[Previous posts: one, two, three. Slightly less loosely a response to the meditations here; scroll down.]
Quote from Yvain’s post:
I remember reading about Ladder Theory on Reddit a few years ago. Ladder Theory says that guys have one ladder, People I Like. If you’re at the bottom of the ladder, I hate you. If you’re at the middle of the ladder, you are my friend. If you’re at the top of the ladder, you’re my best friend and if you’re female I probably want you as my girlfriend – barring family relationship or unspeakable hideousness.
Ladder Theory then says that women have two ladders, Friends and Potential Boyfriends. I could be way at the top of a girl’s Friend Ladder, so that I’m her best friend and her favorite person ever in the entire world, but she could still have zero interest in dating me…
The first time I read this it sounded kind of sexist and like sour grapes so I ignored it. But every time women talk about Nice Guys (TM) I struggle to understand the concept any other way. They always use this phrasing like “Man, I thought he liked me as a person and enjoyed spending time with me. But then he said he wanted to date me! What a dirty rotten liar!”
You see, I think that’s one of those inter-gender blind spots, because until now I literally did not understand that “Man, I thought he liked me as a person, but then he said he wanted to date me!” wasn’t a completely comprehensible concept to everyone. Yay. Blame the female social conditioning.
One of the first things most girls (and people mistakenly considered to be girls) learn about boys is that boys want to date you. Seriously, you’re in kindergarten, you’re talking about the guy who played with you in the sandbox, and your mom will smile indulgently and say “awww, I bet he has a crush on you.” (If he hits you, it’s also a sign that he has a crush on you. In fact, the only boy behavior that won’t be interpreted as a sign that he has a crush on you is ignoring you, and even then that’s not a failsafe.)
As I got older, the expectation that literally every guy who said something to me wanted to have sex with me continued. Male best friend? “Oooh, he has a crush on you.” I had a male friend over? He couldn’t stay in the room with me with the door closed, even when I was in fucking elementary school, because two ten-year-olds might… take it into their heads.. to have sex… or something. Sex education that boiled down to “he wants to have sex with you, and it’s your job to preserve the Precious Flower of Your Virginity because if you have sex God will hate you and you’ll get pregnant and die.” Endless fucking friendzone complaints: seriously, I spent way too much of my adolescence hanging around with geeky guys who happened to be terrible, and much of that involved hearing about the terrible injustice that pretty girls were doing to them by being their friend and not dating them. (I, of course, as the ugly girl, was completely off the radar screen as a potential partner.) The sure knowledge that any time a strange man comes up to talk to you at a club or bus station or bookstore or coffeeshop, it will end with him asking you for a date (if not just telling you you ought to have sex with him).
And, you know, I bet guys get a lot of that sort of thing too. But it’s different for guys. The patriarchy’s list of Why Girls Would Want To Date Guys looks something like this:
- Money
- Nice car
- Sense of humor
- Treats her like a gentleman/a douchebag [delete as appropriate]
- Confidence
- Muscles
The patriarchy’s list of Why Guys Would Want To Date Girls looks like this:
- Boobs
- …Nope, pretty much just boobs
- Also vagina
- The ability to give blowjobs
- You’ve dieted yourself down to a size two and shave all your body hair and wear makeup but not so much makeup that anyone can tell you’re wearing any
- Did I mention boobs?
I mean, both of those lists kind of suck, for a whole host of reasons. However! “She’s just friends with me because I’m confident and have a good sense of humor” is actually pretty flattering. “He’s just friends with me because I have nice boobs and am a size two and might be able to have sex with him” is… not. At all.
There is a nonzero chance that when you tell a girl you’re interested in that you want to date her she doesn’t hear “when you talk about human anatomy and Star Trek and foxes you are so interesting and smart and cool that it makes my heart flutter in joy,” she hears “sorry, I was just pretending to be interested in all that human anatomy and Star Trek and foxes stuff, actually I am only interested in your genitals and how I can put mine in contact with them.” I realize that this is completely fucked up. (The only thing that’s more fucked up is that sometimes that’s a well-founded suspicion.) Don’t blame women! Blame the society that teaches them that their only worth is their appearance!
