MGTOWer: “Women are like a bitter medicine that you force yourself to swallow because you believe it is doing you good.”
Like women, cats are sneaky creatures, up to no good.
So over on MGTOWforums, the regulars are pondering the age-old question – should these committed women-avoiders deal with their continued desire to stick their penises in the women they’re allegedly avoiding by resorting to prostitutes?
In the midst of a lively discussion on the advantages of “going pro” over trying to pick up a “bar hog,” one regular by the nom de internet Xtc sets forth some thoughts that, for a moment at least, seem to transcend the usual MGTOW crudity and bitterness.
“I don’t think it’s really about sex,” he writes. “I think what a lot of people are looking for is love, respect, and intimacy – which you can’t buy.”
Why, that almost seems like an insight!
Alas, in his very next sentence he spoils the moment by returning to the standard MGTOW narrative of female perfidy:
I think what put me off women altogether was the realisation that you’ll NEVER get [love, respect, and intimacy] for real. It’s sad and sobering, but that’s the way it is.
Thinking that the attention of women validates you as a person collapses once you realise they are attracted to the worst qualities in the worst men.
Thinking that the attention of women equals affection, intimacy, or love – collapses once you realise they will leave you in a second if they sense any weakness or if a BBD [bigger better deal] comes along. Then you’ll realise that the meter was running all the time, whether this was clear at the time or not.
Women are like a bitter medicine that you force yourself to swallow because you believe it is doing you good. Once you realise it’s a quack remedy, and the whole thing is a scam, you’re free to spit it out and never partake again.
That leaves you with sex alone, which is really rather easy to come by.
If women really and truly are “attracted to the worst qualities of the worst men,” why aren’t they lining up at these dudes’ front doors?
Posted on November 28, 2012, in $MONEY$, alpha males, evil women, hypergamy, men who should not ever be with women ever, MGTOW, MGTOW paradox, misogyny, sex and tagged mgtow, misogyny. Bookmark the permalink. 1,159 Comments.
Dude, WAAAAAAAY too much oversharing.
Also, not arguing in good faith.
It sucks that this happened to you Bob but it does not mean that you get to come on here and whine for an entire day about how much women are responsible for society not have a lot more marriages because they are frivolous.
This sounds like a woman who has thought things through and realised that marriage is not for her. And that happens. You eat an entire fridge of chocolate (or whatever you do when hurting) and then one day you move on to someone who does want to get married. It may take a very long time-Daniel Schorr did not get married until he was 50. One of my staffers did not get married until she was 39.
What you do not do is come on some blog like this and complain that women should be settling for anything less than what is best for them because the guy is marginally decent.
Mmmm-hmm.
Bob: What a fucking mess.
Ignoring the farrago of goalpost shifting, the unwillingness to respond to direct questions, the redefining your arguments to pretend you said things you didn’t, the gross overgeneralising, the double standards, flat out refusal to face contrary evidence, misrepresentation of your previous positions, false equivalents, and false dichotomies, lies about others’ factual representations of your implicit opinions and pretense that you aren’t prescribing remedies to others in the guise of, “just my opinions… there is this.
You are factually wrong about marriage.
You said “no one ever goes into marriage with the expectation that it’s not forever.
Ignoring that in Rome people could just walk away from a marriage (the famous story of Caesar’s wife, whom he divorced because a social event she was at was, so he deemed it, less than savory in in the appearance). All they had to do to dissolve it was say, “I quit”, and it was over.
Ignoring that… there is the ketubah in Judaism. One of the requirements for getting married is the framing of the terms of divorce. That’s right, before a couple can be wed the division of goods, property and children has to be spelled out, in writing, and attested; in front of witnesses.
So no, it’s not true that no one enters a marriage with the idea it might end. A major religion of the world mandates it.
Bob: Men and women are 100 percent responsible for their 50 percent of a given relationship. I have never said the ultimate success or failure of a relationship is solely up to women to determine,
But when women leave a relationship you assume the reason was, “she got bored”.
