Women online
July 9, 2007
I posted a slightly tongue-in-cheek essay to my OKCupid journal recently, on the topic of men who whine that women on OKCupid are rude to them. I give several possible reasons why women might be rude in an online dating context like OKCupid:
- The major one: most women have the experience of being pestered and hassled by men who won’t take no for an answer. Polite friendliness is taken as a definite come-on, mere polite refusal may be ignored or used as an excuse to try to persuade, so many women jump straight into blunt refusal, or simply ignoring unwanted overtures altogether.
- In person, women are afraid (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the person and the situation) of violence. Often, women try to turn men down as gently and politely as possible, not because they really care about hurting the guy’s feelings, but because they are afraid things will turn ugly if they are too direct. It’s a balance between making it unambiguously clear that you’re not interested, and causing offence which might put you in danger. I personally hate having to judge this balance, but it is a fact of life.
However, online the threat of violence is much less, and even verbal violence can be avoided by blocking messages from a harasser. Men who (without realizing it) are used to a certain degree of deference from women they approach in person, find it shocking when women online are free to say what they really think.
- In an online dating context, women have quite a significant advantage over men; simply being female means you are in demand to a certain extent. That means women can afford to be picky, and in fact probably need to be picky, if they don’t want to spend their entire life managing their social network on dating sites.
- Some women are just rude, superficial, etc. The online context allows the worst of women to behave like the worst of men, whether it’s rudeness, impossibly high standards, pursuing sex aggressively or whatever. It’s dangerous for women to do this kind of thing in real life, so few do.
Basically, my suspicion is that men have the upper hand in in person dating contexts, because of their social position and to a minor extent greater physical strength. When they lose these advantages in online dating, they are distressed. Some of them are distressed because they are genuinely decent people who are utterly unaware how a certain proportion of jerks behave towards women, and don’t understand how that benefits them in person (because they get let down gently when they approach a woman who isn’t interested), but disadvantages them online (because women are on the defensive and expect to be hassled). Some of them are distressed because they are sad cases who enjoy having power over women and can’t deal with any diminishing of that power.
The version I posted on OKCupid was a lot less harsh than this. I filled it with disclaimers about how I’m sure all the men doing the complaining are basically decent people, and how I understand that it’s really upsetting if a woman is rude to you because of other men being jerks to her in the past. Even so, within minutes I got a comment from a guy whining that I was expecting men to be omniscient, and how unfair it is that women are so mean to him. (I suspect this is partly a ploy, he wants me to come back to him and try to prove that I’m not like those mean horrible women that he’s complaining about.)
I’m also reminded of this long and tangled discussion on Making Light. There was a thread that was vaguely about feminism, and a commenter showed up with an anecdote about an incident of fairly standard harrassment of a woman by men. The reaction to it was kind of amazing. Many women started talking about how she might have been in physical danger, and ways to assess the probability of and hopefully avoid really extreme things like gang rape in that sort of situation. Many men started talking about how the guy sounded like he was a bit clueless but he didn’t mean any harm, and there was no need for her to overreact so much, she should have been more polite. (Her supposed rudeness, by the way, consisted of: So I take off the headphones, look him dead in the eye, and say, “I would like to be left alone. I thought by now that would be obvious. Good night.” And I put the headphones back on.
)
Now, the discussion wasn’t divided purely along gender lines, but the gulf was definitely significant. The thread unfortunately devolves into people yelling at eachother, with some trying to frame the whole discussion with standard feminist theory and others not understanding the asusmptions of said feminist theory, and I don’t think any of that is helpful. But I think it’s part of the same phenomenon I’m talking about in this post. Men just don’t know what it’s like to go through the world being female, and don’t understand why a lot of women make an assumption of malice when an unknown man approaches them. Also, they don’t see malice when it actually exists; the guy in Nicole’s story wasn’t just socially inept, he was getting off on having power over her, but he was keeping his threats deniable.
I’ve never been offended by a man chatting me up or expressing interest in me, if it’s genuine. I am offended by men being sleazy and lechy because they can get away with it. I really don’t like having to be wary of men; by nature I’m very friendly and will chat to pretty much anybody who approaches.
July 9, 2007 at 11:56 am
I’ve also noticed that in my experience the men I know just don’t know what to do when men are being sexually harassing toward them, whereas the women I know have developed strategies because it’s happened to them before.
One year at Pride I was on a tube with some friends and a lechy drunk old gay guy started hitting on one of my gay teenage friends. The friend didn’t know what to do to the extent that he ended up kissing the guy because it didn’t even occur to him to try saying “No”. I’m not sure if this is typical or how much it’s because I tend to hung out with dominant women and submissive men.
July 9, 2007 at 12:11 pm
I didn’t really discuss the dynamic between gay men, because that’s the aspect of gendered interactions that I know least about. I do suspect that gay men have the worst of both worlds: they are subject to the sometimes aggressive sexuality of men, but a proportion of women will still mistrust them as being potential aggressors.
I take your point about developing strategies. Not just for handling harassing situations, but for avoiding them in the first place. Men are disproportionately the victims of random violence from strangers, and this is partly because they are actually are the targets more often, but also partly because of the false expecation that a woman on her own is in danger, whereas a man on his own is safe, so men in practice take more risks.
