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??

Making an approach doesn't bother me if they and I are both single. Plenty of relationships do start as friendships which then develops into something more and if they know you're on dating apps they also know you're 'looking'. You could be interested for all they know.

What matters to me is how they handle it if you reject them, if they get angry/stop being friends with you then yes, they're a dick who was clearly only ever pretending to be your friend in the hopes of sex. If they ask respectfully, accept your refusal graciously and continue the friendship unchanged, (i.e. no further approaches, no little comments etc) they've not done anything wrong.

And a match rate means essentially nothing soo........

And your second point wasn't to me but men don't have to take safety into account with anything close to the seriousness that women have to take it into account as you well know and men as a group have the luxury of not really having to be that concerned when going to meet a date, therefore for most they never ever consider the fact that they might come to some harm (because it would be incredibly rare that they would).

@shuggles I don't disagree. All that anger and hatred though is predicated on the fact that incels feel there is an unfairness between men and women, that women can get sex easily and a sub-layer of men cannot, because women in their position (not very attractive, low social status) still can, usually with the social layer up, and this leaves these men with no-one.

I don't know very much about incel culture, mind you, just what my daughters tell me and seeing the odd influencer/Andrew Tate sympathiser online.

I don’t know. I have many female friends whom I have had for decades. Only once in my life have I made a pass at one and that was in our twenties as a result of way too much alcohol! I was batted back but we are still friends to this day, more than 30 years, 2 marriages and 5 children later.

Good friendships are really hard to make and I value them immensely. I wouldn’t risk it for short term gratification.

@kkloo And your second point wasn't to me but men don't have to take safety into account with anything close to the seriousness that women have to take it into account as you well know and men as a group have the luxury of not really having to be that concerned when going to meet a date, therefore for most they never ever consider the fact that they might come to some harm (because it would be incredibly rare that they would).

I think you live on another plant. Men suffer from violence all the time. It's in the news every single day.

I separated from my husband (back together now). Male work colleague messaged me saying "I've been in the same situation, if you ever need anything, please let me know" naively, I thought "oh my, that is so kind" and replied saying so.

3,2,1...dick pic.

“I do still believe that men and women can be friends, but pretending no-one ever had a fleeting thought 'would I shag X?' is a bit naive. My male friends have proved trustworthy over time, or have strong reasons not to stray, or I've known them for over 30 years and we worked it all out a long time ago. I'm not interested in transforming the friendship into a relationship and they know that. I don't care what they think in their heads though, who knows what goes through mine in an idle moment?”

This. Obviously different people have different reactions to this but I don’t think physical attraction has to be a massive hurdle to platonic friendship. I have some very good, very safe friendships with men who I’ve dated or fancied or who have fancied me in the long distant past (am now in my mid-50s and have been with DH for 25 years).

I also think it depends how seriously you take sex. If I were suddenly single and they were also single, I don’t think I would feel that a low key suggestion that we might have sex would particularly bother me or shatter decades of friendship whether or not I decided to take them up on it. For me, it wouldn’t make them garbage; only if they persisted with the suggestion if I knocked it back - that’s what would ruin the friendship for me.

And I stand by that point.

Do you have to worry if a woman will stop or not if you say 'stop'. No. Because you could push her off and leave.

The only saftey men have to consider is taken care of by wearing contraception.

As for the 'what if there are men in her house waiting to beat me up and rob me' lol what are you living in an American crime movie? xD

@Pinkbonbon Do you have to worry if a woman will stop or not if you say 'stop'. No. Because you could push her off and leave.

You're only thinking of sexual violence. There are other risks that come with meeting strangers.

As for the 'what if there are men in her house waiting to beat me up and rob me' lol what are you living in an American crime movie? xD

I'm not sure why that's funny. Clearly that does happen, and it's happened many times. If I didn't know a woman, then I wouldn't know what her motives are, or who she knows.

You wouldn't think it's a "movie" if a woman suggested that she was afraid of going back to a man's house and finding a group of men that beat her up. Clearly you are one of these silly people that believes violence doesn't happen to men.

“I think you live on another plant. Men suffer from violence all the time. It's in the news every single day.”

@shuggles - that is true. That violence is generally (not always but mostly) inflicted by other men, however, not women.

If you’re trying to suggest that women pose as much of a physical threat to men as men do to women, then that is patently untrue and very quickly disproved.

