Doc,
I am writing in hopes that you may have some helpful or otherwise inspiring information regarding my best friend. He is an incredibly depressed 26 year old virgin with absolutely no self esteem.
As of this writing, I confess that I have exhausted my ability to help and am rapidly losing patience with his inability to be positive, but he is so incredibly smart that it’s hard to argue with him as he makes some depressing yet unfortunately realistic points.
I met ‘X’ (for anonymity sake) in 2009 while working at a local radio station. We instantly bonded over mutual love for music and I will be the first to tell you that he is a great guy. He is extremely smart, funny and good natured but suffers from crippling depression and terrible social anxiety.
X will often avoid the topic of women and relationships like a plague but whenever we do discuss dating, he insist that he has “nothing to offer a woman” or that “his taste is unrealistic” or “guys like me just belong in the friendzone.”
The funny thing is that if anyone were to meet X, they may have no clue there is anything wrong. He is very funny and has become good at faking being social, but is so strangely convinced that no woman would ever want anything more than a platonic friendship.
A little bit about X:
- He’s not ugly, but honestly not great looking. (Charlie Day with a bigger beard)
- He’s only 5’6″ (I’m 5’8″ and my height has never been an issue, but he insists “no woman wants a manlet”)
- He was bullied in High School and College for not being a “guys guy” as he puts it.
- His last and only girlfriend was gorgeous, but treated him like shit before dumping him on Valentines Day.
- He has no real friends, just me and his band (although they do treat him like shit)
- He doesn’t drink or do drugs which he thinks makes him boring.
- He insists that “Online Dating is only for attractive guys”
- He is terrified that he’s gonna end up as some single mother’s personal ATM
- My girlfriend even admits that she doesn’t like him and refuses to introduce him to any of her friends.
My question to you is Is there any hope for this poor guy? I truly believe that he could make some girl very happy but how do you convince someone who has seemingly only seen the worst of society that good people still exist?
Cheers,
Friend Indeed
Oof. I feel for ya, FI; there really isn’t much that’s more frustrating than trying to help somebody who steadfastly refuses to be helped. And therein lies the problem: he refuses to be helped. One of the keys to changing and improving is that he has to believe that change is even possible in the first place.
Like a lot of people I encounter – in consultations, in the letters I get and in the comments section – it seems like your buddy X has made “I Am Hopeless and Pathetic” part of his identity. Once the idea of “Not Being Good With Girls” and “Nobody Wants Me” becomes part of who you are – and in fairness, having folks bully him for not being sufficiently manly would be a big part of it – it’s very hard to shake. We instinctively want to protect our identity, even when it hurts us. When we run across things that challenge our identity, the Backfire Effect kicks in and makes us double down on what we already believe. Look at the incel (or “involuntarily celibate”) community; it becomes an example of nominative determinism, where by having adopted the identity, you have also accepted that you are functionally hopeless. And while the despair and frustration is understandable… if you define yourself as being uniquely fucked by the universe, then you’ve basically given away your power. You have made yourself helpless. And it’s very much a self-reinforcing cycle; nobody likes an Eeyore and the guys who are the most vocal about how much it sucks that women don’t like guys like them tend to actively turn off women. I mean, if he’s going on and on about how hypergamous single mothers are gonna steal his money and leave him taking care of somebody else’s kid, I’m not fucking surprised that your girlfriend won’t inflict him on her friends.
Unfortunately, like a Buddhist monk paying twenty bucks for a five dollar hot dog, your friend has to discover that true change comes from within. You can provide him with counter-arguments – Oscar Isaac is 5’7″, Daniel Radcliffe is 5’5″ and so on. You can offer to be his wingman, to take him shopping or to singles mixers or even just drag his ass to therapy. But at the end of the day, unless he decides to change, nothing is going to happen.
What he needs is to do is scrap everything and start over. The first thing he should do ditch his asshole bandmates so he doesn’t have their toxic bullshit weighing him down. Then he needs to get himself into therapy and talking to a counselor who can help him deal with the very real psychic pain he’s carrying around. If he can start learning that those past experiences were legitimately awful but things he can recover from, then he can start making the life changes that’ll help him become the sort of person he always dreams about being. But none of that can start until he gets his shit together.
So you could get him copies of New Game + and When It Clicks and wave them under his nose like a talisman1. But until he makes up his mind that yes, he can change, he’s just going to make things worse for himself.
The only thing I can suggest is that you draw a line in the sand: until he starts talking to a therapist – not just “thinks about it” or “goes once” but actually commits – then you’re not going to listen to his complaints any more. You have the roadmap to his recovery, but if he’s going to refuse to follow it… well, you’re not going to listen to him dig himself in any deeper.
You can lead him to the path he needs to talk, but it’s on him to walk it.
Good luck, FI. And let us know how things go with your buddy.
Hello Doctor,
I’m a relatively recent divorcee (about 6 months post D-Day) and I’ve had some trouble getting into the swing of being intimate with new partners. I’ve read your blog for a while and have found it quite helpful with dating advice and with self improvement. So I figured maybe you can help me out.
So a little background to explain my situation. I got married very young (I was 20 years old!). And we were married for about 9.5 years. We have 2 awesome little guys together and are good co-parents. My ex and I decided a couple years before we got divorced that we would try polyamory. We had both been interested in it for a while before hand and thought it would bring us together like it had with some friends of ours. We probably should have realized that we were more interested in being just friends with each other but that’s water under the bridge. Eventually we realized that the romance and attraction was gone in the marriage and saw a couple marriage counselors before deciding to file for divorce.
Now to the heart of the matter. I have actually been really successful with dating in my opinion. I’ve actually been mostly focusing on finding myself and living my life for myself and my kiddos. Also on being the fun persons I’ve always wanted to be. I’ve mostly stuck with online dating because it’s the easiest option for a now single dad. I’ve met a few girls I’ve liked and discovered a problem. When it comes to sexy time I panic and get out of the mood right as things are about to get fun.
More specifically I met two girls who wanted to sleep with me and with both of them the time got ruined by my own brain. In both cases things started out okay with foreplay but I just couldn’t get over a fear of being impotent and panicking about how I was going to have another failed relationship. The first girl I wasn’t that physically attracted to so I thought maybe it was that combined with the newness of being single after so long. The second girl I’m really really attracted to not only physically but she and I really hit off when we are hanging out. This time I also panicked because I hadn’t felt a connection like this in a really long time and I thought I must be falling for this girl way too fast.
So I’ve been seeing a counselor for a bit related to depression/anxiety but otherwise I am in pretty good physical health (I’m 30 and ran a marathon this past fall and have started training for more races this year). Do you have any advice for men to help get over the feeling of impotence and the fears surrounding this touchy subject. I love you blog and I hope that maybe this can help not just me but other guys out there struggling.
Yours truly
Single dad looking for help
Dude. DUDE. Go easy on yourself, man. You’re only six months out of a nearly decade long relationship. Even in a mostly amicable divorce, that’s going to do a number on your brain. You need to recognize that you are still in a state of transition. You have ten years worth of habits and behaviors built up like the relationship equivalent of muscle memory, only now half of those muscles aren‘t there anymore. Relationships change our identity at a fundamental level. We don’t just become two people who live together, we merge into a single gestalt entity like a fleshy Voltron that can’t agree on what to eat on Saturday night. Only now part of you is gone and there’s a part of your brain that’s kinda freaking out at that while it heals and you rediscover who you are now.
So you need to give yourself a break here. I’m not saying “don’t date”, but I am saying “turn down your expectations”. You wouldn’t expect to run a marathon three months after having busted your ankle, would you? You’re still in the break-up equivalent of physical therapy; it’s going to take some time to get back into competitive shape again. Rushing things because you “should” be ready is a great way to re-injure yourself.
Here’s how you deal with these issues you’re having.
First: you quit worrying about the future. The only thing you should be interested in with these girls is “right now”. Maybe things won’t work out with them. That’s fine: that’s for the future. You are just going to enjoy what you have right now. Right now, you’re realizing that women still think you’re damn sexy. Right now, you’re remembering that you have options and that being divorced isn’t the end of the word. Right now, you are just going experience things to their fullest without worrying about what may happen later on. The future will take care of itself. You can enjoy what you have right now.
Second: Take your penis off the table. The great thing about sex is that there’s more to it than your cock and her vaj. If your dick won’t get hard, guess what? You still have two hands. You still have a tongue. You know what never goes soft at the wrong moment? Your fingers. Sex toys. Your mouth. So don’t put pressure on yourself to perform with your penis. Penetration is off the menu for a bit. Make out like teenagers without the expectation of fucking. Use your fingers and your thumbs to get her off. Use sex toys. Go down on her for so long that you grow gills. Learn – really learn – how much you can give someone pleasure without needing to make your cock the main event. The less pressure you put on yourself to have Magic Dick, the less likely that anxiety is going to rear it’s ugly head and deflate things like the saddest pool-toy.
Third: this one is important, so I want you to pay attention. You ready?
OK.
Stop referring to your marriage as a “failed relationship”. Tattoo that backwards on your forehead so you see it in the mirror when you wake up. Shave your head if you need the room.
Your relationship didn’t fail, your relationship ended. There’s a difference. Not every relationship is going to last forever, and not every relationship should. Not every relationship is going to be an epic love story. Some are going to be short stories. Some are going to be dirty limericks. And that’s fine.
You’re not a failure because you or your wife didn’t die in the saddle. You were together for ten years, you have some awesome kids and you are able to co-parent successfully? That’s fucking impressive, man. The fact that you and your ex-wife are able to work together to raise your kids, that you have this core of, if not affection than at least respect for one another and that you don’t look at each other and wish you could just flay the skin off the other and throw them into a vat of tequila? That’s a sign that your relationship was a success. All that happened is that your relationship came to it’s natural end. That’s not failure by any stretch of the imagination.
So give yourself a break, SDLFH. You’ve got a lot going for you, but I think you’re expecting too much all at once. Take some time. Enjoy the present without worrying about the future. And realize that yes, your marriage may have ended… but it was still a success for what it was.
Good luck.
- and hey, may as well do it anyway… maybe it’ll give him incentive to improve [↩]
In regards to the first letter, am I the only one who’s noticed that people who feel/act like friend X are on the increase? I don’t know, but it does seem like for some people, wallowing in despair and self pity and the attention and sympathy they frequently get from it becomes an addictive pattern.
I think because society and social norms have shifted. In previous generations people were more isolated. No internet to connect to the world from the inside. Fewer options for women so a lot of relationships were probably formed around “he’s the best person in ____ radius I will give him a chance”. The economy was better so it was easier to move away from home financially. Even before things like cable and video games became a thing, people sort of HAD to do things more socially to starve off total boredom. Yeah, there were classified personal ads but in no way did they have as many options as online dating.
I don’t state those past things as if they were better. I think the spike in divorces since the 1970s proves that many of those “old school” relationships had less to do with being happy and were miserable. As someone born in that awkward middle ground between Generation X and Millennial I got to experience some of the last gasps of that previous era and the birth of this new one.
Nowadays it is harder to grow up financially since the economy is bad, and it’s easier to get everything you want from the comfort of home. You can feel connected to the world yet alone at the same time. And I imagine that may only reinforce toxic narratives. I mean, just think how social media and online dating have evolved even since 2007. This also has allowed many of the guys in that boat to connect to one another and form a band of their own; unfortunately since membership in that band includes being alone, that furthers the idea of it becoming an identity. It was harder to become part of the Legion of Lonely Heroes complete with flight ring until maybe the last 10-15 years.
I really need to comment on this statement: “Fewer options for women so a lot of relationships were probably formed around “he’s the best person in ____ radius I will give him a chance”. ”
I understand you are actually being empathetic towards women here but I want to point out that the way you’ve framed this statement is as an example of something men used to benefit from. The fact that you chose to say it as “I will give him a chance” implies that women used to give the supposed not so perfect guys a chance whereas now they won’t even look their way. And there is some truth to that I suppose. But it’s far more likely that THIS was the train of thought back then for women:
“If I don’t marry someone I will be ostracised from my family, I will be shamed by my community, and I won’t have a means to support myself. This guy has a job and doesn’t beat me, he’ll do.”
Women were forced to marry men, that’s why all men had wives. Why some very unappealing men had wives. This romantic notion that women were more willing to give men a chance and learn to see the true amazing-ness at his core is a fallacy. They already knew the guy was a dud. They just HAD to marry someone. And this idea that now that women don’t need a man to support them that they have turned into overly picky jerks is also a fallacy. Women ARE willing to give a man a chance, but he has to be someone with SOMETHING going for them. What they aren’t willing to do is compromise everything they want just to have a man, any man, take care of them.
And now can I get an a feminist amen. Also often times if a woman wanted to live away from her family she had to married. So it was less of a “I mean he’s gross, pathetic, and angry but I’ll give him a shot” it was closer too “does he have a dick and a ring, great done deal, this is my ticket out”
Exactly. And this was bad and led to a lot of bad marriages and unhappy children. Which is why after the women’s liberation movement, divorces went up and women stopped marrying out of desperation or need. And angry old timey men to this day haven’t forgiven them. I mean, why else is the right to abortion still a debate? It’s about punishment.
I feel the right to abortion is a different type of punishment. It’s more about “how dare that young hussy sleep around. And unmarried too. Tsk tsk” when in fact most women who get abortions in America are already mothers who can take afford another pooping machine. There’s also a huge element of you can’t choose for yourself.
Mm-hm. Abortion is illegal where I am and the current government has convened a Citizen’s Assembly to discuss having a referendum to repeal the part of the constitution that makes it illegal. All the literature from the pro-life campaigners is shot through with HUGE distrust of women. The phrase “abortion on demand” is used a lot and look how loaded it is. It’s designed to conjure up the idea of feckless women skipping to the hospital at 8 and a half months along “oh I don’t want this baby after all just give me an abortion”. When they do acknowledge that most later abortions are carried out because something has gone tragically awry with foetal development, they start scaremongering about eugenics and murdering Down’s Syndrome children. I’m willing to bet none of these people are doing anything to lobby the government for more disability services or nice, well-run group homes/shared accommodation for abandoned/orphaned/developmentally disabled children though.
I didn’t intend to give that statement like it was a good thing. I think that belief is a very bad thing for women and has led to a lot of misery. You’re right, I could have framed it better. Thanks for the feedback.
All of this…plus, everyone getting married has not been the historical norm in American society. Somewhere around 10-15% of people didn’t even in the early 1900s, when there was immense social and economic pressure for women to marry and men were relatively powerful in the relationship market.
It’s what I call the Charlotte Lucas decision. He’s a bit of a ass, he’s boring and socially incompetent, but I’m not likely to get any other offers, he’s financially stable and not cruel, and it beats spending the rest of my life under the authority of my parents (and then younger brother).
Yes! It’s so telling and heartbreaking when Elizabeth visits and the most enthusiastic part of Charlotte’s home tour is like “this is my sitting room and I can do whatever I want here ALONE”. And it was a while ago that I read/saw both but I think the K Knightley movie made it more explicit than the book with Charlotte storming out like “don’t you dare judging me for being practical when you’re cute enough to play love spies”
I realize this is late, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to view Elizabth as super condescending to Charlotte. Like, she is fucking pretty and young. Charlotte is already 28 and is plain and how the hell else was she gonna support herself? I mean, if Mr. Darcy hadn’t fallen in love with Elizabeth, really what would have happened to her?
I read it more as “women were forced to settle and now they don’t have to.”
Although I strongly agree that much of the idealization of the “good old days” is men wishing for a period when women had fewer choices, I also think that some guys who indulge in this would do well to remember that there were also more pressures for men to marry than there are now, and that the supply of women who are both conventionally attractive and pleasant is not unlimited. If a man needed someone to help him run his farm or business or household, only knew a dozen single women, and was considered unattractive or unlikable or financially insecure, he might also find himself considering marriage to women who today he might not even particularly want to be friends with.
