To wonder who this men are then?

[LovelyLilacWisteria]

I am a long term MNetter, around four years at least. I have name changed because I don't want this to follow me around the boards and I know some MNetters in RL

I am have fairly recently split from a H, have children. I can be attractive-ish, scrub up well, dog rough on the school run and most days in fact, so I am not blowing my own trumpet here.

Since the news got out that I am single, I have received regularly - at least fortnightly - messages from various men I have known over my life time, through work, school, in my social circle etc all of them checking up on me and wanting to find out how I am and how they thought they would just drop me a line to see where life has taken me. Nice enough. Without fail though within a matter of a few weeks/messages these men have tried to push the messages/contact to become inappropriate. This almost always begins in the form of offering me a massage whenever I express that I have been busy or am tired. It is literally like ticking a bingo card, so much so that I have purposely said it and sure enough within a few messages the massage offer comes - it is seemingly the approach of choice for middle aged married men, one that they can push on with if I show interest or stop in its tracks if I tell them its inappropriate i.e. I am being touchy and reading too much into their kind offer or they are joking . More often than not once challenged, they become huffy and borderline aggressive, with one even insulting me and telling me to fuck off. This was a man who had repeatedly offered to call in while going to meetings in my area despite zero interest or acknowledgement from me. If I don't challenge them the messages tend to become more and more suggestive in tone with some actually really shocking ones sometimes - usually late at night.

So what I am wondering is, who are these men? Here on MN there seem to be a lot of women claiming to be happily married or with lovely men and that the majority of men are decent sorts. On FB the same men that are messaging me are splashed all over it with posting about holidays they are on, meals they are going out for, how happy they are etc, photos of them smiling and hugging their wives etc. In RL my married friends also claim the same, when some of THEIR husbands have been the ones who are messaging me! One is even married to a relative.....

So if most men are decent and almost ALL of you and my friends in RL are married to decent, faithful ones, who are these men messaging me in this way?

[Just5minswithDacre]

What if OP HAD discreetly indicated that she's more than averagely attractive?

It's not wrong to be pretty. It wouldn't make her culpable in the sleaze or automatically conceited.

Plain women are so catty sometimes.

[FirstWeTakeManhattan]

So if most men are decent and almost ALL of you and my friends in RL are married to decent, faithful ones, who are these men messaging me in this way?

Generous of you to chuck in an 'almost' there OP. Many, indeed most, men are decent sorts. Many aren't, but in my experience, they occupy the minority, even thought they're the ones we hear about.

Sorry if you happen to be surrounded by/attractive to a bunch of faithless shits though.

[NinjaTwat]

Op do you have any friends who's dh haven't contacted you? They are probably the decent ones.

I think I would find it very very strange if dh contacted one of my friends, after a split. Also pretty sure my friends would mention it to me in passing if he had, eg "oh tell X thanks for his concern"

Because I think my friends would find it a bit if dh had contacted them. We've been there for 6 friends through separation.

[LovelyLilacWisteria]

It is quite scary actually Vestal. One particularly good hearted fellow offered to put my phone number up on the toilet wall of all the pubs in the locality if I let his wife know the kind of messages he had been sending me as I told him I would if he didn't stop.

[WriteforFun1]

sorry but I'm starting to think these men - the type messaging you - are the majority.

Yes I have friends married to lovely men, I have a couple of lovely male friends. But sadly I am now prepared to find out anything about them really. Unless you have a really close friendship with someone there's always something to find out.

btw one of my friends was widowed - young - and she was absolutely inundated with offers. She is very attractive but also a very high earner so said to her "why are you surprised?" and she said "I'm more disappointed because a lot of them are approaching under the guise of friendship and then want to date and are downright nasty when I say no". It's been a double shock for her in fact - first the loss of her husband and then finding out that so many men of her acquaintance are total arseholes.

[FirstWeTakeManhattan]

Plain women are so catty sometimes

Ffs. This thread is going to go so well

[MissMargie]

Seems your friends have dicky marriages. Perhaps you are the first of many to split.

[FFTransform]

Not been divorced but as a late settler down I did spend a lot of my thirties single and there was definitely a phase when coupled up men thought I was up for a bit of hanky pansy as you describe. 2 married ex boyfriends casually got back in contact and tested the water and 2 married work colleagues tried a bit harder than that . . .
So over about 3 years 4 people, but it had never happened before and didn't after I wised up and got a bit more cynical (and probably being older!). All of these men had kids between about 2-10 so perhaps is about a stage of relationship - and their general crapness

[Just5minswithDacre]

Ffs. This thread is going to go so well

Wel maybe it's one of those things you should never articulate, but I've blurted it out now so I'll stick with it.

It's true; Attractive people never have this weird emotional reaction to other people knowing what they look like.

[Taytocrisps]

One of my friends is divorced and told me she was very surprised at the unwanted attentions she received from her friends' husbands when word got out that she was divorced. She made it very clear to them that she wasn't interested. There seemed to be a perception that she must be in desperate need of a man to fill this void in her life.