And of course if she has been looking really hard to try to find a male friend who doesn’t want to have sex with her, the way that society has taught her literally every guy who pays attention to her does, and hears “so, yeah, I basically just care about your tits” she’s going to feel pretty fucking betrayed. So that’s why.
(Incidentally: I actually think, stripped of the gender component, the Ladder Theory has some validity. At least, I end up wanting to date all my friends and being somewhat miffed when they’re like “I don’t think of you that way.” Damn separate ladders.)
(Yes, I want to date all my friends and have for years and I still managed to believe for a really long time that dudes habitually pretended to be interested in me as a person but really just cared about trying to have sex with me. The fucking internalized misogyny goes deep.)
Photo–Ken and Nyetta/Flickr. Scrolls! Because meditation! I swear this makes sense in my head.
About ozyfrantz
I don’t think the single ladder thing really applies to anyone. No one I know is attracted to everyone they like, all the time, that isn’t ‘unspeakably hideous’, unless they have a really broad definition of ‘unspeakable hideousness’.
I don’t have separate ladders. I have one ladder for how much I like people and a very random butterfly of whether or not I find people attractive that can land on almost anyone, whether they’re on the ladder or not.
Alternatively, its possible that the ladder applies more to how willing one is to date rather than just desire?
I had a very close friend once. I found out he was interested in me, thought I maybe liked him that way, went out with him for a while, realised I didn’t like him that way and broke up with him. He told me he didn’t to be near me if he couldn’t be with me. Hasn’t spoken to me now in well over a decade. I can’t have been very far up his ‘one ladder’.
Or perhaps you were far too high up his one ladder?
I don’t understand how it’s possible to like someone so much you can’t be around them. Maybe you can explain it to me? Because I know that personally, the more I like someone, the more I want to be around them.
When I have a serious crush on someone, pretty much every moment I am around them I want to be touching them, kissing them, or otherwise interacting directly with them in ways that are completely disallowed if you’re just friends. If it’s the even worse situation that I’m seriously interested in someone but they’re not single or in the process of becoming not single, not only do I have to sit there not doing things I very much want to do, I have to watch someone else doing them. Neither of these things change the fact that I want to be around this person at every opportunity. It can be far less emotionally painful simply to cut off contact, eventually stop wanting to be around them, and not have to have something you want waved just out of reach.
“When I have a serious crush on someone, pretty much every moment I am around them I want to be touching them, kissing them, or otherwise interacting directly with them in ways that are completely disallowed if you’re just friends. If it’s the even worse situation that I’m seriously interested in someone but they’re not single or in the process of becoming not single, not only do I have to sit there not doing things I very much want to do, I have to watch someone else doing them. Neither of these things change the fact that I want to be around this person at every opportunity. It can be far less emotionally painful simply to cut off contact, eventually stop wanting to be around them, and not have to have something you want waved just out of reach.”
As I said to another person who replied, I don’t care how big your crush is, if your desire for a person is greater than you the amount you like them and want to be near them, you can’t like them that much. I can understand wanting to get away from them for a while. But wanting to never speak to them again? Avoiding them any time you come close to each other for over a decade?
And have you considered the effect that this has on the person you’re avoiding? Is it not possible that your wish to be around them, plus their wish to be around you, combined, are worth more than your difficulty accepting that you can’t have or do everything you want?
> As I said to another person who replied, I don’t care how big your crush is, if your desire for a person is greater than you the amount you like them and want to be near them, you can’t like them that much.
I disagree. The “desire” and the “like” can be part of each other.
Right! They’re similar in meaning, for one. And it’s consistent with the single-ladder idea for two.
As I said in one of the earlier threads, one of the pieces of advice given to “nice guys” (often by women) is to remain consistently clear on whether or not they’re satisfied with being only friends or not. This to me is part of that – not least because there are some very strong feelings involved that would make being only friends with a whole load of unrequited stuff going on incredibly difficult.
Again, it seems like certain men are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
My point is about the difference between the desire to be with them in a romantic or sexual way and the desire to be near them. If your desire to be with them in a romantic or sexual way outweighs your desire to be near them plus your desire to make them happy (assuming they want to be near you too), then your desire to be near them can’t be that great!
Your ability to dismiss the emotional range and passion of feeling other people can have is amazing.
I’m sorry if I sounded dismissive, I didn’t mean to. I am just having great difficulty in understanding.
