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Dear Susan,
First off, I love your blog! I just started reading it this summer and it is a life saver. I am headed into my sophomore year of college and had quite a strange dating experience of my own during freshman year and would be interested in yours/other readers’ take on it.
I met a guy in class and we hit it off right away–hanging out, going on dates, getting to know each other, nothing physical. One night, we both admitted that we were attracted to each other, and were essentially “seeing” each other. I asked him if he was seeing anyone else and he said no. (I was also contagiously ill at the time, and thought that it was a good indication of character that he was willing to work through that with me.)
As things progressed, there were definite “player” signs that I didn’t really clue into because this was my first boyfriend-type of person and I felt confident in his promise of exclusivity. One night, we had a long talk about our relationship and he said he wanted a long-term relationship with me and wanted to work towards that. We hadn’t had sex yet, I was/am still a virgin.
On the first weekend back for second semester, one of his friends clued me in that he was, in fact, dating someone else. The friend and I were rather intoxicated at the time, and when I talked to BF about it he denied the other girl completely but went on to say that he wasn’t in the right place for a relationship. We talked again soberly, and it was more of the same and more denial.
I talked to another mutual friend later in the week, and he confirmed that the other girl was definitely on the scene. Of course, I was really upset about this and tried to have another conversation with XBF. He refused and called me crazy, etc.
I talked to a trusted male friend and he advised me to cut him off completely, and especially after reading this blog, I am so thankful for following his advice. For the next 3 months I acted as though he didn’t exist, even if we could have brushed arms. It wasn’t until school was almost over that he apologized to me.
The twist is we are working together next year, so some contact with him is unavoidable.
I guess me question is: Where do I go from here? Both in terms of having to be in contact with him again, and future dating. I felt like I did everything “right”, more or less, but was punished for it.
Emma
Hi Emma,
Thanks for the kind words about HUS, I appreciate your writing for advice. I also love it that you appeal to fellow readers for their thoughts – they are indeed the source of much of the wisdom shared here.
First, I want to say that there’s a lot you did right. Obviously, you got hurt and are anxious not to repeat the experience, but it could have been much worse. Specifically, you honored your own timeframe, not allowing yourself to be rushed into sex prematurely. That allowed enough time to pass for you to learn the truth about this guy’s manipulation and deceit.
In the time I’ve been writing, I’ve only heard of one other case where a guy blatantly deceived two women while carrying on relationships with both. In his case, one was his “home” girlfriend, and one his “school” girlfriend. By carefully manipulating his facebook presence, visits home, and keeping groups of friends separate, he was able to pull it off for a year and a half. Ultimately, he was only found out because of the unlikely coincidence of the two girls having a mutual friend 3,000 miles away.
In this case, I’m guessing from your letter that this took a full semester to unfold, a very long time for a player cad to hover and be attentive. For most women, that in itself would be proof of honorable intentions. It’s hard to know how often this goes on, but I assume it’s fairly common among highly narcissistic individuals, who may go to great lengths to secure what they want.
He respected your wish to get to know each other gradually, and didn’t force the issue of sex. When you talked about your relationship for the first time, no doubt he came across as a guy with excellent character and noble motives. “Working toward” a long-term relationship involves ensuring compatibility, and taking the emotional intimacy seriously, a necessary prerequisite to physical intimacy. It’s what most women want, and he obviously pursued his strategy with that understanding.
Scott Barry Kaufman, a professor of Psychology at NYU, has written about how to identify narcissists.
“They are a decidedly mixed bag; therein lies one of the many paradoxes of narcissism and the primary reason narcissists are so difficult to identify and understand. If narcissists were just jerks, they would be easy to avoid. The fact that they are entertaining and exciting as well as aggressive and manipulative makes them compelling in the real world and as subjects of psychological scrutiny.”
The characteristics of narcissism:
1. Narcissism is a stable trait that varies in degree from person to person. Some aspects, including confidence and self-sufficiency, are healthy and adaptive. It is only at the extreme end of the spectrum that narcissism becomes a disorder, often because toxic levels of vanity, entitlement, and exploitativeness are on display.
Your boyfriend clearly displayed toxic levels of entitlement and willingness to exploit you without guilt.
2. Male and female narcissists both share a marked need for attention, the propensity to manipulate, and a keen interest in charming the other sex… [There is a] “charismatic air” that many narcissists exude: attractiveness, competence, interpersonal warmth, and humor. Narcissists are easily misread. The picture is further complicated by the fact that both extraverts and narcissists have an interpersonal style that endears them to others.
He didn’t act like a jerk, but won you over with his personal warmth an caring demeanor, e.g. when you were sick. He is no doubt popular among his male peers as well, even though they are aware of his lack of empathy.
3. Promiscuity is a key behavioral ingredient, because narcissists are always searching for a better deal…when narcissists think their partner is committed, they are even more willing to cheat, presumably because they feel that they are more likely to get away with it.
He was driven to cheat, not for the easy access to sex, but rather to obtain validation from an additional source, to secure your affection over a period of time without getting caught as a sort of exercise in control over others.
4. Because control is so important to narcissists, they can abruptly lose their charm if destabilized or threatened. This two-faced behavior is often the first clue to their true character. They get angry when rejected, overreacting to small slights and punishing those who do not support their grandiose image of themselves.
He was quick to play the “psycho” card when found out. Narcissists don’t feel badly for hurting others, and are often in denial about their own motives. They have an amazing ability to justify their own behavior regardless of the evidence against them.
5. Narcissists’ manipulative bent can be a lever for social influence as much as for exploitation…More intentionally exploitative behavior is considered Machiavellian and, at the extreme, psychopathic. Together with narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy form a cluster of distinct but related traits known as the “dark triad.” In this disagreeable constellation, narcissism is the gentlest star. Narcissism is linked much more tightly to extraversion than are the other two, suggesting that narcissism may be the most positive, social, and outgoing component of this triad.
It is well established that many women respond favorably to the dark triad traits. Perhaps narcissism is the entry point, with its accompanying extraversion and feigned warmth.
6. People who date narcissists are highly satisfied for about four months, at which point they report a rapid decline in relations. Ironically, the four-month mark is when people start to reach peak satisfaction when dating non-narcissists.
I don’t know if this is coincidence in your case, or if he was starting to show his true colors by this point. You mention that there were some clues to his being a player. Needless to say, file those away for future reference. In the case I mentioned previously, there were also clues when viewed in retrospect.
- Periods of absence that were explained by a need to have independent time were actually spent with the other woman.
- Limiting access to friends who might spill the beans, as happened in your case.
- Frequently characterizing anyone who had figured him out as psycho or crazy.
- Maintaining a low profile on facebook or avoiding it altogether. Detagging all photos, limiting or deleting wall posts.
Slow down.
Don’t put so much stock in your initial attraction. Be open-minded to non-flashy people.
Observe a variety of settings.
Extraverts can be very hard to distinguish from narcissists. Assess a person in multiple contexts before getting in too deep, and solicit honest input from friends.
Consider the venue.
If you frequent bars and clubs, you are more likely to encounter narcissists on the prowl.
Examine why you may be attracted to narcissists.
If you are searching for an ambitious person who is not “too nice,” you are likely drawn to narcissists. What needs of yours do narcissists exploit?
Get out as soon as you can.
Don’t try to change him or her. Remember, this person enjoys being a narcissist. The more emotionally attached you get, the easier it will be for the narcissist to manipulate you.
Take control of the situation.
“The situation you are in does not necessarily reflect your personality,” says W. Keith Campell in When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself. “Responsibility is the ability to respond.”
As to where you go from here, I think it’s great that you declined to acknowledge his existence after your experience, and that he ultimately apologized. Perhaps he is capable of seeing the harm he caused, and will refrain from doing it again, though I doubt it. In any case, I suggest you do whatever is easiest for you. If you are working together, a professional cordiality will be required, but I suggest you limit your interaction to that. He may try to talk to you in hopes of explaining away his behavior, and I would strongly counsel you to not allow that.
You may have failed to read some signs along the way, but don’t be too hard on yourself – it’s very difficult to do with narcissists, especially at the age of 18. You were unlucky in that you came to his attention in class, and he set out to win your affection.
I’d encourage you not to relax any of your standards, and to be on the alert for signs of selfish, entitled behavior, if not outright narcissism. He passed muster on many of the behaviors I encourage women to reward, especially with regard to being patient on matters of sex. I’d like to think that lightning won’t strike twice, but it’s obviously possible.
Think back on what clues you missed, or dismissed, when you were very happy with how the relationship was going. And make an effort to vet every guy you date. That can be more difficult in a large city, but there’s no reason you can’t get to the truth on a college campus if you look around and keep your ears open.
Finally, take clues from facebook. If he doesn’t have it, doesn’t want to be friends, or is oddly inactive for someone of his age and social status, beware. It’s not easy to hide a girlfriend or boyfriend.
xoxo
Susan
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Sounds like Emma did all she could. Some guys are really, really sneaky.
