site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2402 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for September 20, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

They say “the worst thing she can say is no” but I asked a woman who I’m sorta friends with on a date via text and she read the message but hasn’t responded for 11 days and that’s so much worse than “no.”

I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything wrong but I guess I just want feedback on this message as a sanity check.

Hi [name]

I just want to say that I think you're really kind and intelligent and interesting and pretty and I'd like to go on a date with you some time if you're interested.

If not, it's not a big deal, we can pretend this didn't happen and keep being friends lol

Paging @CanIHaveASong

To OP, look I am no professional, but one of the best bits of advice I ever read was that if you get ghosted, just move on. Sometimes no response is, in fact, a response. You're right, it isn't fun to be ignored, it sucks, it's demoralizing. But it doesn't matter.

If you want reassurances, here they are:

  1. This has happened to every guy who has tried this, more than once, at one time or another.
  2. If she is your sorta friend, as you say, you will see her again someday. A woman's prerogative is to change her mind. Just don't feel the need to bring this ignoring up as if it's important. It isn't.
  3. These hurt feelings are just chemicals inside your brain.
  4. Women could have a dozen reasons for not responding. They are in a relationship with someone else, they secretly like someone else, they don't want to hurt your feelings and have no idea how to respond, they fear the endless back-and-forth if they do say no and you persist, they fear some other frightening reprisal because Male, or something else.. Don't take rejection as a personal attack on your own desirability.
  5. It's okay that you are asking this question and asking it here. It shows you're trying to figure things out the way we all do. Don't feel bad about any of this, you'll get better at interactions with women as you mature and develop confidence.
  6. Good for you for giving it a shot and not just pining away.

Without knowing you, her, or how you interact it's impossible to comment on your stated question of what's wrong with your message. It comes off to me as cloyingly sweet, which is of course no crime. But depending on how you two interact there could be a humor I'm not getting. You don't need a sanity check, but you do need to put your focus elsewhere than this particular person, at least for a good while.

Finally: Send no more texts to this person, ever, for any reason, if you do not receive a reply. If you've already done so, stop. 🛑

I found this advice to be deeply empathetic and fairly profound. Saving for the next time I need to give a friend a pep talk. Really, really good stuff George.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats