Relationship Woes and Advice 22: In Which Two Problems Prevent Each Others' Solution

[Sholos]

I'm not sure if I agree with waiting an entire week before contacting a person after a first date. I know I don't agree with a girl being high-maintenance for expecting contact again within a week. I think if the date went really well, asking when you can see them again at the end of the date is appropriate. Then again, I've never understood why appearing to be uninterested (which a week of non-contact would indicate to me) is appealing to anyone.

[Sturmcrow]

In regards to contact after a date, if it went well I would contact them the next day to thank them and say I had a good time making it clear I would be willing to go on another date in the future.

Then ask them out the next time you have an idea of something to do for a date.

[Liffguard]

Yeah, waiting a week so as not to appear too enthusiastic is game-playing of the worst kind. If you like her and want to go out again then ask her out again.

[Form]

Judging from the lack of consensus I'm inclined to conclude it doesn't really matter, although adopting an upper limit of a week after the first date seems like a good rule of thumb.

[The Succubus]

Judging from the lack of consensus I'm inclined to conclude it doesn't really matter, although adopting an upper limit of a week after the first date seems like a good rule of thumb.

This seems like the smart move. After all, you've dated the girl and know more about her than us. Maybe the next time you bump into her a flirt a little, ask her when you'd like to meet up again.

[Form]

This seems like the smart move. After all, you've dated the girl and know more about her than us. Maybe the next time you bump into her a flirt a little, ask her when you'd like to meet up again.

Yeah, but I also meant in general. I just think this is one of those things where people have a bit of leeway.

Besides, already waaaay ahead of you.

[loopy]

Just wanted to pop in to the conversation to add one of my favorite quotes:

Friendzoning is bull**** because girls are not machines that you put Kindness Coins into until sex falls out. - Aeryn Walker

Relevant to the conversation about 'Nice Guys' that was occurring a page or two back. Also, I used to be one of those awkward guys, but I'm not any more. If anyone wants to ask me for some advice at some point, I'm happy to share.

Everything told to me kept in trust. Anyway, my offer to be PM'd is there.

[Heliomance]

Friendzoning doesn't seem to me to be quite the same thing as Nice Guyism. T|ake for example the scenario where the guy is perfectly upfront about his interest and asks the girl out, and gets the response about being too good friends and not wanting to spoil that? Is that not true Friendzoning?

[Asta Kask]

And what gives you the impression that only guys get friendzoned?

[The Succubus]

Vast amounts of personal experience in my case? X_x

Sorry, slightly stressed this morning.

[Heliomance]

And what gives you the impression that only guys get friendzoned?

Don't be silly, everyone knows that guys are ruled entirely by their balls and will take any sex going. Honestly, who doesn't know that?

[noparlpf]

Just wanted to pop in to the conversation to add one of my favorite quotes:

Friendzoning is bull**** because girls are not machines that you put Kindness Coins into until sex falls out. - Aeryn Walker

Relevant to the conversation about 'Nice Guys' that was occurring a page or two back. Also, I used to be one of those awkward guys, but I'm not any more. If anyone wants to ask me for some advice at some point, I'm happy to share.

Everything told to me kept in trust. Anyway, my offer to be PM'd is there.

Might want to put a warning there for those people who look up that quote because they don't recognise the name and wonder who that is and then oh goodness would you look at that.

And what gives you the impression that only guys get friendzoned?

"All the world's my friendzone." -- not-quite-Shakespeare (actually, me)
And I've only ever friendzoned girls. But I have a feeling I don't count.

[Serpentine]

Friendzoning doesn't seem to me to be quite the same thing as Nice Guyism. T|ake for example the scenario where the guy is perfectly upfront about his interest and asks the girl out, and gets the response about being too good friends and not wanting to spoil that? Is that not true Friendzoning?

That's called "rejection". If she wanted you enough, she'd risk it. It's the same as "I'm too busy for a relationship": if they were not so busy maybe they'd give you a shot, but right now they'd have to be really into a person to do so, and they're not into you enough.
The "Friend Zone"/Ladder Theory and Nice Guys are separate but often associated, same with Why Do Girls Only Date Jerks?


That reminds me: Gitman, ackshully, with arrogance I had more in mind the "third party"/"jerk" - basically where the Nice Guy sees arrogance, the girl-who-dates-jerks sees confidence, and either (or both) could be right.

[John Cribati]

So we're talking about the friend zone now?

Because all I have to say about it is that it seems to be another way to make women feel bad about their feelings.

Woman has sex? She's a slut. Woman doesn't have sex? She's a prude.

Woman shows emotion? She's weak. Woman doesn't show emotion? She's not feminine.

