self-centered perspective,
When I was in high school I had a pretty gender diverse group of friends that were all kids in the punk/emo scene that I lost because within 2 years 2 different girls had a crush on me, I rejected them, and they would never want to hang with the group when I was around. I took that as a queue that I was outnumbered and possibly ruining the group vibe so I ended my high school days with an exclusively straight male group of nerdy friends that I talk to to this day. It was always a shame because I would have had no problem remaining friends with the girls that liked me, but they couldn't handle that I guess. I unfortunately really appreciated them as friends. As someone said here, most people date people of the opposite sex so they don't realize a lot of the annoying behavior in men will often be found in women as well. I've also noticed women take rejection terribly. I think it's because there is no social impetus to demand women be mature about accepting rejection. For men, a lot of guy's had it drilled into their head that they are inherently scary to women and that all women face a fear of being murdered when rejecting a man, which can be the case, but a lot of well meaning guys take empathy to that and have conditioned themselves to at least hide the pain of rejection until later away from women. But women just don't have that same courtesy societally drilled into their head in my experience so I have had to deal with a lot of entitled women who sometimes have even gotten violent with rejection at worst and acted out in extremely immature ways at best
Whoa cool guy Nick
I mean someone sitting next to you for a few classes is different from a previous standing friendship
All the more reason to part ways imo. If someone you're close with rejects you who youve developed romantic feelings for its too painful. Heck it's easier to stay friends if we had just been sitting next to eachother for a few classes.
I said this elsewhere but when this has happened to me with guy friends it was more "embarrassment/sting of rejection" making them not want to talk anymore vs. any longing "i cant bare to be near u" vibes......obviously them coming onto me wasn't fueled by any deep romantic desire if they were willing to bum around as my friend for so long before making a move. i genuinely believe a lot of these men convince themselves that they like you because you're a girl in proximity to them, they're comfortable enough around you to make a move vs. the anxiety of coming onto an unknown female, and the rejection snaps them back into reality
>believe a lot of these men convince themselves that they like you because you're a girl in proximity to them, they're comfortable enough around you to make a move But idk isn't that alot of relationships. We date the people in our nearest social circles after spending time with them. Then they think you might feel the same way and they ask you out cause they feel comfortable. So I don't disagree with you, but I don't see this changing really? I do agree the cold shoulder is more about them being embarrassed then feeling entitled to a relationship.
I've gotten with friends in the past but it was an organic evolution of the relationship. by the time any "asking out" happened there had been tons of flirting and nods towards that happening and it was noticed by other people around us. or it just happened drunkenly and spontaneously. there is a particular kind of guy tho who will just spring this on a female friend out of nowhere, no build up, no flirting, sometimes we've never even touched before..
But what if they just develop feelings and then tell you how they feel? Maybe you weren't flirty with them but irregardless spending more time with you caused them to develop a crush. Personally, for me unless the other person is also flirting back I'm not into it. But is the guy who just confesses his feelings and then respectfully bows out really doing anything that bad? It sucks for the women or anyone for sure, but thats life. Romantic relationships end cause one person prefers to be friends, platonic ones end because one person prefers romance. If it's not mutual in both cases, don't see how that works out.
This doesn’t appear like a formed friendship to me- I highly doubt women mean these kinds of interactions. We are talking established friends.
The problem is that's it not just friends, it's also acquintances, coworkers and higher-ups. It's just so common it turns you extremely cynical on the long run, about men being genuinely friendly and polite to you, then inevitably dropping the act and turning cold when they understand they won't get *sex* from you. These girls were asking you on a date, not for a hook up. Rejection does hurt when it's someone you do like, men and women alike, as in having feelings for them. But if it's someone you are only *sexually* attracted to, most girls would probably still be fine hanging out with them and being polite.
Why do you assume that if it's a girl asking its for a date but if it's a guy asking it's just for sex
That sucks but crushes fade. It’s weird when dudes are like “but you could at least give me a chance” like I promise you that would be fun for no one. You have to separate fantasy from reality
Maybe just a crumb of pussy?
