You misunderstand.

Men and women don't purposely do these things. Society is just set up in such a way that allows and encourages these behaviors. Nearly every woman I've befriended or have otherwise been close to, has attempted to leverage her femininity to get what they want from me. This even includes female relatives and my late mother. I've observer the behavior of many women and even asked them about this issue and the consensus has always been that women in general, have become very comfortable in the fact that they can get special treatment from men just for being a woman. In short; women are spoiled. Society now dictates that women are "strong", "independent" and "equal" to men until it is convenient for them not to be. Any other time, it's "I have a vagina; give me free stuff".

On the other hand, men typically aren't going to choose a woman over other men as a first choice for a new friend. ...Unless said female friend is attractive and likely to be receptive to more than just friendship. The unfortunate truth that no one wants to admit is that men and women typically aren't psychologically compatible. Men tend to adapt their lives and interests to suit those of women but it is almost never the other way around. For men, DSR with a woman already has a low rate of return on investment. Friendship with a woman tends to have an even lower rate of return; especially when compared to friendships with men. While sex is the only motivation for men to be friends with women, you'd best believe it's on our minds; even if only subconsciously.


It's funny how women are supposedly superior to men at reading nonverbal cues, yet they NEVER seem to notice when someone likes them. Maybe you're different in this regard. On the other hand, I do remember you mentioning some weird things about one or more men who friend-zoned you. There was definitely something else going on there.

The lesson to be learned from this is that when a man tries to be friends with a woman (or vice versa), more times than not, you can assume that at least one of them wants to take things further.


Knowing this; why not have a support network of other women? Most women think alike so you can relate to them far better than you could with a man.

My support network is almost entirely male with one asexual female. For the most part I don't have to deal with the mind games inherent of women, except from the woman. Among the males, our judgement is seldom clouded by emotions and we never misunderstand each other's intentions. We also have the luxury of not having to worry about being on our best behavior or trying to impress each other for a chance to get laid. Likewise, we understand that when one of us is generous to another that there are no "expectations" being made of us.

Personally, I would strongly prefer if I could truly be friends with women. Unfortunately, I know that one of us is going to want sex and that I will be on "red alert" for her attempts to leverage her femininity or sexuality on me for special treatment.

The bottom line; when friendship with a woman stands to give me a similar of rate of return on investment to what I see with my male friends, I may change my tune. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Some women may try to do this, but not all. :/ Whenever I go out with my guy friends I make a point of paying for my half. For example, the guy insisted on paying for the meal. I let him but I insisted on paying for the movie tickets and popcorn for the movie we went to see afterwards. A guy I know paid for my lunch two months ago. I always keep it in mind when I see him so that I can spot an opportunity to pay him back. He thinks I've already paid him back (or rather, he was the one paying for all the help I'd given him up to that point with the meal) but I can't really accept that. I just hate to be in someone's debt or feel like I owe someone. But, I don't mind if someone is in my debt as long as they don't go crazy and try to take advantage of me.



I would not like for this to be true. I get along with men a little better than women because I find a lot of women talk too much, want to meet too much, and also talk about things that don't interest me at all such as fawning over guys or fashion / beauty tips. Of course this is not true for all girls but finding a good girlfriend is hard for me. I'm desperately in need of one since my best girl moved to Florida with her family. Also, I've been at college for a STEM degree for the past 5 years. Like 90% of the people I dealt with on a day to day basis were guys so I naturally befriended some of them. (However, yesterday I took my final final!!!)



Oh, I used to be painfully naive about such things but nowadays I think I have a good idea when a guy is interested. I try to be careful about this and avoid befriending any guy who is single and who I'm not interested in. It's not like I actively avoid them though and still have some good chats with them. I only befriend guys who are already in relationships or who I'm interested in possibly dating if it turns out we really have a connection.



