Seriously the stories I've read about dudes threatening to drive to womens house and murder them or something over rejections is insane.
Have any of the ladies here had to deal with a psychopath like that?
Absolutely
I've had dudes lose their shit at me for politely turning them down several times. So now It goes through my head every time a guy hits on me.
I think that's a big reason why a lot of women don't like being hit on by strangers, because every time there's like a 50% chance they will threaten you.
Like I just want to get home from work, guy, I don't feel like being called a bitch today.
Aye... sorry about that friend. It's not in me to be mean to anyone. I usually get my feelings hurt at rejection, but I don't threaten to harm a woman over rejection.
Really you just deal with maybe hurt feelings for a couple days and then you pick yourself up and move on. Or at least that's what i tend to do
Yes but you also lied. I was expecting an owl, not a person. Asshole
People should write their info on paper more often. Meet someone on the train, have nice conversation, "this is my stop, here's my number/insta/tiktok/whateverthekidsusethesedays, hmu if you'd like to continue this over drinks" and leave it at that. It'll be clear you've asked them out, but they don't have to decide in the moment, they don't have to reject you to your face, and they don't have to give you any personal info. You leave them in a position where they only need to take action if they're interested in talking to you again, and they don't have to expend any additional energy on you if they're not interested.
Yes, and while the risk is not comparable, it's not just men. I had a woman pull a knife on me while screaming I was too ugly/worthless/etc to reject her, how I couldn't do better and I should be begging to be with her. Plenty of people are unhinged.
Friend of mine used to be friends with this dude named Chris (and yes, it’s that friend). They hung out every day for like two years. And then one day they were hanging out, and he, in their words (and they say it this exact way every time) “pulled his whole dick out.” They told him to fuck off, they gave him another chance after a couple months, aaaaand then he did it again. Then he started stalking them.
I wonder sometimes if the reason they never communicated things to me very well (i.e. why they never fucking told me they were uncomfortable with me following their Reddit account) is because they thought I would lose my shit or something.
What's the big deal? Isn't pulling your dick out a friendly gesture? It's not like it's a gun.
I saw multiple cishet dudes around me lose their shit after rejections and instantly go in stalker mode or worse. I always try to temper them down and sometimes it works, I'm amab presenting for now (sadly), at least I put a couple of people off from doing weird stuff
Short answer: Yes
Long Answer:
The first man to ever openly have a crush on me was a convicted pedophile a couple decades older than me.
That's not love and that's not companionship. I fail to see the point of wanting a relationship with someone you had to intimidate into giving you a chance or something.
Patriarchy, r*pe culture, some dudes feel entitled to womens' and AFAB presenting bodies.
After I socially transitioned even before HRT, I didn't really pass, but as soon as I put on a skirt that was the most I've been "accidently" touched and squeezed. It's hard to get if you're cis male and look it because it just doesn't happen - but as someone who has been on both sides, it's real and it's shitty.
yeah, like most of the people around me were fine when i used to just crossdress occassionally around them but like there was this one guy who was really creepy and sexual about it and if i ever tried to call him out on it he'd say it was just a joke and stop doing it for a bit and then start again
tldr: kill all men
I had a very strange experience like this when I went to the Ren Fair as a vaguely greek goddess. There were lots of older cis women who were very handsy and aggressive with me. I was thankful it wasn't any men. But the number of psycho guys I met while dating as a men @.@ fellas can be wild.
I mean, serial killers do horrific things and that never solves their abuse or intimacy issues. It's usually about having control over their measly lives. If she accepts them, great, the abuse will be withheld for a couple of months. If they get rejected, then it's another strike on their list of grievances.
Flat yes, but if you think about the guys in your life and think "Oh, they wouldn't do that, I'm a close friend of so-and-so", it's actually a lot more common than you think. You're just not the sort of person they'd do it in front of (unless the person they were doing it to was your partner and your partner told you about it).
stories I've read about dudes threatening to drive to womens house and murder them or something over rejections
This happened to my 8 year old niece when she told a classmate she didn’t want to date him. They learn young.
If her dad comes 'round then I'll smash his car with a rock (came to my mind instantly, also probably good advice here)
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
CW For the expected stuff, given the subject matter.
spoiler
A boy I rejected in middle school promptly attempted to choke me to death in front of everyone. In high school, a guy threatened to off himself if I didn't date him. A close male friend once body-blocked me into his bedroom and wouldn't let me leave until I started crying, when I didn't give him the answers he wanted.
So yeah. People do worry, it does happen, and it's quite common. At least one in five women is a victim.
I know this is a "first world problems" aspect, but it makes it such a pain figuring out how to ask someone out in a way that will minimize the chance they will think I'm one of those
Yeah there's just no way you can convey this except vibes but boy can the right vibes be hard to convey if you're already nervous
yeah theres something to be said about trying to not care about the outcome. i know its hard for some people but it does make everything smoother for everyone
yeah its mostly vibes. in general, a crowded, social place or a history of comfortably knowing each other makes me less skittish about guys approaching me. obviously im going to reject them cause im with my bf but its not concerning i think. being mindful of your positioning (re: dont physically back a woman into a corner to ask her out) and distance is also appreciated.
but this also is problematic in that bars and so on are very commercialized and expensive. if we had a normal society this wouldnt be an issue. closest thing to a 'free' place to hang out is a dating app or social media, lmao. theres also a lot of creeps at bars (need guarding drinks and so on) so people are more on guard.
