How to fail at meeting women on Fet and how we women go from giving a duck to not.

[53percentnormal]

My (possibly ill informed and inaccurate) take on this:

Some things about men

1) We're ridiculously insecure. Especially when it comes to people we are attracted to. Some men deal with this by trying to act nice, to the point it almost seems false, and then as soon as it doesn't get the desired reaction, becomes actually false, because the options are then to act even nicer (stalking) or to stop being nice and be abusive or rude instead. There is of course the third option of just accepting someone isn't interested, but some men can't accept this option (see point 2 below), especially if they are emotionally immature.

Other men deal with this insecurity by acting uber confident and spouting or demonstrating utter bollocks about every imaginable subject to prove how confident and not at all insecure they are. This extends to many forms of idiocy such as buying an expensive looking car and driving it like a twat and talking about cars a lot, or talking shite in work meetings despite actually having nothing of use to say. Basically 90% of the stupid shit men do that makes no sense, is down to this. It also extends to communication with women, and the amusing opening post in this thread about immediately explaining all the great kinky things they're going to do before they've even thought to attempt to talk to the receipient...because their insecurity wont allow them to engage in conversation until they feel like they've already won over the person they are talking to...in case they say something to feck it up. It makes no sense, and its dumb, but it is what happens.

 

2) As a result of the insecurity, we also have ridiculously fragile egos. It is difficult for a man to accept rejection, because the only way to stave off their insecurity is to believe, against all common sense, that all women must fancy them. To receive no response from a woman is not acceptable because there is no possible way to missinterpret this as her fancying them. To receive a clear response of rejection from a woman is not acceptable because there is no possible way to missinterpret this as her fancying them. It is received in much the same way a punch in the face would be...and so the response from the man is often to be abusive. To receive literally any other response from a woman is usually missinterpreted as her fancying them, as this then satisfies the ego, at least temporarily until their insecurity starts overthinking the response they received even more.

Obviously all men have this under control (or not) to varying degrees. Some have that part of their brain that kicks in and says "look you're being a fucking idiot" and some lucky few even have the part that kicks in sooner and says "look, don't do that, it's just going to lead to you being a fucking idiot"...some have neither of these brain features and are (I can only assume) particularly prone to inhabit dating websites.

 

From a brutally honest point of view. I can type all this because I can relate to it. I wouldn't do any of these things, but I probably have done, in the past, to some degree. We're brought up to believe we have to be strong and not display weakness and then we suddenly get to an age where we want to have sex with everything but all have to prove we're the alpha male and this all feeds into and creates the problem....and there is a growing up stage at this point that I think some just never get past.

This doesn't mean all men are terrible obviously, and I would guess even some who don't have this nonsense particuarly under control are genuinely nice guys once you can get past it...but from a woman's point of view, why should you need to tolerate or get past it? and how do you determine someone is nice when they are behaving like a derranged overbearing psychopath and there is alsways the chance that the reason they are behaving like this is because they are one? 

I think this will only really change over time. Attitudes are quite different now which means as the next generation grow up there will be a little more understanding, and respect of how to approach talking to women, and a little less pressure to behave like a loon, but it is a process like everything else to do with ingrained attitudes and behaviours.

And I will stop talking rubbish now

[53percentnormal]

On 12/31/2021 at 9:32 AM, CopperKnob said:

When you get a leaflet drop from Domino's, but you just don't fancy a pizza, do you call them up, thank them for the leaflet and say thanks but no thanks?
When the charities pop their clothes bags through your letter box, do you put it on your doorstep on the collection day with a note saying, thanks for offering to take my junk but i dont have any this week?
I suspect that you do neither. s-types not responding to messages is no different

 Completely agree with the analogy except that I will never, ever just not fancy a pizza. I'm literally eating pizza as I type this.

[ey****]

13 hours ago, 53percentnormal said:

My (possibly ill informed and inaccurate) take on this:

I don't particularly disagree with you - but there's a couple of bits to add

I think many men are more insecure than they would let on.  I know I am, for example.  And there is a lot that affects men, some of this is on the back of our preconceptions.   If we have a peer group that claims to be having sex every weekend with women they met in bars - we feel insecure if this is not us.  Maybe we don't need to meet someone every week, but once every couple of months might be nice.   That, this can sometimes lead to pressure and possibly being more pushy, or getting frustrated or feeling like what the fuck is wrong with us.

But some of this ties in with toxic masculinity.