The Facebook things is real tell though. 90% of guys that “don’t have” Facebooks are players. (The other 10% are hipsters and social awkward penguins.)
GudEnuf wrote:
90% of guys that “don’t have” Facebooks are players. (The other 10% are hipsters and social awkward penguins.)
That was stupid! It sounds fine for a Facebook advertisement, though.
As a non-flashy introvert, I approve.
He’s not a narcissist. He’s just a liar. How do you spot a liar?
Through inconsistencies. Like Lieutenant Colombo did on TV. In this case:
1. He says “I’m not seeing anyone else”.
2. The fact is, he was seeing someone else.
I find it really depressing that women want to “dig deeper” and “understand” in cases like these.
GudEnuf wrote:
GudEnuf, Mark Zuckerberg has a name for people like you.
Something’s missing here. There was nothing physical, and we have the generic meaningless “seeing” word. How can he be a boyfriend if there’s nothing physical?
I agree that the lying about dating other women is a dealbreaker, but I’m not sure how dating two women at the same time is warrants such a rejoined and being called at “toxic narcissist”. I’ve known narcissists, and they leave a wake of emotional, legal, and physical wreckage a mile wide. Just sounds like a liar to me, or, the world’s worst narcissist.
The guy sounds like a player of the worst kind. I only know these guys exist, the famous “wolf in sheep clothing” when I hear these stories. Emma did well on cutting contact.
So many mixed signals. He was ready for long term, then he wasnt, then he “apologizes”. Pure crap. Avoid those guys.
He either wants:
1 – Relationship and is willingly, or too willingly to get into it. Mostly the beta type.
2. Fun, “hey dont invade my space”. Mostly the alpha type.
3. Get to know each other, “Im not looking for anything serious, but maybe, who knows, lets see what happens”. Alphas / players
If the guy jumps from 1 to 3 or 1 to 2 and back, he´s playing something dark. Guys are simpler than women, if you are “confused” by his behavior, assume the worst. Avoid any guy who is more twisted than you are.
Dark player: hey honey, I know you are a virgin, and Im virgin too (or, I had a girlfriend plus some soft sad stories), I really want you, I want to see the rainbows and our children, lets take this dream home. Love love love.
Alpha player: eh, you are a virgin, too bad! I dont want to ruin your innocence (wink)
Alpha: wow. I really like you. (and lots of attention but also boundaries)
Beta: what can I ever do to deserve you?! just tell me what I need to do and I´ll do it! walk all over me, I can take it!
Omega: One day, one day you will be mine. One day I will be great and you will realize how much I am worth of you.
Under Omega: You´re so beautiful. I´ll never be with you.
Creep / Stalker / Freak: Stupid bitch. Take this bitch. Thats how you like it bitch. I fucking hate your guts bitch. Yeah you stupid cunt. Take it! take it!
@OTC
How can he be a boyfriend if there’s nothing physical?
I can answer that!
Back in my late teens, I read a book that mentioned orthodox Jewish women who don’t even touch their husbands until they’re married. I found it both really romantic and really extreme, so I figured a happy medium would be not to kiss until marriage. So when I went off college and hit it off with a nice boy, I didn’t see anything odd about not even kissing him–and we were together for almost a year. Interestingly, he didn’t seem to think anything was odd, either. It was partly because he was Indian and had once been open to having an arranged marriage with exactly that sort of set up between him and his fiancee until the wedding.
(Anyway, he never returned to India . . . and if he is still not married today but has a girlfriend, I’m sure he now insists on kissing.
)
The guy doesnt sound like a narcissist though.
A narcissist would devaluate you, control you, isolate you, making your reality spin around him, letting you know how under him you are, and how over you he is, paying no attention to how you feel but making you really aware of how he feels, with a lot of highs and lows, drama and mind games.
Easy to detect but hard to get out off once you´re trapped.
I’m with Off the Cuff here. Emma handled this just fine. Since she doesn’t want to be one of this dude’s GFs, she did the right thing by getting out. But narcissist? I don’t think so. He’s just a not-very-smart liar who tried to get Emma into a soft harem and got busted.
Emma’s former BF is a player wannabe. He doesn’t sound like a very good one, though. True players are honest about what they want and pursue it singularly. This guy can’t figure out what he wants — either this girl or the other one, or both, or neither, or an LTR, or a fling. He’s got some problems with the truth, for not coming clean about the other girl until he couldn’t wriggle out of it. And calling a girl “crazy” because he disagrees with her or is hiding something is what a lot of guys say to deflect attention.
He’s a cad, all right. And Emma should be cordial at work and that’s about it. No dates with him. But I don’t see the narcissist part.
You mean that men aren’t motivated by anything as simple and as crude as a desire for sexual variety?
Hi everyone! Thanks for the responses so far. By the “nothing physical” line, I meant that we became exclusive before I got physical with him, rather than the other way around. So there was a physical aspect of our relationship, just not sex.
Avoid these types of guys:
1. Guys who have no friends and never talk about hanging out with any friends.
2. Intense, brooding, loner guys.
3. Guys always talking about this or that unfairness or injustice in their lives.
4. Guys still carrying around chips on their shoulders from long-ago hurts or failures.
5. Guys who aren’t straight with you about what they want, or change from day to day what they want in a relationship.
6. Guys whose only friends are girls.
7. Guys who resist you meeting their family, or who resist meeting your family.
Disagree. A plain old liar wouldn’t have gone the distance for four months without the sex payoff. This guy got off on the subterfuge.
@OTC
The worst ones do, but many people are on that end of the spectrum without wreaking that kind of havoc. I’ve written before about female narcissism, which is extremely common.
Dating two women at the same time is a step further than cad. “Dating” in this SMP is defined as exclusivity and commitment, as much as that is practical in college. One does not “date around” like they did in previous generations.
Excellent advice. If you have to wonder if a guy likes you, he doesn’t. At least not the way you want him to.
@Yohami
Your glossary gave me chills! Dark Player and Creep/Stalker/Freak – I don’t know which is worse. I’d say the player, because he has the power to really hurt others.
@Johnny
If sexual variety was his motivation, it’s a FAIL. She never gave it up. So he’s either a chump/not very good player or was after something else. My theory was that he got sex from the first gf, was looking to manipulate Emma.
This is a big one. In fact, guys who resist sharing you with everyone they know. A guy who is “working toward” an LTR will want you on his arm in front of as many people as possible. If there is anything the least bit secretive (shady) about his behavior, bail.
It’s entirely possible I’m off on the narcissist part. I just don’t see how you can claim anything else about a guy who spent four months courting a nice, good girl when he was already spoken for, then called her out as psycho when she discovered his lies. The absence of empathy or conscience is clear. I don’t see this guy as a typical player, as he really didn’t try to use her for sex. He held her hand through illness, spent a lot of time going out on dates, holding hands, becoming emotionally intimate.
This is not a straight player/cad situation.
Good God, Yohami, I think that descriptive list you made needs to go into the sidebar of every game blog. It’s brilliant.
What’s wrong with keeping your options open? I guess mutual exclusivity only counts when the chick wants an alpha to herself….
I think Dalrock put it succinctly that LTRs are just extended forms of hook ups.
Lots of good advice here. I can’t wait until the forum opens up.
haha. posted it here
http://yohami.com/blog/2011/09/07/approach-glossary/
“7. Guys who resist you meeting their family, or who resist meeting your family.”
This is a huge flag. Never worked out well with my friends or family if this behavior was exhibited. One of my top don’t dating rules.
“What’s wrong with keeping your options open? I guess mutual exclusivity only counts when the chick wants an alpha to herself….”
There’s nothing wrong with keeping your options open, as long as you’re honest about it. Lying, in any way, is a big problem.
“I think Dalrock put it succinctly that LTRs are just extended forms of hook ups.”
How does a couple see if they fit each other if they aren’t exclusive for a while? How can each test fidelity in the other if none is shown before marriage?
This post is precious, “The twist is we are working together next year, so some contact with him is unavoidable.”
Chick speak for, “He’s an Alpha and I don’t know how I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
Seriously, the dude is a young guy having some fun, how on earth is he narcissistic. Guys that are married with children and mortgages get less fidelity than what this chick is expecting.
Flip the script and if a guy made the same complaint the response would be he’s a sackless beta who shouldn’t expect he owns a girl just because she talked to him.
Let me play the Devil’s Advocate here…
Emma, you want this guy to be sexually exclusive with you while not having sex with him?