I have a pair of great-grandparents who were in that situation on each side. They just hated each other, and apparently knew they hated each other before they agreed to marry. They were both recently widowed and lived on adjoining farms, and neither of them thought it was feasible to both do the farming and raise their many orphaned children as single parents. That’s all there was to that “romance,” and they did not grow on each other over the years or as they had children together!
There are stacks and stacks and stacks of novels contemporary to those times about men who were miserable in their marriages. With all the time some of these guys to make incomprehensible conspiracy theory charts, you’d think they could get around to reading some of them.
In some cases, women really had no choice if their parents decided to have them marry someone, as well. Not so clear-cut here in the U.S. usually, but it is still happening in some other cultures.
“You can feel connected to the world yet alone at the same time. And I imagine that may only reinforce toxic narratives.”
Really interesting discussions a few years ago among my academic nerd crowd about how the Internet is turning everything into an echo chamber; we seem to think we’re in “bubbles” geographically, but evidence suggests it’s the Internet and our own choices there that are isolating us from other viewpoints.
… Of course the question is, do we really WANT to entertain other viewpoints? I can’t really criticize since I stay far the heck away from sites like Breitbart and MGTOW.com.
I don’t know that entering an opposing echo chamber constitutes entertaining other viewpoints. Issue is the few places where you might encounter multiple viewpoints tend to exalt bothsiderism as their guiding principle.
The rise of globalization has made both women and men much choosier, because they can easily schlep across the world if they don’t like where they live, and it’s much easier to, say, go to a big city and then totally avoid anyone you don’t find perfectly clicks with you. I think we as a species haven’t quite figured out how to be both a global civilization as well as not be hideously lonely. In the past, “best friends forever” could actually happen — now, it’s so hard to make good friends and keep them when you often will move away from each other and not share the day to day little things that are what actually build lifelong friendships. I think people who have besties over the internet are exceptions, not the rule, even though they totally exist. So friendships are eroding, because we’re expected especially in America to follow careers across thousands of miles instead of staying with your old friends, and we are much pickier about our dates and marriage partners, so strong bonds are really hard to come by now.
As you said, this isn’t either good or bad — it just *is.*
A bit off the dating topic, I like a thing my friend brought up: “chosen family.” People who are your friends who you consider close enough to treat like you would a spouse or a very close relative you adore, where you will actually ask them about major life decisions and factor them into your life path instead of just saying “well I’ll keep them as a friend if it’s something my career path/etc leads me to do.” I do this, because I honestly can’t handle friend turnover and for some people I think this is a better lifestyle than the jetsetting we do now.
” because they can easily schlep across the world if they don’t like where they live”
Ehh…you have to have a significant level of privilege to be able to afford to do that both in terms of money and in terms of just being able to pack up your life, and if you’re not an upper middle class white person there are quite a lot of areas that are going to be forever closed off to you.
While I think geographic factors have changed, it’s a bit much to suggest people can just pack up and go off whenever they want to just to try to find someone to date.
An absolute sidetrack comment. Something that kind of bothers me is the whole “only people with privilege can just get up and move” is that it’s not true. While yes there are financial, racial, class and education barriers that prevent people from moving when ever to where ever it doesn’t mean people can’t move to improve their life because they are less privileged. People immigrate and run away from impoverished and war torn countries all the time. I’m not saying it’s easie or always possible. But I really feel it’s reductive and dismissive of people’s agency and other people’s accomplishments by saying “only privileged people get to move”
If you’re going to “quote” me than use the actual words I said.
Sorry I ment the quotes as about a general sentiment I’ve noticed lately, and was using them as a straw man argument. I still hold to my beliefs that if moving will genuinely help a person that they should work at trying to accomplish it regardless of how hard it may be
Bootstraps!
” I still hold to my beliefs that if moving will genuinely help a person that they should work at trying to accomplish it regardless of how hard it may be”
I don’t think anyone has or would suggest that that’s a bad thing, but it’s fairly limited advice.
There’s a difference between “This may be something to work towards if you can” and “If you just apply yourself and move you’ll be fine”.
Eselle pretty much touched on the main points better than I could, but I don’t know if you just didn’t like the term “privilege” or what, but while supporting people is great, it really does pay to be aware that the advice to just work at it can come off like; “Oh, you have depression? Well, just work through it!”
If it were that simple people would just do it, and I don’t think that’s dismissive of anyone’s agency, I think it’s an acceptance of the realities of life. It’s not that only privileged people can move, it’s that the more privilege one has, whether monetary or otherwise, the easier it is, and the recognition that it’s not easy for a lot of people.
I started fairly poor in a bad place, and I did work hard to accomplish my goal, but I also recognize the privilege I had that others don’t, while not ignoring that there were obstacles in my way that I overcame, but also recognizing that it might not be practical or possible for someone else to get over those obstacles.
How about we state it as “moving isn’t a realistic option for everyone”? There are people who can and do move, sometimes by very risky methods, because where they are going is such an immense step up from where they currently are.
There are also any number of people for whom moving would be possible, but a very poor decision. If your job experience is in a field that’s steady but not all that high-paying, and you’re able to live a fairly comfortable life because you live in a small town with reasonable rent and your in laws are willing to provide your kids with free childcare…then you still can pursue your dream to move to San Francisco, but in many cases will probably decide it’s not such a great idea. If the benefits of living in one place rather than another are purely social and aesthetic, a lot of people are going to put economic and familial concerns first. Most people are not nearly as mobile as Alcor describes.
Is this REALLY the hill you want to die on?
I grew up around neo-Nazis and the KKK who wanted to kill me. My best friend was a queer woman who had to hide who she was every day of her life. Even when the economy was doing well it was incredibly difficult to just pack up and move away.
You’re actually comparing people running from war-torn countries with someone moving to be in an area that is geographically better for dating? Are you serious?
It took me years and a lot of work just to get out of an area where people beat and stabbed me, and I can pass for white, and am a straight male who worked hard for an education to get out of that area.
Someone blithely saying that globalization means people should just move to find a date is pretty privileged. Notice in my previous comment and in this one I didn’t say that ONLY privileged people can move, but that the idea that it’d be an easy thing that someone just rattles off as a thing one just does implies that the person they’re talking to has enough privilege to be able to do so and isn’t going to get their head staved in for being Othered in the place they’re moving to.
I’m doing fairly well in life and I’m sort of stuck geographically. You’re going to tell me that your first piece of advice to a queer kid in Shithole, Nebraska who gets sixteen hours a week at a fast food joint and lives with his parents is a blithe “just move to San Francisco!”?
Come on, miss me with that nonsense.
Im sorry that my comment was glib and dismissive, and I can see its negative impact that it had. And I in no way tried to marginalize or lessen your experiences and what must have been an incredibly difficult environment to escape. And thank you for telling me your perspective even though there was no reason for you to disclose that personal information
I dont want to die on this hill, but my advice to the queer kid stuck in shithole no-where’s-ville wouldn’t be “just move to San Francisco!”. It would be what is the best plan of escape for you kid, and what can you do to best to survive in the mean time.
I appreciate that you’re willing to engage on this. That being said, what if you’re not a kid and the possibilities of, say, college aren’t ahead for you in the future? What if moving to a place you prefer would mean that your spouse would need to trade in their dream job for a barely tolerable one, or that you would need to leave the spouse behind because they refused to do so? What it it means that your kids would be stuck with substandard housing and childcare conditions, or that you’d need to give primary custody of them to their other parent because your custody agreement doesn’t allow you to move out of state? What if it means that a relative you care for would otherwise need to enter an assisted living facility? Hell, this one has way lower stakes, but what if it means you technically live in your new city, but never see any of it because you need to have a couple of jobs and an hour long commute to afford to be there?
Even an escape plan isn’t going to be feasible for a lot of people unless we’re talking in terms of twenty-year plans.
What my originally poorly articulated comment was about a general attitude that I see thrown around, that if someone is stuck in an awful situation (that’s not just about dating, but genuinely life threatening situation) then they should give up because moving is only an option for people who are privileged. Which I very much think its not true, people are able to escape awful situations, be it a queer kid in the middle of a conservative state, a Syrian refuge or someone who was Jimmy Two-Hammers situation. I think its worth considering an escape plan.
I think it’s worth considering one. I tend to see things from the other side, and experience a lot of the comments that you seem to have reacted to as expressing sympathy for people, and being willing to engage with them from a present point of view about things that they can do to improve their lives rather than purely focusing on what might seem an offputtingly unachievable future.
If we’re going to limit this discussion purely to life threatening situations, then sure, advice to leave (coupled with actual assistance, not just anecdotes about refugees) is in order.
” I think its worth considering an escape plan”
My escape plan took quite a bit of time, though. And the other key thing is that I also dated during that time, by finding the non-trashfire people in my area, as well as using my car (which…ownership of a car and the ability to drive is a privilege that not everyone has) to widen my area and also spend a lot of time crashing at friend’s places in Ann Arbor, Detroit, Flint, and elsewhere (although those places weren’t always better than the rural areas).
I also had a family situation that I couldn’t just up and abandon, and I was going to university and working my way through that, which had me working jobs in some pretty toxic environments at times.
Also, I’ve just really got to underline this; absolutely no one said or suggested that anyone should just give up because moving is only an option for the privileged, that’s not even how privilege works, and if you want to use another word than privilege, go ahead, but sometimes the advice to “just move” isn’t practical or pragmatic, and isn’t really helpful in the short or long term.
You’re arguing a point no one has made, because no one is suggesting anyone give up, what’s being suggested is that people, especially ones offering the advice, be aware of the realities of the people they’re talking to.
That wasn’t really what I meant — I meant that compared to history, moving is easier than ever for people on average. I mean, back in the 1800’s, you weren’t going very far from your hometown unless you were really hardcore. Hell, my dirt-poor mom moved to California when she was younger, for 6 months, to see if she could make a better life. This was not in the least possible, in general history terms, about a blink of an eye ago.
I think it depends on what historical scale you’re talking about (and what geographical one), because one of the things I worry about with my younger friends is how restrictive moving is now.
Just to get an apartment you have to pull first, last, security deposit, and other fees together and pay a lump sum. I have friends who are working three retail jobs and still not getting 40 hours between all three jobs, there’s no way they’ll ever scrape the money together to get their own place at this rate, never mind pay for school, never mind health insurance when they hit 26, never mind….etc.
It’s a far cry from being able to just hop in your car and drive to NYC and pay cash for an SRO and walk into a wait staff position or a dishwasher position with no problems.
Travel and moving is actually becoming much more restrictive in the last 20 years and I think it’s one of the great divides between the generations. The options that were available when I was younger aren’t there for my friends, not the way they were for me, and certainly not the way they were for people who went through the height of the cultural revolution in America from the 1960’s to the 1980’s and the salad days of the 1990’s.
So at this point I have to drop out of this discussion because I know way less about the specifics of where it’s going than you do. I hadn’t intended the whole thing to go in this direction, and really, I can’t refute anything you’re saying and you seem to be incredibly impassioned about this.
It’s your discussion, but my point was that I agree with you, especially on a historical time frame, but the last generation or two has seen their mobility slashed by economic and social forces and that the mobility you talked about on the long term historical level is no longer true.
Not to mention, unless you have some kind of connection, most apartments require some proof of income, often income that is X times as much as the rent. I could see moving if I had a job already set up, like when grad school was paying for my butt to be there, but just moving back, even to stay with my parents for three years, was quite expensive (I could chose to not work for a week and drive across the country (which would cost a lot and I would lose income) or pay to have my car shipped, which just cost a lot.
“previous generations people were more isolated”? On what freaking planet? I think it is more accurate to say that in previous generations if you did not want to go out and meet people, you were guaranteed isolation, but now, you can meet people online without leaving your house. But people are far more isolated now than they have ever been.
I actualy think the issue now is that maybe people are more likely to express their vulnerability. While as before, if a man felt horrible about being single, he had to suck it up. Now, a man can be open about that feeling.
I also think that you are right in that before women HAD to get married. Now that we have more options, the loser guys women would have settled for before now end up permanently single.
The internet has done a lot to allow access to other people from other countries, towns, states, etc. when back even 35-40 years ago you would have needed to call or send a letter or physically visit. There were classifieds but they were not the same. That is what I meant. Heck, phones were considered a luxury in the 1930’s.
You are right about social shifts have allowed women more choice. Which is on the whole a good thing for everyone. Less miserable people locked in marriages only because of “society” is a good thing.
LW 1 should also make sure friend isn’t hanging out online and commiserating with MRA/incel community. Men who leave say it only made them feel worse and worse about women and angrier and angrier at life. And didn’t help them find happy, meaningful relationships at all.
That whole “single mom stealing money” thing is a red flag that he might be.
Without a doubt. I think one of the draws that this whole angst-filled, self-pitying, universally pessimistic mindset has is that as long as it’s all the rest of the world’s fault, that person doesn’t have to be responsible for their choices or actions.
He doesn’t even have to hang out in MRA forums. Places like 9gag are already great at feeding a man’s self-loathing and contempt for girls. Unfortunately, a lot of internet nerd-spaces are toxic, even when the focus isn’t on dating.
Yep, he’s using the jargon of that world. “Manlet” is another tell.
No, I actually don’t think so. My memory for this sort of thing only goes back 15 years or so, but there were people just like this guy (and the woman who would be his equivalent) then too.
I think the difference is the Internet – before that, people who were by definition isolated didn’t have much opportunity to connect to each other or see their situation mirrored elsewhere.
I’ve noticed it too. I can see shades of that guy in myself, although not nearly to that extreme, and I can’t speak for everyone but my case it has always seemed like I was all but cut off from my peers in early middle school, right before people started getting interested in dating, and people only started talking to me again in late high school, well after most of my age group had the basics of dating figured out, so I have always felt like I kind of missed some important milestone in my social development.
Friend Indeed: I’m a single mother and I have several single mother friends. We’ve discussed this a number of times and we all agree: We do NOT want someone to support us. What we do expect from our SO’s (besides being a decent and respectful partner) is not being wealthy, but that they can support themselves. Both financially and practically. As long as they cover what they cost in food and utilities when they’re at our place and don’t demand that we cook, clean and wash for them, that’s enough.
Most of us are NOT looking for another dad for our kids, usually the kids already have a father. It would be nice if our children and SO’s can be friends, but we are satisfied with “getting along” or “co-existing”.
Who’s Charlie Day? *googles* … *SWOON*
Oh my… *clears throat* If you description of you friend is accurate, according to that google search I would say your friend’s problem is more because of personality/attitude than looks. *fans herself*
Yeah I got to the part about not being attractive but looking like Charlie Day and was like “Are you SURE you meant to say ‘not attractive’?”
*goes to stand in the “Wtf Charlie Day is a perfectly fine looking dude??” – line*
I know several women with huge crushes on Charlie Day, so using him as an example of being unattractive was confusing me too.
lol, yeah, I’ve had a massive crush on Charlie Day since Pacific Rim. Every now and again I even try to get through a few episodes of Always Sunny just because of him. (It’s a good show, it’s just that I can only take so much “cringe comedy”)
The first time I saw that movie I tried to pretend I wasn’t excited he was in it. Then his character moved his arm to show off the tattoos and his sexiness killed me.
Glad it isn’t just me. I like individual episodes, but when I try to marathon it, I feel like I get an really unhealthy view of humanity, and it is just too depressing.
Yeah, I learned back when I tried to watch Will and Grace that I just can’t marathon shows about terrible people.
I remember trying to explain this to my stepbrother’s girl, along with an explanation of what I liked about Brooklyn Nine Nine (among other things, that all the characters actually like each other and treat each other well), and she just laughed and said oh, I like unrealistic things without real conflict where everyone is just sweet and happy, like Andy Griffith or something (not her exact words or the exact comparison, just the general gist). And like…no, man, have you met me? I am *mean.*
But I just…hit a threshold, dangit.
I saw and really liked Pacific Rim, but I didn’t recognize his name until you mentioned the movie. I personally don’t swoon for him, but I agree he’s nice eye candy. From the LW’s description of his friend, I expected Charlie Day to look like Chum Lee or Steve Buscemi.
