Even then, maybe she's just nice. Or canadian

Yeah, see, my girlfriend just right out told me. But we're both AuADHD. So you know, things happen impulsively and directly.

I asked her on a date, she said yes. We get to the date we have fun, we have a long night out, she goes home and texts me "I like you."

Yep. Which is a good thing too because I liked her and was a lot nervous about that.

Even if we're explicitly told the first twenty times we'll just think she's being nice.

To a degree that once a woman chatted me up, gave me her number and I somehow still missed it entirely.

Thanks for lining it out so well.

There's a good shot that she's into me, but if she's not, I'll either die of embarrassment or I'll get bullied by their whole social circle.

Add to this that men usually are not as socially comfortable as women, and you kinda understand it why this happens.

Quadruple the caution if it's a coworker. Hello HR violation.

It’s always good to play it safe unless evidence is so overwhelming that she’s into you. This has cost me some romantic opportunities but has also kept me from being the guy who dates all his female friends.

She's Canadian.

https://youtu.be/xa-4IAR_9Yw

Pascal's Wager but for pussy

after being rejected 100 times in a row for "ew gross i don't associate disabled people" when after a couple dates i let them see me take a blood pressure pill (hadn't even let them see any of my massive collection of scars except my arm and face, which i can't exactly hide without michael jacksoning) you kind of just start making fairly accurate assumptions about the women in your society

One rejection in college had me pegged as a creep to the point many of my own friends stopped talking to me. All I did was ask someone to get some tea once but I guess I didn't do the mating dance right or something idk.

Was a pretty powerful lesson in seeing how people will believe what they want to believe. I guess it's the same for many of the "creeps" and "sluts" out there.

Yeah communication is key. Even if you are too literal at least you are clear and not obscuring your thoughts.

Yeah, I think she likes me.

Mmmm, can't be so sure. Better play it safe and look for more signs

I think a lot of people need to learn to communicate more explicitly. There's also the ask culture vs guess culture dynamic, though I think it can extend past culture and some people lean one way or the other. There's also the idea that guess culture is feminine coded in America and ask culture is masculine coded.

To a guess culture, outright stating your desires is imposing. You hint and if they're willing to give it they offer. Furthermore saying no to a direct request is also seen as rude. In general directness is bad, preemptive offering is proper (and obviously they have to reject for fear of imposing), and hinting is acceptable. Think stereotypes of English culture. It's a stupid social dance that I instinctively fall into. To an ask culture all that's stupid, there's nothing wrong with asking for something and it's not problem to say no. It's direct and blunt. Think stereotypes of American culture.

It's generally quite good to be able to navigate and accommodate both, but as a guesser, asking is better as a default, especially in relationships. It's awkward and difficult to learn, but it takes all the guesswork and ambiguity out.

Well, don't leave us bros hanging! What did she mean?

What did she meant?!

A girl in college told me she liked me when we were in high school, took me like two days to realize what she meant...

I told a girl who told me she likes me that she is bluffing... 🤦‍♂️

Yeah she played a stupid game and won the customary prize

Nah I don't trust it, she was just being nice cuz it's her job

I used to own a retail shop, and I had one young woman assistant who had a sixth sense about those things. I'd wait on a customer, and after they left, my assistant would say"Wow, she really had the hots for you," and I'd always be like WTF are you talking about?

Your buddies girl was the one flirting with you.

Because the internet isn’t real life and plenty of people know how to talk to people, including those of the opposite sex.

We are on the way. sex and relationship rates are massively declining for Gen Z.

I have four newphews 16-20. they have all dated. all but one of them has already sworn off dating because they think it's total bullshit and they thought it was miserable and no fun to have a girlfriend, for the very same reasons, I also am frustrated with dating and relationships in my 40s. It's insane. It took me 30+ years of dating to get fed up, they were fed up in 1-2 years.