I’m sorry, but feminism has destroyed the dating world that gave you that right a long time ago, so until you have sex with him, you cannot expect that he won’t be seeing other women. He’s a young man, you may want to learn some basic biology of young men. He’s fighting an insanely overwhelming sex drive at that age. Seriously late teenage males can pop random boners if the wind blows a certain way. You made him wait an entire semester while being exclusive and him providing plenty of emotional intimacy. Do you have any idea what that was doing to him? In fact, I bet when he agreed to be exclusive at first, he was sincere and was not seeing the other girl. It’d be later in the semester that, while nothing was happening with you and driven by serious blue balls (and possibly advices from older men), he started seeing her.
I’d say he handled the situation poorly (most of us here would too at that age, he’ll learn eventually) so you should just let this one go. From here on, you should readjust your expectations for the modern dating world. You could go with HUS advice of No Sex Before Monogamy, but Monogamy While Not Providing Sex is no longer a valid nor fair option, I’m afraid.
What??? Nothing wrong with keeping your options open and saying so. There’s something very wrong when you have a girlfriend, take someone else out on a bunch of dates, claim you’re not seeing anyone else, and proceed to live a double life.
@Johnycomelately
This is some seriously warped thinking. You fail to consider the harm done to Emma in this situation – she spend four months in a relationship where she thought the guy truly cared about her, only to find out he was a fraud.
Do you not have a moral compass wrt lying?
He did a lot more than “talk to her.” He dated her for four months, including some sexual activity. Nor does Emma expect to “own” him – she believed they were exclusive because he expressed that was what he wanted.
You overdosed when you took the Red Pill.
@108
Men regularly state here that they would not consider marrying a woman who had had casual sex outside committed relationships. IOW, no sex before monogamy. If you are correct, then women can’t win. You’ll demand a woman put out without commitment, but you won’t commit to a woman who’s done so.
This is not how I read the email. I hope Emma will shed some light on this. My understanding was that he was totally two-timing from the start. She implied that when she asked him if he was seeing someone else, and he said no, that he was lying.
Jesus, some of you are quick to paint this guy as some dark lord rising from the underworld to destroy a fair maiden…
Here’s a simpler explanation. Young fellas at that age are just learning to navigate the dating world. They have no idea what they’re doing and what they really want (other than sex being the obvious). They have no plan of action, no dating etiquette (guess what, most of them don’t have an older male mentor for dating anymore), nothing. Whatever gets them closer to the goal (having a girl they can date & have regular sex with) they’d say yes to. They vaguely know that (from movies perhaps) agreeing to a relationship with a girl will get them there. However, after a while of no sex despite being in a relationship, they will get confused. Now, they have never been taught to communicate this clearly in a relationship yet, and with no male mentor around to give them a good kick in the arse, they will not know how to bring this up without sounding like pussy begging.
So we have what we have here: a very confused boy and girl messing up a budding relationship. He’s no dark vampire.
Equally, this girl Emma has no female mentor that could explain all of this to her, hence she had to write to HUS. Older generations have seriously dropped the ball when it comes to mentoring the young ones and teaching them how to navigate the dating world. It is due to incompetence caused by this lack of mentoring that causes the miseries you see in modern dating, not because of calculated malice.
@108spirits:
I understand what you mean, but it is a little more nuanced than that. We weren’t having sex, but we were physical. I was also very ill for part of the time, so anything was off the table so that he didn’t risk getting sick as well. We talked a lot about sex in general and I essentially expressed wanting to lose my virginity to him. He expressed attaching a high emotional value to sex, so I thought we were on the same page. Believe me, I was wanting to be in a sexual relationship as well.
@Johnycomelately:
I have hardly spoken more than 5 words to him in about 8 months, so I don’t really think “keeping my hands off him” is an issue. I simply haven’t encountered a situation such as this before and am seeking honest advice for how to behave in professional manner.
Two choices:
If you want to have a future with him, next time he makes a pass at you, be perfectly calm. Ask “what the fuck are you doing?” Being very calm and using harsh language will shatter his control of the situation. If he tries to defend himself, constantly assert “You were trying to be nice to me so we could get back together.” If he denies, say “great, then lets continue working.” Pretty soon he will be under your thumb, all yours, begging for forgiveness, willing to be yours for the rest of eternity.
If you want to have a future without him, then for ten minutes each day, fantasize about him dating a three hundred pound fat woman, licking whipped cream from her belly button. Really put your imagination into it. Maybe he is massaging the feet of the local football team in their locker room. He really loves working out those knots. You know Mark Wahlberg, right? Your guy really can’t wait to cook Mark a huge, delicious, banana bread.
Susan, the young bloke here already agreed to commitment & monogamy. It is her that isn’t holding her end of the bargain i.e no sex. Why don’t you ask her why she didn’t have sex with him after they agreed to become exclusive?
Keep in mind that I said this guy handled it poorly. That’s not how I or other men here would have done, but I doubt any of us would’ve agreed to monogamy with a woman then kept going for half a year with no sex.
“I’m sorry, but feminism has destroyed the dating world that gave you that right a long time ago, so until you have sex with him, you cannot expect that he won’t be seeing other women.”
I wouldn’t date or pledge fidelity to a guy who had these conditions. No way.
108Spirits,
I did. 8 months of pure blue balls. Then she went on a family vacation and lost her virginity with some surfer dude. Fun memories.
But I read Emma´s story as the guy having at least one girl on the side from moment one.
OK, Emma, that explains it better. The good news is, you were not dating a narcissist with dark triad traits. You were dating a nancy boy. No man would talk a lot about sex with a girl he’s dating but not having sex with. That’s the stuff a girl talks to her girl BFF about.
Bb, so as soon as you go on a date with a guy, that’s it you no longer see other guys? You’re either fictional or one in a million.
Yohami, 8 months of blue balls? How did you even manage that???
See girls, that’s what men have to deal with, and that’s why we’re not gonna do monogamy with girls who don’t have sex with us. Men could sign up for No Sex Before Monogamy, but as soon as that Monogamy is signed, we expect actions before the ink dries!
I’ve got a bunch of comments stuck in moderation, Susan.
I’m with Yohami. I did that shit. 6 months.
Emma:
I suggest you be polite, not cordial. Cordial involves more warmth than would be smart.
Call him by his name, say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
I think all the psychological analyses are unnecessary. He’s a liar. That’s all you need to know.
I think there is a reason some male commentators have a degree of sympathy for this guy. Yes, lying is wrong, and his conduct was unethical, but there’s a reason his situation didn’t sit right with some guys. Lying is the tool of the weak, and the story makes it sound like this guy was not only weak personally, but also in a weak position structurally. Male investment is supposed to correspond to female commitment. In the old days a guy in his position could assume that the girl wanted to marry him, and regarded marriage to him as the best thing that could happen to her. Today, with the emphasis on female autonomy, all he can assume is that she wants him until the moment she decides she doesn’t.
If a girl wants a guy to put more effort into her for less immediate return, she needs to be offering more commitment than other girls, i.e. she should be serious about being able to commit to a life with the guy. Courtship and serial monogamy don’t go together. Of course this means she needs to screen for guys who could be capable of that kind of commitment, rather than “exciting guys”.
I don’t mean to criticize Emma, since I don’t know the details of her situation – I just want to explain why I think some commentators instinctively thought there was an unreasonable expectation being placed on the guy.
Sorry, @108, I missed the first part of your post “Emma, you want this guy to be sexually exclusive with you while not having sex with him?”, which tempers my original response.
“You could go with HUS advice of No Sex Before Monogamy, but Monogamy While Not Providing Sex is no longer a valid nor fair option, I’m afraid.
So this is a bad deal for women who want to remain virgins until they’re married. (And I’m not necessarily talking about Emma.) They’ve got no reasonable options!
Stephenie, of course I hope you’re right.
There are guys who are cool with No Sex Before Marriage, but they are often either a highly religious minority that get married very young (so they can get some) or essentially losers that other women don’t want. Stefenie’s husband is a special case because while he was decidedly unpopular with women before he met her (from her own words), he still satisfies her hypergamy because he’s a white American, which is high status to her.
Yeah, would you do it again, knowing what you do know now?
Call me fucked up, but holding off on a college dude sounds like a plan that’s destined to fail in most cases. People gotta get their needs met somewhere (girls too, hence the stories that Jesus Mahoney and Yohami told). The whole “if it looks too good to be true” type thing might apply to the relationship she thought she had. I’m just sayin’…
I thought I’d ad another clarification (Susan, sorry I didn’t catch this earlier).
I feel like the perception is that I roped him into commitment right away, then withheld sex. This is not the case. While we clicked right away and hung out often, we were not exclusive right off the bat. I did not mistake the friendliness and attraction for commitment. During this time, I understand that I could not have any objection to him being involved with anyone else.
By the time we were exclusive (about 1/3 of the way through the semester), he knew I’d had no sexual/relationship experience before. Once I was healthy, I felt comfortable being sexual with him and felt strongly that sex would happen at some point in the foreseeable future, which I did communicate to him.
I hope this sheds a little more light on the issue.