Men are almost invariably stronger and faster than women. Most men - acting alone - could kill most women with their bare hands no matter how hard the woman fought back. It is not true the other way round. Of course, the vast majority of men would not dream of using their greater physical strength to harm a woman but there’s no escaping the fact that a woman is generally far more vulnerable to a man if he decides to harm her than the other way round.

@Dery That violence is generally (not always but mostly) inflicted by other men, however, not women.

Master of the obvious.

If you’re trying to suggest that women pose as much of a physical threat to men as men do to women, then that is patently untrue and very quickly disproved.

Who said this? Did anyone in this thread say this?

Please copy and paste where I said this.

Yes from other bloody men.

And you're using that to try to say that men have to worry about their safety just as much as women even though the context is that women have to worry about their safety when it comes to having sex.

@Joosy - yes, understood. I’m not saying that my way of looking at it is the only way of looking at it. I am disagreeing with the premise that all men are garbage.

You're the one making the points that result in people having to point the obvious out to you.
Either you're deliberately choosing strawman arguments or else you really do need the obvious pointed out to you 😂 in which case you should be thanking that poster for explaining it to you instead of clapping back with a response about how she's master of the obvious!

@shuggles since you agree it’s obvious that men mainly suffer violence from other men, what point are you making in relation to women?

Sorry if I have misunderstood you - based on your reply I have - but you seemed to have suggested that men have as much to fear physically from a sexual encounter with a woman as women do from men. The fact that you suggested that a woman may have several men at home who could harm him when he gets there underlines what I’m trying to say. You’re acknowledging that a woman would need men around to harm another man. However, as I said, most men - acting alone - could kill a woman with their bare hands no matter how hard she fought back. Most men are safe but that fact alone means that men generally pose much more of a physical danger to women than women do to men.

And as @kkloo says, sorry if I’m telling you what you already know but it’s hard to tell what point you’re trying to make with the examples you’re using.

😐

If he went to a womans house and there was several men waiting there to harm him then the most likely explanation would be that he's a stalker who has been harrassing this woman and so she needed to round up a bunch of male relatives for the next time he showed up!

@kkloo Yes from other bloody men.

Why is that relevant? Why does me sharing one of many characteristics with my hypothetical attacker have any relevance to anything?

Would it be significant if a person who attacked a British person was also British?

If he went to a womans house and there was several men waiting there to harm him then the most likely explanation would be that he's a stalker who has been harrassing this woman and so she needed to round up a bunch of male relatives for the next time he showed up!

Victim blaming. Nice.

@Dery since you agree it’s obvious that men mainly suffer violence from other men, what point are you making in relation to women?

I didn't make any point in relation to women.

I mean that doesn't really happen to women either though. Where as sexual assaults, do.

I most certainly do believe that violence happens to men but you're talking about something very specific and obscure. I've never heard of a man being lured back to a woman's house and beaten up by men...not sure where you're living that that's a thing.

Maybe a woman might have to worry...eg in the case of that again sex gang grooming thing that wen't for young teen girls in part of England...

@shuggles - the thread has been about friendship between women and men and what’s acceptable within those parameters, and the relative dangers to men and women of going into a sexual encounter, so I had thought you were making a point which was relevant to those themes more generally. In that context, it’s relevant that men generally suffer violence from other men, not women. But you were just making the point that men suffer a lot of violence. I think everyone agrees on that.

Ok seeing as you need the obvious pointed out to you, it's relevant because we are discussing casual sex between men and women and someone mentioned that women have to worry about safety, which they do.

You're bringing random things into it that have nothing to do with it. It would be like me saying a woman might be attacked by a bunch of women or a woman...yeah maybe they could be but it's not exactly relevant to the topic in any way is it? 🤔

What are you going on about asking if the attacker was British would that be relevant 😂😂😂

I wouldn't consider a stalker who gets beaten up or threatened by people trying to protect the woman he's stalking to be a victim tbh 😂If anyone has ever needed to resort to that it's because generally they don't get the protection required from the police.

@Dery the thread has been about friendship between women and men and what’s acceptable within those parameters

Which I discussed earlier in the thread.

and the relative dangers to men and women of going into a sexual encounter, so I had thought you were making a point which was relevant to those themes more generally

Sorry, "relative" dangers? It's not a competition.

But you were just making the point that men suffer a lot of violence. I think everyone agrees on that.

Well clearly they don't. Earlier in the thread, at least one person said that men do not have to worry about violence when it comes to sexual encounters.