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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.
Everyones here is commenting on the low-hanging fruit, why the guy fucked up. But what explains the vitriolic response?
Like yeah, he fucked up, but fuckups happen. Why is he being painted as an incel scum, entitled sex field, and all the other horrible things in the book? Literal rapists don't get this much vitriol. Adulterers don't get this much vitriol. I really thought you were exaggerating, but I went and read the comments and these people could form a lynch mob if they could. (I spew a lot of anger in the opposite direction too but I don't have malice in me, it's more of the "why are you like this??" type than "incel delenda est" type seen in the comments)
What gives?
I'm sure there are some ingroup outgroup dynamics, but I would posit that there are a few other factors here.
Token ass-covering. I can guarantee you a good chunk of the males commenting on that post are just about the same in the mating hierarchy as OP. But OP's group is reviled, you must disavow him ala 50 Stalins to show where you allegiances lie. You must make it clear to the online strangers that no you are not one of those guys. And you must convince yourself by that you are not that by strongly disavowing it, it hits too close to home for some.
The females commenting there are harder to pin down. But I would say they are taking out their frustrations at men as a class towards the scapegoat. "How dare you think we are meat bags that you can just have sex with?". I also think there is some sort of status anxiety here the women on the post know they can't do much better than the type of guy OP is (seriously you think hot girls use mainstream reddit?), and this fills them with resentment.
And I think the above is true. "Cool" (high status) people are usually exceptionally well-mannered and tolerant, they don't have much to prove, let alone waste time shitting on the personal attributes of a random online. The stereotype that high-status people are mean and catty is one of the stupidest copes/fantasies ever.
I feel like the vitrolic response is easily explained by redditards being redditarded. To be blunt no one who takes trigger warnings seriously, or who shows up just for the /r/drama, is going to be a bastion of mental health. If you keep expecting obviously insane people to behave sanely, you're going to be disappointed.
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