Because lots of women are annoying as all fuck and their voices grind on my nerves. Even my best girl hated the games I played, calling them "boy games" and wanted to go out far too often than I liked and wanted to talk about guys which I was not at all interested in doing. I could not stand to be around her everyday. I tried to be friends with another two girls who liked books. They talked about "Twilight" a lot so not wanting to be left out I bought and read all four books and let them drag me to the first movie when it came out. God that was painful. But then, when I let her borrow a series I liked, she couldn't even finish the second chapter of the first book. The other one didn't even try to read it. Finding good girlfriends is an absolute chore. Most guys I know like anime, video games, hentai, and the movies I like and their voices don't give me a migraine so why not just go to them when I want to chat?

You forgot to add that they all wear pink, listen to pop and are obsessed with glitter/sparkles and you’ll get girl cliché bingo. This post smells a lot like “I’m not like all the other girls”

I knew someone would take it that way. But I am a girl and I'm happy to be one. Hey, I'm not the one that has to DATE them. Good luck with that.

My point is, not all girls are the same so please stop lumping us together into that cliche.

Indeed it does. She's not the first to do this and she won't be the last. Every so often one truly turns out to be a little different than the rest. Only she knows if she's legit or not, so let's give her a chance and see what happens.


Like I said; This behavior is not on purpose but has become expected in modern society. As a woman taking an egalitarian approach to DSR, one of your biggest obstacles will be men who are convinced that they must "buy" your love in order for you to take them seriously.

Personally, I view the whole concept of modern DSR as nothing more than legalized prostitution. It's an empty experience for me either way since, when I pay for a woman it makes me feel like; to her, I'm only as good as the size of my bank account. Like-wise; I feel like I have no choice but to be grouped in with your aforementioned "nice guys", since I'm literally buying her attention.


I misspoke. Sex isn't the only motivation but it is always a factor when we deal with women. As such, we invariably have a much easier time relating to other men. I think one of the reason women like male friends is because we tend to be more straight forward and much less self-entitled. If you are one of the few women who honestly enjoys "male-centric" hobbies/interests, then I'd suggest putting up a dating profile on POF or OKC. You'll have no shortage of guys trying to get your attention. Just try not to judge all men on there by the idiots who don't know how to act (dick pics, lewd messages, etc).

Also, congratulations on your studies.


I have my doubts on whether you intentionally do these things but it's the internet; I'll neither believe nor disbelieve you on this one.


If you're serious, I can't fault you for this statement. Most women are spoiled into thinking that things must always go their way. It's not surprising to see a woman with a different set of interests be put off by this. I went through the same thing with my ex. After we broke up, I realized that she'd shot down nearly all of the things I wanted to do while I agreed to nearly everything she wanted to do; often at the cost of intense personal stress. In the end, the sex was one of the only things that kept me around. I felt like shit, the instant I realized that but you know what they say; the truth hurts.

I tried to fit into the mold and I really do think I'd be much happier if I did. Those shrieking packs of girls always look like they're having so much fun.
I do think there are girls out there that I can get along great with and I just haven't found them yet. Not being tied down by college will free me up to seek them out.



I get what you're saying. I was honestly surprised at just how much those two guys I mentioned insisted on being the ones to pay. I had my card out but they were having none of it.

There was this video I saw on YouTube where a model spent the day out doing certain tasks (I believe she went to the gym and tried to get people to sign a petition or something). Then a movie makeup team transformed the model into an overweight and unattractive woman and she went out the next day doing the same tasks. She was treated worse. It took longer for a male trainer to come help her at the gym and much less people gave her the time of day for the petition.

It goes to show something we already instinctively know is true: pretty women are treated very well by other people. It made me wonder how much of her treatment while she retained her model looks were due to the fact that she was pretty and how much was due to her obesity while she was transformed. I wish they had done a third day while she was just average looking. It would have been interesting to see if her treatment leaned closer in similarity towards her model or obese self or if it's directly in the middle.