Actually, I’m perfectly calm. It’s the other posters that are generally resorting to ad hominem
Nope. 1: No one has used an ad hominem against you (though you have engaged in forms of it against people here). 2: I’ve seen people getting angry, this ain’t it.
You aren’t that clued in to what offends people here.
You ultimately have to deal with people as individuals.
Which you don’t, case in point, As I said earlier, women inititate most breakups and divorces. They are more likely to fall out of love and get bored.
You are lumping women/divorces. Implicit in the second half of that statement is women initiate divorce for frivolous reasons. Leaving men out of the discussion implies by exclusion they initiate divorce for serious ones. Esp. when you follow that assertion with the comment about women cheating as much as men do. Logically the inference is that men tolerate female cheating more than women do.
You also claim the rates are the same. That seems to not be true, with men cheating between 40-100 percent more than women do (based on age) and women being at least 3 times more likely to forgive a cheating partner than men are.
So it seems the premises on which you base your argument are specious, which makes the conclusions utter bullshit.
Trolling assumes that I am trying to get a rise out of the posters here or that I am deliberately presenting my arguments in an inflammatory way, or I am not sincere in what I am posting.
I’m thinking it number three. I base this on the bobbing and weaving you do when asked direct questions, the completely unreliable nature of your fact claims when tested against evidence, and the immediate, and unceasing, goalpost shifting.
Take, for example, your claim about, “the rising divorce rate”. It ain’t so. As no-fault moved it’s way across the country there was a wave of divorces. As women became more able to be independent there was a continuation in the increase. But after that (and NY was the last state to do away with at fault divorce, in the late 1990s) the rate of divorce became steady; albeit at a higher rate than in the era before no-fault. It also happens that the relative rates of divorce changed. Early marriages have higher rates, later marriages (and second marriages) have a lower rate.
Divorces peaked almost thirty years ago, and have been dropping since.
Moreover, the more liberal, and there more more feminist states have lower divorce rates
In short, you are either ignorant as all fuck, and too lazy to do simple googling, or telling falsehoods on purpose.
My vote is probably something you can infer from my comments above.
How Bob makes me feel.
Wow. Not only was that some massively creepy oversharing, but Bob, by your own account, your ex told you exactly what was wrong, and it wasn’t something you could fix. She came from the sort of background where she felt like her goal should be marriage, and while she cared about you, she realized that she did not actually love you enough to marry you. It absolutely would have been nicer for both of you if she hadn’t pushed the “marriage marriage marriage must get married” line before realizing that that ideal wasn’t matching up to her reality, but what you’ve just described has nothing to do with her being a woman or being immature or being selfish. It has to do with a person realizing that they don’t want exactly what they told themselves they were supposed to want, which is so common an experience as to be very nearly a universal one. The number of people I know who’ve had that experience, whether it’s about “I’m gonna get MARRIED” or “I’m gonna be a DOCTOR” or “I’m gonna go to COLLEGE” or “I’m gonna have BABIES” or “I’m gonna move to POLAND” (etc., etc.) is huge. A lot of big life plans sound great in principle, but when it comes time to put them into practice, suddenly we realize that what we wanted wasn’t so much the marriage or the medical degree or the babies or whatever as the idea of having that thing – so we change our plans. That’s not being immature; quite the opposite. That’s growing up.
YAY KATZ IS PLAYING GIFS.
Steele: Bob – I am impressed by your thoughtfulness, as well by as your civility in the face of the noted supercilious jackass Says. It’s certainly true that many partners do not communicate their intentions, or their beliefs adequately; I know this only too well, without going too off-topic. I certainly believe feminism to be a cause; likewise misandry.
I thought you were taking a mental health break.
Since you decided not to, the reason Ella said your, “human rights movement” was anti-woman, is because it is.
Bob: You have to address the argument I’m making,
They have (I read the entire thread, to the end of page 5 while we were driving home from visiting family, or I’d have chimed in earlier, and in more detail).
When they do, you pretend that wasn’t your argument.
1: Your initial complaint was women who had, “men of good character” proposing to them, and then turning them down.