I understand being crazy about someone, both in a huge-crush way and in a real-love way. I understand wanting someone in a romantic or sexual way so much that not being able to fulfill that desire hurts. I don’t understand that hurt outweighing wanting to be around them, unless the only reason you want to be around them is that desire.
“I’m sorry if I sounded dismissive, I didn’t mean to. I am just having great difficulty in understanding.”
If you have enough luck in life and love, you may be able to squeak through without having to understand it. Having lived it a few times, it seems perfectly clear to me.
It s just hurts to me seeing someone i like but i know i cannot be with her. I cannot be the one she loved. Seeing her walking with another guy, being friendly with another guy. I rather not be around her than to seeing her but it hurts me. You said like all guys want is just desire. You dont know how much it hurts to our feelings. You dont consider men have feelings too, not just desire. Wow, you are so ignorant.
“If your desire to be with them in a romantic or sexual way outweighs your desire to be near them plus your desire to make them happy (assuming they want to be near you too), then your desire to be near them can’t be that great!”
Oh yeah, how great of you, can know how other people think? Your desire to be near them cant be that great.Oh right. I only have desire ( to f*ck her i assumed you think??? ) not be around her??? I have this crush on a girl on my high school days. Shes really nice to me and i thought she likes me too. Turn out she’s already have a boyfriend. It hurts me so much seeing her with her boyfriend, and i always avoiding her, i rather be not be around her because it hurts my feelings.
And my desire to be near her cant be that great? oh yeah it not that great because i always think about her, anytime, anywhere. How is she doing, etc. I want to be around herm badly, its just it hurts me seeing her with her boyfriend and know she wont love me in romantic way. It makes me crazy. It took me years to totally forgot her, even after i have another girlfriend.
You cannot assumed “their desire to be near them cant be that great”, you dont know their feelings, just shut up and STOP JUDGING! As long as you think we men are beast that only have desire and sex drive, not emotions and feelings, you wont understand us. Think about that.
Really? He was interested in you – got to be with you for a while, and then you realised you didn’t like him and left him? And as far as I can tell he still does like you, from what you’re saying.
I’ve been in that situation. It hurts to be around the other person – but it’s not because you hate them. Obviously you might want things to be different, but you can’t shut your feelings off, and to save your own sanity for the time being, what does a huge amount of good is getting away from the person who’s turned you down.
“Really? He was interested in you – got to be with you for a while, and then you realised you didn’t like him and left him?”
I didn’t leave him. I stopped going out with him. It’s not like we were living together or anything. I was a very short relationship.
“And as far as I can tell he still does like you, from what you’re saying.”
Honestly, I doubt he thinks about me at all. It was nearly half a lifetime ago.
“I’ve been in that situation. It hurts to be around the other person – but it’s not because you hate them. Obviously you might want things to be different, but you can’t shut your feelings off, and to save your own sanity for the time being, what does a huge amount of good is getting away from the person who’s turned you down.”
Oh I don’t think he hates me. But I don’t care how big your crush is, if your desire for a person is greater than you the amount you like them and want to be near them, you can’t like them that much. I can understand wanting to get away from them for a while. But wanting to never speak to them again? Avoiding them any time you come close to each other for over a decade?
The brevity of the relationship may not be a mediating factor if he was really into you.
I evidently missed the part about how long ago this occurred, but maybe that’s what moving on involves for some people? It doesn’t require that you be in their life after the emotions have died down. Maybe they’re concerned the emotions will come up again. Again, you don’t seem to be grasping the idea of liking someone so much that this becomes the only option to have a chance of moving on from it. It isn’t about desire for someone versus wanting to be near them, they’re often the exact same thing.
I am having difficulty grasping that, it’s true. But I’m also having trouble grasping the idea that you can actually like someone, as a person, if moving on from fancying them is more important to you than your friendship with them. This may be coloured by the fact that some of my favourite friendships have included me being crazy about the other person and completely aware that nothing will ever come of it.
Who’s says it’s merely fancying them? It may be a lot more intense than that.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily the best way of dealing with things – I am far less of a candle-holder than I was when I was a teenager, for example, but I’d struggle to think of how I was intentionally ratcheting the intensity of my feelings up that high. I often didn’t WANT to feel that strongly for someone, but no matter what I tried, I often did.
