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Notes -
Time for some good old fashioned gender politics seethe:
https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/11of65g/i_21m_asked_my_friend_21f_to_be_fwb_and_now_she/?sort=confidence
A clearly very socially awkward nerdy literal virgin (despite being 21 years old) guy thinks a cute girl in his study group is flirting with him. He takes her aside privately after a study session and asks her… does she want to be his FWB (friends with benefits)? He reasons that he wants to have fun like many young men and isn’t looking for a relationship right now.
The girl is shocked and taken aback. She turns him down flat and appears uncomfortable. He feels uncomfortable too and apologizes to her and leaves.
Over the next few weeks, she doesn’t say anything to him at study sessions. He tries to make contact again, not to proposition her, but just to resume their friendly acquaintanceship. She tells him directly that she doesn’t want to speak to him. He is hurt but understands and leaves her be. Soon enough, he learns that she has told her friends and extended social circle what happened, and he is widely reviled as a creep. He feels hurt and violated. He laments that he has lost a friend, and now feels like he’s being lambasted for an innocent error, and he wishes the whole thing would just end and go away.
My take on OP is sympathetic. He comes off as extremely awkward and clearly isn’t well versed in the endless myriad of opaque and seemingly contradictory rules of modern dating. He wanted an FWB, and he didn’t understand that the socially acceptable way to get one is to ask a girl out on a date (usually through Tinder), then hook up with her, then either stay as vague as possible for as long as possible about your intentions while continuing to periodically fuck, or to sort of half way shrug after a fuck session and say, “yeah, I’m just really not looking for anything serious right now.” OP genuinely thought he was being upfront and honest with another person, and assumed that he was proposing something mutually beneficial.
Yes, it’s not a good idea to outright proposition a girl to be an FWB in a library. It’s awkward and weird and I can see how it made her feel uncomfortable. But all signs point to OP making an innocent error. He didn’t know any better. When he became aware of his mistake, he immediately apologized, gave the offended party space, and only later attempted to reestablish contact in a friendly, non-threatening manner. He made an innocent mistake and responded in the best possible way.
And Reddit’s response to OP is… calling him a massive piece of shit in every conceivable way.
What I find interesting about the overwhelming criticisms of OP is that they split in two completely opposite directions, but seemingly from the same critics.
On the one hand, OP is relentlessly slut shamed. He is accused of treating this woman like a “flesh light,” of feeling “entitled” to sex, of creepily trying to fuck an acquaintance, of pursuing sex with a girl instead of trying to date thine lady like a proper Victorian gentleman.
On the other hand, OP is relentlessly virgin shamed. He’s an incel, a fool, a creepy moron. He’s daring to try to have casual sex when he hasn’t even lost his virginity because he is SUCH A MASSIVE FUCKING LOSER. OP doesn’t understand that casual sex is only for chads who have fucked a bunch of girls, FWBs are an unlockable perk, not a privilege of the sexually unworthy.
Fortunately, there is a minority of Reddit commenters backing OP up, but it is a small minority. Meanwhile, many more posters are saying that OP is well on the way to becoming an incel or Andrew Tate fan, and unfortunately, they’re right, just not in the way they think they are.
I don’t have a larger point for this post, only that it’s incredibly frustrating that a significant portion of mainstream culture has erected these standards for the dating marketplace where one false step not only does, but should result in social and moral annihilation.
He fell victim to two of the classic nerd blunders.
The most famous is never assume that the sexes have equal preferences. I want sex, she also wants sex, why don't we have it together? Win-win! A great pareto improvement for our social situation!
I'm gonna channel my inner TLP and switch to the second person singular here:
In reality, you offered nothing for something, i.e. you wanted sex while not even pretending to offer even the prospect of protection or provision. It is as if a woman took you by the side and said "So I don't really want to fuck you, and I mean you specifically, so I won't. But how about you invite me to restaurants and the movies anyway? I have an opening for a beta orbiter right now." Extremely insulting, right? That's because it assumes that you are either desparate enough or enough of a stupid chump to go along with it. She's supposed to at least dangle the possibility of sex in front of your nose!
But you just did the same to her. You insinuated that she's slutty enough and cheap enough to hand out nookie to a socially awkward nerd for free. What kind of whore do you think she is? No wonder she doesn't want to talk to you anymore.
But only slightly less well known is the blunder of assuming that dating is not supposed to be confusing. Nerds do this all the time. It's so inefficient! Why go through all the trouble if we all just want someone to be with? The whole point is to filter out the people without the social graces to navigate rough social waters. It's like showing up to an obstacle course and suggesting that the same distance could be covered much quicker without all the stuff in the way.
But I'm a very nice guy who just wants to follow the rules and get along with everybody without offending anyone! Exactly. What makes you think she wants a push-over with the social IQ of a potato? And how dare you imply that she doesn't have better prospects than that?
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?
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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