*add
“One night, we both admitted that we were attracted to each other, and were essentially “seeing” each other. I asked him if he was seeing anyone else and he said no.”
But then-
“this was my first boyfriend-type of person and I felt confident in his promise of exclusivity. One night, we had a long talk about our relationship and he said he wanted a long-term relationship with me and wanted to work towards that.”
Was there an actual promise of exclusivity specifically mentioned during those points of your relationship or was it merely assumed because he said he wasn’t seeing anyone? Reading this, I didn’t get that impression, other than you calling him BF at one point. You didn’t actually say whether there was a point in time when you guys were “official”, and the “promise of exclusivity” was mentioned merely in passing. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not trying to bust your balls, just trying to get more information. You said he was a “boyfriend-type” and that he wanted to work towards an LTR, and that makes it sound a bit wishy washy.
If you guys were official, then certainly he deserves a lot of this criticism for his behavior and it’s unfortunate that this happened to you. But realize he is an outlier, and the vast majority of dudes out there honor their exclusive commitments.
If you guys weren’t actually official/exclusive, he was just keeping his options open, and this whole narcissist thing is overblown.
Either way, a commitment oriented girl’s best bet to not feeling played is to keep it shut until they get official exclusivity.
Emma, was there ever a point where he was pushing for something sexual to happen, but you had to hold him off? If not, that might be weird…
I’m in the Jesus and Yohami club.
I waited 6 months before an ex and I had sex. While I was in Iraq she fucked another guy and had a kid with him. Good times!
Dear Emma:
When you work with this guy again, hold off on saying anything about your history to others in the organization.
If he’s a narcissist, he’ll have a unquenchable thirst to control how he is perceived (that’s what narcissists do, after all). If you say nothing, here’s how it’ll shake out:
Worst case:
He’ll tell everybody you’re nuts. People will initially look askance at you, but after awhile will form their own impressions. Some may even wonder what’s wrong with him, since he misread you so badly. Life will go on.
Best case:
He’ll tell everybody you’re nuts. People will see that you’re (hopefully) not. Based on this subtle “heads up”, they’ll find other incongruities in his behavior fairly quickly. His reputation will suffer.
Don’t bother playing the public opinion game with him. He’s probably better at it than you are. Just be yourself – do a good job and maintain your integrity. Who you are vs who he is will shine through eventually. Let it happen naturally – don’t try and speed it up – lest you fuck it up.
What??? Nothing wrong with keeping your options open and saying so. There’s something very wrong when you have a girlfriend, take someone else out on a bunch of dates, claim you’re not seeing anyone else, and proceed to live a double life.
Absolutely.
I think some commenters seem to be missing or glossing over this part:
“One night, we had a long talk about our relationship and he said he wanted a long-term relationship with me and wanted to work towards that. We hadn’t had sex yet, I was/am still a virgin.
On the first weekend back for second semester, one of his friends clued me in that he was, in fact, dating someone else. “
.
Bottom line, he lied and misled. Full stop. In this current SMP, there really is nothing wrong with a guy seeing multiple girls and keeping his options open, but be honest about it. If a girl asks are you seeing other girls and you are, then you should simply say “Yes, I am seeing some other girls”. I think the problem is sometimes guys feel guilty about this even when no exclusivity has been agreed on so they lie instead of being upfront.
I simply haven’t encountered a situation such as this before and am seeking honest advice for how to behave in professional manner.
IMO, be cordial, civil, and polite and that is it. Don’t engage him in any lengthy conversation of any kind.
So this is a bad deal for women who want to remain virgins until they’re married. (And I’m not necessarily talking about Emma.) They’ve got no reasonable options!
You can’t close Pandora’s box once you’ve opened it. I think if a woman wants to remain a virgin until she is married, she really has to zone in on strict religious guys as her main market opportunity. No other guy will wait that long.
.
Mike C. is right here. Don’t let yourself get drawn back in. Civil, cordial and distant. You can’t put humpty-dumpty back together again.
BS
I good guy really interested in a woman and understanding of her reasons will wait. Emma will find a lot of guys that will not, but a decent man with an honest talk about why, will wait, not forever mind you but he will rather not date or break up than choose deception, IME.
Maybe a super small minority. How long we talking here? 1-2 years of dating, 1-year engagement. You are talking potentially 3 years from meet to getting married and finally having sex. 3 years? 3 years?
Now I think some guys will wait if they really believe you the kind of girl worth waiting for if we are talking a few to several months of dating, but I’d have to be absolutely sure there are strong moral philosophical beliefs at work and I’m not getting played for a chump.
You can’t close Pandora’s box once you’ve opened it. I think if a woman wants to remain a virgin until she is married, she really has to zone in on strict religious guys as her main market opportunity. No other guy will wait that long.
As always, you make a lot of sense, Mike C. That’s a very small pool.
There’s no good reward for men or women who want to take time and wait. Based on these comments, men who wait get played, and women get left behind.
“women who wait get left behind.”
By my previous comment, I meant you guys as you are now (after taking the Red Pill), not when you were younger & naive. Personally I’m glad I’ve never done that in my younger & dumber days.
Emma, you should listen to the guys here and be civil & cordial. Your emotion towards him should be in one mode and one only: indifferent. Resist any temptation to overshare the story and badmouth him, even if you’re right. It will put you in very favourable light to the good guys who are after serious relationships.
Bb, in the past, waiting till marriage worked, because the wait wasn’t that long. A couple would date for a few months (unless they already knew each other from childhood) then the man would propose and they would get married & fuck like rabbits within a month of engagement. And even then you would get babies born well short of 9 months after the parents’ wedding day.
None of those wait-till-marriage couples would’ve waited if they’d had to go with today’s typical 3-5 years of dating plus 1 year of engagement, and a much older average marrying age.
Please elaborate on this one. I know a couple of guys in seemingly good relationships that fall into that category, but I did think it was kinda weird when I first met them. (I also wonder about girls that are only friends with guys, but that’s a whole other issue.)
Emma,
I spent six months with a guy and had a similar experience. The fireworks rapidly turned into holy-shit-that-just-happened? My gut kept yelling at me and it only took a couple of weeks to realize I should have paid attention to the initial signs. My friends were all wondering what could have possibly gone wrong since he somehow charmed them at every interaction, but I stood my ground and refused to give into him (or tolerate any support for him coming back). Four months later, I realize it was truly detoxifying to have cut him loose. I’m so glad I moved on.
You sound like you were able to handle this in the best way possible. Keep up the good work and don’t let him draw you back in. A great (and deserving) guy is out there waiting for you and it will be the most fun when you get to experience it. In the meantime, stay awesome.
Waiting until marriage was fine and dandy when people got married around 19-21 like my parents (or worse: 12-14, as was the case in Medieval Europe for women).
Now, with marriage ages approaching or passing 30, it’s kinda retarded to agree to such a thing in the US unless you plan on marrying earlier.
That’s going to limit your pool a litle bit, isn’t it? Also knocks out the male lead from most romantic novels. Might be able to bag yourself a nice mormon, though.
I agree – much in the same way that some of the girls here are describing their ’28 year old virgin alpha’ boyfriends because that’s all they know, I hear the word ‘player’ being bandied around by girls about very young guys who are in actuality most likely cluelessly trying to get with members of the opposite sex & just muddying through life the best they can.
This guy clearly liked the girl & was prepared to stick around & invest time in being with her, even with no sex. But to expect a 19 year old male to turn down offers of sex elsewhere over a prolonged period of time is most of the time highly unrealistic. It doesn’t make him a player or a toxic narcissist.
It was dishonest, yes, but natural too & just one of those things. No need to demonize the poor guy, just move on & find someone more suitable to your requirements.
He could be a narcisist. But you are ignoring the possibility that he is a polygamist. Polygamists are a persecuted underground minority. Finding mates in this milieu is tough. A polygamist may lie to protect himself, not because he lacks love or empathy. There are a thousand forces at work trying to destroy even monogamous relationships. These forces are amplified when you are poly.
Men are polygamous by nature. Polygamy is endorsed by most of the world’s religions. It is the sane, moral, and ethical way for the alpha male to handle his abundant desires. The alternative is the cock carousel, like we see with the rhesus maqaques.
Yeah, but neither of you would now, right? You did that because you were in love, not because you were pickup artists & players.
Oh, and polygamist men DO care for each of the women in their lives.
Byron,
In love and such a gentleman
Yeah, I’m late to this but I see it as this:
1. he’s a wannabe player. He’s a young guy “sowing his oats.”
2. Susan- NEVER underestimate a man’s urge to keep “chomping at the bit” if the possibility is sex is on the line. I’ve worked girls for 2-3 months to get her into bed. Of course I was sleeping w/ another girl at the time, so the chase was fun. The fact that dude had a girl he was bedding down tells me all I need to know about his efforts.
Emma did well in disqualifying him. At work, be cordial….. but that’s it.
Darn tootin’. No truer words spoken.