One can say many things about people who end up caught in this particular bind – they’ve been mislead by bad advice, The Patriarchy ™, or maybe just are inexperienced or not very good at communicating that they like someone or that they’re frustrated about being in a situation of unrequited feelings, or are to some degree at the mercy of very intense, and often uncomfortable feelings.
But having been in that situation, I find it pretty darn hurtful to be told that because of one aspect of how I conducted myself that means that actually, I didn’t LIKE the person I was after. I did. I know I did, and it is diminishing to dictate to me what my experiences actually were and what they meant (and this is also why I partly dislike the Nice Guys meme). There are plenty of other explanations for why people act the way they do, but in these situations it seems like people jump to the worst possible explanation and go “well, these guys don’t actually like they people they’re pursuing”.
“… some of my favourite friendships have included me being crazy about the other person …”
Really? When their smile made your heart sing with joy it never hurt you to know that your smile will never make them feel the same?
You never had that ugly voice in your head that interpreted “*just* friends” as “not good enough, not worthy enough for more” and have it wreck your self confidence?
And it never exhausted you to constantly monitor your behavior so you wouldn’t act like an annoying lovesick puppy, even when you *were* a lovesick puppy?
And when you interacted with their romantic partners jealousy and envy never reared their ugly heads?
You must be an extraordinary person, but many of us don’t have your zen-like mastery on our feelings.
I have had a number of good friendships that involved unrequited desire, although maintaining the friendship kept me from moving on.
I have also had some acquaintances where even though I wanted to maintain the friendship, it just petered out because we didn’t seem to be nonromantically compatible.
“You never had that ugly voice in your head that interpreted “*just* friends” as “not good enough, not worthy enough for more” and have it wreck your self confidence?”
Not good enough? Not worthy enough? Never. I assume that people who want me as a friend think I’m good enough and worthy enough.
Not *pretty* enough, that’s another matter.
Yes. In fact, I believe being “in love” with someone combines both wanting to be near them as a friend and with them as a sexual partner, with little separation between the “two” feelings.
Perhaps there are three ladders.
Ooh! I know this one! The person you care about in both ways is Schroedinger’s Ladder-Climber, and is simultaneously on 2 different ladders at once!
…Okay, that sounded a lot less stupid in my head than it looks written down.
This. A thousand times this.
I had a very close friend once tell me in a “preemptive strike” kind of way that “I hope you’re not interested”.
After that she kind of faded away, befriending, and dating, other guys. And I haven’t seen here since.
I guess I wasn’t very high on either of her ladders…
I just thought of something. I really hope the ‘one ladder’ theory is wrong. The majority of my friends are male and I’m female. If that theory is true:
1) I’m hideous
2) None of my male friends like me much
or
3) All of my male friends are going around all the time being really sad that I’m in a monogamous marriage now.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be hideous before…
The “one ladder” theory is wrong. I have good friends who are attractive females in relationships whom I’m not sad I won’t have sex with, and on the other hand I’ve had to “break up” with a female friend I had a crush on for years because I found out she was dating someone else. The categories of “like” and “desire” can not only overlap, but have sub-categories themselves.
Then again, I’m a pretty strange man.
I’ve mentioned the stereotype that male sexuality is inherently dangerous in several GMP articles the last couple of weeks, and this article brings up a closely related stereotype, the idea that men has a one track mind! Of course if one views male sexual attention as potentially dangerous, this second stereotype makes ALL male attention potentially dangerous. Though even apart from that, as Ozy mentioned, the idea that he’s only interested in your tits is insulting.
My personal experience is that the sort of interest and admiration that would make me want to be friends with someone also acts as a incredible attraction multiplier. If there is zero attraction in the first place, then there is no effect, Zero times anything is also zero. However if I have physical attraction and then I also find a personality I like, (any variety of personal qualities that I admire in a person) that attraction often develops into a major crush.
I do have to wonder if part of the reason women separate men into friendzone and boyfriendzone is the above stereotypes. No one wants to think of their friends as potentially dangerous, but if you see male sexuality as dangerous that creates a point of cognitive dissonance. There was once an article that was widely criticized on GMP and feminist blogs where a woman described how she assumed her male friend would never view her in a sexual manner, even when they’re in Victoria Secret, because her male friend was “Safe”. My memory is fuzzy and I can’t find the link.
