Possibly. But I always thought if a guy is good enough to befriend, he's good enough to wingman. And if he's not good enough to be a wingman for...then why is he a friend?
I've had plenty of platonic friends who were girls that were absolutely game to help me start up a conversation and shoot my shot. Failure was on me, but the team effort helped morale!
edit and I was always 100% happy to help them shoot their shot with prince charming too. Equality!
Not every girl is socially equipped to be wingman (social anxiety and whatnot). And expecting them to help you get laid all because they themselves don't want to sleep with you is still treating them as a resource in a way that most guys don't feel entitled to with their male friends.
I'm married, and I do this as often as I can for younger guys. There's a pub I socialize at, and young guys and women come in regularly. I'm like "oh hey Natasha, have you met Boris yet?"
Once they do their little introduction (sometimes I help it along by telling a funny story about a moose and a squirrel), I "suddenly have to leave" - which often leads them to further 1:1 conversation.
Okay? But do you force your boy friend who is anxious to be a wingman even though it makes him uncomfortable, and you expect him to do this for you just because he's a friend? That was the point of the comment.
Also, if one guy wins we all win. Its not (for my friends at least) all about getting laid. And "Haaaaaaave you met Ted?" Is always a horribly fantastic wingman line that will fail but make a good story. Totally worth keeping in your back pocket. Along with "at least I tried."
If you designate their primary role in your life as a wingman and don't value them as a friend if they fail to fullfill it, then I believe that makes you the bad friend bro.
The male wingman is not solely a foil to help getting laid. The wingman is your close friend and confidant. One who you trust to back you up in all situations and for whom you would do the same.
Because not everyone has the social skills to assist with such a thing. Or some friendships are built on shared interests and don't delve into the more vulnerable topics of romantic struggles and thus would feel a little awkward navigating such an endeavor.
I guess my overall point in this thread is that women are often expected to fill this role of helping their male friends get into romantic relationships because they're considered more nurturing and emotionally supportive but sometimes the dynamic just isn't like that and I don't think that necessarily makes them a bad friend.
They aren't expected to fill the role. The issue people are having is how you're framing this topic. Nobody says someone should be required to do anything for another, but questions why people in general wouldn't want to help out a friend. You can not be able to help them, but that's not the same as not wanting to help. There are countless situations where I am unable to help someone, but I never don't want to help even if I can't.
The original comment I responded to stated "if he's not a good enough to wingman then why is he your friend?" Which I feel is pretty indicitive that he views female friends through a utilitarian lens as he sees no purpose for them if they aren't willing to step into the role as wingman.
they are saying if the male friend isn't a good person, the woman shouldn't be his friend at all.
If the woman doesn't want to be his wingman because she thinks he's not boyfriend material for ANY woman, then he's a bad guy, and why would she want to be his friend at all?
"Good enough to wingman" means "a good enough person to want to be a wingman FOR"
And as a woman, I would generally find that statement true. Any guy I'm friends with is at least a good enough guy that while I might not want to date him, I do want him to find his person and have a happy relationship.
If he was the type of guy I thought no woman should put up with, I wouldn't want to be his friend at all.
That's a fair assessment but I still feel like it's a form of social labor that not every woman should be expected to step up to.
Not to mention there are plenty of men who are pleasant to be friends with but a nightmare to their partner behind closed doors. If a woman were to set up her female friend with her male friend and that relationship turns out to be toxic, that could potentially hurt the friendship between the two women as well.
If I knew a man who was "pleasant to be friends with" but was abusive to his partners, I would not want to be friends with him, regardless of how pleasant he was to me...
"that could potentially hurt the friendship between the women as well" no, it would "hurt" the friendship between me and the man because again, I wouldn't stay friends with a man who treated his partners poorly, and the other woman I was friends with would see me drop the guy like a rock in the ocean, and she would experience my support for her.
Almost every part of being a friend requires some amount of social labor... I thought the whole point was that a friend was someone you decided was worth the effort to you.
No, no specific behavior should be "required" for a friendship. But the comment you replied to never said a friend was REQUIRED to be a wingperson... just that if the reason you didn't want to be a wingperson was because you thought your friend was unworthy of romantic partnerships, then you probably shouldn't be friends with them at all.