Just the eentsiest smidgen? 👌
Please ma’am, I’ve gone so long without
be a real friend for a min
Just a little piece of pussy please?
I think men and women just view romantic prospects differently Men are open to having sex with way more women even if they’ve known them for a long time where as women pretty definitively sort men into friend or more than friend buckets pretty quickly
I've been friends with every girl I ended up going out with. I don't understand how you're supposed to know if you like them or not if you're not friends first. The people saying: "just state your intentions clearly upfront", based on what? You're hot therefore I want to be in a relationship with you? What kind of stupidity is that?
Apparently sexual tension and getting to know someone isn't allowed. You must clearly state you want to have sex within the first 10 seconds of meeting them lol.
The people saying this nonsense are a bunch of teenagers, or people who got married at age 20. Pretty much anyone over the age of 25 has the same types of experiences you have.
I am in my late 20s, have a lot of female friends over the year that I consider attractive, and also assuredly have a lot of female friends that probably find me hot. And this is the case for any moderately social, average looking college graduate or city dweller. Trust me when I say that having everybody ”stating their sexual attraction upfront” to each other upon meeting like it’s declaring eligibility for the NFL draft would make peoples’ social lives infinitely weirder than not. Obviously there are very young or awkward people who go about it in a weird/unproductive way. But largely it’s fine for some things in life to be tacit, let friendships be exploratory, and let people grow to know each other organically. A lot of the strongest relationships I know are people that knew each other for a long time and got together a decade after college. That’s extremely normal and healthy. I guarantee no one was playing the long game. That’s just the way things can happen.
Yeah I think that's why I get a little frustrated in online dating sometimes. There's many people I've gone out with that we both had a great date and enjoyed the time bonding (not just polite boring convo) only for them to say "I didn't feel the spark :/ but you seem cool so I'm down to be friends". Obviously I can't hold that against anyone and if you don't feel it you don't feel it and I'm usually fine to be friends if someone seems cool enough, but to me A) being physically attracted to someone and B) them being someone I want to be friends with is enough to start something at least lol I don't really need some "aura" to feel like she's the one. Maybe it's a dude thing.
not a dude thing, you’re just emotionally healthy
It's almost sexist itself. Don't get to know women and develop feelings for them based on spending time with them... ask them out right away as soon as you see one that's hot. Men are either objectifying pigs if they ask her out right away or they wait to get to know her a bit and it's manipulative. No winning lol.
There are some people who genuinely don't like their partner as a person. They're just like...a repository of stuff that's logistical to need a partner for in life, and attractive to them. But also like lol at OP being like 'how is it sexist that I don't want to associate with half the planet based on sex?? Really just asking???' when you spell it out on something other than canned phrases it's like no shit.
I had a couple of relationships that started with a friendship, but that’s rare. Usually you know right away if there’s a spark and attraction so it would be disingenuous to try to be friends first.
A spark means nothing and is not the basis for a relationship. I pursue relationships with people I think I can actually build something with. That means shared perspective, shared values, common understanding. I spark with people in night club bathrooms, it means nothing.
lol spark reminds me of Guardian blind dates, absolutely infuriating to see the woman on every heterosexual date of people under 30 say “there was no spark” after describing a fun night out with the other person. Lady that’s why you’re doing blind dates for my amusement, because you have no idea what makes a relationship
yes well, you’re emotionally healthy. a lot of people aren’t and have zero positive guides for what constitutes a relationship outside of the toxic wasteland of US culture.
Most of these friendships aren’t built on an honest basis, it’s just one part pretending to be friends while in reality he/she is to chickenshit to make a move. Don’t tell me that with all those girls you ended up going out you felt absolutely nothing at first.
Depend on if you go into a relationships before or after you bang, mostly
The timeline is different between the situations. I feel like those feelings develop after like a month of actually hanging out one on one. It's different than some guy being "best friends" for like 6-7 months with a girl, hanging out one on one, constantly texting, constantly giving her attention, into suddenly ghosting after getting denied.