At least one of the two women I’ve had explicitly tell me they felt “safe” with me I later found out had a major crush on me.
Wanting to have sex with someone does not preclude being interested in them as people. The women I’ve found most sexually attractive are the most intelligent ones, whom I can talk with, learn things from, and who get my sense of humor.
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-good-life-i-thought-you-were-like-a-ken-doll/
A related article to what I am talking about here on GMP.
Of course being sexually interested doesn’t actually preclude being interested in someone as a person. I bet most people become more interested sexually when they’re more interested personally, maybe even vice versa. However there are powerful social norms suggesting the opposite. Norms that suggest that SEX is not only motivated by instinct but in fact antithetical to higher brain function. Norms and even authors and political organizations that suggest that if you were REALLY interested with someone in a meaningful way, then you would be chaste about it.
Ozy,
so let’s assume a guy is aware that (a) a woman he does not know (well) will, when he talks to her, think he does so not because he is interested in her as a person and potential friend, but because he want a date (and boobs), and (b) when he tells a friend that he is interested in her as a potential date, she is likely to be hurt and feel disrespected by that, because it means he only ever cared about boobs. What is the best course of action for him to take, especially if he wants to be a decent person and respectful to women?
It would make sense to try to limit interactions with women to the minimum of what’s necessary. All interactions with women are likely to leave her feeling bad, and you want to be respectful, not disrespectful. If you do end up being friends with a woman despite your effort to keep away, and think that you might be open to dating her, never let her know in any way. After all, you really don’t want to hurt a friend.
And suddenly you’re deep into (at least first type) Nice Guy behavior, just from trying to be aware and respectful of female social conditioning. This ties directly into the second and third meditations…
Saoli, if it helps you, “want to x” does not necessarily mean “would be really sad if not x”. It might very well mean “if conditions were favorable and I had the chance to x, I would do so”.
I’m starting to really see a problem with only contemplating two categories of “like.”
Very good question kilo, and I’m interested to see Ozy’s answer too
. Honestly though, never mentioning that you’re interested seems like a bad way to go. I think the best bet is honesty, with a side of reminding her that you’re both people, neither one of you is a stereotype.
Also, yes, that does help
. I still don’t believe it though. I have known plenty of guys going out with one girl and friends with others that they like more but weren’t (as) attracted to. Attraction as directly proportional to like just strikes me as unlikely verging on impossible.
I think the ladder theory actually works, it just isn’t gendered. For some people liking is a contribution to their overall desire to be in a relationship with someone (i.e. if they like someone more they want to be in a relationship with them more), but for others they’re separate.
I usually end up fancying my closest female friends (and I don’t just go out making friends with ones I find cutest). I’ve ended up being attracted to a pretty broad spectrum of girls, and not all of them were conventionally attractive. It’s just kinda what happens with me, which is also why I find the notion of friendzoning somewhat odd. It’s nothing something I’ve ever felt the need to apply to my own relationships. (It all seems somewhat fear-based to me, to be honest, an overblown fear about ruining friendships).
I think this is why I did end up as a nice guy in the past, because that was basically the only strategy I thought was open to me to get the sort of people I was attracted to (and yes, I use the word strategy intentionally) – my closest friends.
Kilo. Very well put!
The mainstream model of sexuality does imply the best way to avoid harming women is to completely avoid them. I’ve noted the stereotype that men’s sexuality is harmful to women is prevalent and has a profound effect on our dating lives, and it seems you’ve and many others have felt that. I’ve seen guys make this argument in other threats about “Nice Guys,” in fact the movie “40 Year Old Virgin” has the titular character pronouncing “I respect women so much I stay away from them!” (Not to accuse you of unoriginality but this issue actually affects a lot of guys).
If you’re actually in that situation then the only solution would require learning the difference between romantic attention and sexual attention. The difference is much more subtle than many people want to admit, (especially if you’re interested in both their personality and sexuality). Unfortunately a guy typically has to leave sex out of it until the woman indicates both trust and sexual interest in the guy. Showing romantic interest is more acceptable, though being merely friendly the first few times you meet is common. Women worry about guys who only want sex. However heterosexual women still want to meet the right man.
