realising male friends are garbage

[sadmillenial]

This is a rant, i know, so bear with me

Im 41 and fairly recently single, and since putting myself on dating apps i have had advances from almost all my single male friends. Even those i have known for years and considered proper mates.

This is not a humble brag to show how awesome i am, lol. These guys are very open about the fact they dont want a relationship with me but are open to "respectful sex that has mutually agreed boundaries" They are also almost exclusively in their 30s.

Do i just have terrible taste in friends, or are all men opportunistic arseholes??

I don't know why I bother with these threads because it's only on here that there's this attitude that all men want to sleep with their female friends.

I've known my best friend for 25 years, I used to look after his daughter when she was younger, at his wedding he described our relationship perfectly it's like a brother/sister relationship. I can hand on heart say he wouldn't hit on me.

Others I have known for 30 years, I wouldn't sleep with them and they wouldn't think of it either. We have way too much history to go there.

It's about having respect for your friendship, if they're thinking that then they're not real friends and you need to choose your friends more carefully.

And no I'm not deluded or naive, at my age I'm quite sure of who my true friends are and what their intentions are.

Women don't value sex much because it's so easy to obtain at any time. A lot of men find it really difficult to get any sex at all if not in a relationship.

Others I have known for 30 years, I wouldn't sleep with them and they wouldn't think of it either. We have way too much history to go there.

Maybe not.

But they will have considered having sex with you at various points in the friendship. You just won't know about it.

Even just a cursory, "In a different time and place, I would."

You'd have to be very naive to truly beleive that, in 30 years of friendship, they have never once considered it.

I'll be honest, I've had the same thought about a lot of my male friends! And men I've been introduced to. And men I've passed in the street. I wouldn't hit on any of them the minute they became available but I've still thought it because it's human nature.

Yeah, I agree. I'm not interested in any kind of FWB scenario. Way too intimate to do with someone with no connection and not something I'd enjoy.

So?

Some women go through life encountering more men who want to sleep with them than others. Its really nothing to do with some women being superior in the way they select their friends. For one thing, men don't reveal the insides of their minds on first acquaintance so you can filter them. For another, men who have purely platonic intent towards some women may feel and behave very differently in a friendship with a woman they're attracted to. Whether your friend hits on you or not is far more related to how much he wants sex with you than any flaw in his character that the wise woman can spot before befriending him.

The thing as well is men might genuinely consider you as a friend but if you text any of them "let's have sex" they'd be there in a flash, certainly if they were single.

Men are always ruled by their dicks with women which makes genuine platonic friendship difficult. You have to both set boundaries that you're not going to go there, but if a woman offers a man sex they'll nearly always say yes. Whether your friends or not is neither here nor there.

So for men to get sex or relationships they have to pursue women. They have to ask women out, they have to 'try it on' with women or they'll never have physical intimacy. Most men aren't going to walk up to a woman and say 'let's have sex' (and will get nowhere if they do for the most part) so they become friends first and get to know them and then they might hope it progresses further.

The dynamics for women are different because men pursue them, at least generally.

What an absolute load of tosh

Maybe if men were better at it they'd get more offers. A lot of men tend to be quite selfish in bed, so it's not a surprise that sex is not a top priority for many women.

Women don't value sex much because it's so easy to obtain at any time.

It really hasn't been for much of my adult life. I don't know where I was going wrong.

I'd imagine you've been discerning. I think its worth pointing out that while sex for women is easy to obtain, the qualifier is that it may not be good sex with an attractive man who'd be worth your time.

It means easy as in accepting sex from anyone offering it, which most women wouldn't do.

This is so well explained

This is all true, but I don't know why it's meant to be some sort of "gotcha" that male friends can't really be true friends if they've ever had sexual thoughts about you. What matters is whether they act on them.

Being attracted to someone is a non-issue. Being a good person and a good friend means controlling that attraction if you can't act on it. In my experience most men are completely capable of this, and - like women! - are able to be friends with both men and women based on character, connections, common interests etc regardless of any initial attraction.

I've known men who overstep boundaries and they are no longer my friends. But they're outweighed by the many platonic male friends I've had for most of my adult life who are just normal people, and not cartoonish "all men only think with their dicks" stock characters from an out-of-date sitcom.