I don’t think it’s anything to do with being dominant or submissive though. A submissive person can be assertive in dealing with unwanted advances, or a dominant person can be floored and not know how to deal with someone who is hassling them. Dominant and submissive are about how people behave once they are in a consensual situation, not about how someone deals with being pestered for sexual or romantic attention.
July 9, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Interesting; and it makes sense.
You know, I was about to say that in my (admittedly limited) experience of online dating sites, OKCupid was the friendliest. And I think that’s true; I had more than a few good email exchanges, and made a couple of friends, which is more than I’ve got out of any other site. So I was about to say, as a datapoint, that I didn’t have any women being rude to me.
Then I started to wonder about what the complainers mean when they say “rude”. Do they just mean “didn’t respond to my message”? Because that’s … well, isn’t that just part of the way these sites work? Not responding to a message isn’t rude. Responding to a message and saying “no, you look stupid, please don’t message me again” could legitimately be called rude, I think.
Which, I guess, is to say that I think you’re right, there’s a gendered component to it, but also I think it’s just that people expect online interactions in general to work the way real-world interactions do, and they don’t.
On the Making Light thread: yeah, he was clearly hitting on her because she was a single woman, and her response was in no way an overreaction.
That said, people on trains and planes do seem to have a hard time realising that people could prefer their book/music/laptop to real! genuine! conversation! “Oh, they must only be reading because they’re travelling alone and don’t have anyone to talk to. I shall try to be friendly and strike up a conversation.” A guy did this to me on the way back from York yesterday. (I suppose he could have been hitting on me, but it seems unlikely.)
July 9, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Also, everything says in that thread is brilliant. (This may apply to everything ever says, mind.)
July 9, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Is the music choice deliberate, or simply a happy coincidence?
I’m going to ramble a bit here.. It all boils down to there being less women available to date than men and expectations about gender behaviour & dominance/submission based on that. It also, and I think this is important, depends on the life situation of the person.
I agree on half the points; personally I see the online dating world as being similar to real life, but amplified somewhat. Therefore I disagree with men having the upper hand in dating, or that women don’t play the superficial/high standards game. Obviously people in general tend to be less rude when there’s a chance someone might get annoyed at you.
I tend to go further than your points; I see het dating as possibly irredeemably fucked. Much though I’d like to say the dating game should be equal, etc, etc, it seems to me that not only is the dominant man/submissive woman the stereotype, it is actually what a majority of women want. Although it’s not quite that simple, as you can then throw in a whole slew of expected behaviours and control games instead of *actually talking*. It probably wouldn’t be inappropriate to throw in the phrase ‘topping from the bottom’ here.
The upshot of this is that men are expected to do the chasing, and women expect to be chased. Where is the line drawn between repeated wooing or asking, and harassment? It’s also clearly not as simple as standards as behaviour, because although there are some things that are clearly wrong, others depend on the person saying it (i.e. it’s cute if you ask and you’re fancied, but sleazy if you’re not fancied).
The guy on okcupid isn’t trying to entice you, or whine (much) - he’s simply reporting reality. That’s not to say he isn’t doing something wrong, because if you send out friendly messages and have a non sleazy profile, you will get some responses, and okcupid is quite friendly.
The strategy from the point of view of a man seeking a woman on a dating site is to contact as many suitable women as possible, because you’re chasing a minority of people. It’s also important to weed out the women that aren’t actually serious about meeting, and just want entertainment, and have a profile that rejects the barest minority of suitable women, whilst driving away the majority of unsuitable ones.
Because women are the minority, this leads to some of the behaviour above; women can be ridiculously picky and ’sweetshop dating’ (where people keep searching for their perfect partner rather than *actually going on dates*) is not uncommon.
To succeed you’re going to have to keep asking, and being rejected; being nice and staying in the background *will not work*. Until sufficient social skills have been learnt to ask in a direct, but nice way, men will continue to annoy/upset women.
Mind you, the dating sites don’t help things either. There aren’t enough controls to weed out the sleazes (things like okcupid are at least stopping 419 scammers now..), and there are insufficient tools for people to manage their mailboxes - such as prioritising replies by people you’ve contacted. It’s not in their interests to get you quickly paired up with the most suitable person, when that’s really what they should be doing.
Things are somewhat more convoluted than what I’ve said here, but I think I’ve managed to get some of the appropriate points across.
July 9, 2007 at 1:40 pm
That’s really interesting.
July 9, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Hello, I’m glad you decided to join in here. Because my flist, like LJ as a whole, is way too female-dominated and this discussion is only going to be interesting if we hear from some guys.
I agree with you that OKCupid is friendlier than any other dating site and indeed it’s friendlier than a lot of social websites which aren’t explicitly set up for dating. Like you, I’ve had lots of positive experiences there.
I do think there is a strong element of men who regard it as “rude” when women are anything other than extremely deferential and flattering. A lot of the complaints I have seen are about abruptly breaking off contact, or never responding in the first place, though a few people do complain about women directly insulting them. Not responding is people having other priorities than writing rejection letters to explain why they’re not interested in talking to someone. There’s probably an element of calculating that actually telling someone you’re not interested can invite them trying to justify why you should be interested, which is a pain. Breaking off contact may be rudeness, or it may be that a fear (whether justified or unjustified) that the man involved was going to make a nuisance of himself if the conversation proceeded any further (or it may be just being called away or a technical problem, I think it’s silly to read too much into that).