Hogamus higamus,
men are polygamous;
higamus hogamus,
women monogamous.
-Ogden Nash
We all on some level know this to be true. This is not to say men can’t try very hard to be monogamous – in this society most of them do, very hard, & with very little appreciation – But if we were to take as the starting point, the basic template, an understanding & acceptance of our basic differing natures we would probably all be a lot less messed up & judgemental & be on our way to creating a much happier & more humane world.
Susan, you have no way of knowing this.
Yohami’s list is great in regard to a specific PUA framework but I’m a bit concerned at its implication for wider use – I mean, think about what it is saying: out of the whole list only true alpha males (& the nice ones at that) are worth any consideration at all. That’s what, at the very most 10% of the male population? So more than 90% of all men are evil or damaged beyond repair & unworthy of love?
Well, I don’t think 90% of men are unworthy of love.
I know this isn’t Yohami’s meaning but it worries me how easily a statement like that is accepted & applauded without question, even by men themselves. It’s strange recognizing misandry cropping up even in Game theory.
Wow. This is depressing. We have cases of men who were willing to delay sex for women they believed were special, only to have the women just cheat on them with men who wouldn’t wait . . . and then in the meantime, we get a loud and clear message that if a woman wants to ask a man who is courting her to delay sex because she’s honestly not yet ready, she should assume he’s sleeping with someone else and accept that as fair.
Are you willing to delay your need for commitment for a man who you believe is special?
Erm…no. He is being ‘persecuted’, for lack of a better word, because he lied. Period. It wasn’t a white lie and he isn’t a martyr.
Bellita,
My woman never cheated… that I know of anyway. However, she did wait 6 months with me. And, I came to find out, hadn’t waited 6 hours with other guys from her past. I ended the relationship mostly because of that disparity.
No, I think that if two people are in a monogamous relationship, then people should be able to assume that their partners are NOT sleeping with others. That said, I have no plans on including myself in that group of sexless monogamous guys.
Byron,
I agree. I think Yohami has caricatured the beta guy’s frame of mind. There are plenty of self-respecting betas in healthy relationships. True, many are naive about attraction as it applies to women, but that doesn’t make them door mats. And there are some who aren’t naive at all; they’ve simply got different priorities and perspectives.
Cut him loose, Emma. Ignore your hypergamous feelings, and let him go.
Yes, that is correct. Feminism almost demands that all girls become whores (or religious). This actually helps put some current events in perspective.
The Obama administration in the latest healthcare bill demanded that Birth Control be available to all without a co-pay (should be provided for “free” by the tax payers)…and the people opposing it are the religious right.
Welcome to America.
Depressing.
@whitekrispyboy:
I understand your confusion, the nature of our relationship wasn’t always clear to me either. (Obviously now I can red flag that right away). The night that we both agreed that we were dating/seeing each other was the same night I asked him if he was seeing any other girls at that point, to which he said no. So, for a while, I believed us to be an exclusive pair in the beginning stages of a long term type of relationship. He told me that he had referred to me as the person he was dating to his family/friends back home.
@BroHamlet:
Believe it or not, I was usually the one to escalate sexually. He would typically be the one to put on the brakes. He talked a lot about how his previous relationships had gotten too physical too fast and that he wanted to avoid that. This is why I think if the main issue was sex, as many are suggesting, that I was getting some serious mixed signals on that front. If he really wanted sex right away, it was misleading of him to have several conversations with me about the merits of not rushing into anything, wanting a strong emotional foundation, etc.
@V:
Thanks for the support!
We’re missing key information here. Some commenters believe it was only after a period of sexual frustration that this guy went out and started dating someone else. Even if that’s true, he lied. It took him six months to apologize, but ultimately he owned his behavior.
My reading of this letter was that he had a gf from the start, began courting Emma, and played both girls badly. It doesn’t seem very realistic that he would go from holding Emma’s hand during illness, then fooling around, to dating someone else within a few weeks.
For the record, the word dating in this context means being in a committed relationship, usually after some period of exclusivity. The normal progression is:
Hanging out
Hooking up
Regular hookups
Exclusivity – hooking up with each other only
Dating, i.e. official LTR
If he was dating another girl by January, he had to have proceeded through those other phases first. That’s why I’m assuming there was deliberate deceit and scheming involved. His denial when asked – called Emma crazy – is evidence that he was up to no good and tried to get away with it.
I also think it’s pretty clear here that Emma was willing to have sex with him – she states she told him as much, and that he was cool with that plan. They were in the exclusive phase, heading toward dating/LTR. In that situation, hooking up with another woman might not technically be cheating, but requires immediate communication to the exclusive partner that the relationship has changed and is no longer exclusive. IOW, he changed his mind. Instead of doing that, he was seeing (and getting sexual with) two people at the same time: Emma, who he was exclusive with, and the other girl, who he was dating.
This stinks to high heaven – there is no innocent explanation for this guy. His lack of empathy and conscience prompted my suspicion he is narcissistic, and it sounds to me like he fits the bill. He took advantage of a girl who he knew was a virgin and seeking a meaningful sexual experience.
Emma, what do you think of that “diagnosis”? And can you get a bit more specific about what the deal was with this other girl?
Unless Emma lives in Utah the polygamy discussion is a red herring. If he is polyamorous, and some college students are, he is obligated to clearly state that up front, obviously.
@Danny
Yes, this was my take on it as well. And it’s not OK. No problem with “sowing wild oats.” If he can pull two consenting women at once, or even if it’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” the responsibility is hers. But she did ask, and he lied.
@Byron
David Buss has written about the puzzle of why men evolved to marry. He believes it’s probably a case of trading that commitment to get access to the most desirable females.
But the sexes would still be at cross purposes in mating, and that will always be true. Each sex will always give up something to get something, subject to the prevailing forces of supply and demand at any given time.
Can you think of another reason why he would claim fidelity to a woman he wasn’t having sex with, while having sex with a girlfriend all the while?
Bellita:
“Wow. This is depressing. We have cases of men who were willing to delay sex for women they believed were special, only to have the women just cheat on them with men who wouldn’t wait . . . and then in the meantime, we get a loud and clear message that if a woman wants to ask a man who is courting her to delay sex because she’s honestly not yet ready, she should assume he’s sleeping with someone else and accept that as fair.”
This is the sexual marketplace that feminism created. The male response has been:
(1) push for sex early on in a relationship;
(2) quickly end it with women who give it up fast for alphas but make “nice guys” wait;
(3) adopt PUA lifestyles;
(4) MGTOW (men going their own way)
Most men didn’t want this. Sure, there has always been a PUA/natural alpha element. In Marriage 1.0 they were considered outcasts. With the rise of feminism and female sexual freedom, about 20% of the men were getting nearly all the sex, with no strings attached. Women were sharing a small group of men. More and more men wanted a piece of the action. They started improving their lives, making themselves more and more attractive to women. all this has been, like it or not, a response to feminism.
Another response has been that women who slut it up in their younger years are being increasingly rejected as LTR and marriage material, or at least their marriage options are severely restricted. Women with double digit partner counts are just not as attractive. Know why? Because she gave it up for alpha studs in a matter of hours, while making me wait for weeks or months. And if she does that to me, it means she’s not really all that into me, and she just sees me as a walking wallet to raise her children (who just might not be mine).
I’m not saying any of this is right. I am saying that this is the world we live in now. Susan says we’re not going back to the old way, and that hookup culture is here to stay. I don’t know about that; but I agree with Susan that for now, everyone has to navigate the present culture. Example: Marriage 2.0 and divorce. Even I, as a married man, have to bring the tingle or else my wife can divorce me, take half my assets, and keep me from seeing my children. All my wife has to do is decide she wants out, and that’s all she wrote for me. The only way I have to combat this is to bring the tingle and show alpha dominance.
I don’t like having to live this way. I don’t like being under pressure to make the tangle tingle. But the alternative is poverty for me and my children, isolation and bitterness.
Susan has been one of the first to recognize this honestly, diagnose the causes, and prescribe the necessary medicine: keep your partner counts low so as to make yourself attractive as an LTR and marital partner.
What’s striking about Emma is that she did everything I would advise. She did it before finding HUS, she totally has her head screwed on straight. It sounds like HUS has been a source of support in the sense that we’ve confirmed she isn’t crazy, that she didn’t make poor choices. It really is incredibly depressing if our answer for her now is that after delaying her own gratification in pursuit of meaningful and real intimacy, she’s screwed because this is the world that feminism made.
I believe there are nice guys who will wait, and they won’t have been taken advantage of by Emma if they do.
It strikes me as very odd that he was putting the brakes on with Emma while screwing someone else.
Emma, do you have any insight into what his motive was? Did any of his friends ever explain? Or did he give some explanation when he apologized? Is he still with that other girl?