Basically, there is such a thing as a friend zone. You want a closer relationship, she's fine where she is. Nothing is wrong with that. Fine, you get hurt a little bit, but that doesn't excuse the fact that you're essentially blaming her for not being attracted to you.

[The Succubus]

It seems to me that's an awful lot of reasons to feel bad about feeling bad after being rejected. =/

[Rawhide]

As a minor point, there are such people who will decide not to date someone because they have a really good friendship they don't want to risk losing, both men and women, people they would otherwise have dated if no friendship existed and/or they feel would probably be excellent to date with what they know about them, but are scared or just don't want to take the chance of losing them if it doesn't work out.

I'm not saying that it's the norm, just that it does happen. There are people that won't take that extra step or require much more certainty to take that extra step.

[Serpentine]

It seems to me that's an awful lot of reasons to feel bad about feeling bad after being rejected. =/

It's natural to feel crappy when you don't get the answer you want. The solution is not to blame the other person and make up ridiculous "Zones" and attack her for her taste and so on.
(edit: in case it's not clear, none of this is directed at you, Succubus)

The thing that really gets me about the "Friend Zone" and Nice Guy "I'm so nice, why doesn't she date me?" stuff is: do these guys think girls can just switch attraction on and off? I don't know about other women, but although I know there's ways I can become more or less attracted to people over time, I can't just go "hey, this person's a decent guy. I'm gonna be attracted to him now!"
I've been surrounded by heaps of perfectly good, attractive, appealing guys I get along with very well, and my inability to be really, truly into more than one or two of them, as opposed to several of them getting quite into me, has actually caused problems with my relationships with them on occasion*. If I could just flick an "attracted to him now" switch, I would have.
I haven't "Friendzoned" any of my male friends, I'm just not attracted to them. And that's not their fault, or my fault, or anyone's fault, for all it might be sucky for some of them. It's just a fact of life.

*Perhaps notably, the problems generally occur after they do, shall we say, get in my pants.

[akma]

I see a lot of claims that all men want to have sex with all their female friends, but I don`t see any claims claiming the opposite.
Women have needs too, but no one ever claims that women have male friends becuse they want to have sex with them. A lot of people seem to have a view that women don`t want to ever have sex with any of their male friends.

And what gives you the impression that only guys get friendzoned?

Becuse social norms, men have less motivation to reject a woman then the other way around (=it`s much harder for a man to be called a slut, although possible).

About calling for a second date: If the date went well, I think you should ask her out for another at the end of the date, or one or two days later. I don`t believe seeming disintrested is a good idea, and seems a bit "evil" to me.

[Serpentine]

I see a lot of claims that all men want to have sex with all their female friends, but I don`t see any claims claiming the opposite.
Women have needs too, but no one ever claims that women have male friends becuse they want to have sex with them.

Because it's basically always guys complaining about it. I have no doubt there's plenty of girls mooning after a guy who never even looks at her in that way. The difference appears to be, in a terribly generalising and admittedly pretty much baseless way, that more girls, when confronted with a guy only interested in girls who aren't her, asks "what's wrong with me, why doesn't he like me?" rather than "what's wrong with him, why does he like her?"
edit: I think I should point out that neither of these questions is particularly healthy, although at least the former could lead to self improvement.

A lot of people seem to have a view that women don`t want to ever have sex with any of their male friends.

Admittedly, a lot of people here are putting "Nice Guy" in terms of wanting sex, but in reality the Nice Guys themselves at least parse it as wanting a relationship.
And I find it interesting that, in my experience, contrary to stereotypes, guys are often more keen on relationships than no-strings-attached happyfuntime activities.

[The Succubus]

I apologise for my rather snippy answers in this thread this afternnon - it's been a long and somewhat depressing week.

I do have one question though....are there such things as Nice Girls? Or is Nice Guyism an exclusively male trait?

[Serpentine]

Like I said, there's no doubt girls doing it too (I'm sure I've read a "why do guys like bitches?" thing somewhere), but the overwhelming majority of the time it's the guys complaining about it, and I think there might be a tendency for girls to turn the blame inwards rather than outwards.
What I want to know is: is there a same-sex version of it? Are there gay guys out there going "why do guys only like jerks?"?

[John Cribati]

I do have one question though....are there such things as Nice Girls? Or is Nice Guyism an exclusively male trait?

Nice Girls exist in Anime and Manga, mostly. Not sure about real life.

[Reluctance]

I want to apologize to Rabbit for slamming a sore spot to make a point. I stand by my positions, but letting it get personal isn't a place I like to go.