[SilverBirchWithout]

My experience of the sleaziness and opportunism of some men was when I had a period of serious depression and was off work sick. On three separate occasions married male colleagues under the cover of expressing concern for my welfare visited me with flowers, took me out to lunch and then made passes at me.

On telling my husband, he observed that it takes a special sick kind of person to see someone is vulnerable and try to use that to their advantage

[emilybohemia]

Maybe you just know a lot of knobheads.I hope most men aren't like this. What a bunch of shits.

I suspect you downplay your attractiveness but I don't think this

'Your post does come across as "I'm sooooo gorgeous, all these men can't resist me".

is fair at all.

Doesn't come across like that to me.

[CoolforKittyCats]

Plain women are so catty sometimes

What a ridiculous thing to say.

[curren]

Can't seem to see where I said that in my post. I think I said that men I have known over the course of my life time didn't I. Perhaps you should take another read?

I read it thanks. My point is that unless all the attached men you know contacted you, you have answered you own question. The decent attached men, are the ones not messaging you.

[Just5minswithDacre]

Well, you're single aren't you? Husband's gone, no man around the house. So you must be up for it.

Exactly!

If people haven't experienced it, then they haven't experienced it but it is a real phenomenon from a lot of men around divorcees and I'm really bemused ( ) at the people on this thread essentially trying to slut-shame OP.

[Littlemisslovesspiders]

It isn't just men that cheat. My DBro and BIL have both recently divorced through the affairs their wives have had.

[UmbongoUnchained]

I am a married woman with very obvious rings on my finger and I STILL get chatted up and in appropriate messages.

[TheFuckersBitingMe]

Doesn't this just prove that like Charlotte Lucas said in Pride and Prejudice that happiness in marriage is purely a matter of chance? You hope for the best and believe you're married to someone lovely. You can't ever really guarantee the person you're with wouldn't do anything treacherous; you just have to hope they wouldn't.

[fizzingmum]

OP! I have been subject to this and witnessed it with friends also. Men can be sleazy. Hang in there a little bit longer and the unsolicited dick pic will eventually arrive. If it doesn't have the desired effect and make you suddenly realise what an opportunity you are missing, they will make out like it was a drunken mistake! It's not your fault, you don't ask for it but inevitably if the wife/partner became aware it would be all your fault. All you can do is avoid interactions that were not there before your split unless the person is single. Or ask them outright if their other half is aware they are messaging you and would they be happy to see the conversations. I bet that will cause a sudden end to this line of interaction.

[GiveMyHeadPeaceffs]

Reminds me of when I started on Twitter...chatting to some "nice" bloke about the weather or something and next thing, there's a DM with a dick pic! Some men are just utter twats.

[Makesomethingupyouprick]

I don't think it's a case of being irresistible.

I think lots of people male or female will cheat or at least want some kind of validation that they COULD if they wanted to.

I've had several male friends with partners come on to me (even if I was primarily friends with their partner before meeting them). Not via Facebook as I've never been part of that.

I told one friend that her bf licked my face when she went to the toilet and told me I was far hotter than her. She cut me off and sent me texts about him saying he'd put my windows through.

So I didn't tell friends after that if their partner made a move.

A friend - I'd known him and his partner for years to the point she didn't worry about him staying at mine after music gigs she wasn't interested in. Was never a problem for about five years till one night he tried to kiss me (not as a friend!) and I rebuffed him and gave him the phone to call for a taxi as I thought he should go. He threw it at me and said I'd led him on by playing Wild is the wind by David Bowie when we got back to mine!.

There are other examples. I'm attractive but not wildly so. I'm not interested in men that are friends or in relationships.

I think there are a huge amount of opportunistic cheaters out there and they can be male or female.

[alleykitten]

I recognise this from post-separation period. Even when with XP a couple of happily married men - in marriages that were 'aren't they great together?' institutions - tried this sort of thing, albeit more subtly. I had kids a bit younger than most others and wonder whether there are some guys who are quietly sniffing around younger women all the time. One of them apparently had form for it. Awful, especially when their wives are lovely and can do so much better but you don't know them well enough to spill.

[LaBelleOtero]

I have experienced several come-ons from partners of female friends who thought they were blissfully happy and secure (in two cases, still do. I'm not going to rock their boats, I know how that tends to play out.)

And it's not a stealth boast, you probably wouldn't pay any attention if you walked past me, but I think in their eyes I was just "available" - newly single, local, house of my own so no need for hotels, etc - and in possession of a vagina. With some men that's all it comes down to, even the 'he could bag a supermodel' ones.

[GarlicShake]

Heh, I thought "Plain women are so catty sometimes" was perfect and have stored it up for future use!

Yeah ... nice men. So very often disappointing.

I'm pretty horrified by the onslaught following refusal! These 'nice' men seem to have got even worse since my divorces. I got the sleaze, but not the crap.

It cuts both ways, though. My brother was fighting 'em off after his divorce. I don't think any of the spurned wives abused him for a polite refusal ... though I don't actually know whether he refused

[Givepeasachance]

Totally had the same experience OP

Then it stopped literally the day I posted a picture of me with my bf.

Find it pathetic.

It's not all of them by any means but I can spot a sleazy philanderer a mile off now.
It helps in life.