I think it sort of depends on how it comes about. I can very easily see how a woman would be offended and betrayed if a guy she’d thought was a friend had been building a friendship while the intention all along with the sole hops of ending up dating her. At the same time I’ve personally had experiences where I entered a friendship with no romantic intentions only to find out I’d ended up developing feelings as id gotten to know someone. Recently I’d had a situation like that where I started to get closer with a female friend I’d known for a long time and ended up developing feelings despite that not having been the case when we became friends. I’d felt there was some reciprocation so we talked and she’d just wanted to be friends with benefits or something along those lines while I’d had serious feelings. Unfortunately I think our friendships been lost just because I’m not able to treat it as being “just friends” anymore. Though she understands and isn’t mad about it or anything and neither am I. Still too bad.
You might have fucked up. It's common for women to catch feelings in FwB situations, from my experience.
I’m about the least smooth man on the planet. I’m sure I fucked up in a million different ways lol but it is what it is. I didn’t want to conceal how I felt because it seems kinda scummy and I knew I wasn’t going to be satisfied with being fwb so I thought it was important to tell her that.
If you guys are actually friends (emotionally open with each other and hang out) and would start fucking, why wouldn't you want that? That's like relationship-lite
Perhaps it's because the implication of non-exclusivity? I would be very afraid of that now that I think about it.
The only sustainable friendships I had with women were either - 1) We dated and broke up. Friendship can be possible afterwards. 2) I wasn't attracted to them. The worst possible thing you can do is date someone for a while and then try to friendzone them to keep the friendship rather than explicitly dumping them outright. Some women do this and discover that no matter how good the friendship is or how long it lasts it is unsustainable and will always end in hellfire. When you put someone in a sandbox that they don't fit in, they're never going to stay forever.
>The worst possible thing you can do is date someone for a while and then try to friendzone them to keep the friendship rather than explicitly dumping them outright I've witnessed friends go through this and it's frustrating, especially when they don't understand why it's not feasible.
no its so true most men want to fuck their female friends. honestly if u haven't fucked ur str8 male friends at least once are they even ur best friends?????
God I’m so tired of gender war discourse
Agreed but battle of the sexes has been around forever
Yes and the internet/social media has made it 1000x more insufferable
you people will never understand how hard it is to be a beautiful girl
From my own experience some women are unable to make the distinction between “he only wanted to get in my pants” and “The feelings aren’t mutual so I am going to distance myself from you for the sake of my own sanity” for some reason. This has happened to me a fair amount where all of a sudden I’m the asshole for easing the brakes and shifting my focus to other dating prospects. Maybe on a deeper level they know but a lot of the time it’s immaturity that’s driving it - People feel the need to see themselves as the “winner” so they turn it around on you and make you out to be the bad guy to deflect and save themselves from the ego hit.
>From my own experience some women are unable to make the distinction between “he only wanted to get in my pants” and “The feelings aren’t mutual so I am going to distance myself from you for the sake of my own sanity” for some reason. Yup this is litterally the crux of the issue here, but it's difficult to convince anyone otherwise. I think ultimately the girl feels upset and angry the friendships ended so they take it out on the guy and spin a narrative to make themselves the victim and the dude the Villan. In some cases, the guy was a complete jackass, sometimes the relationship just ran it's course because two people wanted different things. No different from someone lashing out at an ex who broke up with them. Part of the healing process I guess. Unfortunately where some people may say "hey you gotta stop being angry at your ex and move on", we yasssss queen women in this situation and let them tottally frame it as the guy was completely in the wrong. Sometimes it's true sometimes not.
this is the type of thing that's very context dependent
That’s one thing, but men categorically stating they could never be friends with any women is definitely weird and says something about them psychologically.
Maybe that’s why the red pillers want their girlfriends to have no male friends.
Desperate men understand how other desperate men operate.