He’s not ugly, but honestly not great looking. (Charlie Day with a bigger beard) He’s only 5’6″ (I’m 5’8″ and my height has never been an issue, but he insists “no woman wants a manlet”)
I’m just gonna point out that I have, on multiple occasions, stated on this very board about how attractive I find Charlie Day. And after Pacific Rim, I’m sure not alone. Shoot, for a self-esteem boost, if the guy is the nerdy sort, have him cosplay Newt at any well-attended con, and there’s a good chance he could get some very positive female attention if he looks all that much like Charlie Day. Not, y’know, phone numbers or anything leading somewhere, probably. But at the very least women responding with excitement when they see him.
But hooooooly frick, does the phrase “no woman wants a manlet” sound like a death knell.
Unfortunately, it’s everything DNL said. There absolutely are women out there who prefer their guys pocket-sized, or at least who don’t consider it a turn-off or a dealbreaker. But what “no woman wants” is a guy that stuck in self-pity. I don’t even like being *friends* with people like that. They become toxic themselves eventually.
^this
I mean imagine meeting a short guy, finding him attractive….and then constantly hearing him whine “Guys like me never have a chance waawaa no woman wants a bf shorter than her” Um, okay then. NOW I don’t. Good thing you know what I want so much better than I do.
And he’s 5’6″, not 4’10”. Even if he’s convinced woman won’t date a shorter guy, most women in the U.S. are shorter than him.
I think that’s just part of his litany of excuses. I see that one like this: women won’t date him because he’s 5’6” instead of 6’5” so ipso facto it’s their fault that he can’t get a date.
I had a boyfriend (now ex thankfully) who would gripe about how women always reject short guys. And it was like “Hello? Am I not a woman who is actively boning you?” He was a dick for other reasons too. But it’s like he was so wrapped up in this victim mentality that he couldn’t just let it go!
Seconding the “Charlie Day is hot stuff” sentiment.
As soon as I read that I was like, “I hope ThatHat is reading this…”
i am nothing if not predictable
i had to look up charlie day (i have seen him before in stuff but i’m bad at knowing actors’ names) and that’s not a guy i would ever consider “not great looking” so if LW’s friend does indeed look like him, LW is not the person his friend should be going to for advice on male attractiveness, imo.
additionally, my experience does not invalidate the experience of others, but i’m 5’6″ and this has never been a problem for me when it comes to attracting women, so height can’t be his sole problem. i have really nice eyes (central heterochromia), or so i hear, and if i were taller, nobody would notice that, so i consider it a plus.
even if you’re appealing and you have no major ugly personality flaws and you can attract women you’re attracted to, this is no guarantee you’re going to be successful at maintaining a relationship. i’m a decent person and i’ve still gotten my heart broken a few times. that doesn’t mean you’re unlovable, it just means that the two of you didn’t meet each others’ needs in a way that was working mutually for both people. so, it’s really not in a dude’s best interests to be bitter because anything he might have going for him is negated by his crappy attitude. (this is a different thing than depression, of course)
I think there are a lot of people with depression whose friends and family have no idea because they don’t want to deal with being equated with being just whiny and negative. Even though that’s basically comparing apples to onions. I know this because I have a little bit of it and it flares up every so often and if someone comments on me being more quiet than usual or a little out of it today I usually just say I’m just tired.
LW 1’s Friend sounds like a serious debby downer with a pinch of asshole mixed in (regarding the comment on single moms). Betcha 100% his bandmates are toxic dudebros that told him the shit about single moms being undatable and why.
Dude really needs a personality makeover, which includea better friends (save for the Letterwriter, of course). But if he doesn’t want to change, there aint much you can do.
Friend Indeed,
Your friend’s issues are 100% the result of his personality and even more specifically, his attitude.
First of all he’s already defeated himself by deciding no woman would want him, but by all accounts, he’s a good dude, he just has (a lot) of self defeating behaviors, first in not respecting himself, but then in not respecting women.
The “single mother’s ATM” line…what a dick. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say this is his depression talking, but this is incredibly revealing about how he feels about women. Whether this is coming out of his own bitterness or not, it’s a shitty thing to think and reveals a lot about how he feels and thinks about women, which isn’t great.
Women LOVE Charlie Day…holy cats, if you can’t tell, women LOVE Charlie Day…and your friend is my height, and I don’t look like Charlie Day (I wish I did) and I’m not a “manlet”. Again, he’s just got massive self-defeating behaviors and attitudes, and it’s poisoning his every relation and potential for connecting with women.
His ideas and attitudes about what women want reveal someone who is not only insecure, but who has no idea what women want, and whose poisoned himself against women, which is going to come out in every interaction he has with one.
Fixing his attitudes about himself are one thing, but him kicking his shitty attitudes about women is going to be a major factor in him getting over himself and actually getting somewhere with them.
Lw 1 I think the doctor did a good job explaining what is going on through your buddy’s head. But he only a bit toched about what can you do. I can not emphasize this enough you can’t make anyone behave a certain way no matter how much you wanted to. The only person you can control is yourself. Second you can help your friend if you want to buy you are incapable of fixing him. Only when he actually wants to take all the effort into improving himself would he actually get better.
Here are somethings you can do in the moment though. When he starts complaining about himself, you can always ask “why did you say that?” Or “wow this is my friend you are talking about here. Not cool” or “this is something we already talked about this and I don’t want to hear you insulting yourself”. I’m personally not a fan of ametures using exposure therapy tactics but your buddy can’t ban women as a a topic. He can’t pretend that they don’t exist. That’s half the world population. And ignoring them honestly comes off as a bit sexist
Reading some books buy women and about women (especially first person narratives), could help, too. Maybe even ones about women going through depression or similar problems. Reading is seriously the most underused empathy technique.
FI: Your friend has a ton of serious issues to unpack before he can even think about getting into a relationship with a woman. What if you just took all dating-talk off the table? You don’t have to sit through his whining about being forever alone, and that will redirect your energy into (hopefully) conversations about topics that make both of you happy, or are actionable things he can do to deal with his depression and anxiety.
Yes, going by the letter its not like he’s constantly bringing up the topic, going by this comment its only when LW initiates discussion on it:
“X will often avoid the topic of women and relationships like a plague but whenever we do discuss dating”
So if he avoids the topic the two of them hopefully won’t get into arguments about it. But perhaps his friend actually prefers being single, despite all his complaining? Not everyone is destined for a relationship.
That’s an interesting possibility. If the LW is the one initiating all of these conversations, an easy way around this might be to just stop asking. If that is what’s been happening, the friend might appreciate it if the topic could drop.
I guess I was imagining a situation where the friend generally avoids the topic, but will occasionally bring it up when he’s had a bad day or a few too many drinks, or will go off on a tangent if someone mentions something even slightly related (“Girlfriend and I were thinking about going to that concert next month if you wanted to carpool.” “You’re so lucky you have a girlfriend. I’ll never find one.”) I’ve seen that behavior in guys here, and I’ve seen it in real life in a former friend from a decade ago and a current one (both of them women). The subject can still be avoided by never mentioning anything about anyone’s partner or love life, but it’s a really big ask in a friendship, especially when the person who needs that isn’t capable of verbalizing the request.
LW1: it’s telling that your friend doesn’t just have no girlfriend, he has no female friends. If you can’t even be friends with a woman, how are you going to date one? He needs to quit looking for love and start by looking for “treating women like people who might ever give him time of day,” and then he can go up from there.
And honestly, he doesn’t have to be perfectly over all his shit to do this. Plenty of people are insecure and need the “man I feel like ass, why would anyone ever like me” weasels pep-talked away once in a while. I only say this because I feel like sometimes the Doc’s articles don’t quite emphasize that and it gets a little intimidating, like “well okay I guess I have to do All These Things before I can be allowed to look for a boyfriend/girlfriend because otherwise no one will like me.” It’s just another version of the same trap. You don’t have to be perfect, just trying genuinely.
Insert a giant Ru Paul saying “If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” or If you don’t respect women, how in the hell you gonna get a girlfriend?”
Pretty much the latter. Allow me to upvote that. 😉
As for the former, I actually have a problem with that, because it insinuates that people who are depressed, have low self-esteem, or otherwise don’t like themselves can’t have friends or relationships. That has always bugged me, as someone with all of these problems at various points. But I know that’s not what you meant here.
He doesn’t need to get himself perfectly sorted to try dating, but he does need to get past being generally hostile to women.
Definitely! I entirely agree. Sorry about my digression, haha. Though it seems to me that his mood is more despair than resentment, either is a problem.
Yeah, it’s always bothered me too; especially cause other people might love me for different reasons than I do myself, or I might not LOVE myself but like/respect myself just fine.
I think a better turn of phrase might be “If you don’t *respect* yourself, how can you respect (a key ingredient to love) someone else?” Love is a squishy pants-hearts-soul feeling that seems to depend on a lot of intangible factors, but respect, for yourself and others, can be built, nurtured, and demonstrated.
All this. You can respect yourself as a person even if you don’t like yourself much sometimes, just like you can still respect a person who annoys you or does something dumb sometimes.
Are you daring to suggest Ru Paul isn’t perfect. Shocked and gasps. But sarcasm aside I can see how that sentiment can be upsetting. But I kind of always interpreted Ru Paul’s catch phrase about being queer, being a drag queen, and gay pride. That for so long to be gay was to hate yourself and now on tv we see every type of gay men on stage all loving what they do.
I really appreciate both Alcor and Marty’s perspective on the RuPaul quote. I really like the framing that it’s about respecting/believing in oneself. I think, for me, the heart of the RuPaul quote is, if you don’t believe yourself lovable, it makes it really hard to accept love from other people. There are so many stories on here, where after so much discussion, it boils down to, I don’t believe when other people tell me I am attractive/loved/wanted/desired. That always makes me so sad. Everyone deserves to feel that and believe it. 🙁
Ooo I really like that distinction. “I may not love myself, but I believe I am lovable.” Really like that, thank you!
The fact that he sees “the friendzone” as some kind of penalty zone for insufficiently attractive guys is probably a big part of this. If he can’t see a woman wanting to be his friend as an awesome thing in its own right, he’s not really seeing women as people right now, he’s seeing them sex-n-love dispensers he can’t access and a solution to his misery that’s out of reach. Which is going to be really offputting to a lot of women.
X mentioned that the friend zone is a punishment but he seems incapable of even maintaining a friendship with women. (Granted we don’t know op gender, and while op might be female and the letter could definitely be read as female coded. I’m getting the feeling that if X is so uncomfortable at the mention of women he won’t be able to be friends with one)
Edit: WORSE option. Op is a woman and X keep telling her how he’s just stuck in the friend zone
Oh yes, I meant that it would be offputting to women as friends too, not just for relationships.
I thought this: He’s only 5’6″ (I’m 5’8″ and my height has never been an issue, but he insists “no woman wants a manlet”) meant that OP is a dude? Plus the bit about a gf not introducing him to her other friends, which to me meant that OP wasn’t one?
But yeah, I’ve been the female friend of another X, and I was single at the time and initially interested in X. I got to hear all his tales of how women never liked him and how unfair it was and how he couldn’t get to date someone who was attractive, smart, and nice (he was 1.5 for three himself), and blah blah blah and then at one point I was dumb enough to tell him that I liked him. He pretended he hadn’t heard me (no “sorry, I’m not interested” or anything) and then went on for months using me as his personal therapist. It was the worst friendship I’ve ever been in, and it ended badly. Guys like X often don’t have female friends because most women are smarter/warier than I was, and aren’t willing to deal with that nonsense.
That’s not a friendship, and I’m sorry you went through that. It’s sad that sometimes our feelings/wishes for companionship make us blind to glaring red flags.
I had a short ‘friendship’ with a guy like X, which I stayed much too long because I felt I could help him. I was flattered he’d confide in me and that I could be the voice of all women and guide him on the right path. We were both full of shit, for different reasons.
He eventually announced we were going to become friends with benefits because I obviously subconsciously wanted to cheat with my then long-distance boyfriend, because otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to him.
That was my wake up call, and I’m ashamed it came so late.
It was definitely a learning experience. I’m now much better at immediately putting guys like that on the “acquaintance” list, or ignoring them altogether.
Yeah, there’s a lot of guys who say they want a friend, but really want a 24/7 on-call therapist who doesn’t charge.
I’ve had a few of those too and I would get invested enough into their problems that I wasn’t doing a very good job taking care of my own stuff. Yet at the same time, these people were doing absolutely nothing to try to help themselves. People like that also are very manipulative, although people who are close to them may not see it right away.
What I’ve found that works really well is to pay attention to how you feel right after you’ve spent time with someone. If you feel drained and depressed and generally messed over, then they are plainly and simply not good for you.
You could say he sees us lady folks as the “Pez Dispensors or Sex and Love”, and he’s all out of the Pez (or so he thinks).
OP, I think you need to be more aggressive when it comes to points like this. In fact, better to jsut cut all that off:
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Wow, why would you say that?”
“I don’t want to hear anymore of this.”
I agree he should shut down these comments. Also, Friend Indeed, I urge you not to think of this as “being mean.” It doesn’t sound like these tangents do any good for your buddy’s emotional health. If anything, I suspect he probably spirals downwards worse when he’s been on the subject of women for awhile. It also doesn’t hurt to give him some honest feedback about his behavior. That doesn’t mean cruelty, but bluntly refusing to listen might give him some perspective into the ways that other people are reacting to him as well.
I’m fairly sure LW1 is a guy, and I think LW1 should consider that the reason he considers his friend a “great guy” is that he is also a guy and isn’t on the receiving end of his friend’s bitterness.
The fact that LW1’s girlfriend doesn’t like the friend and doesn’t want to try setting him up sort of confirms it for me, which…
I would just tell LW1 not to let his friend drag him down, because while he might be a “great guy”, hanging out with people with toxic beliefs, especially about women, isn’t going to win him any points in his own relationship and while trying to help his friend is nice, could cause some stress in his own relationship. Especially if he isn’t shutting down his friend’s complaining about women, and especially if said friend does it in from of LW’s girlfriend.
Even if LW doesn’t want to fight or argue with his friend, that doesn’t mean he’s obligated to listen to him run down women all the time, and maybe seeing his friend shut that crap down will help begin to get through to X that it isn’t a winning attitude for him if it’s alienating his guy friends too.
It’s one thing that he’s alienated any potential platonic lady friends, because in his mind he probably just mentally files them with his feelings on women in general, but if a guy starts calling him on his shit, especially the guy who is one of his closest friends and isn’t an ass, than maybe it’ll start getting through.
The LW’s friend is kind of interesting to me in that it doesn’t actually seem to be only women who he’s alienated. There is a certain sort of man who other guys like well enough and who women can’t stand to be around, but this guy doesn’t have any friends besides the LW (who I also assume is a man). I’m not counting the bandmates who “treat him like shit” as friends because it sounds like that might be more a professional relationship…though I wonder what their perspective is on the guy. Given his behavior, it might not be the bandmates who are the jerks in the situation.
I worry a bit that the LW is in an enabling pattern with the friend, and I think that shutting down these comments could benefit both of them. I definitely agree that he should shut down things even harder if they’re in front of his girlfriend, though ideally, I’d suggest he structure the friendship so it doesn’t overlap with his relationship with his girlfriend or his other friendships. Actually, it might be best if he also tried to make sure that his girlfriend wasn’t who he went to with frustration and sadness about his friend. The LW hasn’t mentioned the friendship causing relationship problems, but when you have a problematic friend, keeping them and discussion of them separate from your partner can go a long way toward preventing relationship problems.
Ehhhhhh it’s also possible that Mr. X just stopped trying to be friends with other guys completely because he absorbed so many messages (from his jerkbrain and various bullies) that he’s worthless and nobody really wants him around.
Yes, that’s possible. I think it’s also possible that he’s one of those people who attracts bullies and doesn’t have many people worth befriending around him.
But I’m at least leaving the door open for this relationship with his bandmates having another side to the story. The LW seems to be a reliable reporter of his friend’s actions, but his appraisal of the friend as being a good potential boyfriend to some woman makes me suspect his estimation of his friend’s character is unreliable. I think he should at least spend some time thinking about how his friend treats other people. Obviously, women are a group who he’s suspect around. He’s also not treating the LW very well, though it’s in a way that is typically done unintentionally by a person who doesn’t know what to do with their negative feelings. And…well…his relationships with other men are kind of an open question.
I think it’s possible that the friend is capable of being decent to people who don’t set off his many emotional issues, and that’s something that could be built upon if he wanted to do so. I think it’s also possible that his friend is funny, talented, knowledgeable about music, and fundamentally kind of a jerk. That doesn’t mean the friendship needs to end, but I think it does have different implications about the extent to which the LW should let his friend interact with other people he cares about.
I think a major reason he alienates people is that his attitude drains other peoples’ mental energy. I agree that someone needs to call him on the nonsense because what I got from his letter is that he is just basking in all the sympathy and attention he gets.
Speaking personally, I have absolutely no interest in being friends with people that want to act like that all the time but don’t want to do anything to help themselves. It’s really unhealthy.
Yeah, even LW’s girlfriend isn’t able to be friends with him, and doesn’t want her friends around him. Since he also has trouble with developing male friendships, it might be a more generic issue with people than women, but I tend to doubt it.
As to the “friend zone,” I know a lot of women who will say that a guy “isn’t boyfriend material.” In the context I’ve used it and seen it used, it’s not about the guys in question being unattractive. It’s more, “He’s really cute and smart, and is so funny, but he just isn’t boyfriend material since he etc.
it’s telling that your friend doesn’t just have no girlfriend, he has
no female friends. If you can’t even be friends with a woman, how are
you going to date one?
Also, having no female friends just makes it easier for him to make up completely ridiculous assumptions about what women want and what women Are Like. He doesn’t have anyone in his monkeysphere to disprove that just by existing.
It’s easy to Other a group of people if none of the people in that demographic are in your circle.
So, a question for the folks commenting on LW1: As someone who’s in a situation similar to the LW’s friend, what’s the answer if change or dealing with the depression/anxiety doesn’t seem to be possible? I mean, ideally it would be as simple as meeting a therapist regularly and taking prescribed medication, but even all that doesn’t always work.
I’ve attended therapy once a week (and twice a week every other week) for the past three years, and am on a cocktail of medications for treatment-resistant depression, and pretty much the only positive thing that’s come of it all is that I no longer feel gripped by suicidal impulses as often as I used to. I still hate myself, I still see myself as functionally undateable (33-year old short, fat virgin here), and I can’t see how that will ever change.
Is it inevitable that some of us will never be anything other than duds? What happens if the poison really is incurable? I feel like a lot of the answers here treat it as inevitable that improvement for folks like me and the LW’s friend is possible, if only we put in the work, but is that really the case? And what should we do if we’re putting in the work, but not getting anywhere?
Well right off the bat I’d say maybe consider finding a new therapist. Therapy should have very clear treatment goals and timelines; three years without making any significant progress towards your goals kinda sounds like you and the therapist either haven’t discussed goals, or aren’t a great fit.
I think it also might be a good idea to really start shedding the idea that you cannot possibly date until you are not X. Not fat, not suffering from depression, not “undatable.” I’ve struggled with depression/anxiety my whole life, and am not able to access therapy, so have started embracing the idea that hey, I don’t HAVE to be “free” of those things to date. I just have to have enough of a handle on them to make them *manageable*, and avoid them having too large/negative an impact on others around me.
Embracing the idea that I’m not perfect, and am never going to be perfect, has helped undermine the whole “undatable” thing. Virgins are dateable; fat people are dateable. 33 year olds are dateable. People with depression/anxiety are dateable. There is nothing fundamentally UN-dateable about you, so long as you’re not holding yourself up to this perfect standard.
I’ve also embraced the idea that… well, maybe I AM a dud. Maybe I’m not “undatable,” but there’s some combination of comparability/luck that means I may never end up in a long term relationship or married. I’ve set about building a life that I could enjoy *anyway.* I spent a long time asking myself “what do I want out of life that isn’t tied to romance?”, and started pursuing that. So even if I am a “dud”, I’m a happy dud! It’s given me projects, goals, and focus, and has helped ease some of the anxiety by giving me some sense of control (“I can’t make others want to date me, but I CAN write a kick-ass novel!” “I can’t make others date me, but I CAN get a dog!”) That, ironically, has helped ease off the anxiety around the whole “undatable” thing, which has made me more pleasant to be around.
Maybe what has worked for me will work for you; EMBRACE the negatives! Yep I’m ugly. Yep I’m anxious/depressed. Yep I might be alone forever. But oh well, I’m going to do what I want ANYWAY. I maybe can’t change those things; I’m going to learn how to enjoy life regardless. Find strength in your flaws; find contentment in your certainty. Find joy in the areas you’ve never explored.
“I’ve also embraced the idea that… well, maybe I AM a dud. Maybe I’m not “undatable,” but there’s some combination of comparability/luck that means I may never end up in a long term relationship or married. I’ve set about building a life that I could enjoy *anyway.* I spent a long time asking myself “what do I want out of life that isn’t tied to romance?”, and started pursuing that. So even if I am a “dud”, I’m a happy dud! It’s given me projects, goals, and focus, and has helped ease some of the anxiety by giving me some sense of control (“I can’t make others want to date me, but I CAN write a kick-ass novel!” “I can’t make others date me, but I CAN get a dog!”)”
CO-SIGNED. I’m 35, single and female. Most guys my age are already paired up. I’ve set about leading the kind of life I want to lead and dwelling on the positives (my job is kind of important, I have a niece who holds my heart and I make an effort to be in her life as much as possible, I’m involved in my community). And where there’s life, there’s hope. I could meet someone in ten years, fifteen years, twenty years. Maybe I won’t get to settle down and raise a family with someone, but I might get to spend my old age with someone.
I’m sorry that you’re dealing with treatment-resistant depression. Alcor touches on this below, but I want to emphasize: you don’t have to be able to solve everything you’re dealing with to be allowed to live your lives, make connections and date. If you’re doing what you can to keep the depression managed, then maybe it’s time to start focusing on how you can make your life better on top of that.
If you want to date, you’re probably going to have to accept that you’re going to have to try without having that belief that you’re dateable. Recognize that depression and self-hatred are making it impossible for you to evaluate yourself accurately, and decide to go ahead and work towards it anyway.
People with low self-esteem date and can be good partners! (as can people who are short/fat/virgins) But it’s easy for self-esteem to take over and hurt other people or deny their agency and opinions. So remind yourself that other people can think differently from you, that you don’t get to decide what they think for them, and leave it up to them to decide if they’re interested in you or not rather than assuming. You might not believe that anyone could want to date you, but you can still give them a chance to decide for themselves.
Work on self-presentation, even if you believe you’re unattractive, you can show what you’ve got in the best light. DNL has many articles about grooming and personal style you can look at. Work on having interesting things going on in your life. Work on your social skills – if your social circle is lacking, trying to make more friends will help you practice those skills, give you increased social support and just generally improve your life (and all those things can help you be a better partner, too). If you don’t have female friends or aren’t comfortable talking with women, work on that by building platonic relationships with women, including women you’re not attracted to. Work on being kind and friendly and showing interest in other people.
You know that depression lies. Act on that knowledge even if you can’t believe it.
ETA: And I know this is a lot to do while dealing with depression. But you don’t have to do everything, and you don’t have to do everything perfectly! Whatever you can do will help advance you towards your goals, even if you have to take it slow.
I’m sorry to here that and I want you to know that you are very strong for keeping up fighting even when it seems impossible. The poison may be incureable but you are also strong fro fighitning it.
If you are in what’s what sounds like intensive therapy for a long while it’s worth talking with your therapist about what can you work to improve yourself and that you are self sustainable. It might also be worth looking for a new therapist If it’s something you feel like you can do mentally and financially. But please don’t take these suggestions as me saying to quit therapy or medication, they are your sword and shield and it would be stupid to drop them in the middle of battle.
I’m going to also suggest looking into a sex surrogate. They are different from regular prostitution as they help their clients prepare mentally for sex, talk them through any anxiety, guide them during sex, and model the skills for a healthy break up. I don’t see a person being less of a man for needing to pay for sex. Not everyone can run a marathon all by themselves, and some people are at a great physical disadvantage. So they get a trainer, or a physical therapist and they build up their strength and grow stronger.
And finally. There is no guarantee that any of use will ever have a partner. The only guarantee we have is that at one point we will die and probably poop our pants in the process. As such make sure that you are enjoying life regardless if you have a partner or not. And I know it’s easier said than done. But it’s really the best we can do.
I’m going to throw that “well if you don’t love yourself…” bullshit on the floor and stomp on it. You have a special circumstance, and let me tell you, it will not stop you.
If you are truly trying, people will notice you are. Trust me, even small efforts pay off. Let me be the first to tell you, you *can* have a relationship while being mentally ill. You *can* have others love you if sometimes you fucking hate yourself and want to kill yourself. You *can* have a life you want. You’re sick, and it sucks big sweaty donkey balls, but that has never stopped humanity before. People with illnesses and disabilities have climbed mountains, gotten married, won academic prizes, raised children, fought crime, been great leaders, made friends happy, and generally done whatever the hell they wanted with the situation they were given.
Life has dealt you a shit hand of cards, and trust me, I understand. Sometimes you *can’t* go climb a mountain or bring yourself to ask that girl out. Sometimes you have to lie in bed and hope things pass quickly. Sometimes you call your friend at 3 AM to talk you out of jumping out your window with a noose around your neck. But if you *try*, if you pick yourself up day after day, someday, *you will have a life you like.* It may not be what you imagined, but it will be something, and then you will look back and be like “whoa, hell, I got somewhere. Awesome!”
I know it probably sounds like a generic pep-talk. But if I can make it through MIT while wanting to hang myself from my dorm rafters, you can do what you’re trying to do. And though I hate myself sometimes, and though I want to die, or I want to run away and live int he woods, or just can’t bring myself to get out of bed, I have friend, and a job, and a lover who cares, and I bought a house recently, and I have kept up on my car payments and bills, and I live by the fucking beach in a city I love. HOLY SHIT.
If you need a new therapist, which you might if all you’ve gotten is ‘well I don’t want to die today,’ get a friend to help you. Hell, have them dial the number and hold the phone to your ear. It’s not weakness to say “all I can do today is X.” Do X, and be done with it, and then care for yourself. But sometimes X will be “set up a date,” and someday you will find someone who says, “yeah, you have demons, but everyone does, and I’m okay with this.”
Hang in there. So many people with so many demons and problems and bullshit have had lives they find acceptable. You can too. Just keep walking.
Does your therapist give you “assignments” (not the writing kind) to do outside of therapy? As someone who also has depression/anxiety, and for whom meds take off the edge but the depression is still there, the biggest thing for me was changing *what I was doing* in my life outside of therapy, not just processing my problems – though there is a lot that can happen in therapy that helps, too. But it doesn’t help with all psychiatrists. Some are just bad fits, either because of personality, gender, age, or technique. I was once given a man about my dad’s age for a therapist, and when I told him I didn’t really feel comfortable telling him stuff, his response was to “tell him when I was uncomfortable”. Uh, what?. But for me, social activity was a huge part of changing my behavior – when I was around people, it was easier to fake feeling normal, which led to…feeling more normal.
Do you feel like you’re getting something out of your sessions? It might be time to try someone else or to try switching up medications or to try alternative therapies and more lifestyle changes (my first therapist always told me that exercise is as effective as antidepressants but that was ten years ago so I’m not sure if the science still backs that). Depression isn’t something that will necessarily be fixed. I’ve had on and off depression and anxiety for over ten years now. It never goes away but finding the right therapist and avoiding triggering behaviors and working through troubling though patterns helps a lot.
I’ve been with my husband most of the time I’ve been depressed. I have many friends with mental health issues who are in happy relationships. It can make relationships more complicated but there are many people who would be happy to be able to date someone who gets what is other to have mental health issues.
Excercise is a tricky thing with depression. When I’m doing something I like, such as playing volleyball, it helps my mood a ton. But when I’m depressed, getting motivated to do it is…often impossible. And no matter how much the logicky part of my brain knows it will make me feel better, the jerk part of it says, “fuck that noise”.
As a couple of other people mentioned, it could be that the therapist or the medication isn’t right for you. You’re in a really rough situation, and I’m glad you aren’t feeling suicidal as often, but I really hope you can find some genuine happiness as well. As other people have mentioned, depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem aren’t automatically dealbreakers, but they do make finding a partner (and having a healthy relationship once you do find someone) tougher.
In addition to exercise, which someone mentioned below, have you tried being around animals, or volunteering? Do you have any other outlets for your depression, anxiety, and other emotions, like art, music, poetry, journaling?
Being short, fat, and a virgin don’t make you undateable, though like your depression and anxiety, they do limit your dating pool. Can you focus on any aspects of yourself that you do like? Just from your post, you seem to be very eloquent and intelligent. You clearly have some empathy for LW’s Forever Alone friend, though I don’t know if you can extend that to people who aren’t like you as well. If you can, that’s definitely positive! 🙂 I’m not going to give you that “Lid for every pot” BS, but I do hope you can be happy, and find people to share happiness with. 🙂
“In addition to exercise, which someone mentioned below, have you tried being around animals, or volunteering? Do you have any other outlets for your depression, anxiety, and other emotions, like art, music, poetry, journaling?”
Nominally, yes — I’m a bit of a hobbyist electronic musician. Problem is, my day job is being a PhD student in a very demanding field (and at a department that technically no longer exists, within a college that’s broke, at a Big-Ten university that you wouldn’t expect to have these problems), so my day-to-day life is pretty much a ceaseless torrent of stress and employment insecurity.
It’s REALLY hard to summon up the energy, time, or motivation for creative work, particularly when it risks taking me away from what I’m supposed to be doing (research, teaching, service, looking for work for the next semester since I’m contingent faculty without a contract, etc. etc.).
Same goes for volunteering. I’m not opposed to it, just not sure where on earth I’d fit it in. I currently teach two classes a semester, plus work an additional part-time job on the side to pay rent, plus occasionally take freelancing gigs for extra discretionary income, plus I’m supposed to be writing a dissertation, plus I’m also volunteering as an editor for an academic journal in my field. I pretty much work seven days a week.
It’s possible right now isn’t the time to try dating, and that’s okay. Sometimes other things take precedence. Maybe you could take this time to practice some skills knowing that you don’t have to worry about actually putting them into dating practice. Things like making small talk, maybe learning how to dress yourself in a flattering way etc. And also maybe thinking about seeking out a new therapist. It might actually be great, to just not worry about the dating side and just work on the self improvement side. Low pressure, at your own pace.
I guess I’m partly also frustrated because I feel like, at 33, I’m quickly reaching a point of no return for dating, especially if I want to start a family. And I also know that my work situation isn’t likely to change anytime soon, so I’m kind of putting the rest of my life on indefinite hold until I can get more stable work. In my darker moments, this also fuels my anxiety that I made a terrible, irreversible life choice by going into academia for a career, and that I’ve effectively sacrificed having a family and a happy partnered life for the sake of a mythical tenure-track appointment that may very well never materialize. I honestly wish I could hit the “restart” button on my life and do things over again.
Well part of that working on yourself and hopefully finding a better therapist will be coming to terms with the notion that none of what you wrote in this post is true. You are not approaching a point of no return for dating. I know couples who married in their 40s and had their first kids then. I know couples who married unhappily and found their true love in their 60s. The fact is, 33 and where you are right now is actually very normal. It’s the new normal in fact.
And I just said what I said because you offered up a litany of excuses why you simply had no time to work on dating. I was trying to work with you and how you were feeling, but honestly, if you actually make it a priority and don’t continue to make excuses, people with the busiest of schedules can make time (I mean, you post here, in the time it takes for you to post here you could have messaged people on online dating services).