I agree that online interactions are not like real world interactions; what I’m trying to do is outline one way that the two situations differ. Expectations definitely are gendered in my experience: women expect men to be rude to them, whereas men expect women to polite to them. Sometimes these expectations are correct, but sometimes they cause unnecessary suffering to innocent people.
July 9, 2007 at 2:01 pm
That guy described on Making Light: I don’t think he was only hitting on her, he was deliberately making a nuisance of himself, and as several people have pointed out, showing off in front of his friends. He knows perfectly well that that kind of obnoxious behaviour doesn’t help you pull, so he indulges it because he gets some kind of kick out of making women uncomfortable.
There definitely is such a thing as just general unwanted friendliness and people being overly chatty just because someone is alone and reading isn’t seen as a real activity. That properly happens to women a bit more than men, but it isn’t tremendously gendered. The big difference is that if you indicate you’re not interested, in that sort of genuinely friendly situation, the person interrupting will just go away.
July 9, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Oh, absolutely is brilliant, I fangirl her very much indeed.
July 9, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I tend to socialise with very assertive women and rather less assertive men.
July 9, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Mm, thank you for such an interesting and thoughtful comment.
Music: about half the time I pick music that goes with the post, and half the time it’s just whatever happens to come up on shuffle. It’s cool you noticed it though!
How does it work that there are fewer available women than men? Is it because more men hate being single? (Stereotypically, it’s women who feel like their life can’t be complete unless they Get a Man.)
I think a proportion of women are going to be superficial and have ridiculous standards, that doesn’t change with the context. But in real life your average clueless bloke might not realize that he’s being dismissed because he isn’t toned enough or whatever. Partly because he might not realize he’s being dismissed at all, and partly because he might get a rejection like “I like you as a friend” or “I’m not looking for a relationship right now” when the truth is “You’re too ugly for me”. Online, he might hear the truth.
But it’s not just that people are ruder online than in person; plenty of men are extremely rude in person, because they’re not scared of women’s reaction and don’t care about hurting feelings. Also I do think that some women get into situations they’re not comfortable with because they are scared of saying no. Whether that’s going on a date, or taking things further sexually than they really want, or simply continuing to have a conversation with someone they’re not in the least interested in. A minority of scummy men take advantage of this deliberately, but that leaves a lot who benefit from it without realizing that they are intimidating an unwilling partner.
July 9, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Generally I’m only likely to approach people who I think are actually likely to be interested. This is something that’s much harder to tell online than in person, which could explain some of the difference.
July 9, 2007 at 2:38 pm
I hope you’re wrong about , but I do agree that there are problems that arise from people relying on stereotypes instead of talking. I don’t deny that it is more common than not for women to wait for men to take the initiative, though that may be because it is expected rather than because that’s really what they want. That’s part of why, on OKCupid, there are a lot of women who have more offers than they have time to respond to, and a lot of men who get turned down repeatedly and certainly don’t get any women approaching them spontaneously.
I think you’re using dominant and submissive in a confusing way, and I’m not sure what you mean by topping from the bottom. There’s a type of sleaze which I think is referred to as “bratting” where a guy will be deliberately obnoxious towards dominant seeming women, because he enjoys it when women tell him off, is that the kind of thing you mean?
As I said to , I think the terms refer to someone’s preferences or behaviour once they are in a sexual situation, not in a dating context. I’m fairly subby, but I am also confident and assertive and perfectly happy to make the first approach. Equally, a dominant woman approached by a sleazy stranger may or may not be able to deal with that, and if she responds harshly, it’s probably because she wants to be left alone, not because she’s getting off on dominating him.
I absolutely disagree that the difference between sleazy and friendly is whether the person making the approach is attractive or not. In some cases men come across as sleazy unintentionally, just because they have poor social skills and are not very emotionally literate. I do try to give the benefit of the doubt as much as I can; the problem is that sleazy is one fairly major step on the way to dangerous, and it’s not always safe to put the best interpretation on everything.
July 9, 2007 at 2:52 pm
I agree that he was showing off in front of his friends. I don’t think there’s enough information to say whether or not he gets a kick out of making women uncomfortable — ’s read sounds plausible to me, though, if only because I think that if it had really been about making the woman uncomfortable, he wouldn’t have stopped when he did.
July 9, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Not responding is people having other priorities than writing rejection letters to explain why they’re not interested in talking to someone.
Yes, this is what I was getting at.
A lot of the complaints I have seen are about abruptly breaking off contact, or never responding in the first place
Thinks: presumably there’s quite a lot of this in the other direction, too. Do women not get upset by it, or do they not feel the need to object to it in public? Or is right, and it really is only men who message women, and never the reverse? (This is not supported by my experience, but I could be atypical.)
July 9, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I absolutely disagree that the difference between sleazy and friendly is whether the person making the approach is attractive or not.
I think it depends on a larger set of factors than just attractiveness, but I also think the sleaze tipping point depends on the people involved. (As well as the situation, etc.) I can very easily think of people I know who would regard behaviour x as sleazy, and other people I know who would regard behaviour x as a legitimate come-on.