The thing that really gets me about the "Friend Zone" and Nice Guy "I'm so nice, why doesn't she date me?" stuff is: do these guys think girls can just switch attraction on and off? I don't know about other women, but although I know there's ways I can become more or less attracted to people over time, I can't just go "hey, this person's a decent guy. I'm gonna be attracted to him now!"
I've been surrounded by heaps of perfectly good, attractive, appealing guys I get along with very well, and my inability to be really, truly into more than one or two of them, as opposed to several of them getting quite into me, has actually caused problems with my relationships with them on occasion*. If I could just flick an "attracted to him now" switch, I would have.
I haven't "Friendzoned" any of my male friends, I'm just not attracted to them. And that's not their fault, or my fault, or anyone's fault, for all it might be sucky for some of them. It's just a fact of life.

*Perhaps notably, the problems generally occur after they do, shall we say, get in my pants.

Unfortunately, there is the common narrative of earning the girl. Which means doing enough stuff for her until she sees what a great catch you are. One of many popular narratives I try to undermine, but there's a lot of pushback when people hear that ideas they're invested in may be a big pile of horse hooey.

Of course, I'm also a proponent of guys doing two things; leaving if they feel that a friendship is too asymmetrical, and paying attention to the guys who do create attraction to see what they might be doing right. ("Create attraction" in the sense of getting girls. If androgynous types work well on magazine covers but not so well in the dating market, that's a noteworthy distinction.)

Like I said, there's no doubt girls doing it too (I'm sure I've read a "why do guys like bitches?" thing somewhere), but the overwhelming majority of the time it's the guys complaining about it, and I think there might be a tendency for girls to turn the blame inwards rather than outwards.
What I want to know is: is there a same-sex version of it? Are there gay guys out there going "why do guys only like jerks?"?

I've heard lots of gay guys complain about being the only gay guy who doesn't twink excessively, or similar complaints of "I must be the only sane person in a mad culture".

As for women, listen to the complaints of single mothers. Or any article on "fatphobia". Or "biphobia". As I said before, it's something that happens when you try and get shot down often, that you eventually start to go bad.

[Thufir]

Re: Friend Zone. I interpret it is simply "Friends with someone you want to be more than friends with." Whatever the reasons for it, which can be many and varied. It's not a term I really use myself, but I can acknowledge that it can have legitimate applications for people who do.
And the issues with guys complaining about being friendzoned are not so much with the friend zone concept as with them not getting why they're being put in it.

And I find it interesting that, in my experience, contrary to stereotypes, guys are often more keen on relationships than no-strings-attached happyfuntime activities.

There could be some sample bias there, of course - it may simply be that the guys who are keen on NSA HFT activities are not guys you find attractive.

What I want to know is: is there a same-sex version of it? Are there gay guys out there going "why do guys only like jerks?"?

Almost certainly.
Alternatively, replace 'jerks' with 'women', and that's definitely a thing which happens.

[The Succubus]

I am deeply indebted to this thread, for while at the gym this evening, I discovered the path to vast riches:

(The following is satire, please do not take anything apart from the black cynicism as being representative of my personal values):

Spoiler

Show

Are you tired of putting your heart and soul into dating, with nothing to show for it but a broken heart? Do you constantly reach out to the object of your affections with tokens of admiration only to be ignored?

Why not give www.NicePeopleDating.com a try?

Unlike other dating sites, we offer a 100% success rate to help match you to like-minded people!


Tell me more about it

NicePeopleDating.com was formed as a result of one man's endless quest to find true love, only to have women use his heart as some kind of emotional punching bag. One evening, he sat down with some friends, consoling him after his latest heartbreak and went through a long soul searching discussion with them.

Then realisation struck! It wasn't his fault that all these seemingly sweet girls were turning him down – they must have all been complete b****es! He had been looking for love in the wrong places. Inspired, he created NicePeopleDating.com to help himself and others find the right people.

How does it work?

To the untrained eye, it looks like we just nicked all the source code from Match.com and stuck a different banner on the top but NicePeopleDating.com has one crucial difference – Nice Points.

Nice Points?

After logging on to the website and creating your homepage, you'll be asked a series of highly invasive psychological profiling questions. These questions will allow us to find a Nice Guy or Girl for you and also used to determine your Niceness Quotient. When you go on a date with a partner from NicePeopleDating.com, one of our professional and highly discreet observers will take careful notes and video footage of your date together and assign each person Nice Points based on your actions. Nice Points are gained just through doing what comes naturally to you – paying for the restaurant bill at the end of the night, holding the door open for you date, paying them compliments – all that sort of thing.

What happens then?