@ V:
“Avoid these types of guys:
6. Guys whose only friends are girls.
Please elaborate on this one. I know a couple of guys in seemingly good relationships that fall into that category, but I did think it was kinda weird when I first met them. (I also wonder about girls that are only friends with guys, but that’s a whole other issue.)”
Two reasons:
(1) A man whose only real friends are girls has only a female frame of reference. He has no men to bounce ideas off of. He doesn’t do “guy things”. He cannot learn to show dominance or to stand on his own. He does not think for himself. He follows the herd mentality. He is “one of the girls”. He will always get LJBF’d, which leads to
(2) Almost all the time, he is a beta orbiter who pines away for higher status girls who rejected him. He hangs around exceptionally attractive girls, hoping that they will see how great a guy he is and they will fall in love with him and he’ll get the sex he wants from them. But it never happens for him, and he never figures it out.
Women find men like this to be great friends. Women also use these men as emotional tampons. But women find them horrendously unattractive, because they don’t act, talk or think like men. They act, talk and think like women.
Susan wrote:
I think he was getting off on the sexual frisson, even though it was never consummated.
If he got off on lying to people he would be working in real estate, politics or the financial services sector.
@ Susan:
“What’s striking about Emma is that she did everything I would advise. She did it before finding HUS, she totally has her head screwed on straight. It sounds like HUS has been a source of support in the sense that we’ve confirmed she isn’t crazy, that she didn’t make poor choices. It really is incredibly depressing if our answer for her now is that after delaying her own gratification in pursuit of meaningful and real intimacy, she’s screwed because this is the world that feminism made.
I believe there are nice guys who will wait, and they won’t have been taken advantage of by Emma if they do.”
Cosign.
But doesn’t this advocate a return to the pre-feminism days in which women didn’t slut it up, and men got into relationships with women and bided their time until their women were ready? I think it does, and with good reason: the old system of assortative mating worked. Nearly everyone who wanted a mate could get one. The drawbacks for men were that they had to wait for sex until they gave commitment. The drawback for women was that their natural hypergamous instincts had to be curtailed to keep the one man they got.
I think it’s unfortunate we have to counsel the Emmas of the world that for real happiness they have to live by the old rules and hope for a needle in the haystack “nice guy” to come along. Meanwhile she sits on the sidelines watching many other men and women in her circle having lots of sex, with a culture that reinforces and encourages that conduct, while fending off liars, ham-handed player wannabes, and potential nutcases.
Susan wrote:
But it would still be the truth.
But will Emma find any of them remotely attractive?
He was hoping to go from screwing one woman on the regular to screwing two women on the regular. He got busted for lying. Why is that hard to understand?
Well, he’s still in college, give him time.
Indeed. Which is why they can’t sit around and wait for nice guys, they’re going to have to go out and find them. I’m working on a post about women initiating, approaching and escalating more.
Obviously this guy saw Emma as a conquest. There are guys who are in love with falling in love. Or in love with getting women to fall in love with them.
I liken it to crazy pet collectors. Their soul is stirred at the sight of strays, for animals they see lacking care and comfort and comestibles. But the moment a crazy cat lady has the animal for her own, she’s going to let it starve in her basement and move on to the next conquest, her heart crying for the skinny alley cat without a home, while the rotting corpses of last year’s strays befoul her basement. They thrive on empathy but are incapable of intimacy.
The moment this guy had Emma under this thumb, he would’ve been on to his next conquest, and Emma would’ve been left to rot.
Well, how about a young man, at college, meets two girls he really likes, gets close to both of them & feels torn, knows under the present societal norms he cannot tell one without losing the company of the other & be talked about as an evil douchebag (as he has been here) so continues on trying to decide which he should be with.
As I understand it, we don’t know what actual words were used to ‘claim fidelity’ – maybe he just said ‘you’re really special & I love being with you’. And meant it. Also, we only have Emma’s side of the story to go on here, & she herself doesn’t really seem to know what happened for sure or what to think, hence her asking advice. We don’t know if the guy considered the other girl a ‘girlfriend’ or was just someone he hung out with & slept with a few times. We don’t know if the guy was young & assessing his options but meant it when he said he saw Emma as someone he wanted to work towards being in a long-term relationship with. Maybe he didn’t want to have sex with her until the other relationship or whatever it was had wound down & was over, so that he wouldn’t be cheating on her.
The fact that he actually turned down sex after helping her through illness & spent some seriously quality time with her would suggest to me that he’s a) definately not a player, b) someone who genuinely likes her company & cares for her, & possibly c) trying to do the best in a difficult situation & not mess with her mind&heart by sleeping with her.
Another thing, if someone stopped talking to me for half a year & I used to really like them & I missed them, I’d probably say I’m sorry too – As in: ‘I’m not actually sure what it is I did to hurt you but I know I probably dealt with that whole situation badly & I’m sorry.’
Now, It might not be this explanation, it might be the one already stated, or it might be another one altogether. I’m just saying the rush to judge & badmouth a very young man who isn’t here to defend himself is a bit one-sided & ‘you go girl’ for my liking. I like HUS best when we try to dig a little deeper & look at it from a few more angles.
@ Susan:
I wish I could be more specific about the other girl, but he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information when I called him out on it, haha. It’s mostly guesswork for me at this point. I knew that they were friends, I even alluded to the possibility of this situation happening and he practically laughed it off and reassured me that I was the one he wanted to be with. As far as motive, I am really not sure. I have never seen someone do a complete 180 character-wise as he did.
I didn’t get much explanation from his friend, either. He just sort of looked at me dumbfounded and I left rather quickly as it was all a mess. This was about a week after our sober break up, when I got the explanation that he simply wasn’t ready to be in a relationship at that point, but had denied any sort of involvement with the other girl. The friend said something to the affect of it being hard to be into 2 girls at once, which makes me think him and the other girl had been “together” in some form for a long time, and that he pretty much chose her over me. As far as I know, they’re still together.
The apology was really short, and he said he apologized for “everything bad that had happened”. So again, more vagueness.
The lack of any sort of explanation or closure was what bothered me for so long, and was partially the reason I wrote to the site.
Byron,
True, but according to what Emma said, he DID lie about having a girlfriend. This doesn’t make someone evil, of course, especially since we don’t know the particulars of the other relationship, but it does make this guy a bad bet for any kind of relationship if his only means of coping with awkward and difficult emotional situations is to lie.
You’re right, though. We’re assuming a lot, based on only one side of the story.
Susan wrote:
Of course. He didn’t think he’d get caught.
Emma wrote:
His character didn’t change. His motives didn’t change. Only the circumstances did. He was caught in a lie.
Mahoney,
Maybe, maybe not. Like I said, we don’t know whether the guy considered the other girl a ‘girlfriend’. The fact that
makes me think that the guy had been torn by his attraction to two different girls & was asking advice of what to do from his friends.
Again, I could be way off base, I’m just trying to put myself into the guys shoes as a way of explaining what happened. If we take presumed innocence as a starting point we come out with a very different explanation than the assumption the accused is a demon.
You’re absolutely right, Byron. We’re seeing things completely from Emma’s POV, even as she claims how the entire thing is vague even to her.
I retract what I said before. While what I said might in fact be the case, it’s entirely possible that this was just a young immature guy who didn’t know how to proceed in a difficult and awkward situation.
With Emma’s latest input, this seems likely. Basically, he strung along two girls until he made his choice, without regard for the feelings of either one. In my book, that qualifies him as a douchebag for sure, but probably not evil and probably more fuckwitted and immature than NPD. The fact that Emma had to learn from his friend, and that he denied involvement with the other girl adds up to some pretty shady behavior.
I’m also amused by the friend’s claim that “it’s really hard to be into two girls at once.” As if having two girls who want you exclusively is such a trial, no mortal man could be expected to make a choice and let the other girl move on with her life. Instead, we should understand, possibly even excuse his making a fool of her for months on end.
Fair enough, but from my perspective there’s a decided flavor of “[horny teenage] boys will be boys” from some of the males here. While many fathers apparently neglected to warn their sons against pedestalizing women, others neglected to impart the moral value of honest dealings with others, and the wrongness of furthering one’s own status in life by stepping on the back of a woman.
Susan wrote:
Working title: “How To Give Men Completely The Wrong Idea About You”.
Three kinds of responses.
1. Indifference or contempt.
Think about all the women who opened Krispy on POF.
2. Deer-in-the-car-headlights response.
Betas love the idea of woman approaching them in theory, but they often can’t handle it when it happens for real.
3. Seeing a female approach as the green light for sex.
That’s fine if sex is all she wants, but its totally the wrong approach if she’s a wait-till-marriage girl.
Sue,
Many fathers failed to teach their sons much of anything about relationships, unfortunately. That said, I can see this from the guy’s POV. That’s not to say I condone the lack of honesty, but I can see how a guy might be afraid to be upfront about his feelings in this situation, since, especially in the mind of a more beta-oriented guy, telling a woman that there’s someone else, and that you’re not sure which one you want to commit to, is a risky business. Pre-2011 and the red pill, I would have imagined that a display of honesty like that would have lost me both girls. For a guy living within a scarcity framework, this is a serious risk.
