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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   26958 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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I was a trainer in a large group for a while (mostly women) and the one woman who was demonstratively affectionate toward me and the other male trainers was almost unanimously turned on by the rest of the female trainees. This was always done subtly except behind closed doors.

OH I had to re-read this a couple of times, because I was trying to figure out if you were really saying "she was turned on by the female trainees" i.e. was somehow a very loose bisexual girl who personally liked both you and the female trainees, or if you meant "she almost unanimously turned on the rest of the female trainees" i.e. they were all sapphic for her. Wow, does the sentence make more sense when I read it right.

I don't know how you could have phrased it better, but this perhaps is my punishment for skimming motte posts while sleepy.

A woman who communicates interest with a stranger even subtly is rare, outside an alcohol-drenched setting.

I've had it happen, but typically with extreme plausible deniability, in the sense that their interest could be understood platonically and their invitations to date could be understood as an invitation for a nice time with a friend. This could be an attempt not to look too eager/excessive/expoitable, unfamiliarity with how you clearly show interest to someone (women are often pretty bad at it, because they aren't forced to practice), a kind of hedging of bets in case someone isn't all that compatible, or plain simple insecurity and rejection sensitivity of the same kind that causes men to orbit sometimes instead of stating their interest clearly. Probably a mixture.

Men stating their interest directly is almost always a terrible idea except when the event occurs as the result of a screenplay and the speaker is darkly mysteriously handsome confident and charming, and the woman gorgeous and available, i.e rare as hell. I suppose it has happened. Intrigue and some sort of two-step is far more common.

Reasonably attractive and not obviously insane women generally have so little experience with casual rejection (the female equivalent tends to be getting roasted and ghosted) that - well, imagine yourself in high school, never so much as asked out a crush before, going up to a girl and having her laugh in your face.

... or, in your twenties, it's "Sure! I'm really busy at work right now, though, but I'll call you later!" And, thirty-five years on, I'm still waiting for that call . . .

This seems to be the basis of what used to be termed "the neg." I've no idea if it's still called this, and general knowledge of the technique surely must render it ineffective now.

I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence by defining it, but basically it's a plausibly real but very subtle put down of the girl (this could be something as innocuous as briefly looking at your phone instead of her), ideally right around the time you've said something to get her interest, and presumably said something nice. Push pull, tsundere, whatever we're saying now. The unexpected, when being fawned upon is her norm. I certainly get it.

I had a... friend, I guess, in high school, who I felt was narcissistic and far, far too full of herself, and I started mildly insulting her and putting her down, because I felt like she needed to be taken down a peg and realize not everyone worshipped the ground she walked on. I rarely put people down like this, but something about her just annoyed me.

My impression was that she took this as an attempt at flirting, and started doing weird things like comparing me to her boyfriend. I just rolled my eyes at this and continued putting her down. She was cute, I suppose, but her personality was radioactive and it shocked me how much people liked her.

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