So I think the thing to do is first figure out what kind of friend you are. Like what is your friendship based on? What kind of things do you to together? If you’re really open and talk about your crushes all the time, then just tell her as it happens! Immediately! Then she won’t think that you’ve been nursing this entitled thing for the past n years. So like relate it as the incident that made you attracted to her that you didn’t realize before. And if you have the sort of friendship where you talk about this stuff all the time, then she should believe you. I think this is safe and honest. If she doesn’t believe you and gets mad anyway, then don’t take it too personally because it was probably the social conditioning and not her being a mean person?
However, if you don’t talk about attraction or past relationship history or things like that as part of your friendship (like you’re strictly school buddies or bowling buddies or something) then try to open up the friendship to those areas first. Like ask abstract questions about what she thinks about dating and how attraction works. That way, you’ll be able to tell from her responses how she’s likely to react. AND you might realize that she has some weird attitudes about relationships and you’re better off not dating her anyway. =/
I think these sounds reasonable!
You know, this is one of the reasons I have a great deal of trouble talking to women. I’m afraid that so much as saying “Hi there, I really like the fact that your outfit matches perfectly and the blue flowers on the blouse pulls together the whole thing!” (true story) will basically make her roll her eyes and think, “Oh god, not another guy hitting on me.” So if the default assumption for women is that when a man is talking to them he’s hitting on them how do men talk to women to just talk to women without them the woman assuming he is hitting on her. This gets into my whole paranoia about coming off as a creep and imposing and everything else.
Never had real friends, so I can’t say I’m knowledgeable about this ladder thing.
I had acquaintances, some of which I’d meet many times a week for years. But I never even got to know their family’s names, and went to their house once or twice (while they came to mine dozens, and mine isn’t better than theirs).
All of them COULD have been friendships, if not for a fatal flaw in each of their relation to me. Something about it being very superficial, and/or being used.
I never even thought about ladder theory, it didn’t occur to me that people could ever find me attractive, prior to my transition (and after that, I thought the transition would also be a major block). I felt I was a universal ‘yuck’ to people, male and female.
Right folks, it’s been fun, but I need to get out of this thread now. It’s become a bit of a time sink. *unsubscribes from thread*.
I think there are men who have more than one “ladder” in their minds when they interact with women. There are certainly (some!) men out there who would make a distinction between a woman you want to marry and a woman you want to…take on “an erotic journey from Milan to Minsk.” A man could actually despise a woman and still desperately want to go to bed with her, while he may have great admiration for another woman and no interest in sex with her at all.
Being beautiful and attractive and sexy are not all synonymous with each other. A man could have a very attractive female friend that he does not have much interest in sleeping with. She could even be like a sister to him. We do have separate “family ladders,” or at least we should have them….
I don’t think I’ve ever percieved this, and that when it does happen it is often a madonna-whore complex which is never good.
Forgive me for prying, but are you saying all the men you know are interested in having sex with you? That actually sounds depressing, in some ways.
Its rather true that its hard to me to separate girl friends ( just friends) and potential girlfriend. Maybe because i’m shy and kinda introvert, if a girl nice to me, its would make me hard to forget her. But its not about sex at all .I just cant stop thinking about her. I really hope i can be friends with women without having those feelings to them. But its hard for me. But its not the matter of how attractive the girl or not, its the matter how she act to me. I would not have a crush at all with a pretty girl but shes not really not do anything with me. But i would have crush on average girl who really nice to me, ask me how was my day, etc. I agree with most of the writers write here, but since she is female not male, she doesn’t know how most of us ( male ) think. If she think we would have crush only on pretty girl because we want to f*ck them, well she’s wrong. 95 % of my crushes on my girl friends are purely emotional, not sexual, and i don’t care how pretty is she.
Pretty sure boobs and vagina are definitely No.1 and No.2 on my list of desired attributes for a dating partner. I mean, the personality stuff is taken for granted – if I’m only friends with people who have great personalities, then why would I date someone with anything less?
There has to be that raw primal lust, that urge, that will to fuck. Otherwise we’re going nowhere.
Skill at blowjobs is desired but not necessary. There’s time to learn.