That if we make the end game of going out to "have sex" we're going to feel shit if we don't get sex.  If we take an end result as "having a fun night out with friends" then this result puts less pressure on an outcome.

This is easy for me to say, age 40, there were points where 20 year old me just felt dejected.

The thing is as well. We don't know how many of our peers were actually telling the truth, how many were showboating in order to get the approval of their group.

(incidentally. there were times that I did end up meeting someone at a club and having sex.  It was rarely a great experience.   No regrets but feeling like you were someone's 10 to 2, or 10 to 3 it'd probably be these days, didn't always fill confidence)

There are guys with different behaviour patterns - some will mass message, some more selective - I don't directly know why some people send insults when they are rejected as it's never crossed my mind to do so - I did a little google and yep, it seems that men get aggressive because they see any form of "no" as being an attack on their masculinity - which they then defend the only way they know how.

This is something they need to unlearn.  Because, what if instead of saying "no" she had said "yes" and then having drinks in private, he initiates sex and she says "no" what happens now?

I think if I said "in some ways I sympathise" this could be taken wrong, but this is something adult men need to learn.  Dealing with rejection.  

And it hurts, and it sucks.  You spend time writing a message you *think* is good and you get left on read or a "sorry not interested" and it can hit the mood, or if it feels like it keeps happening a kinda "what is wrong with me?" moment.  But, we're responsible for how we handle things - and - lashing out is never acceptable.   

But incidentally.

I am a lot more insecure than I let on, I often feel a lot of nice things I have are fragile and can end at any time.   I message very few people as an approach because when someone interests me I spend time looking for reasons why they wouldn't be interested in me (some are fairer than others) which does mean it can take a lot if I've reached out to someone.   

[53percentnormal]

4 hours ago, eyemblacksheep said:

I don't particularly disagree with you - but there's a couple of bits to add

I think many men are more insecure than they would let on.  I know I am, for example.  And there is a lot that affects men, some of this is on the back of our preconceptions.   If we have a peer group that claims to be having sex every weekend with women they met in bars - we feel insecure if this is not us.  Maybe we don't need to meet someone every week, but once every couple of months might be nice.   That, this can sometimes lead to pressure and possibly being more pushy, or getting frustrated or feeling like what the fuck is wrong with us.

But some of this ties in with toxic masculinity.

That if we make the end game of going out to "have sex" we're going to feel shit if we don't get sex.  If we take an end result as "having a fun night out with friends" then this result puts less pressure on an outcome.

This is easy for me to say, age 40, there were points where 20 year old me just felt dejected.

The thing is as well. We don't know how many of our peers were actually telling the truth, how many were showboating in order to get the approval of their group.

(incidentally. there were times that I did end up meeting someone at a club and having sex.  It was rarely a great experience.   No regrets but feeling like you were someone's 10 to 2, or 10 to 3 it'd probably be these days, didn't always fill confidence)

There are guys with different behaviour patterns - some will mass message, some more selective - I don't directly know why some people send insults when they are rejected as it's never crossed my mind to do so - I did a little google and yep, it seems that men get aggressive because they see any form of "no" as being an attack on their masculinity - which they then defend the only way they know how.

This is something they need to unlearn.  Because, what if instead of saying "no" she had said "yes" and then having drinks in private, he initiates sex and she says "no" what happens now?

I think if I said "in some ways I sympathise" this could be taken wrong, but this is something adult men need to learn.  Dealing with rejection.  

And it hurts, and it sucks.  You spend time writing a message you *think* is good and you get left on read or a "sorry not interested" and it can hit the mood, or if it feels like it keeps happening a kinda "what is wrong with me?" moment.  But, we're responsible for how we handle things - and - lashing out is never acceptable.   

But incidentally.

I am a lot more insecure than I let on, I often feel a lot of nice things I have are fragile and can end at any time.   I message very few people as an approach because when someone interests me I spend time looking for reasons why they wouldn't be interested in me (some are fairer than others) which does mean it can take a lot if I've reached out to someone.   

 

Yeh that's exactly it, but I think toxic masculinity, insecurity, peer pressure...they're all interconnected things. The masculinity feeds the insecurity and vice versa. The insecurity creates the peer pressure.

When you think about it, talking to other guys about how many women you sleep with or how often is pointless. No one knows if its true and its completely irrelevant information. Its simply a tool to try to exert some form of masculin dominance which again comes back to being based on insecurity.

