time theft and relationship fraud

It doesn’t get much more entitled than directly comparing someone else’s change of heart to a property crime.

“In the mean time, would anyone like to hear any of my numerous examples of my guy friends adventures in cavalier dating and relationships? Because I’ve got hundreds.”

If you want to swap anecdotes about how awful men and women both can be, I am prepared to do just that.

Why Bob is almost killing my high from just watching the season finales of “The Walking Dead” and “Boardwalk Empire.”

“What I don’t want is to seriously date a woman, that woman gives me the impression that she is in love with me, we have a good relationship by typical criteria, and after we’ve spent enough time getting to know each other and making sure our values, our goals, our priorities line up and we have good chemistry, only for the woman to then say “Eh, I don’t think so.” Call it the Kate Bolick or Eat, Betray, Love scenario.”

Hi, hello there, Bob. Sometimes people don’t know each other, so they try each other on by going on dates. After three of four dates, one party may think, “Meh, I’m not feeling it.” And so what? I’m not obligated to like you after I’ve spent time sincerely trying to get to know you.

“If you are denying that men in general prefer and date younger, then I don’t know that I can help you.”

That’s some men, Bob. You don’t speak for all men….stop pretending that you do. Also, based on personal experience, men who only, as a rule, date younger, are typically scared shitless of aging. I dated some of these guys by mistake, and once they showed their true colors, I couldn’t get away fast enough. The fear and self-hate proved to be very unattractive. It was like dating a vampire.

“Because in western societies men pursue women and rarely is it the other way around. These subcultures exist because these men are frustrated at their inability to get what they want from women. A woman if she is reasonably attractive can take a very passive approach to dating and she will still get approached by men, whether she wants to be approached or not. A man can take care of himself physically, have a good job, develop lots of hobbies and interests besides xbox and internet porn in an effort to become a well-rounded person, and it is still an uphill climb to get a girlfriend. Not impossible, but he is going to have to really put himself out there repeatedly and endure rejection after rejection in order to get what he wants.”

The second half of that paragraph is Bob pulling shit out of his ass….basically you’re saying a guy with lots of good qualities still has a hard time dating.
Where are you getting this from, Bob?
Also, where did you learn that rejection is the worst thing that can happen to a human being? You also show your ass when you whine about how terrible attractive women are, because they can be “passive” but still be “approached by men.” You sound like a “Nice Guy” ™, really. Cry me a fucking river.

He appears to be our new blog herpes.

“Hi, hello there, Bob. Sometimes people don’t know each other, so they try each other on by going on dates. After three of four dates, one party may think, “Meh, I’m not feeling it.” And so what? I’m not obligated to like you after I’ve spent time sincerely trying to get to know you.”

I have no problem at all with this scenario. I do not heavily invest emotionally in women that I have only been on 3 or 4 dates with. It is impossible for a woman I’ve been on 3 or 4 dates with to break my heart if she says “Thanks but no thanks.” That’s not what I’m talking about.

but for that person to maybe stay out of relationships and work on themselves and to stop needlessly hurting other people and leaving wreckage in their wake.

Yes, of course. Because being turned down is the worst thing that could ever happen to any man. And the only reason a woman would turn down marriage is emotional negligence and violence.

If said change of heart is not preceded by mutual dysfunction, obvious incompatibility and an adequate explanation

And this right here is Bob waving his red flag as high as he can. *shudder*

Newsflash, Bob: “I don’t want to” is an incredibly “adequate” explanation for not dating someone. You are not owed anything more “adequate” than that.

Well, I think we’ve officially reached meltdown. Bob has now gone from standard whiny sexist dude to a male version of this.

Boy is a controlling jackass, girl glad she left.

Some years back, I dated a guy for about eight months, after which point he broke it off because…he didn’t want to date me anymore. That was pretty much the entire reason he gave. We had no mutual dysfunction; we had never even had a serious fight. We were not obviously incompatible – in fact, we maintained a friendship for years afterward. He just didn’t want to date me anymore.

So, pop quiz. Did I:

(a) throw a shitfit and demand a more “adequate explanation”?
(b) blame all men for being immature and committing “time theft”?
(c) whine on the internet about how men need to take responsibility and not engage in “relationship fraud”?
(d) accept his decision, feel pretty sad and eat a lot of chocolate for a couple of weeks, and then move on with my life?

If you picked D, congratulations, you’re a normal human being! If you picked anything else, you are Bob, and have serious fucking entitlement issues! Please get some kind of help for that!

“Boy is a controlling jackass, girl glad she left.”

