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From the story as told, if it's true and not someone trolling us all online, there was an assumption on his part about that which may or may not have been true. He interpreted what she was doing as flirting, but it might not have been. It might have been, as well. We have nothing to tell us what went on except his interpretation, and that's one part of the minefield: women will say "I was friendly and he tried hitting on me" and be upset because they were not signalling desire, men will say "She flirted with me and when I reciprocated she got all stand-offish" and be upset, and both sets will be in the right! The man made an honest mistake about thinking it was flirting when it wasn't, the woman made an honest mistake about why he acted like that.
Am I being too utopian in wishing for a world where "I'm not interested in the 'with benefits' part, but sure! let's be friends! I'd love to hang out with you and go to a movie or have lunch together at times!" is acceptable for both parties? That men and women really could be friends, even if the possibility of sex is not on the table? That the guy won't disappear if there isn't the chance of getting laid so all the stuff about "I like you, let's be friends" is bullshit, and the woman isn't perceived as "I want a beta orbiter" if she just wants to go to movies and out for meals with the guy?
Opportunity cost.
There are only so many hours in a day, there is only so much money in your going out budget, only so much memory in your brain, only so much energy in an introvert, only so much room in your monkeysphere. Social relationships take active time and effort to maintain; if not maintained, decay to nothingness. Hence, Dunbar's Number. Every female friend a guy has is one less male friend.
If there's no chance of sex, inside or outside a relationship [1], this is a very bad trade. As a man, men are more likely to share your interests, more likely to help you in times of trouble, more likely to have similar experiences from which to give you useful advice, more enjoyable to hang out with, and infinitely less likely to take advantage of your sexual attraction towards them.
I assure you, there is not man on this Earth whose idea of a good time is taking you shopping for a makeover, eating out with you at an overpriced restaurant, helping you move all your shit to your new apartment, listening to you whine about how it's not about the nail, and, worst of all for a guy who is attracted to you, hugging and comforting you while you cry about what an asshole Chad is for pumping and dumping you [2]. Those are things that men do for their wives girlfriends, or for girls that they hope will become their wives and girlfriends; they are the costs of a romantic relationship, not the benefits.
What are the benefits? Sex.
Pretend that you went in to work tomorrow and your boss announced that, effective immediately, he would no longer be providing you with a salary; that he is not interested in a financial relationship with you, but that he hopes you will continue to come to work anyway because he provides you with a challenging environment, a structured schedule, a place to socialize with your co-workers, a meaning to your life, something to put on your resume, and free coffee. What would your reaction be?
If you have any pride and dignity at all, your response will be "fuck you, pay me."
It is the same mistake Sam the barista makes in Eliezer Yudkowsky's "Unspeakable Bargains", which we previously discussed on r/TheMotte. When a girl asks a guy to be her friendzoned beta orbiter, or when a guy asks a girl to be his NSA fuck buddy, they are both committing the equivalent of your boss asking you to work without pay.
So why are there so many beta orbiters? Why are there so many girls getting pumped and dumped by Chad? For the same reason people take unpaid internships. There is a serious power imbalance in the market, and desperate people will accept degrading conditions for the chance to get ahead.
There are at least five females for ever Chad, and at least four beta males for every female. A guy will become a beta orbiter for the chance that the archetypal modern woman will condescend to marry him once she hits the wall and falls off the bottom of Chad's booty call list. And a woman will sleep with Chad because Chad has four other girls on his booty call list and is not going to put up with any "no sex until marriage" nonsense (also, because romance novels and movies have brainwashed her into thinking that there is something unique and magical about her pussy that will cause Chad to settle down and commit even though he has pumped and dumped two dozen girls just like her in the past). If women were willing to walk away from Chad, they would have to settle for Mr. Average. And women would rather fuck a dog than an average-looking beta provider.
[1] And this is a distinction that really needs to be emphasized. When women complain about how their male friends have a sexual interest in them, they often frame it in the worst possible terms, as if the guy just wanted to use her body once or twice and then never see her again. Whereas a sexual interest in your female friend could just as easily be "I am in love with that woman. I want to marry her; I want her to be the mother of my children." Either way, he gets accused of pretending to be her friend when he asks her out. But, for men, being friends with a woman seems like a perfectly reasonable first step. Need to be trained out of that behavior.
[2] Kind of like this scene of My Little Pony where Spike comforts Rarity after she finds out Trenderhoof likes Applejack, except in the real world, Rarity would be crying about how Trenderhoof ghosted her after she gave up her virginity to him, then a week later she saw him going out with Applejack. Spike's relationship with Rarity is a textbook example of a friendzoned beta orbiter. As usual, early Friendship is Magic is surprisingly based.
Using the pareto principle as source, that's called weaksauce. Per pareto, there are at least four beta females to a Stacy, I therefore declare womankind to be alright.
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Overly strong. I've had female friends with whom the dynamic was the same as with my male friends. (Of course, we did not do those specific behaviors, but I'd wager there's a breed of metrosexual male who enjoys such activities.)
In general, the thing that turns me off Red Pill/manosphere talk is that it's phrased in absolutes that I know from experience are false. AWALT being the repeat offender. To borrow an analogy from another part of this thread, there are in fact poor Indians in Varanasi who will not lie to you and would like to have a friendly conversation with foreigners. You just don't meet them very often.
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It's not possible and is very much Utopian. @Quantumfreakonomics, said it perfectly, most men would take extreme insult to such as an arrangement as an alternative, which is why the standard protocol is men just abandon the entire relationship if any attempt to turn it into a sexual relationship failed.
That could be a malebrained failure, because men rarely ever reject sexual advances for "arbitrary" reasons; the reasons will always be an easy to identify logistical issue or something about the girl that makes her extremely unattractive, women on the other hand might reject sex based on any number of reasons that might come off as arbitrary to a man. So when men project their framework onto women, they end up concluding that she REALLY REALLY REALLY finds him repulsive. And a relationship is not that easy even if the other person thinks you fail some unrelated to the relationship requirement, for example your relationship with you parents would be tarnished if you found out they think you are extremely dumb, even though your intelligence has nothing to do with your relationship with your parents.
Only if humans were perfectly rational automatons I suppose.
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Essentially yes? One could construct hypothetical scenarios where both parties are romantically and sexually satisfied, and neither one would prefer the other over their current partner, and each one's partner does not feel threatened by the friendship. In such a situation I think what you propose would work.
In general, I think men understand if a woman is taken and doesn't want to change partners. We get it. We can't all be the most desirable man in the world.
What I don't think women understand is how [disrespectful? infuriating? emasculating? I'm not sure the exact word to use here] it feels when a woman, who is single, tells you that even though she finds you funny, and interesting, and likes being around you, she doesn't want to do anything romantic or sexual with you. It makes it obvious that her revealed preference, despite having deep-seated biological drives to be romantic and have sex, is to refrain from that activity entirely rather than have it with you. I don't want to use the term "dehumanizing", both because it's overused, and because it doesn't quite apply here either, but there is no word for what it feels like to be presented with empirical evidence that the very thing that makes you who you are, your genetics themselves (not your personality or sense of humor, we know she likes that), have been soundly rejected, that there are subconscious signals you could never understand radiating off of you demonstrating your lack of worth to exactly the people you want to impress. You will be reminded of this fact every time you hang out with her, that you could be having much more fun, getting exactly what you've always wanted, if only you weren't made of objectively low-quality genetics.
That is why, in general, men and women can't be "just friends".
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