u/trulyElse

Don't make the mistake of assuming learnedness and intelligence go hand in hand.

That's unverifiable. It will still take a big swing at the trust between you and your friend to do this.

Many women have it in their heads that men will take what they can get, so those are the only two possible explanations they can come up with for a man not wanting them.

That's more or less how I see it, yeah.

I think it mostly stems from an observation about how sexual performance is usually judge.

If a man masturbates too much, and can no longer climax from regular sex ... that's his issue. He has to cut back, he has to sort it out, he has to fix his dick.

If a woman masturbates too much, and can no longer climax from regular sex ... that's her boyfriend's issue. He has to man up, he has to do better, he has to please his woman.

So if you're using the toys in the bedroom, it feels like you're desensitising yourself to normal human sex that we evolved to enjoy, and that's supposed to be his problem to fix, but if he's already doing his best and it's not enough ... he'll give up one day. And it'll blindside you.

I wouldn't call it "cheating" ... I'd just say it's a lack of self regulation on your part.

I think the more awareness you have of other people's emotions, the more understanding you need to achieve the same amount of regulation.

And from my read, you see other people's emotions as a threat to yourself, or at least you act no different to someone who does.

Sounds like you're trying to blame your empathy for the consequences of your anxiety.

It's possible that your fashion is more geared towards what men like to see, so even the unwashed look appeals more to women than your done-up look.

Can I ask why women always seem to go "just be gay then" whenever a man expresses that dating involves work?

I learned not to do that once I made the connection between doing that and burgeoning limerence.

Almost right.

There's always a reason someone's still single in their 30s/40s, but that reason isn't always a lack of sense / depth.

I'd continue to live as I do now, just with fewer friends.

however, the main issue im having is that whenever i tell men that im only interested in fellow dungeon crawler gamers, these men would lie to me and pretend that they play the same games as i do just to get in my pants. then when i catch them lying, they just ghost me.

Oh, clever trick for this: don't tell them you like Dungeon Crawlers, just ask them what kinds of games they play if any.

Think of it like encryption. The public key is "I like gamers" and the private key is "I like dungeon crawler games, and want someone who understands them".

By not giving them the private key, only the ones who align with you will mention it.

The other guys who will lie to get in your pants won't know that Path of Exile is the password, and will mention Balatro, or Overwatch, or Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 ... but the odds that they mention a dungeon crawler at random is significantly lower.

I'm like 90% sure a lot of women relate to this from the other direction, too.

And rather than using that to stop this conversation from happening, I'd rather bring up how fucked we've made things by acting like wanting to be recognised for our work is a sin.

We need to normalise making invisible labour visible without turning it into a confrontational rant.

Megara's a good choice, yeah. The lavender peplos is pretty easy on the eyes ...

It's a very subtle thing compared to what you see for misogyny, which itself isn't exactly obvious these days.

It mostly manifests in a lack of empathy. Women can say whatever they want about men, and everyone has to let it slide. One can literally say "all men" and people will steelman her with "she didn't mean all men" but a man says "a woman" and everyone insists he means all of them, and say that his obvious misogyny is the reason he had a bad experience.

You can't open up about feeling dehumanised by all the rhetoric without having "Misandry hurts feelings, misogyny ends lives" thrown at your face to get you to shut up, even when the whole conversation was about why you don't open up.

International Men's Day is a day dedicated to men, the problems they face, and the work that they do for everyone around them. Naturally, the discourse around the day is about women. Even when it's explicitly about men, women must be centred.

Some people on the internet have no tact.

There's a famous moment where the funny baseball shark girl got told "I've lost gallons to you" and the only response she could muster was "I hope you find them" ...

Something something stopped clocks, right?

Wrestling together certainly opens a lot of avenues for flirty comments ...

A walk around the block. No headphones, no phone screen, just looking around at the city around me.

Because from his perspective, you were screwing with him the whole time, pulling some kind of power play.

You clearly didn't feel like he was any kind of threat, or you wouldn't have agreed to the trip, so safety wasn't the problem. You weren't a prude who didn't do things early, or you wouldn't have been giving him every sign of sex leading up to this.

But you rejected him anyway, and those two things were your given reasons. Two very clearly untrue reasons.

From his perspective, it was all a fucking lie. Can't not be.

All I know is that those things can destroy your teeth over the years.

It's a lot easier than people think.

Yes, it is a problem.

If you don't want to fuck, don't be physically affectionate. It's dishonest.

You'll find that people like you a lot more when your actions and desires align.