I honestly think ultimately the biggest hurdle for you is your own outlook. YOU hold yourself back. YOU determine that you have little time left to do all the things. YOU have decided that you simply have no time with how your schedule is right now. And let’s be honest here, ultimately what you really want? It’s for someone to come along and fit perfectly into your life and for you not to have to make any changes at all. You are seeking that rom-com romance, you are seeking ease. You don’t really want to put in the work. And that’s not me judging or condemning. It’s a heck of a lot of work. And when you are already dealing with depression and anxiety it can feel impossible. The last thing you want to do. I myself took many breaks from dating because I just could not bear the thought of yet more sending out of resumes. I’m already an actor and an author, I am constantly pitching myself and being rejected. The thought of doing it for romance too?? Last thing I wanted to do.
But ultimately I had to make a decision that I was going to put in the same kind of effort into dating that I did into my career. I hired a matchmaker even (ended up meeting someone outside of that, but I still did it). You have to make that choice. It’s hard. It takes time. It doesn’t feel great. And you have to decide for yourself if it’s worth it. My feeling was reading your last post that dating right now wasn’t worth it for you, so what could we do in the meantime to prep you for when it was again. Now you’re telling me it’s all you want. You have to choose. And maybe make a few sacrifices. And embrace the fact that it’s work.
I mean, you post here, in the time it takes for you to post here you could have messaged people on online dating services
I’m not convinced anybody’s jerkbrain needs that parenthetical about their leisure activities.
Well maybe not the jerkbrain, but the rest of him probably does. Look if someone comes to me with a long list of how they have absolutely no time to devote to something they claim they really really want, then I am going to point out that there is time if you make time and that, for example, sacrificing certain parts of interacting online might be a way to do it.
I appreciate that someone might not like to hear what I’m saying, but as someone who also has a jerk brain that sometimes requires some tough love, I stand by my sentiment. I also noted that there was absolutely nothing wrong with NOT pursuing this at the moment. I told my own story of how I just stopped for a while because the idea of doing it is exhausting. I’m not pushing anyone to give up their hobbies or change in any way unless they really want to. And since he didn’t like my response about what he could do instead of focusing on dating, I attempted to answer what he could do TO focus on dating.
Sacrifice is involved. He’s not going to get some rom-com woman showing up and totally available with his schedule and with him not putting in the effort. He’s just not. So he has to decide: does he want to rearrange his current life a little bit to put some proactive effort into dating, or is it just too much right now and time more to focus on his job, his studies and himself. I honestly think he should choose the latter, but that option seemed very distasteful to him.
“Sacrifice is involved. They’re not going to get some rom-com partner showing up and totally available with their schedule and with them not putting in the effort. They’re just not. So they have to decide: do they want to rearrange their current life a little bit to put some proactive effort into dating, or is it just too much right now and time more to focus on their job, studies and oneself. I honestly think they should choose the latter, but that option seemed very distasteful to them.”
Not distasteful, just frustrating. Focusing on my job, my studies, and myself is what I’ve already been doing all this time, and it hasn’t done much of anything for me. It feels like the goalposts are constantly shifting away from me.
I get through multiple years of grad school, and it’s even harder to find stable employment than it was before I started. I work on my studies, but then the university decides to dissolve my department, cancel funding for the department’s graduate students, and deny us access to university resources, making it hard to continue doing research. I focus on my job, but then I find that contracts will probably not be renewed across the entire college for grad students out of funding, and I’m suddenly scrambling alongside all my colleagues to find some source of income to keep the lights on — and most of them have better qualifications and personal skills than I do. I focus on myself, but the anti-depressants that I’m prescribed cease to have an effect after a while, prompting my psychiatrist to keep moving me to increasingly aggressive drug cocktails with side-effects (like constant drowsiness on my current combo) that make it hard to function in daily life. Therapy helps, to an extent, but it can only do so much, and I often leave both individual and group sessions feeling worse than when I walked in. And my options for switching therapists are limited since I don’t have health insurance.
It feels like I’m never going to get anywhere focusing on improving my life, since everything I try only seems to make things worse. And I know quite well that someone in my position has no business dating, but that knowledge is frustrating, as well — it’s yet another area of my life that I can’t make progress towards. I feel trapped with no way out, and no real way to improve things. I could just quit the university, abandon my degree progress, and try to find work elsewhere, but I barely have any savings and there isn’t much of an outside economy to speak of in the small college town where I currently live. I feel like I’m damned no matter what I do — in terms of life, dating, or whatever. And all the while I just keep getting older, and my dreams seem to slip further and further away from me.
personally i found that magic mushrooms and meditation helped me more than any peercription drug, they’re non-habit forming.
Glad to hear that those work for you, but I don’t think I could do the same. I occasionally get jobs that require me to pass a drug test, and to have a clean, drug-free history. Not sure if mushrooms would affect that, but I can’t afford to take the risk.
fair, although meditation is still a good idea on it’s own
One thing I believe is important in regards to prolonged depression and other more serious situations is to unpack everthing that can be gotten rid of.
Anything that is superfluous to worry about needs to go, because you already have so much on your plate. It may differ from person to person, but one thing I believe is:
disregard most concepts of normality, especially things generally considered as standard milestones in life etc, as abject nonsense… because it is… and if one can learn to see it, there’s a whole lot less to worry about.
You cannot be behind a curve if you don’t even buy into such an idea. You also don’t feel inferor, nor look down on other people.
One has to decide, that hey, I may never find a good relationship. I may be scrubbing bathroom floors when I’m 60 to get but I can take it, and still fill my life with value, even if things aren’t ideal… That’s how tough I am! At the same time as you accept that life is chaotic, and every good thing could still happen also.
Ideally, what happens is that the depression diminishes. You become unfettered, boundless. You can be a tourist in your own city, be spontanous, mingle with people and go places you never saw before. Try out things on a whim without any particular plan. Do some travelling perhaps.
If life changes, one can perhaps set up goals again, but sometime later.. Meanwhile, being able to feel free is not bad at all. There are people who experience a great time past depression, and I think it is something like that.
I don’t know if this was helpful, but I do hope your way through.
Best of luck.
Oh, Friend Indeed, I can’t say I agree with you that your friend could make some woman very happy. He’s got a lot of negative views about women that he’ll need to overcome before he’ll even be an okay one, and it’s not clear that he brings much to the table besides being funny. I think it’s pretty telling that your girlfriend doesn’t like him and isn’t willing to introduce him to any of her friends. Why doesn’t she like him, by the way? Has she gotten stuck listening to his dating rants, or are there other qualities that she dislikes? If there are, I think it’s good to be honest with yourself about what those are. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had multiple areas of his life where he rubbed people the wrong way, rather than just struggling with dating. None of that means you have to stop being his friend. It just means having your eyes open to your friend’s positive and negative traits.
Beyond that, I think all you can do is not indulge his jerk brain when he starts ranting about women, encourage him to consider therapy, and point out when other people in his life are treating him badly. You can be his friend through this, but if he actually wants to change (and despite his unhappiness, it’s not clear to me if he does), he’ll need to get much of this started himself.
I’m curious why LW’s girlfriend doesn’t like “Forever Alone,” too. Particularly since she doesn’t want him anywhere near her friends, it sounds like more than a minor personality conflict.
I don’t know. I feel like society does a fine job showing alternative narratives to “only Hot Sexy Men ™ get women.” There’s a reason the “golddigger with rich troll” meme/trope is so popular. The problem, I feel, isn’t that society isn’t showing that narrative, examples are everywhere. The problem is the meaning we attach to that narrative. See a gorgeous person with a less attractive one, and way too many people automatically start wondering, why? and speculating about the relative richness of one to the other.
Or, to put it another way, yes society shoulders a huge part of this problem, but it’s guys like the sad friend, and his bandmates, who perpetuate that problem within society. So while I may feel sympathy for the general toxic messages men (and women) receive from society, I think it does people like his sad friend a disservice not to be the “bigger clue-by-four” in saying, “Dude, that’s some toxic bullshit you’re spewing about women right now. Fix that first, because it’s a big stink that is not appealing to women.”
Yeah, there are waaaaaay more “not super attractive and often nerdy dude gets hot chick” movies out there than “fat/ugly/plain lady gets hot stud”, in my experience. I found that super disheartening – as a teen, my thought was, “well, if even the unattractive guys are with the attractive women, who’s left for me?”
Yep yep. It’s never “Handsome and the Hag”, unless the joke is on Handsome and rests on Hag’s haggishness. BOY IT’S ALMOST LIKE STORIES ABOUT NERDY MEN WHO WIN HOT CHICKS THROUGH THEIR EPIC DEEDS ARE WISH FULFILLMENT OR SOMETHING
Way late reply, but I had a conversation about this with a colleague a few months ago, and then again with my brother a few days ago. A plain woman getting the guy has occurred in….The Truth About Cats and Dogs and in Dirty Dancing. I cannot count how many movies have a fat and/or ugly man land a hot woman. I was just watching fucking LOVE on Netflix, I’d forgotten how bad it was, but the lead male actor is straiht up unattractive, not plain, straight unattractive and the female league is hot as hell.
And that is assuming you consider Janeane Garofalo and Jennifer Grey “plain” (respectively). Nothing against Uma Thurman, but I always found Garofalo utterly adorable in “Cats & Dogs” personally.
The other way around, of course, is exactly how you said. Heck, just see all of the female leads in Adam Sandler/Kevin James movies for an easy comparison. The latter especially is hardly ever paired with a woman who’s, heaven forbid, a size 6.
I don’t think that’s really relevant to the issue I was talking about. Even if he believes only Hot Sexy Men(TM) get women, and he believes it because he hasn’t seen other narratives, if he doesn’t value women who he doesn’t get to date or have sex with – which his self-pitying comment that “guys like him belong in the Friendzone” combined with a lack of female friends, makes me suspect is the case, because it sounds like he thinks the Friendzone is a sad thing to happen to men – he is viewing women as sex-n-romance dispensers rather than as whole people whose presence might enrich his life in ways unrelated to sex and romance.
ETA: It’s possible that his comment was just being sad that he doesn’t believe any woman would ever date him but that he does value friendships with women and we’re just not seeing any of that, but from the overall description of this guy, I think it very unlikely.
Friend indeed, a lot of things have been said below much better than I could have said them, so I just want to insist on one thing the doc said: your friend must ditch his asshole friends. He might not be able to do it without therapy.
There’s a pattern where it sounds like you might be the only person of his social circle to not treat him like shit.
If he keeps being around people who treat him like a loser, and who spout the kind of nonsense he’s using as excuses to justify that he is indeed a loser, trying to grow self-respect and a healthy world-view is like trying to climb a ladder while people above are stomping at your head.
He sounds already pretty isolated, so I can imagine that leaving his band is a terrifying thing to contemplate, but I don’t see any other solution (except for therapy, therapy is needed here).
Holy shit. LW1 reminds me of what I was (and still am) like. Despite now having a girlfriend, I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that I have something to offer in a relationship besides a baseline “I’m nice.”
Advice to X: stop trying to think of what you might have to offer, if you’re anything like me. I know that’s counter intuitive, but what’s helped me is leaving it aside, thinking “If my girlfriend sees something in me, who am I to tell her she’s wrong?” Maybe it’s not the best approach, but it’s one that stops me from agonizing over “you have nothing to offer, why the hell would she be with you?”
I can get behind that. I’m used to criticizing myself, so asking myself “what do I have to offer?” can easily just make me feel worse, because I can always think of a bunch of ways I may be “sub-par” (mostly things that are within my control, on some level, which just makes me feel worse). Whereas not second-guessing people, and respecting their positive assessment of me…that seems very realistic and sensible.
Another piece of advice to X: consider that serial killers, possibly the worst of our society, have been able to find significant others. If a woman can find it in her heart to love someone like that, is there not *someone* in this world who can love you for you, someone who’ll be happy to see you at the end of a long day and snuggle up with you on the couch? Someone who’s with you because they find you funny, intelligent, sexy? Someone who will bond with you over your mutual love of Game of Thrones?
Damn. I want to rewatch Bastard Bowl now.
What the fuck? No, women do not “find it in their hearts” to love serial killers. People who have emotional problems sometimes seek out frightening or abusive partners. That’s not a good thing. That’s not something a guy like the first LW’s friend should emulate. And it only leads down all sorts of terrible paths of complaining that serial killers sometimes find partners but decent guys like them can’t, or assuming that since they’ve never actually killed anyone, the (inevitably physically attractive) woman they desire should like them back. This is not the way to combat unhealthy attitudes about dating. Guys need to aim higher than “better than a serial killer.”
Not to mention the can o’ worms that is the psychology behind manipulation, charisma (from the immortal Into the Woods – ‘Nice is different than GOOD’) and coercion that entails an abusive relationship.
I just… WHAT??? What the hell kind of thought is ‘IF SERIAL KILLERS CAN GET A WOMAN SO CAN YOU’ ?? That has to be the most bizarre comment I’ve seen this week.
… dude, what? If a woman can find it in her heart….serial killer….. I’m just going to repeat myself here, DUDE, WHUT.
Good news kids, if SERIAL KILLERS can get women to bang them SO CAN YOU!!
Might want to rethink that slogan.
Ummmm….
This might have sounded better in your head.
As an extreme “Even the worst humans can find someone to date” example it’s…thought-provoking, but maybe not in the way you think. Serial killers are often highly charismatic and sociopaths can mimic human emotions as it benefits them, but OMG, you did not think this through. Also, women don’t just “find it in their hearts” do love serial killers despite their issues, if they are with a serial killer they don’t know it and the killer is good at hiding his activities.
Stop watching DEXTER or whatever gave you this idea…unless you’re thinking of women who form emotional bonds with people on death row and the like, but that’s a whole different pathology and not exactly helpful to hopeful singles, yeah?
FYI: Upvoting yourself is just a bad look since we can all see that you did it. It’s just one of those things just not done.
As someone who shares a lot of X’s insecurities from LW1, there might also be a bit of the “I don’t want to join any club that would have me as a member” going on in his head. When you hate yourself, it’s incredibly difficult to understand why anyone would like you.
Definitely. I’ve sometimes referred to myself as “the Groucho Marx of Dating” for that reason. 😉
FI/LW1: Reading your letter was very interesting for me. As someone who is in a similar boat to “Mr. X” I can easily imagine some of my own friends writing something similar about me, especially when I was 26. I tried not to bring up my own dating woes with all of my friends, but I certainly groused about it to them a lot worse then than I do now. There were a few friends in particular where I sometimes was on the verge of emotional vomit with during depressed fits in my college years. For me it was always a two way street; I was always eager and willing to listen to their problems without judgement too. With male friends I did a lot of complaining, whereas with friends who were women (especially one of my best ones, which is mutually platonic) I would reveal more emotional vulnerability. After a while I realized how cyclical this got, and a few of them like yourself would get exasperated with me at times. I didn’t want to bog them down with my woes anymore, because they were my friends and I cared about stifling them. So these days my love life is sort of a mutually accepted topic to never discuss. I have nothing to say, and they have nothing to ask. Instead I use my blog or other venues to vent when I must. None of them ever went thru as much effort to help me as you do for Mr. X.
I want to say, FI/LW1, that you are being a good friend here. You’re trying to help, not enable, which is a good thing. If you don’t want to hear Mr. X grouse just for your own sanity and he won’t quit, let him know. DNL has some great advice for you. I can relate a little to Mr. X in terms of virginity and having your esteem shattered by bullies when young (for me it was more junior high than high school). With my sense of humor as well as my shift from “quiet” to “blabbermouth” after I become comfortable within a new group or people, I’ve also had people disbelieve that I am really shy, especially around women. I can also relate to Mr. X’s identity issues, obviously. For me it was more in accepting what life was revealing to me more than me becoming something I wanted to become, but who knows how Mr. X got there. Having a bad initial romantic experience may have done a number on him. Sometimes I wonder having my first crush in elementary school “pretend” to like me back on a dare or being teased by some girls later on effected me. I usually dismiss it because I’d imagined if it had effected me, it’d have made me hate women and I absolutely don’t at all.
