• Gowron_Howard@lemmy.world
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    20 minutes ago

    There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to date someone years after you had feelings for them. However the body count reference gives me the incel ick.

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      1 hour ago

      I mean… he took his shot with her 5 years ago, was rejected and then stayed friends while she went through all those other guys to then come back around and try to settle for him. I can see how he’d struggle with that. I’d probably feel like a last resort in that situation too. Also I think this story is rage bait so don’t get to invested.

    • binarytobis@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      It’s pretty clear to me that anon carefully crafted this story, no matter how much of it is actually real, to cast himself in the best possible light and show this woman as evil. It’s telling that in doing so he didn’t even realize that it reflected poorly on him to shame her for having sex with someone who wasn’t him.

    • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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      5 hours ago

      But have you considered that anon can’t count past 2 so everything else is countless.

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 hours ago

      i think this isn’t the main point of this meme. he’s hurt because he wanted to have a sweet teenage romance (or what feels like it) with that girl. that’s not possible anymore.

    • blarghly@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Why?

      In many cultures and in many people’s minds - dare I say, most - sex and love are linked. If your starting assumption is that people should only have sex with others that they want to have a long term relationship with, then having a long string of partners indicates a general low level of commitment to any given partner. This would imply, given these cultural assumptions, that this person is not a good bet for a stable, long term relationship. And in cultures where chastity is seen as virtuous, these standards are applied both to men and women (if not entirely equally). A woman who is part of a conservative sect of catholicism, for example, would likely be less interested in a man who was known for sleeping around, rather than a man who has remained a virgin waiting for marriage.

      Another perspective is that of fairness and dignity. Suppose OP and OP’s love interest are in middle school PE class, where they play pickup soccer. OP is good at soccer. But every day, OP’s love interest picks the rich kid over OP, because she knows that the rich kid always has their parents buy their team pizza after school. So OP sits on the bench watching the other kids play every day, and never gets pizza. Then suppose on the last day of class, the coach announces that the winning team in today’s soccer match will be guarenteed A’s for the semester. Now OP’s love interest picks OP over the rich kid. I think it would be quite understandable for OP to be put off by this behavior. They would feel like they haven’t been properly valued by their love interest, that they are now being used. I think an argument can be made that OP would be a better paragon of virtue if they let go of these bitter feelings - but at the same time, I think these feelings should be understandable to most people who make an attempt at empathy.

      And another perspective, which I think is the strongest argument, is simply that people like what they like and don’t like what they don’t like. Our intrinsic sexual/emotional desires are largely not malleable. It’s time to stop pretending that people’s preferences are some kind of moral barometer. Those on the left have been making this argument for years after all. Gay men, for example, are born gay. No amount of conversion therapy changes this. Trans individuals are trans - if this were something they could change, don’t you think they would skip the social stigma and extensive medical procedures? Why wouldnt they just take the easy route of simply changing their minds, if their minds were something they could easily change? We could apply the same reasoning to, say, foot fetishists. They don’t carry the same stigma as gay or trans people, but there is still a definite stigma. And having a foot fetish entails being turned off by partners with “gross” feet. Life would be easier for them if they didn’t have this fetish. They would avoid the stigma, and their dating pool would be significantly increased - so if they had the choice, why would they not simply stop caring about feet? And we can similarly apply this logic to OP. As we can see from the comments in this thread, there is a stigma attached to caring about the number of partners a partner has had. And if you don’t care about this, you will have a much larger dating pool and life is easier. So if this were something which was easy to change, wouldn’t we expect people to change it?

  • magnetosphere@fedia.io
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    11 hours ago

    I don’t think I can blame Anon. “Should we try it out?” isn’t exactly stirring my passions, either.

    Under the circumstances, it sounds like “you’re my least terrible option left, so maybe I can settle for you. On a trial basis, of course.” Uh, no thanks.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Yep. I’ve run out of ideas, I’ll try settling with a heavy “maybe”. That’ll really make you feel like a potential partner values you.

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 hours ago

      Under the circumstances, it sounds like “you’re my least terrible option left, so maybe I can settle for you. On a trial basis, of course.” Uh, no thanks.

      I think it’s more like “oh shit, lots of men are suddenly turning right-wing, and i’m getting afraid of them now, so please anon, protect me. i’m not actually into you, of course (who could be into you?) but at least you’re harmless.”

      • blarghly@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Most women’s social circles will not see men make any significant rightward shift in political opinion. Most peoples’ political opinions are fairly stable over time, and change slowly. Most people naturally spend time with people with similar political opinions. And if someone finds that they have significantly different political opinions than their peers, they will almost certainly keep it to themselves.