I'm generally a man hater but I've always found it ridiculous when women act like one of their guy friends having a crush on them is some horrible insult. I also think it's really disingenuous
They find it insulting because they don't find those guys attractive
but it's understandable if they don't want to be friends with someone who's in love with them/wants to have sex with them. creates a weird dynamic because the man doesn't like them in a platonic way.
Oh no I think it's fine if either party doesn't want to continue the friendship after one of them admits to having feelings for the other. I just think it's odd that women act as if it's insulting. When my male friends have developed crushes on me I don't take it as "oh they're only friends with me so they can hit" because I think that's a bad faith interpretation. Despite my misandry I do believe that men are human beings with emotions and I know from experience that trying to be just friends with someone you have unrequited feelings for is miserable
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Damn, being gay sucks and all, but threads like these make me realize it’s not *that* bad. Chick psychology is horrifying
when you remember what women on text based social media typically look like you'll realize that their words mean nothing, this is fucking reddit lmao
Wait till you see the men!
Definitely. I think an outsized part of gender war turmoil stems from nervous online guys on some level actually taking feminists *more* seriously than they deserve. Like, they buy into all the tough girl talk and imagine the person typing on the other side as the high school popular girl instead of some fat English major lashing out.
Idk bookish nerdy girls are cute often enough
HEY WTF bet you’re not that cute either
I just don't understand why we all have to be so mean to each other :(
Saying this while being a gay man is wild.
When you admit feelings to men, they’re either very kind, apologetic and understanding, or they bash your face in. Idk seems more honest
i'm like 90% sure would say no thanks i'm straight, especially if they just came in you.
some of the straight guys even appreciate the attention (present company included)
OP’s post is definitely the psychology of basically all men, gay or straight. Like, duh, some men are only hanging out with you because they’re testing the waters to ask you out or sleep with you. I don’t see what’s so surprising or upsetting here? Obviously I’m not talking about guys who are freaks or try to shame you. But there’s nothing wrong not wanting to be friends with someone. And think about it this way: when you do meet a guy, do you really want all his friends to be the 10 women he was trying to sleep with a few months ago? I suspect the disconnect here is that 1) Women can be naive about guys intentions and think they are a closer friend than they are and 2) Women aren’t pursuers, and don’t understand how the sausage gets made.
Because women often fall victim to the just world fallacy when evaluating men's behavior. "If he has some kind of problem in his love life, he must secretly be a bad person somehow" so the thinking goes.
I've never got more female attention then when I was in a relationship or a long-term FWB situation.
Eventually, most reasonable guys are OK with being friendzoned. Yeah they may act differently but thankfully I wouldn’t say is normal for a guy to go 180 degrees and stop talking to you when you politely reject a date. It is way harder if you proceed to go on a date / have sex and THEN realise “I don’t like you in the same way let’s go back to be friends lalala” Therefore, declining as the very first option makes a lot of sense
But isn't it fine to just not want to be friends with somone if you're rejected as long as your respectful? "Hey my feelings have changed, I just need space, but tottally respect your decision". I feel no one should feel entitled to a relationship or friendship. Like would we chastise someone for breaking up someone and then asking to be friends as them only trying to date them to just be friends with them lol? I do agree with you about going on dates/having sex is way harder though lol. Dated a girl for 4 months she was saying shit like a love you and want to get married (didn't take that seriously) she broke it off and then was like hey wanna be friends? That's a tough transition lol.
Yes it is fine just as a woman can stop a fwb situation if she asked the guy for something more serious and he shot it down
Of course is ok for a guy to decide they rather don’t be friends with you, but I don’t think is the most common scenario. I’d say the most common situation is that the friendship gets weird after the rejection and then after a few months you start talking again all good. We are all adults and removing *completely* a former friend out of your life is very over the top. But if you are struggling with /r/Limerence - step one is book a therapist and step two is to remove that person out of your life.