And all of us agree the issue is women's expectations they get from social media. My 17 year old nephew broke up with his gf because he got her flowers and she complained they were not $200+ that he was a 'low effort' boyfriend and all her friends dog-piled in group chat and agreed. He's 17 and he makes 15 bikes an hour part time...

Like why would any sane person want to subject themselves to group harassment from multiple women for the 'sin' of not being able to buy her absurdly expensive flowers? In my situation, I take women out on $100-200 dinner takes and get told that I'm a 'loser' for not taking her out to a $1000 restaurant on our 3rd date. It's INSANE.

None of that happened 10 years ago. If I took a woman out to a $100 restaurant 10 years ago she was STOKED. Now the refrain on the news is 'men are not good enough for women and women are giving up'. Without acknowledging the changes in women's expectations for men due to their addiction to social media and constant consumption of 'lifestyle' influences.

All anyone blames is the manosphere... and how evil that is. But really it's both sexes that are swept up in these toxic sexist expectations that are making both of them miserable and lonely and unable to connect with other people.

We compensate with ✨horny✨

We slowly are, most western countries have a birth rate below what we need to maintain the population.

I have dated women who expect me to read their minds and think if I am not Professor X I don't care about them.

One breakup the reason was "I shouldn't have to ask you for anything, you should already know what I want before I want it. That is what love is!"

Then I asked her if she does that for me and she made a face and said "No, you're a man you don't deserve that."

Autism is severely under-diagnosed in women. Probably just a coincidence...

Reminds me of an interaction my friend had with a girl that he usually just had casual sex with. She asked him if they could do some rougher stuff, things that definitely would leave a physical mark. He said OK, but ONLY if she wrote up a statement beforehand explaining that this is in fact something she wanted to have done to her.

There isn't a single iota he could have said or done if she decided after the fact that it wasn't for her and just reported it to the police. Most decent guys are very cautious about being wrongly accused, as the fallout entails the same thing as actually having violated someone.

I'd say most guys are as afraid of being accused of violence as most women are afraid of being exposed to it.

Let's check out womens stuff... arts and crafts, cute outfits, articles on women's health, weekly accomplishments, friday games, memes... did not see a single comment or post calling all men rapists. Probably because it goes against the rules.

head on over to the womens stuff community and see how many posts boil down to “all men are rapists”.

basically online feminism is super toxic. don't take it serious. women in real life are not like that, at least most aren't.

in fact i even suggest that these people are online because they can't deal with real life.

It is unclear whether my wife liked me, but she does make it clear when she does not. Kinda like a cat.

In the sense of "...if she likes me still" or "... if she ever liked me"?

Being clear about your desire also means that rejection is clear, and that hurts.

Probably because historically the patriarchy took away women's rights to be able to choose mates and had years and years of arranged marriages. Then couple that with women being in those forced relationships who could not chose their partners looking for comfort outside of the inhumane treatment of forced marriages and you get societal pressures that taught women they dont get a say in romantic relationships and as such them showing interest had to be covert as it was typically to those outside their prescribed marriage and if caught they could at the very least be socially disowned or at worst be literally killed for it. So yeah im not surprised women have a tendency to be less obvious about it its only very recently in human history that they got to have a say in finding partners.

This is a selfmade problem, don't try to pin it on anyone but women.

plausible deniability. if you don't actually try, you can't actually be rejected.

This is a selfmade problem, don’t try to pin it on anyone but women.

I imagine, it has also manifested in our culture for women to exert an abundance of caution and to try to gauge reactions as long as possible, because playing it entirely open can lead to the man developing feelings, and if you then have to break things off, it can get ugly. Some men, even if it is just a tiny fraction, may then turn to violence and rape.

In particular, the men may "blame" you for their feelings and they might feel """justified""" in raping you, because you did tell them that you find them attractive. No, none of this makes sense and I'd need to order another bucket of quotation marks, if I wanted to try to continue making sense of it, which I don't, so let's not do that.