A lack of any real friends (besides you of course FI/LW1) is a bigger problem. Some of Mr. X’s views on women as you describe are troubling at the least. Thinking women are “gold diggers” is never an appealing trait (especially since if anything, MEN being the ones eager for a “sugar momma” for cash is becoming far more common), nor is thinking “the friendzone” is someplace Jor-El can send someone. He’s absorbed a lot of toxic stuff from either his bandmates or broader society, and he needs to work on that along with therapy to move forward. What I find fascinating about Mr. X is that he has something that is genuinely fascinating, interesting, and appealing to a vast subsection of people – an interest in music that he pursues as a musician within a band! Dude! That’s one of the most cliche “appealing boyfriend stereotypes” out there beyond “sensitive artist”, “beefy athlete”, or “Batman”. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if “virgin musician band member” is the male lead in some romantic fiction somewhere.
And since that mutual love of music is how you befriended Mr. X, that could be how you reach him. That’s a part of his identity that’s GOOD and unifying. Remind him that while a natural aptitude for music is always helpful, it took a lot of practice, determination, and repetition to get good at it. Remind him that much as he has to prepare for a performance with the band, or even alone, dating is similar. He has to practice a bit on the chords, on his presentation. He has to connect with the audience. He has to present an ideal self, or at least keep his insecurities to a minimum so it doesn’t effect his talent. I don’t know what kind of band they are or even if they perform any major gigs, but even small time gigs here and there suggest the courage to face an audience that outnumbers the band 2-3 times at least and offer them something not all of them may like. Performing in a band or alone or with any art isn’t easy. You have to face rejection, people who just don’t get it, etc. to weed through the fans and those who are down with the vibe. If his bandmates are jerks, Mr. X may have formed a codependent bond with them; maybe suggesting he form his own band or at least seek out another band with some more reasonable players will help. And pursuing that is a nice way to meet new people. With some therapy, some reasonable taste in women and shedding some of those toxic views I could quickly imagine him being appealing to many women. An andorkable uncorrupted musician who isn’t an addict in his 20’s? He sounds 50 times more interesting that guys who’ve been laid a hundred times. The pieces are all there, but as DNL said, he has to want it and see it for himself. And not be a jerk to women or have jerky views of them before meeting many.
Jesus Christ, I’m a dork. I read LW2’s and got to
and was like, “okay, so he got divorced on December 6, I guess. That’s an odd way of putting it (and could’ve said ‘the day before Pearl Harbor day’ instead), but whatev…………. oh.”
I got stuck on “divorcee” and assumed the entire letter was written by a woman until he asked for advice for men. So . . . yeah you aren’t alone on getting stuck on small details. 🙂
ME TOO!
Yeah, I did a double-take at both D-Day and him asking for advice after saying he was a recent divorcee, but figured it out quickly.
I did kind of the same thing.
LW1, if your friend ends up dating a woman WITHOUT getting therapy/ finding other non-bullshit friends, he will end up with a woman for whom, “this person is at high risk of becoming completely emotionally dependent upon me,” is not a dealbreaker. That may not be what you want for your friend…
Well, he might want that for his friend since it will reduce the burden on LW1 of FAF being so emotionally dependent on him! I agree that that attitude makes it likely that FAF will not be treated well by the woman in question in those circumstances, though.
That’s the emotional-independence equivalent of credit-card debt. Good therapy won’t leave your friend calling sobbing from a fetal position on the bathroom floor at 2:30 a.m. the way a bad girlfriend tends to.
Single Dad Looking For Help,
I am familiar with your situation and what I’d advise is for you to honour your ambivalence right now.
You are trying to fuck in a way that doesn’t match your desire and that’s a disservice to you, the women involved, and the collective sexuality of our generation.
There is this myth going around that once you’re a grownup you’re supposed to want/be able to go from 0 to 100 in a single date night. But, just like consent, desire is granular. The fact that you desire someone doesn’t mean that you necessarily want to P-in-V-screw them to orgasm tonight.
I like the advice of taking your cock off the menu, but I think replacing it with penetration with different fail-proof appendages is a rudimentary way to go about it. I think it’s better to really, honestly take it slow. Figure out what you really really are dying to do, not just what you are in theory up for, and say it out loud. Assertiveness and vulnerability make for the sexiest combo.
You can kiss and make out on the couch. You can take a bath together but not have sex. You can wash her hair, lick her nipples, smell her feet, whatever you’re into. You don’t have to put your dick in her just cause biology and TV say so.
Be coy if you need to, but be true. I’ve said “I’d like you to stay over so we can sleep together without our shirts off” before. It’s kinda tame if you look at it from a sexually-liberated-go-go-go perspective but it was one of the hottest nights I’ve had. Just tailor your sexual experiences to your true needs and your cock will join the fun for sure.
One thing I noticed from LW1 is he said his friend “insists that “’his taste is unrealistic’.” Also, “His last and only girlfriend was gorgeous, but treated him like shit before dumping him on Valentines Day.” Those combined tell me that he is only willing to date women if they are gorgeous, with they way they treat him considered secondary.
Yup. Noticed that. Ultimately not anything that the LW can do anything about, but that is one of the reasons I’ve leaned toward the more unfavorable interpretations of the friend’s character.
It really reminds me of a few of the posters we’ve had here, who had such specific tastes in women that it’s no wonder they’re still virgins.
Is it too much to ask that my sex partners are gymnasts with an hourglass figure that speak three languages, love videogames and are only interested in sex without commitment? /s
Not necessarily, but you do have to accept that these gymnasts with hourglasses that speak three languages and so on may judge and reject you based on equally shallow criteria. And your options may be limited.
If you choose to restrict your tastes to basically absurd and unrealistic levels, you should be willing to take responsibility if it doesn’t pan out well for you.
Poe’s Law has struck! I was being sarcastic (hence the /s) and teasing some of the ridiculous standards I’ve witnessed in the past.
My bad!
LOL that’s about it, only it seems like their requirements are even more narrow. They have to love the same specific videogames, speak Japanese, French, and German, and geek out about games in exactly the way they geek out with their male friends who are similarly obsessed with those games. Plus, they can’t talk about any of their other interests, including gymnastics. 😉 /s
I’m confused if you meant his lack of other female friends being worrisome? I agree he should also be able to be sociable with other men, but the other factors seemed to be about how he views women.
I meant male friends, but I understand why that seems an odd factor in the list. Sorry for the confusion! I’ve been trying to gauge where the friend falls on the spectrum of “sad, lonely guy who gets annoying about it sometimes” to “guy with some serious issues about women that he needs to work out before he’s a safe friend to women, let alone a boyfriend” to “asshat supreme.”
The group of factors relating specifically to women puts him at least in the second category in my mind. The fact that other men don’t seem to like him and that his fan club consists basically of the LW makes me wonder if he’s pushing toward being in the third one.
He’s probably pretty draining to deal with. He could also have some creepy characteristics the LW neglected to share.
I speculate that the LW may be just a tad co-dependent.
I’m quite sure that he’s draining. Even the LW agrees about that. I would not be surprised if there are some other behaviors that the LW isn’t reporting because he may not see them.
Yeah, I’m curious as to what the LW’s girlfriend is seeing that the LW isn’t, because I bet it’d be illuminating.
It might be a little harsh, but I think the LW should seek out healthier friends because if he/she is as emotionally invested in the friends problems as it looks, then the LW is not doing his/her own health any favors.
That’s a really good point. If LW1 spends a lot of time with FAF, he’s likely to pick up some of those attitudes and such from being around him so much. Plus, as you point out, being around that much negativity isn’t good for LW1’s own emotional health, as well as the health of his relationship with his girlfriend.
That could be, but it seems like he’s returning the favor. He “insists that his tastes are unreasonable” and “the only girlfriend he’s had was gorgeous.”
I can totally understand FI’s friend’s predicament. 37 here – met several good women over the past few years but didn’t know how to be the right man for them. Or they were already swept of their feet by incredibly capable men who knew the correct way to win a girl over and gave the impression that they’ll never let them down.
It’s easy to understand if other guys are winning because they are smarter, better looking, well dressed, possess the swagger, more than just ‘nice’ or as buff as a recently washed Abrams tank. What I’ll never get is how men who turn out to be wife beaters, abusive or revoltingly irresponsible manage to have far better chances. At that point, you’re always going to be asking “What secret do they know that I don’t?”
They know how to pretend and manipulate. Women don’t seek out abusers. Abusers are practiced in the art of hiding their bad qualities until it’s too late. It’s actually part of the power game they are playing.
And even if the guy isn’t actually being manipulative, there are women out there who have trouble seeing the difference between a positive quality and it’s negative manifestation. Why? Because women are human too, are fallible, and imperfect. You see women seek men who are, among other things, confident. Unfortunately at first glance arrogance can come across as confidence. It’s only once the woman gets to know the guy that she starts to realise that the guy is actually self absorbed, maybe even a narcissist. But by that point it gets tricky just ending it because she truly feels something for him.
This notion that women just choose guys who treat them badly and/or beat them are thinking something like, “Hmm . . . nice guy, awesome qualities, cute too . . .but this guy over here would treat me horrible . . . I’ll choose him!” is insanely flawed, terribly offensive to women, and also utterly useless to guys trying to figure this shit out. What guys such as yourself ought to be doing is not asking, “Why do women always choose these assholes?” but rather “What are these assholes doing to hide their bad qualities that women end up dating them?” And then maybe trying to see if you might actually possess the real version of the fake positive qualities these men demonstrate or at the very least work to acquire them. (btw, if you end up being the kind of guy who decides to be an asshole himself since women like assholes, you were never a nice guy to begin with)
That’s what I’ll like to learn! I don’t want to be a wife beater like character; I’m just trying to understand their ability to hide their nasty side. Unfortunately my qualities which women find loathsome – like unpopular hobbies, not being smooth etc – are not easy to hide because I don’t want to have to hide my interests while being smooth is hard to maintain even after research and rehearsal. I need to learn from the bad guys while trying to shorten the admittedly wide gap with female friends’ partners who are very very good.
I think you misunderstood me. I’m not saying you need to hide anything, I’m saying you need to learn the qualities that the guys demonstrate that hide THEIR bad qualities.
Basically I’m trying to tell you you need to learn how to appear more confident, likely, also more flirty, probably a little more charming (smooth is very different from charming, people can be awkward as heck as long as they have a twinkle in their eye). You don’t need to learn how to hide anything because your qualities aren’t bad. Heck, one thing you could start by learning is how to be proud of your hobbies and not call them loathsome. And also not assume all women are the same and would dislike your hobbies. Uh. . . that is with the caveat that your hobbies aren’t ACTUALLY loathsome, like you aren’t into trolling online or getting into fights or whatever.
I am pleased with my interests and maybe loathsome was too strong a term. What may be putting women off is that they find these topics either unpopular (learning about war and military hardware), unfashionable (only a tiny percentage of my friends like old Chinese songs) or too random.
I have have put some of the flirt tactics from DNL and other sites into practice but boy am I miles away from being what they want.
If you’re letting your hobbies drive every aspect of your life and you can’t talk about anything other than the latest Jane’s Report then your hobbies might be part of the issue, but having esoteric hobbies isn’t really a problem, and you’re sort of assuming that women don’t have them as well.
Maybe they don’t have the same ones as you, but there’s plenty of women studying Old English poems, Japanese folklore, the study of beetles, or whatever.
Not every hobby is conducive to light conversation, and the answer to that is to just get better at socialization, not learn how to manipulate people from the “bad guys”.
This idea that “bad guys” and abusers have some secret to controlling women is gross enough, but wanting to emulate them in order to do better with women…you maybe want to rethink your approach and words.
Wait, no, don’t get on him about that, that was my suggestion. I was suggesting not that he learn how to manipulate women, but how to take what these men do and make it positive. Basically what I was saying is: women like confidence, so be confident. The bad boy version is arrogance, don’t do that.
I didn’t mean to suggest he manipulate, and I don’t think he thought I was saying that either. I meant to suggest that these guys on the surface seem to be doing good things (when they actually are not), and it is those seeming good things that women like and since that is the case he ought to ACTUALLY do the good things they only APPEAR to be doing.
I realise it’s a complicated concept I’m trying to articulate on a blog post.
” but how to take what these men do and make it positive”
I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure he understands what it is that those people do right. And my point still kinda stands as it was mostly about how he views his hobbies and about them being a factor in turning off women.
There’s plenty of guys who have esoteric and exotic interests and many of them do just fine with women.
I also am kinda uncomfortable using “wife beater types” and people with “nasty habits” as the examples.
Maybe if it was something not quite as extreme as a “wife beater type” and while I get what you’re talking about I really worry about people’s ability to follow that logic line, especially when they’re already at a place that says “abusive men do well with women, what’s their secret?”
Just my take on it, carry on.
Beyond the troubling implications, I also think it’s unlikely that someone with a very different personality will be able to mime the behaviors that abusers use to attract victims.* My suggestion would be for a man in that situation to look to men who are at least a little bit similar to themselves but who also have somewhat more success with dating and romantic relationships.
*I’m going to leave the hopelessly irresponsible guys out, because that strikes me as being far less egregious behavior that might genuinely be coupled with attractive characteristics, or that might not even seem like a huge drawback to certain women looking for certain types of relationships.
Okay well that wasn’t my point, but since no one seems to be able to really be getting my point I realise that it was too complicated for me to effectively explain here and likely therefore was not absorbed by the OP on this thread either, and I think it best after this post we should all just forget about what I was saying.
I don’t want anyone to mimic, and I don’t want anyone to mask. I wanted men who complain about bad boys getting girls to ask themselves actually why. And to answer with the answer “Because these men demonstrate on the surface positive qualities” and then maybe attempt to cultivate those positive qualities that women like.
It was another way of advising men to basically work on those qualities such as confidence and ease of manner.
Anyway, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be clear. So hopefully this will be for the OP and any lurkers: I do not at all advise to pretend, to manipulate, to hide or imitate. Cultivate positive qualities and do it both for yourself and your love life.
I think what’s more likely is that it isn’t inclusive unless someone shares that exact hobby. So you might want to work on how to relate your hobbies to other hobbies. I do that all the time, I can compare writing to exercise for my more athletic buddies and then we can have a really great conversation about willpower and mind over matter and all those struggles even though writing a book and running a marathon can appear like very different hobbies.
Try to include her. Compare what you do to what she does, allow her to then enter the conversation through another means, not just the “I need to know exactly what you are talking about” entrance 🙂 .
A lot of hobbies aren’t going to be popular and draw women to you. Most hobbies won’t scare women away though, unless you can’t or won’t discuss anything else with them.
Agreed. I think this is sort of a geek thing, the idea that your perfect person is the one who loves all the things you love as much as you do. There are some geeky couples like that too. It’s just that it’s not the only, or necessarily the healthiest, model for a relationship.
For whatever it’s worth, Monk of War, my brother-in-law loves learning about war and military transport vehicles. My sister is not remotely interested in either of these things, and it didn’t stop her from marrying him. It’s not really that uncommon of an interest among men. I’d note that you have female friends, and that neither that nor your enjoyment of old Chinese songs has put them off from being friends with you.
Or if men exclude ladies when they try to participate, or throw the board when the ladies win.
Nobody puts up with Todd Krakow, and he’s a billionaire. Because he’s a terrible loser and throws the board.
That’s really not that bad. Are you interested in joining the military or just interested in military history? Lots of people read about wars. I would not, however, consider them a dating topic, but the broader subject of history in general would be another matter.
Jinx! Yeah, I don’t actually think that this is a super off-putting hobby. It’s a very pretty male-oriented interest that isn’t necessarily going to draw new women into a man’s life unless he’s good at generalizing it to an interest in history, but it’s also not going to scare all that many women off.
I don’t think so, either. Of course, how the topic was approached would be an important matter.
It depends on what area you’re in and whether it’s just military history or guns and shooting or what. I know and talk with quite a few women, including former members of the military, who enjoy discussion the history of firearms and some military history.
In more general terms, if it’s about firearms, there’s loads of women who enjoy shooting for sport and hunting.