July 9, 2007 at 3:04 pm
The guy on OKCupid: my impression (from the combination of his profile and his comment) is that the’s a sleazebag but intelligent enough to hide it somewhat. I don’t think he’s trying to entice me, precisely. He’s just trying to get some positive attention. He is whining; probably that’s a combination of his feeling genuninely hard done by and my essay making him feel defensive. It’s not just reporting reality, because I already made it clear from my post that I know that a proportion of women actually are rude to men on OKC. So responding to that with “but women are mean!” is pretty much the definition of whining.
I think you’re right that the optimal strategy for men is to approach lots of women, and try to be thick-skinned about rejection. That’s hard on men who are by nature inclined to be shy. There’s not a lot I can do about that, although as I said I do make the first approach if someone catches my eye. “Sweetshop dating” is a good phrase, and I think I’m probably somewhat guilty of that. I hang out on OKC because it’s fun, and because I like making fairly casual connections with new people, rather than because I’m expecting to find a partner.
But equally, it’s silly to resent women who are not actively looking but somewhat open to possibilities, or women who are there for purely social reasons. Women in that situation are (for the most part, anyway!) not deliberately trying to tantalize men by being attractive but unavailable. That’s just as much the case for unavailable women in real life as online.
I don’t think OKC as a whole is particularly well thought out. It looks like a bunch of geeks got together and said “look at this clever toy we can program!”, rather than having any overall strategy. The community and friendliness have emerged from the tools by chance, and at least the OKC people do keep tweaking the site to make it better. I don’t think it’s possible to weed out sleazes on an automated basis; all you can do is make it easy to recognize them, and OKC does a better job of that than most places. And the site is pretty efficient in making as sure as possible that all the profiles are actual humans rather than spam bots and 409ers, which is a good start.
I think what they want is for people to find partners, yes, but for the site to be fun enough that people continue to use it even when they have found their partners. That is part of what leads to the “non-serious” women that men looking for dates have to weed out. I don’t think there’s a deliberate strategy to make it hard to find people, otherwise the site wouldn’t have much appeal.
July 9, 2007 at 3:07 pm
That’s not what I said. What I actually said, or inferred, is that women are contacted much more than men - which is true. This is largely down to the there being less women than men.
July 9, 2007 at 3:09 pm
How does it work that there are fewer available women than men?
God knows how accurate the data is, but this suggests that these days, there are actually quite a lot of dating sites with a majority of women.
July 9, 2007 at 3:12 pm
That’s a good point, actually, it’s partly that you get less information out of an online interaction, so there more chance of possibly hurtful misunderstandings. A man who is emotionally aware in person may find online interactions frustrating because he loses some of that ability.
July 9, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Sorry — though I’m not clear what you mean by “men are expected to do the chasing, and women expect to be chased” if not to imply that this pattern holds true online as well as in real life.
This is largely down to the there being less women than men.
Citation?
July 9, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I’m not sure of the exact reasons why there are fewer women than men on dating sites, as it’s not borne out by the Internet population, now (historically there were more men on the Internet).
Socially there are almost always less eligible women than men, with a few exceptions. Women, also tend to get approached more in real life, so there’s less need for them to hit dating sites. You could possibly also toss in the stereotype that women need or want sex less than men, although personally I have a hard time believing that one.
I think I agree about your comments about superficiality, and rudeness.
As to the getting into uncomfortable situations, sadly I think it is down to each and every one of us to learn from those experiences and move on. I’ve gone further than I would have liked on more than one occasion, and ultimately the only person I have to blame is myself. In such circumstances, I think it is also possible to confirm things too much, so once again it is a balance.
July 9, 2007 at 3:20 pm
In the US, single women are more common than single men, apparently:
Although that page says nothing about dating site demographics.
July 9, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I’m probably using a slightly invalid analogy, but it’s the closest one I can think of. To be more explicit, I think women like men to be sexually dominant - both in and out of the bedroom in terms of the way they behave.
‘Topping from the bottom’ is when someone is the bottom, but tries to control things from that position. In a het dating scenario with poor communication, a woman would expect a man to know about her emotions, sexual and material needs without actually communicating them - and then complain when he gets them wrong.
The sleaze/non sleaze situation only applies to some situations, and some people. However, it is definitely not a minority behaviour; I suspect most people grow out of it..
July 9, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Sure, it’s definitely wrong to resent women like that - it’s just something you learn to avoid if dating is your aim. I enjoy okcupid just for chatting with people I don’t necessarily want to date, if their profile catches my eye.
With OKC things are more organic, although I sort of disagree that it’s a community site - it’s not, it’s a dating site with a couple of fun features. Community involves real communication, and the journals for instance, are useless at much more than ‘look at me!’.
For other sites, you have to pay to use them, and thus they have a vested interest in keeping you round as long as possible. If they were serious they’d do much more sensible testing, and much more filtering of responses.
Of course, then, people would still try and break the system, because the fundamental fact is that Dating Is Not Fair, and if you’re chasing a limited selection of people you’re likely to present yourself in the best light or tell a few porkies..
July 9, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I thought I’d try to present the other side - I’m aware that this comment is one-sided and biassed but thought that it might be useful to present the other side (after all, women don’t know what it’s like being male either…
The major one: most women have the experience of being pestered and hassled by men who won’t take no for an answer. Polite friendliness is taken as a definite come-on, mere polite refusal may be ignored or used as an excuse to try to persuade, so many women jump straight into blunt refusal, or simply ignoring unwanted overtures altogether.