Right, so, first off, everyone has two “ladders,” not just the ladies. Second, everyone places everyone else somewhere on BOTH “ladders.” If you want to say the ladders are “friendship” and “date-ability,” I mean that’s what you’re writing about sure. But you could just as easily have a distinct “ladder” for business partners, musical partners, writing collaborations. And then finding out your position on one of those other “ladders” could cause some corresponding “I thought he liked me for X but really he wants Y” moment, if for some reason you think that X and Y are exclusive to each other.
And we already have a really great tool for thinking about all this, a set of data points that each have two values. It’s called a scatter plot. And if someone really has separate ladders, if someone’s scatter plot genuinely looks like two intersecting number lines, dang, that person needs some help.
Everyone’s hung up on the ladders and that’s just INSANE.
What’s important about the ladder idea is that asking to be moved from one relationship state to another carries all these connotations. The fact that my desire to make kissing with you seemingly eradicates the fact that some of it comes from our shared love of Avatar: The Last Airbender (Toph. Amirite, gais?) but no. Apparently society tells us that if you’re interested in a woman romantically, then it’s all about dat booty.
This rings true to me on a visceral level. Since the MAIN reason why I don’t ask out a lot of my woman friends is it FEELS like betrayal. This explains it. If the coding is “he asked you out, your friendship is a sham!” then it’s really hard to recover to friendship from asking someone out.
From where I sit, THIS is the issue, not the stupid ladders.
I’m actually finding this whole discussion bizarre. I’m in the habit of taking people as individuals, not creating theories to explain how men/ women think. In my experience, men have a range of personality types and approaches to relationships. The same is true for women.
I wouldn’t feel betrayed if a guy friend asked me out. I would be irritated if he asked me out persistently, knowing full well I was already in a relationship, and refusing to take no for an answer. I would be irritated if he was married and asked me out. I would be irritated if he used our friendship to make his girlfriend feel jealous. I would be irritated if he had a secret crush on me for eons, never saying anything about it, and then suddenly started acting out when somebody else asked me out and I said yes.
Very true observations, Ozy…
Last wedding reception and last alumni event I attended, guys (married, too!) that I just struck up casual conversations with started glomming onto me (other people noticed and had to help block them)….I was being polite and social…..they thought I was being flirty (I guess)….the one at the wedding reception was there with his wife and kids and she was shooting dagger looks at him every time he swooped by my table!
You would think that as a married man the conversation that you have at a social event with another married person (with her friends and husband around) is casual, and not part of a pickup sequence….From here on in, I appoint my friends/husband as my bodyguards, and tell them to be on the lookout for inappropriate behavior….I seem to be a magnet for it!
Although, I feel safe with my karate partners….they know who I am and where my boundaries are….I trust them and tell them all kinds of secrets….plus I know they would decimate anyone who would try to come onto me!
your karate partners would “decimate anyone who would try to come onto me”, and you are comfortable with that?
So to you, a man hitting on you deserves violent punishment?
Wow.
Hugh–
To clarify: I took up karate a few years ago because I was being stalked by an ex ( someone with whom I have a scary and violent history)….so yes, strange men who come up to me and accost me unnerve me….I was having panic attacks just thinking about how my ex would pop up out of nowhere again until my karate master and my fellow classmates reassured me that no harm would ever come to me while they were around (which meant a lot to me at the time)….guys at the gym would express an interest in me, but I felt protected from their unwanted attention by my partners….
i would not scared hitting on you cause i’m black belt Karateka and Judoka myself. What if guy like me interested on you? Just joking though, i probably wont hitting on any girl that afraid being hitting and hoped their karateka friends will beat anyone trying to hitting on her lol. ( while i know i can also bring all of black belt friends and beat your friends )
Haha…! What style of karate BTW? We practice Uechi Ryu….My sensei is also a seasoned black belt in judo…so, yeah, that would be an interesting fight!
Interesting psychology paper I got linked to from Scientific American magazine:
Benefit or burden? Attraction in cross-sex friendship
Abstract
“I mean, both of those lists kind of suck, for a whole host of reasons. However! “She’s just friends with me because I’m confident and have a good sense of humor” is actually pretty flattering. “He’s just friends with me because I have nice boobs and am a size two and might be able to have sex with him” is… not. At all”
I actually think that this is a really accurate reading of things, and likely says a lot about how we think about rejection as well. “She rejected me because I’m thinks I’m a loser with a horrible personality” sounds a lot more damning than “He rejected me because of my cup size.” The first of those says that you got rejected because you’re a horrid person. The second of those says that you got rejected because the person who rejected you was shallow. I think that this could explain a lot about the ways in which men and women tend to react to rejection, as well as the whole “sex is an achievement for men, but women just have to show up” sort of thinking…
Thank you, you just explained one of my blind spots to me.