2: You also said that these women (of 27) were somewhat past their prime, and couldn’t really afford to be holding out for, “Mr. Right”.
3: They said this was arrant nonsense, that there were any number of perfectly fine reasons a person might say no (I, for example, turned down a marriage proposal from a woman I’d been seeing for three years. Marriage wasn’t the nature of relationship I wanted with her).
4: You backpedaled and filled in details you had not included… things about this being stable relationships, with passion, and yadda-yadda-yadda.
They pointed out this was bullshit weaseling, and you layered it with incorrect nonsense about, “all marriages, everywhere, being pledges to death, and how in the old days; when women couldn’t get a divorce, everyone was happier and… well the list of your attempts to avoid answering questions; with racist, sexist, homophobic, shit (cue the cry that I’ve made an ad hominem attack) would be longer than the 800+ words of your intial post.
You’ve been intellectually dishonest from the get go, and provably so from the second comment you made.
Bob: it’s a buyer’s market for women.
Then why the fuck shouldn’t they be picky?
SCREW IT, LET ME JUST ADMIT THAT WIMMENZ ARE EVIL. EVIL I TELL YOU, EVIL!!!!!
At least Bob isn’t pretending that it’s his “friend” who was in this relationship anymore.
KATZ, I AM GOING TO SLEEP AND RELYING ON YOU TO CARRY ON THE GIF WAR AGAINST TROLLS.
And I’ll just bet you have splinters, too. DELIBERATELY.
Bob: This If said change of heart is not preceded by mutual dysfunction, obvious incompatibility and an adequate explanation, then it is emotional negligence and emotional violence perpetrated against an innocent person. The solution is not to force the dumper to stay, 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. is why people think you are working out a personal problem.
I’ve had several relationships which were intense, loving, and long (from 6 months to 10 years) that ended. In some of them I thought, at some point, we were capable of being married. In two of them there was even a proposal, an acceptance, and the exchange of engagement rings.
One of those was the one that lasted 10 years.
I’m not married. Mostly I’ve been the one who was “left”. None of them “needlessly” hurt me (well, no, one of them did, but that means I dodged a bullet when she broke off the engagement). No “emotional violence was perpetrated against an innocent person”.
They decided that the relationship wasn’t working. Some decided that marrying me; which had looked right, no longer was.
They were being adults. You might want to try it. It’s a lot more pleasant than kvetching about how shallow women are for not marrying some guy, “of decent character” who gets around to asking them to marry him, just because he’s confused some good sex with, Twooo Wuv!”, and thinks he’s found his Princess Buttercup.
Bob: You know nothing of my relationship history
I would wager this is no longer true.
and you are so far off base with accusations of physical and emotional abuse that it would be impossible to ever reach any kind of common ground.
The last clause is true, but I think it’s because you are wrong about the first clause.
I am now using a hard chair when I watch television. My partners chipped in and helped my buy a spinning wheel.
I have a new toy for fiber arts.
Don’t you love how his (poor) attempt to be Mr Reasonable slips, and the bog-standard MRM language comes out? Woman ends relationship = “emotional negligence and violence” and leaves “wreckage”.
She left. Sad, but it sounds like she spared you both a lot of longer-term pain and possibly a messy divorce. As others have said – be grateful it was before the wedding and not afterward. I would add, go to a counsellor, talk to a professional about your pain. This really, really isn’t the place, least of all when you couch it in such sexist nonsense. This site is about mocking misogyny, not providing free therapy.
I WILL DO MY BEST.
DO YOU NEED BACKUP?
Pecunium–what kind of spinning wheel did you get? I’ve had a Spinolution’s Bee and a Kromski Sonata. I’ve liked them both, but I like the lack of the orifice on the bee and the fact that it folds up really tiny. It is sitting next to me, but I’ve been on a “learn new stuff” kick so I’ve been tatting and weaving and doing beadwork and not spinning.
I’m just going to cast on a pair of gloves for my sister now, though.