This is all true, but I don't know why it's meant to be some sort of "gotcha" that male friends can't really be true friends if they've ever had sexual thoughts about you. What matters is whether they act on them.

I agree, tbh, and did go on to say I've considered (at least in passing) whether I could shag some of my friends. Ive sat in the pub and considered a couple of my partners friends and, when in moments of true boredom at work, I've even wondered about a couple of colleagues 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'd never do anything, of course.

My comment was more directed at those who insist that their male friends have never even looked at them that way. Because they have. At least once.

I think women are less likely to proposition a male friend when the male friend becomes single though. And I think they are even less likely to do so if they're married. Out of respect for their spouse, their friend and the friendship. And a healthy dose of self awareness. That's the part that a lot of men seem to lack.

Thats not true either though.

Maybe when you're young and go to nightclubs and aren't in a picky mood. But otherwise you have to sort through lots of chaff, rule out the nutters and the ones you don't fancy. It might be easier for women to find dates perhaps, but sex certainly isn't easy to obtain.

It's a falacy that women can get sex easily. Unless she readily sleeps with men she doesn't fancy just to obtain it.

No. I wasn't offered it. I was turned down if I offered it.

@Pinkbonbon It's a falacy that women can get sex easily. Unless she readily sleeps with men she doesn't fancy just to obtain it.

Yes, that's the point- women could easily have sex, but choose not to.

The same is not true of men- generally speaking, it's not possible for men to have sex even when they are open to all women. Generally speaking they have to go through the ritual of dating and relationships.

My comment was more directed at those who insist that their male friends have never even looked at them that way. Because they have. At least once.

Doesn't that go both ways? I probably do think that about most people I meet. Sometimes it's momentary, an instant no, but I still think about it, however briefly.

@kkloo @DucklingSwimmingInstructress You're not answering my question. Your argument is built on a premise that sexual attraction and friendship are mutually exclusive. If a man voices sexual attraction, then this somehow automatically invalidates the friendship and the friendship was fake.

My question is, why do you think sexual attraction and friendship are mutually exclusive? Is it not possible for person A to be a friend to person B and be sexually attracted to B at the same time?

@kkloo It comes across like they think the woman is good enough for sex but that's it

I think you would really struggle as a man. The majority of men are considered ugly and not good for either sex or relationships.

@shuggles
I don't think that they are mutually exclusive, it's one thing finding a friend sexually attractive and it's another propositioning them for sex. One is a feeling, the other is taking action that may impact the friendship

As for your last line, that's amazing then because so many of them do actually manage to get sex and end up in relationships, even the 'ugly' ones.

I think you'd massively struggle as a woman too tbh, you clearly don't understand the female experience, many or most of us have dealt with the 'nice guys', the entitled ones, the pushy ones etc, the ones who assault us and we're always supposed to feel guilty or sad for them to our own detriment. And then when we gain some life experience and manage to have boundaries about what we will tolerate in our relationships/friendships with them we're told we're wrong again and still expected to feel sorry for the poor men who might not be able to get sex on a regular basis 🙄

As a man once said to me " If women didn't have holes men wouldn't even speak to them "

@shuggles My question is, why do you think sexual attraction and friendship are mutually exclusive? Is it not possible for person A to be a friend to person B and be sexually attracted to B at the same time?

I do, and have had friends where there was attraction and some bloody good boundaries.

But you're not listening.

The vast majority of women on this thread have had extensive experience of men who can't keep the boundaries. Which is why a lot of us loose all faith in most men's ability to exercise some self control, be considerate of women and treat us as anything other than, as @SweetShreddedCoconut put it, holes.

It's based on experience, and unpleasant experience at that.

But they couldn't easily have sex.

If anything men could get sex easier because they don't have to worry about saftey.

If you simply made the argument that many men don't care who they fuck so long as they get sex, fine.

But you can't say that women 'easily get sex' because that's not true. Even in comparison to men. Because there are different socialisations, selective processes and saftey concerns for women meaning that even when they 'just want sex' it still isn't easy to obtain.