Yes, the same can happen with the genders reversed, but typically the men are physically stronger, which is why this power dynamic made it into our culture, at least according to my pet theory here.

What most women don't get is that men like assertive women.

Some men don't. Just like some women don't like assertive men.

People generally, like other assertive people who are clear about what they want. I don't have any issue with a woman giving me a clear rejection. But I really hate the fake 'rejections' they give me most of the time that leave the door open or the bullshit double-standard where they reject me and then expect me to 'try harder' to win them over because 'men need to chase me'. or whatever horse pucky they believe.

The bear thing scared a lot of decent guys off.

edit: And just to be clear, should anyone think i'm alpha male-ing. If every woman out there is scared to death of the average guy, who am I to further that? I have a wife, I have kids, I simply do not start conversations with women because when that chose the bear thing happened, not one woman I know didn't resonate with that. Who am I to try to push past that?

Unfortunately I've very definitely had this problem many times in my life. I really don't like to assume someone's interested in me unless it's far beyond obvious.

It's putting all responsibility on others. Like, honey, use your words. Communicate. Don't expect people to read your mind. If you set the expectation that you want people to guess how you're feeling, then you'll have to deal with the fallout of some wrong guesses. It's easier to just make yourself clear.

2 things:

1. It has provoked a lot of great conversation, if you haven't come back to read it.

2. I'm approaching 20 years and very much still need my wife to tell me how she's feeling. My wife appears to be in tune emotionally and often is right, but from my perspective sometimes she seem to be overreaching.

This feels like "haha men stupid" and this is why I like it

EDIT: Are the MRAs upset, and missing all of the men in this thread saying "lol literally me"?

You've obviously never been married

No, like, a merchant at the bazar will typically charge higher prices when a customer is specially interested.

The issue many women face is that they fear they get a worse deal if they show too much interest.

I think the best solution might be a liberalization of the market, i.e. ending monogamy.

Do you have cats?

I have a cat and I get messages on dating apps from women telling me they like me but I need to get rid of my cat to date them. It's fucking weird.

I mean my boyfriend calls me good kitty but like you should like warm up to that lmao.

because I compared women to cats...

you should look at better places on fedi for a gf :)

Uh... have you been around for the last thirty or so years? Apparently accosting women is harassment these days, so it's less hassle to wait for women to do the first step, I guess.

Because women are in higher demand than men. That's the sad truth. Women do make the first move, maybe more than you realize, but they all tend to go for the same top 1% of men. If you aren't that, then you've gotta do some work, either to chase them or to become the top 1% that they chase. It's a sad reality but that's what it is.

because gender roles.

you aren't a 'man' and she isn't a 'woman' outside of these roles. they are arbitrary rules, but people have deep emotional belief in them.

Are you me?

Oh my yes. I do ask, subtley, if they can read minds. And on the off-chance they say yes, I take a hot minute to push the brain "clear browser history" button before carrying on -- just in case.

My last girlfriend asked me out (she beat me to the punch by like 2 text messages, but still). It took a lot of the nerves off that relationship starting out.

I'm just going to give you a little hint here, men can both want to get in your pants in genuinely like you at the same time. It's not an either or thing. I'm pretty sure if a man genuinely likes you he also probably at some point wants to have sex with you. And yeah there's going to be those guys that just want to have sex with you just have sex with you. That's the part you probably have to differentiate.

Whenever a comment section becomes this much of an incel circle jerk, it's always the same few people madly posting their grade school gender research for what I assume is Jordan Peterson's psychology class.

It's mostly stories of people saying they missed hints in the past, or recounting toxic dating experiences they've had in the past.

I'm not sure why you think that's worthy of mockery.

The only wisdom is in knowing we know nothing.

Edit: who downvotes Socrates and B&T‽

It seems you're generalizing about all women in the same way that you yourself are complaining about being generalized. Hmmmm curious

"therefore I must say 10.4, dinosaur" 💀