[PeterBB]

And just to head off the inevitable shitstorm at the pass: No one is saying that assault or stalking cannot happen to men. It does happen, and is tragic.

However, women are more systematically threatened by such things in our society, and modify their behavior to avoid such things to a far greater extent than men do.

[monksy]

Personally I see it more of a game that women play to frustrate men as much as possible and this is a consequence of being overly picky.

I'm not saying its right to behave hurt, or act aggressively. But it is rather screwed up when women collect points between each other for intentionally misleading guys or falsely leading them on to reject them. [Builds the ego]

[lnanek2]

I think it makes sense that women are built from an evolutionary perspective to be picky, misleading, tough to successfully engage with, test out a guy and dump him later, etc.. Evolution is all about the people who have the most or most successful children being the templates for future generations.

For guys it is viable to be easy to get with and spread your genes about. For women, each child represents a huge resources cost. Therefore very high levels of pickiness and making men go through trials and tests and rejections is the best method for them to make the best choice. Evolution doesn't care about your feelings. If a woman has to throw a dozen good men into the friend zone along with another hundred just to get one good one, then that is the best method from an evolution standpoint, and that's what will become the genetically preferred behavior.

If I throw out any peanut that looks even slightly funny, the odds that I'll get a good peanut are a lot higher than if I only try to figure out exactly if each peanut is good inside the shell or not. In other words, don't take it personally. :)

[king_jester]

> For guys it is viable to be easy to get with and spread your genes about. For women, each child represents a huge resources cost. Therefore very high levels of pickiness and making men go through trials and tests and rejections is the best method for them to make the best choice. Evolution doesn't care about your feelings. If a woman has to throw a dozen good men into the friend zone along with another hundred just to get one good one, then that is the best method from an evolution standpoint, and that's what will become the genetically preferred behavior.

This line of though for evolutionary biology is generally rejected and has no factual basis.

> I think it makes sense that women are built from an evolutionary perspective to be picky, misleading, tough to successfully engage with, test out a guy and dump him later, etc.

The majority of people will date many partners and most relationships end in a breakup. This isn't special to any particular gender.

[monksy]

No feelings hurt my friend. For the most part, I agree with you. But I don't buy the whole "men are only motivated to sow their seeds" bit. In the short term: Yes [it does help promote genetic diversity], in the long term: nope.

There are biological hazards for doing so [STDs], and there are a few benefits for having a long term relationship with one person.

The scale of the pickiness is the problem. I don't mind women being picky locally, but when they spread rumors and attempt to destroy a guys reputation amongst large networks... thats the problem.

[king_jester]

> The scale of the pickiness is the problem. I don't mind women being picky locally, but when they spread rumors and attempt to destroy a guys reputation amongst large networks... thats the problem.

Anyone can be as picky as they want for an intimate partner, to suggest that someone lower their standards to please someone else is really offensive. Also, rumors are a totally legit form of social defense, even if rumors can have downsides, but the solution to that isn't less talking and lowered standards.

[monksy]

The even claim that a guy can or even threaten to blacklist a girl within his social networks is ludicrous.

[jtbigwoo]

Of course he can. Didn't you ever go to high school or work in a gossipy office? It doesn't take too many people saying, "She's a slut/ice queen/crazy bitch/diva" before it becomes conventional wisdom in a social group.

[afarrell]

Wow. That sounds like you've just found a clique of terrible people. I have bunches of of female friends in a couple different social circles and have never seen this behavior.

The closest I've seen is a woman being friendly with a guy while being oblivious to the fact that he's flirting with her and then not knowing what to do when she realizes he's got a crush on her. Until he actually asks her out, I'm not sure there is a way to resolve this that isn't wicked awkward. Just saying, "Hey I'm not attracted to you.", out of the blue is kinda odd.

[monksy]

Honestly I'm suprised I didn't enrage someone on the last comment.

But the two major ways that women really mislead and manipulate is: 1. Claim a guy is creepy and then try to villify the guy 2. Friendzone

I'm not talking about legitimate safety has been put at risk cases for "creepy." I'm talking about the majority of cases where the guy misread the girl's communication, there was a miscommunication which hes being blamed for, he was socially awkward, the girl labeled him that way because she misinterpreted or felt like labeling him that way, or it was generally an awkward situation.

The other, friendzoning, is an intentional passive rejection of a perosn. Women aren't stupid, they know that a guy is interested in them, but can/will choose to put them in the friendzone.

Both of those situations are communicated to other girls to hurt the guys' reputation. By the time the guy realizes the scope of it, hes screwed. Its a really shitty thing, but it happens every day. The next time you're with your female friends and they're talking about, look at it from this way: Who are they telling, and whats the result of that later.