And thereby lend evidence to the view that polite refusal is an excuse to persuade because if it was for real rather than simply playing hard to get, it would have been a blunt refusal or ignoring the overtures.
Basically, my suspicion is that men have the upper hand in in person dating contexts, because of their social position and to a minor extent greater physical strength. When they lose these advantages in online dating, they are distressed.
I wouldn’t agree that men have the upper hand per se in person dating contexts - what I would say is that there is the expectation from both parties that men lead. In a civilised setting, men have the power and women have the control.
To expand slightly, in a dating context there is the expectation that it is the man who will make the initial overture, and the woman gets to choose whether it goes anywhere. If she accepts, there’s a possibility of moving on to further steps (which will require leading again). If she declines impolitely, it’s probably sensible to back out. And if she declines politely, it might simply be because she’s a polite person, it might be because she likes you but doesn’t want the step in question, it might be that she’s persuadable, or it might be that she actively wants persuading/seducing. (It’s this last one that makes things extremely tricky for men in this context).
When men (and it is even in the 21st century normally men) make the approach, we are risking rejection. And rejection hurts. Particularly when it is actively rude and rejecting the person in specific.
Therefore, by the standard setup of dating, men need to be slightly pushy, more than slightly thick skinned, and willing to take risks. That means either skilful or rude (or a combination of the two). Women don’t have the same level of pressure on them - it’s expected that the man approaches and the woman turns him down. And although that may be only appropriate in situtations where flirting is appropriate, OKCupid is definitely one of those.
The making light guy was simply obnoxious and drunk. That’s a different matter. Or, more probably (as says in the thread), he was playing to the audience of his friends (there are reasons I tend to detest pure male groups).
July 9, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I could cite it, if you need me to, but is it really necessary?
Quick unscientific poll : okcupid - 634 straight women, 1078 straight men online.
love@lycos - 36 pages of men online. 22 pages of women.
It is universally true on anything other than gay dating sites and possibly some very specialist dating sites. Pick any of the big dating sites at random; check the number of men and women. The number of men will be much larger.
Men are expected to do the chasing online for two reasons 1) That’s the case in real life and more importantly 2) There are more women than men, so women can wait for men to contact them (although this may not actually be the best strategy for finding someone)
July 9, 2007 at 3:47 pm
And if someone is on OKCupid (or another dating site) in the first place, the default assumption is some level of interest in the abstract, if not in the specific.
July 9, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Possibly true. I transitioned a few years ago from living as male to female, and I’m still fairly bewildered by harrassment. While it happens to men, it’s not something that I was taught to deal with while being brought up as a boy. (Actually, I possibly got more of it than most, because I was perceived as gay by a lot of people at school (though I wasn’t) which got me more harrassment and rather less support.)
As a woman, it’s still something I find hurtful and sufficiently surprising that it’s hard to know how to react, except when it’s close enough to something that’s happened before. After an early incident that turned into a sexual assault, I was actually told off by several female relatives for getting into the situation; their upbringing as girls would have drilled it into them not to get into a position where it could happen, and I’m still really learning that. It hurts me that I’m essentially being told “you shouldn’t trust people”, though; somehow, I expect better of human nature.
I don’t have to cope with being chatted up that often. I’m not sure whether that’s because of general unattractiveness, or because of being perceived as transsexual, or because I broadcast the wrong kind of signals; possibly it’s actually that I still don’t react to subtle clues, where someone socialised as a girl from an earlier age might? Sometimes this worries me a bit, because honestly, a little attention would be nice once in a while, but on the other hand it has the great benefit of comparative safety: men might assume a lot of rights over women, but compared with their reactions to transwomen… sigh.
July 9, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I wouldn’t know about the US. I’d like to see figures and age ranges on those demographics, too.. I don’t doubt that it is true, overall, but being biased I’d like to see the details for the 18-30 odd age range when most long term relationships are being formed.
Yes, of course I have some self interest here! Although it might then be a mild consolation if it all fails and I have a fantastic time at age 50..
July 9, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Yup. I agree.
You can’t on the one hand as one woman say to men that they should be polite, and accept a polite no, and on the other hand as a (different) woman give in to repeated refusal and go on to have a successful relationship and marry.
Guess which behaviour you’re going to adopt as a man?
It all starts to stink of ‘I want you to conform to the way I want the world to be’ after a while, and (un?)fortunately things aren’t that simple and there must be a bit of give and take in both directions.
July 9, 2007 at 4:43 pm
There’s a degree of fault on both sides of online interaction, I think, but people suffer from a lack of experience of the sites, and the ability to use each other.
I think the amount of *direct* insults is more the domain of men than women, whereas the worst women will usually do are indirect insults - not that that is necessarily any better - is it better to be told to fuck off, that you’re too ugly, or that someone only likes 6′ tall partners?
Everyone goes through the same learning experience though, which really should be written into a series of points when they first join a dating site. People won’t let you down nicely, because you may react harshly when rejected. It takes time to respond to messages.
Everyone needs to understand that people lie on dating sites. Many of the people looking for ‘friends’ are not. Many people looking for partners are just on to pass the time, and get someone to entertain them. Neither men, nor women, are very good at anticipating the other person’s feelings in some cases.