So the TL;DR is that Bob was once involved with a person who left him and made him sad, therefore all women leave men and make them sad and they shouldn’t be allowed to do that?
Dear Bob – You are not all men, and your ex is not all women. You sound like you need therapy. This is not a therapy group. Go find a more appropriate place to vent.
Also, oh no, Bob wouldn’t want to marry me! I’m sure that my husband will be relieved to hear that he doesn’t have a new rival in the form of a completely batshit MRA who’s decided to base his entire concept of how relationships work on one bad experience.
I want to hear more about those adventures in cavalier dating. Because, you know, lace collars and plumed hats and boots and breeches and satin and long hair and swords and …
…. and lutes.
:)
I especially love this part.
So, you told her that if she didn’t want to get counselling with the aim of maybe getting back together then you didn’t want to remain in touch. So she didn’t call you. She didn’t want to get back together, so she went along with your wishes about that meaning no further contact. OMG, what a bitch! How could she respect your stated wishes like that?
The kindest interpretation I can put on that part (and it’s a stretch) is that he muddled “they couldn’t be friends or remain in touch” with “couldn’t they”, ie. asking if they could still be friends. That at least would make the following bit make some sense.
But yeah … more likel,y given his MRA nonsense, that she was expected to do what she was told and get back into a relationship, because ultimatum.
When someone is already expressing a desire not to be with you any more, there’s nothing like a good ultimatum to win them back!
(Should we tip Captain Awkward off to the existence of this thread? It really does make a perfect “what not to do when someone says they want to break up with you” test case.)
Dear Bob, I very much enjoyed it when, after I pointed out how entitled your use of language was, and how it didn’t get much more entitled than that, you immediately got more entitled than that. It was pretty amazing.
“emotional violence committed against an innocent person” or somesuch. Let’s see, you moved directly from comparing it to property crime to comparing it to assault. What’s next— acts of war? Is cutting off contact with somebody Pearl Harboring their soul or some shit? Or is “relationship fraud” like launching an ICBM?
A strange game, talking with trolls. The only way to win is not to play.
Also, how do you look at things like “women initiate most divorces” and not think about what kind of deal women are getting from marriage?* Because it’s not exactly an equal exchange, not even today. It’s a patriarchal institution: men still get more out of it than women do. Duh.
*That was a rhetorical question. The answer is that you are steeped in patriarchal values, Bob.
IT FEELS AS IF THERE IS AN INVISIBLE PLANE BETWEEN ME AND MARU
Wait, wait, wait… Do you mean to tell me that this whole time, all of this, has been about Bob?!
I. Am. Shocked.
Wordspinner: I got a Schact sidekick. I was looking at a Kromski (and it was much prettier), but I liked the folding and the direct drive (as opposed to needing to turn the treadling energy 90°) but what sold me was how much smoother the action was. The bearings were so much quieter, and the friction less.
I’m already making some mediocre yarn (I drop spin now, so it’s not a completely new skill).
Hippodameia asked “Any takers on how long it’ll take him to start telling us all about his girlfriends?”.
I put a fiver on “before midnight, USA Central Time.”
BobTroll tells us all about his FRIEND: at 11:11 p.m..
The regulars respond valiantly with logic, GIFs, and chairs.
Another day, another troll!
Blast, last link borked.
Let’s see if this works:
at 11:11 p.m..
Bob: You knew this wasn’t therapy hour or dating advice and your uber-entitled ass turned it into just that.
Speaking of entitled:
Bob, what you fail to realize is that “no” or “I don’t want to” is a complete sentence. This attitude right here? Is why you’re single.
Until you get it in your thick head that no one owes you anything, any woman who runs away from you will be glad she dodged that bullet.
Is he gone?
Bob: “If said change of heart is not preceded by mutual dysfunction, obvious incompatibility and an adequate explanation…”
Also Bob: “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.”
WHOOP THERE IT IS.
I’ll tell you, I also don’t feel like I could love bob the way he wants to be loved. Feel me on this?