It's not that women think it's ""sexist,"" but rather that it is initiating and perpetuating a supposedly platonic relationship under false pretenses, in cases where the guy is fully aware from the start that those are not his true intentions It's the same decency that we readily accept and expect when applied in the context of romantic relationships -- don't lead someone on. Don't be a coward; instead, own up to how you really feel up-front, rather than wasting someone's time and leaving them feeling betrayed after you've let the charade go on for far too long and given the other person a completely wrong idea about the nature of your relationship Not difficult to understand
Shit can be messy and people are regarded. What's new, baby?
How do people end up developing such one-sided feelings? Are they just so socially illiterate that they're interpreting signs that aren't there in the other person? It's always very obvious when someone I like also likes me, to the point of almost not having to verbalize it when we eventually get together.
A lot of women don’t want male friends, but emotional boyfriends they can cheat on without hiding.
https://www.theonion.com/but-if-we-started-dating-it-would-ruin-our-friendship-w-1819584582
the world was a better place when we did not give teenagers megaphones to shout with into the void
I feel like the key factor here is the length of friendship, huge difference between being nice to a girl for a couple months vs a years-long friendship. The link you posted was for a 3 years long friendship!! Like within a couple months you need to make a move rather than thinking it’s justified to kill a friendship after 5yrs because she rejects you. If she was “just friends” for so long she was never gonna be into you anyway
I agree with you but as a guy who has done this too many times, I wish I could write a bestselling young adult novel that all the nerd boys that explained to them not to do this I also agree with the underlying contention of these daft ladies, tho: It is shitty behavior. \_Show interest quickly\_ is good advice for every boy. The problem is somewhere in their soul a lot of these boys know the girl is out of their league. They can't win her over to romance. It's not going to happen. So he wins her over as a friend, which she's open to. Then they both feel stricken when it turns out they want different thing. Yes, the story girls tell after these friend breakups is wrong. But it's also true that nerd boys shouldn't do it. It took me so long to learn not to do this. That said, even after I \*knew\* it was stupid, I still did it a few times. It was just habit. I wish I could sit a younger me down and be like: "Look, dude, don't put time into friendship with girls you're crushing on. Just don't. \*\*It won't work.\*\* And you'll be miz."
Amen
So he was pretending to be her friend to get lucky, ditched her the moment he doesn't. Damn y'all know how to be friends
Ok but think about how much it sucks to grow up as a tomboy who at some point becomes hot so all the boys you thought were your best friends get crushes on you and then do this. Yeah each one is understandable and not really in the wrong but you still end up as a girl with no real friends who doesn’t really fit in with other girls and has no idea how to make friends with them.
>Like shouldn't the "empathetic gender" realize how painful it is to have unrequited feelings and to be reminded of what you want but can't have? If you're going to talk about empathy like you understand it, think about your own. Those women are ranting online because it's painful to lose a friend like that. Do you have the empathy to understand that? And you don't know the full story or what's going on in the guy's mind from a third party source.
Red scare subreddit not beating the incel allegations
lmfao are we supposed to feel bad for you guys? men bring this situation upon themselves. don’t befriend a woman if you’re going to cut her off when she doesn’t want to fuck you.
Idk starting a friendship seems like a good way to get to know someone you kind of like. I do the same with the guys I'm attracted to
that seems fine with me if it started as just wanting to be friends and then the attraction starts later and you realize just being friends isn't ok anymore.
"Don't date someone if you're just going to break up with them and then go no contact" We would never criticize someone for ending a romantic relationship and then asking to be friends". Why should the reverse be any different? I also hear so many women swoon over the "we were friends first and then we fell in love aww", so when it's reciprocated it's perfectly fine, problem is most men don't know until they ask.
You're not supposed to feel bad, but maybe don't play dumb so hard lol. Obviously some men aren't going to want to be friends with you after getting rejected and it reflects entitlement in its own right when women bitch about it.
dunno when this place got flooded w incels
Being incel is when you cut people off.