[majormajor]

This sort of paranoid attitude can't be helping your prospects. You make this out to be way more adversarial than is healthy.

Have you ever considered that sometimes the reason a girl passively rejects a guy is because she doesn't want to hurt his feelings but hopes he will take the hint without her having to be more direct? I.e., she doesn't want to make things more awkward herself, and doesn't have perfect social skills either (most people don't!). What makes that super awkward is when the guy won't take the hint, or has seen too many "a dude just won't give up and finally wins the girl over" movies. It's a low probability outcome, better to just move on. Be friends if you want to be, or don't if you don't.

And neither men nor women are perfect at knowing when someone's interested, for that matter. Women are better at it, as far as I've seen, but it's not 100%, and then there are also creepy guys who hide that they're interested for weeks or longer, and then complain about "friendzoning" after springing it awkwardly out of nowhere. Don't be that guy!

[monksy]

Lol, I'm not angry about it. Its more of an annoyance that its accepted. At some point the woman needs to grow up and let those who she's been keep on in the friendzone know whats up. I don't give a fuck if they believe that theres some kind of risk to it. Its a crappy thing to do to people and you shouldn't do that to someone who doesn't get the clue.

Women are 10 fold better at determining who is interested in them. They are also loads better at determining who is congruent with the attitude/personality they're projecting. Women are also really good at hiding how they feel.

[king_jester]

Have you ever considered that women are totally OK with just being a friend with someone and that the person who feels they are in the "friendzone" should just be OK with a friend relationship? The idea of the "friendzone" is so misogynistic, this idea that women do this to men as a form of punishment or gaming is ridiculous.

> Women are 10 fold better at determining who is interested in them. They are also loads better at determining who is congruent with the attitude/personality they're projecting. Women are also really good at hiding how they feel.

This is not true whatsoever. There is nothing inherent to gender to say that someone will be more socially aware than someone else.

[afarrell]

Again, is there a way to do this that isn't really really awkward? In order to "not do this crappy thing to people", she has to First detect interest from some guy (how?), then somehow verify that she isn't accidentally misreading your body language or tone of voice or whatever (again, how?), then somehow bring up the topic of you being attracted to her without being awkward or presumptuous (yet again, how?), and then reject you (this part is straightforward).

By contrast, you have to: Notice that you are attracted to her (which is easy) and ask her out on a date. Though kinda awkward, this is much more straightforward. I recommend doing it early so if she rejects you, you've not gotten attached to the idea of her (fail fast and pivot!). They're your emotions dude; You've got to take some responsibility for communicating about them and managing them.

> Women are 10-fold better. uhh... have you ever picked up an issue of Cosmo or watched a "women's show"? They're full of women angsting about how to tell if a guy likes them or not and giving each other terrible advice. Women, being people, like to pretend they know what they're doing when they're in public even when they don't. This all seems like just an example of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error .

[Jtsummers]

That reminds me so much of high school and college. I've had a rule of avoiding the shallow and manipulative types (of either gender), or at least minimizing my contact with them once I realize it. I've realized I don't have to put up with it. It has meant that some places are offlimits to me because I don't want the hassle, but the quality of the people I spend time with has improved.

[monksy]

I tend to drop contact with these types very quickly. However in some locations they can very well outnumber the non-manipulative types.

[jacalata]

It is not manipulative to decide you don't want to sleep with a guy.

[monksy]

Its not, but it is manipulative to have an unbalanced relationship where he thinks he can eventually have a chance.

Personally, I don't want a woman that says yes to everyone. But, I don't want one that harasses every new person they meet.

[jacalata]

It's 'unbalanced' for a woman to spend time with a guy if she doesn't explicitly say "we'll never sleep together"? There's certainly something unbalanced in your worldview, but it isn't the relationship - it's the guy who appears to constantly think he has a chance with anyone who hasn't explicitly told him that she'd rather see humanity die out.

I also don't want to date either a doormat or a stalker, but I have no idea what that has to do with anything.

[king_jester]

It's not the job of women to cater to every guy's unrealistic expectations of having an intimate relationship with them. This puts the onus on women to police the behavior of men instead of having men simply treat people with respect and heed boundaries.

[capsule_toy]

It just sounds to me that you're saying it's tough for a guy that doesn't understand the cultural norm. The States seem to favor ambiguity over being very straightforward. I feel that there are definitely benefits to this approach, but if you don't learn to navigate it, things will be more difficult.

[monksy]

I understand. My posts aren't really a complaint where I'm just whining that I can't do anything and I'm giving up. Its more a rant of stuff I have to work around.