But that’s not an adequate explanation, because Bob doesn’t agree with it. “Mutual dysfunction” and “incompatibility” mean “Bob is unhappy”, her feelings don’t matter.
As everyone knows, not accepting someone’s explanation and trying to argue them into a relationship they’ve stated they don’t want is a totally cool and/or successful strategy.*
*Not really.
My favorite part is when I was all “Maybe ‘Guy’ in your story wasn’t paying attention to what girl was really saying…” and Bob was all “Nuh-uh! I -I mean “Guy”- was totally paying attention to everything!”
And then, through over sharing, shows exactly how he ignored the signs of conflict this young woman was experiencing in regards to their relationship and her own future. He was making wedding plans with a woman who was actively, wishing for the rapture and it never occurred to him to maybe slow down.
Bob claims that this has resulted in him being better and more introspective. I think this entire thread calls that into question.
Bob doesn’t want to be loved, Bob wants to be worshiped. That’s a lot to ask.
@hellkell well to be fair, you know, we “don’t know anything about [Bob] or how [he's] conducted myself in my romantic relationships [aside from the huuuuuge amount of text that bob has written]. So your opinion has no merit.”
heidihi: that is so true. You really can’t glean much of anything from a complete overshare.
I mean, sure, we have the sensitive and specific details of his love life, his ex-fiance’s life (including her feelings on religion and her family situation and abandonment by her biological father and rocky relationship with her step father), his feelings towards this woman (and indeed all women), his grandparents marriages, his thoughts on homosexuality, marriage (past and present), &tc, but we have NO IDEA who this person really is. I mean, what is his social security number? Is Bob Smith his real name? These are two very vital pieces of information that we do not — yet — have.
The ONLY two vital pieces, most likely. BUT VITAL NONETHELESS.
I bet Bob Smith is the Somerton Man.
Speaking only for myself, I care whether men watch porn and whether the grow feathers. Because GROWING FEATHERS WOULD BE AWESOME.
While we’re oversharing, I did this for a long time because it was less painful to pretend I was happy than to face the fact that my fiance was an abusive, raping shitface.
Thankfully he contacted me a year later to let me know he forgave me. Perhaps for emotional violence and time theft!
@Tulgey from the article “Public interest in the case remains significant due to…the possibility of unrequited love”!!!?? I THINK YOU’RE ON TO SOMETHING HERE!
Although i may note that public interest is waning?
@Bob
Before I answer this, Bob, I have to preface by saying that I find your goalpost-moving extremely problematic. For example, you argued early on that a woman over 27 would have to be deranged to turn down a “suitor” who is intelligent and decent. When you got a perfectly reasonable series of responses pointing out that, just like men, women look for more in a potential partner than just intelligence and decency (if they are interested in marriage at all) — like, I don’t know, physical attraction, shared values, common interests and emotional compatibility — you changed your prior statement to say that, essentially, if the man is intelligent and decent AND he was led to believe marriage lay in the future, then it is wrong for the woman to leave. When, again, it was pointed out to you that a man’s expectation does not create an obligation on the part of the woman, you changed the premises yet again to say that if the man is everything this particular woman wants AND they’ve been seeing each other for a very long time AND she’s accepted his proposal, then it’s wrong of her to leave — and to top it off, you accused the other commenters of poor reading comprehension, when in fact, you were changing the assumptions to justify your argument.
That said, I want to answer what I quoted above. Let’s start by saying that being broken up with hurts. It just does. You could be the worst person in the world, and you still will feel bad about being dumped, if for no other reason that it hurts your pride. Therefore, it is completely unreasonable to make the person who is being dumped the objective judge of whether there was an adequate reason for the breakup. Moreover, just because an adequate explanation exists, that doesn’t mean the explanation is emotionally comforting — quite the contrary, it may very well be dead-on-balls accurate and hurt like hell. That’s why my advice to anyone breaking up with their significant others — on those rare occasions where it is solicited — is NOT to get sucked into an argument over the reasons for the breakup, for the sake of both parties’ emotions. Naturally, there are also huge problems with characterizing the breakupee as an objective judge of whether there was “mutual dysfunction” or obvious incompatibility. (Incidentally, why mutual dysfunction? You mean if you are the only dysfunctional one in the relationship, your significant other may not leave you? Interesting.)