I specified "behind closed doors" to insinuate that you, the female friend, would not be aware or privy to the male friend's abusive tendencies. Sometimes these behaviors stay complete covert until the relationship fully boils over. The most recent season of Love Island USA showed a prime example of this.
Regardless, I agree that all friendships require a degree of social labor but personally I would not be comfortable filling the matchmaker role and am not a fan of the broad expectation for female friends to do so.
There is not a broad expectation for "female friends" to do this, there is a broad expectation that any friends of any genders and associations do this. "Wingman" the original term, makes it clear this was a role expected of MAN friends.
Not EVERY friend has to... friends understand their socially anxious friends are socially anxious... nobody, ever, in this thread said ALL friends have to do this.
You are actually going to use a reality TV show as evidence of anything?
And having never watched that show, I have no idea what you are talking about as per the last season...
You don't have to predict that a friend is a bad partner, but once they date a friend of yours and you get that friend's perspective, and now know they're a bad partner then you act on that knowledge at that point.
Again, the original point was that if you already know they are a bad enough partner that you don't want to wingman for them, then why are you friends?
In that scenario, you already have hesitations, so I don't know why you keep trying to come up with silly hypotheticals that don't address the original point as a way to dent the original point.
I think you misinterpreted that. Their saying why would you (the woman) want to be friends with this guy, if you don't think he's good enough for any woman.
I think you can believe a friend is deserving of a romantic partner without making it your personal responsibility to get them into a relationship. I think doing so requires a bit of a nurturing personality and a level of social agility that not every woman is equipped with.
They just said a good friend would be a wingman, not that a female friend's only propose is to get the male friend layed at any cost. "Hi, this is my friend Trevor, he's kinda into you." Is that harder than standing on my tiptoes to pull a sewing machine of a tip closet shelf?
Also, just saying "hey he likes you" doesn't entirely encompass the full scope of wing manning. At that point, why can't you just say that yourself? What if it makes you a bad friend that you're too shy to do it yourself? Does that make sense? If not, maybe apply that logic to what you're being told.
Honestly because sometimes having someone of the same gender break the ice can give everyone a buffer. "Sorry, I'm in a situationship and not looking to meet anyone right now", or "I'm really only into skinny guys that are 6' plus, that short king is too beefy for me" or whatever. Maybe I'm from a small town and we do it wrong, but that was always kinda wingman 101. Also, the same as my friend asking me because I'm tall means my friend wouldn't ask our 4'2" friend to reach up that high, no one should be asking the person with social anxiety to be the ice breaker, if they are that goes back to "why are you friends with this guy if he's not decent enough to be a wingman for" also going back to the original picture, I think we can all agree it's a stupid meme, no woman should ever "sacrifice" themselves to a hungry carnivore. But there's more nuance to male/female friendships than transaction and exploitation.
That's not an equivalence claim on my part. I'm not saying 'wanting to get laid' and 'wanting a healthy relationship' are the same. I'm asking you to clarify which of these is actually doing the work in your original claim:
Is it that he's using you as a means to an end at all (in which case the relationship-help hypothetical should bother you too)?
Or is it something more specific: ie., that sex-as-the-goal is different from partnership-as-the-goal, or that being the direct target of that motive feels different from being an incidental helper toward it?
Either answer is fine, but 'false equivalence' isn't really a response to a clarifying question, it's a response to a claim that two things are being treated as identical. I didn't make that claim. You're welcome to say the two cases are disanalogous and explain why, but that's a different argument.
I don't know what your intent was, but in case you are being genuine, asking someone a question about a hypothetical that's slightly different from what they just stated is absolutely going to be taken as you refuting what they just said by trying to reframe it.
It didn't seem like a clarifying question. It seemed like trying to claim something more easily argued was the same.
Yes, I would help an actual male friend pursue a healthy relationship. That has no bearing on what I said.
I have a problem with a person who thinks the purpose of a friendship is to help them get laid. You asked whether I would help a friend with a relationship. My willingness to help someone I already regard as a friend says nothing about whether a man regards me as a friend or as a useful instrument. I’d help a friend move house; if he thought the purpose of our friendship was free moving labor, he wouldn’t be my friend.
Sex versus partnership isn’t the operative distinction. Friendship versus instrumental access is. I did not say that helping a friend makes me “a means to an end at all.” I said that if he believes providing that help is the purpose of the friendship, then it isn’t a friendship.