I’ve always wondered why rejection never seems to trigger the same essential self doubt in my female friends (many of whom ask men out, at least occasionally) it does in me and most of my male friends.
But, as you say, it makes perfect sense: in the Cultural Narrative For Girls rejection just means you don’t pass that guy’s shallow “hotness test.”
It’s obviously never a judgment of your real worth as a person or your character. Because men are Sex Crazed Animals who just care about tits and ass, and not about personality and character.
God, societies gender roles are so toxic all around.
haha, agree. And what i read from most female comments here, most of them seems to think all guys hitting on you is just want to f*ck you. No one believed that men also can have genuine loving, caring, emotional crush on women, not sexual. And no one want to believe that if no man hitting on you, maybe its not because they are shallow and youre average looking, maybe its because your personality s*cks!!!
The other problem with “Every boy automatically wants to date/fuck you,” is that if boys don’t hit on you during your teenage years, you assume, automatically, that it’s because you’re ugly.
My parents told me all the time how beautiful I was, yet no one asked me out during my high school years. At the time, I came to the conclusion (it made sense at the time) that I was actually hideously ugly and my parents were lying to make me feel better.
Then in college, suddenly I was a dude magnet somehow. I’m still not sure how or why that happened, but I’m very happy that now I get normal levels of Random Men Telling Me I’m Beautiful, because too much of it can be as much of a problem as none of it.
And you know something, men can feel ugly too when no one ever shows us we’re attractive. I don’t get why being told you’re beautiful/handsome is a gender thing. People seem to think that not ever having anyone tell you you’re attractive is perfectly not damaging for men, but it is as damaging to men, I think, as it is to women. No one wants to feel like they’re invisible, but people seem to think that men don’t care.
There are a lot of things that men are stupidly assumed by society to Not Care About because, after all, they’re Super-Duper Manly Men and have an on-off switch for feelings, right? Like hugs.
In fact, consider this post a big hug to all the fellows in this comment thread.
*HUGS!!*
Even _IF_ we men are all total creeps, that still doesn’t mean that all we want is sex. He may pretend to be your friend because he wants your money, or he wants to get closer to your more attractive friends, or he wants you take his mother’s place, or he’s a wingman sent to distract a cockblocker, or he’s looking to sell you something or convert you to his cause. He could even be bored and looking for someone to talk to. He could have no experience with women and is just practicing.
Just because a man is insincere doesn’t mean that he’s simpleminded. Even if you suspect the worst from men, give us credit for diversity. You may think we’re just after sex, when maybe we just want to exploit our friendship for something else. Keep an open mind, you know? : – )
If a woman wants to believe that the only value she has is in her looks, then she and she alone is responsibility for how she response to it.
First off, most studies show that looks isn’t as important as one thinks to men. It’s important, but it’s only one factor – and it’s importance diminishes the longer people know you.
I think that people overestimate the importance of looks to men, in part, because when they observe men approaching women it tends to be in places like a club. And looks help men choose who to approach in a club (How else could they choose – personality? humor? trustworthiness? Men don’t have the data to use these things)
Also – I think the “patriarchy” lists are a little one-sided. Looks are considered important to men, true. But map that onto money and nice car for guys. If you are going to list 6 relatively distinct things that women are looking for according to social convention, then here’s an equivalent list.
Looks
Nice clothes
Makes him feel respected/important
Fun and flirty
Housewife skills (cooking, cleaning)
Mothering instincts (warm and willing to look after others)
The stereotypical aspects of these traits suck, but nevertheless most of them are still positive (for men or women).
All things equal – would you rather be fun and flirty or dull and boring? Be able to cook and clean or be a lazy slob? Be someone who makes other people feel good about themselves or someone who makes people feel bad about themselves?
My point is that even if you subscribe to “patriarchy’s” list of what men look for in women, you should probably consider a man finding you attractive to be a compliment at some level.