Boy would never ask for your hand in marriage.

What? Breakups hurt, is what you’re trying to say? What’s you’re point? Breaking up with someone is actually quite painful. It take introspection and the inevitable conclusion that you might hurt someone’s feelings.

I know we’ve had the obligatory mention of Eat Pray Love. Has Bob referenced Sex and the City yet?

” You’ve given a fairly dramatic and overblown hypothetical of woman disappearing of the face of the earth after receiving a marriage proposal.”

How is it overblown and hypothetical if it happened exactly that way to somebody that I know?

Bob? Have you addressed any of the reasons that have been offered, seriously and in good faith, about why a woman might turn down a proposal of marriage? Have you acknowledged that a great many men propose marriage and are turned down and go on to live happy and fulfilled lives?

Maybe “Boy” was to solipsistic to notice that his relationship was in trouble. Maybe “Girl” had tried, repeatedly, to tell him what was wrong in the hopes that they could work it out and he ignored her. Maybe she was working up the nerve to end it when he proposed marriage and all she could think was “How the fuck did we get here? I’ve been trying to tell him for months that things aren’t working. I just can’t!”

Maybe she had good reason to run away.

“Stop a mo, Bob. Go back and read the thread. Who you are is right there in black and white in your own words.”

And I stand behind all of it. Yet supposedly I am sexist, homophobic, racist, pro-rape and pro-misogyny because I happen to believe that there is a cultural milieu that makes these male subcultures possible and pretty predictable.

Define “male subcultures” please.

Bob, you came in here, like I said before, with your own axe and grind stone. You believe that there’s a problem with modern relationships and marriage -debatable- and that men are receiving the blame. You’ve explained, in endless and boring detail, why you think women are to blame for the problems with modern relationships and you feel that we should be held accountable.

But, see, here’s the thing: We’re not whining about the state of modern relationships and marriage. You are. We don’t think that marriage is failing because men are immature. That’s some shit you dragged in here from somewhere else. Nobody here cares whether young men date or don’t, marry or don’t, play Xbox, watch porn, or grow feathers. Needless to say, we don’t think young women are the problem either. We don’t think that a society that has largely moved beyond obligatory marriage is a bad thing.

You are the person who has a problem with this. Not us.

Wouldn’t it be better if people could actually be bothered to put effort into their relationships?

Who are you talking about? Lots of people put effort into their relationships. Your failed relationship is not a referendum on the state of relationships.

But see, sometimes people change, circumstances change. Sometimes people cannot predict the future. Sometimes people start out thinking they know exactly what they want, then shit happens…and what they want turns out to be a totally different thing. That’s human.

Um, Shiraz, I’m pretty sure that according to Bob, that’s “emotional negligence and emotional violence.”

Wouldn’t it be better if people could make their actions match their words and not promise the moon? Wouldn’t it be better if people could actually be bothered to put effort into their relationships? The solution is not to stay, the solution is to be much more careful about what you get yourself into.

Except you’re still talking about relationships as if they are made up of robots rather than humans. Wanting to be with someone right up until and then later not wanting to be with them anymore does not mean you lied, or didn’t put in effort, or weren’t careful. It just means you’re neither psychic nor a computer, and that life changed or circumstances changed or you changed, because that is what life and circumstances and people do. I get that when you’re wounded, thinking “man, women are all immature and terrible!” is more comforting than “sometimes shit just happens” but “sometimes shit just happens” tends to be a hell of a lot more accurate.

Or in the immediate month before giving Boy his walking papers, she could have told Boy that both sets of parents should get together to get acquainted before the wedding, gone with Boy to the jewelry store to look at bands, discussed what kind of ring she wanted, etc. She could also have left Boy with the impression that everything was good and swell.

And maybe she was pushing herself to do this but finally realised “no, this is not what I want with this person.”

When is it better? Before the wedding or after?

I think what you want us to say is that any woman who does this is EVIL AND WRONG and should be punished by what? Being miserable for the rest of her life for figuring out that no, that is not what she wanted after all? All because it would be mean for her to tell the guy this?

You want us to judge her as harshly as you have-that a woman who does what she wants for herself is being selfish and dammit, only men get to be that selfish!

“Um, this happened to you?”

Let’s say once upon a time there was a guy who met a girl. She told him at the beginning that most of her relationships were short-term because the guys would annoy her and she had only two previous that lasted as long as a year. Her biological father abandoned her mom when she was pregnant. Her mom remarried when she was 5. She was raised by her mom and stepdad and she said that they would fight all the time over her. Her stepdad is who she considers her real father, but she even expressed some resentment about him when they were together.