Next, let’s address that whole “emotional negligence and emotional violence” bullshit. You, Bob, do not present your true self to a potential mate; you conceal your flaws for as long as you possibly can, or you sort-of-but-not-really-reveal your flaws in a self-serving fashion, designed to get the other person to like you despite them. I know with absolute certainty that you do this, because everyone does it, including people who whole-heartedly believe that they are 100% open and honest with their mates from the get-go. I think most people do this instinctively, and it takes a long time — months, even years — for the facade to become completely transparent, and for the person underneath to be revealed with all of his or her warts. It takes a long time to get over the initial intoxication of love to really register the little things that bother you, and for those little things to coagulate into patterns that tell you that maybe marriage isn’t a good idea. It takes time, especially for women, to sort out what’s what while being under insane pressure from officious friends and family members to marry someone, anyone, immediately. Sometimes it takes being really, really close to the person for a substantial period of time (which is why I am a big fan of living together before getting married), and sometimes, people truly let their guard down once they’ve become engaged and they believe everything is now set in stone.
This makes your whole “emotional terrorism” bit extremely problematic. Because you know, disappointment really hurts too, when you reveal yourself to be something other than the person that your SO fell in love with. If leaving you for what YOU don’t consider to be a good reason is “emotional negligence and emotional violence”, then your effort to put your best foot forward for months and years should fairly be deemed fraud and emotional manipulation, and you amply deserve this non-violent “violence”. Realize, also, that your admonition that women should be especially careful what they get into lest they hurt an “innocent person” (as if men don’t live with their girlfriends for years, stringing them along and then dumping them without a satisfactory explanation) also has the effect of declaring that any woman who dates you should be held responsible for not seeing through YOUR deception quickly enough to make the breakup as easy as possible for YOU. Dude. Seriously. Can your view of relationships can get any more fucked up?
Or maybe, it just takes time for people to get to know each other, and sometimes, things just don’t fall into place. It’s really unpleasant, but it’s no different than, say, being unable to get pregnant despite doing everything “right” (as far as you can tell). Some things depend on a myriad variables, so don’t be surprised when they don’t “take”.
But please, please, don’t come back with “But suppose the man is perfect in every conceivable way and is just a paragon of virtue and every good thing anyone every thought of ever. And then the woman just up and leaves him at the last minute at the altar. Wouldn’t you say she’s an evil bitch?” Because as others have pointed out before me, that’s just blatant intellectual dishonesty. Keep that up, and you’ll confirm my suspicion why it is that you got dumped.
@Tulgey Logger: I love the Taman Shud case! I also suspect some kind of a love triangle was involved in that case, but there are other factors that suggest the involvement of espionage and/or organized crime. It really think it’s the most awesome and most frustrating murder/suicide mystery ever. With any explanation that you can fashion for what happened, something always will not make sense. It’s sort of like trying to assemble something umpteen different ways, and invariably ending up with surplus parts.
Amused – you win an internets. With cupcakes and icing. Please enjoy it.
“You said “no one ever goes into marriage with the expectation that it’s not forever.
Ignoring that in Rome people could just walk away from a marriage (the famous story of Caesar’s wife, whom he divorced because a social event she was at was, so he deemed it, less than savory in in the appearance). All they had to do to dissolve it was say, “I quit”, and it was over.”
You seriously think mating patterns in ancient Rome are germane and relevant to the institution of marriage in North America in the 21st Century?
“Ignoring that… there is the ketubah in Judaism. One of the requirements for getting married is the framing of the terms of divorce. That’s right, before a couple can be wed the division of goods, property and children has to be spelled out, in writing, and attested; in front of witnesses.
So no, it’s not true that no one enters a marriage with the idea it might end. A major religion of the world mandates it.”