        Right wing political spaces have a negative corrolation with female participation. The farther right a space is, the fewer women we expect to see there. And to the extent that there is a large rightward shift in men’s political positions, it is driven primarily by men who already leaned right. More left-leaning men, if they move right at all, would move right very minimally. The aggregate of minimal moves to the right across the bell curve would be noticeable at a statistical level, but would not be noticeable in most people’s actual social lives. Significant moves to the right would only be seen on the right wing side of the bell curve.

        So if we accept your hypothesis, then we could also conclude that OP’s love interest is already involved in significanly right-wing spaces.

        But the alternative conclusion, assuming your hypothesis is correct, is that OP’s love interest if more moderate/left wing (most women), but is chronically online and hears about men becoming more right wing.

        • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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          3 hours ago

          Right wing political spaces have a negative corrolation with female participation.

          yeah, that’s an interesting observation, which makes you wonder what is cause and what is consequence.

          So if we accept your hypothesis, then we could also conclude that OP’s love interest is already involved in significanly right-wing spaces.

          Yeah, that’s a likely outcome i guess. Girl falls for “strong” men in the past, suddenly realizes they’re all right-wing and potentially dangerous, suddenly tries to find a non-dangerous partner, or sth like that.

  • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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    10 hours ago

    Anon got over their crush and got on with their life, nothing wrong with that at all.

    Besides, it sounds like they’re about option J here, and it’s perfectly okay to not be happy about that.

  • Zexks@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Been there more than a few times. Dont wait people it almpst never works out. Dont say never though, someone people do win lotteries occasionally.

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    12 hours ago

    Turns out, being rejected by someone you’re in love with actually sucks, and that goes double if you were friends with them. Sure you can try and stay friends with them after, but whether that works depends a lot on your state of mind/mental health, the rest of your social circle and the state of your life in general (and on how the rejecter/friend acts, of course). Your average 4chan poster is spectacularly ill-equipped to make it actually work well, even if they somehow aren’t somewhat misogynistic.

    At the same time, just keeping it to yourself is probably not a good option either, if you’re not the type who can actually move on after a while (e.g. by crushing on someone else).

    • BreakerSwitch@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Yeah I super get this. Back at the height of the whole “friend zone” thing I had been hanging out with a friend one on one very regularly and began crushing on her, asked her out at some point, she said she needed to focus on other things. A semester or two later, I asked if that had changed due to different circumstances in her life and she gave me a more direct no. She was pretty integrated into my friend group and my feelings were pretty badly hurt because we had been very close. Friends in that group would go on to ask why I’d never asked her out, under the assumption she was interested, and when I did eventually start dating someone else she tried to “talk me up” to that girl in a way that felt like sabotage to me. It’s hard to balance those feelings while remaining friends with someone. I was definitely at risk for falling down an incel hole around that time. Glad I didn’t

      • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
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        2 hours ago

        I’m also glad you didn’t fall down the incel hole, because then it’s likely that we wouldn’t have you here with us

    • Lorindól@sopuli.xyz
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      7 hours ago

      Yep.

      Something quite similar happened to me in my twenties. We had a pretty close-knit group of friends in university and in the second year one of the girls started to show signs of romantic interest in me. I was oblivious, of course, so my friends had to point it out for me. I was single and quite unexperienced with dating, so I thought “what the hell, why not?” So we ended up dating and I was starting to slowly fall for her.

      Then we went to this student party together and we hung out with people as always. I went for a swim in the pool and when I came back, she came to me, looking extremely happy and said that she had just met this amazing guy and wanted to try things out with him. I stood silent for a few seconds and said “OK, it’s cool with me” . She smiled and ran off to her new man.

      I got dressed, finished my beer and walked home. It was a long walk, but instead of disappointment and sadness I remember feeling immense relief, as I had just learned what “dodging a bullet” truly meant.

      She and the new guy dated for maybe a year, before she lost interest in him - he really was a great guy, right at the start of their relationship he wanted to talk with me and he was genuinely sorry for “stealing my girl”. I assured him that I held no grudge and we became friends after she dumped him.

      During their dating she quickly drifted out of our circle of friends by her own choice, so I got to keep things pretty much like they were before. I was always friendly towards her when we met and she did likewise. My friends were surprised that I wasn’t angry at her, but I told them that this was for the best and that I was happy how things had turned out.

      Next year I found a wonderful girlfriend and I was happy. Few years later I happened to meet this “ex” of mine in a work-related seminar. When the seminar ended, I walked to the bus stop and saw her standing there. Turned out that we lived along the same bus route. Then she suddenly said “wouldn’t it be nice if you came home with me?” Like, WTF? She knew very well that I had been in a steady relationship for years and she had even met my girlfriend a few times.