Anyways these two lovebirds hit it off, had a great connection and chemistry, similar values and goals in life. They fell in love. She tells him stuff like “Thank you for being the best boyfriend ever! I have always been wondering when God would bring my future husband into my life and now I’ve found him. I thank God for you. I know I will succeed in life with you as my husband by my side.” After they’d been together for a while, she told him about how she sat down with her parents and had a serious discussion about her boyfriend. She told them he was The One, she was going to marry him and he was different from all the other guys she’d ever dated. She told him throughout the time they were together that it was the best relationship she’d ever been in and he was the best guy she’d ever had. She even introduced him to her biological father, something she had never done with any guy she had ever dated before. Before him, she had had no contact with her real father for three years. After they started dating, she broke three years of silence and told him that there was somebody she wanted him to meet. Her parents wanted to meet his after she sat them down and told them they were getting married. She told her mother “I really love that boy.”

Everything was going great. They were in love and very much looking forward to a future together. At dinner with her parents late in the summer she told her mom in front of him “I was sitting out by the pool today after work and I kept thinking to myself ‘You know, I really love that boy.'”

Around Labor Day, she emails him and says “We could get married at ______ and have our reception at the _______. I love you fiance.” Mid-September she reminds him that her parents really wanted to meet his and didn’t want to wait until the wedding. At the beginning of October they go to a jewelry convention to look at wedding bands together. Her birthday and Christmas was coming up. She tells him all she wanted was gold hoop earrings. On a Monday morning in mid-October, he begins to look online and emailed her asking her whether she wanted yellow gold or white gold earrings. She replies back, “Oh, I’m glad you asked that. I want yellow gold earrings but I want a white gold RING.” Three days later on Thursday night he goes over to her apartment for dinner. They usually got together once during the week. When he gets there, he tells her he had secured a job interview for Sunday for a second job to pay for the ring. After dinner they are sitting on the couch with her watching tv when his mom calls. His dad is an alcoholic. He had wrecked both vehicles pulling into the driveway. His mom wanted him to help her come get him and check him into a rehab facility. They get him checked him in where he would be staying for the next month for treatment.

Two days later was a beautiful Saturday morning in mid-October. They had a wedding to go to that night for a friend of hers. They had four weddings to go to that fall, all for her friends and family members. They had already been to one a couple of weeks before. She texts him at nine in the morning asking to come over. He thought it was weird that she wanted to come over so early. He soon found out why.

When she arrives, she said she doesn’t feel like she can love him the way he wants to be loved and needs to be loved. He tells that he doesn’t feel neglected by her. She said when he gives her compliments and shows her affection, she doesn’t feel like that person on the inside. She said she always does this. She said she doesn’t want to waste anymore of his time and make him go to weddings he doesn’t want to go to and doesn’t have to go to. He never expressed any resentment about these weddings for her friends/family and tells her this. The entire breakup conversation lasted about 20 minutes and she didn’t say anything beyond what was already noted. The very last thing she said to him before walking out of his apartment was “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a man, but I can’t get married.”

She’s very religious and comes from a very conservative background. A couple of weeks before they broke up she made a very weird comment about how she wanted to go to heaven now. He asks “What? Don’t you mean you want to go to heaven when you die? What about our future together? You’re not looking forward to that?” And she says “Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal, I’d just rather be there now.” There were also a few other occasions the last month they were together where she said she wished Jesus would come back already.

He never called/texted/emailed. He sent her gerber daisies, her favorite flowers, five days after the breakup. The card said “I love you. I miss you. My heart aches for you. You’re my Rushmore.” He got radio silence from her. So then two weeks after the breakup, he mailed her a snail letter. It basically just said that he respected her decision if she thought that was for the best, but that he thought what they had together was worth trying to save and that he wanted to try couples counseling and loved her very much. And if she didn’t want to do that, then they couldn’t be friends or remain in touch. Three months went by with nothing but radio silence from her. His grandfather died. The day before the funeral she emailed him asking her for her bike back. He exchanged a couple of emails with her discussing the logistics of meeting up. Nothing of substance was discussed.

The whole encounter lasted four minutes. He could tell she was genuinely glad to see him, but it felt like there was this invisible plane between the two former lovers. They just exchanged pleasantries and that was it. Last thing he said to her was “I just want to say take care of yourself, I wish you well, I will always care about you, and thank you for letting me be a part of your life.” And she said “Thank you” and then he told her goodbye and walked back to his apt. They have had no communication of any sort since.