I don't have sympathy with guys who can't deal with rejection because frankly, we all have to deal with rejection and just need to learn to get over it. When I first started using dating websites I would spend ages typing out a really thought out message and then if I didn't get a reply would be genuinely a bit knocked by it...so I learned fairly quickly to make the message more short and simple and just not think anything of it if there was no reply. I think to get to the stage where you are being abusive...never mind making a woman feel unsafe, doesn't happen without conciously knowing you are being an arse. I mean anyone can act like an arse on the odd occasion, but making a pattern of it just makes you one. Obviously some people are also actual psychopaths so simply don't care.

Your last paragraph I completely get. I tend to focus more on just being happy in my own skin and accepting that not everyone will like/fancy/love me or want to invest the time to find out if they do. Particularly as I often enjoy being an annoying git and also have ginger hair. Don't over analyse yourself as anyone who does like you isn't going to expect you to be perfect or necessarily see the things you see as faults, as faults. The only thing that matters is if there's a mutual connection in terms of something you both want from each other, and having fun finding out what that is....although this is me just trying to sound like I know what I'm on about, when in reality I rarely message anyone because I get distracted by absolutely everything.

[CopperKnob]

@eyemblacksheep and @53percentnormal
See, I do hear what you're saying re insecurity but, I don't know how much it plays a part. Of course i'm not a male. But, as a female, I am not the most secure, I have self doubt and a lack of confidence but it would never occur to me to write the types of messages that are received.
I received a dick pic the other day (not here) and I challenged the guy why he would send it given we'd had no other interaction. He had no answer, literally said he didn't know.
The next guy I asked, well I guess it adds to your comments re insercurity because his response was actually rather sad, he said he felt he had nothing else to offer 🤷‍♀️

[ey****]

I feel that firstly there's a lot where insecurities should never, really, be an excuse or justification.

And I think like a lot of things there's no one-size-fits-all

Someone might send a copy paste message because they're lazy.  Someone else because they find it exhausting writing new messages and spending time and effort on it just for another rejection.

But both hurt their own chances.

A lot lack empathy - they'll send certain messages knowing a lot of people won't like them : these are not people they're interested in - they're using it to flush out the ones who are.   It's probably the same kind of way that scammers know most people won't fall for their shit, but they're only trying to flush out those who do.   It's a very similar logic.  

[Deleted Member]

Hope I'm not reviving a thread that is too dead, but I wondering, should a dude be "making the first move?" Seems like there is waaaay too much chatter, and it might be better to post alot - see if anyone gravitates your way. But I've also found that that approach leads to some very not genuine interest...often times just straight up scams/predatory.

[BruiseWayne]

8 hours ago, DFEllis said:

Hope I'm not reviving a thread that is too dead, but I wondering, should a dude be "making the first move?" Seems like there is waaaay too much chatter, and it might be better to post alot - see if anyone gravitates your way. But I've also found that that approach leads to some very not genuine interest...often times just straight up scams/predatory.

You're going to get a ton of that no matter what you do really. Being active on the forum IMHO isn't going to increase or decrease it in any significant way and I feel like any spikes you've seen after upping your visibility by replying to threads is purely coincidental.

Edited May 23, 2022 by BruiseWayne

[Deleted Member]

53 minutes ago, BruiseWayne said:

You're going to get a ton of that no matter what you do really. Being active on the forum IMHO isn't going to increase or decrease it in any significant way and I feel like any spikes you've seen after upping your visibility by replying to threads is purely coincidental.

Sure that makes sense. I meant moreso along the lines of posting content, pictures namely.

[CopperKnob]

1 hour ago, DFEllis said:

Sure that makes sense. I meant moreso along the lines of posting content, pictures namely.

Posting/commenting on/in the forums and uploading pics does certainly create increased prpfile views. Whether that equates to increased messages is dependent I guess on what your profile says to the reader and whether they feel any interest in it/you

[Deleted Member]

2 hours ago, CopperKnob said:

Posting/commenting on/in the forums and uploading pics does certainly create increased prpfile views. Whether that equates to increased messages is dependent I guess on what your profile says to the reader and whether they feel any interest in it/you

It certainly brings some...disingenuous attention, but being a newbie puts a target on my back for that sort of thing. To touch the platform is be touched, I suppose.

[ey****]

I think - never underestimate passive connection

and if nothing else - you are less of a stranger should you make a move