Signs that a man is a bastard and you should RUN

[electra]

Please post yours - this may help me! (following on from my other thread...)

...and sorry if it offends but I make no apology whatsoever for that post.

This is not about one person, though GH.

It's nice for you that wider mental health issues don't affect you personally so you don't have to care how your comments might affect other people, like me. I'm generally considered by my friends to be a decent person but throw away comments and perpetuated ignorance about the illness I have make my life harder sometimes and cause prejudice in how I'm treated.

And if you can't understand at all how I would feel upset that someone would think it appropriate to list an illness as a symptom of one who is abusive, then I think you are insensitive and perhaps it says more about you than anyone else.

Electra. There are other - more accurate - ways of putting the same point, but I think you've taken up a cause where there's none to be found.

It's no secret that I'm severely & chronically depressed. This makes me a pain in the bum, in many ways, for other people. During my first 3 years - when I was more or less immobilised by my personal blackness and its physical effects - I was intolerable. I recognise these facts. Frankly, I wouldn't want any partner who chose me while this goes on (his motives couldn't be healthy) ... but that's my personal thing.

Time after time, though, I read frantic posts from spouses in despair because of their partner's depression. Bear in mind: I've been as depressed as it's possible to be and still live (just about). I would not, even at my most profound depths, have played the tricks on my loved ones that these depressed spouses inflict on theirs. They use depression as an excuse to domineer, blackmail & manipulate the people who love them.

I find this utterly despicable. Sometimes, I'm so angry I can't even reply! My point is: people do not become mental health experts until circumstances (usually their own health) forces them to learn. Nasty people use this fact to gain advantage from their illness. I've personally known bipolar sufferers who do this to their families, as have many of the people in this thread.

Your query is really about the wording of the comment ... in pushing that, you're trying to invalidate the whole point. Which is a pity.

I met a guy this week who reminded me of this thread. He's classically good-looking, and is perfectly friendly, but he just has a sort of 'swagger' about him - you know, not confident, but overconfident. If I were looking for a bloke wouldn't touch a man like him if he were the last man on earth.

"Claims his mental health makes him behave obnoxiously."

OMG, Speedy, you've just described the very quality that's always attracted me! Preferably coupled with a sort of dark, brooding, private air ...

Shit, all these years I've been falling for Heathcliffes!

So now you have no excuse! Find yourself a Cliff (Richard) instead!

Yikes. Can I just stay celibate instead?
... oh, that would make us compatible, wouldn't it

ROFL!

Are you seriously telling me you don't find the man sexy? He is a god!!!

No, for me this is not an issue of semantics - what makes you say that? My point is that I don't see the relevance of a mental health issue in identifying it with their wider character traits.

'They use depression as an excuse to domineer, blackmail & manipulate the people who love them.'

Who does? Not every person with a mental health issue, and not me. I do not use my illness as an 'excuse' for anything. Bipolar disorder, particularly is something which incites great prejudice in other people, second only in my opinion to schizophrenia. This can be frustrating, to say the least...

The things people say affect a wider perception of people who suffer from various illnesses and conditions. If I find something upsetting to me then I have the right to express that. You may disagree with me but I respond according to my own life experiences, much the same as GH did.

It is not for others to dictate what I find offensive or should be allowed to.

Anyway I've made my point.

"Can't pee in the presence of other men, has to use the stall in public loo."

Oh wow!

I just stumbled into this thread to gawp, but this just rang a bell... DW's ex (my ex-best mate) did this.

We (me and his other male friends) always used to speculate about why; eventually we all came to the conclusion that he had an orange knob, and fanta pubes, and didn't want anyone else to know.

I'll quote your words back at you Electra amd say no more than they echo my sentiments entirely.

"You may disagree with me but I respond according to my own life experiences...
It is not for others to dictate what I find offensive or should be allowed to. Anyway I've made my point."

I had a male ex-friend who used to say that he despised women who allowed him to have anal sex with them even though he had tried to persuade them to......bleurgh. Which is why he's no longer a friend!

How can you tell when men really don't like women?

I think this a great thread. I've been following it and nodding in recognition!

Anyway, am delurking to add a link here. It's a link to a problem page but I think it provides an interesting insight into the minds of these kind of men:

girlfriend fed up with my moaning

Ticks quite a few boxes - rude to waitstaff, bad temper, dismissive of girlfriend's feelings. I note the reply doesn't tell this loser to do one and he should be grateful any woman looks twice at him but I guess they aren't allowed to say that..

To answer your question at 23:51:46 Electra, I think if a man does the following, then we can assume that he hates women.

Insists that he is not sexist, racist, misogynistic but would think it okay to make a joke that encompasses all these.

Talks about woman in a derogatory way.

Calls female acquaintances or coworkers bitches.

Insists that he is not in touch or friends with former girlfriends because he was hurt by all of them.

Believes that his having sex is for the benefit of his partner not himself.

Complains bitterly about his single status as if he is owed a girlfriend and talks about couples and those in long term relationships in a contemptuous way.

Any man who refers to women generally (be the friends, acquaintances, colleagues or family members) as bitches is one to watch out for and run away from.

Janos - yes, quite. Or 'females' - though I think that typically denotes ineptness rather than bastardy.

PMSL @ females - inept - spot on!

What about a man who refers to women as bastards? I had one of them. Unfortunately I think there are an awful lot of men who don't like women.

My father is one as he will immediately use a woman's physical appearance to denigrate her.

I agree. Bizarrely, men who call women "females" do ime tend to be utter losers.

What a fantastic thread! Late to the party but simply had to add:

He explodes for no apparent reason, but somehow makes it your fault. At the end of the argument, you really end up believing that being 15 min late/spilling milk on the floor/forgetting to post his letter is totally unacceptable and makes you a bad, bad woman.

He takes you to a party as his date and then leaves to talk to somebody else for a very long time (sometimes hours). When he gets back, he acts as if nothing happened and if you try to express your disappointment he brands you as needy. Yet if you give him as much as a hint of wanting some time to yourself and your friends, he will never leave your side.

He knows how to push your buttons. So on one hand he will be terribly observant and treat you to things you have always dreamt of just to purposefully cause you pain the next minute. You'll think - how can he be so loving and then so cruel? But these are not two separate aspects of his personality, it is just his desire for control. He does not listen to you in order to get to know you as a person, he listens in order to exert control over you later on, which is easy to confuse with attentiveness.

Listen to what he says about himself and watch how others react to him. He is not generally liked, is he?

He believes the vast majority of people mean him harm. It is alarming when you consider the fact that most people tend to attribute their desires and motivations to others.

I have loads more, but many of them have already been mentioned!

Orders food for you or looks stunned when you order pudding.

very good post blow

youngblowfish - you go with him to a wedding abroad (in his country). He goes off and leaves you at the wedding, as soon as the meal is over, to be with his friends. He is then annoyed that you got upset that you felt a bit abandoned and tells you you are too needy. And - the next day, uses his annoyance to his advantage by, for hours, whilst sightseeing in the capital city, making you literally 'run' after him worrying you that you will be left without your passport/ticket etc in a foreign country (albeit, a european one where they do speak english) but reduce you by his actions, where he can be in his bullying control element, to tears in the middle of a public square in that capital city.

His interest in your well-being DOES NOT extend beyond just politely finding out what any problem in life concerning you is about. And is incapable of offering you any genuine support therefore.

He is cruel to animals.