That’s not specific to women, but most men are only dating women..
July 9, 2007 at 4:48 pm
i don’t think in most casual come-ons men bother to check whether the female subject is gay or straight… male subjects get a little more wariness because of adverse reactions from straight men, but most of my straight male friends have been chatted up by blokes. (i guess they don’t look that macho)
July 9, 2007 at 5:38 pm
This reminds me of ’s postings while I mentioned a while back (here and here). I also got into a discussion about related stuff on , here. As I said on , violence is such an escalation, and violence against women is so often taboo (even among men who might be violent to other men, I think) that I was shocked to learn that women genuinely feel they might be at risk of it for turning down a man “impolitely” (assuming the absence of other clues that this person might be violent).
Assuming that het women want the right men to approach them but don’t want to make the approaches themselves (true on the whole, even now, I think), the women either tolerate a certain amount of noise to get the signal, or they change that arrangement. That’s no excuse for male aggression or for the kind of schoolboy pigtail-pulling stuff that the Making Light woman got. Secondly, apparently some women reward persistence from total strangers even if they’re initially cool towards them (I’ve never tried to pull anyone from a standing start, but I understand that people do it
So again, it’s disappointing but not very surprising that some men persist (I guess I’m lawful good, because it wouldn’t have occurred to me that this was an acceptable idea).
I believe this is the definitive work on whiny guys who think women owe them something, a category which seems to cover your dating site complainers. I wish someone had shown it to me when I was younger
July 9, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Oh, men certainly don’t check whether women they target are gay or straight. I reckon if you approach someone whose profile clearly says she is a lesbian, you can expect a rude answer. I’m surprised that people don’t check with men though. (Do you mean your friends have been chatted up in person, or online?)
July 9, 2007 at 7:27 pm
i mean in person.
July 9, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Hi, and welcome here. I’m very glad to have your input. Though obviously I am distressed to hear that you have suffered from harassment and even sexual assault. Nobody should have to deal with that.
The thing with your female relatives telling you off: I’m afraid that that may not be only because you were brought up male. It’s a nasty thing to do to someone who has been assaulted, but the fact is that many cis women experience this kind of thing too. If someone of your acquaintance gets assaulted, that’s scary, and some people try to protect themselves psychologically by telling off the victim for being stupid and getting herself into an unsafe situation. It makes it easier for them to cope with if they imagine that it would never happen to them, because they would never do such a stupid thing. I wrote a long post about this problem, which you might find interesting if you can stomach reading discussions of rape.
I absolutely agree with you that it’s horrible to be told not to trust anyone. Being female means that you can’t win; if you don’t trust people, you’re unfairly accusing or suspecting innocent men just because of a few bad apples, and if you do, it’s your fault for being so naive and getting attacked. Myself, I err on the side of trust and so far I have been ok.
And yes, all this is exacerbated if you’re trans. The misogyny is worse, the expectations for women to meet all kinds of impossible and often conflicting standards are worse. And you probably do have less experience than someone who has always been female of judging this kind of thing. But the fact of the matter is that the level of judgement that’s needed is impossible for everyone, no matter how many years of experience of being female they have. That’s why so many women do in fact get raped, and the great majority of them aren’t doing obviously stupid things at the time.
I hope you stay safe in future.
July 9, 2007 at 8:22 pm
I think it’s true that men are a lot more likely to message women than women to message men. Doesn’t mean that it is never the other way round, as both our experiences add up to a counterexample. But it is not by any means equally balanced.
I have seen a few women complaining about men who can barely write English, or who pester for cybersex in spite of a profile that clearly states they’re not interested. But I have not seen many women complaining about men brushing them off rudely or failing to reply to their approaches. I think is because of what I mentioned before, that women expect men to be rude, so it’s no big deal if they live down to expectations.
July 9, 2007 at 8:35 pm
I agree that in an ideal world nobody should be rude to anyone else. However, if a guy keeps on pestering me after I’ve told him several times, politely, that I’m not interested, then I have no qualms about simply ending the conversation, and blocking him if he persists even after that. If I have to reject people directly, I generally don’t give a reason if I can avoid it. And there are definitely some people who take any rejection as rude, however gently phrased.
Personally, I have never had a rude rejection from a man; rudeness has been in the form of being demanding and ignoring my wishes, or being rude because I have rejected them. But that’s partly because I’m fairly selective in whom I approach.
Yes, people do lie. Lying about what you’re looking for seems really counterproductive, and I don’t totally understand the motivations for that. But it does happen.
You’re right that it takes experience to be able to get the most out of dating sites. One aspect that is an advantage in some ways but a problem in others is that you meet people from completely different cultures and subcultures, whom you wouldn’t spontaneously meet offline. That makes it that much harder to avoid miscommunication and mismatched expectations.
July 9, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Agreed, that guy was just a knob, he wasn’t seriously creepy. I think it’s fairly likely he wasn’t aware of how scary it is to be a woman travelling on your own at night and finding yourself outnumbered by men. I didn’t get the impression he was deliberately playing on that or anything.
I was concentrating on the fact that men who are basically decent may get some accidental benefit out of intimidating women, however unintentionally. But it’s also true that men who are annoying, but not actual predators, also get probably unintentional benefit from the fact that women are intimidated by them.