      She looked at me seductively and said “so, how about it?”. I’d known that she wasn’t stable, but at that moment I realized how truly fucked up she really was. “No, that’s not going to happen now or ever”, I said and walked away.

      That was the last time I saw her. Few years ago I heard that she had been married twice or thrice before she was 40, and was single again.

    • IndescribablySad@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      I think they’re trying to say that he doesn’t even feel like her backup, he’s her backup x times removed. Which kinda undercuts his point a bit, but does set the stage for a complete removal of attraction and the very particular manic ending they wrote for their story

      • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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        15 hours ago

        There’s something insulting about being the one she wants to settle down with after a bunch of flings etc.

        When’s my turn to have fun?

        • ook@discuss.tchncs.de
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          9 hours ago

          I hope some day you can reflect on this statement and realise the toxicity behind it.

          Edit: I guess the downvoters don’t like to be called out?

            • Kushan@lemmy.world
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              9 hours ago

              Nothing at all, but that last line, “When is my turn to have fun?” Is a bit transactional, like there’s an expectation and that’s the problematic part.

              • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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                6 hours ago

                like there’s an expectation

                you can have expectations from relationships. you don’t have to, and not every relationship has them, but it’s perfectly fine to have them, as long as the other person’s fine with that.

              • ook@discuss.tchncs.de
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                9 hours ago

                Exactly, but also immediately assuming you’d be the “backup” on this and it of course cannot be genuine love.

                • Glide@lemmy.ca
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                  8 hours ago

                  Anon grows and changes in a 5 year span, and his romantic interests change.

                  Girls opinion on romance is different in 5 years.

                  “I don’t want to be the backup.”

                  Men can grow and change over 5 years. Women? Nah. She just wanted to fuck around and now she’s settling.

                  This train of thought is some terminally online shit. Then again, complaining that green text is some terminally online shit is insane in its own account.

      • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Why are you being charitable to a greentext poster lmfao. It’s like when the skinhead starts saying dogwhistles and someone is like “well maybe he doesn’t know it’s a dog whistle”.

        Idk man, maybe you’ve not been exposed to enough 4chan.

        • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org
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          8 hours ago

          sure, let’s just assume malice or ill intent whenever possible, and forget about any empathy or sympathy.

            • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org
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              7 hours ago

              i’m just tired of internet toxicity tbh. Not as in “Oh no, they laugh about Kirk’s assasination”, mind you, that shit is actually hillarious, neither i care about anyone’s political oriantation as long as they’re a decent human being. I’m talking about this unprompted toxic bullshit like “oh, they’re using this site, they must be a jerk!”. That’s literally the same rhetoric that politicians use to create “us vs them” narrative, except they do it on another basis like nationality or whatever.

              Did your day go so wrong that you need to let it all out somehow, but this is the only way you found? Genuinely asking btw

              • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org
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                7 hours ago

                btw, just so you know, thanks to some particularily heated instances over here, i’ve seen people with opinion just like yours but about the fediverse.

                • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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                  6 hours ago

                  Let’s not act like 4chan has ever been anything but a infamous shithole that attracts shitheads. It has the worst possible reputation: it doesn’t attract good people. Sorry. You sound delightful, tho, all your pettiness and pretentiousness aside.

        • sleen@lemmy.zip
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          10 hours ago

          Idk man, maybe you’ve not been exposed to enough 4chan.

          Or maybe he has experienced enough 4chan to the point where he realises those hidden meanings.

    • lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works
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      11 hours ago

      These stories are even more real and true than the real and true stories on r/aita. OP just forgot the part where the crying bald eagle stood up and clapped at the end

      • exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 hours ago

        This particular fantasy (one day I’ll get to reject the women who rejected me first and they’d never be able to handle it as gracefully as I did) seems somewhat common among young men who have trouble connecting with women.

        But the false premise at the center of it is that the man is such a good friend to the woman, and the woman’s dating/romantic life hasn’t found anyone nearly as understanding or kind or empathetic. And part of that belief is some kind of assumption that life is an RPG where everyone is allotted the same number of points to distribute, and anyone who is maxed on charisma must be less intelligent or empathetic or something.

        Realistically, men who are friends with women tend to do better with dating and relationships than men who aren’t close to women. The friends of friends angle is a great pipeline for searching for partners, assuming your personality makes your friends comfortable connecting you with their friends.

  • krunklom@lemmy.zip
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    11 hours ago

    “She fucked too many guys”

    Waaaaaahhh oh no my partner is good at sex, oh woe is me.

    I’ve never slept with anyone with a single digit body count that wasn’t fucking awful in the sack.