They don't care if it affects other men though. They're just selfish fuckers. Incels will go around killing random men and neo nazis go around killing random white children. I know that stalkers and creepy men aren't an exclusively right wing problem, though it heavily is, but the selfish part applies to these people as well. They'll complain about how no one takes men's mental health seriously or male loneliness or whatever else - and they may all be legitimate issues - but then they turn around and do everything to make those problems even worse for the rest of us because they simply don't care about anyone or anything but their own desires.
deleted cuz it seemed crass to center this on men's perspectives. After thinking about it a bit more, I think men's bad behavior is mostly not explained by selfish defection from a common gender interest, and you can't use a solidarity type argument with them unless you really are on the same side and they're just confused and haven't worked through their upbringing. These men want sexist relationships where men have all the power and women have to settle. Hurting women, etc., makes it more difficult for men and women to have good relationships where they engage as equals, but further compels women to "settle" with a guy who's like, pushy but not violent. From their perspective they're carrying out traditional gender roles and making it easier for other men to do the same thing; the men who don't want this are not fellow men but traitors.
Calling women slurs or otherwise acting pissy when rejected is to protect their self-image: I'm a real man, so if she rejects me she must not be a good woman. Date/acquaintance/etc rape and general interpersonal creepiness is a symptom of their learned disregard of women as people / entitlement to women as objects; they are in the habit of pushing boundaries and often admit that they sometimes take a "no" to mean "yes".
I don't think that selfishness is important to understand mass shootings; rather those are justified as noble last stands (the ideal man is transcendent through his works) on behalf of "traditional" values against a corrupt system. So the random men that incels kill are thought to be chads or normies, part of the system, and the white people that neonazis kill are aiding the enemy by going to a black church or whatev.
I try to keep this all in mind when I get ghosted. I know I'm not gonna go absolutely psycho on a girl who directly rejects me (at worst I'll brood and maybe fantasize about sending mean text messages that never get sent) but they don't know that, and it's not personal. Still hurts, though.
It's not a direct answer to your question but it brings to mind an old experience:
Back when I broadly identified as male (didn't identify as not-male?) my lesbian friend once took me to a lesbian party. I reminded her I'm not a lesbian, or even a woman, but she said it was fine and dragged me along anyway. Looking back I kinda suspect she knew I wasn't really a man, even if I didn't yet. Anyway, towards the end of the night the host told me she'd been apprehensive when my friend asked if she could bring a guy, but she'd actually had a really nice time talking to me, and it made a lovely change to talk to a man who treated her like an equal and didn't try to hit on her.
I started to respond with something about having a lovely time too, but transitioned into "Wait, change? As in that happens all the time?" and the three women I was talking to just looked at me and nodded.My mum has always been a very active feminist, so I didn't grow up with many illusions as to what women go through - how common sexual assault is, objectification and sexualisation, the glass ceiling in workplaces, all those common examples - but that exchange really put into perspective just how constant it is for women. That almost every single interaction with a man has those undertones reminding them of the danger, so that they can't let their guard down even around men who appear to be decent people. It's not just a threat lurking on the horizon, it's leering directly over their shoulder everywhere they go.
So basically yeah, they definitely worry about that shit, and if it hasn't happened to them it's happened to a friend.
Been typing and deleting this same post for a few hours now, thanks for putting it into words, I feel the exact same way. It sucks!
Damn. This is pretty much exactly how I feel too. I see and hear about this kind of awful shit men will do to people so much, and realize that most people I’ve interacted with in my life would probably think I would be like one of those people too. I could never fathom hurting someone in any of the ways described here, so seeing it’s so common makes me so fucking upset and angry. Makes me hate being a dude so damn much.
Patriarchy makes us men types see relationships as markers of success in some kind of competition, or boxes to check on the "doing it right" rubric. When a woman rejects a guy like that, they feel themselves slipping back down to where they started, all that progress seemingly lost, and it makes them fucking angry, probably because a guy like that is too emotionally illiterate to not see rejection as some kind of gatekeeper slamming a door in his face (always being able to consult the patriarchy rulebook in times of emotional upset leaves you that way).
Btw this is not to say that these men have no agency or are purely victims. Maybe I am just hoping there's a conclusion to be reached that isn't "men are essentially volatile beings" since I'm a man who has never struggled with that kind of anger and I want to believe I am living proof that there's a better way for men to live.
I was only a girl for a while so I didn't get to experience much of this. The only time I had to turn down a guy in high school he: cyberstalked me, sent me tons of anonymous messages, made many alt accounts to lurk in my friends' group chats, impersonated me to break up with my then girlfriend on a day he knew I wouldn't be at my computer, sent me sexual/threatening messages for years, then told lies about me when I tried to tell adults. Because he was a lonely kid and I made the mistake of being friendly with him at school.
So yeah I they can be freaks when you don't give them what they want
Yes.
It also runs a whole spectrum. There are people who react immediately and in a blatantly threatening way and there are people who, when dumped, scale a 4-story apartment building and go to your (thankfully locked) balcony to try to win you back. That is still a scary thing but is a different form of the reaction, where it's obsessive panic and not threats of violence. This is the same thing that leads to stalking.
Shit is scary, yo.