I think it’s pretty pedantic and doesn’t even need to be mentioned that relationships are risks, they can and do end at any time, and you can’t control what another person does or doesn’t do. If a person decides to leave, there is little to nothing you can do to stop them, and if you’re a mature adult, you let them leave and don’t try to arm-twist or manipulate them into staying. You may not like or agree with their reasons, you may in fact detest them, but if their heart is set on leaving, it is folly to try and stop them. Having said that, virtually nobody goes into a (non-green card) marriage hoping it ends in divorce. Virtually nobody goes into a marriage and doesn’t hope that it will work out and last. I would not want to get married to somebody who thinks of our marriage in terms of “It’s fine for now, we’ll see how it goes.” I want to get married to somebody who is in love with me, believes I would make a good husband and father, and wants to try and make a go of a lasting relationship. And you’re accusing me of goalpost shifting?
“his thoughts on homosexuality,”
This has been one of the more amusing facets of this thread to me. Here we are having a discussion about these misogynistic male subcultures and where they originate from, male-female relationships and male-female romantic patterns, and I get accused of being a homophobe because…I never expressed antigay bigotry? I thought it went without saying that gay people enjoy sex and companionship as well, and because I failed to post this pedantic disclaimer, I am a homophobe that thinks non-straight people are subhuman scum? And when I was accused of being a homophobe because I didn’t talk about homosexuality at all and never expressed any antigay bigotry, I went ahead and stated that I think gay people are just fine in my book and I don’t care who they fuck, and that still makes me a homophobe?
I’ll go ahead and say it again: I support gay rights and I am not offended by homosexuality. And because of the pitiful and pathetic way people on this site try to debate, that apparently makes me a homophobe.
I also enjoyed how I made the pretty obvious observation that Saudi Arabia is a socially regressive society that treats women terribly, and that….makes me a racist? I don’t recall ever saying that Muslims are intellectually, emotionally and physically inferior to non-Muslims, but pointing out the obvious that Muslim societies treat their women terribly by Western standards of equality makes me a racist apparently.
@The Kittehs’ Unpaid Help: Thanks! :)
Bob: “Virtually nobody goes into a marriage and doesn’t hope that it will work out and last.”
Do you see this as a problem that “virtually” no one does this? Because if you had your way, that’s EXACTLY what all the wimmenz would have to do.
Honestly, Bob, did you want your GF to marry you anyway? Despite not loving you? WHAT DID YOU WANT TO HAPPEN?
No, I think the argument is that she owed it to love him. It was her moral obligation.
I mean that’s probably the answer we’re going to get, Amused, but i really really want to know, from his own words, in plain language, without all this shifting and accusation of inadequate reading comprehension and all that stuff he’s pulling.
Bob. In your own words, in one sentence: Having heard that your girlfriend cannot love you and does not want to be married, what would your optimal outcome have been?
Bob, aren’t your arms tired from all the jerking… I mean, goalpost shifting?
He doesn’t know what he wants or what he wanted. He’s hurt -understandably so- but rather than do the genuinely painful work of examining his life and relationship, his preconceptions, prejudices, and broad generalizations, he’s chosen instead to seek comfort in the bosom of the “male subcultures.”
He knows his ex didn’t leave him because she was bored, frivolous, and emotionally immature. He told us so himself. But if feels better to side with the people who blame women’s inherent inferiority. Sure, Bob’s not a misogynist like those other guys. It’s just that his girlfriend sucked and she’s a woman so, whaddya gonna do?
I do. If for no other reason than to demonstrate that the way things were in 1950’s America (at least as portrayed on television) isn’t how people “naturally evolved” in prehistoric times.
” you changed your prior statement to say that, essentially, if the man is intelligent and decent AND he was led to believe marriage lay in the future, then it is wrong for the woman to leave.”