July 9, 2007 at 8:44 pm
The thing is, women may find it marginally easier to find potential partners, but women don’t want generic partners, they want someone actually suitable. Dating is hard for just about everyone, and that goes back to your original comment that the whole system is fucked.
July 9, 2007 at 9:00 pm
I think women are less likely to try dating sites to find mates, and less likely to vocally demand sex, for one major reason, which is fear of violence. That also accounts for why women tend on the whole to be pickier; they’re not only assessing whether they fancy someone, but whether he is a threat. That’s partly perception and partly reality, but I think it accounts for a lot of the imbalance you’re seeing.
Pressuring someone to go further than they want can happen without either party being an evil raping scum. You’re partially right that occasional miscommunication is just something that happens, and you have to deal with it and move on. I think there is a gendered element here, namely that for women, some of that pressure comes from fear. The fear is quite likely to be unjustified, but it is still a factor.
I had a boyfriend who pinned me against a wall at one point and proceeded to kiss me. I was in principle quite happy to kiss him, but it was very clear to me that I didn’t have the option, just physically. What if I had gone along with it when I didn’t really want to? Would that mean I “only had myself to blame” for things getting out of hand? I don’t blame him either; he is not the sort of person who would intentionally use his considerably greater strength against me. But he was a lot stronger than me, and he simply didn’t realize that pinning me so I couldn’t move, out of the blue when we hadn’t been doing anything sexual a moment before, was scary. That’s a pretty minor example, but I think it’s an experience that a lot more women would relate to than men.
July 9, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Yeah, there are definitely grey areas between acceptable and sleazy. Dating is hard, and I personally wish people would just say what they mean and not mess around. Blah.
July 9, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Isn’t that the expected problem of dating for women? The, he didn’t call? problem. Women are probably more used to dealing with it and take it as a given. Until recently, men didn’t have to deal with this issue because methods of contact didn’t easily allow women to not respond, and since men were expected to initiate contacts, a woman not calling didn’t mean much.
July 9, 2007 at 10:11 pm
It indeed does depend on motivation, and I don’t necessarily think it’s counterproductive at all. If the thing you’re lying about is a fundamental part of your being, that’s probably a bad idea, whilst if it’s a minor factor things become a bit more grey.
The aim of the dating game, so to speak, is to either a) get someone to sleep with you or b) get them to love you - preferably both. Yes, you do obviously have to be friends to fall in love, and for some people to have sex too.
With regard to sleeping with someone, there’s the argument that if you both get what you want (good sex) does it really matter if you lie? It gets a bit dodgier if one person wants sex, and the other love, but they lie to entice the person into bed. In that instance there’s an obvious reason to lie as stating you just want sex will cause the person to turn you down.
With respect to love, if your life situation is complex or unusual, it might be wise to introduce things slowly rather than full on scaring someone away. Does the person really like to know that you like being flogged by hairy yak herders if you don’t intend to do it whilst with them? A lie, but possibly a harmless one - there are lots of shades of grey.
July 9, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Online dating is likely to be different than other dating. There tend to be more males online than females. This is quickly changing as internet access becomes more prevalent, but I suspect a male living alone is more likely to have a net connection than a woman living alone.
Actually, that really goes for any luxury, since men tend to make more money too. They probably are also more likely to need one for their job.
July 9, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Now, that’s universal, no matter who you are. It’s easier if you’re really attractive and have a great personality, because you’ll get more offers, but either way you won’t find the right person straight away.
It’s always the case that people tend to gloss over the fact that both people won’t settle, and hope that as they are So Wonderful, the person will automatically like them.
July 9, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I know, I’m not male. I’m a straight female, so it’s hard for me to say what it’s really like in practice… but why would you want a woman who would play such obnoxious games with you? I would want to limit my dating pool to those who are polite and honest about their interest or lack thereof. And thus take no for an answer, and if it wasn’t a real no, well if everyone learned to do that, then people would just have to suck up and learn to be honest about what they want or be single.
July 9, 2007 at 10:32 pm
I have often heard the idea that males shouldn’t use violence against females and how taboo it is. However, my experiences as a female do not seem to demonstrate this actually to hold true often enough.
July 9, 2007 at 10:57 pm
It depends how badly you want someone, and how widely that game is played. Also, it tends to be played more with younger women - as you get older you tend to be more direct.
It would be nice if a refusal always meant a refusal, but it doesn’t, so everyone has to deal with the consequences.
It’s also a matter of language. We’ve all had situations where someone could be worthwhile, but you need to get to know them better. The trick is to communicate that in a non game playing fashion with words other than ‘no’.
So, being charitable, its sometimes about lack of experience, language, and poorly filtering out possible suitors. Except in the cases where it is genuine, conscious game playing for your gratification. You’d have to ask a number of people who play those games to get a proper reply.
July 10, 2007 at 1:17 am
violence is such an escalation, and violence against women is so often taboo (even among men who might be violent to other men, I think) that I was shocked to learn that women genuinely feel they might be at risk of it for turning down a man “impolitely” (assuming the absence of other clues that this person might be violent)
Oh boy. It would be nice if violence against women was taboo. That’s simply not the case, though.