Women tend to discuss their interest in military and firearms a lot less than men do, though, because it can intimidate a lot of men, and also because it’s not seen as feminine. The flip side of that is there’s women who avoid discussing it because they don’t want to be turned into a fetish for dudes who like guns who shoot guns.
The point of this being that it’s always a bit sketchy to gender interests, although it’s certainly fair to point out that some interests and hobbies can skew towards one gender or the other, but as with everything the secret is to find ways to make it interesting or just realize that a prospective date doesn’t have to share your interests exactly.
Something that I think sometimes gets lost is that there’s also a difference between a hobby and a lifestyle.
Hmm. That’s an interesting point. When I described it as male-oriented, I was thinking about what you might characterize as a skew. I was actually thinking more of what I suspected might be the way of relating to the interest than the subject itself. I kind of got the picture of a manner of geeking about guns that lent itself to learning, exchanging, and arguing about lesser known pieces of data (this admittedly may be because that’s how my brother-in-law geeks about ships and planes). I do think that this tends to skew male, whatever the subject is, primarily because women who attempt to participate in those exchanges sometimes find themselves lectured or condescended to and find other ways to express their interests. I admittedly did not think about fetishization or intimidation, but yeah, I’m sure those things contribute to women being less vocal with men about those hobbies.
All that’s good news for a man with those interests, though, because it leaves open a possibility for either meeting a woman who shares it or who’s open to learning more about it, provided the guy can avoid some of negative behaviors above.
If it’s just a matter of shooting and/or hunting, then that one’s pretty easy, at least in the US. In some areas, including the one I live in now, some experience with both is the norm for women as much as men. In others, I’d say it’s a minority, but a sizable one and one where people respond pretty enthusiastically when they meet someone who thinks it’d be fun to head to the range.
I think you’re definitely right about it skewing towards men, and right about the rest of what you said, but I just sort of want guys to maybe think about how their hobbies overlap with other things (again, someone who is into military history may or may not be into historical firearms and shooting) and also to think that while their main focus might skew towards being dominated or skewed towards men there’s women in those hobbies or adjacent hobbies.
A lot of times when I see men on here complain about the lack of women in their hobbies it’s always either someone looking for women to be into it at the same level of minutiae as them and same intensity or they don’t really think about the adjacent hobbies and interests where there may be higher instances of women involved.
And, of course, you brought up one of the things that keep women from voicing their interests around guys; being lectured to. And even giving the benefit of the doubt that a guy isn’t going to run over a woman who is expressing her love of their hobby or interest, they have to be careful because so many guys have run them over and mansplained their own hobbies and fields of study to them that taking a step back and not trying to impress but looking at how the connection is made might be handy.
A lot of times hobbies that skew towards men seem even more dominated by men because the women have been run out or just don’t say anything for fear of being run over.
I guess there’s no easy answer, but I feel like with a lot of the hobbies it comes down to being open to women in those hobbies, being careful not to run women out of those hobbies, maybe realizing that male-dominated spaces within those hobbies are going to STAY male-dominated because of how a lot of guys act towards women in the clubhouse, and also the need to look at adjacent hobbies.
If a guy loves military history I’d ask “What era?”, and then see what adjacent hobbies compliment those interests. Someone who is fascinated by the Napoleonic Era would do well to remember there’s loads of costuming, literature, and more that women are fascinated by from those years. While not strictly accurate, someone who loves blacksmithing (nerds seem to love swords) would do well to visit a Ren Fest.
I guess my point was getting guys to realize that there’s a lot of potential overlap between hobbies and interests even if it isn’t an exact match. And some things match better than others…someone who is a WWII history buff who runs into a woman who enjoys shooting might invite them out to fire a WWII era rifle, or just shoot in general, and not everything is going to overlap so easily but it’s better than nothing. It’s about finding activities and bridging gaps, imo.
I strongly endorse every bit of this. I think the first hurdle that guys need to get over is realizing that the fact that there aren’t women at the clubhouse doesn’t mean women are repulsed by, or even uninterested in, the topic of the club. The second is figuring out where else those women are hanging out. I think your suggestions are right on track.*
The only thing I’d really add is that an advanced take on this, or one for someone who can only make a couple big events a year, there’s something to be said for giving women’s interests the benefit of the doubt. When someone who’s cute and funny at a party mentions what she does in her spare time, asking what aspect of it she likes best usually goes over well, and might end up revealing a secret history buff behind the costume drama fan or cosplayer. And that leads into yet another level, which usually happens after a woman trusts a man enough (at least as a friend) to mention what she thinks is her uncool interest. If a guy can find a woman who can geek out with him about WWI and who is willing to engage in his specific
*Weird, unrelated tangent: I laughed at your blacksmithing comment in light of the larger discussion about different places people can express their interests, because my dad is into both blacksmithing and knifemaking. I’ve suggested he might want to at least consider his local ren fest, as the gun show scene has been more problematic than usual in the last few months in a way that’s making the making money bit less fun.
Are you saying you want to learn how to manipulate women?
“I’m just trying to understand their ability to hide their nasty side”
Why don’t you get help for your “nasty side” instead of hiding it, because it’ll come out eventually, and the woman will hate you for have misrepresented yourself to her.
What kind of “unpopular hobbies” are you engaging in that are actively “loathsome” to women? You’re not “smooth”? Plenty of men with girlfriends and wives aren’t.
“I need to learn from the bad guys while trying to shorten the admittedly wide gap with female friends’ partners who are very very good.”
Why learn from the “bad guys” when there are “good guys” you could learn from?
What do you think is so bad about yourself that you need to cover it up?
You’re suggesting that you’re a secret abuser of women who wants to learn from other abusers how best to hide it.
You’re belief that you can tell why any given couple are together might bear inspection, because it’s doubtful that you’re really factoring things in correctly and not being blinded by your own issues. You’re also reducing people to one or two elements and assuming they don’t have things or hobbies their partners aren’t wild about.
Instead of learning to hide your nasty side, why not show off good qualities? First up: are you able to be actively interested in women’s hobbies?
Unless you plan to indulge in the same conduct they do, I would say that you need not be concerned with how they do anything. I’ve arrested many abusers and batterers and responded in many other calls concerning abuse where the victim(s) refused to cooperate, for a variety of reasons.
You don’t want to be like them. They’re not good people.
I hate domestic abusers with a passion. What makes me feel horrible about myself is that they got someone to be with at an earlier age while I still haven’t.
I’ll admit I got plenty of baggage to sort through because I’ve missed out on so many great females without getting a starting point, which means I don’t have a positive precedent to build upon.
” What makes me feel horrible about myself is that they got someone to be with at an earlier age while I still haven’t. ”
Jesus…
See also: They beat the shit out of the people they love, but…you know…sure…they also hooked up before you.
BTW, domestic abuse exists within all sorts of relationships, from abuse of the elderly to children to same sex couples and more.
“I’ve missed out on so many great females ”
You can start by not using the term “females”.
Envy can be a difficult thing to struggle with, especially if you’re someone who hasn’t had romantic success. However, you don’t want to become envious of the wrong sorts of people displaying the wrong sorts of traits. Abusive, predatory men are not the dudes whose traits you want. They’re master manipulators, able to hide what they are. They sense vulnerable people, and exploit them. Above all they’re selfish and only care about what they want; they’re users first, then abusers to maintain control. You should not envy these men or their “success”. If anything, men like this indirectly cause you your dating woes, because they provide the reasons for why women have to be more discerning with who their date. Women don’t consider, say, virginity a red flag because they’re cruel, but because it can be interpreted as a “sign of danger” for themselves.
There are only two things to learn from abusers. Firstly it is to how to avoid being like them and thru that an understanding as to what women go thru. The second is that managing to land dates or relationships may not define the worth of someone. An abusive man can sleep with 50 women, he’s still a scum bucket. I know this seems hypocritical coming from me, but intellectually it is something I understand.
There are ways to project a confident, assertive, charismatic self without having to be an abusive jerk hiding his monstrous side until the coast is clear. It’s not easy, and I can’t tell you how because I’m still learning. But it exists. That’s what DNL is trying to provide.
I sort of get it. When I was younger I was in the “women go after jerks” camp too. But I went thru college, went thru some things and above all practiced some basic empathy and realized that women don’t go after jerks. They go after the appealing traits that jerks sometimes are able to project. That doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk to do so, nor should jerks be the men you envy. Envy itself isn’t a great thing in general. I used to be envious of my friends who were more successful in romance. It was only thru realizing what I was doing and actively fighting against it did I resolve this. Occasionally there might be a relapse but if I realize what I am doing I can stop it.
I can relate to feeling like you “missed out”. But the definition of who you are and who you want to be comes in how you handle yourself and plan your goals when things are difficult, not easy. Envy leads to resentment which leads to some bad habits and philosophies which will at best be counter productive.
I want to point out here that the “bad boy/brooding asshole with a heart of gold that shines only for you” is a HUGE staple of romantic fiction aimed at women. It can take a while for a woman to realise that there’s no such thing. Bad boys don’t change their ways, and brooding assholes just lie around and suffer in their direction. I actually think that “alpha fux/beta bux” nonsense is based on a misinterpretation of this phenomenon (women dating jackasses when they’re too young to know better, then wising up and gravitating to men who can adult as they learn).
To add to what you were saying, and I already touched on this, I have a big issue with the neat division of abusers being neatly dropped into the “bad boy/alpha” model when in real life abuse is a lot messier. “Nice” guys are abusive too, it’s one of the ways that so many of them successfully gaslight women, they’re kind, rational men who never the less gaslight the shit out of their partners.
It’d be nice if all abusers could be neatly identified by being alpha jock bros but life doesn’t work that way, and both Monk and Dateless seem to assume abusers all neatly fit into easily identifiable personality patterns. I’ve seen physical abusers who’ve sobbed after striking their partner…yeah, definite manipulation for sure, but these were “sensitive” men who didn’t fit the stereotype of an abusive man.
It’s such a massive misunderstanding and simplification of what’s going on in abuse situations, all to help justify their own lack of success with women, ffs…it gives me a headache even thinking about it.
I don’t recall stating that abusive men only had to be “alpha jock bros”. I was disagreeing with Monk about the types of men he seems to envy. I know that abusive people (not just men) come in all shapes and sizes. Frankly, I think you sometimes have “a massive understanding and simplification” of me.
How much of that fiction is written by men, though? Is this stereotype as common in romance novels written by women? Because a lot of people’s exposure to romance fiction tends to be stuff which isn’t written by women.
“How much of that fiction is written by men, though? ”
Almost none.
“Is this stereotype as common in romance novels written by women?”
Yes.
“Because a lot of people’s exposure to romance fiction tends to be stuff which isn’t written by women.”
I don’t think you know as much about romance fiction as you think you do.
Perhaps I don’t. I was asking honest questions.
Well 50 Shades was written by a woman, and it does play on a lot of women-written bodice-ripper romance tropes handed down through the ages. Romance novels come in every flavor, of course, but there are still plenty (especially historical romances) centered around love-at-first-sexual-assault. 😛
Thank you for mentioning that those aren’t the only flavor, though. I do think people who don’t read romance tend to assume that everything is either 50 Shades of Grey or a stereotypical bodice-ripper. There are a ton of other flavors, some focused on healthy relationships and some with even more worrisome ideas (sweet physics, the werewolf stuff alone…).
I started writing one for fun for NaNo this year– although I am hardly a connoisseur– because it seemed like something I could write pretty fast. Definitely staying far away from the questionable consent issues. That’s not anything I’m interested in. 😛
I feel like some of this problematic trope comes from the idea that a pure, virginal woman simply couldn’t entertain sexual thoughts; once she’s been “soiled” against her will, she is now free to explore sexual desire.
In other words, I feel like the trope actually started as a form of empowerment (giving women an excuse to enjoy sexuality) which may explain its popularity with female authors.
A lot, though not all, of novels in the romance genre are written by women. If anything, novels written by men tend to get shelved with literary fiction or in other genres even if they pretty much follow all romance conventions.
The bad boy redeemed is an unhealthy image. It’s also one that does get propagated by women. One explanation would be that just because someone is a woman doesn’t mean she can’t hold and promote terribly unhealthy ideas about relationships. Another would be that there are a lot of relationships that are fun to fantasize about that wouldn’t be at all fun to be in (would you actually want to date someone who behaved like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl or a tsundere?). My take is that it’s some of both of those things.
“If anything, novels written by men tend to get shelved with literary fiction or in other genres even if they pretty much follow all romance conventions.”
And, sadly, hailed as groundbreaking when a man decides to write what is effectively a romance as well as being stocked as a “Literary” work instead of in the romance genre.
Even worse, when women start breaking into genre fiction (as they have across markets as women make up the majority of book buyers), they unfairly get tagged as doing “romance novels in drag” even if their science fiction or fantasy or horror or crime books contain none of the romance tropes or even a romance. It’s an easy and lazy criticism that often gets lobbed at any woman writing in a genre field, and sometimes even within the literary market.
I have to admit, I feel like women are a little better than men at drawing the lines in terms of “I like this in FICTION, but not in reality”, as a very general rule, that is.
There’s also a lot of daylight between the “bad boy” of romance fiction and out and out abusers, though, which I think gets lost on some observers of the genre. Not to say there’s not plenty of unhealthy relationships within romance fiction.
Also, when it comes to the “bad boy” image, one of the main tropes is that the “boy” will change into a man, whether through or because of the woman’s love or not, the bad traits are usually seen as something to be overcome, where MODG’s and other romance interests who’re somewhat toxic in fiction geared towards men are often the source of lust FOR those traits. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen fiction where the focus is for the MPDG to grow up and come down to earth and become a stable individual ;p
Although that might be an interesting twist, tbh.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl tends to be kind of the opposite of Bad Boy. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl changes the hero for the better by helping him lighten up through her weird, toxic behavior and then leaves the scene so he can go on to pursue other women. The heroine changes the Bad Boy for the better by helping him settle down and then marries him. I sort of wonder if other tropes, like the Tsundere or the Ice Queen, might be more comparable to the Bad Boy. Both of them tend to change throughout a narrative, though I can’t imagine it being fun to go through that arc in real life.
I’m going to agree that women are a little better at draing the lines in terms of, “I like this in FICTION, but not in reality,” but only a very little. To the extent that little exists, I think it’s because of various aspects of rape culture, which make it possible for women who enjoy noncon to see and acknowledge that they’re reading scenes about rape, while men who are interested in fairly similar scenarios don’t put the same label on them. Beyond that, I’d say that there are a lot of people in both groups who mix up what they see portrayed in fiction with what they might want in real life. The population of women who consume romantic fantasies aimed at women and discuss them is a sort of small and self-selected group of romance and fan fic readers, and a good number of them are thoughtful. The population of men who consume romantic fantasies aimed at men and discuss them is basically all men who consume media and sometimes talk about it, because men’s romantic fantasies are in most things unless they’re specifically aimed at other audiences. As such, I think the second group is bound to be less thoughtful. When you look at broadly successful media aimed at women’s fantasies like 50 Shades, you see a lot more problematic stuff. There really are plenty of women who wish they could date Christian Grey.
“The population of women who consume romantic fantasies aimed at women and discuss them is a sort of small and self-selected group of romance and fan fic readers, and a good number of them are thoughtful. The population of men who consume romantic fantasies aimed at men and discuss them is basically all men who consume media and sometimes talk about it, because men’s romantic fantasies are in most things unless they’re specifically aimed at other audiences”
^I think you articulated the divide I was chewing over and trying to come to terms with and WHY there seems to be a divide. When you put it like that it suddenly makes my experiences with different people make a lot more sense in terms of why I’d see a greater percentage of men latching onto romantic archetypes than women…they simply have more fiction and more men consume it since it’s the default of more fiction, certain most of what’s considered literature outside of a few specific authors and books in the western canon.
MPDG has no life of her own. She only exists to make the man shiny. That’s her most attractive feature.
(other than being a Natalie Portman or Zoe Deschanel lookalike, of course)
Thanks for the added commentary on romance novels and literature.
“One explanation would be that just because someone is a woman doesn’t mean she can’t hold and promote terribly unhealthy ideas about relationships.”