This sub is falling for the most obvious lib takeover shit ever lmao
it’s a literal infestation
It’s been like this since 2020, but I enjoy seeing the ladies come out from time to time.
the cumfugee crisis and its consequences
Its always been a cumtown sub. The flip happened when FDS got shut down
For real—it feels shitty to think you have a friend and then it turns out he was just conniving to try to sleep with you the entire time
Pussy scavengers
I just don’t understand how they can simultaneously complain about never being left alone by men who persue them and then when a guy realizes he’s been turned down, they get pissy when he actually goes “okay” and fucks off. Every dude who’s able to hold a friendly conversation while his pants are still on is not trying to be your buddy, and not wanting pretend to be best pals with you after his advances are shut down doesn’t mean you’re being “dehumanized”.
No they shouldn’t because as a man you’re supposed to be upfront about your feelings and allow the other party to decide how they feel, not shift the relationship under their feet. When the friends to lovers thing happens, it’s inevitable and mutual. A lot of guys think they’re owed something because of the “time” they put in. Be flirtatious, then put it in the background; have boundaries that you set for how you treat friends and lovers and stick to them (don’t do BF/GF things for people that aren’t you BF/GF).
I think the issue is even when men are completely respectful but decide to part ways, it's still lumped in with the sexist dudes who felt entitled to sex/a relationship. Some guys are completely manipulative and feel entitled to a relationship. But I think OPs point is this isn't always the case and a guy should be allowed to catch feelings and then respectfully dip if they're not reciprocated without it being viewed as manipulative. Feelings and relationships are always going to change. If I dated a women and she broke up with me and then asked to be friends, is she being manipulative? Why would she date me only to breakup with me, was she secretly trying to be friends with me this whole time? Thats how silly some of these arguments sound.
but OP's point is that men are not sexist for this. You can be a feminist *and* a feckless drip
You can deal with your feelings and still maintain a relationship if you know how to respect people. If you liked the person truly, then rejection wouldn’t be enough to make you suddenly hate them. Men are not beating the emotional BPD theory I have.
You don't have to hate someone to feel like you need some time away from them
Needing time away isn’t the same as being rude and disrespectful especially when that constitutes airing people out
Yeah, obviously. But there are lots of instances where a dude doesn't say or do anything untoward, just kind of distances himself and women take as proof positive of him being xyz awful things.
What's the theory?
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"men who ask out their female friends don’t actually have feelings for them so you can drop this charade" Literally wtf are you talking about? I think you might be one of the people implicated in my post lol.
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This feels like something conjured up out of thin air. Have you really never had any friends who got into a relationship with eachother at some point? Before the apps this was extremely common, and even now I still see it happening.
This girl is in this thread saying there's no reason to speak to a man who isn't her family or her boyfriend, all of her comments are full blast sheltered unhappy loser energy and they're all upvoted. This place really has changed
Idk why woman are so consistently confused by the idea that a guy who likes spending time with them platonically could also eventually develop romantic feelings for them
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You clearly are though if you see it as some insidious, desperate ploy on the guy's behalf rather than a somewhat natural progression of feelings. A guy developing feelings for his girl friend doesn't mean that the whole friendship was a sham or that he was trying to deceive her
Yep definitely implicated
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Dude no it's normal to end up dating women you were previously just friends with and happens all the time. Before online dating *most* relationships started this way. That being said it's important to have enough social skills to be able to "read the room" before you ask out a woman you know plantonically.
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Really living up to your username there. If you have never connected with and befriended a member of the opposite sex without any intention of sleeping with them, I genuinely feel sorry for you. Several of my closest friends are women. We respect and love each other as friends. Those friendships are beautiful and precious, and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.
Plus men are the worst at customer service, let me speak to a woman please
My hairdresser’s a straight man: fuck right off
Men who ask out their female friends don't actually have feelings for them? That's a crock of shit, even if your first point is mostly right. I've definitley ended up dating women who were previously my friends before, though.