As soon as one member of the happy couple clocks up enough Nice Points with the other to meet their Niceness Quotient, they are then legally obliged to sleep with you as per the contract agreed to when you first sign on to NicePeopleDating.com!

This sounds very, very Nice but wouldn't it just be cheaper to hire an escort for a night instead?

Good Lord, no. Escorts and their kind are horribly seedy arrangements where you pay money for sex! NicePeopleDating.com and the Nice Points system are completely different.

Testimonials

“I was a very shy guy and I hadn't been on a date in years despite being a very kind person. I was just looking for a relationship and through NicePeopleDating.com, I found a lovely girl. It got rather expensive racking up the Nice Points with her and she didn't seem very enthusiastic but in the end I managed to meet her NQ and have sex with her. After all, isn't that what true love is all about?”

- Anon of Bath & Wells

[Chen]

Re: Friend Zone. I interpret it is simply "Friends with someone you want to be more than friends with." Whatever the reasons for it, which can be many and varied. It's not a term I really use myself, but I can acknowledge that it can have legitimate applications for people who do.
And the issues with guys complaining about being friendzoned are not so much with the friend zone concept as with them not getting why they're being put in it.

The answer to that question though is poor communication on one or both the parties involved. If you want a relationship that is more than friendship with someone and they only want friendship out of it, both parties need to make this clear. This can become an issue when the party that wants a relationship is not obvious with this (i.e., hoping the relationship will just fall out of the "friendship"). Another way it can become an issue when the party who doesn't want a relationship is not clear with that intention (i.e., "I'm not really ready for a relationship, right now") which can just string the other person along. Clearly there are other similar situations that can occur. Regardless of the case its a failure of communication that is the root cause of any "Friend zone" issues.

[Serpentine]

There could be some sample bias there, of course - it may simply be that the guys who are keen on NSA HFT activities are not guys you find attractive.

For some reason my brain is having trouble parsing that sentence. You could be onto something, though. I clearly need more sexy friends who I really like and who aside from our friendship only want me for my body

[AtlanteanTroll]

So, about the whole "nice guy" thing, I was hanging out with 2 friends after school today. One's a girl, one's a guy. We were all just hanging out talking about how anti-social we usually are.

Girl Friend: Yeah, I almost never hang out with guys.
Myself: What about me and Guy Friend?
Guy Friend: Yeah!?
Girl Friend: Well that's different. You guys are nice.

Her last BF, whom she dated for two years, is a huge jerk. He's a good friend of mine, but his potential to be a complete and utter ********* is through the roof.

[MonkeyBusiness]

I wandered in here by accident. I was trying to click on a different thread and read this:

As a minor point, there are such people who will decide not to date someone because they have a really good friendship they don't want to risk losing...

That rings a bell ... When I went through my divorce, I had to contend with this.

It was (and is) hard for many people to understand that "divorced" is not the same as "available". Although the divorce was a good thing (I refer to myself as "happily divorced") it was a huge, disorienting change. I did not need more changes. But I did need stable friendships.

... is Nice Guyism an exclusively male trait?

I'm using Serpentine's definition of Nice Guy, meaning someone who wants more than just sex, but a relationship.

And my answer is a resounding No ... Nice Guys can be women, too. The major reason why I divorced my husband was that I was in the role of Nice Guy. I was constantly giving, he was constantly taking. It didn't start out that way: when we first got married, our relationship was quite balanced and equal. But over time things shifted. The shift was more comfortable for him, and he was not interested in changing, even when I made it clear I was miserable.

So when I left, I needed time to figure out who I am when I am not part of a couple. Years of being the Nice Guy made me unclear about this. So even though I met plenty of Nice Guys I could have dated ... I didn't. It wasn't that I didn't like them. It was that I really loved being independent and rediscovering myself.

Also, I was terrified of damage I might do to someone else's heart while I was "on the rebound".

And the issues with [people] complaining about being friendzoned are not so much with the friendzone concept as with them not getting why they're being put in it.

Oh yes. I have had to explain to the same person, on three different occasions, that I do not want to go out with him because I am happy being single. This person was not a close friend, and by refusing to accept, "No, thanks," as an answer, has damaged future chances of becoming a close friend.





.

[Reluctance]

Oh yes. I have had to explain to the same person, on three different occasions, that I do not want to go out with him because I am happy being single. This person was not a close friend, and by refusing to accept, "No, thanks," as an answer, has damaged future chances of becoming a close friend.

Fair. But at the same time, he may not have been interested in a purely platonic friendship. If that's the case, moving on is much better than hanging on due to a pretense of friendship. For him, for you, and for everybody involved.