Absolutely. Society bombards everyone with various social norms, rules, taboos, etc. It’s almost impossible to avoid it all despite your best interests. I mean, one of my major malfunctions is I don’t fit in with what I think an ideal man should be, even though I know that ideal image is just something foisted on me by society. And by and large, “social rules” were made and enforced by men (particularly men in power). Therefore I’ve never taken it out on women who absorbed the same social rules that I myself have. I mean, that’d be pretty hypocritical.
“would you actually want to date someone who behaved like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl or a tsundere?”
Bad question to ask me at least. I won’t say I’m desperate, but I’m neighbors with desperate. It borrows sugar from me sometimes. I occasionally get its mail. If I was into a woman enough I would be willing to put up with quite a lot. After all, she’d have a basket case with me, so it’d be unfair if I wasn’t flexible myself. Anyway, as you said, Manic Pixies and Tsunderes are stereotypes and happily, most people are more well rounded than that. 😉
“How much of that fiction is written by men, though?”
Most of it.
” Is this stereotype as common in romance novels written by women?”
No.
It’s also worth it to learn from abusers what red flags are, to, y’know, try to avoid being abused. Not that I think you were being remiss, Datelessman, just wanted to point out that just because she’s not hitting you with a frying pan because you burnt dinner doesn’t mean it’s not abuse.
Naturally; abuse comes in many forms and those who are abusive don’t usually display crude stereotypes (although, to paraphrase the late great George Carlin, “While you’re worrying about a quiet one, a loud one will ****ing kill you”). I wasn’t being remiss, I tend to focus more on working on myself than worrying about an abusive or manipulative lover because I know as a man my odds of being involved with one are far lower than for a woman. Which is unfortunate to say the least. Ideally nobody would be at risk because people wouldn’t be abusive to people they supposedly care for, but that’s not the world we live in.
Keeping an eye out for red flags is there, but I (and certainly Mr. X) would likely put better energy into working on our own issues so that we don’t give off those red flags towards people we sought to date.
That said I am aware as someone with esteem issues that I could be a target for someone looking for vulnerable people to manipulate. I’m far more likely to put more stock in someone who says, “You’re a waste of a man,” rather than, “I think you’re cute” so I’m aware that for certain types of people that’s a “signal”. It’s in the back of my mind, I just try to focus on what I do or don’t present and on what the other person is telling me. I’d argue thru sheer life experience I’m more aware of this than I was in high school or college (when I would have been WAY more pliable).
Okay, seriously, dude, fucking STOP. Okay? Stop with “but how come this batterer got himself a girl and I didn’t, poor me”, okay? I know you mean it as “even low-lifes do better than me” but it turns on a dime to “women like low-lifes”.
And what’s this shit of “I don’t have a positive precedent to build on”? Have you never spoken to a woman in person ever, or something? oh wait, no you haven’t, you’ve met plenty – they just didn’t like you in that way. That happens. Deal.
“What makes me feel horrible about myself is that they got someone to be with at an earlier age while I still haven’t. ”
Look, I’m in a similar boat to you (37, single), except I’m female and I think I’m a catch. What helped me psychologically to not beat myself up about it (and improve myself to the point where I am a catch) is this: Don’t want ‘someone’. Don’t treat all women (or men, in my case) like a monolith. Women are all completely different and what is attractive to one is a turn-off to another. If you’re looking for a woman who loves a good steak, for instance, hanging around in vegan restaurants to meet chicks is a waste of your time. You might get a girl, but you won’t get to eat steak with her and you’ll be sad. Relationships don’t cure depression and/or loneliness just because they’re relationships. It’s who you’re with that brings you joy, not just that you have someone, anyone, interested.
So, have standards, and go looking for particular people who meet them. I suspect that the women that are with men that you find to be reprehensible might not overlap on the Venn diagram of the particular kind of woman you are looking for, anyway. Your job is to improve yourself (by whatever measures you deem relevant) to the point where you’d deserve such a woman and then be open to the possibility of meeting her. (And remember, if you think you found her, and she’s not into you, you haven’t really found her yet.) It is way better to be single than be in a miserable relationship with someone you don’t even really like.
Also, refer to women as women, please. Females sounds a bit creepy– like we’re a different species from you. I think Ferengi said ‘Females’ for a reason… because it’s particularly off-putting.
Normally on the infrequent occasions I like someone enough to risk asking them out, is because there was something about that particular one which made her stand out.
I’ve never agreed with friends telling me to lower my standards and try asking out any random regardless of whether I like them or not.
There does come a point where it’s useful to look at your “standards” honestly and think about the sort of person you’re looking for, what qualities you value, what you’re willing to trade (no such thing as the perfect partner), what your deal breakers are, etc.
Attraction might not be an instant thing, which is why talking to people you’re not instantly attracted to is useful, because you can decide how you feel, and after getting to know someone you might well be surprised that there’s attraction there because not all attraction comes from first impressions or purely physical signs.
To be blunt, it’s also worth asking if you’re being realistic, because sometimes it seems like some men ignore women who’d be good fits for them and who they actually like because they don’t meet unrealistic societal standards or aren’t the type of women they’re “supposed” to date.
Maybe it’s not as much about lowering standards and reevaluating, especially if your friends have commented on your standards.
“To be blunt, it’s also worth asking if you’re being realistic, because sometimes it seems like some men ignore women who’d be good fits for them and who they actually like because they don’t meet unrealistic societal standards or aren’t the type of women they’re “supposed” to date.”
Jimmy (or anyone else), would you be willing to elaborate on this? I find this to be very intriguing, especially as I’m not totally clear on what constitutes a “good fit,” relationship-wise. Also, by “women they’re ‘supposed’ to date,” are you referring to the colloquial concept of “leagues,” or to something else?
Kind of curious as to how I’d recognize someone who was a “good fit” if I met him/her.
So, I don’t know if you were around with the whole Meta Knight mess, but when he was telling his story about how he was dating this girl he liked and was attracted to, but then his friends made fun of him for her and were not sufficiently jealous of him, and so he says he stopped being attracted to her, and the relationship ended? That whole thing? Textbook example.
(My hope is she broke it off once she found out what a cruel coward she was dating and burned all bridges.)
Yeah, that’s a great example; he went on at length about how he didn’t think he was attractive, he had few prospects, etc, etc, and then tells a story about a woman who he thought was really attractive, who thought he was attractive, and a couple of guys he was friends with told him he could do better and she wasn’t that attractive, despite one of his high school friends who was a woman praising him for getting together with someone described by her as a “gorgeous woman”, but because a couple of guys didn’t think she was sufficiently attractive he lost interest and broke up with her.
And years later he’s moaning about not being able to find anyone who thinks he’s attractive and wants to date him.
Sometimes it’s less direct….maybe a woman doesn’t fit the social and cultural vision of what a “wife” is, so men who are attracted to her ignore her. There’s a reason the saying “Not a girl you’d take home to mom” exists….well…your mom isn’t marrying her, that’s a stupid saying. The implication is she’s good enough to fool around with but there’s some social stress that means she’s not “acceptable” as a wife.
Oh, that last paragraph. I have a friend who has that problem. Conventionally attractive self-made millionaire, super sweetheart, gets a lot of shit whenever she either talks about anything other than her current life or wears anything remotely stylish.
I’m certainly not a rockstar like your friend, but can I just whine for a minute about how much I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE it that there isn’t an accomplished married man who doesn’t try to make a pass (we’re talking West Point grads with counterintelligence Army training and MBAs) — but the identi-minute they’re divorced they run like beetles … and they’re too craven and greedy to introduce me to their single friends?
Makes me *sick*.
Not to speak for Jimmy, but my last three or four bulletproof crushes (like, still dreaming about the guy years later, crushes) I barely noticed the first time I met them, and it was only after talking to them that I suddenly noticed that they were smoking hot. (And at that point, I could also confirm they were smart, funny, nice, and talented, so I was DOOMED.) So I think the idea is to give someone a shot to show you how they might match up to you, rather than to just base it on one or two aspects you learn from a distance before approaching. (If that’s what you’re doing.)
“Also, by “women they’re ‘supposed’ to date,” are you referring to the colloquial concept of “leagues,” or to something else?”
Not really leagues, a concept I don’t like anyways, but…I think Choys gave a really good direct example, but I this manifests in all sorts of ways. It’s a big topic so bear with me.
I see a lot of guys who seem to have very specific standards and some of them seem a bit arbitrary and some seem a bit unrealistic. Some of them have their roots in assumptions that don’t always hold up, but I’ll try to speak from my own experience.
Religion, politics, educational background, ethnic and racial background, physical features, fashion sense, political alignment, even hobbies and interests…all important things, and all things where I’ve dated or been attracted to women who were outside of what one would assume I’d be interested in.
Lots of guys moan about being short, I’m short at 5’5″ (I swear I used to be 5’6″ but I lost an inch somewhere), and most guys want a woman who is shorter than them (and many say that women won’t date men shorter than they are), but I’ve dated women who were shorter than me and women who were taller, sometimes much taller, like over six foot tall.
I have a “type”…ask my wife, she’s really very good at spotting my type, it’s kind of annoying, but that “type” isn’t always bound by simple rules.
I’m an AMAZING fit with my wife, and we have a lot in common, but we’re also very different people in a lot of ways. The thing is that we compliment each other in ways we both love about the other. There are things about her that might have seemed like they wouldn’t “fit” with me at first…she’s introverted where I’m extroverted, to give one example.
If I’d made the assumptions some other guys make, and written off the girl that was 5’9″, or the vegan, or the Christian girl who actually skewed pretty liberal on most things, then I would have missed out on a lot of wonderful relationships.
“Kind of curious as to how I’d recognize someone who was a “good fit” if I met him/her.”
Sometimes it’s just being willing to get to know them and give them a chance. You never know, sometimes you’ll be surprised, but I think it starts with being open to liking and being attracted to someone for who they are and not for whether they fit the mental image of who you’re supposed to be with that’s in your head or what you’re friends say or what society says your significant other should look or act like.
Thanks for the explanation, Jimmy. Sounds like it’s about being open to the possibility of being attracted to someone, which seems reasonable. I guess I just need to meet more people in general; kind of makes me wish that I worked in a less-demanding field, so that I had more time and energy for socializing. (PhD candidate and adjunct instructor currently trying to write the dissertation and go on the job market; it’s pretty rare that I meet new people who aren’t undergrads.)
Not only that?
But these doooods who ask women out because they “stand out” to them never EVER think about how THEY can “stand out” to women.
Second verse, same as the first.
/long, LONG sigh
You are complaining that it’s unfair so I think you should remember that life isn’t fair. If you haven’t noticed, Donald Trump is a president, he’s married, has kids, he’s rich and has a nice house to live in. That’s way more than you or I have. The best option for you is to figure out how you can work with what you have.
“females”
FEEEEEEEMALES
Ugh. Don’t do that, dude.
Yep. It’s like a poker tell.
Blech.
Are there local groups for your hobbies, or internet groups even? You might be surprised who you meet there! There are women who are interested in everything! There are men who knit or cook or read Jane Austen, and there are women who are into hunting and video games and read Fight Club! They might just be a little rarer, or are used to having to hide their hobbies.
Just, please, if you find a woman who has all (or some) of your interests, remember that she has a choice in the matter too. I was once trapped in my kitchen by a ‘friend’ who insisted that, due to our similar hobbies, I was “made for” him and that because of that I had to date him regardless of how I felt about it. (Spoiler alert: I did not date him and eventually got him out of my apartment.) Put me off dating nerds for years, and I’m still wary about it.
Yep, women don’t usually choose assholes because they’re jerks, unless they have a background of abuse and feel they don’t deserve to be treated better/because their boyfriend reminds them of their abuser who they loved as a child, etc. I don’t think jerks necessarily fake their positive aspects, but they do take confidence too far into arrogance, for example. They aren’t necessarily faking that confidence, just misusing it.
Abusers are generally good at hiding those tendencies. There are also a ton of abusive people who have partners who aren’t considered all that desirable, and others who can’t find partners at a and instead behave similarly to friends and family. You just notice the successful abusers more than those men.
I think what bothers me is that abusers come in all stripes, which is what you touched on. It’s not just that abusers have some awesome trick that “fool” women, there’s a whole litany of gaslighting behaviors that go on, separating women from support systems, becoming adept at controlling women…and a lot of times people outside of the relationship have no idea what’s going on.
Which doesn’t even get into psychological and emotional abuse.
I think the thing that bothers me most is the idea that “abusers” are somehow a separate group of men, because I’ve seen plenty of “nice guys” be horrifically abusive to women, even if they’re not putting their hands on them.
Plus the whole “Why do bad boys/abusers get women and I can’t?” seems like Nice Guyism run amok and just the wrong question to ask considering how many forms abusers come in.
Wow those last two sentences are fucking gross.
There’s a whole lot of gross in his comments, but yeah, those last two sentences are really a whole different level of gross. I’m kinda shocked he got as much of a pass over them as he did, tbh.
The Dolt45 Administration has normalized all kinds of crazy.
We were just talking today about how the bar had been lowered for his constant lying.
There are even articles about how he is in an abusive relationship with America.
Everybody has a cold, is tired, feels terrible, is sick.
Because it’s just that stressful and toxic as a result.
Shut up. This is the dumbest shit.
Me assuming that I was in what generally was considered the “unwanted” sections of society led me through something that felt like the 5 stages of grief. If the same thing holds true for him, then he just might stick around until he gets to acceptance, which is healthier for his psyche in some ways, but in other ways worse for his dating life.
I can totally relate. I’ve felt like I was going thru that for my love life as well. When I was younger and in college I went thru denial, anger, depression, etc. Now I feel closer to acceptance. It’s like you describe – it hasn’t gotten me any dates, but it’s been soothing for the psyche.
I’m pretty sure I missed some opportunities for relationships in my late teens through early twenties because I was depressed and mopey. I mean, it’s probably for the best that I didn’t pick up on those “in hindsight, I think this person may have actually been interested me, until she was turned off by things like me complaining about nobody being interested in me” moments, because I really wasn’t in a healthy enough place for much good to come out of a relationship.
I haven’t met anyone recently who seemed interested (and sure, part of it’s me, I haven’t asked anyone out in maybe five years or so. I recently turned 31)…but at least I’m a more stable, mentally healthy, just altogether better person than I used to be.
For some reason I’m picturing X as the Phantom of the Opera.
“No woman will ever love me! I am hideous! I must hide in the sewers forever!”
“Dude, dude, you’re fine. You’re a fabulously wealthy musical and technical genius.”
“None of that matters if I am not beautiful. Christine loves another… because I’m ugly…”
“She loves him because he doesn’t complain about how unattractive he is all the time. Or murder people.”
“NO ONE CAN LOVE THIS LOATHSOME GARGOYLE!”
IT’S THE MURDER; IT’S MOSTLY THE MURDER.
Dude if your friend is forever alone then get them laid man. Seriously. Its that easy.
“Getting laid” won’t solve many of Mr. X’s emotional problems alone. It may even delay the real work, which is to change some of his toxic views on women and have him get some experience with interaction and dating. Sex alone isn’t a magic cure all.
I mean sex helps me.
You’re not everyone, dude.
I can only imagine how it must be for your poor partners.
:-/
Rude, you only like this to the guys you like?😂
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Lazy Troll is Lazy.
Bye!
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The problem with your idea is that no one wants to have sex with X. And no one WILL want to unless he improves himself. There’s a reason the LW’s girlfriend doesn’t want to introduce X to any of her friends.
It’s also unclear what X seeks in a partner. His one relationship suggests he may have high standards about looks, which can make it difficult to find partners.
Dude! Like..Seriously?
Yeah man.
Wow…both of these letter have aspects that hit pretty close to home for me.
I’m kind of in the situation of the second person, while being more of the attitude of the former.
I guess my take away from either comes down to the same thing though: Change is hard, whether you’re adapting to external change or trying to initiate from within, expect it to be a struggle that you can only win if you’re willing to put in the work.