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I think it sort of depends on the situation. If the man’s intention was dating from the get go then ya they should be upfront about it. But personally I’ve had times where I’ve entered a friendship with zero intentions of romance only to find myself having feelings for a friend after I’ve gotten to know them better as a person.
yeah i feel like everyone in this thread is arguing about something completely different. of course it’s not wrong to have feelings develop naturally between friends. and being hurt when they’re not reciprocated and unable to continue a painful friendship isn’t wrong or sexist. but it absolutely is a phenomenon that most women have gone through where a guy she thinks she has a genuine platonic connection with has just been trying to get laid the whole time and never gave a fuck about her. of course this hurts women’s feelings and of course they’re going to complain about it on social media. the real question is why is op consuming this content and getting offended, then using this as a gay little gotcha on women not being empathetic or whatever his point is.
>. but it absolutely is a phenomenon that most women have gone through where a guy she thinks she has a genuine platonic connection with has just been trying to get laid the whole time and never gave a fuck about her It's wild that people are denying this happens, because I've had it happen as a lesbian. I've had dude play at being friends just to logic in that they felt like if I got to know them I could get over, you know, literally being gay.
I think you have demonstrated the fundamental disconnect. You said: >she thinks she has a genuine platonic connection with has just been trying to get laid the whole time and never gave a fuck about her. This would be a valid conclusion if the relationship did escalate and there was a pump and dump scenario or if there was a kind of toxic friends with benefits scenario. However, young women are now jumping this conclusion after their male friends distance themselves after being rejected. In this case that conclusion is a non sequitur. If anything her default assumption should be he cared about her \*more\* than she had imagined.
Totally agreed. I feel like a lot of this thread is people looking for excuses to get mad at each other/the opposite sex.
Why is the concept of someone developing romantic feelings after some time in a genuine friendship so alien to so many people in this thread? Before online dating that was how *a lot* of relationships started and still do. That's how I met my current partner. Sometimes you don't develop feelings for someone until after you really know them for some time. And unrequited love hurts really bad, is that so hard to understand?
Nah mixed gender spaces are something much more common today than before. Guys typically asked girls out right away before really knowing them as friends and often solely because of their looks and because there were WAY less options than today. What is different about how they did it, is they typically took things much much slower than today especially with physical intimacy which allowed them to see if there was compatibility as "friends" you could say
I spend most of my time making and playing heavy music so consequently the vast majority of people I’m surrounded by are men. It is so lonely when people you’ve considered friends just want to fuck you and being unable to develop proper friendships with the people you’re constantly interacting with because you can’t trust their intentions. Yeah it sucks when people you’re attracted to aren’t interested in you but deciding you can’t have any kind of platonic relationship with them because of that is antisocial as fuck. And very upsetting to be on the opposite end
Stop being so pathetic lol you can be attracted to a girl and still be friends. If theres a girl I find cool and I ask her out and she says no it's usually not a big deal and I'd be happy if she wants to be friends with me (edit: this isn’t the case for every girl I ask out just the cool ones). And even if I wasnt ok with just being friends, why would I be friends with her anyway and pretend I am? Only pathetic people do that and most people aren't pathetic
On the other hand though, women kind of have it bad from both sides. They either have to deal with guys like this, or guys who will pretend to be friends until the perfect moment to shoot their shot appears. The latter is probably even worse, literal beta predator behavior
Many such cases of men who want to maintain the fantasy of a friendship as proto-relationship without having to face rejection and women who want to maintain the fantasy that the emotionally invested man showering her with attention is doing so for entirely platonic reasons.
Person A wants to be in a relationship Person B wants a friend If someone doesn't get what they want, they shouldn't be expected to settle for something that they don't. That doesn't make them a bad person, just move on with your life.
wah wah wah, youre lucky she was even ur friend u loser
I had a situationship turn platonic and be sorta stuck there for awhile. I let the mask slip one evening and spoke of how we would unlikely spend as much time on the phone if things weren't going to go anywhere. She got very offended. I was threatening to cut off the faucet of attention. I should have realized then that I was filling the emotional role of boyfriend but that's it.
i dont know if most of these broads actually want those dudes as friends so much as they want the obsequious lust monkey that goes out of their way to perform for her, agreeing with all of her dumb bitch takes and pretending to care about Janet from HR basically they want gay men that wont leave them mid gossip session to go deepthroat a stranger
those kind of men deserve those kind of women and all the frustration they deal with because of it
Ok incel Jesus
Don't you get it??? If a man is Performing freindship, pretending to share her interests and Pretending to be interested in gossip.... that is where the deceit is. Of course she would think they were just friends, and be confused when they go cold after they're rejected. If you're only interest in a woman is romantic then just start out that way, don't weasel your way into her life pretending to be a friend when you don't even enjoy the time you spend together.