Pretty women are surrounded by men willing to "buy" them or do nice things for them. And unfortunately for the men that are not picked, there's often nothing deterring her from choosing the highest bidder. I honestly can't think of a single guy in college that wasn't nice to me except one that acted like a nice guy until he turned out to be a lazy asshole who left me to do all of the work for our group project. There was one guy who bragged about himself endlessly, hit on every pretty girl he saw, and liked to physically touch them. I don't like being touched by strangers and it always put me off when he did it to me but I wouldn't say he wasn't "nice" otherwise. And no, I did not make a big deal about the touching. I knew he knew there were limits and it just seemed desperate to me, not an indication that he was dangerous.

The divorce rate is high and there are so many people out there stuck in unhappy or abusive relationships. I only strive to avoid as much of that nonsense as possible. The way I see to do that is not picking a partner based on money or looks and find someone I truly connect with. I want to get to know the real man, not the facade they put up to try to impress me. A guy can't keep that act up forever and I wouldn't want them to anyway.



Thank you, cerebral_barrier, I'm glad it's finally over!

I doubt I'm all that rare... at least I hope I'm not because I haven't given up on finding female friends with the same interests.

I befriend guys who I think could be more than friends but once I get to know them better and find that they're not my type, it sucks to have to let them know after. I don't like it and I'm not sure it's the best way. But I don't see myself going on "dates" with random strangers. With me being loveshy it's much easier for me to get to know them on a friendly basis first. I would love to know your opinion on this. Sometimes I feel like I'm "leading men on" only to disappoint them which is something I don't want to do. If I go on dates with strangers and find that they're not my type, I would have to do it even more (with the men I befriend, I at least know we get along well first).

That's why I'm not sure online dating is right for me. I would have to decide whether or not I like the guy based on his profile pic, description of himself, and online messages where he's trying to make an impression on me. Then we would go on a date with all the awkwardness that that involves. I think telling a good friend who I'm already comfortable being around, "hey, I love you, let's go out" much less stressful.



You're right. I don't think about it much. That's because really, anyone is date material to me unless I find their appearance really not to my liking or they're too old or too young. Once I find out that a guy is taken though, I do relax much more since I don't have to worry about them being attracted to me (at least I like to think the guys I know aren't douchebags who would cheat on their gfs). If I don't know them that well, I can't really tell if I'm attracted to them until I'm friends with them and we hang out more. I think there's a word for people who can't be sexually attracted to people they don't know but I don't remember it.



Yes! Whenever I would try to do something I wanted to do with my girlfriends they tried to be interested at first but they were obviously bored / weirded out. I can't blame them too much because I wasn't enjoying myself throughout many of their interests either. But at least I watched / read / suffered through the entirety of their activities (with the exception of one adolescent romance movie which was so boring I was ready to jump out the window). I still haven't managed to get a girlfriend to actually not walk out on one of my "hey you might like it" suggestions so I don't suggest things anymore unless it's one of those rare things I know we both are into. I don't want to force anyone to sit though something they don't like and I don't want to force myself either anymore. It's just unpleasant for everyone involved. But sometimes you really like something and you want to share it with your friends so it's sad when it turns out they hate it.

If you don't mind me asking, why were you even going out with this woman if you didn't have any shared interests? How did you meet?

How can I not take it that way when you’re lumping every other girl into that cliché? You advocate that each person is different and then in the next sentence BAM! girls are *insert typical girl stereotypes*. Things that make you go hmmmmm.

I've tried and tried to form a support network of female friends but it is limited. We live in a society that is geared around sex, courtship, marriage, children and so on. The "life script". People have less time to form real friendships or just aren't inclined to. I like a person, rather than their gender so I enjoy the company of both male or females if they share my interests, are kind, share humour and I can engage in good conversations with them. So if we connect then I don't care what "plumbing" the person has. Other women without marriages/kids often just prefer to befriend guys so it limits the social opportunities somewhat, hence me choosing to engage and befriend, either sex. Guys are often more open to a friendship with me than women, even if it only seems that way due to the fake nature it's built on and they actually are only chatting if they want to weight me up over if I could become more or not.