Not saying the guy in this scenario is right. But the designation of “douche bag” for an insecure and immature college kid seems a bit harsh. If he makes a habit of this sort of thing, then okay, but most beta guys don’t find themselves in such situations often.
@Jesus
You raise an interesting point. I can’t decide whether this guy is alpha or beta.
Emma, do you have a sense of his social status on campus? It sounds like you don’t go to a school where it’s easy to get the scoop on any one individual.
@Johnny
Good input there on female approaches. Will use it!
Sue,
Thanks. Given the ratio of alpha/beta, it’s probably better to assume he’s the latter. Especially given the fact that he stuck around Emma for 4 months without sex. Not saying that’s impossible if the guy were some alpha douche bag, but it would be exceptionally uncommon, no?
You know, after scrolling through everything, considering Byron’s and Jesus M’s points, and a little application of Occam’s Razor, it looks to me like 108spirits has the best answer here.
Emma’s looking for a guy and thinks she’s found a great one. The guy is looking for nookie. He’s a young guy who pops random hard ons in his ENG 101 class. He’s so horny he can get it up at literally a moment’s notice, anytime, anywhere. He’s up for whatever he can do to get closer to the goal of nookie.
This young man probably has come from a broken home and has lived with his mother, and probably with a stepfather who cares nothing for him and is glad he’s out of the house and at college. His real father has been only a marginal player in his life. Even if he does live with his father, his dad is emotionally absent and probably a workaholic who hates his job. All he knows about girls are what he’s seen his friends do, a Lifetime emo porn movie here and there, what his mom tells him, and watching internet porn on the downlow. No one has ever told him anything about hypergamy, preselection, DHV or what women really find attractive. He’s confused and feeling his way around the sexual marketplace like most other men.
So he’s doing whatever he thinks he’s got to do to get him closer to the goal. He tells Emma he’s all about flowers and romance (cue sweeping music). Meanwhile he’s getting it on with another girlfriend and he’s staying with her because she gives it up to him. Maybe it’s just that simple.
I’m also amused by the friend’s claim that “it’s really hard to be into two girls at once.” As if having two girls who want you exclusively is such a trial, no mortal man could be expected to make a choice and let the other girl move on with her life. Instead, we should understand, possibly even excuse his making a fool of her for months on end.
True, but if you reverse the sexes it plays like most female romantic novels..
Has anyone here been watching True Blood recently? Literally EVERY man in that show wants to fuck the extremely plain & uninteresting waitress Sookie Stackhouse, with the single exception of her brother. EVERY SINGLE MAN. Not only fuck her but come to her aid at the drop of a hankerchief. At the moment there’s the werewolf guy, & Bill & Eric Northman, all fantastically buff first rate fellas, & she can still fall back on good old Sam Merlot in case she decides none of those are quite right.
The female fantasy all the way back to Jane Austen is to have a string of suitors chomping at bit for you to choose from to ‘make that big commitment’ to. This is considered normal behaviour for a woman – & it is, that fantasy is fantastically common – but I’ve rarely heard it condemned to as narcissism. Why does a male doing that (if that IS what is happening here) make him the villain?
Det,
This seems a bit jaded. If this was a beta guy who’s goal was to just get laid, then it’s doubtful he would be bothering with Emma, since he had the first girl. I know that as a kid, I’d been stirred by more than one girl at a time. I wouldn’t say it was “love” in any sort of deep meaningful way, but it wasn’t simply lust. Emma doesn’t mention any sort of pressuring or escalation or freeze outs or other mind games that suggest he was pushing for sex with her. Maybe he genuinely WAS all about romance and flowers?
I can’t decide whether this guy is alpha or beta.Emma, do you have a sense of his social status on campus?
The guy is not an alpha. But remember that many younger women especially tend to label any male they deeply want to be in a relationship with ‘an alpha male’.
@108spirits
Are you willing to delay your need for commitment for a man who you believe is special?
I’m not sure what you’re trying to get me to say, but I hope you’ll just tell me up front what it was I wrote that you think is wrong.
@detinennui32
I don’t like the world we’re living in either and I’m sorry to hear about your marriage. I agree that you shouldn’t have to live like that, but yes, the alternative is even worse.
As for partner counts, I’ve been certain for many years that the only number I ever want to have is one–but it’s going to be hard to stick to that if a woman has to put out before getting commitment, and even then get no guarantees. In this reality, “nice girls” finish last, too.
Jesus M:
“Many fathers failed to teach their sons much of anything about relationships, unfortunately.”
You got that right.
Most young men learn about male-female relationships from watching their parents. I watched my parents’ (mostly) happy marriage. Mom overbearing and domineering; Dad a henpecked doormat working in a soul killing job and showing flashes of passive-aggressiveness.
No one told me about snowflakes or entitlement princesses or needy clingy girls or hypergamy. No one told me the value of honesty in dealing with girls. In fact, most of the girls I knew in HS were fundamentally dishonest with me most of the time. I was just told to keep my d–k in my pants. All I saw were women and men using and manipulating each other, just trying their best to extract whatever they could.
Here’s what I learned: A man has to do whatever it takes to keep his woman happy and keep the peace. If you have to give in, let her make all the decisions and put up with her yelling and near-nervous breakdowns, then that’s what you do. If you get pissed off, you do it VERY infrequently and out of her presence. If she sees you getting angry, you’re a threat and a possible domestic abuser who needs to be locked up. The consequences for failing to follow this prescription are temper tantrums and sexual deprivation.
You have no idea how long it is taking to unlearn those behaviors and shed this worldview.
detinennui,
I agree that 108spirits has had the best take on it here, though like Mahoney just said, if it was only about the sex & he was an alpha or a player he would have had Emma on her back by now. There’s more going on.
Det,
The most effective way that I’ve found to change my world view is to change my self view. Once you see yourself as a person of value, a lot of those crappy messages just dissolve. You don’t have to relearn behaviors one-by-one, just get to the core. The more I see myself as a person of value, and the more I act like one, the less compelled I feel to engage in situations that make me feel devalued.
Bellita,
“I’m not sure what you’re trying to get me to say, but I hope you’ll just tell me up front what it was I wrote that you think is wrong.”
He would’ve had her on her back or kicked her out on her ass, anyway…
Deti,
You have no idea how long it is taking to unlearn those behaviors and shed this worldview.
It’s everywhere so it’s hard, & we’re all dealing with it. But you’re moving in the right direction. I wish you luck.
This guy was a narcissist, but only a AA league player. Don’t be too harsh on him, except for the lying. A real player will be pursuing several serious girlfriend possibilities simultaneously, having sex with one girl who thinks she’s kind of in a relationship with him, also having sex with between one and four other women who know they are just booty calls, and do it all without lying to any of them.
What few women understand is that most desirable men draw a very hard line drawn between dateable and doable. The guy who might be willing to commit to the supermodel is not going to make any genuine commitment to the cute cheerleader or sorority girl. So, he’ll freely bang several of them, sometimes more than one on the same night, while still genuinely pursuing the real romantic interest, for whom he will drop all the others.
It is very, very important for a young woman to determine where she stands vis-a-vis the D/D line.
@Byron
I’m solidly on Team Eric. I squirm every time he releases those fangs.
I don’t think your analogy holds though. Sookie isn’t deceiving anyone. In fact, she just jeopardized her current relationship with Eric by admitting she still has feelings for Bill the very moment she realized it. I don’t think she has any idea that Alcide is all hot and bothered about her – we only know that because he got upset when he spied on her making love with Eric. To the extent that the viewership is female, this is perhaps playing into longstanding fantasies, but there’s no deliberate misleading among the characters. And Sookie is only sexually active with one of the men.
That’s just the biological reality that women choose sexual partners. Literature and other stories reflect that. In Jane Austen’s day, a person of either sex would have been condemned for toying with someone’s emotions insincerely. Austen gave us bad characters of both sexes, but the deception in love is usually given to the man, who seeks to compromise the woman’s virtue without “making an honest women of her.” Women might act coquettish and string guys along, e.g. Scarlett O’Hara, but in that case she was indeed condemned as a narcissist.
@SW
“Basically, he strung along two girls until he made his choice, without regard for the feelings of either one. In my book, that qualifies him as a douchebag for sure”
Wielding the judgment hammer pretty heavily, don’t you think? I agree with 108- he’s a inexperienced young, horny man caught in that area most young men find themselves- not knowing what to do or how to do it. As Hanlon’s Razor goes, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity (incompetence and lack of experience, in this case).
Would you call girls who date multiple dudes douchebags too?
LA LA LA LA (fingers in my ears)!!