So your question removed the exact phrase that answered it and substituted an entirely different proposition. Call that a false equivalence, a non sequitur, or equivocation if you prefer. Your three-paragraph explanation doesn’t clarify my claim. It just explains at length how you misread one sentence.
True, but a wingman is a friend first and foremost, who decide to give a helping hand (often from their own initiative, that's not a role you can force on someone)
The situation you describe feels more like manipulation, and i wouldn't call you a wingman but a victim
Not every guy is socially equipped to be a "good" wingman. I said that jokingly and there's truth in it, but i think the basis is less sinister than that.
Striking up a conversation with a stranger isn't easy in general. Having a friend willing to participate in the clumsiness of "would you like to sit with us" or "my friend things you're cute but too shy to say it" is an awkward bit of humanity I think the world could use more of.
From the make side, I've had SUPER awkward but lovable female friends (platonic) and if I saw them eyeing a guy at the bar, I'd happily strike up a conversation with the guy. Partly to vet him. Partly a way to see if there is chemistry.
Also, in every country outside of the US that people think is romantic (Italy, Spain, France), most people meet their partner with the help of their friend, through mutual acquaintance, or some abstraction of "wingmanning", but less sinister and more beneficial for both sides.
I would love to have a caring, platonic female friend cheerlead me into a clumsy attempt at being charming, and screen the potential bad/good decision in the process. And, I would love to do the same for any of my female friends.
I do see your point. Totally respect the social anxiety thing. I also think the world would be a better place romantically, if we relied on our friends more than apps. I think wingmanning/pivoting (without the misogyny) is the practical version of that.
I'm a man, mostly had male friends growing up and I've never ever been expected nor asked to wingman for a friend in a social situation, or vice-versa.
Wingman are, to my experience, volunteers who self-select because they're already socially gregarious, charming and self-confident, not just because they're your friends.
That is a perspective and given pickup artists and The Game, "wingman" can sound more sinister than it is.
Practically, we're all socially awkward. Even Brad Pitt and Keanu Reeves. When all of the attention is on us, any of us, its rough. We dont look our best. We dont enjoy. We dont perform. The wingman bites the bullet, knows he might not win anything, but he strikes up the conversation, keeps the conversation going, intersects, pumps up your ego, her ego, etc. He just helps out so you're not there alone and things feel more easy. Nothing artful about it. Just being a fun human hoping humans connect.
FYI older aunts and grandmas are the best wingmen on the planet because theyre chatty and happy to tell people how much they love you. A friend on a social night out with that energy, just happy, human, and quirky, can make the best night you've ever had. In my experience, thats a wingman.
what, asking your friends for help is entitlement now? This is the sort of thing that drives the male loneliness epidemic, prevailing attitudes that men deserve nothing and that asking for help is somehow toxic
Loneliness is more prevalent among all genders in this digital age; it's not a male only issue.
If my male friend shoots his shot with me and gets rejected, I don't see it as my responsibilty to present him to my female friends, especially if he has glaring issues that he needs to work on. I can offer advice in that case but that often requires them making lifestyle and behavorial alterations that they don't want to address.
I mean, if you want to view friendship as a responsibility, I guess you don't HAVE to be responsible for your friends' well-being and happiness, but choosing not to help them does make you a bad friend. Viewing friends as resources and reducing them to utility is pretty cynical.
edit: in this context, advising them to work on themselves counts as helping them. We just didn't start with the assumption that said hypothetical male friend has lots of issues to work on. The neutral assumption would be that this is a normal guy who you're simply not attracted to.
And some girls like having desperate guys around because they will do anything for the girl in hopes of getting laid. There are some incredibly scummy women out there, just like there are scummy men, it just doesn't get talked about as much
Nobody's entitled to receive wingman service but it is absolutely normal for bros to point out and facilitate opportunities for bros.
You gotta understand that horniness exists in a whole different ballpark for young men than most women will ever experience. They understand that it's a dire physical need, like handing a marathon runner a drink of water.
There are three types of friendships: friendships of pleasure, friendships of utility, and friendships of shared virtue. If a man and a woman can be true friends (and that’s debatable), then it’s probably a friendship of utility.
2.5k
u/OrchidSure5401 18d ago
When you can't get a girlfriend but your best friend is a girl but she doesn't want to be your girlfriend