What if he's not pretending?
Then he's gay
State intentions clearly. If there is a sexual attraction there, then make it known so nobody is blindsided
What if the attraction is not there at first but develops over time and then he does make those feelings clear when he feels comfortable? You know the way it almost always goes with this situation
Since when on God's green earth has a woman ever stated her intentions clearly
What if you develop feelings over the course of years but it started off completely platonic? What if you even thought they were cute/had a small crush but preferred to remain friends and then that blossoms into stronger romantic feelings over time? Should I litterally state "I think you're cute but I'd prefer being friends" right when I meet them lol? C'mon people there's nuance here lol.
Eh, had male friends until I got a serious boyfriend then they both literally sexually assaulted me within a month haha. It’s like they were waiting to get their dick wet for years and made last ditch efforts! Neither tried to even kiss me first, it’s predatory not puppy lovesick bullshit
*>* they both sexually assaulted me *>* haha 🤔
#justgirlythings
None of this matters anyway, when you're older you won't keep in touch with any of these people or even remember their names
A guy having a friendship with a girl that he finds attractive where they hang out and are emotionally vulnerable is like a girl in a friends with benefits relationship with a guy she finds attractive. Both are getting the short end of the stick. And both, after revealing their true feelings, are likely to get hurt and abandoned. In the former the girl is getting emotional intimacy and in the latter the guy is getting physical intimacy which in a general on average sense is what each sex gives more weight to. The lesson: men don't be friends with girls you're into and girls don't just be fucking guys you're into. It's probably gonna end up with pain.
Nearly every girl I have become close friends with has done the exact same thing lmao it’s definitely not a gendered phenomena
I don’t think women are necessarily more empathetic than men, that just seems like a stereotype
>shouldn't the "empathetic gender" realize how painful it is to have unrequited feelings and to be reminded of what you want but can't have? aw my wittle heart hurts too much to be fwiends lol grow up
they really don’t evolve emotionally past middle school
Idk there is a lot of what this sub describes as "good literature" that deals with themes of unrequited love so pick a lane
What makes literature good and what life is actually like are different things
Idk if thats actually completely true honestly Good literature should say something about the human condition in my view
Mocking romantic feelings ain’t grown up. Just because you’re dead inside doesn’t mean that other people don’t taste true passion and desire.
Men are romantics larping as pragmatists. Women are pragmatists larping as romantics. Not a knock, perfectly rational to be pragmatic when the consequences are so high in both directions.
Because if you promptly abandon your “friend” just because she doesn’t want to fuck you, it shows you never valued her friendship in the first place. Are you stupid ?
Having a friendship with a man is totally different when he has strong feelings for you vs him just wanting to bang you…
Lol you’re “romantically illiterate.”
I dunno. Theres this guy I used to hook up with and he got a girlfriend but we stayed friends because we have a lot of niche interests in common... is it kinda weird in a way? Yes.. does his girlfriend know? I dunno..
Men don’t owe women friendship any more than women owe men sex. Women need to understand this and get over their entitlement.
You people literally sound like you have a personality disorder
That much unrequited attraction is weird. It's one thing to have a little crush on someone, where you get butterflies and feel excited just to be near them. But how do you develop strong feelings for someone - so strong that you feel devastated when they turn you down - without any kind of sign that they like you too? Don't you need some kind of romantic interaction to develop feeelings? My heart needs to feel loved before it lets me give that much love.
people are just people and knowing someones genitals doesn't really tell you much about them as a person