I am only half way through Season 3 of True Blood! Warnings of Spoilers people! (Luckily I stopped reading when I realized what was going on)
Susan – that is life.
Adjusteth thine expectations!
You’re talking like a brand new EMT on her first couple of shifts – you’ve gone to school, done the work, and now you’re gonna save some lives!
Except it ain’t like that. Not at all.
You roll to the call, do everything right with all the skill you possess, and most of the dying people go right on ahead and die. Despite your best efforts. Despite your risk and sweat and all the science you bring to bear.
It’s the one person per year that you save that keeps you coming back to work.
Relationships are like resuscitation attempts, if I may be allowed to torture this metaphor.
Most relationships aren’t going to work out for whatever reason. So, you do everything you can to to give them a chance, and filter out the bad ones. You apply science and advice and experience to the best of your ability….and….and….you’re still going to get burned (one way or t’other) most of the time.
You’re just positioning yourself for the best chance at what you want. You are not the only variable – the Universe has to cooperate, too.
When it works out, though, it’s wonderful. I still think it’s worth it. Others may not.
He lied. She asked him point blank and he lied. Again and again, throughout their relationship. He lived a lie for what sounds like many weeks, even months. Lying is not justified by lack of experience, stupidity, betaization, feminism, incompetence. Narcissism is a more generous conclusion, because the narcissist is disordered – incapable of empathy. If a man does not know that lying is wrong, he is severely mentally challenged and unlikely to be at university.
If you’re going to side with the liar, at least acknowledge some malice here. Putting your needs ahead of someone else’s at expense to them without their knowledge is shitty. So yeah, I’ll judge that harshly.
I would call them douchebaguettes, assuming they were stringing multiple guys along in ignorance, being sexually active with more than one.
Geez, from a public health standpoint alone this behavior is not OK. Does Emma not deserve to know that the guy she’s getting physical with is screwing someone else?
Byron said it best, I think. We’re basically making assumptions about this guy based on Emma’s interpretation of the situation and our own life experiences, but in reality, we know bunk.
This guy might be an alpha narcissist, a AA league alpha narcissist, a straight up decent alpha guy, a beta following his dick, a beta who’s all about romance and flowers, etc….
The only thing we really know is that he and Emma saw each other for 4 months and didn’t have sex. We know there was another girl in the picture somehow, but we don’t really know what his relationship was to her. Was he dating this girl? Banging her? Just friends with her? Could be any of the above. Maybe Emma blew this whole thing with the other girl out of proportion out of her own insecurities.
Emma’s vague on the facts, which is understandable enough, but we’re making assumptions based on Emma’s unclear description of the facts.
She went to “a friend” of his to find out what was going on. How close was this friend? If he was very close, does that mean he’d know the exact situation with this other girl? Guys don’t generally talk about their feelings, even with close friends, so maybe this friend was just conjecturing. After all, she said the friend seemed “dumbfounded.” Maybe what he meant was, “(If he DID like this other girl, then I don’t know, because) it’s hard being into two girls at once.” Emma herself says she’s just guessing. Does this suggest wrongdoing on his part? Insecurity on hers? Is the guy a narcissistic player who fetishizes virgins? Is he a confused beta who stumbled upon two attractive girls at once? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop? The world will never know…
Byron,
Interesting. Its not about being naturally unworthy, damaged or evil, but about having an unhealthy frame, using a wrong approach. And women are not any better, with their own dark stuff freaks and takers.
I do see how my list can be used to talk bad about men in general though.
Yohami,
I have no idea how you would do it, but maybe a list for females is warranted as well?
108Spirits,
I wanted to do things right, prove I wasnt like these guys, etc. I was pro feminism, I would have never pushed her to have sex (the idea repulsed me), I respected her a lot, I took her words more seriously than she did herself, etc. I had no idea I was that lost.
She was cool. She would arouse me and make me stop. She liked the control.
Byron,
I watch it. And she can mess and fuck around and nobody gets angry. They respect her so much. And she can call all the guys pigs and mistreat them too.
Someone should really make a similar show gender reversed.
Mahoney,
Yeah. I have no respect for the beta frame. I depicted the doormat more than the beta though. Beta just wants to make things right. He ends up as a doormat because of external factors, and most of the time without realizing it.
mmmmmmm…. where?
Mahoney,
Chances are the male friend she is talking to just wants his own balls inside of her and is going to backrubber his way in.
Emma,
When he called you crazy and later apologized, what was his frame like? Did he make a straight forward apology looking you in the eye and that was the end of it? Did he shuffle his feet and hang his head? Did he somehow make it sound like it was still your fault?
How about when he said you were crazy?
Susan,
I’m on Team Eric too. He’s cool.
I’m not sure I get your point though – If Sookie doesn’t HAVE to deceive anyone in this fantasy it’s only because the fantasy is she is so desirable all the men will still want her regardless of who she is with. That’s no different from the behaviour of a promiscuous Alpha male. The difference is the double standard.
Sorry ’bout the caps but the text buttons have disappeared.
This comment is full of win.
As for this:
Men don’t care that much about some casual sex. But when the woman is getting numbers like 60, you can’t blame the men for running for the hills.
Yes, men don’t like marrying women who engage repeatedly in casual sex. But to some extent, it also relates to how the woman behaves. If she’s going on “girls night outs” and dressing provocatively in public, then those are giant red flags. If she tempers her old propensities and manages her looks, many men would still marry her.
Again, men vehemently despise sluts who SAY they aren’t, but former sluts who have given up their old lifestyle can still get what they’re looking for.
Oops, apparently I typed the quote in the wrong place.
Yohami,
If we’re going to say that only 20% of guys are predominately alpha, and go one further and say that all beta men are in unhappy, unsustainable relationships, then we’d have to conclude that the vast majority of guys are in relationships that are complete and utter shit. Not so sure I believe that.
I can get with you if you’re saying that all beta guys are in relationships that you or I would find completely unsatisfying.
Thank you Dogsquat for sane and practical advice.
“I would call them douchebaguettes”
That’s a new one, I like it
Mahoney,
Yes, they are completely unsatisfying and shitty from my POV, but my POV aint mainstream. The masses are happy and comfortable or something like that. Settled. Settled at the bottom of the sea, but if you dont know theres a sea, you dont know you are at the bottom.
When you were with your ex fiancee before knowing the truth, were you happy and comfortable? my bet is you were just fine. Or trying to be fine.
In all the years when I had the omega and beta and whatever frame, I was always trying. I had relationships, love, etc. I was living. If someone told me “hey man you live in the SHIT” I would have taken offense. But boy, was I living in the shit.
Can you give examples of Sookie fucking around on anyone? Or calling guys pigs and mistreating them? As far as I can tell, she’s written as a character above moral reproach. Of course, this says nothing about real life. But I don’t see the double standard in the show.
There are plenty of bad women in True Blood. Sookie isn’t one of them.
Yohami,
“Its not about being naturally unworthy, damaged or evil, but about having an unhealthy frame, using a wrong approach… I do see how my list can be used to talk bad about men in general though.”
That’s what I meant.
Steph,
I never said my ex was a douche bag. I said that I didn’t want to be in a relationship with someone who held off so long on having sex with me when she’d been willing to sleep with other guys right away. Maybe it was immaturity on her part. I mean, it definitely was immaturity on her part to some degree. Some would argue that it was immaturity on my part for calling off our engagment. idk. I just didn’t want a part of that.
I think that Emma did the right thing by discontinuing things with this guy, since whatever the case really was, she wasn’t comfortable with it. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t be so quick to label him a douche bag when we don’t really know all the facts.
I’m all ears. It’s true we have limited information, but that’s always the case. Generally, we accept the facts as given and render an interpretation with the caveat that we don’t have the whole story. I don’t understand anyone’s desire to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.
Yohami,
I’m far happier now. Looking back, I think I devalued myself a great deal. There were some things that lifestyle offered that this one doesn’t though. Not that I’d go back ever…
Susan,
She´s fucking Eric now, but oh, she just found out she still loves Bill, so she´s going to be back with Bill and of course he will take her back?. She fucked Bill while she was flirting with Merlot, but Merlot didnt make the cut because he acted like a lucky puppy. She has some chemistry going on with the Werewolf too. Oh so much dick to explore.
She treats Bill like he´s scum. Bill´s favorite phrase is “Sookie, IM SORRY” (rewatch the dvds) even most of the time Bill is working his beta ass for Sookie.
She treated Eric like he was scum too, until Eric became a dumby girly beta and lost all his manliness because of the spell, so she fucked him, and now that Eric got his personality back, she dumps him.
Above moral reproach? Sookie is a repulsive character
Sue,
Clearly Emma’s better off without this guy. They want different things. I’m not saying she should give him another go. But Emma herself is unclear on things. It’s not as if she’s giving us a detailed account of what happened and we’re calling things into question. She herself is guessing….
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