July 10, 2007 at 11:12 am
Falling in love is weird. Some people manage to be in love with people they don’t actually like. And I fell in love at first sight once, even though everything I understand about the world tells me that should be impossible. (By amazing good luck, the person I fell for turned out to be a very good friend once I got to know her, and even fancied me, and we had a very happy relationship. But I still feel like that shouldn’t have happened…
Sex is too tied up with personal interaction with me. I wouldn’t want to have sex with someone I needed to deceive to get them into bed with me, any more than I would want to have sex with someone I needed to pull a gun on to get them to cooperate. But it’s true that not everybody feels like that. If sex is a goal in itself, I can see how lying to get sex would be at least not counter-productive. I suppose a lie like “mm, you’re gorgeous” when really it’s more like “oh, you’ll do” would be a likely sort of thing for people to go in for.
It is possible that some people view relationships like promiscuous people view sex, as a goal in themselves. And those people might lie to get into a relationship. I find that weird, but that is related to my attitude to relationships anyway. But presenting yourself in the best light initially, that’s completely normal.
This may reflect on the fact that I’m female, so I get more offers anyway, but I don’t see the point of attracting more interest, if most of the people you attract are unsuitable, because they’re after someone who is not like you. Like, if I stole a photo of a model and pretended to be tall and skinny, I would get lots of attention, but it would all be from people who are attracted to tall skinny women. I would rather get less attention but all of it from people who are actually attracted to short curvy women.
July 10, 2007 at 11:18 am
The obvious answer is that sometimes it isn’t a game. Two examples I’ve had personally meant “I don’t know enough about you yet” (which is definitely fair enough*), and “I’ve been too damaged to be worth it” (grr! no! You haven’t!).
There are, of course, the obnoxious game players (and also the non-obnoxious ones who try to play with those who enjoy the game from the other side) - but they don’t cover every reason for this pattern.
* I took this as a hard no when I really shouldn’t have.
July 10, 2007 at 11:19 am
Hello, anonymous person. Were you actually intending to make this comment anonymously?
Definitely, everybody finds it hard to find a partner, and some people do start out with natural disadvantages. (I do feel like if you are a horrible person, it’s at least somewhat possible to become a nicer person.)
What do you mean exactly by ? Do you mean that people have unrealistically high standards and won’t just settle for someone flawed but more or less compatible?
July 10, 2007 at 11:32 am
Oh boy. It would be nice if violence against women was taboo. That’s simply not the case, though.
That depends which circles you move in. To and myself, (both effectively white upper-middle-class Oxbridge males), it definitely is. Under rules of chivalry it definitely is (there are tangents here about it being so taboo it must have happened a lot and about feminism destroying chivalry). However, both these are disturbingly rare - and all taboo means is that when something happens it happens in secret…
July 10, 2007 at 11:34 am
Nope, it was me.
I think most people need to be realistic about going out with someone, because no-one is perfect. However you *do* have to actually fancy the person!
What I actually meant though, is that dating perspective is often asymmetric i.e. One person has an image of how the other person should be, without thinking if they offer sufficient qualities in return. It’s far easier to blame the other person, than to get off your own arse and improve yourself. Everyone is guilty of this, I think.
A realistic fairy tale wouldn’t end with the Prince sweeping the Princess off her feet, it would end with the Prince going ‘So, Princess Fluffykins, you sit around doing needlework and discussing reality TV all day. Tell me.. is there another castle in the next valley?’
July 10, 2007 at 11:55 am
What said. I don’t know of any upper, middle class or working class white British households where it is acceptable.
I do know of someone that was a wife beater, and they are disliked by many people around them.
I’m sure there are some sections of society where it is acceptable, there may even be a significant minority somewhere (and I wouldn’t limit it to the underclass either), but I don’t see it as a majority activity. So, either it isn’t, or it is, and it’s taboo.
July 10, 2007 at 2:24 pm
That person you know who is “disliked by many people around them”: did he actually suffer any criminal sanctions for his violence? Or is this like saying “I did know someone who mugged people on the street, and they were disliked by many people around them” without any of those people having put together “this person is committing a series of crimes, I should notify the police”?
The sort of person who thinks it’s legitimate to beat his wife (or his/her lover, of either sex, regardless of marital status) is likely to think that it’s nobody else’s business that he does so, so he’s not going to mention it over a game of cards, or in casual party conversation.
July 10, 2007 at 2:35 pm
It’s a relation of someone I know, it unsurprisingly contributed to a marriage breakup, and I am certainly not asking about the ins and outs of prosecution.
Whilst the sort of person who advocates violence might well not think it’s any one else’s business, it is possible to gather people’s opinion by their subjects on other matters.
Of course, it may be that they’re lying, but even if so the overall opinion is that it’s wrong, and talking about it as being accepted is taboo.
July 10, 2007 at 10:48 pm
I was a white female who grew up in a wealthy neighborhood in the US among the generally very well-educated (oh, your father is a doctor or lawyer too, so is mine, sort of thing). Violence against females certainly happened. I don’t know about violence against women, as I didn’t qualify yet. But I was a female child and that was apparently just fine as a target of violence. Perhaps it was simply yet another right that comes with adulthood.
July 11, 2007 at 11:10 am
I don’t think that the taboo holds at all kid-on-kid. (And kids bullying can do things that would deservedly land adults in gaol).