Do you think it is wrong to lead people on? Do you think it is wrong for people to overpromise and underdeliver? If a woman meets a man, and although he may be a good guy, there are no shared values, there is no strong physical attraction, there is no emotional compatibility, as you say, then it would be a long-term disservice to both parties to try and fit a square peg in a round hole. But if you are in serious relationship with somebody, is there not an implicit understanding that there are shared values? Is there not an implicit understanding that a reasonable level of physical attraction has been met? Is there not an implicit understanding that you would not be involved with somebody this deeply if you didn’t have many things in common, and you had a great deal of emotional and mental compatibility? Is there not an implicit understanding that you will properly communicate your needs, concerns and feelings to your partner and give the relationship your best shot? Is there not an implicit understanding that your partner is not going to simply despise you one day to the next or cut and run without properly communicating their needs, concerns and feelings? You seem to think that I am arguing that any woman over the age of 27 should rush and get married to the first guy that comes along that isn’t a functioning derelict without first exploring whether or not a life together is something they want to pursue.
When it comes to an “adequate explanation” for breaking up, it would be nice to have one, but you can’t force somebody to do something they don’t want to do. Somebody said something upthread about how I’m not entitled to a girlfriend. I would agree that I’m not entitled to a girlfriend, nobody is entitled to a significant other, but we are all entitled to courtesy and respect. Do you think it is mature, respectful and adult behavior to repeatedly communicate your intention to marry your significant other, never communicate any problems or concerns, then abruptly end a relationship without much of an explanation other than “I don’t want to” after your SO was moving forward with marriage plans and the start of a family crisis? Would you be bewildered, deeply hurt and confused? Would you naturally wonder why after everything was going so seemingly swell and you had done your best to hold up your end of the bargain that your SO was now running away as fast as they could? If you began to suspect that a surprisingly large percentage of relationships were this volatile and fragile, might you start to reassess on which terms and when you would enter another one?
Yes. Because you’ve shifted a lot of goal posts. Want evidence? Scroll up.
“Honestly, Bob, did you want your GF to marry you anyway? Despite not loving you? WHAT DID YOU WANT TO HAPPEN?”
I don’t want to be with somebody that is only there out of pity, obligation, guilt and not genuine desire. In retrospect I wanted her to not promise things she couldn’t and wouldn’t deliver on. In what world do you communicate enthusiastic plans to marry if you are not enthusiastic about the other person? And if you do have deep feelings for somebody, why not try and work things out? Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?
It’s a simple dichotomy and I think it’s a standard I try to follow: If you feel ambiguous or ambivalent about somebody, don’t communicate the opposite. And if you do have strong feelings for somebody and a desire to be with them, why trash and sabotage your relationships instead of putting effort into them?
Bob: “But if you are in serious relationship with somebody, is there not an implicit understanding that [a lot of stuff that should actually be discussed explicitly]?”
At this point, I am pretty sure Bob’s girlfriend was lying to him because she was afraid of him.
Implicit understandings aren’t usually implicit, Bob. USE YOUR WORDS.
Bob, this is how you chose to enter the conversation. You can’t be mad that other posters are holding you accountable for your statements and ignoring your sad attempts to retro-fit your argument. Deal with it.
Please stop this deliberately dishonest conflation of your relationship with the reality of relationships at large. And for the love of Pete, please stop pretending that you were completely gobsmacked by the woman who left you and that she left you with no explanations. Seriously, dude scroll up. She did show signs that she was having serious issues. She did, in fact, give you a reason.
You just don’t like/accept her reasons.
Pecunium already said it but it bears repeating: you are fundamentally intellectually dishonest.
“(Should we tip Captain Awkward off to the existence of this thread? It really does make a perfect “what not to do when someone says they want to break up with you” test case.)”
Right, because when you get broken up with, you should not do like I did, which was:
A) Not get hateful and spiteful with the dumper.
B) Not grovel, plead and beg for them to take you back
C) Not put on a full-court press to get them to reconsider their decision with incessant phone calls, texts, emails, seeking out friends and family, showing up unannounced at work and home, etc.
D) Respect their ability to practice free will and let them go
I like how simply sending her a letter expressing my desire to work things out in counseling after an abrupt turnabout on her part and that I would respect whatever she decided to do and leaving her alone after that constitutes “what not to do” when somebody breaks up with you.