jumpingjacktrash:

jumpingjacktrash:

the-real-seebs:

the-rain-monster:

w0manifest:

Here’s a cool trick to see if a man actually respects you: try disagreeing with him

A friend of mine did something with online dating where, before meeting a person, she’d say no to something minor without a reason for the no. For example: “No, I don’t want to meet at a coffee shop, how about X?”, or “No, not Wednesday”, or “No, I don’t want to recognize each other by both wearing green shirts”. She said how the potential dates reacted was a huge indicator of whether she actually wanted to meet them, something I readily believe.

I’ve mentioned this to a few people and sometimes I get very annoyed and incredulous responses from guys about how are they supposed to know that it’s a test if the girl is being unreasonable? How are they supposed to know that and let her have her way? I find it difficult to explain that if you find it unreasonable for someone to have a preference of no consequence which they don’t feel the need to explain, then you are the one being unreasonable. You can decide for yourself that it sounds flaky and you don’t want to date her, but you don’t have a right to know and approve all of her reasons for things in order to deign to respect that she said no about it. Especially in the case of someone you haven’t even fucking met yet.

The point isn’t to know it’s a test, the point is that if you would only say “yes” if you knew it was a test, then what if it’s not a test, but because she hates coffee shops, or because she’s attending a funeral Wednesday and doesn’t know you well enough to want to share that, or whatever else? Because if you’re making rules for when other people can have preferences and not explain why… yeah, that is a thing they can reasonably want to avoid.

a while back i mentioned this very method as a way of testing a new friendship, and got some pushback from all genders. toxic people exist in every category, and their response to an unexplained refusal will out them every time.

i mean, i’m sure some of those objecting were simply idealists who found the notion of testing a new friend unpleasant. but mostly it was the “but what if it’s unreasonable” objection. my dudes, that is the damn point.

you know, i think a lot of folks aren’t understanding that the test isn’t to see whether you’ll obey without question.

the test is to see whether you’ll throw a shitfit.

like if someone says “i don’t want to meet at a coffee shop, how about seafood shack?” and you’re like “uh er well, problem, i’m allergic to seafood and also confession time i picked a coffee shop because i’m broke,” that is a reasonable, calm response, and you passed the test. you can then agree to go do a low cost non-seafood thing like feeding ducks in the park, and all is well. it’s okay that you didn’t agree, because you were friendly and civilized about it.

you would’ve failed the test if you’d started drama over it, like “oh my god are you always this hard to please???” or if you’d ignored their objection, or tried to bullrush them like “no we’re doing it my way because i asked first“ or something. that’d be a fail.

and the one that rain implies, and which straight men do to women all the fucking time and it is SO RUDE, is demanding an explanation. “BUT WHY???” is the whine of a 2-year-old, and does not belong in polite conversations between adults. it is the prelude to an argument. you demand that the other person explain themself, and they know you’re going to pick at their reasons and try to get them to concede that logically they don’t get to object. it’s incredibly obnoxious. people who do this are not good at relationships.

asking reasons for troubleshooting purposes is something you can do once you know someone a little better, and have some idea what their life situation and conflict resolution styles are. once they know you’re not going to try to wheedle them to exhaustion like a toddler, you can be like “any particular reason? maybe we can find a coffee shop that doesn’t have that problem.” but when meeting a stranger for the first time, you are not owed an explanation, and it comes across as dangerously entitled and pushy to demand one.

but since you don’t do that, dear reader, you’ve no need to worry about this technique becoming widespread. it won’t affect your relationships at all.

if you’re not an asshole, you’re fine.